I remember once when a "friend" invited me to participate in a project with her. I got fired in the middle of the project on location in Chicago. Later she told me, she was behind the firing. She had wanted the entire work to herself. In the end, she lost the client and she lost my friendship. The moral of this story, You don't win by eliminating the competition. You win by winning. You win by being better than the competition.
So what does winning look like? Here is what I have learned.
I win by losing sometimes. Some would call it throwing the game. I choose battles in business and ultimately it is about winning more of them than losing. I don't want to be perceived as an opportunist. Why? Because nobody will want to work with you. I look at business as an advancement across the field, putting points on the board and money in the bank. I don't have to have all of anything. There are so many ways to make money. My eggs are NEVER all in the same basket.
I don't work with people who only look like me, think like me, act like me and live like me. Why you ask again? Because I don't grow this way. I grow by not knowing everything. I grow by asking you to teach me that!
I live to learn from others. I am not that one who wants to look like I am wiinning. I want to actually win!
To win, it takes patience, lots and lots of patience. The vultures can smell anxiety, just like they can smell weakness. Winning is a deliberate process. It means letting some bones go flying over your head. It means saying no thank you to ideas and opportunities that may look good on the surface. A true gladiator wants most of all to get into the center of the colliseum and to be carried out alive. Being eaten alive in that colliseum is blood sport and a few cheers! That is it!
Winning is back breaking, mind boggling, never-ceasing work. Everyone will say they want it, but so few of us excercise the discipline to dive in and wrestle it to the ground. It is lonely out here for winners. And we are all losing until the moment we win!