Winning.
It doesn’t care how much you work. It doesn’t care how disciplined you are. It doesn’t care how much you want it. It doesn’t care how far you’ve come. It doesn’t care about your age or sex or gender. It doesn’t care if you’re doing the right things in the right ways for the right reasons. It doesn’t care about your feelings. It doesn’t care about your sanity. It doesn’t care about your health. Winning doesn’t care about you at all. Not one iota. Nada. None.
Even with its brutal ways, it’s put on a pedestal. The one thing everyone seems to be after. It’s the North Star. The thrones seat. The highest power. It controls us like nothing else. It determines what we do, how we feel, and the way we live our lives. Outside of religion, there may be no more powerful force in the world. Football coach Red Saunders explained, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
When you make winning the only thing that matters, you give yourself up to fate. Winning is made up of factors, some within your control, and some outside of your control. You can do everything in your power to win. You can prepare. You can be obsessed. You can be consistent. But you can still lose because winning doesn't give a shit.
Your opponent might just be better than you.
Someone on your team might drop the ball.
The economy might hit the wall.
Outside factors exist. It’s why winning doesn’t play favorites because it can’t. Winning is not something you have control over, not entirely.
The goal isn’t to make winning your everything, it’s to follow what Ted Turner said,
“I don’t think winning is everything...I think trying to win is what counts.”
When you give it everything you have. When you make the right decisions. When you put yourself out there and take some risks. When everything in your power has been exerted, that’s winning. What happens outside of that, the result, that’s what we call fate. Anything outside of your control should never play a significant role in how you determine success or failure, winning or losing, victory or defeat.
“Success occurs in the privacy of the soul,” explains music producer Rick Rubin. “It comes in the moment you decide to release the work, before exposure to a single opinion. When you’ve done all you can to bring out the world's greatest potential. When you’re pleased and ready to let go.”
That’s winning.
It’s not holding the trophy. It’s not holding the highest position. It’s not rising up the charts. Winning is the realization that you deployed everything you had. If it leads to the world's idea of winning. Great. If it doesn't. Great. It doesn't matter because you win either way.
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