When I think about winning there is one story that sticks out in my mind about one of the greatest winners I’ve ever been around. During my freshman year of wrestling at Iowa State, our head wrestling coach was Cael Sanderson — arguably the best wrestler in collegiate history with a record of 159-0. He also went on to win an Olympic gold medal in the 2004 summer games. I heard this particular story while I was sitting in the wrestling room one day. I’m not even sure if this is how things really went down but it doesn’t matter because it still has an impact on me. It goes something like this…

If you know wrestling, you know that Cael was the type of wrestler that dominated matches and always scored a ton of points in the process. In one of the annual all-star duals he wrestled a close match. He won, of course, but it was only by a handful of points. Keep in mind that this event is an exhibition which means that it doesn’t even “count” on the official record. That didn’t matter to him. When he came off the mat that day he told his coach that he was never going to have another match that close.

You see what he did there? He made a decision. He set his attitude. Don’t get me wrong, winning on a high level just isn’t going to happen without having the skills to back it up. That part of the game takes practice — and a lot of it. But the key to his success was his attitude.