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Winning and Losing
How to learn, grow, and flourish, win or lose
Recently, the runner-up in the French Open Final Tennis match said Coco Gauff, the winner, only won because she, the loser, made unforced errors. Aryna Sabalenka is ranked #1 in the world, and this is the excuse she gives for losing? You would think that she would have learned a bit more about competition by now. Chris Evert, a retired #1 tennis great, must have felt that Aryna’s excuse didn’t hold water; she commented that at this level of play, one would know how to perform in all conditions. “If you are #1 or #2 in the world, you should know how to play on windy days by now”. Chris Evert
What would you think if another company got the winning bid instead of your team? Hopefully, you would analyze how the winning offer bested your team’s. You can learn oftentimes more from losing, and definitely more than from denying and deflecting. Making excuses for failing, instead of searching for why someone else was successful, is counterproductive to improving for the future.
Decades ago, when I was Vice President of Nike’s apparel & accessories division, we sealed an agreement with Major League Baseball to produce an MLB line of apparel and accessories. We launched the line with great expectations from our retailers and ourselves internally. We had tremendous demand and sales of our…
