#54: Victory

«I won!» Victory at last. Not only did I win. More importantly, someone else lost. Does that have to be the rule of the game?

Victory gives you a thrill, while defeat causes agony.

It is binary.

You can’t possibly be on both ends of the spectrum at the same time.

If worse comes to worst, you have to be ready to push your adversary off a cliff.

I had this experience today teaching me a good lesson about victory.

Having pursued what I considered an innovative «first-mover» project for a while, I called a friend of mine to tell him about my project and ask for his support in promoting it. His response was totally unexpected. Straight to my face, he would tell me that had been working on a similar project. Market implementation was apparently close. Definitely closer than mine. There was some sort of a twist to their project, which wouldn’t make it a complete overlap, but the list of similarities would nonetheless be long.

Rather than enjoying his sweet moment of victory and praising his obvious edge over me, he showed genuine interest by listening to what I had to say.

He didn’t stop there, though. He also asked me what he could possibly do to support me and my project. We ended up developing two ideas worth pursuing with an objective in mind to help me succeed in my endeavor.

What an unexpected outcome.

An unforgettable act of kindness.

It taught me lesson on the meaning of victory.

Winning on your own terms not at the expense of someone else.

Better even to elevate someone else with you.

Sharing is caring after all.