Why 3 Out of 10 Makes You Elite (In Life Too)

In this episode of The Fuck It Shift, Adam Ross breaks down a simple idea that goes against everything we’ve been taught: you don’t need to win all the time to be successful—you just need to win enough.

Using the concept of “3 out of 10,” Adam explains how some of the best performers in the world are considered elite while only succeeding a fraction of the time. From sports to business to everyday life, he challenges the belief that success is about perfection—and shows why it’s actually built on repeated failure.

After losing everything at one point in his life, Adam shares how his relationship with failure completely changed. What once felt like the end became something he now sees as feedback—data that helps refine the next move instead of something that defines the outcome.

The conversation also explores why so many people stay stuck chasing comfort, avoiding risk, and tying their self-worth to outcomes like grades, results, or external validation. Adam unpacks the idea that people aren’t truly afraid of failing—they’re often afraid of what happens if they succeed and have to live up to it.

He also offers a clear definition of what it means to lose, and why in his view, the only real failure is breaking the commitments you make to yourself.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Fuck It Chift podcast. I'm Adam Ross, joined by Jay, the producer. And as always, Jay, you're going to hit me with something right off the top.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Adam, in today's world, we often relate um high passing marks and on tests and in school to success. Is there any kind of correlation to getting above 80 in school and that person will go on to achieve, you know, great success versus getting lower than 80, 70s, 60s, 50s, and they're always going to be a failure. What's your view on that?

SPEAKER_01 0:29

To win, you've got to be okay with losing. And I know people say it'd be a good sport. It's not about that. Listen, 30% is a hitting the ball three out of 10 times is a major league baseball superstar that gets paid gobs of money. 30% success rate. Michael Jordan missed 9,000 plus shots, but we remember him for the most iconic game-winning shots or the dunks. I think he's the best. Um basketball player. He wasn't successful. He missed 9,000 shots. You've got Babe Ruth, who, if you're a baseball fan, everyone's, oh man, you're right away instantly, home runs, massive success. He struck out way more than he ever hit home runs. What I was telling my kids the other day, and this hits home right now about their grades and report cards, and none of that shit matters. If you can be successful hitting the ball three out of 10 times, you have to realize that the losing is the winning. Get your head around that for a minute. It's not about getting A's. It's about learning that the loss gives you another opportunity for a win. You constantly chase small wins. You have to be okay. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable losing. It is the person that's most successful who does not tie it to a grade, does not tie it to percentage, just simply is okay with knowing that you're going to take a few losses to get a few wins. And if you can really buy into that, it doesn't become the end of the world when your funding doesn't come through, where you don't close the big deal. You realize that there are lessons inside those losses. And the winners, the really good, high-performing athletes, the super successful people know that the wins have way more value. Or sorry, the losses have way more value than the wins. The wins are an actual end result of the loss.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

So you're saying that losses or failures are just data to go forward? And wasn't it um Edison who said he found a thousand ways how to not make a light bulb?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah, 100%. You think that, and we look at things today in innovation like cameras and micro. Do you think that we just made a microphone and just worked right away? That it was the best? No, we learned the things that didn't work. When you're trying something new and you're not that good at it, your instinct right away, your brain, your pre-programmed reptilian brain is like, fuck that. Don't do that again. You're not good at it. You can't skate, you can't do this, you can't play basketball. You're never going to play like this guy, that girl. You have to learn that the loss is so valuable. One of the greatest gifts I give my children is it's okay to fuck up. I care way less about the five out of 10 on a test than they do. It doesn't matter to me. That's one test. What I want is a conversation about why is it only five out of 10? What happened? I didn't study, I didn't put the work in. All right. So now you know what the result is. It's the same thing when we talk about developing ideas and companies and what works and what doesn't. Make a list of all the shit that's not going to work. And then don't do that. So that's the value of learning how to lose. I lost it all. You can't lose any more than I lost. But I'm winning now. And today, I take things, I take losses as an opportunity to make it better. It didn't work, but it's an idea and I know it will work. I just learned how it won't work. That saved me a ton of time.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

So what is a loser then? Is there a definition that you might have? So if somebody's listening kind of could say, like, oh shit, that's what I do. That's me. I need to change. I need to change my view on what losing is.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Here's the real simple answer to that. I believe there are no such things as losers. They are people who do not make commitments to themselves. Period. The difference between winning and losing is making a commitment and sticking to it and not giving yourself permission to have lower standards or an ugh I won't worry about doing that moment and giving up on yourself. You only lose when you give up on yourself and you don't have any standards and you don't have any internal contracts or reasons to be better. You're making a choice to not be a loser, but to just not try. And that is my definition of somebody who's not winning.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Why do we fear losing? Is it the perception we might think other people might have on us? Because I'll be honest, I didn't know that Michael Jordan's stat. And I'm not a massive basketball fan, but I'm a fan. And I only knew of his successes. So to miss that many shots, I had no idea. Right. So are we only focused on our own failures because of what other people might think when they're not even giving a shit about that at all?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

In the sporting world, I guess people do give a shit in a sense of uh, but they certainly when you're great and you're making the big winning shots, or you're making you're forgetting the fact that he had to have the courage to miss 9,000. And I believe it's higher than that. I'm not a huge stat guy. But if you relate that back to your own personal life and what you have going and your first question off the top, are people afraid to lose? You're afraid what winning also feels like. If you win one time, you might have to win again. If you always choose to do nothing and have no action and quote unquote not win by not trying, it's nice and safe and comfortable. Rolling the dice, taking a chance, doing something unique, listening to what's been brought into your spirit, like what you suddenly wake up in the middle of the night passionate about something. That's a message. That's an opportunity for you to try something and you will think about it on the drive to work. You'll think about it and put more time thinking about not doing it than you would actually take the risk because you're afraid of what success looks like. And you'd say, No, I'm not. I want to be successful. And I could give you a million examples of why you're not taking the risk because you like to be comfortable. So I would say that you're not afraid of losing at all. You're afraid of what winning is going to feel like and uh can you repeat it? And that, my friend, is gonna do it for this episode of the Fuck It Shift podcast. Until next time, buddy.