It’s Always A Fight…

Photo by Sipan Hamed on Unsplash

We tend to think of competitions as absolutes, that there are always clear winner and losers. 

But other than in sports, that’s just not the case. (And even in sports, depending on your timelines, it’s absolutely the case.)

There are ebbs and flows, reversions back and forth, that mean you can’t take “champion” status for granted. It’s always a fight, and even if you’ve scored a rout in one instance or situation, you’ve still not ‘permanently’ won. Because there’s always a fight. 

And when you believe that you have, that you’ve “arrived”, well, that’s your weakest moment. 

Because somewhere, your competition is working harder, laying the groundwork to shift the very basis of how you compete. 

This is central to Andy Grove’s idea that “only the paranoid survive”. Is that mindset demanding? Is it exhausting? Yes, it is, indeed. 

But it’s central to the mindset of a real champion. Always thinking, always working, always growing.