This is from a blog post from Hillary Rettig, an author and a personal development coach. You can find her blog at:
http://www.hillaryrettig.com/
Years ago, I was fortunate to hear one of my heroes, former world chess champion and current Russian democracy activist Garry Kasparov, discuss important lessons he had learned from chess. Here’s how he began his talk: “I have won hundreds of chess games, and lost thousands. You have to have the courage to fail.”
The courage to fail. What an amazing phrase – and coming from a hypercompetitive chess champion it takes on a special meaning. Kasparov probably hates failure more than just about anyone – in fact, as his use of the word “courage” implies, he probably fears it – but he had to develop a tolerance for it to reach his goals. That he chose to begin his talk with this point only underscores its importance.
I find it interesting that this is your post. I'm reading this on Monday a.m. The courage to fail was my theme at my swimmers swim meet this weekend; and this morning, I read your blog. This idea of failing is difficult for some of my kids who love to save themselves for the last lap. (I coach age-groupers including a lot of 10 and under.) I explained to them that if they didn't know their fail point, it is difficult to develop a training plan to make them better/faster. I told them I didn't care what their times were; the goal was to go strong until they were beyond exhaustion and then just hold their stroke together to the end. The interesting thing was that for each one that actually swam to "failure", each one improved his/her time. Thank you for your continued thoughts and encouragement. HJ
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