Hi there!

So many people talk about competition. How to overcome it, how to win it, how to crash it.

But what is the real meaning of the word competition?

To answer this question, let me drive you to the pages of an incredible book named “Elite Minds” written from Dr. Stan Beecham.

In there we read:
“Competition holds the promise to bring out the very best in us, and that’s why we should seek it out.
The word comes from the Latin root peto, which means ‘to go out and seek.’
The prefix com means ‘with’ or ‘together.’

Thus, competition is a social process that requires others.
You can’t do it by yourself.

But what is it that we should seek during competition?[Dr. George] Sheehan suggests that ‘competition is simply each of us seeking our absolute best with the help of each other.’

I love that that statement. It’s one of the best sentences I have ever read in my entire life.
It captures the notion that we are not in this competitive world alone.
We are all here together struggling for the same things.

Sheehan follows that sentence with two more great ones:
‘What we do magnifies each other, inspires each of us.
The race is a synergistic society where what accrues to one accrues to all,
a society in which everyone can be a winner.’

Great competitors are assisted, not inhibited, by the competition.
Going against the best should inspire us, drive us, and set our souls on fire.
Competing against the best will bring out the best in you if you learn how to compete with and not against.”

That’s it. A whole new definition of competition.
A true one. A productive one. A fruitful one.

Competition is about the quest to find our absolute best self with the help of others.
I absolutely love this idea.

Take care and go compete with not against.

All my best,
Konstantinos Karypidis