When I was a child, I was a big sports fan. I loved tennis and soccer, to a greater extent, but also almost all other sports. And competition fascinated me. When I was young, I competed in tennis, futsal, paddle tennis, and when I was older in golf, and I love competition. The adrenaline of the championships, the nerves, the tension and trying to win. And as a fan, especially of my soccer team, I love competition. In other words, I love it when my team wins, and it bothers me a lot when it loses. I guess it happens to all fans of a team or player.
Said Vince Lombardi, one of the best sports coaches in history, “if winning is not everything, why do we count the points of the match?” He also said another great quote “winning is not everything, it is the only thing”. And I think these ideas make a lot of sense. If you analyze the best athletes, and the great coaches, they are all great if they win. When they stop winning, when they start losing, all the problems start. The tyranny of victory, the need to win, is one of the essential characteristics in the world of sports. But sport is a zero-sum game. That is, for one team to win, the other must lose.
Over time, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that MOST ASPECTS OF LIFE ARE NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME. That is, for someone to win, no one must lose. And this feature completely changes the importance of winning.
In the business world.
- You can win and so can your competitors.
- You can do your job very well, which does not mean that others have to do it badly.
- You improve without harming anyone. On the contrary, probably with your improvements in any field, you will cause your fellow travelers, your competitors, to improve as well. And this seems like a great idea. Because improving allows you to take the focus off others and put all your attention on yourself. Forget the rest and focus only on your performance, on your personal growth. You can win without anyone having to lose. And it’s a wonderful approach.
The day you realize this powerful idea, many things start to change. YOU CAN DEFINE YOUR OWN CONCEPT OF VICTORY, YOUR OWN CONCEPT OF WINNING. For some people it is to improve, for others to give everything and for others it is to participate. And I have realized both in first person, and accompanying businessmen, managers, and professionals, that if you focus on yourself and forget about others, it is much easier to achieve results, but above all, to find meaning in everything that you do. Do not compete against anyone but yourself.
Face challenges with a positive attitude, thinking about how to give your best version. Plato said thousands of years ago that “The first and best victory is to conquer oneself.” It is a clear example of the importance of forgetting about your competitors and focusing on yourself. And it is also essential to sacrifice and strive to improve. Mahatma Gandhi said that “the reward lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory”. And the truth is that it seems to me a much more interesting vision of the concept of winning. Understand victory as effort, sacrifice, and hard work. If you forget about others and focus on giving yourself body and soul to the project at hand, you will win regardless of the results you achieve. If these are positive it will be great, and if you don’t get what you want but you try to get it, you won’t have lost. You will have nothing to reproach yourself with. You’ll go to the locker room with the feeling that you’ve tried your best and you’ve “sweat the shirt completely”. And I am convinced that this feeling is indeed winning. The way I see it, WINNING ISN’T EVERYTHING. DOING YOUR BEST IS.
And I finish with another quote from Vince Lombardi that I love and faithfully reflects my understanding of victory: “winners never give up and those who give up never win.”
