If there is no chance of losing, is there any victory to be had? A “sure thing” is not a win. Conversely, if you have no chance of winning—like most carnival games—you can’t truly lose.
We can see more clearly with stark contrast. Black and white. Good and evil. Winning and losing.
If I handed you a football on the five-yard line and all the players stood halfway down the field, would you feel the sense of victory after you simply walked over the goal line? Would it feel like a touchdown?
No. When you have outmaneuvered a 320-pound lineman whose only job is to take you down as soon as you hold the football, that’s when you feel victory. That’s an achievement.
“The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat” was the long-standing slogan for ABC’s “Wide World of Sports”. In every competition, both of these emotions emerge. Opposing sides, opposing emotions.
Winning and losing involve drama, because there is risk. You have to make decisions with no guarantee of the outcome. If every new home sale were a “gimme”, you would lose interest. Sales people, by nature, thrive on competition. They want to “win”—even if they are only competing against their own standards.
I applaud those people who lose on occasion, because they have experienced the feeling of not winning. That doesn’t make them losers—unless they crumble under the weight of a failure, or even a string of failures. Those who learn from loss and come back to be stronger, smarter, and better will relish the win because they’ve been on the other side.
You can’t win if there is no chance of losing. A loss is an event, not a person. Don’t personalize it. Meaning is what you attach to a person, place, or thing. How will you view it?
Myers Barnes is America’s favorite new home sales trainer, author, speaker and consultant. For more information, please visit www.myersbarnes.com.
