Pankaj Advani on learning from failures

At a recent TEDxIIMB event, I listened and watched as the billiards and snooker prodigy Pankaj Advani walked us through his accomplishments. He lingered on a photo that displayed his living room resplendent with glittering trophies. “These are just for the tournaments that I WON outright,” he stated almost nonchalantly.

The trophies for second and third place finishes were relegated to a backroom. No trace of arrogance, just matter-of-fact. He then surprised me with “Mom thinks the second and third prizes are not important but I don’t agree. They were incredibly important because I learnt something from each of those losses. I hated losing each of those matches and I resolved not to repeat it.”

I’m sure every sportsperson learns from his/her failures and the truly great gets extra motivated with each loss. Why am I filing this post under the “Running” category? How is it relevant to an amateur marathoner who’s not really gunning for a podium finish? It”s relevant because the amateur marathoner is motivated by a desire to constantly improve and move to a faster running orbit. By his reckoning, a “winning” race is characterized by his meeting his race goal (whatever he had trained for). A “losing” race has a whole range of characteristics – cramping, running too fast in the first half, hitting the wall at 35k, etc. In short, the regular amateur marathoner goes through a season of “losing” races before hitting pay-dirt on a “winning” race.