Turn Failure Into Fertilizer

By Coach Lorne McAlister

This is always an option. Some people have the Midas touch and everything they try turns to gold. Some have the Manure touch and everything they do turns to dung. The basic thing you need to remember about manure is that when you pile it high it stinks but when you spread it around it fertilizes. Turn failure into fertilizer. 

Here’s a story from The National Post, October 10, 2009. Bruce Arthur is the sport’s columnist and the article is called HIS FINAL RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

“Mercurial Russian tennis star Marat Safin will retire having never quite maximized his enormous talents.”

The trigger for the article is Safin’s, 29, declared plan to quit professional tennis either after the current tour in Russia or at the end of the upcoming tournament in Paris.

“There has rarely been an athlete so magnificently flawed as the big Russian bear; there has rarely been so outsized a personality, transparent for all to see. He might have been the most talented player of his era. Safin was huge and catlike and powerful; he was capable of hitting any shot, any time. He was given everything but the gift to control the gifts he had been given.”

“Everybody knows what is my problem,” Safin once said in Toronto. It is mental.”

“Life was far too much fun for Safin to take tennis too seriously.” Arthur concluded.

“To quit is the easiest solution. You just run away from the problems. But the problems will catch you sooner or later.” Marat Safin

We either self manage and become mercurial or live undisciplined and settle for mediocrity.  Here’s the deal, the dilemma, the equation we all get calculated with. What are you not willing to say “no” to and what is the price that you are paying for this decision?

“The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a mistake.” Nelson Boswell

Over 250 years ago Alexander Pope spouted that “to err is human, and to forgive is divine.”

It’s always easy to echo my grandfather Samuel Kendrick’s favorite saying: “I’m only human after all.” You can really settle down for what is and forget about stretching out for what could be when you talk like that.

“The essence of man is imperfection.” Norman Cousins

The risky, ridiculous, on the edge - silly stuff - is where people get rewarded for going. They think that if they are not living on the edge then they are taking up too much room. “If silly things were not done, intelligent things would never happen.” Tom Peters

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Thomas Edison

“Failure isn’t so bad if it doesn’t attack the heart. Success is all right if it doesn’t go to the head.” Grantland Rice.

“Turn failure into fertilizer.” Rick Pitino

 ACTION AND TRACTION QUESTION FROM COACH LORNE