Chris Marquardt of Alston & Bird. (Courtesy photo)

Five years ago, I read an interview with Kobe Bryant in The New York Times. I bracketed one of his quotes with a red pen and brought it to my office. It's been in the top drawer of my desk ever since.

During the interview, Kobe shared a story about a realization his daughter had used to overcome test anxiety at school. The gist of the anecdote was this: The test might be hard, but once it's done, it's done. You don't look back. You move on.

The reporter then asked Kobe if he had used that same approach to make clutch shots in the NBA. Kobe said yes, and answered this way: "There's an infinite groove. Whether you make the shot or miss the shot is inconsequential."

That has stuck with me, and here's what I understood him to mean. We can excel in the clutch by knowing we'll continue to shoot, no matter what, when that "clutch" moment has passed. It will pass. There will be another clutch moment to prepare for the following day. We'll get another shot. We need the courage to take it.

As I thought about that quote again following his death, I checked Kobe's career stats. During his 20-year NBA run, he missed more shots than he made. In fact, he missed more than two-thirds of his 3-point attempts. He shot a lot; he missed a lot. Do any of those misses on the basketball court matter now? No, they don't. Could he have been a Hall of Fame player if he had paralyzed himself with worry about shots he had taken and missed? No. Never.

Over the last few days, I've had this discussion with several of my law partners. They have observed that, as Type A lawyers, our instinctual response can be to focus more on the errors or misses, rather than what we can do to maximize the next opportunity for ourselves and our clients.

They have affirmed that trial lawyers can't be afraid of losing. We may lose some, but we prepare to be the best, to fight the good fight and to lace 'em up for the next fight. They have likened the concept of the infinite groove to the famous quote from Teddy Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" speech:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

We all miss shots in our lives; Lord knows I do. Despite hard work and obsessive preparation and all the effort we can muster, the ball's going to bounce out many times. We can learn from the misses, of course, but we have to believe they often don't matter. We have to keep going. We can't think about the misses when we take the next shot. And we have to be ready to take it.

I try to remind myself this when I strive for things in my life. Whether I make the shot or miss the shot is often inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. What matters is that I work hard. (My dad taught me that.) What matters is that I keep shooting.

The deaths of Kobe Bryant, his beautiful daughter and the others with them on the helicopter Sunday morning remind us we won't be here forever—on this earthly court, at least. We don't know when, but the clock will eventually run out on all of us. What we leave behind will be a legacy of our best efforts, not our worst days, I hope, and the impact those efforts have had on the ones we love.

Let's all keep shooting.

Chris Marquardt leads the labor and employment group at Alston & Bird and is a former Princeton University basketball player.