In the words of pro golfer Luke Donald, Tiger Woods’ “ability to forget his mistakes and move on” was what made him a better golfer than everyone else. Everyone focuses on the technique, but we forget about the mental side of playing a game.

An excerpt from the book “Best Loser Wins” by high-stakes stock trader Tom Hougaard, writing about his conversation with pro golfer Luke Donald:

Back in 2007 I was invited to the Wimbledon tennis final. My friend was a big name in the media industry, and none other than Ralph Lauren had invited her to the tennis final – with a guest. So, there I was in the VIP tent, and I got to sit next to Luke Donald, who at the time was one of the best golfers in the world.

He is a softly spoken man, and very polite. We got talking about Tiger Woods, and I asked him a pretty to-the-point question about competing with Tiger.

“Is Tiger Woods a better golfer than you?”

I found his answer so incredibly insightful that I never forgot it. He said:

“I don’t think Tiger is a better golfer than me, if you measure it in how well we putt, or how far we hit the ball, but Tiger Woods does have an amazing ability to forget his mistakes and move on.

For example, we can be on the 15th and both make a bad putt. By the time we get to tee up on the 16th, it is as if Tiger has wiped his mind of whatever happened on the 15th, and he is totally in the moment.”

I, on the other hand, will still deal with the mistake I made on the 15th, and it will affect my performance on the 16th.”

The fear of making a mistake is the worst. No one wants to fail.

When I write, I can’t care if anyone will read it because that will discourage me from writing about specific topics that “don’t do well.” That is me not fearing failure, not fearing the fact that no one will read this. You are reading this; thank you. Obviously you want people to read what you write, but if no one reads it, I’ll just go write the next post.

Mesut Özil is the first player that comes to mind when I think of fear of failure, but only for one specific part of his game. He was one of the best passers you’ll ever see, tons of risk, but he would never shoot. If there was a ten percent chance of a pass being available, even though the goal was wide open, he’d pass. It was infuriating to watch.

I think he was more of a failure when he didn’t take the chance to shoot, not when he missed. When he shot, at least he took the risk, and if he missed, that is fine. Go again for the next shot.

We should applaud those that take risks.