A true story I read years ago has always inspired me. A young boy went home crying and told his mother that he was not selected for the team because he was too small. His mother said something to him that changed his life – ‘it is not the size of the person in the game that matters, but the size of the game in the person.’ The boy started practicing relentlessly and made it to the team the next season. Michael Jordan went on to become one of the greatest basketball players and sportsmen the world has seen.

Each one of us has plans, goals, and ambitions. We constantly think about how well we are doing and how big a game we are playing in life. But how often have we taken a step back and asked ourselves the fundamental question – ‘how big are my purpose and my goals in me?’

Water needs a fire under it continuously till it reaches boiling point. Starting and stopping will warm the water a bit but it will never reach its point of changing its state. We too need to be deeply and continuously committed to achieving our goals and becoming what we can truly be.

Michael Jordan shares that he almost lost 300 games, missed 26 game-winning shots, and failed over and over again. And that is why he succeeded. Our inner drive and resilience to overcome repeated failures have to be bigger than the challenges life throws at us.

We often make the mistake of depending on inspiration from others and the world. When the source goes, so does our inspiration, and often we have seen brilliant actors and players go through inner turmoil when attention is no longer on them and the world moves on. Our inner inspiration has to be bigger than the transient attention the world gives us.

When we achieve something big, the world notices us. It is the inner passion that we keep alive when no one is noticing that needs to be big.

And when things don’t go well for us, we don’t need to measure how big our success or failure is. We need to only measure how big the game is in us. And only we know the honest answer to that.

(Picture-Island of Capri)