As you
probably know by now, I am a big fan of baseball. So why not take a
minute, and honor #2, with a post. Yesterday was a big day. It was
the very last game in the illustrious career of the New York Yankees
shortstop Derek Jeter. In no universe am I a Yankees fan. But, I do
admire excellence. And I am a firm believer in learning wherever I
can. For this reason, I would listen to anything “The Captain”
has to say.
Last
week, I saw an interview, on the NBC Nightly News, with Jeter and
Brian Williams. (You can see it here.) It was a nice tribute to a sure-fire Hall of Famer.
But, there was one thing, in particular, that caught my attention.
During the interview, Williams asked, “You've had so much success
yet you always call (baseball) a game of failure. Why is that?”
Jeter replied, “You fail seven out of ten times, people think
you're great. So, it's definitely a game you have to learn to control
your emotions.”
What I
think Williams and Jeter were doing was trying to make light of the
quirky essence of baseball. And I believe it's an extremely useful
lesson. I think it's wise to reconsider our shared misconception of
failure.
I would
venture a guess that the majority of adults have a fear of failure. I
know I do. Perhaps this fear is a part of the indoctrination we
receive during formal schooling. Who knows. What I do know, as is
usually the case, how we got here is less important than where we're
going.
It seems
to be the case that we were put on this earth to grow. Stated
differently, I believe that growth is the human imperative. When we
aren't growing, when we aren't becoming more complex individuals, we
suffer all sorts of maladies.
The
kicker is, it is in the nature of growth, and improvement, that we
will fail. The old cliché, of learning to ride a bike, is a useful
one. Because no one ever gets it right the first time. Falling down
is part of the process. We can't succeed if we refuse to fail. It's
one of the best paradoxes you can memorize. The paradox says, “The
biggest failures I have ever met, are people who have never failed.”
Think about it.
What's
important to know is that whoever, or whatever, created us was a
genius. Brene Brown is a psychologist who has been making a lots of
waves lately. I am a big fan of hers. I paraphrase an excellent quote
of hers when I say, “We are wired for struggle.” Let me explain.
As I
have already mentioned, I believe growth is the human imperative. And
we can't have growth without struggle. Hence Brene's quote. And this
is where the human creation is so genius. As it turns out, we are
wired to experience joy after we struggle. Now that's about as
paradoxical as it gets!
Let me
give you a specific example. This example comes from two eminent
psychologists, one Hungarian and the other Turkish. These two
psychologists were studying chess players. As it turns out, the world
of chess has an excellent rating system which very accurately
measures the abilities of the various players.
This
rating system allowed the psychologists to run a very interesting
experiment. The question that came up was the following, when are
chess players most enjoying themselves? One might suppose that a very
good player, who wins the majority of her matches, would be having
the best time. However, it turns out, this is not the case.
What the
psychologists discovered was quite profound and I think it might help
explain why Derek Jeter loves baseball so much. It was discovered
that chess players experience the most enjoyment when their opponent
is, on average, 12 % better than they are. That might not seem like a
very big deal, but it is. Because the lesson it teaches us is
completely counterintuitive.
You see,
what happens when you opponent has a rating 12% higher than yours, is
that you lose the match three times as often as you win it. Meaning,
for every time you win a match, you lose three others. This is kind
of crazy. It gives hard evidence to the notion that we are wired for
struggle.
Derek
Jeter and Brian Williams seemed to have been waxing inquisitive on
the humorous nature of baseball. And, I agree, it is rather funny to
think that a person could enjoy failure. But it's totally true. As a
matter of fact, I don't think baseball would be our national past
time if a player got a base hit in the majority of his at-bats.
Meaning, if a player were to bat .800 I think baseball would be a
bore.
Rather
than being bizarre, I think we are intuitively drawn towards the
chance to fail. If a player improved his average from .800, to .850,
it would probably be greeted with a yawn. However, when a player
moves from .250 to .300 they go from being a no-name to being an
all-star. Also notice the correlation between chess and baseball.
When a baseball player hits around .250 to .300 he “loses” to his
opponent two to three times as often as he wins.
When we
succeed most of the time, we tend to get bored. We're actually more
drawn to challenges because we subconsciously know they pay bigger
dividends. And, when we're able to change our perspective on failure,
we're able to control our emotions when faced with this most
important precursor to success.
