Boy, if I had known this 30 years ago, my life would have been prettier.
Here is my message to me: I don’t need to win the fight. I don’t need to be victorious in the argument. I don’t even need to get my own fair share. If I lose the contest, it’s okay. If someone makes me look like a loser, I don’t care. I smile and say, “Congratulations.”
An example of me at my best: I was playing golf with my boss and CEO, Gordon Johnson, at Edgewood Golf Course in Big Bend, Wisconsin. Our group of four included two better-qualified candidates for a big job in Gordon’s health organization. I was a fair golfer. Gordon was struggling. I hit a lucky shot from the rough that dropped in the cup. No one was looking, so I grabbed my ball out of the hole and tossed it in the trap behind the green. The two young candidates par the hole, Gordon gets a bogey and I come in with a last-place double bogey.
The next day, I was elevated to vice president of business development for the parent company. A coincidence? You decide.
Looking back on my lifetime, some of my greatest successes came from little failures along the way.
As I’m becoming older and wiser, I hope to recognize it’s best to make plenty of room for others to be the winners.