BUT ARE YOU WORTHY OF WINNING?
When we hear the word “champion” it's natural to associate it with some winning outcome. And there isn’t one of us - including you here today, I'm sure - who doesn’t have a desire to win in some important area of life. There may not be a scoreboard to watch or a trophy to pursue, but the truth is that life for each of us is competitive. There is winning and losing to be done. In sports and in business, at school, at work or at home...our desire to win matters.
But I want to highlight here today that the desire to win - though important - is also pretty common. I mean, let’s be honest, everybody wants to win. I could walk into your biggest rival or toughest competition today and ask who wanted to win, and you know who’d raise their hand? Everyone. Ironically, I could probably walk into your weakest competition - the worst performing, least productive opponent you’ve got - the one who never wins anything - and if I asked the same question to them? I bet I’d get the same response. Even losers want to win.
So the critical question anyone who wants to become a champion isn’t, “Do you want to win?” There are a ton of people in the world who answer yes to that question, and yet never win anything at all. The critical question each of us has to answer - including you here today - is, “Are you worthy of winning?” That question forces you to move past just what you want, and forces you to provide some evidence that you’re willing to do the difficult things winning actually requires you to do, and willing to earn the success you say you're after.
That question - are you worthy of winning? - is so important because it shifts the focus off the winning outcome and onto the process it takes to get there. Someone who’s worthy of winning is continually working to elevate their mindset and their performance. They’re relentlessly committed to improvement. They’re willing to make sacrifices they know won't be seen or celebrated publicly because they understand that a lot of what goes into winning happens privately. They show up and do the work even when they don't feel like it. They're constantly displaying a level of commitment that does more than just says they want to win. Their commitment proves it.
The Hall of Fame football coach Bill Walsh famously said that “champions behave like champions before they are champions.” His words highlight this important place the process has in any winning pursuit. Champions don’t win and then say, “Well, I guess now that I’ve won I better start doing what champions do.” That’s ridiculous. Champions validate that they are worthy of winning through their actions and their behaviors first. The winning outcome is the natural byproduct of the hard work that came before it.
That's not all. We also have to acknowledge here today that choosing to do that hard work doesn't guarantee you the results you want. Just because you commit to becoming the kind of person winning requires you to be doesn’t ensure you’ll get the outcome you’re after. Competition, in that way, can be downright unfair. You can commit to doing everything winning requires you to do, and still not get what you want. It’s hard to accept that the outcome exists beyond our control.
At that same time, that’s why redefining what really makes a champion a champion is so important, because while you have minimal control over whether or not you win, you have total control over whether or not you are worthy of winning. That’s completely up to you. And just because you don't get to control the outcome doesn’t mean you can't influence it. Your choices and your behavior have a direct impact on whether or not you get what you say you want. That means the best you can do is show up today and prove once again who you are and what you're all about. You can make winning choices and exhibit winning behavior, and trust that in doing so you've put yourself in the best possible position to earn the success you're after. That’s really what it means to be someone worthy of winning, and that’s what becoming a champion is all about.
