"About the only problem with success is that it does not teach you how to deal with failure"
About this Quote
Tommy Lasorda spent decades in dugouts, where the scoreboard can flatter you one day and humble you the next. His warning lands hardest in a sport where a .300 hitter fails seven times out of ten. Winning feels definitive; it validates routines, decisions, even superstitions. Yet victory often hides flaws, dulls curiosity, and breeds the illusion that the formula will always work. When the slump arrives, and it always does, success offers little guidance. It does not teach how to absorb a bad bounce, a blown call, a prolonged drought at the plate, or the glare of expectation.
Failure, by contrast, is the harsher but more precise coach. It forces attention to mechanics, mindset, and preparation. It tests whether identity rests on outcomes or on the craft itself. Lasorda managed rookies and legends through both parades and losing streaks; he saw that players who learned to interpret failure as information, not indictment, lasted. He also knew that organizations intoxicated by wins can become fragile. Confirmation bias sets in, truth-tellers go quiet, and small cracks widen until they split a season.
The line speaks beyond baseball. Entrepreneurs riding a hot quarter, students with a string of A grades, artists after a breakout release all face the same trap: mistaking results for resilience. Real durability comes from building habits that do not depend on the last score. Conduct postmortems after wins, not just losses. Seek feedback when the numbers look good. Practice pressure in training. Separate effort and process from praise and blame, so that self-worth is not hostage to the latest outcome.
Lasorda celebrated victory as fiercely as anyone, but he understood its limitation. Success can reward you, inspire you, and keep you in the game. It will not, by itself, teach you how to stay there when the streak ends. Only a deliberate relationship with failure does that.
Failure, by contrast, is the harsher but more precise coach. It forces attention to mechanics, mindset, and preparation. It tests whether identity rests on outcomes or on the craft itself. Lasorda managed rookies and legends through both parades and losing streaks; he saw that players who learned to interpret failure as information, not indictment, lasted. He also knew that organizations intoxicated by wins can become fragile. Confirmation bias sets in, truth-tellers go quiet, and small cracks widen until they split a season.
The line speaks beyond baseball. Entrepreneurs riding a hot quarter, students with a string of A grades, artists after a breakout release all face the same trap: mistaking results for resilience. Real durability comes from building habits that do not depend on the last score. Conduct postmortems after wins, not just losses. Seek feedback when the numbers look good. Practice pressure in training. Separate effort and process from praise and blame, so that self-worth is not hostage to the latest outcome.
Lasorda celebrated victory as fiercely as anyone, but he understood its limitation. Success can reward you, inspire you, and keep you in the game. It will not, by itself, teach you how to stay there when the streak ends. Only a deliberate relationship with failure does that.
Quote Details
| Topic | Failure |
|---|
More Quotes by Tommy
Add to List
