I’ve found that in business, and in life, you get a lot of points for just trying. People generally respect how hard it is to put yourself out there and give it a swing.

A few decades ago, my boss asked me to get up and give a ten-minute presentation to about twenty people at a conference as part of his larger presentation. I was terrified. Twenty people all watching my every move and judging my results.

My short presentation was on the last day of a four-day conference, so I spent the first three days paying close attention to the other speakers. What I mostly noticed was how poor most of the speakers were; monotone, reading from their slides, and no hint of trying to be entertaining. I had really not noticed this before, but now that I was actively paying attention it was obvious.

I quickly realized that no one else noticed either. Or, I should say that boring, poorly given presentations are so much the expectation that when a presentation is dull it’s unremarkable.

More to the point, when I asked people how they felt about these presentations they would say, “At least the presenters were willing to get up there.” That’s when I realized that public speaking is so feared among most people that anyone willing to do it at all is well thought of by most people.

I’ve given dozens, if not hundreds, of talks over the years- some to close to a thousand people. I try very hard to be funny and engaging, I sweat over the content, check timing, and rehearse some of the jokes. I’ve received many great compliments on my speaking, yet I still get nervous every time I go on stage. I remind myself that no matter how bad I am, just getting up on stage and talking to a large group will bring me praise. The rest is all icing on the cake.

This same concept holds true with many things in life. When Woody Allen said “90% of success in life is just showing up”, this is likely what he meant. It’s definitely what Wayne Gretzky meant when he said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

It all seems pretty straightforward; you can’t succeed unless you try. So why don’t people try? Because the opposite is also true; you can’t fail unless you try. I’ve talked about how “anything worth doing is worth doing badly”, but what if you do it so badly that people laugh at you? If it’s a presentation, you might have dozens or hundreds of people judging you harshly.

In human society, social standing is very important. “Showing up” is essential to success and climbing that ladder, but it’s also possible to fail badly enough in the right situations to cause you to slide down that ladder. As I also discussed previously, people tend to value losses twice as strongly as gains. Therefore, if the chances of success and failure are equal, it makes a lot of sense to never try. Think of it this way: if you had an investment that had a 50% chance of making 10% and a 50% chance of losing 20%, you’d be a sucker to take that bet.

We can all think of people who have made that bet and lost, especially in this age of social media. People who have said the wrong things publicly and have lost everything. But these tend to be people who are already big public figures, not regular people. That said, in the internet era this has changed a bit. When any anonymous troll can, and will, criticize anything you put on the internet, it can feel as though putting yourself out there is like putting up a lightning rod in a thunderstorm, almost certain to draw the wrong sort of attention.

My experience, however, has been that most people react positively, and those who don’t react online often say the most positive things in person. Further, I find that the positive reaction people have towards you because you put yourself out there means that, even if what you are trying to do falls flat, it’s still worth brownie points. It would be like if taking a shot on goal in hockey was worth 1/10^th of a point; sure, it’d be worth a lot more if it’s on target and gets by the goalie, but it’s worth something no matter what. Plus, the only way to get better at something is to get out there and do it. Practice, practice, practice.

Kurt, a friend of mine and an analyst at a major tech firm, used to say, ‘Our analysis shows that a company has a 50% chance of a positive outcome if they take action. They have a 25% chance of a positive outcome if they don’t take action. The odds are heavily weighted towards taking action’. While I never saw his analysis, nor any of the caveats or conditions with it, my personal experience has shown this to be largely true.

In short, the simple act of trying often garners as much respect and admiration as good execution. Whether giving a presentation or facing life’s various challenges, the courage to step forward and attempt something is highly valued. Just making the effort, regardless of the outcome, is a significant part of achieving success. This holds true across much of life,  reinforcing the idea that taking action is worth it, even if the results aren’t always what we expect.