Winning is Not an Olympic Event—
It’s a Way of Life

Winning in life requires the same mindset—or what I refer to as “mindshift”—as getting the gold at the Olympics. Whether you play to win (offensively) or you play not to lose (defensively), the choice is yours. If you don’t think big, your goals may be self-limiting and thus may be sabotaging your potential success. Cooperation is essential, but often your compromise may be complacency in disguise—or what I refer to as “comfortable misery.”

If Alexander the Great had referred to himself as Alexander the Average, his biography would probably be marketed as a sleep aid. Winning begins with how you see yourself, and a powerful name does expand your vision of greatness. We tend to see things not as they are but as we are.

Winners think big, aim high, and see life as a feast of opportunities and endless possibilities. If you resent the rich and famous, I can promise that you will never be one of them. The differences between winners with wealth and those who are struggling is simply that those with wealth move ahead in spite of their fears and refuse to allow doubt and uncertainty to stop them. It is only when we stretch beyond our comfort zone and go beyond what is convenient that we experience the joy of growing. If you’re working too hard for too little, you probably need to change your financial blueprint.

While lottery winners lose their money almost as fast as they make it, people who have earned billions of dollars seem to get it back as quickly as they lose it. As Donald Trump confirmed, “To be a winner you must think like a winner and never quit.” It is when your actions bridge the inner world of intentions with your outer world that you enjoy the results you desire. Your motivation and behavior is sustained by your hope of the outcome.

One of the worst things you can do is believe you cannot do something and yet continue to persist.

Either change your belief system or stop doing it, unless you find pleasure in proving yourself right about your wrongs. Don’t be fooled by your own denial, for a realist is actually a pessimist who refuses to admit it. Informed optimism is the only creative and productive state of mind that will move you forward and give you life advances and your personal Olympic gold.

Seven Steps to Stop Whining and Start Winning

1. Do a weekly personal audit for continual self-examination. To know more, you must notice more and as you notice more options, you create more opportunities. You must connect the dots and roll the dice to beat the odds. You need to continually hit the delete and reset button to reprogram your mind.

2. Stop dancing on peanut butter. Losing a game does not make you a loser. Failures are instructive. Never compare yourself to others, as you will always come up second and become identified with that losing station in life. You must also recognize when enough is enough.

3. Have a Plan B. More than optimism, you must always have options or a backup plan to ease out of the safety of your comfort zone. Winners are creative, resourceful, and solution-oriented thinkers. Learn to turn obstacles into opportunities.

4. Dwell in possibility. If you don’t like the print out, change the blueprint. To achieve your dreams and get your desired results, you must first change your thinking. Just as good thoughts cannot produce bad results, bad thoughts cannot produce good results.

5. There are no shortcuts to success. No rules for success will work unless you do. More than desire, success requires awareness, focus, and discipline. Success leaves clues. Before going bad, things first go slowly. However, when success becomes your goal, you will lose it.

6. “You are just a pencil in the hand of God,” as proclaimed by Mother Teresa. Never retire, but rather redirect. What doesn’t grow, dies. We learn, we earn, and then return. Beyond success, your rise to significance will only be discovered through service, so pay it forward. Make your funeral just an early retirement party.

7. Success is a conscious choice. Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. When your desires dominate your fears, you will move in the direction of your destiny to leave a legacy. Bash on regardless!

You can see further from the shoulders of giants;
hang out with people of greatness.

You become like those with whom you associate and thus you must be select in choosing both personal friendship and business partners. No one climbs “success mountain” alone: partner for prosperity. To magnify your talents and multiply your efforts, you must create partnerships, teams, and a support system that maintains momentum and synergy.

Winners make choices rather than sacrifices, for what they give up in honor of their passion is a cherished tradeoff. When you are in sync with your instincts and have discovered your core genius or soul’s code, you truly become unstoppable. A singer must sing, a writer must write, and a dancer must dance. Everyone must sing his or her song.

Like the Olympics, life does not always deal us the hand that we deserve. Many heroic champions such as Gilda Radner never fought for the gold but begged for the privilege of living and continuing her life’s purpose—to make people laugh. American philosopher William James confirmed Gilda’s zest for making a difference: “The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.” For Gilda and many others, winning can eventually become merely surviving.

Never sell yourself short, only act with integrity, and never, never, never quit. In my book, Winning! How Winners Think—What Champions Do,* I interviewed over a hundred winners from all walks of life who echoed the same refrain: “Just give it your best shot.” Winning is simply your own definition of triumph. It is the celebration of life as expressed by Lakota Su:

“Remember my children when you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced; but live your life so when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.”