Fear is an illusion

I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot. Why? Because when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.

If I'm going to jump into a pool of water, even though I can't swim, I'm thinking about being able to swim at least enough to survive. I'm not jumping in thinking to myself, "I think I can swim, but maybe I'll drown." If I'm jumping into any situation, I'm thinking I'm going to be successful. I'm not thinking about what happens if I fail.

But I can see how some people get frozen by that fear of failure. They get it from peers or from just thinking about the possibility of a negative result. They might be afraid of looking bad or being embarrassed. That's not good enough for me. I realized that if I was going to achieve anything in life, I had to be aggressive. I had to get out there and go for it. I don't believe you can achieve anything by being passive. I know fear is an obstacle for some people, but it's an illusion to me. Once I'm in there, I'm not thinking about anything except what I'm trying to accomplish.

Any fear is an illusion. You think something is standing in your way, but nothing is really there. What is there is an opportunity to do your best and gain some success. If it turns out my best isn't good enough, then at least I'll never be able to look back and say I was too afraid to try. Maybe I just didn't have it. Maybe I just wasn't good enough. There's nothing wrong with that and nothing to be afraid of either. Failure always made me try harder the next time. That's why my advice has always been to "think positive" and find fuel in failure.

Sometimes failure actually just gets you closer to where you want to be. If I’m trying to fix a car, every time I try something that doesn't work, I'm getting closer to finding the answer. The greatest inventions in the world had hundreds of failures before the answers were found. I think fear sometimes comes from a lack of focus or concentration, especially in sports. If I had stood at the free-throw line and thought about 10 million people watching me on the other side of the camera lens, I couldn't have made anything. So I mentally tried to put myself in a familiar place.

I thought about all those times I shot free throws in practice and went through the same motion, the same technique that I had used thousands of times. You forget about the outcome. You know you are doing the right things. So you relax and perform. After that you can't control anything anyway. It's out of your hands, so don't worry about it.

It's no different than making a presentation in the business world or doing a report for school. If you did all the things necessary, then it's out of your hands. Either the clients liked the presentation or they didn't. It's up to the client, the buyer or the teacher. I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying. That's why I wasn't afraid to try baseball. I can't say, "Well, I can't do it because I'm afraid I may not make the team." That's not good enough for me. It doesn't matter if you win as long as you give everything in your heart and work at it 110 percent.

Fear is an illusion.

Michael Jordan