The Counterintuitive Secret to Sustainable Success
Winning at all costs is for losers.
Competition is a fantastic motivator. But you unlock something incredible when you redefine success as mastery. Let me explain…
I’m a runner. Most runners enjoy exerting mastery over our mind and body. They’re intrinsically motivated. No-one is forcing us to get up early and go out into the dark and cold to do something hard, solitary, and repetitive. We’re not trying to impress anybody at the beach with our skinny arms and low heart rate. Most of us like to benchmark our performance against our prior runs. We like to test how far we can push ourselves.
That is mastery. And with this mindset, running has given me a lot of joy. It’s taught me that how you define your accomplishments can’t be a black-and-white matter.
But let’s be realistic: Competition is a fantastic motivator. Runners have some ego-driven motivation, like everyone else. My fastest runs have always been during races. I find it exciting to push against other runners and get my time published on the website…for everyone to see.
Martin Seligman is the director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. And if you read my book, you’ll notice that I’m a fan of his work.
In the introduction to his book Flourish, Seligman compares two types of bridge players.
The first focuses on mastery. They play “to improve, to learn, to solve problems, and to be in flow.” When they win, they’re thrilled. When they lose—assuming they played well—they’re a bit less thrilled, however, they are thrilled, nonetheless.
Then there’s the second player who only plays to win. For them a loss is devastating, no matter how well they played. But a win…a win is great, even if it’s an ugly one. There are even some who’ll cheat to get there.
Now, these two players may be equally successful, but I’d be willing to bet that the mastery-focused player enjoys the game a lot more, and they’re better equipped to cope with mistakes.
If you want to lead your organization in an inspiring, sustainable, and positive way, you can’t just focus on winning for the sake of winning. You must get off the goals-accomplishment treadmill and rethink your entire goal-setting process. You must redefine success as mastery. It’s as I wrote the other week: Mastery in business leadership is all about process.
That said, no one is asking you to give up your desire to win. I’m not asking you to give up the fire in your belly. Being uninterested in winning doesn’t make sense to me, no matter what academic psychologists claim.
However, you must dig deeper than the surface notion that reaching your ego-driven goals means happiness. To get out of this mental fog, consider your life goals and how you lead your organization. Ask yourself whether your ego is too involved. If so, redirect your goals towards mastery. Expand your definition of accomplishment.
Don’t focus so much on winning, such that in the long run, you’ll win.
It may seem counterintuitive—especially coming from someone who wrote a book on mental toughness—to tell you not to focus so much on winning. Still, you must redefine success as mastery for mastery’s sake, rather than winning for winning’s sake.
My point, I suppose, is that winning at all costs is for losers.
Seb
When he decided to write a book on leadership and self-improvement, Sébastien Page was rejected by over 200 literary agents.
He was asked, “Why would a finance expert write about leadership?” He was told to stay in his lane.
Sébastien has more than two decades of leadership experience. As an author, he believes breakthroughs often happen when experts venture outside their field. That is why, in "The Psychology of Leadership," he went beyond finance and economics to study research in psychology.
He is currently Head of Global Multi-Asset and Chief Investment Officer at T. Rowe Price. He oversees a team of investment professionals actively managing over $500 billion in assets under management.
Sébastien won research paper awards from The Journal of Portfolio Management in 2003, 2010, 2011, and 2022 and the Financial Analysts Journal in 2010 and 2014. In addition to The Psychology of Leadership, he is the author of Beyond Diversification: What Every Investor Needs to Know About Asset Allocation (McGraw Hill, 2020) and the coauthor of Factor Investing and Asset Allocation (CFA Institute Research Foundation, 2016).
Sébastien is also a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Financial Analysts Journal, and the Board of Directors of the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance (Q Group). He regularly appears in the media, including Bloomberg TV and CNBC, and was recently named amongst the 15 Top Voices in Finance by LinkedIn.