WHO’S TEACHING YOU?
Those we consider champions are unique and set apart in many ways. Maybe it’s their attitude or their effort. It could be their level of discipline or dedication, or perhaps it's their resilience or their responses that separate them from everyone else. In the important areas of life and performance, there is a lot their winning example can teach us.
But teaching is only valuable for students who are willing to learn. Ironically, that commitment - to learning from anyone who can teach them - is another one of those ways the champions validate who they are and what they’re all about. They are relentlessly interested in improving. So if the goal here for you is to become the kind of person and performer winning in some meaningful area of life requires you to be - if the goal is to become someone worthy of winning for yourself - then it’s important to recognize how important it is to keep on learning. That important work starts by recognizing who it is that can teach you.
So that's a great place to start here today. Who is it that can teach you? That's a question you are required to answer for yourself, but I’d argue the answer to that important question is…anyone! If you are really committed to learning - if your radar is up and your awareness is elevated - then I believe anyone can serve as your teacher. There are people, for instance, who are pursuing excellence in the exact areas that matter to you, and their journey can provide a blueprint for the kind of mindset you need to adopt, the kind of choices you need to make, and the kind of behavior you need to exhibit in order to achieve something significant for yourself. It’s worth taking a minute here today to stop and consider who the standard bearers are in the areas of high performance that matter most to you, and how studying and stealing their game plan for success might help you improve.
But those we consider champions aren’t the only ones who can teach you. I’d argue there’s just as much you can learn from those at the other end of the spectrum. Just like there are mindsets and choices and behaviors that define the way of the winner, there are mindsets and choices and behaviors that define the loser's path, too. And the truth is, there can be just as much their example can teach you - about what to avoid and how not to behave - if you're willing to learn and apply those lessons to yourself.
The challenge for each of us lies in determining where someone else’s example can be useful to us and how we can use it to get better. This is not a black and white formula, of course, because each of us - even those we consider the best in some important area of life and performance - likely struggles someplace else. I’m guessing that someone could take a snapshot of performance in one area of your life and use it as a model of excellence, and take another snapshot someplace else and use it as a model of struggle or even flat out failure. Just because someone teaches us how to do one thing well doesn’t make them a picture of perfection across the board.
If perfection across the board becomes the benchmark we use to measure someone as a teacher, then it’s likely we’ll never learn from anyone. On the other hand, if we can develop the ability to identify how a certain part of someone else's performance - either for better or worse - applies to our own winning pursuit? If we can use their experience to get a little bit better for ourselves? Then there isn’t anyone who can’t teach us! If that commitment to learning is in fact one of the defining characteristics of those we consider champions, then each of us should be working to develop that discipline in our own life, and using it to become the people and the performers winning requires us to be.
