You gotta have heart?

You gotta have heart!

The New York Times Just published and article about how important overcoming setbacks can be to a career path. I know that it has been true for me since failure and the fear of failing again has been a potent motivator for me along my dental journey. Yes I have failed at many things but these failures have also taught me alot and along the way I find that my failures have become less frequent and I seem to have learned important lessons from analyzing each of my poor outcomes.

I recently watched a documentary about Lebron James' early junior high and high school basketball team. Lebron grew up in extremely difficult circumstances that seemed to motivate him on the court.  His team mostly won, but sometimes winning too often seemed to make them cocky and somewhat complacent. In their interviews they acknowledged that their  failures, though few, were extremely motivating and helped make their eventual success as National High School Champions even more satisfying.  I believe this is the way it can be in a career. Steady success can breed arrogance and complacency but the realization that we are  fallible and have room for improvement, is really necessary to motivate continual professional growth.

Looking back at my career, I have been mostly successful, but I still remember my failures and they have both humbled me and made me a both a strive to improve as a dentist as well as help make me a better person. Of course failure can cause some to give up, but a better response is to learn from our mistakes and endeavor to work harder to achieve a more lasting success. As the song goes "You gotta have heart. All you really need is heart!




from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2019/10/you-gotta-have-heart.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/

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