Recently there has been lots of hype over Harvard-graduate-turned-NBA-superstar, Jeremy Lin. Supposedly rising out of nowhere and taking the basketball world by storm, this “underdog” caught the attention of not only basketball fans, but his name spread even to the world outside of the sport.
Perhaps one of the most likable aspect of Lin is that he is humble and very down to earth. He doesn’t brag about being talented, but he champions the merits of hard work.
His mindset and passion for the sport is something that both you and I can learn from and apply it in any aspect of our lives.
Linsanity, as they call it, is a product of extreme dedication, “luck”, and passion…and we should take away as much as we can from it.
Sometimes, when we lack recognition, we feel like giving up. Because no matter how hard we try, there doesn’t seem to be any rewards for it. We invest a huge amount of our lives into something, and at the end of the day, we’re still not much further. We look externally for validation and confirmation of our success, and this way of thinking crushes our dreams.
Instead, it is time to flip your perspective and look toward yourself. Everything you do is a preparation for greatness. There’s nothing extraordinary about Jeremy Lin or any other successful people you see out there. On the inside, they are just regular human beings like you and I.
The thing that sets them and us apart, though, is mindset. They see the endless hours of grinding and practicing as preparation—the prologue to the main chapter in their story. It is pain, but necessary. There is no magic pill or shortcut to success, there is only readiness when the opportunity comes by.
A lot of times we go out with the mindset that we are afraid to fail. We see rejection as affecting out “rate of success”. We feel ashamed to tell people that we actually get rejected, and so we only go for the easy ones. We wait out for the easiest opportunity to “strike” so that we have something to show people. And conversely, we judge others based on a similar “rating”.
How often do you get rejected? How many approaches did you do? How many numbers did you get? How many f-closes have you gotten?
Very often, these are the questions that people ask to see if you’re actually what you say you are. They judge you based on an arbitrary success rate that, in reality, doesn’t mean anything at all. They hear phrases like “Failure is the mother of success” or “There is a lesson in every circumstance”. They agree with it, but they don’t internalize and practice it.
What you need to have is a shift in mindset of what success or failure is. Rejection is NOT failure; Inaction is. Every approach you do, every conversation you have is preparation for glory…YOUR glory. It is not what people think of you, but you reaching your goals and growing as a person that is most important.
I want to end off with this inspirational video of Jeremy Lin. Hope you enjoy it:
“Luck is the very moment when preparation meets opportunity.”
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