In sports, grabbing victory from the jaws of defeat is uniquely heralded and celebrated. It happens just as often in the real world but doesn’t usually get the same attention.

That sweet feeling of success is exactly what Clark County residents Laura Freeman and Ben Pasley have found.

In 2015 the business partners decided to try something new by participating in a hemp pilot program on 13 acres of organic farmland.

The experiment failed. Badly.

But rather than give up, they chose to keep pushing forward, instead finding an opportunity to create Laura’s Mercantile and now partnering with Ruth Hunt Candies of Mount Sterling to offer prepackaged hemp chocolates.

The company offers three candy products currently: dark chocolate raspberry bark, chocolate wafers and chocolate truffles.

They have also fought hard to overcome the negative perceptions and stigma tied to the fact people incorrectly associate hemp with marijuana.

That is exactly the kind of entrepreneurial spirit America was built on.

We applaud their tenacity and ingenuity. Hopefully this inspires other business owners — or those who have a dream to become one — to push through adversity and find the opportunity in the failures.

Again, sports usually offer great lessons that transcend the game but mirrors life.

Michael Jordan is almost universally regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time, winning six national championships with the Chicago Bulls.

But he also didn’t make his high school varsity team as a sophomore, instead getting sent to play on the JV.

That adversity became his fuel, driving him to reach higher.

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed,” Jordan said in a voice over of a now iconic Nike commercial. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

That spirit is what allows our small businesses to succeed on the court of life, where the stakes are much higher.