“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing”.

That was said by the successful and innovative coach of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team also known as The Broad Street Bullies.

When I first heard Shero’s wisdom, I knew it was worthy of residing on my smartphone, a refrigerator sticky and on my desk.

Say nothing and become the unwitting victim of everyone else’s opinion or point of view.

Do nothing and watch life from the sidelines.

When our voices remain silent and our actions still, we are nothing.

I’m thinking of a quote in my book about Ted Williams, one of the most prolific hitters in baseball.  Williams hit .406 one year, very few in the history of baseball have ended a complete season with a batting average over .400.

Which means – he failed 6 out of 10 times.  One of the greatest ever, only succeeded 40% of the time.  And in baseball today, if a player “succeeds” 25% of the time, they are called a multimillionaire.

So I’ve concluded it is not the fear of criticism that paralyzes us, it’s the fear of not batting 1.000.

“The only average that counts is batting 1.000 at trying”

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