It is my understanding that cheetahs, leopard-like animals found in the south-western Asia and Africa, run faster than almost all other animals. They reach running speeds of nearly 70 mph. Cheetahs feed on gazelles, which resemble small antelopes. Gazelles are also known for their swift and agile movements.
When cheetahs are hungry, they will stalk gazelles. The 70 mph chase begins. The gazelles outrun or outmaneuver the cheetahs most of the time. In fact, they do so nine times out of ten. But the cheetah only needs to be successful periodically to survive.
The great irony is that the cheetah never knows which time it will be successful. Therefore, it pursues each gazelle as if that particular time he was going to succeed. Each time the chase begins, the cheetah goes full throttle—70 mph—after each gazelle. And nine times out of ten, the cheetah fails.
Simply succeeding one out of ten times, however, the cheetah survives. And it only does so by full pursuit in all other chases.
Perhaps one of the reasons we do not learn how to succeed in life is because we do not learn how to fail. And the reality is that many of us will sometimes fail far more than we will succeed in our daily endeavors.
Don’t Be Afraid to Fail
You’ve failed many times, although you may not remember.
You fell down the first time you tried to walk.
You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim, didn’t you?
Did you hit the ball the first time you swung a bat?
Heavy hitters, the ones who hit the most home runs, also strike out a lot.
R.H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York caught on.
English novelist John Creasey got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books.
Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times, but he also hit 714 home runs.
Don’t worry about failure.
Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.
(A message as published in the Wall Street Journal by United Technologies Corporation, Harford, Connecticut 06101)
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