As humans we like to win. The feeling of accomplishment and the competitive spirit in all of us drives a “right to win” mentality. But, winning is not always easy, which is why it’s so sweet when it happens. This takes us to the “age old” question, what does it take to win? What is the formula and how is it replicated to produce a winning streak? I’ve shared in previous posts about my lifelong love of competition that has really been rooted in me from a young age through participating in athletics. This competitive spirit continues to drive me in many areas of my life including my career, my physical fitness and even on the pickleball courts playing against my family!

I am a firm believer the secret to winning is not so much a product of doing the big things well. Big and significant things are always obvious and going to get priority and attention. In my experience the secret to winning is in the last 10%. This is where the mundane and sacrificial work takes place. That’s where extra effort and discipline have an advantageous effect. How you prepare and execute in these margins is what drives long-term gains and a sustained winning streak. A personal example of this takes me back to high school. I was a two-sport athlete competing in soccer and track and field. My first love was soccer, and track was more of a sport to keep me fit during the off season. It was my junior year, and I had come off a pretty successful soccer season and just finished my track season where I would have considered myself the third fastest person on the team. Not an overly impressive performance on the track. That summer I had two jobs; I had a paper route and had my own lawn mowing business. If you don’t know much about western Pennsylvania, it’s rural and has many rolling hills. My paper route was about 7 miles round trip up and down hills and every lawn I mowed had several hills that I pushed because I was too cheap to purchase a riding mower. Every single day I rode my bike and pushed a mower. It was tough, physically demanding and boring. Many days I had to sacrifice hanging out with my friends because of deadlines on getting the papers delivered and commitments to customers to mow their lawns. What I failed to realize at the time is that I was training my muscles to build and grow. I was training my mind discipline, even though the work totally sucked, I had to keep going because both my reputation and my customer expectations were at stake. My senior year was a breakout year for me in track, I went from the third fastest on the team to the runner up in the state of Pennsylvania in the 100M dash. This performance led me to compete in track collegiately where I earned All-American four times. I carry this example with me always when I am evaluating what it’s going to take to meet or exceed a goal. There is always going to be the mundane, sacrificial work to achieve stretch opportunities. The winning formula exists in the margins and in the trenches. It’s essential you prepare your body and mind to execute on the 10% which will ultimately drive a winning outcome.

Leadership takeaways:

1. Assess your stretch goals, what’s it going to take to achieve them? Identify not only the big things, but what are the little things that make up the margins or the 10%?
2. Prepare yourself for the sacrifice. The extra hours, repetition, thorough review cycles and extra attention to detail that is necessary to exceed your goal.
3. The extra effort and sacrifice are like compound interest, it’s going to begin to generate high returns as you continue to gain the extra margin each time.