“To love and win is the best thing, to lose and love, the next best.” ~William Makepeace Thackeray

I came home the winner tonight from the local entrepreneurs speed pitch competition. Eleven companies had three minutes to tell their stories and then the room of business investors and entrepreneurs voted. It’s no easy task to share the power and vision behind your life’s work in three minutes. Actually just standing up in front of a big room of people with a timer ticking away is a win. I used notecards that maybe I didn’t need but I wasn’t going to risk it.

Winners always look like they have it altogether, and I suppose at the moment they win all kinds of things have come together on their behalf. I can tell you that this win is far from mine alone. This is true about most real wins; that there is always a team of dedicated people who believe in a vision that makes something real. On our own we accomplish nothing; the winner just gets to be a the front of the line. It takes time to learn how much success depends on a community of talent. 

Emerson once said, “Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” I have been working for a long time to turn my talent into the skills I needed to be able to articulate and execute my goal. It has taken years for the pieces to come together for this win to have happened tonight. It feels great to be recognized for the vision and determination that it took me to get to this point.

Winning is a sign that you have figured out what was missing in all the near misses that came before. It is the reward for believing that you only fail when you quit.