Do you know who Si Johnson is?  Most people don’t.

He received dozen’s of requests on a daily basis for people to sign baseballs until the day he died.

On one sunny afternoon in 1935 he struck out Babe Ruth three times.  He handed the babe a title the vast majority of people don’t even know he held.

With that third strikeout Babe Ruth became the all time strike out leader in the history of baseball.

Nobody remembers that because the day before he hit his 714th homerun. More than anyone else had ever hit.

The Babe held both records simultaneously……..but people only cared about one of them.

He held both of those records until a gentleman by the name of Reggie Jackson took both of them from him.

Si Johnson is only mentioned in baseball history because he was associated with Babe Ruth’s failures.

Nobody has missed more shots than Kobe Bryant.  He took that title from Michael Jordan.

I am reading a book and it was discussing some of the key commonalities of people who have created great works of art whether it be paintings or sports.

They all created and produced more volume than anyone else.  

This doesn’t come without lots of mistakes or lots of failure.

They embraced failure as part of the process and understood that being the best never happened by making 100% of your shots.

When I was in high school and working on my shot, I would literally shoot the ball from every angle and creative position I could.

I would shoot with my feet set and without my feet set, jumping up and down and jumping to both sides, a full follow through and no follow through.

I missed a lot of shots, but I also made more three pointers than any player in school history.  311 to be exact.  That record was broken by a female.

And I would be willing to bet she missed more than I did.

We would all be better off if we treated life like we treat sports.

Take more shots, miss more and make more because of it.

Jess isn’t good at nutrition because she was born that way.  She’s good because she’s been tinkering with it for 10 years.

I didn’t figure out how to coach the snatch on day one.  I taught it poorly for a long time before I was even ok at it.

Most weightlifters will miss far more lifts than they will ever make in their lifetime.

As we roll into the new year think about what you want to swing at the most times. 

Where do you want to take more shots?

When it’s all said and done nobody is going to remember you misses except you.

Fern