Lessons for Losers

Competition is a central theme in American society. The Super Bowl and the Olympics happening at the same time gave us competition overload. Even the men honored for President’s Day won a contest. You’re in contests every day. At work, you’re competing with teammates for the next promotion, on social media you’re competing with “friends” for likes, at home you’re competing with hostile Minecraft mobs for survival. Given the nature of competition, there can only be one winner. That means the majority of contestants are going to lose. How are the losers supposed to recover?

Perspective

Winning a contest often involves luck (preparation meets opportunity). When you have one shot at beating the competition, like the Super Bowl, many variables have to combine in just the right order to win. That’s one of the reasons underdogs are so appealing. After the Bengals lost the Super Bowl, quarterback Joe Burrow’s comments were full of responsibility for his performance, grace for his team, respect for his opponent, and hope for the future. His emotionally intelligent response after the loss is a template for how you can react when your team experiences a setback at work.

Perseverance

When you have to wait four years for a shot at a gold medal, having an off day during your short program can crush your spirit. In 2018 men’s figure skater, Nathan Chen, was favored to win gold in PyeongChang. But a series of failed jumps left him placing fifth in the men’s singles competition. Like a true statistics and data science major, Chen spent the next four years analyzing what went wrong and what it would take to fix it. He had plenty of experience dealing with adversity in regard to figure skating. When he started, his family was impoverished. He used his sister’s skates and all the money his mother could scare up to pay his coach. Chen seemed to learn early in his training that the only failure is giving up. The rest is just gathering data. His perseverance paid off when he won the 2022 gold medal in men’s singles figure skating in Beijing. His tenacity after the loss is a reminder to refine, iterate, and try your process again after your team experiences a setback at work.

Pivot

Everyone has to accept the outcome of a Presidential election otherwise democracy doesn’t work. If those who don’t like the outcome refuse to accept it and actively work to change it, then the nation can’t move forward. You don’t have to like the result in order to accept it. For example, Al Gore did not like the outcome of his  2000 Presidential contest with George W. Bush. But on December 13, 2000, after the Supreme Court decided 5-4 (another contest, btw) that Bush was the President of the United States, Gore said this: “Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it. For the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.” He turned his desire to serve the public into raising awareness of the dangers of climate change. Gore wrote and starred in An Inconvenient Truth for which he won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2007. His decision to shift focus after the loss is an inspiration to try new ideas after your team experiences a setback at work.

What lessons did you learn from the losers of the Super Bowl, Olympics, and Presidential elections that inspire you to keep competing? Please share in the comments.