"Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself." - Baz Luhrmann, Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)
Jordan Williamson, the Stanford kicker who missed three field goals in the Fiesta Bowl, will wake up today and feel like crap. Tomorrow, he'll wake up and still feel like crap, but a little less... and a little less the day after that, and less the day after that.
His Stanford e-mail is undoubtedly filled with two things... love and hate. If there ever was a moment in someone's life where you get to find out who your real friends are, this will be it.
There are a few important lessons you pick up from going through something like this--all of which strengthen your character, confidence, and refocus you on the important things and the best people in your life.
- You are still standing.
- What you do over the course of your career and, more importantly, over the course of your life, far outweights a single play, game, deal, etc.
- How hard you work after failure will determine your character--not that you failed.
- Love inspires others to be the best people possible. Hate weakens people and makes them shallow. People can never hate as much as other people can love--so hate will always lose and eventually go away.
- The idea of giving up and walking away never really enters your mind if you are doing something you truly love.
- If you are not open to learning from failure, your experience will be a missed opportunity.
- You will absolutely get another chance.
- All of the people who know how hard you worked to get to the point where what you did even mattered at all--they'll remember your effort and bet on you again because of it.
- Your real life results as a person matter more than your Google results.
- There were tons of factors that led to your efforts even mattering--to think that the results simply came down to you is naive. There's always a bigger picture to keep in mind.