“Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals.” — David Ogilvy

Within the next week or so, college basketball teams will be entering tournament season and facing enormous odds. Win or lose, this difficulty can lead to greatness. 

Think of one of the greatest challenges mankind has ever faced: putting a man  on the moon. When President John Kennedy spoke at Rice University in 1962, he referred to this goal.

 But his talk was about more than spaceflight; it was a blueprint of what happens when people set great goals.

“We choose to go to the moon,” he said. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

Kennedy’s vision proved correct. Not only did astronauts land on the moon before his stated deadline, but great scientific advances occurred because of the extraordinary energy that went into the effort.

Computers got smaller and faster. New materials came into use. Scientists developed vast amounts of  information.

It is the same way with sports teams. When they  commit to great goals, they find energy and skill and power that they never would have discovered under ordinary circumstances. While pursuing great goals, people look for solutions instead of just settling for what circumstances dictate.