Nine thousand shots missed, 300 games lost, 26 times a team has trusted one individual to lead the team to success and he missed the basket.  One man hit 714 home runs and struck out 1,330 times. It took over a thousand times to create the world’s first lightbulb. Failure is familiar to the best basketball player, Michael Jordan. Failure is familiar to the best baseball player, Babe Ruth. Failure is familiar to Thomas Edison. The most successful people to ever live have failed over and over again. Would they have ever succeeded if they gave up on their first failure?

Failure is only an indicator. At one point in time, an individual came short of meeting a standard or goal. People misconceive failure as a permanent outcome. The lack of success only resides with an individual if the individual allows the feeling and emotion of failure to reside. Failure is only a mental obstacle. In order to overcome the mental obstacle of failure, Thomas Edison, viewed his failures as steps towards his success.
The definition of failure is the lack of success. To fail is to not succeed. The ones who do not succeed are the ones who view failure as a sign of inability. They view their inability to do one task at one point in time as an inability to do that same task at any point in time. These are the people who are intimidated by failure so they would rather not take the chance. They are the ones who forget that they have to take a chance of failure in order to have a chance at success.

The only shame that should be associated with failure is when the individual fails at a task and gives up. In order to reach that goal, the person has to learn from his or her mistakes and correct them. Failure is merely the process of learning. Failure is as simple as learning to speak. When a baby is learning how to talk, they do not listen to a person talk and know how to fluently pronounce English words or carry on complex conversations. The baby speaks gibberish, indistinguishable noises, and nonsense. Then as the baby grows and its brain develops, it begins to project, sometimes, distinguishable words. Eventually the baby learns how to speak, process sentences, and carry conversations. It takes approximately two years for a baby to begin the process of speech. Two years of failure in pronunciation, and the baby manages to talk. It is human nature for failure, it takes two years in order to succeed with a task as simple as speech.

Failure is experience. The process to success includes three steps: failure, acceptance, and improvement. The first trial at a task, test, or goal is never perfect. In almost all cases there is room for improvement. The mistake must be realized and accepted in order for the team or individual to improve. The next step is improvement. Taking the risk of failure, realizing mistakes, and ironing out the wrinkles is where success takes place. In order to succeed, the chance of failure is inevitable.

No superpower, no God-given gift, no racial dominance distinguishes an amateur from a professional. There is nothing that mentally distinguishes any healthy human being from another
except the experience one has had with failure.What separates one person from another is the will to take the chance of failure once again to reach success.

Failure is a word that has been associated with other negative connotative words such as forever and never. Failure is a result at one point in time. Failure is what makes homosapiens intelligent. Our ability to learn stems from failure and how we evaluate our mistakes. Failure is our way of life and how we become better. Those who are intimidated by failure should not be because failure is human nature; it is a part of us. Failure is how we live over and over and over again. Failure is how we learn.