“I’ve realized something…”, my friend sighed.

“I’ve not been leading my company well.  I’ve not been ‘playing to win’…”, he continued.

“I’ve been ‘playing not to lose’.”, he confessed.

Wow.  What a confession.

It could have been my confession too.

Can it be your confession as well?

What a profound realization my friend had.  And, what an insightful revelation.  He had not been stepping up, stepping in or stepping out the way he needed to.  He had not been taking calculated risks. He realized he had been leading half-heartedly.

We can lead and live half-heartedly for a number of reasons, but I think it boils down to two primary fears: fear of not having what it takes, and fear of failure.  We can be afraid that we don’t have what it takes to do what is necessary.  We can also be afraid to fail.  The outcome of these two fears is the same – half-heartedness.

Half-heartedness is also known as ‘playing not to lose’.

If we are afraid we do not have what it takes to do what is necessary, to do what is demanded of us, we will pull back.  We will withdraw.  We can isolate ourselves when the going gets tough and refuse to engage.  We can bury our head in the sand and pretend that everything will be ok.

If we are afraid of failure it is because we believe that our value and worth, our identity, is based on our ability to perform.  To fail is to pronounce ourselves a failure.  If we fail we lose all value and worth, so we don’t take risks.  We won’t step up, step in, and step out into anything we aren’t confident we can overcome.

The outcome of both these fears?  We end up leading and living with one hand: one to do the minimum necessary to continue on, and the other to protect ourselves.  We protect ourselves because we don’t want anyone to find out that we don’t have what it takes to do what is necessary.  And we protect ourselves so we won’t fail.

‘Playing to win’ means risking failure.  But not just that: ‘playing to win’ means believing that failure is necessary to grow.  Failure is a critical part of success.  Success is not never failing, it is continuing on through failure, wiser, and therefore, accomplishing more than we could have without the failure.  Success is discovering new strength through failure.

Success is stepping out of our comfort zone not knowing if we will succeed, but wholeheartedly giving ourselves regardless to overcome the challenge we face to accomplish our goals.  It’s ‘playing to win’.

I love what Theodore Roosevelt had to say about ‘playing to win’:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

That is a definition of ‘playing to win’.

Leaders who ‘play not to lose’ are, “…cold timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

‘Playing to win’ means we will be marred by dust and sweat and blood.  We will strive valiantly in a noble cause.  We will err and come short again and again knowing that there is no wholehearted effort without shortcoming.  We will know failure.

However, we will know great enthusiasms and great devotions.  We will know the triumph of high achievement.  And, we will not live a cold, grey life of timidity and mediocrity, because we have chosen to dare greatly.

Are you ‘playing to win’ or ‘playing not to lose’?  You never win playing not to lose.