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When you were playing basketball as a youngster you would get some balls through the hoop and many would miss. But you always knew it was a numbers game. What you spent hours doing, was to make the numbers game skewed in your favour. The more you practiced the more you got in.

The same applies to scientific breakthroughs, to political achievements, to financial success or to sporting championship wins. The more you try the more chances you have of succeeding.

This principle applies to everything we do. A new young rugby player in South Africa has just been breaking the records in scoring points. He puts his success down to the fact that he practices his kicking three hundred times a week.

The same applies to David Beckham who spends more time than many other professional footballers practicing his famous free kicks. The training regime that Michael Phelps attacks every day is enormous. That’s what made him the most successful athlete at an Olympics in 2008.

It took Anita Roddick many many interviews with different bank managers and funding organisations before she was successful in getting her first loan for her first Body Shop outlet in Brighton. J Paul Getty, one of the more successful oil men around, spent much time and money prospecting for oil in Saudi Arabia and eventually found it where nobody thought there was any.

The Wright brothers flew their first flight in December 1903 and were accredited with being the first to fly an aircraft with controls that made fixed wing flights possible. They maintained businesses in other fields while working on their flying machines part time. It took years for them to succeed. But with all numbers games, eventually they got there.

You might think that these were all exceptional people and that their successes have nothing to do with you. There is one thing that you could end up having in common and that is going with the numbers game.

What have you tried in the past that you gave up on before achieving your goal? What sporting effort, career goal, business vision did you give up after some tries? Could you have gotten there if you had carried on trying?

What distinguishes you from these highly successful people is not so much raw talent but the ability and wish to continue playing the numbers game. Carry on trying even though you are not successful initially.

The Wright brothers crashed many of their flying machines. They were laughed at and ridiculed by many people. It was common knowledge in those days that flying was an impossible task for mankind to achieve. In fact some church minister even thundered against it saying it was against the teachings of the bible.

Michael Phelps swam for the US team during the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics and came 5th in the 200m butterfly event. In the 2004 Olympics he won 6 Golds and 2 Bronzes and topped this achievement in the 2008 Olympics with 8 Golds and 7 World Records. This after only a 5th place the first Olympics he competed in.

In most cases the ones that win are not necessarily more gifted than their competitors. They have just played the numbers games. Practice, try, ask for more help, push more and finally get those numbers to fall in your favour.