No matter who you are, you have someone in your life telling you that competing is a terrible thing. They may say that it’s not good to compete, that it’s too much pressure to compete, and that competition is bad because someone has to lose.
But competition is one of the best things you see in business, sports, and many other aspects of life. And those who make it to the highest ranks are typically the most competitive people you’ll ever meet. So in this video I talk about 10 reasons to compete and why it’s important to compete in business.
#1: Competition Brings Out the Best in You
When you compete, especially when you go against someone that is 10 times better than you, you all of a sudden realize you’re not as good as you thought you were. It motivates you to fight, to pick up your game. It will cause you to ask, “How are we going to compete with these guys? We’ve got to figure out a way to get better.” So it brings out the best in you when you compete.
#2: The Pain of Losing is a Great Motivator
The pain of losing is one of the greatest motivators of a competitor. Think of it this way. I can guarantee you that if you sit down and have a private conversation with people who say that competition isn’t good for you, if they’re willing to be open, you’ll learn that they had a very painful loss at some point in their lives. They lost in a way that was painful, and the situation could be not only painful, but embarrassing if it happened in public. And they chose to let that pain and embarrassment define them.
Everyone that competes on a very high level has had painful losses. I’ve won many times in business over the last 15 years, but I can tell you that the things I remember most vividly are my losses. They were the things that got me to step up, look at myself in the mirror, dust myself off and say, “Man, that hurt,” but that pain is what caused me to compete and get better, and improve to take my business to the next level.
#3: Competition Keeps You Young
Those who are engaged in the game, stay young because they’re not rusting out. Some people are worried about burning out, but I’d rather burn out than rust out. I’d rather be in the game than sitting around and just watching everything any day of the week. Competition keeps you young, and you’ve got to stay young in order to keep up with everybody else.
#4: Competition Distracts You From Problems in Your Life
Have you ever dwelt so deeply on your problems that it almost drove you nuts? When I have so much time on my hands that I start dwelling on my problems, it’s an indication that I’m not in the hunt for something. When you’re in the hunt for something, when you’re competing for something, when you’re improving, you don’t have time to think about your problems.
You actually have a positive distraction. Everyone in life has distractions. Everybody. A kid could be a positive distraction to a business. A business could be a positive distraction to a business. A business could be a positive distraction to an ex-girlfriend. There are a lot of positive distractions. Competition is a positive distraction and it takes you into the game so much that you don’t have time to be thinking about all the problems and possibilities of the world coming to an end. You don’t have time for that, because your engaged and are in the arena competing.
#5: When You Compete, You Build New Relationships
Listen in here for how competition can help you build new relationships.
#6: When You Compete, You Earn Respect
I was at a convention in Palm Springs this past week. There was a lot of energy. And I watched everybody. And one of the things I pay close attention to is that there are those that are established in business, and there are those that are coming up in business and are young and hungry. And I don’t necessarily mean young in age. They could be 42 years old, but they’re young in business. You can see the competitive look in their eyes. But the more established people have eyes that are a little bit droopy. They’ve lost the fire. But the other person that’s coming up keeps doing whatever they can; even though they keep losing, they don’t give up. These people that don’t give up earn a lot of respect from everybody.
#7: When You Compete, Your Brain Gets Wired in Improvement Mode
Listen in here to discover how your brain gets wired in improvement mode when you compete.
#8: When You Compete, You Find Fulfillment
There’s a lot of people right now saying, “Did you see that picture with Michael Phelps, he’s swimming and the other guy’s looking at him? Man, that guy’s a loser. That’s why you focus on winners.” But listen. He made it to the Olympics. He can say, “I was an Olympian.” Even though the world will say that he lost, to his family, he’ll always be an Olympian. His kids will always say, “Daddy was an Olympian.” There’s a lot of fulfillment when you compete on a high level.
#9: Competition Attracts Opportunity
If you work at our home office and you’re competitive and you’re all about improving and pushing a little more than the rest, you’re guaranteed to move up. Because to me, competitive people are very valuable because they always want to figure out how to do things faster or better. I LOVE having people on the team that are like that. If they’re not, I simply say, we’re not the company for you. But if you’re competitive, there will be a lot of opportunities for you.
I was talking to one of our guys, Tigran. I reminded him that when he first started working for me, I was about to fire him. But I gave him a final challenge, even though in my mind I had already given up on him. But he proved me wrong, and I was so impressed with how he came back. He showed me he’s a competitor. He’s gone on to be one of the best. His department is probably doing better than any other department in the company, all because he’s competitive. So he got other opportunities. He went from just having a regular position to having a bigger position with the company and he’s involved in leadership types of meetings we have. That wouldn’t have happened without him being competitive.
#10: You Eventually Beat 95% of Your Competitors
And last but not least, one of the reasons to compete is that if you compete consistently, you’ll eventually end up beating 95% of your competitors.Eventually you’ll find yourself only competing with the 5%. And to be the best of the 5% is a dog fight, it’s hours, it’s even improving faster, it’s being able to recruit the right talent, being part of the right team and having a vision on where you’re going and being clear, but you’ll eventually win out if you keep competing.
So, those are the 10 reasons to compete in business.
If you have any questions or comments or thoughts, post them below.
By the way, we are trying to get to 100,000 YouTube subscribers by the end of the month, so if you haven’t subscribed to the channel, please do so, and if you already have subscribed to the channel, share this content with other people.
We believe this is the #1 channel on YouTube for entrepreneurship. You ask the questions, you request the videos, and if it’s something suitable to us, we’ll post a video to answer your questions.