“Years back when we lived in Boise, Idaho, a man … Bill Bowman, who was the wrestling coach at Boise State College, did his doctorate work, his dissertation, on what makes a winner. After interviewing over a thousand athletes and feeding all the information into the computer, he got his answer. Do you know what it is that contributes more to winning than any other thing, at least in his research? Others might vary or differ, but I happen to agree with him. He said that when all the research and data came back, experience—more than desire, more than motivation, more than anything else—experience was the number one contributor to success in winning.” – Vaughn J. Featherstone
Nothing can beat out experience in life. We learn so much when we work hard at things and we learn when we try new things and we especially learn when we fail at things…all of that is what gives us life experience! And we can never shy away from gaining more experience. We have to continually work at things and continually push ourselves outside of our comfort zones where we grow the most. Experience is what makes us smarter and it is builds our capacity to WIN!
But don’t make that worry you if you are coming at something new without experience – there is a little trick that you can use as an awesome work around when you are inexperienced at something – you can jump start your own learning a tremendous amount by being willing to learn from the experience of others. You can listen to others experience, you can read about others experiences, and you can talk to people who have had experience and ask for their advice. Ask them what worked and didn’t work and why. Ask them what the biggest lessons they learned throughout their experiences. Garner as much information from those with experience as you can.
You will gain the most knowledge from your own life experience, but never discount the tremendous knowledge you can gain by learning from the experiences of others as well. And remember that the more experience you gain or glean, the faster you will propel yourself toward the WIN!
Have an awesome day everyone!
~Amy Rees Anderson
1 Comment
Amy, This one really struck a chord with me. My wrestling coach in high school was also named Bowman, and my dad was the school superintendent. One day I asked him why he thought Coach Bowman was so successful. He asked me what we did in a typical practice. I responded that we spent most of our time wrestling and practicing moves. He said, then that is your answer, when you get out on the mat against an opponent, you know what to do. Thanks for your inspirational posts!!