Your Opponent is Your Ally

Your opponent is instrumental in creating this growth. The better the people around you that you are competing with, the better you will have to shoot to compete with them. The better your opponent is, the closer the competition will be, and the more benefits will result.

But looking at competition in this way requires a complete mental shift and perception.

The earliest competitions that turned into the Olympics were field games where different parts of the country would send their top athletes and top warriors. The warriors would get together for a week or so and would compete at doing different things. They would share everything that they knew and everyone became better for that. They were seeking excellence together.

My, have times have changed.

When you can begin to regard your opponent as your ally rather than your adversary, he helps you become better. Strangely, when you can adopt this mentality, you want your opponent to do well because it will increase your level of competition and you will learn more and you will get better.

It’s a hard mindset to adopt. “I don’t want to beat you because you missed. I want to beat you because you hit everything and I just happen to hit one more.”

This is an excerpt from the May 2011 Coaching Hour podcast. You can listen to it and read a written transcript, along with more than 20 years of archived episodes with your Knowledge Vault membership.