How the Greatest Goal Scorer of all Time is Teaching us about Failure

I'm a huge hockey guy as most of you know by now. But even if you have no interest in hockey whatsoever, there are some really important life lessons that can be learned from what Alex Ovechkin is doing right now.

He's one of the greatest hockey players of all time and unquestionably the greatest goal scorer of all time - he's likely making that official in absolute terms within the next few weeks (he's 8 goals from passing Gretzky for the most goals scored ever).

Adjusted for era he's held that title of best goal scorer ever for a while now. Gretzky's prime was during an era when the goalies sucked and teams were scoring ~10 goals per game in the 80s, vs. the modern era that Ovie has played in where the goalies look like Michelin Men and teams actually play defense, resulting in average goals per game of ~5-6.

But the "adjusted for era" narrative isn't going to matter. Despite that absurd disparity, Ovie will be passing Gretzky in absolute terms regardless. I just point it out to illustrate how crazy it is what Ovechkin is doing.

As my friends and I were texting about his greatness this week, a really interesting stat was shared:

Ovie already has the most shots on goal of any player ever by over 600 shots. And everyone near him in that category is long retired, and since it seems like Ovie has several years left in the tank, he'll probably hold that record by several thousand by the time it's all said and done.

This stood out to me because it also means that Ovechkin has also missed the most of any player ever. Meaning he has the most shots taken that were saved by a goalie of all time.

But obviously, only weird people like me would even think about that aspect and it couldn't possibly matter less.

No one will remember that element because it doesn't matter. Only his greatness will be celebrated, just as it should be.

But from a goal scorer's perspective, every shot taken that does not go in is a failure.

That can't really be argued - the intent of every shot taken is to score. Mission un-accomplished if that doesn't happen.

So Ovie is the ultimate example of how willingness to fail is what leads to epic greatness.

If he was too scared to shoot or deferred to his teammates after missing the first couple shots during a game, no chance he would be where he is today.

The number 1 predictor of success is volume and repetition.

If you do something enough, you will inevitably become good, maybe even great.

And failure has to accompany that, especially at the beginning.

If you haven't failed a lot, you probably haven't tried hard enough.

And you will probably never be great at whatever it is that you're doing.

And if you're willing to fail, learn from it, and keep trying, you will eventually be great.

But if you quit, or even worse are too scared to try, you're not gonna get anywhere.

There are no failures, just lessons learned. And then greatness can be achieved over a long enough time horizon.

Stay well this week, Hal the Health Coach