Failure

After the 8th seed Miami Heat defeated the number one seed Milwaukee Bucks last year in the first round of the playoffs (4-1 in the best-of-seven series), Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo was asked by sports journalist Eric Nehm whether the season was a failure (see the video clip here).  Antetokounmpo was a little defensive at first, but then he responded with what I think is a Master Class on success versus failure:

Oh my god. You asked me the same question last year, Eric ... okay? Do you get a promotion every year? In your job? No, right? So every year you work is a failure? Yes or no? No. Every year you work, you work towards something, towards a goal — which is to get a promotion, to be able to take care of your family, provide a house for them, or take care of your parents. You work towards a goal — it’s not a failure. It’s steps to success. I don’t want to make it personal. There’s always steps to it. Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships. The other nine years was a failure? That’s what you’re telling me. I’m asking you a question, yes or no? Exactly. So why you ask me that question? It’s the wrong question.

Antetokounmpo was clearly frustrated.  And who wouldn't be?  His team was just eliminated in the first round of the play-offs by the lowest seeded team.  It was a crushing loss, and Antetokounmpo effectively missed the first three games of the series due to injuries.  The team had won the NBA World Championship two seasons earlier, and everyone had expected them to compete for another championship that year.  Instead, they were sent home by a Miami Heat team that wasn't as talented and wasn't supposed to win.  Antetokounmpo continued:

There’s no failure in sports. There’s good days, bad days, so days you are able to be successful — some days you’re not. Some days it’s your turn, some days it’s not your turn. That’s what sports is about. You don’t always win — so other people are going to win, simple as that. We’re going to come back next year, try to be better, try to build good habits , try to play better. Not having 10 days straight of playing bad basketball, and hopefully we can win a championship. So 50 years from 1970-2021 that we didn’t win a championship, it was 50 years of failure? No, it was not. It was steps to it. We were able to win one, hopefully we’re able to win another one.

I am reminded of another great basketball player, Michael Jordan and a famous Nike commercial that perfectly encapsulates what it means to fail:

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

The take-home message here is that no matter what you do for a living (sports, business, medicine, etc) and no matter how good you are at it, you will experience failure at some point.  The true champions and experts are the individuals who learn from their experience at failure, change their approach, and do better the next time.  As someone once told me, the word "Fail" is an acronym for "First attempt in learning."  The more we fail, the more we learn.  And the more we learn, the better we become.