In most things we do we perceive there is a winner and a loser. Someone ends up on top and someone else not so much. 2 teams play and 1 wins. When I do something on my own I can say I won or I lost. The games we play and the interactions we have all have the perception of a winner and a loser.

But life is not a zero-sum game. There is not a fixed pile of wins for us to compete over. As a matter of fact, there may be no winners or no losers. This doesn’t mean everyone gets a trophy by the way. Just because you played doesn’t mean you won. UNLESS you learned something. There’s your trophy…new knowledge you didn’t have before. You still didn’t get to do the victory dance but you took something home that may be more valuable than the trophy.

You need to be willing to lose, to fail, in order to learn the lessons that will be required to win. This is the real lesson of the “trophy generation”…they have no idea how to learn from not winning. No idea how to take the lessons of failure, apply the learning, and go back to risk it again and again, learning more every time.

Learn something from every interaction…good and bad, winning and losing, defeat and victory and I will guarantee a win every time.

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412