Not everyone should be a champion

For the past few weeks, I have been blogging and emailing about Champion Mindset strategies applied to business and then it hit me – not everyone should be a champion.

I don’t say this frivolously, I’m totally serious.

Not everyone should be a champion.

• Champions want opponents who push them to become the best they can be, but also that come up short in the key moments so they get all the spoils of victory to themselves.
• Champions also need competitors who are easy to beat, who give them time and the opportunity to hone their skills without pressure and intimidation.
• Champions also appreciate supporters of the sport who are in it just to have fun and give it a go, it creates ambience and a great family, group atmosphere.
• Of course we can’t forget the spectators – without them, what would be the point of being a Champion? Champions need, even crave and feed off the admiration, respect and adoration that fans enthusiastically show for their favorite “superstar”.

A few years ago, I chose to work with business people who wanted and were committed to being Champions of business, but I accept that it’s not for everyone.

In business I see the non-champions every day:

• The person who complains about clients who didn’t pay their bills on time or that their employees are slacking off.
• The entrepreneur who works ridiculous hours for a wage they would never accept as an employee.
• The long-time business owner-operator who thinks he/she is building a business yet there is no chance whatsoever that anyone will ever buy ‘the business’ because it is essentially a job with minimal tax benefits.

To stick to the sports metaphor – not everyone needs to play a sport and not everyone needs to be a Champion. Even at the Olympics, there are THOUSANDS of competitors and only HUNDREDS of medalists.

Let’s face it, being a Champion, in business or sport is not “easy”, it takes time, money and effort.

You need to want it.

If you don’t want it, it’s OK, there is always someone there ready to take it.

Someone eager, hungry and ambitious.

So don’t sweat it if you’re not and don’t want to be a Champion.

Not everyone should be.

If you are or want to become a Champion in business, you’ll be interested in my recent blog posts below:

How to go from creating motivation to building momentum

Why smart business people fail

Why practice does not make perfect

If you think this blog post is an exercise in reverse psychology, it’s not. I fully and sincerely accept there are different kinds of people in the world and not everyone needs or should be motivated to succeed and excel.

First and foremost because, by definition – mathematically – it’s impossible for everyone to excel or “succeed”. The normal probability distribution curve has proven to be quite robust in almost all areas of endeavor… for a reason.

People are “normal” and as such most people produce at or near “average” results.

Why focus on this realisation that many would cite as self-evident?

BECAUSE it’s not that obvious. Too many wannabes and gonnabes are deluded into thinking they will be the next “millionaire” when the harsh reality is they have no such “chance”.

Creating that delusion, false expectation is simply not fair. It’s one of my pet peeves of this “industry”. I am all for adopting a Positive Mental Attitude, but not at the cost of self-delusional lunacy.

If you are a Champion, you know it. There is no need to convince you to become one. Even if you haven’t yet “won” the ultimate prize, you know it’s not a question of “if”, but rather “when”.

If you aren’t (yet) a Champion, but want to become one… I suggest you read the blog posts noted above as a starting point.