By Chad Morris, co-author of The Playmakers
Things I’ve failed at:
Making the basketball team.
Talking to girls.
Becoming a rock star.
Putting a bowling ball away without knocking over the entire rack and sending a barrage of bowling balls bouncing through the entire alley.
Writing.
Remembering I was going to do this blog post and turning it in on time.
The list could go on.
And it does go on. I’m a best-selling and award-winning author. My ninth book just came out. It’s the latest of several novels I’ve written with my awesome wife, Shelly Brown. I write all the time. But I’ve written several books that needed huge revisions. Virtually Me needed a massive overhaul before it was published. And I’ve written books that have been rejected. These aren’t novels I wrote a long time ago. These are books I wrote after winning awards and getting new contracts. The last one just happened a few months ago.
I fail.
I hate it, but I fail.
I hope I can keep reacting reasonably well to failure because it isn’t going away.
In a way, it’s kind of like a trick shot. I love trick shots. The whole point is that you’re going to fail most of the time, but there is a chance if you stick with it for a long time, you might just succeed. Since I’m an author, I love to do trick shots with books. I toss them into bookshelves, slide them down handrails, and fling them into backpacks. (Yes, the books get a little bent up, but I use promotional copies and give them away to kids afterward.)
Here are some examples:
When I do assemblies in schools, I like to show my trick shots. The kids love them. But I also show the failures. Interestingly, kids like to watch those, too:
I even have some attempted trick shots that never really worked out very well:
There is something about failing that is interesting and relatable. And pressing through failure is something we all want. If we just try again, maybe making a few adjustments, it might work out. In fact, I think one of the reasons we love stories is because they are about characters trying to overcome huge challenges. Those challenges always involve some element of failure. It’s relatable because we want so badly to deal with and overcome our own failures.
Shelly and I wanted to explore failure in our latest book, The Playmakers. It’s about Jax, who gets cut from the basketball team; Luke, who gets cut from the school play; and Miley, who loves math—no one gets cut from math, but Miley feels like she’s been cut from friendships. I love these characters because I know what it feels like to be cut (see the basketball reference above). My wife Shelly has been cut from many plays. We’ve both been cut from friendships. I didn’t always react well. The book explores all sorts of ways to respond. These three characters end up getting super creative, working together, and showing that they have something to offer. (Complete with Jax making his own basketball team with others who were cut and a few members of the girls’ team; Luke helping out if Jax will help with a theater contest; and Miley trying to take basketball statistics and do analytics.)
I love the way it turned out. If you decide to read it, here are my social media links. Let me know if you liked it, or if I failed again.
And best of luck dealing with your own failures.
Like a trick shot, make a few adjustments, and try again. It just might turn out the way you were hoping.
CHAD MORRIS loves the VR set he got for Christmas and is much better at it than he is at video games, but that’s still not saying much. Still he would love to try to keep his balance on Skatecoaster, laugh like crazy in The Furriest, and punch light blasts at alien bugs in Infestation ExtermiNation.
As a married couple, Chad and Shelly both love writing books and hanging out with each other and their five kids. They’re grateful they get to spend time with students in assemblies across the nation talking about topics from kindness to writing.