Competition is a wonderful and important aspect of success, but some people recoil in horror over how it forces them to be proactive. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explores the reasons why we need to embrace our competitive nature. (Video Podcast)
Rob Artigo: Good to be back. This is a special edition of the podcast. It’s on video, so if you are listening to it and you want to watch it, you can go to toughthingsfirst.com, find the link to this podcast and then right next to you it’ll say, “Click here if you want to watch the video,” and you can do that. And vice versa. If you happen to be watching it or you found us on YouTube, you can switch back and find the audio-only version. So you can listen or watch. It’s up to you.
So Ray, one thing that came up recently was something that you wrote and you’d sent me in an email and it basically laments the idea that competition is a wonderful and important thing. This musing is fantastic because some people are afraid of competition and some people aren’t. So this is what you wrote. “Competition is a wonderful and important aspect of success. The main reason some hate competition is because they have to improve and this takes extra effort.” So you also make the point, “To embrace competition like it… You got to embrace competition,” I’m misreading this, “to embrace competition like it was a loved one.” So if you do that, you’ll be the better for it. So tell me a little bit about why competition helps drive you to success.
Ray Zinn: It really is the hallmark of what causes us to become better people is competition. I know that it sounds like a dirty word because we have to compete against someone and that takes effort, but we look at all the sports events that happened, football, basketball, baseball, hockey, whatever, and those are all competitions and we enjoy watching competitions. But how many of us like to participate in it? It’s because it’s tough. I mean, a professional athlete, it’s difficult. They have to prepare, they have to work at it. I remember Jerry Rice when he was a neighbor of mine and played for the 49ers, I mean, he would practice twice as long as other people, other athletes. Because to become the best, you really have to put forth a lot of effort. And I guess basically we’re lazy and we don’t want to have to put out that much effort to become better. We like it to be handed to us.
But you can’t refine yourself by accident. I mean, refining takes work. It’s like hardening steel. It’s a process. I mean, when we talk about hardening, you harden steel to strengthen it. So to harden ourselves is to strengthen ourselves, but we have to have a purpose. A competition has to be there to drive us to do that. And that’s why I said you got to love competition, love it like a loved one, and embrace it so that it becomes the hallmark of who you are. You invite competition, you want it. It’s endearing. You just can’t stand to be without it. That’s the way you should look at competition.
Rob Artigo: Well, you’ve always recognized the importance of competition here. And in your decades with Micrel as CEO, you seem to always have this policy that if you’re producing a product, it’s being manufactured and it’s going to go to market, it’s on its way, well, you’re already products ahead in development because you know that if you don’t do it, the competition is going to do it and you’ll be behind. Right?
Ray Zinn: Well, staying ahead of the competition is, I don’t care what sport you’re in, you don’t want to wait till the fourth quarter to score all your points. You want to get off to a good start. And so you got to look ahead. Don’t be complacent about your competition. I mean, they’re there, they’re real, and they’re going to eat your lunch if you don’t get ready for them. So having that forward-looking view of competition and how if you don’t take care of your customer, somebody else will. You got to be out there. Don’t be complacent about your competition and where you see your product or service.
Rob Artigo: Yeah, it’s like the corporate level or the big level there in business is that the best offense is a good offense. It’s different than the thinking in sports. Going back to the individual, the micro level, and you’d see that the status quo is not progress. I mean, if you really want to look at yourself as an individual, if you aren’t performing to compete, you’re going to leave yourself behind and eventually everything will just pass you up.
Ray Zinn: It’s called performing at the highest level. I don’t care what you’re doing, whether you’re washing dishes or whether you’re vacuuming the floor or out there designing another product, you want to be at the top of your game. Do everything you do at the highest level with the way you dress, the way you talk, the way you eat, the way you interact with others. You want to be at the highest level and that keeps you at your peak performance.
Rob Artigo: And if you’re at your peak performance, we’ll wrap it up with this, if you do all the work, like you were talking about Jerry Rice, he worked twice as hard as everybody else and he was twice as good as most people. So it just stands to reason that you get that result. But Jerry Rice dropped passes. The team lost games sometimes. I believe he was on multiple Super Bowl teams, including when they went to the championship, the 49ers that is, went to the championship game and didn’t make it to the Super Bowl that year. You win some, you lose some, but being the best and accepting the good with the bad, hey, you’re golden right there, right?
Ray Zinn: Well, losing is not a loser. Some people say if you lose, you’re a loser. That’s not true. Losing is not necessarily being a loser. Losing is learning. They both start with L. And so I like to learn through losing because I overcome, I change things, I mix things up and so that I learn from my losing. So don’t think of losing as a loser. Losing is part of competition. It’s part of becoming better at what you’re doing. So just because you lose doesn’t mean you’re a loser.
Rob Artigo: Thanks, Ray. You can join the conversation, folks, at toughthingsfirst.com. This has been a special edition of the Tough Things First Podcast, which you can find there at toughthingsfirst.com and also on Ray’s YouTube channel. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray Zinn on X-Twit, as I like to call it, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First, and as you know, the Zen of Zinn 1, 2, and 3 and on sale now is The Essential Leader, this one right here behind me, 10 Essential Attributes and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Thank you, Ray.
Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.
