“Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing” is a well-known quotation in sports. It is attributed to UCLA Bruins football coach “Red” Sanders.

Such quotes are seemingly inspirational. In truth they are highly contextual. How do you measure winning? Why are the winners of a game worshiped… and then later frowned upon when it is discovered that they cheated? If winning is the only thing, then it shouldn’t matter how the score was achieved… because “the only thing” leaves no room for honor, integrity, or honesty. That would be four things… THE thing… and three apparently vital yet unspoken qualifiers.

All too often (like… always) the sound bite is considered by those that are superficially observant, singularly minded, and short-sighted to be the end of the story… to be all there is to an idea, principle, or potential truth. It’s short, easy to understand, and often inaccurate or misleading. In the end, every sound bite falls apart as truth requires context and qualifications. A sound bite is at best the beginning of a sentence that is almost never completed. Completing it requires too much thought, introspection and mental exploration of circumstance and scenario specifics. Thinking that much ruins the moment, takes the steam out of the rally cry, and dramatically diminishes the superficial motivation that mindless followers crave (not to be confused with the internalness of true inspiration).

Watch this ➡ (the good part that follows the imposed ads) and tell me that the only concern should be “winning”. Or better yet, tell me what truly defines “winning”! Is there really a sound bite that explains what you felt after that video as compared maybe to watching your favorite team gather more points on a scoreboard. The feeling following the video is generated by witnessing integrity, compassion, and an “it’s bigger than the score” perspective of winning… offered by a mere child. What you feel when your favorite team wins is ego… by proxy! You did nothing and deserve nothing, yet as an adult… with all your supposed wisdom and life-experience, it’s somehow everything, momentarily. Ultimately you wasted an hour of a relatively short life living vicariously through others. Sadder yet is the recounting decades later of having witnessed such score-based game winning moments, as if they were the crowning moment and total measure of your life-experiences. Saddest… they probably were.

Maybe we should be less concerned about whether or not people we don’t know (and who truly don’t impact our lives) amass more points than others (who we also don’t know nor don’t impact our lives) during a given hour. Maybe we should be more interested and invested in what might actually constitute intrapersonal success by what truly may impact our lives… as well as the lives of those whom we may potentially influence, directly and/or indirectly … during a moment… or over an hour… maybe much longer. Maybe we should invest more wisely… with a long term strategy… and measured by what constitutes “winning” across and for a lifetime. Intrapersonal success can’t be measured on the outside. There is no score board. And the only potential opponent is you.