The Art Of The Fight - the challenge of winning.
INTRODUCTION:
No, I am not talking about fist fighting. What I am talking about is the art of fighting against the challenge of winning. Hopefully, by the time you finish reading this, you will at achieving your goals a bit differently. As people, we associate winning with success and losing with failure. Remember this important statement.
YOU HAVE ONLY LOST IF YOU DID NOT GIVE IT YOUR BEST EFFORT. IF YOU DID, YOU WERE SIMPLY NOT SUCCESSFUL.
Only you can determine if you put forward your best effort in anything you attempt to do. Actually, why attempt to do anything if you are not going to give it your best effort? Are you looking to set yourself up for failure?
THE ART OF THE FIGHT:
There is no magic pill you can take to be successful. There is a trick to the art of the fight. Well, maybe not a trick, but a philosophy or a better term might be a mindset. Anything we do in life we must have the proper mindset. LEt's face it. Everyone wants to be a winner, and everyone wants to be successful. However, LOSE the mindset you probably have that in order to achieve success, you have to win. That is the farthest thing from the truth. Anything you do in life that you put your best effort into, regardless of the outcome, makes you a winner. That you must believe. You might be thinking, 'he's crazy.' well, not so much, because, there are thousands of people that start things and do not see them through, therefore, the outcome will NEVER be positive therefore, how could they win or be successful?
By virtue of the facts, if you do something, see it through, and gave it your best effort, you are automatically a winner and were successful as compared to those that did not. One of the problems is as a society, we have assigned inanimate things to act as symbols to reflect success and winning. Let's take last week's Superbowl game as an example. Yes, in a game, there is a winner and a loser. Someone who scored higher than the other team, or someone who had better cards in a card game. However, to even make it to the Superbowl, both teams were successful and both teams were winners. Ultimately, one will take the prize, but that does not make the other team less of a winner just by virtue of the accomplishments it took to get there. On the other hand, cards, are a game of chance as well as skill.
Therefore, the art of the fight starts with one simple concept.
YOU MUST START WITH REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS.
Let's take a writer for example. I use this example because after writing 14 books, let's just say I have some experience in that area. Naturally, every book a writer writes they feel is the best. Therefore, it should be a best-seller, or at least sell many copies. The problem with that theory is, it is not a realistic expectation. The main reason being, no one can predict what others will like or dislike, buy or not buy. Most have no idea what goes into writing a book. Actually, writing the book is the easiest part. It's planning and anticipating the right time to publish it, marketing it, and other factors that are the more difficult and challenging parts. However, should the book not become a best-seller or sell many copies, does not mean the writer failed or was not successful. The reason being, to get it to that stage, and release it to the public, makes the writer successful.
Again, it's how we as a society gauge success. Let me ask you this. If someone is rich and famous as well as being happy, are they any more successful than someone who is not rich and famous, but also leads and has a happy life?
AS A SOCIETY WE COMPARE:
What does that mean? We compare ourselves to others. Maybe an individual, or a couple, or another family. Being honest with yourself for a moment, have you ever envied someone else, a couple, or a family, because they had things you do not have? IS that addressing the art of the fight with the proper expectations? Or, are you setting yourself up to fail? Let me tell you a story of a friend of mine. He was never the envious type. He got married, the first house they bought they stayed in. They raised three children in a smaller house, but never upscaled as they made more money and their family grew. They made it work. Did some remodeling, or whatever it took to make life comfortable. In the meantime, many others were getting bigger houses, higher mortgages, spending more than what they made when they got increases in pay. How do I know that? Because back then, I was one of those people. Now, this is certainly a matter of choice for people. But let's look at the outcome.
He stayed in that house, which by the way was paid off in his early forties, knowing that one day his kids would be grown and leave. For the rest of his life, he had a great deal of money to save. Do you think that reduced his financial stress considerably? Of course, it did. Meanwhile, until I smartened up, which most of my friends did not, they would be paying a mortgage until well after they retire, even if they sold the house because of their additional debt. The moral being, he was not one to compare or deny what others did. To this day we are still friends. He retired early, and lives and travel as much as he and his wife want to.
We allow ourselves to fall into the trap of being validated by what we have, or what we have achieved. However, those things do not represent whether a person is a winner or successful. It gets back to what makes you happy. Thankfully, I learned about this trap in more than enough time to change my lifestyle and taught these principles to my three children. So you see, having realistic expectations, and putting forward your best efforts, will give you the proper tools the fight the challenges that life will present to you, and trust me, there will be many challenges you will face in your life. Many of you may have already experienced this.
NOTHING IS GUARANTEED:
Never think anyone, or the world owes you anything. No one owes you a thing. You get what you earned and nothing else is guaranteed. Some of you may have been married once, and some more than once. When you entered into that arrangement, you had the best of intentions. However, at times, the best of intentions do not make it work. How many people have you dates and said, 'I love you' to, only to find that a few months later you were dating someone else. You put that huge bet on a ball game because all indicators show you that team should win, or that horse should win the race. Only to find out that you lost your bet. You applied for a job promotion when you knew your performance and credentials were better than anyone else that applied, yet, you didn't get the job. Remember that saying, "The only two things in life that are guaranteed are paying taxes and dying." Well, guess what. That's true.
IN CLOSING:
The art of the fight that will always make you a winner and successful, is having realistic expectations and putting in your best effort. If you have both of those things, you won the fight, and don't ever let anyone tell you differently. Being happy is a situation that is in your mind and how you feel about yourself. I have written two best-sellers. I have written books that made money and books that lost money. I have weeks where five or ten thousand people read my blog and other weeks where only two thousand people or less read it. My point being, I know this going into the game. Some topics will appeal to some and not others, and that ratio will change weekly. I spend no money on advertising my blog. It grows through SEO ranking and word of mouth. I study my analytics carefully. I know exactly what topics get better results than others. However, I NEVER refuse to honor a request from a subscriber to talk about a topic, even if I know it may not be a popular one to discuss.
From a business standpoint, that is probably not the best choice. However, I make a commitment to my readers and subscribers to talk about requested topics. That commitment is more important to me. Every writer MUST be loyal to their readers. PERIOD! When I write a book, I try to follow the trends, unless it is to discuss a subject in the non-fiction narrative form. When I publish a learning tutorial, I do it by what most people want to learn. Those two projects are completely different than writing a blog. Therefore, my point is, I give whatever project I am doing, even if I know it may not reap the same results, my best effort, and I have realistic expectations. When you follow those two simple guidelines, you will always be a winner and you will always be successful. The most important lesson you will have learned is that you have nothing to prove to anyone but yourself. Trust me, at some point, the accolades will follow because people will take notice of your character and accomplishments. Just do not expect them. If you view my media release page, you will understand. The many articles that have been written about me I did not ask for, nor did I expect, and it took years to get that degree of notoriety, and I am blessed and thankful for it. I hope provided you a different outlook on the art of the fight.
Stay safe and be well. Thank you.
Caesar Rondina
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