Victory favors preparation
Victory and mastery not only end with the same letter, they are also very much connected with each other. Though there is surely always a little bit of luck involved whatever we do, in large victory is more about the preparation you have put into whatever you set your mind to. Sometimes it may even help save your life.
I was just reminded of how important practice and training is when I to a Mythbusters Live show in Philly. Adam Savage @donttrythis shared with the audience how he almost did not make it out of a submerged in water and upside down car. The experiment was how difficult it would be for a person to get out of a car that went into a lake. He almost drowned when he got disoriented as his eyes started to burn trying to see in the water without goggles. I
t turned out later that the old car they had used in the experiment had been cleaned, but the previous owner had smoked heavily and all the old smoke and ashes had messed up the water quality and thus contaminating Adam’s eyes (Details here). Surprised by this he inserted the breathing apparatus upside down resulting him to “breathe” in a little water (Discover what happened here). He almost panicked, but recalled an important practice preparation saying: “Only the calm survive”. He mentally forced himself to calm down and subsequently corrected inserting the breathing mask eventually escaping out of the submerged car. Can you imagine how scary this must have been?
Bottom line is that whenever you want to win or excel (or simply survive) at anything in life you have to practice, practice, and practice. Victory favors preparation.
Ralf