Jacqui Cooper competed in 139 World Cup Events, 9 World Championships and a ridiculous 5 Winter Olympic teams. She holds 5 world titles, 39 World Cup medals, 25 World Cup wins and 3 major World Championship medals.
This makes her the greatest aerial skier of all time.
So what might we mere mortals learn from such a back-flipping, pike-twisting legend?
Well, across every single jump in her 20-year career, Cooper stuck the landing just 20% of the time. TWENTY PERCENT.
Put another way: 80% of the time the greatest aerial skier of all time didn’t get the outcome she was seeking.
80% of the time she tried something and it didn’t work out.
80% of the time she found learning in something hard and painful, and managed to keep moving.
I’m finding this to be a noodly backdrop for all the stories we tell ourselves about perfectionism, making mistakes and the hairy, smelly and misunderstood notion of ‘failure’.