At the core, I am a nerd.
I love numbers, I love analysis, and I love learning. I am constantly thinking about “why” and what’s next.
If you’re programmed the same way, you might find yourself also over thinking things – a paralysis by analysis, if you will. Even if you’ve come to realize this is your hubris, it sometimes remains difficult to actually do anything. Whether it’s taking that first step towards opening a business or asking a pretty girl out on a date, overthinking is a detriment because it leads to inaction. So even if you try to think up the best way to start your business or the most eloquent gesture to ask out a girl, you’ll end up not taking the shot because you ran out of time or trying so hard, you end up whiffing.
In hockey, to a score a goal, there are a whole bunch of things that must be right.
It starts with the player handling the puck, the shooter. They must have control, they must have a path to the net, they must hit the puck with their stick, then the puck has to go in the general direction of the goal. To be clear, those are the responsibilities of the shooter.
Then you think of the shooter’s teammates – are players lining up to get a deflection and assist? Who is blocking the goalie’s vision? Who is going to get the rebound if the puck doesn’t make the net?
Then you have the entire defensive squad. Are they blocking the goal? Are they going to snatch the puck? Are they going to take a ricochet off their knee?
And of course, you have the Goalie. The brick wall. The “You Shall Not Pass” Gandalf.
All that is to say, there are so many things out of the shooter’s control that have to go just right in order for the shooter to score a goal. So how does one score? You take a ton of shots.
In the NHL, the average shots on goal for a team is 30. The average number of goals per game is 3. That’s just 10% of shots!
For that 1 of every 10 shots that does make it in the net, think of all the other improbables (outside of the shooters control) that went perfectly right.
As the Gretzky saying goes, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
Hockey, however, is a sport – shots on goal do not matter. What matters at the end of the day is whether or not a goal was scored. Luckily, the real world is not that binary.
If we investigate the game of hockey beyond the W-L column, think of each shot on goal. They might not count as a win, but they count towards something – an attempt. An ardent effort. A repetition during gametime. Each repetition they take, not only is it a chance to score a goal, it is a practice repetition in a game time situation. You couldn’t possibly ask for better practice than that.
So, if life is our game, why not take more shots?
From sales to fundraising to dating to jobs, it is all a game. A numbers game.
Yes, you will miss some. But if you give up after you’ve missed 20 in a row, how are you ever going to score the next goal if you quit shooting?
You have to pick up the phone for the next sales call… have the next meeting with the investor… ask the next girl out… submit another application.
Yes, it can get tough. You might start to lose faith… But when you’re at shot 100 and the goalie hasn’t budged, remember that 101 might be your lucky day.
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