The Winner’s Journey Is More Than Counting Money

Our society counts success in the most narrow and self-defeatist terms

UNSCRIPTED By Keith Edmonds
Fort Wayne Ink Spot

Recently, I just sat and thought about why winning has become such a dominant paradigm in our society and if success and winning go hand-in-hand. Do you have to experience the gut-wrenching loss and the pain that comes with it first, to appreciate how good winning makes you feel? Do winning and losing parallel each other, or are they so far apart in the spectrum of life that they won’t or shouldn’t ever cross?

I’ve thought about several aspects of “the science of winning” as I approached this column and have concurred that it just can’t be as simplistic as, winning makes your life feel better no more than losing means your life will be miserable.

Being a former athlete, I’ve experienced first-hand, the ups and downs that come with winning and losing, and why it’s important to keep balance in your life. We admire athletes that consistently win as it shows a level of superiority or dominance: Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady and LeBron James.

But outside of sports what names immediately come to mind when you think of winners? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jay-Z, and Drake would be people that I believe are associated with “winners” based on their business acumen, financial success and cultural influence.

Does having a certain amount of money or influence equate to winning? Let me ask it in a different way, if I accumulate a certain amount of money will society look at me any differently than the professional athlete that seems to always find themselves on the “winners” podium?

I happen to think that teachers—yes teachers—are winners.

I am fortunate to have been an athlete who experienced some success individually and with a team but due to injuries did not fulfill my desires to be rich. Yet, I really feel that my greatest successes have come from coaching, where I guided young people to follow their dreams with passion. This ultimately gives them the feeling of “I did it!” I feel a sense of honor and validation in my work.

Isn’t that winning?

Keep in mind that everyone has their eyes on a tangible trophy rather than an ephemeral idea. In our society, winning is the “ultimate” thing, and losing is undesirable. So, is it money, fame, instant recognition, or notoriety that makes winning so much fun, or ridicule, scourge, or discomfort that makes losing so awful? Why is it so important?

In today’s world all I ever hear is how tired people are of being less than they know they're capable of being, and how much they want more success and fulfillment as they strive to reach their goals, but what's the end game? It can’t simply be to have more money. As the Notorious B. I. G. put so eloquently “Mo money, mo problems.”

Just stop and think about your own life. Do you have things to complete today, an unreached goal that you set some time ago? Are you coming to the end of a journey you’ve been on for some time? Aren’t all these things associated with winning?

Each of us wants to experience the thrill of victory as much as possible in our lives and how that thrill comes will be for each of us to interpret in our own inhibitable way. Society has norms that we quickly become aware of growing up and one of those norms is “Winning is far better than losing.”

How this looks may not be gold or silver, but it just may be peace of mind. As I heard my grandmother Louise Tanner—who will be 100 years old in August—say: “Boy run your own race. Don’t worry about what folks on the left or right of you are doing. So make yourself happy. ‘Cause at the end of the day you have to live with you when you lay down at night.”

Now that’s a winner to me!