Malcolm Gladwell The Art Of Failure Analysis

Junior year of high school I had reached my limits and had become clinically depressed. I had no interest in school, and I had considered quitting my schools cheerleading team. I felt alone and underwhelmed with where I had imagined my life was going to go. My dream was to become a state champion with cheerleading and to place in the top 10 at the National High School Cheerleading Championship, I had already made amends with the idea that it was an unreachable goal. I had completly given up. Ready to quit, one of my teammates had taken notice in my dismissive persona, she had also brought it to the attention of the rest of my team. They began to push me harder then they he'd ever pushed before. They helped me realize that I was great again.

This all started with my parent’s brilliant idea to take me to Disney World. As any 8-year-old would have reacted to such amazing news, I completely lost it. To my memory, I think I might have just turned the house upside down, literally making the clean family room into a war zone. And of course, I had to brag to all my friends at school of this amazing trip I had the opportunity to go on. I was so ecstatic that every night I crossed off the days left until the trip. After what had felt like an eternity, we headed to the airport to fly to Orlando.

I have not and will never forget those series of events. This time hurt me but also helped build upon my character. It was my freshman year of high school. I had decided to play soccer, which was not a hard decision for me since I had played travel soccer pretty much my whole life. Also my brother was in high school at the time and played for the boys soccer team, and had my dad as his coach. He loved it and was having a great experience playing high school soccer so of course I like to follow in my brother’s footsteps. I was very nervous at first. There were over eleven seniors on the team, and they were pretty intimidating to me. During the summer, I played with the varsity often and enjoyed it. As I kept playing with them and performing well, my nerves lessened. Finally when the actual season rolled around, I was put on full varsity. All my hard work had paid off. I was one of the two freshman put on varsity. I was ecstatic. I was actually very lucky at getting put on varsity because at this point in my life I played purely out of natural talent. I was never one to put in extra work outside of practice and be disciplined in the way I lived my life. I never really strived to be the best I could be. Making varsity made me somewhat of a threat for the older girls. Some were happy for me, others did not like the thought of a freshman on varsity. These girls were hard coore they were bound and determined to make it to state that year. They were not going to accept anything less than amazing. This put an incredible amount of pressure on us younger girls. I remember going to every practice nervous that I was going to mess up and they get mad at me. I never really felt at ease with them. In the first few games I got good playing time. I was doing really well. I was finally getting comfortable out there on the field, but that was not the direction God was taking me and with one swift kick of the soccer

Basketball was my favorite sport growing up. I’ve played since I was little and I still play the game today. I played basketball at my elementary school, St. Cecilia, from Kindergarten till 8th Grade and also played AAU basketball for about 2 years before entering High School. Going into my freshmen year of High School, the first sport I played was basketball. Tryouts began in about the start of November and ended about 2 weeks after. I had made the Freshmen A team. I was excited and as the season progressed, we didn’t win many games but I still had fun playing. Nearing the end of the season, golf was another sport coming up that I also wanted to try and play. I say “try and play” because at the time, I was also going to play AAU basketball. I had set in my mind that I was going to play basketball for all of my four years of high school, but my parents pushed me to tryout for golf. When the basketball season ended, golf tryouts started. Tryouts lasted for about 2 weeks, and I made the JV team. When I found out I made the team, I was very surprised. I hadn’t put in the hard work as others before tryouts came around, but the coach saw potential in me and that I can become a great player. The coach saw so much potential in me, that every week, I kept progressing in skill and fine tuning my mechanics. Halfway through the season, about 4 or 5 weeks after I made the team, my coach gave me the chance to play with the Varsity Golf team for a couple days. I was excited and eager to

I started on the high school football team and didn’t do too bad. I ended up getting all district defensive back which was good to have. I also started on the high school basketball team. This was a pretty good year we didn’t do to bad but got beat out in regionals. It was one of the most painful times of my life because it meant a lot to me and the team. I couldn’t believe it happened. We worked so hard. A good thing about it is that I improved and did better that year. I also tried a crazy thing which was to play baseball. I have never played baseball in my life nor did I like it. I went ahead and tried it out anyways. I enjoyed it but I was not good at it. I couldn’t seem to find the ball in the outfield. I was a decent pitcher and batter though. The best part about baseball was the bus ride I enjoyed them a

The next year as a junior I tried out for the varsity team I thought I deserved to make the team because I was fast and a strong fielder. Throughout tryouts I felt like I was doing great When I found out that I got cut I was angry and sad, but I didn’t let my emotions get to me.

I was confident. I was a better basketball player and everyone knew it. Each day after tryouts I told my dad "I've got it this time." Needless to say, once again my name wasn't on the list. I was so dejected that I couldn't even look my dad in the eye when he picked me up. That night, I went straight to bed and skipped dinner. I later found out both my mom and dad silently cried because they knew how hurt I was. My friends kept telling me I should have made the team, but that didn't change the fact that they were playing and I just had to sit in the stands and watch night after night. I went to every single game that season, and supported my friends; all the while feeling empty because I couldn't be out there with

To begin, panicking and choking can be differentiated by the factor which they are caused. While both occur in high stress environments, these types of failure do not result from the same internal conflict. Panic

We had basketball tryouts on october 31st and i was doggin them folks on the court they couldn’t handle me and i was just a little 9th grader and they were all 11th and 12th graders they must have felt bad but i know they didn’t because i used to play against them all the time in practice so they already knew what it was. I was 6’3 and JJ was 6’4 by the time we were 9th graders and we made varsity when we picked our jerseys i picked my dads old number because i always wanted to be different from him but htis year i had to honor him by wearing his number the number is 1. We had our first practice and i kinda started to tear up a little bit because i know my dad would be proud of the man i became and the ball player i became he always said i will be better than he ever was just because of the passion i had for the game and the little smile i had every time a ball was in my hands. Practices kept going on and on and me and JJ earned the starting spots on the team we were getting very popular amongst the student body. The first game came up and as always me and JJ weren’t scared we were ecstatic to play against better competition and show the world what we can really

In the essay, “The Art of Failure” by Malcolm Gladwell we are given the meanings of “choking” and panicking while being in a stressful situation. Gladwell began to illustrate his writing by giving us other people's story, with the stories of Jana Novotna, John F Kennedy Jr, to name a few. Gladwell starts off by telling the story of Jana Novotna a professional volleyball player who developed stress when she saw who her opponent was, as she was getting near her chance of winning the championship; she lost it when “choking” took over her.

Sophomore year came, and I was nervous because now there was jv dark and varsity to worry about. I came to tryouts, and gave all my effort on volleyball as well as my friends. They had made the teams, and I never expected to be in jv dark. My best friends didn 't made it to jv dark but I couldn 't miss this opportunity. In addition, I was depressed that I could not be with them, but I needed to be in a team that I knew it was going to help me become better. It surely did because now there was more tasks that I could do. My serves were something no one could receive. Consequently, the only horrible part of jv dark is that I never had the chance to play. I came to practice everyday and I followed instructions, I never complained if we ran, but the coach never showed me that I could be in the court. I did showed her, I tried to show off my abilities in volleyball for her to notice. As a result to that she always put me aside. In effect of this, it brought me down I

On a Saturday night I went for a four wheeler ride way back on my hill and broke down.

Going into my eighth grade year I got a few of my friends together and we lifted almost everyday we also stared working on our plays to get us ready for the season. I did not want to only win two games again. This is when I started to become a hard worker for football. On the very last game of the year I hit someone and put my head down. I compressed a disc in my neck and was rushed to the hospital I thought my Football days were over. After basketball I decided not to play football my freshman year or so I thought. My friend Anthony’s dad came and talked to me one on one. He explained to me that if I didn’t play then I would be letting my team mates down and in the long run my school. I decided to keep playing.

Here comes high school. My friends and I from middle school all went to the same high school, and played volleyball once again. The only difference between us was when I was on the B team they were on the A-team, and when I was sitting on the bench they were playing. We got to high school and things didn’t change, they were on JV as a freshman, and little old me was still on the freshman team. I decided that for the next year they weren’t going to be better than I am. I worked so hard the summer going to my 10th grade year.

I tried out ninth grade year and made the B team. The start of high school volleyball was extremely hard because I was out of shape, and again behind technically. This meant that for the next three years of my life I would have to push myself past subconsciously set limits, and attempt to not only catch up with my fellow teammates but surpass them. This entailed summer workouts Monday through Thursday from eight to ten, starting club volleyball, and staying positive through it all. Despite all of my efforts, during the off season of my junior year my coach told me I was not likely to make the varsity team. Everything I had planned since seventh grade was slipping through my fingers, and I felt completely helpless. Furthermore, that off season consisted of my coach’s indecision on whether I would make the team, and my growing dislike for the sport. Needless to say my last months in volleyball were emotionally draining and because of that I decided not to try out my senior year.