Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”
And, when talking about what there is to be proud of after a loss, Derek Jeter once said to me, “What did you accomplish, you lost?”
But to tell you the truth, I don’t necessarily agree.
The biggest obstacles in life are often the biggest springboards towards achieving something great.
Understand how important it is to have a winning attitude because you can’t have a positive and negative thought at the same time. The average person has 60,000 thoughts a day…that’s over 420,000 a week! How many of them are you cluttering with negativity?
I think the biggest mistake people make is that they don’t think they should ever lose. Sometimes it’s a blessing to lose. With every loss there is silver lining to be found.
Losing is not the opposite of winning. The people who understand losing but don’t accept it are the ones on a fast track to success.
Ask yourself this: would you rather win the game by 30 points or play your best, most competitive game but lose by 2 points? Clyde Frazier told me some of his favorite games were the ones he lost against Earl Monroe because he liked the challenge. Earl brought out the best in him every time they played and he knew he had to play his absolute best defense to stop and control his offense in order to win the game.
In order words, embrace all results. No matter the outcome, think "what can I learn?" Sometimes it is okay to lose as long as you don't lose the lesson.
Losing is a blueprint for winning. Being able to work through losing will make you an even bigger winner in the long run.
Winning may be everything, but losing is everything too. What is an important loss you encountered and what did you learn from it? Did it help you in the future?
Where he loses instead of winning