“The man who makes the acquisition of wealth the goal and ultimatum of his life, seeing it as an end rather than a means to an end, is not true. Why does the world usually make wealth the criterion of success, and riches the synonym of attainment? Real success in life means the individual’s conquest of himself; it means “how he has bettered himself” not “how he has bettered his fortune.” The great question of life is not ‘What have I?’ but ‘What am I.’” ~ William George Jordan
There is a mountain of difference between the motivation “being the best I can be” and “being better than others.” The former is based on the law of eternal progress while the latter is fraught with seeds of failure.
When you greet the challenges a hand in the spirit of “being the best you can be” you take the high road, always. You are concerned with integrity, the establishment of a firm foundation and the incorporation of previous successes. When you seek to “be the best that you can be” you are not consumed with competition, comparison or envy, in fact, such spirits would be the first to be rejected were you focused on giving your highest and finest in any given moment.
I appreciated our President’s recent call to action on jobs, though I am leery about the rhetoric chosen to emphasize the point. Rallying your troops around the goal of besting an enemy or an opponent as he did in his comments relative to China or Korea for example, is a hook that will likely catch in the fleshy cheeks of many, but why stoop to that level when the same if not more progress could be made in the long run taking a more noble approach, namely, asking how we can better ourselves in relation to how we’ve been performing up until this moment?
The same question could be asked in relation to children learning a sport. The heart of competition lies within the individual himself. In my sporting experience, I’ve noticed that greater dividends are paid when I seek to challenge myself to give just a little more, perform just a little better and improve my contribution each time I step on the field or court and into the ring. Competition to me is not me trying to be better than another, rather, it is me trying to best my finest performance up to that point.
When you work with a group of individuals who share the same goal of constantly improving themselves in every situation, you find that the collective progress is much greater than it would be were you to seek progress on the basis of beating another group. This individual-centric spirit of competition is alive and well in my companies, and the atmosphere generated by such an approach tends to be less polluted by the usual side-effects of the traditional competitive model.
We, for instance, hope that every company in our industry does their very best to serve the customer base we share. Our sales team never speaks ill of our competitors, for so doing is time and energy wasted that could have been applied to improving our own contribution. The typical inter-departmental tensions you might find in a corporate environment are more easily worked with, for it is not sales against admin, operations against finance and so on. Every individual and every grouping of individuals is dedicated to the aim of constant improvement, not in comparison to another, but in comparison to their previous accomplishments.
Sure we have our moments and yes, we do have room for improvement, but to the degree the individuals that compose any team or grouping recognize that self-conquest is a higher goal than conquest of another or of the acquisition of wealth, the less likely it is that those areas of momentary friction will calcify into chronic areas of debilitating weakness. When self-conquest is the goal, the so-called “no-fly zones” can finally be erased from the map.
The United States of America became a great nation because it recognized the power that can be released when the individual pursues happiness by way of self-conquest. If we allow ourselves to devolve into a nation-state peopled by envious, conniving, back-stabbers hell-bent on regaining the pole position in the race of global leadership, we will surely lose the sight of the golden thread of clear reason handed to us by our forefathers.
Imagine a world where every single person gave his best without concern for how it placed him in relation to his peers. The whole world would be lifted up, as opposed to the baser approach where some must lose so that others can win. Do you have it in you to reach for the highest and finest of which you are capable in any given moment, regardless of the nature of that which surrounds you? I think so. Nay, I know so.
Give it a shot this week and let me know if you see a difference in your personal experience. I look forward to hearing how it goes!
Gregory Hake 
I will! Wonderful post, thank you.
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Thanks for defining the real bar we each should be concerned to reach and better. Really enjoyed this post!
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There ‘s the old saying …when you ‘re finished doing your best, you’re finished! Thanks for the post.
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I Had a similar thought when I heard the President’s jobs plan. Why can’t we become unified to be a better country because the alternative is going in the other direction. Nothing stays the same; let’s improve because it’s the intelligent way to live.
Love the post, thanks.
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Love this post. Many talented, hard working individuals have failed to be all they could because while their aim was sometimes peerless, they had the wrong target. It always comes back to the fact we can be our own worst enemy or most valuable asset.
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Having spent my entire adult life in sales I applaud this approach to competition. I’ve always felt sorry for those that allowed themselves to play the role as the “loser” missing the opportunity to refine the skills that would have improved their performance because they put their efforts and attention on diminishing their “competition”, whether it was co-workers or other companies. This approach always results in desecration of the one who adopts this strategy. Even with the anonymity of the Internet this result still plays out. Just recently I saw one hair salon try to sabotage the success of a neighboring one. The slanderer ended up closing it’s doors after a concerted effort on all the available social media to ruin their neighbor. If they had spent that time investiture (time=$ in business) on improving their service to the clients they did attract, they would have enjoyed success and raised the level of the offering of their industry in that area. Restaurant row in NYC is successful in part by the reputation of the “foodie” neighborhood as a group, then each restaurant has the opportunty to define their positioning.
Competing with others as a life, business or parenting strategy is faulty from the start. Thanks for the post!
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This principle is golden and will go a long way to also ending depression and self-esteem issues. I operated a fitness business for children that operated on this philosophy. We never had the children compete against each other, the were no losers, ever. The children week to week got to beat their own times while running next to each other through a variety of obstacles, it never even phased one or the other if someone got to the finish line before them because we had trained them to run back and look at the clock to celebrate themselves for doing better than their previous time.There were nothing but smiles on the faces if these children. Parents over and over again mentioned how excited their children were as test grades improved, diets improved and health was attained.Parents were astonished at their childrens committment to an activity, where in the past many of them quit or were discouraged playing other competitive sports. I believe that this is the path to eternal progress for us as individuals and for our country as a whole. Can we learn to refocus our thoughts on “being the best we can be” even in such a competitive and violent world? It’s worth the effort!! Thank you.
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You sure have to know you can do better, then want to do better, before you do better. The question is ultimately where does the motivation come from. Is it based on an external stick and carrot, or is it an internal discontent of sorts? I suppose there is a need for frictions to help with the process of improvement, and the greater the challenges the greater you can become. But if the focus is on winning and beating another in order to be better, then it easy to see that self-importance rather than self-conquest and self-improvement is what wins and so the ego is unnaturally exalted further distancing you from self-mastery – the ultimate accomplishment. In sport, what about the idea that you want your opponent to do well so that you can do well, better than before? Not have your opponent miss so that you can win….. We must lose the weighted focus on outcome and focus on the moment, free to explore with abandon because in being relaxed we find often the extra gear we’ve been looking for. I believe competition can be healthy but really if it is primarily directed at yourself.
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