I was recently working on a speech and it reminded me about an experience I had in high school. I used to approach tennis from the perspective of needing to win. I took the game very seriously.

One Saturday tournament, my doubles partner and I were not getting along. I was taking it seriously. He was not.

Two years later, I was paired up with a new partner — a non tennis player — but a pure athlete. And they had a different approach to the game. They were decent, but their X-Factor was their attitude. They just wanted to have fun in the effort of competing. It rubbed off on me. I don’t remember if we won or lost; but that doens’t matter. We had fun and played well.

Attitude is everything in life and business. When you fail, take a breather. Think about what happened and why. And then dust yourself off, and get back up. Each and every time.