I didn’t fear failure. I expected failure. I think I’ve always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to hope. So, I was more prepared for failure and for rejection than success. The success took me by surprise and it frightened me.
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?
Question
What is the best advice you have ever received?
Time & hindsight
No. I mean if you fail 70 percent of the time, you had a great year. You're dealing with failure seven out of ten times as a hitter.
Academy of Achievement interviewer, Academy of Achievement interview, Washington, D.C., 18 August 2020 source ↗
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Amy Tan
Novelist; author of The Joy Luck Club
John Lewis
U.S. Representative from Georgia, 1987–2020; Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 1963–1966
I never thought that we would fail or that I would fail. I knew from time to time we may make some blunders. We may make some mistakes, but we were not going to fail.
Peyton Manning
American football quarterback
That's a real challenge and a real issue. Reading the statistics, they had a ranking of quarterbacks, and the statistic was the percentage of a touchdown drive after an interception. To me, that is a telling statistic. The guys that have a high percentage are the guys that have short memories. They talk about having amnesia as a quarterback. You better move along from it. It is hard to say you forget about it, because you want to learn from it. You want to address it. You can't just say it never happened.
Recorded
Academy of Achievement interviewer, Academy of Achievement interview, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1 April 2007
source ↗
Frederick Sanger
Biochemist; twice a Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1958 and 1980
They’re not failures, you try something and it doesn’t work, and some people, you know, get fed up with this, and I’ve known some of my friends and colleagues who have just decided to give up science because they can’t stand it, but I’ve always decided, you know, if it doesn’t work, forget it and start planning the next experiment, and that’s always exciting.
More from Cal Ripken Jr.
View profile →You know what? Eddie was probably the best leader by example and not so much by words. You know, sometimes if he said something, you know, then you had to stand up and listen to it, but for the most part, he taught me the importance of being there every single day.
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