On Saturday night I had the privilege of going to a hockey game with my brother to see the Montreal Canadiens play the Washington Capitals. Although the Canadiens lost with a couple minutes left in the game, I did come away from the game with a valuable lesson.
There was one beautiful play where one of the Canadiens (can’t remember which one) broke through the Capital’s defense and made it all the way down the ice, a little past the blue line when he decided to pretty much pass the puck to the Washington Goalie. When I say pass, I really mean it. The entire game, the Canadiens were slapping the puck at the net and on this play, it couldn’t have been going more than 5 mph.
I was a little disappointed but my brother who is a much bigger fan than I am reminded me of Wayne Gretzky’s quote “You miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take”. He said that you never know but sometimes those shots go in by some fluke.
This got me thinking about many things in life. There are times where you have a chance to do something but you don’t feel that you are 100% ready yet or the timing just doesn’t feel right. If you don’t go for it, you will definitely not succeed. On the other hand, even a miserable attempt at the net can end up as a goal. A goal is a goal, no matter how it’s scored.
Go ahead, take your shots, even the ones that aren’t all lined up and perfect because if you don’t take it, it’s for sure a miss but if you do make some sort of effort and take the shot, you never know. You may score by some fluke.
Another example of this was given to me by my insurance broker. He said selling insurance is a numbers game. You will have success in proportion to the amount of phone calls you make. There is no real special trick, it’s just get on the phone and don’t stop calling. The same goes for hockey. Keep taking shots on net and eventually one of them will go in.
The more shots you take, the luckier you will get.