Hang Up The Gloves

I have had the opportunity to teach many people how to be honest, effective sales people. One of the key lessons that I always taught was, do not bash your competition in any way, shape or form. Never speak poorly of your competition. I taught this because I believe it is bad form to talk poorly of your competition, every time you speak of your competition you are giving them free publicity, even if it is intended to be bad, you are still repeating their name and many people are put off or could be offended when you speak poorly of your competition.  I always taught people to focus on what you are selling, focus on how your product will benefit your customer. In other words sell your product and don’t place any focus on the competitor’s product. This was and still is sage advice, however I have recently begun to understand a bigger reason why this technique is so important and why it works and this reason applies across all areas where we may compete, be it, work, relationships, sports, etc.

I would like you to think about something, when you are in competition with someone or something, when you are trying to beat the other person and win, when you are fighting to win what happens? Think about what it is like to be in a fight or a competitive battle of some sort, what happens to you when you are in a fight to win mode? You expend a lot of energy when you are in this mode, don’t you? Of course you do, when you are in a competitive mode where you are trying to beat the other person or thing, you expend a great deal of physical and emotional energy. As you expend all of this energy, you become fatigued, less efficient, you may even begin to do or say things that don’t make sense, in short you become weakened by the battle, the fight, you become weakened by all the energy you expend.

This happens in all fights that we have, this could be a fight to win a game of racquetball, or a fight to be right in an argument with our significant other, or the fight to win some battle at work, or the fight against our weight, our eating habits, this even applies to our fights against disease, such as cancer, etc. When we fight in this way, we expend so much energy, that we become weak and place ourselves in a more vulnerable position.

So, how do we compete, how do we win without fighting to win. First we must accept that we don’t have to win, that at the end of the day, it’s not about winning. Sure, it would be nice to win, however if we don’t, so what. We must learn to really not care about winning and focus on the process of what we are doing. If we are in a discussion with someone we must concede to ourselves that we don’t have to be right at any cost. If we are playing a game, we must concede to ourselves that the game is not about winning, it’s about playing the best possible game that we can. If we are trying to lose weight or eliminate or lessen a disease we must visualize what we want to achieve and to focus on doing the things, which will accomplish our goal and not focus on fighting the weight or disease.

Most importantly we must send our opponent, whoever/whatever we are in competition with, love. Send love, instead of the thoughts of I will beat you no matter what. When we send love, we actually gain strength, both physical and emotional strength will increase and we will be in a stronger position to win.

It is rather amazing, however as you care less about winning and focus on what you are doing, you tend to start winning more. When you cease seeking praise or seeking approval you begin to attract more praise and more approval. Why, because you are thinking and acting with love as your intent, which gives you more energy, which makes you more efficient at what you are trying to achieve. You will find that you are no longer worn out from the battle, because you will have removed the whole concept of battle from your day-to-day life. The next time you feel that you are in a competitive situation, stop and ask yourself;

• Am I fighting, am I engaging in a battle?
• What are the intentions of my thoughts and actions? Is this all about winning?
• How can I change my perspective on this?
• What about the other person/thing, can I serve them and myself by sending love to them and focusing on what I need to thing and do rather then placing my attention on them?

Once you begin to ask yourself these questions, you will begin to see your perspective change and you will see wonderful results because of your shift in perspective.