Every kid should play this impossible game

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
-Attributed to Calvin Coolidge (never verified)

This video of someone playing a Mario parody video game came across my Facebook newsfeed last week, and I’ll be honest:

I laughed-out-loud like an idiot.

The game is impossible. Or at least, it certainly seems impossible upon first glance.

But in fact, it’s not. It’s just really, really hard.

The game is deliberately set up so that the player cannot plan ahead or anticipate the next obstacle. In fact, the only way to win is to fail repeatedly and learn from each agonizing mistake.

Persistence.

Life is, at its core, a constant series of obstacles. Kids who learn early and often how to fail, recover, try again, fail, and repeat will be the best equipped to face challenges head on.

Overnight success

It took ten years to become an overnight success.

At the time of my viral TEDx talk I had already been working self-employed as a professional magician for nearly ten years. I had endured years of financial failures and on-stage embarrassment, and learned how to get back up from each devastating blow.

It’s so easy to see the path that led to my viral TEDx talk, but it wasn’t possible to see that path, say, back in 2013 when after years of success, my business was falling apart. I vividly remember sitting on the floor of my tiny one bedroom apartment sobbing, wondering if years earlier I should have gone to grad school and that this was all a failed experiment, and a waste of time.

It would be have been so easy to quit, right there. And I almost did.

But something pushed me forward. Something deep inside convinced me to commit to the process, to get back up like I had done so many times before.

Almost exactly two years later I gave the talk of my life, and it changed me forever.

It’s obvious now, but it wasn’t then.

Uncertain, but necessary

So the question becomes, how do you know when to quit and when to push forward?

You can’t know. And you’ll never be sure. Persistence may lead to success, but it may not. Not all goals are achievable for everybody, and that’s just an unfortunate fact of life.

But it’s absolutely certain that if you quit, you’ll never achieve it. The only path to success, even if it’s uncertain, is to keep trying.

And this silly, infuriating game is a powerful reminder of that.