Close But No Cigar

In the late 19th century, carnival games were built for adults, not kids. No giant stuffed animals. No plush giraffes. If you won, you might walk away with a cigar. If you didn’t quite get there, you got nothing. That is where the phrase close but no cigar comes from. Almost good enough. Not quite.

Life can be the same way. Careers. Startups. Investments. Relationships. They are filled with near misses. Deals that almost closed. Promotions that almost landed. Ideas that almost worked. And yes, the occasional complete train wreck.

Our culture celebrates winners. First place. Unicorns. IPOs. Best in class. We rarely talk about the second place finishers. Or the ones who came up just short. That is a mistake. Because the gap between winning and almost winning is often razor thin. For example, a nose in horse racing. A fraction of a second in the Olympics. A single decision in business.

Why does one person win and another come close? It is not always talent. It is my observation that it is preparation. Focus. Repetition. And sometimes a bit of luck.

I once knew a psychotherapist who had an interesting side business. He coached elite athletes. World class performers. His view was simple. To compete at the highest level, you need two things.

First, near perfect preparation. Not perfection. But close. That comes from disciplined, repeated practice. Over and over. Done right, practice turns the big moment into just another repetition. Another swing. Another throw. Another execution.

Second, positive imagery. He would tell me that what you focus on expands. If you see success, if you visualize the outcome, if your internal voice is aligned with winning, your odds improve. Not guaranteed. But improved. Flip that around. If your mind is filled with doubt, fear, or the memory of past mistakes, you are already behind. The body tends to follow the mind.

Close. But not close enough. This is the part we do not say out loud. Almost winning still matters. It means you were in the game. It means you were competitive. It means you were one adjustment away. That is not failure. That is feedback.

In my world, I have seen countless founders who were close. The product was good. The team was capable. The opportunity was real. But something was off. Timing. Messaging. Focus. Or just a bit of bad luck.

The winners made one more adjustment. So the next time you come up short, do not dismiss it. Study it. What was missing? What was learned? What gets refined? Because the distance between close and winning is often smaller than it feels.

And the next time you step up, it may not be close but no cigar.

It may just be the win.

John Bradley Jackson
© 2026 All rights reserved.

P.S. An idiom is a group of words, a saying, or a phrase with a symbolic rather than literal meaning that is widely recognized and used in everyday language. Example: piece of cake, when pigs fly, etc. It is a form of artistic expression characteristic of a movement, period, individual, medium, or instrument. By the way, English as spoken in the USA, is full of idioms. This befuddles many non-native speakers. Source: theidioms.com