Sometimes you Win, Sometimes you Learn

I hope everyone is having a good morning, wherever you might be! As I was thumbing through the pages of a book today, I just wanted to share a little thought with you. Take it for what it is, and know that this message is for me… if it applies to you also, then I hope you enjoy it. Just thought I would share…

In business (as in life), I believe the adage “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose” is one that is familiar to all of us. At times business/life can feel like the proverbial roller coaster. One day we’re up, the next day we’re down. One minute we’re coasting, the next second we’re upside down and headed for a “loopty-loop”. When business is good and we are winning; the clients are buying, the bird are singing, we just can't seem to do anything wrong..and when business is bad and we are losing; we can’t sell a paper clip to a millionaire, our vendor just told us they won't make the deadline and oh look... our computers are down again!

The ups and downs are something that we are all too familiar with as we sit here in May of 2020. A little over a month ago each of our lives were turned upside down... we were on an upward trajectory (click by click)... and then, just as we reached the peak, we looked down and "whoooosh", we're on the ride of our lives... and many of us are still on that ride right now.

The good news is, there's an upside! If we choose to, we can find something about ourselves and our businesses that we didn't know before...

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose”… We’ve all been there. Sometimes the wins feel unrecognized and insignificant and the losses feel unshakable and insurmountable. So what’s the point of all this? The point is maybe we need to look at it all differently. As I was looking through my library for a little pick me up today, I landed on a book called:

“Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn: Life's Greatest Lessons are Gained from Our Losses” by John Maxwell

What if instead of looking at the seemingly negative things that happen to us as a “loss”, we look at it as a “learn”. For every sale that doesn't come to fruition, for every day that ends without accomplishing our goals, for each mistake and error that we make, for the missed opportunities and the times we aren’t at our best. “Learning” feels a lot better than “Losing”, and if we intend to “Win” more than we “Lose”, then learning is essential. 

So I want us to ask ourselves “How can I turn a ‘loss’ into a ‘learn’ for myself and my team and my family?” Within our business culture, “How can I create an environment where we ‘Learn’ continuously?”

In the book, it lists the 11 elements that constitute the DNA of a learner… those people who despite problems, failures and losses… somehow succeed.

The one that I'm focusing on this morning is “Humility: The Spirit of Learning”. The great St. Louis Cardinals left fielder and MLB Hall of Famer once said “Show me a guy who is afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.” Humility opens our eyes and broadens our view. We aren’t just focused on justifying ourselves or looking good, we gain better judgement. An accurate view of ourselves is difficult to obtain and even harder to keep.

I'm a huge sports fan and an even bigger fan of winning coaches... they just seem to know all the buttons to push, all the things to say, all the substitutions to make. There's no better coach to look to then the great Coach John Wooden. He used to tell his team:

“Your strength as an individual depends on how you respond to both praise and criticism. If you allow either one to have any special effect on you, it’s going to hurt us as a team.” 

He was teaching his team to temper their emotions... that becoming overly prideful of the victories meant that they would become overly devastated by the losses... and that could lead to a losing streak and a culture that countered what he was trying to create. He must have been on to something, because when it was all said and done, his teams won 10 NCAA Basketball championships in 12 years (including a record 7 in a row)!

"Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn"...I believe both of those statements reflect the attitude that we, as managers and leaders of a business both individually and corporately together need to have… and one that we need to live out in front of our teams. Winning is great, losing in inevitable, but learning is an option. So in everything we do in business and in life, we can choose to learn or not. Chose learning, paired with humility and we will see those defeats in a new light.

In his book, John Maxwell Outlines 4 simple truths about humility:

1.)   Humility Allows Us to Possess a True Perspective of Ourselves and Life

•          “Humility does not mean you think less of yourself. It means you think of yourself less.” – Ken Blanchard

2.)   Humility Enables Us to Learn and Grow in the Face of Losses

• “Wisely humble people are never afraid to admit when they are wrong. When they do, it’s like saying they’re wiser today than they were yesterday.”

3.)   Humility Allows Us to Let Go of Perfection and Keep Trying

•  “Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.” – Bertolt Brecht
• There’s a book called “Mistakes That Worked” by Charlotte Foltz Jones. It talks about how amazing it is that so many of the great inventions we have today were actually mistakes. That instead of abandoning the whole idea, their inventors found a new use and created something great. How many "Post-It" notes do you use in a day?... imagine if that mistake never happened!

4.)   Humility Allows Us to Make the Most of Our Mistakes

• Mark Twain was once asked to name the greatest of all inventors. His response “Accidents.”

I once had someone tell me “You need to take the best 20% that people say about you and the worst 20% that people say about you and throw it away… it will keep you humble and hungry.”

Let’s go into this new chapter of our lives and our businesses with a goal to “Learn” something new from each perceived “Loss”. When we don’t close a sale, what did we learn? When we didn’t make sales plan, what can we try differently tomorrow? When our coaching falls flat, why and how can I better communicate to my team? When life is seeming to be too hard, what are the hardships teaching us about ourselves and our family? Be encouraged, stay encouraged... yes, in the wins, but especially in the times where we have the opportunity to learn!

Let’s stay humble and hungry as leaders and no matter what the outcome is today, we will ultimately come out of it better than we are tomorrow.