WINNERS DO QUIT; QUITTERS DO WIN
This is something I want you to read, it not our usual creative thinking material but it's something I want you to read!
Yet another quote I’ve come to discover an inherent falsehood in is the ‘winners never quit, quitters never win’ theory.
I have, myself, been guilty in the past of making such errors and carrying on about the tenacity andstick-to-it-iveness of winners. While this may be true in several ways, I have found that it is a horrible tool of gross deception in several others. Even the slightest cursory observation unravels the weak threads that hold this premise together.
A heavy smoker who just discovers a lung problem, a lager lout who has lost several valuables due to his drinking habits, an indulgent sweet tooth who has just been diagnosed with diabetes- these people would be undoubtedly and astutely labeled as wholesomely foolish if they continue in those harmful vices that got them in their unenviable predicament just because ‘winners never quit and quitters never win’.
In fact, this saying is a bastion of grand delusion behind which weak-willed people rally behind in denial of their feelings of insecurity, fear of the unknown and unwillingness to step out and step forward.
The manufacturers of coal trains latched on to this saying and were gradually but firmly stamped out of business when they refused to acknowledge that they could quit the coal train business and remain in the transport business by buying into the emerging automobile business.
The Swiss watch-makers had this saying as their creed of belief and article of faith when they rejected a bright young man’s idea of quartz digital watches. The 1970’s and ‘80’s saw them suffer huge but avoidable losses because they rejected Market Evolution.
2003 was the beginning of the end for the ‘baddest man on the planet’ as he refused to see the telltale sign of the end of his reign as champion of the world. Mike Tyson filed for bankruptcy and suffered pitiful bashing in the ring he once controlled and held sway. He could have- but didn’t- leave when the ovation was loudest because he believed ‘winners never quit and quitters never win’.
There are those who never quit yet never win. Theirs is a vicious cycle. They never quit because they want to win, and they’ll never win because they never quit.
Loosers never know when to quit.
It doesn’t occur to them that to keep doing the same things in the same way and yet to expect different results is a synonymous definition of insanity. No, practice doesn’t always make perfect- not if you’re doing the wrong things in the wrong way and at the wrong times. You can try to practice passing a camel through the eye of a needle from now till eternity. I confidently assure you that when you’re old and grey and your eyesight grows exceeding dim, the only thing you’d succeed in doing is topass the needle through the eye of the camel!
If you’re doing something totally wrong for you, something you’re unsuited for, it takes the courage, which only winners have, to quit. It does no eternal good to waste a life-time, energy and resources building castles on quick-sand, doing what you have no business doing, going down an eventual dead-end, working on areas of weaknesses while side-lining areas of strength- it does no eternal good and is counter-productive to succeed in a path that will ultimately fail rather than dare to fail in the paths that would ultimately succeed. I sincerely do not see the wisdom of “hang in there” on a sinking ship buffeted by the harsh elements you foresaw, gutted by the booming canon balls of reality.
Winners are nimble.
Winners know when to quit and what to quit.
Winners know when to walk away.
Winners have an in-depth understanding of times and seasons. A time to ‘hold on’ and a time to ‘let go’.
Winners know what things to hold on to and what things to let go off.
Letting go is a strictly physical action yet mental engagement for a better way. Giving up, on the other hand, is a merely physical expression of a deep mental conviction of the hopelessness of a case or cause. Thomas Edison let go off several ideas while trying to invent the light bulb- including using the whiskers of his beard as filament. But he never gave up on building that electric bulb.
Winners win, not because they never quit, but because, on the contrary, they have the strength and courage of discovered purpose to begin again more intelligently.
Losers lose, not because they always quit, but because they ‘never give up’ on the wrong things.
In that place of winners…, I hope to see you.
Have a wonderful week!
Happy Sunday!
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