Be a Professional by Acting Like a Beginner Like Michael Jordan

When you start doing something new such as playing a sport and you enjoy it, you try really hard to get good at it.  You practice day and night and play against the best people out there just so that you can work on your skills and improve.

Once you get really good at the game or whatever it is you are doing, you start to get looked up to by people who also want to improve their game.  The better you get, the more people want to be like you.  It is common that people in this situation start to get cocky and that can really ruin it all for them.  Either because they start trying all kinds of fancy moves that they can’t possibly do and it throws off their game or even worse, they want to keep people’s perceptions of them up high so they stop playing their game out of fear that they may mess up and lose the respect and admiration of their fans.

Messing up and working to get even better is the best thing that you can do in that situation.  Michael Jordan is a great example of this.  He is known for missing more game ending shots than anyone else in the NBA.  He also took more game ending shots than anyone else because he was not afraid that people would think any less of him.  And because of that, people respected him even more.  If you ask him, he will tell you how many game winning shots he missed in his career but he doesn’t know how many games he won with that last shot.  Michael Jordan concentrated on his faults and worked on them without caring what anyone would think of him and that is how he kept improving.  You might remember when he retired for the first time and then came back, he sucked.  He was missing shots back and forth but that didn’t stop him, he worked harder than ever to get back his game.  Another example is Tiger Woods who broke down his swing and rebuilt it 3 times even when he was at the top of his game.  That all takes a ton of guts.

Act like a beginner and you will always be improving your game.

Have you ever shied away from doing something because you were afraid that people would not look at you the same way?  Let me know in the comments.