Winning Doesn’t Always Equal Success [Blogpost 110]

(Source: Why Winning Doesn’t Always Equal Success).

I love the way in which TED Talks allow one to learn more about our world. I appreciate the way in which these short talks from experts give me the opportunity to expand my knowledge base, hear individuals reflect on their professional and/or personal experiences and learn about initiatives in education, science and more to improve the lives of many around the world.

Some years ago I subscribed to receive the daily email from TED Talks. I recently received one entitled, Why Winning Doesn’t Always Equal Success, in which Valorie Kondos Field reflects on her experiences as the Head Coach of UCLA Women’s Gymnastics Team. At the beginning of the talk, she made the salient point, “We need to redefine winning. Real success is developing champions in life for our world, win or lose.”

Valorie’s TED Talk resonated with me both on a personal level (regarding both my own development and that of my daughter in Grade 11) and on a professional level (as the Head of Admissions). While I prefer to give brief excerpts, the following seems too important to endeavour to reduce to one or two phrases.

“ … We can no longer lead from a place where winning is our only metric of success, where our ego sits center stage, because it has been proven that that process produces broken human beings. And I emphatically know that it is absolutely possible to produce and train champions in life in every single walk of life without compromising the human spirit.

It starts with defining success for yourself and those under your care and then consistently self-examining whether your actions are in alignment with your goals.

We are all coaches in some capacity. We all have a collective responsibility to develop champions in life for our world. That is what real success looks like, and in the world of athletics, that is what we call a win-win.”

I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of moving away from winning being the only metric of success for the individual and society at large. During school tours and meetings (on average I do three tours/meetings a day with prospective families from around the world) I share - per our school’s philosophy and in line with that of the IB - the importance of students being balanced and well rounded. I know that for many families, this is a priority. However for others, the focus is solely on success as measured in terms of IB scores and university acceptances.

Does the notion of “Real success is developing champions in life for our world, win or lose.”  resonate with you?