My fascination for winning stems from when I was seven years old. The 2007-2008 football season is probably the year that I’ve cried the most in my life (which could mean that I’ve lived quite a fortunate life).
Winning came back as a principle of importance when I was a sad teenager, which is when the period of self-development started to begin for me.
This is the story of why winning matters .
The lessons of a 7-year-old loser
The 2007/2008 season was a tough one in my disappointing football ‘career’. After every lost game, seven-year-old me would run away and sit somewhere where I would cry inconsolably. Looking back at it, it feels like the most pathetic habit I’ve ever had (my parents definitely would agree).
Winning was everything to me, yet I never won.
Lately, I found a letter that the coach of the team wrote to me. He had seen me continuously improve during the season because of my effort, even doing extra training every Sunday.
I thought it was a losing season, but it turns out that I should’ve looked further than the scoreboard.
Let me summarize the wins I made that year:
I learned that effort leads to improvement.
I experienced that being the smallest kid on the team, did not mean I was the worst on the team.
I realized that losing games was part of the game.
The season filled with tears taught me lessons that I have continuously used throughout life. My personal growth has never been so exponential as when I was seven years old.
Winning is not about the final score on the scoreboard. If we define our lives by external wins, we will never realize that the real wins are in the internal process.
The lessons of a depressed 20-year-old
Another difficult season for me was the 2020-2021 season. However, at that time I wasn’t playing football anymore. Instead of having different opponents on the field every week, I had the same opponent every day: my thoughts. My issues with dark, depressive thoughts felt like I was losing every day. Like the 2007-2008 football season, I felt like something needed to change: I needed a big win that would change everything.
The thing is that depression is not conquered in a single game. It is about small victories in different disciplines. It could be the emotional field, the relational stadiums, or the spiritual tracks.
From a philosophical standpoint, Aristotle brought forward the concept of Eudaimonia. This concept is quite difficult to translate or define, but can best be described as a a happy state of human flourishing that we strive for. Eudaimonia is about the feeling of happiness that comes with working toward our best self. Aristotle proposes that life is not about “satisfying appetites” such as power, wealth, or even pleasure. Rather, life should be a “pursuit of virtue, excellence, and the best within us.”
The goal is not for everyone to strive to be the CEO of an 8-figure business or Olympic athlete. We can shape our lives to work toward the person we want to be, whatever that may be. Within Winning Stories, the goal is not to define winning in the objective sense. Winning is not about the score on the scoreboard, the amount of medals you have received, or the sum of money in your bank account. Winning is about getting closer to the person you want to become.
When we win, we flourish.
When we flourish, we are happy.
I discovered that firsthand. Once I started winning on the fronts of creation of your purpose, developing yourself on the intellectual level, investing in meaningful relationships, and emotional understanding. Yes, these things are complex, but the concept of happiness is not just one battle to be fought.
The lessons of a 23-year-old (self-called) winner
I love stories. Reading them, telling them, hearing them, remembering them, creating them. In his book Sapiens, Noah Yuval Harari argues that the reason that the human species became the most dominant animal on the planet, is because we were able to tell each other stories and myths. We could share beliefs, making us move toward a shared goal in tens, thousands, or millions of people. We change the world by the stories we tell and believe in.
In this day and age, it has never been so easy to share a story with audiences consisting of people who are not even near to each other. So let me tell you some stories that will make you understand how you can win more.
I believe that everyone can win. By telling Winning Stories, I hope the world will become “winninger” (which is a word that I will use from now on).
