Let me share a secret about myself: even though I’m a disaster when it comes to playing basketball, it’s the sport I enjoy watching the most. I’m particularly a fan of the NBA and follow the league more closely than any other sport, especially during the playoffs, which are always full of excitement. Last year, during Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, the Milwaukee Bucks, who had won the championship the previous season, were defeated 4-1 by the Miami Heat. The Heat went on to the NBA Finals but lost to the Denver Nuggets, led by Nikola Jokic.
The Bucks’ elimination surprised me so much that, after the game, I did something I usually don’t do: I watched the post-game press conference. When Giannis Antetokounmpo, the star of the Bucks, took the microphone, he shared a true life lesson. His reflection on the meaning of failure, broadcast live to millions and widely circulated the next day, sent a powerful message to leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals from all fields.
In this article, we’ll explore Giannis’ impactful statement and discuss what sports can teach us about failure.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is a basketball player who plays in the NBA for the Milwaukee Bucks, being the main figure responsible for securing the long-awaited league title after 50 years. Born in Greece to Nigerian parents, Giannis is widely recognized as one of the best players in the world today. However, his greatness goes beyond the basketball court — he is socially engaged, as well as extremely intelligent and wise.
After a recent loss to the Miami Heat, led by Jimmy Butler, during last year’s playoffs, Giannis was asked by a journalist whether he considered the season a failure. His response became iconic. Listen to this:
“Okay, you asked me the same question last year, Eric. Do you get a promotion every year? At your job? No, right? So every year you work is a failure, right? Yes or no? No. Every year you work, you work towards something, towards a goal, which is to get a promotion, to be able to take care of your family, to be able to provide a house for them, take care of your parents… you work towards a goal. It’s not failure, it’s steps to success. So, if you never… well, I don’t want to make it personal. There’s always steps to it, you know: Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships. The other nine years were a failure? Is that what you’re telling me? No, I’m asking: yes or no? Okay, exactly, so why do you ask me that question? It’s the wrong question, you know: there is no failure in sports – there are good days, there are bad days. Some days you succeed and some days you don’t. Some days it’s your turn and some days it’s not. And that’s what sports are, you don’t always win. Someone else is going to win. Simple as that: we’ll be back next year, try to build good habits, try to play better, not have a 10-day stretch of playing poorly, you know, and hopefully we can win a championship. So, 50 years from 1971 to 2021 where we didn’t win a championship, were they 50 years of failure? No, they weren’t – they were steps to it, and we were able to win one, and hopefully, we can win another.”
When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I started competing in track and field, especially middle-distance running, ranging from 800 meters to 5 km. I was quite good and competed in national championships in Italy, winning several local and regional competitions.
Now, did I win them all? Of course not! Not even the Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, considered by many to be the best runner of today — or even of all time, surpassing the Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie — wins all his races.
Look at this: in 2023, Kipchoge won the Berlin Marathon for the fifth time, one of the world’s most prestigious marathons. This victory came just a year after he broke the world record on the same course, completing it in 2:01:09, shaving 30 seconds off his own time. Although he ran a slower second half of the race in 2023 and didn’t break his record, Kipchoge once again proved to be a formidable runner in the mythical 42.195 km distance, posting the eighth-fastest time in history. In fact, he holds five of the top 10 marathon times ever recorded.
Even with a slightly slower performance, it was an extraordinary feat. However, has Kipchoge won every race he has competed in? Obviously not. Yet, he is still considered the best of all time. The interesting thing is to explore why that is. The truth is, the analogy with Kipchoge and my own experience as a runner shows that even when an athlete doesn’t always win — which by traditional conception would be “failing” — they can still be seen as a success.
To better explain this dynamic, let’s follow this reasoning: as a runner and now a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (a sport I’ve been training in for 13 years), I’ve had my share of wins and losses. I’ve learned that failure is an inevitable part of the journey, both in sports and in business. What sets successful athletes and entrepreneurs apart is their ability to handle failure and use it as a learning opportunity. I’ll use the example of a software developer and how they can learn from failure, just like an athlete:
Failure is not the end.
As an athlete, you may lose a race or fail to improve your time. In development, you may write code that doesn’t work or create a feature that doesn’t meet user expectations. The important thing is to remember that failure is not the end. You can try again and learn from your mistakes, just as there is always a new race, a new game, or a new training session.
Embrace failure.
It’s natural to feel disappointment after a failure. However, you can choose to stay stuck in it or view failure as a learning opportunity. Athletes and coaches review game footage to identify areas for improvement. In development, the same mindset can be applied in code reviews and retrospectives. Learning from mistakes means understanding what went wrong and improving from there.
Keep adapting.
Athletes face setbacks for various reasons — their own mistakes, injuries, communication failures, or even the weather. The same goes for developers. Even with your best efforts, things may not go as planned. Adaptability is a crucial skill because it allows you to adjust to adversity and continue pursuing your goals. Think of a jiu-jitsu fighter who, after an injury, needs to recover and adapt their training — giving up is not an option.
Move forward.
After learning from your mistakes, it’s essential to move forward. Staying stuck in past failures can hinder your progress. As an athlete, hesitating at crucial moments can cost you dearly. For developers, this fear can prevent project completion. Learn from what happened, create a plan of action for the future, and move forward.
Failure is part of growth.
Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned from sports is that failure is a natural part of growth. Every athlete faces setbacks and failures in their journey. The same is true in development. If you never make a mistake, it means you’re just staying at the same level. Each mistake is an opportunity to learn and grow, and often we come back even stronger after a defeat or setback.
What really matters is that our goal, as individuals, is to improve relative to our “yesterday’s self,” without necessarily competing to be the best in the world. When we understand this, failures become inevitable parts of the process that help us evolve, whether as athletes, developers, or in any other area of life.
Now, you may think: “Andrea, all of this makes sense logically, but in practice, emotionally, it’s difficult to control my reaction to failure.” That’s why we need to analyze failure from an emotional standpoint to understand how we can better deal with it and, just like resilient athletes, use it as fuel.
It’s not the failure itself that affects us but our perspective on it. How we view failure determines our thoughts and emotions — and that’s what defines how we will respond to it. Many athletes see failure as the worst possible outcome. But with the right approach, even mistakes can turn into successes.
