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Throughout his career, legendary baseball player Babe Ruth set the record for the most home runs in a season — 714 — while also striking out more than any other player in Major League Baseball — 1,330 times. As he was quoted to say, “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”[55] Despite failing almost two times more than he succeeded, he became a legendary player known not for his fiascos, but for his triumphs.
He described his philosophy as follows: “How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball... The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I’ve got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.”[56]
You, too, can live as big as you can — if only you change your attitude about failure.
Don’t let this book become just another title on your shelf. Go through the exercises listed throughout the book and re-read the parts most applicable to your situation.
As a final exercise, jot down one action you’ll take to improve your life based on what you’ve learned. That’s right; I’m not asking you much. Do just this one thing and you’ll join the minority of readers who use how-to books according to their purpose — to learn and put into practice what they have learned. rather than fool themselves into thinking that they’ve accomplished anything valuable by merely reading about it.
If you opened this book unsure about how to deal with failure constructively, I hope that by now you understand that it’s you who defines what failure is and that it needn’t be a source of suffering.
Just like you can use a knife for two entirely different purposes — to take somebody’s life or to prepare them a healthy meal —you can either treat failure as a reason to give up and never try again or as a wise teacher that helps you adjust your direction.
The choice always remains in your hands — and so does the choice to close this book and keep on living your life as before or make some improvements and start living on the next level, which is what I wish for you from the bottom of my heart.
