A Champion's Soul

Muhammad Ali famously said “The fight is won or lost far away from the witnesses, behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road; long before I dance under these lights.”

As a champion, you don’t become a champion the night of the championship, you become a champion years before. Many people do not understand the soul of a champion, it is the soul of a warrior.

The champion does not play the comparison game, because they understand: compete externally and you compare…
…compete internally and you improve.

The game is all about constant improvement.

The way of champions in athletics just like in other facets of life demands high self-esteem, self-awareness, and using failure as a teacher on the road to self-discovery. They focus on consistent preparation and performance, and they know outcomes and results are by-products of commitment to work ethic.

In the words of the philosopher Aristotle, “We are what we consistently commit to doing.”

Champions see sports and life as a medium where they can use their opponents as partners. It isn’t about destroying your competition but using that opponent as a mirror to become your best self.

The word “competitor” is taken from the Latin root meaning “seek together.”

When a worthy opponent goes all out, in the heat of competition, you learn to dig down deep and find some reserves you never knew existed. Your opponent gives you the distinct opportunity to learn valuable lessons in a condensed period of time.

As former Seahawks Head Coach Pete Carroll said about their competition at practice: “Competition is a central theme in our program so we’re competing in everything that we do. To me it’s the competition that elevates the guys’ involvement in the fun that they have in practice… It makes a HUGE difference on the energy that they bring on a regular basis. Competition is about striving for what you want, it’s not about beating somebody down, so our guys learn to appreciate the guys across from them because the guy across from them is the guy that makes them.”

Because competition is so important, winning therefore is different. It is looked at as the ability to demonstrate your best on a more consistent basis.

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