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I have always been a great fan of Nike and it’s advertisements. I came across an inspiring video of  them featuring Micheal Jordan also called “Air Jordan”. Jordan is one of the greatest basketball player of all time.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uugz5Y7u6M&w=560&h=315]

I like the the way the whole video is shot. We can relate to it very well as we do make such excuses in life. Maybe we call it as talent, luck or the god’s gift but as he says it’s all the excuses we are giving to ourselves.

Here are the 5 things about Jordan which surprised me, it might leave you surprised as well.

1. Jordan was rejected from his high school basketball team.

It feels so nice to know the successful people we see today were once rejected and they still made it so well. Shakira was rejected out of the choir group, Steven Spielberg was rejected out of the best film schools, J.K. Rowling was rejected by dozens of publishing houses and the greatest basketball player Jordan was also rejected by his school basketball team.

You have so many examples that assure you that rejections are part of every successful person. We were rejected or will be rejected some day, we need not leave our dreams on becoming what we love to become.

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”– Micheal Jordan

Image I and you going through the same, losing 9000 shots, 300 games. Would we still want to continue? Well, after seeing his  persistence we have to agree on trying again and again right?

“Whenever I was working out and got tired and figured I ought to stop, I’d close my eyes and see that list in the locker room without my name on it… that usually got me going again.”– Micheal Jordan

He practiced every day harder and harder. An hour before the game if you had to see Jordan, you would see him practicing.  He was known as the first person to get to the gym and last person to leave it.

No wonder why he is such a great player. He says when you can put in all your hard work you need not worry about the result.

“ Give me the pain. ” – Michael Jordan

Jordan once  suffered from an injury in his foot during a game. When asked if he wanted a special shoe to help protect the injury, he replied to  the training staff saying “give me the pain.” He went through a lot of pain but still continued playing.

The attitude to take  another step when your body says “I can’t” has brought tremendous flare of strength in great personalities.

Took a career change at the peek of his career.

I couldn’t believe this for an instance. Wasn’t he risking his career? Every move, every failure could have been speculated by millions of people but he made a decision to play baseball.

What an example for an imperishable self belief. It’s amazing to see how someone could risk his successful career by doing something which he had to start all over again. I guess sometimes it’s not only about success or  failure its more about challenging yourself and doing what you want to do in life.