Recovering from a Failure | Career Angles

It was the bottom of the ninth of a tie game. Bases-loaded with two outs. A bunch of eight-year-olds were playing Little League baseball where Yankee Stadium now stands. I was behind the plate.

The pitcher set up and through what an eight-year-old considers a curveball. The right-handed batter swung and the ball dribbled out approximately 2 feet from the batter’s box. All I had to do was charge out from behind the plate, pick up the ball, and step on home plate.

But I froze, the winning run scored and remember seeing the look of disgust on the face of the adult manager at my failure. I carry that failure like a 2-ton sack of concrete on my back for a long time.

It haunted me at many critical times. I wasn’t clutch. I couldn’t come through when it was important. An eight-year-old remembers everything wrong that is ever done.

Every person fails at some point in their life and career. The question is how you recover from failure. It wasn’t important that I didn’t know that I could come out from behind the plate, grabbed the ball, and step on home. Although I didn’t understand that at the time, that was my manager’s fault, not mine.

Often, we put people into situations where we should not have expected them to be successful. As a leader, you need to be prepared to talk with…