How losing motivated Michael Jordan toward success

Even the most successful athletes don’t always win, and even the best advisors experience challenges. It’s how people deal with those struggles that determines if they will rise above or sink below them.

In his 2014 Annual Meeting presentation ”What makes the great ones great,” former Sports Illustrated editor Don Yaeger recalled speaking with NBA legend Michael Jordan about the origin of his determination to avoid finishing second. Jordan discussed losing a spot on his high school basketball team to a taller player he believed was inferior, and how it made him get up at 4 a.m. the next day to practice to one day show the coach he had made a mistake.

Many years later, when he was inducted into the basketball hall of fame after winning six championships with the Chicago Bulls, he gave out 299 of the 300 tickets he received but saved one for the player who beat him out for the team as a high school sophomore. During the speech, Jordan requested that the cameras find that other player in the audience because the icon wanted to thank him.

“’I went out and worked harder, and it changed who I was. When you hate losing more than you love winning, you take excuses off the table,’” Yaeger recalled Jordan saying. “’A loss is not a failure until you make an excuse.’ What a powerful lesson in how the great ones think and how they live.”

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Written by Matt Pais, MDRT Content Specialist

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