As a New York Yankees fan, it has been a delight to watch Derek Jeter over past 16 seasons. Regardless of winning or losing, or you hating the Yankees, Jeter is a great player who has a lot of qualities we founders and entrepreneurs can learn from. I wrote about that back in the day. Today, I read an interview with Jeter, who is entering the 2011 season after a lackluster 2010. Reminded me, why his attitude towards the game is the difference maker and we could all take a cue

Good or bad, you have to forget about what happened the previous year. Once you’re satisfied, you’re in trouble. I don’t think negative. If that’s the case, why are we playing? Let’s just plug everyone’s names into a computer. If everyone knows what’s going to happen, what are we all doing here?

To put it in some perspective, I quote this bit from Ben Horowitz’s latest blog post, who should be more known for his Opsware CEO gig, that he is for his VC firm, Andreessen Horowitz.

Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say: “I didn’t quit.

Like Jeter.