5.2 Mary Lou Retton: Erase the Word Failure

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“Erase the word ‘failure' from your vocabulary. No case is ever truly closed, and no challenge is ever over.” Mary Lou Retton

Do you ever quit before it’s over?

One of my biggest pet peeves as a coach is when players quit in the middle of a play or a game. I get it - sometimes you know you are facing an uphill battle, but if you quit, you never give yourself a chance.

Don’t ever quit.

You can often learn more about yourself during the tough times than you can through the easy ones, and you never know who is watching you. I know an athlete who played in the NBA for several years and earned a scholarship because he didn’t quit during a blowout. His college coach said that when he was watching his AAU team play, they were down double-digits, but he never stopped playing hard. He later won a national championship playing with a bunch of other teammates who had the same, tough mindset.

You never know who is watching and why.

After winning multiple gymnastics medals in the Olympics, Mary Lou Retton became one of the most famous and popular athletes in the United States. She once said, “Erase the word ‘failure' from your vocabulary. No case is ever truly closed, and no challenge is ever over.”

Don’t be the person who quits. Finish the drill and finish the game, and when you do lose, learn how to reframe losses and setbacks because you can learn something from them all. You can beat out a lot of people if you can continue to show up, keep working, and maintain hope.

Question of the Day: How do you learn from setbacks instead of quitting because of them?

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