28th March 2024
One of my biggest lessons in life came from the book called ‘Every Second Counts’ by the famous cyclist Lance Armstrong.
The book is an amazing story of introspection, self-belief, and discipline.
Pain is not such a bad thing after all, argues Armstrong, and is, in fact, the most uplifting of all experiences. Here is a passage from the book that says it all…
“When you win, you don’t examine it very much, except to congratulate yourself. You can easily, and wrongly, assume it has something to do with your rare qualities as a person. But winning only measures how hard you have worked and how physically talented you are; it doesn’t particularly define you beyond those characteristics.”
“Losing, on the other hand, really does say something about who you are. Among the things it measures are: do you blame others, or do you own the loss?
Do you analyze your failure, or just complain about bad luck?”
These words have been like a guidepost for me when it comes to everything I do.
What these words tell me is that if I’m willing to examine failure, and to look not just at my outward performance, but also my internal workings, losing can be valuable.
How you behave in those moments can perhaps be more self-defining than winning could ever be.
As Armstrong writes, “Sometimes losing shows you for who you really are”.
Loss hurts because it should. A loss and the pain that comes with it is nature’s way of telling us to get out of harm’s way.
Like fever tells us that something’s not right inside of us and that we must take the necessary medication to avoid doing greater harm to our body.
Learn from failure, imbibe the lesson it is trying to teach & stay blessed with failure.
(An excerpt from my Book – ‘Dear Son – Life Lessons from a Father’)