#winning #winners #athletes #achievers #WinningAttitudes #GoodPeople
“Winning isn’t for everyone,” says a Nike ad.
Various iterations of that ad campaign asks questions like, “Are you a good person?” The ad campaign was recently featured on the just finished Olympic Games TV coverage.
The implications are that “winners,” largely referring to athletes who win medals, are focused only on winning and believe they can beat anyone.
Therefore, a winning attitude involves a bit of cockiness as well as hard work, a lot of practice etc.
However, even the best of athletes don’t win EVERY time they compete. How they react when they don’t win says a lot about them.
Most accept defeat graciously, congratulate those who win etc. These actions actually make them good people. A few look for things, other than their own performance, to blame for their loss. The conditions weren’t good, someone cheated etc.
For the non-athletes among us, winning may be defined differently.
In such cases, being a good person may make you a winner. Humbly giving of oneself, whether or not he or she gets something in return, can make that person a winner.
Those focused more on helping others win are winners themselves.
Someone may become a winner in the corporate world or other business. That person’s true victory may come in how he or she uses what his or her winnings have wrought.
Are you using the money you’ve made or the success you have achieved ONLY to enrich yourself?
Or, are you taking care of yourself, then giving the rest back to your community?
In another ad, the message is that no one wins by himself or herself. There is usually a team of people – family, friends, coaches, sponsors, teammates etc. – so involved in one’s journey that he or she probably could not have won without them.
So, even individual competitions can be “team” sports.
An adage in business is that one may be in business for himself, or herself, but one is almost never in business by himself or herself.
Those who help others succeed often reap winnings, even if they don’t set out to get them.
Bette Midler famously sings, “You are the wind beneath my wings.” Those who fit that category are often the real winners, even when others get all the accolades and glory,
So, winning may not be for everyone, as the ad says, but everybody can be a winner.
Everyone can strive to be the best he or she can be, in whatever he or she chooses to do.
It’s also worth remembering that for some, no matter how badly they may want to be an athlete, opera singer etc., a certain amount of God-given talent is required. If you don’t have it, desire and determination alone won’t make it happen.
But, everyone can find something he or she can achieve, put the desire, determination and hard work into it and get it.
What is that for you? Only you can decide.
Peter