4 Principles of Winning
Let’s start by examining the concept of winning. The leaders of yesteryear espoused “winning at all costs”. Since then, the evolution of mental health awareness has brought light to the power of balance in pursuit of success. Today, we ponder the difference between what was and what is yet to come.
My life’s progression has been an interesting one. I spent my youth as an athlete, my young adulthood leading a Fraternity and the last 25 years in a corporate sales job. These historically male-dominated life choices were rich in competition. As a wrestler, I was faced with the anguish of training, dieting and self-accountability. As a Fraternity leader, I learned the often unfortunate truth of making difficult decisions. In sales, achievement is rewarded with additional challenges. In each of the aforementioned occupations, I learned from my own mistakes to reconsider the virtue of competition.
As a parent in an area that honors youth sports one will witness a variety of coaching methods. Some parent coaches seek to win at all costs while others pull lessons from the sport to help evolve young people for the longer term.
Over time, we hope to learn from all of it!
Here are 4 important lessons I’ve learned over a lifetime of daily competition:
Master the Hard Stuff
In High School I attended a college visit for one of the Universities I sought to attend. There was a buzz in the room of mid-western kids looking to move out west, all in competition with one another for a few coveted spots. One student asked the recruiter, “should we take hard courses and get C’s or easy courses and get A’s”. To which the recruiter replied….
“Take the hard courses and get A’s”
Those 7 words have stayed with me to this day. In any project we take on there is limitless possibility and results beyond what may be imagined. Too often, we limit ourselves by what others have defined to be a logical result. Many of those who advise us have maximized their potential and seek to limit those who come after them to that standard.
When Tiger Woods was interviewed before his first professional tournament a former pro asked him what he thought would be a logical result for his first start on tour, to which he replied…..
This was followed by the reprimanding of the young upstart for even thinking such a thought. We all know how that story turned out.
Possible Is What You Create!
Do Your Fighting In The Ring
By far the biggest mistake I see young professionals make is that they think they have to make an immediate impression when starting a new job. This often comes with hand raising (virtually or in a team meeting) that is designed to show off one’s professional virtue. How often do you hear people ask questions simply to prove they know the answer… ??
Early in my career I was a victim of my own motivation. I took every opportunity to advertise to everyone who would listen how great I was. Leaders and peers alike rolled their eyes every time I pivoted to a new conversation. My heart was in the right place but I didn’t realize that my lack of authenticity was actually hindering my progress. My bravado advertised a lack of trust and exposed ulterior motives.
After misleading myself through the first part of my career, I turned the page. I took on a job in a new industry and left my baggage behind. Through a bunch of great advice, I learned to stay under the radar and do exemplary work. Nothing much happened initially but ultimately people started coming to me to ask about the work I was doing and to offer up new opportunities.
One who is confident in their own ability knows they need not advertise it to others.
Motivation Happens By The Bench or the Basket
My life was forever changed when I took a job in the performance and rewards industry. I was in an interview touting my accomplishment to that point when a VP of Sales who was interviewing me asked me to start the interview over.
“Here, Everybody Wins”
… is what he told me. You’ll need to replace Me with We if you want to work here. I did and I did and everything changed.
Here’s where the value of competition hit critical mass for me. I realized that being competitive works when you know what you are fighting for. If you value a higher purpose towards which your effort is being extended victory is always the end result. If you are competing simply to impress others (or worse yet to prove them wrong); nobody wins.
Be Humble in Victory and Accountable in Defeat
When you truly master your trade, you get to share your success. This is the greatest gift anyone can be granted. It takes a long time to achieve the results to gratify the privilege and the self-actualization to turn Me into We, but when you do, work will never be work again.
Work is a team sport. We rely on others to succeed. Often the seemingly least important team member becomes equally accountable to the team’s success. Those who are self-motivated have a hard time accepting when the “lesser” of our colleagues are responsible for the team losing. It happens and when it does, we are naturally prone to seek the responsible party. Here’s the thing, people know when they have failed, calling them out or reminding them of it only makes the accuser look like a loser.
Those who are truly successful have learned to take responsibility for everyone. To build up those who have under-performed so they can learn to do better. To under-inflate their personal contributions so as to ignore stating the obvious.
The commitment to winning is a convoluted concept. We are taught to train hard, game plan and produce results. Sometimes the more-talented lose to those who simply recognize a grander purpose in their effort. Other times, those who receive the trophy don’t deserve it. But, in the end, trophies gather dust and those who do not progress beyond their achievements end up on a long plateau.
Losers can prosper and winners sometimes live only in a moment of false confidence. What we learn from the competition and how we apply it to the next game is what genuinely matters.
Be Willing To Be Better….. Because You Can!
- Dave
