Losing is the Solution

August 31, 2018

I hate to lose.

That’s what great champions say, or so I’ve heard.

The hate gives them the fuel to fight to the death, all in the name of not taking a loss. That’s what makes them great.

And if we could only embrace that maniacal mindset of hating losing like they do, all our dreams will come true, right?

Wrong.

Hating losing is a losing proposition.

Sure, it can work in the very short term. We can hate the person we’re competing against and that hate might make us grind a little harder to get a win.

But it will fail us in the end.

No matter how much we hate or how much we strive to avoid it, losing is going to happen. It’s inevitable. Not dealing with it is not a solution.

For example, we can hate losing money due to taxes. And because of that hatred, we might do anything to avoid having the government take away our money. That “anything” might include something illegal.

And if it does, sure, we might save some taxes today via some unconventional loophole. But eventually we’ll be found out. Eventually the chickens will come home to roost.

And spending 5-10 in a white collar prison most likely won’t be the retirement plan we were hoping for.

No, the secret to success is the losing. We have to not mind the setbacks.

We have to be able to wear the rain as our raincoat.

In our relationships, we know we’ve found someone special when we finally get to the bad days. If we only like the person at their best, then we really don’t like that person at all. If we like them cranky, sad, or unreasonable, then we like them for life.

In sports, the superstars are the ones who show up the next day after a big loss. The tourists, the ones who won’t hold the trophies in the end, go off the deep end after losses. They scream, pout, complain, take weeks off.

The champions can’t wait to figure out what went wrong. The champions can’t wait to try again. The champions know the learning is in the losing.

There’s an old coaches’ saying: Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.

Well, show me a loser who can handle losing, and I’ll show you someone who just beat the person who hates it.

My book is called The Inevitability of Becoming Rich, and you can find that here.