Winning Doesn’t Build Character, It Inflates the Ego
Without the proper development of character, winning creates a cascade of detriment.
How We Play the Game
How often have we been taught the following train of thought — “If I win it will make up for a multitude of sins”? If we follow the train (choo! choo!) to its inevitable conclusion…the locomotive will crash and burn from a screeching fall off an unseen cliff, tumbling into the depths of an inflated ego.
“No one cares how you act when you’re winning,” Eric Davis states in his book, Raising Men: Lessons Navy SEALs Learned from Their Training and Taught to Their Sons. When someone is winning, they are the modicum of success, and thus a majority of the time they are not scrutinized, nor are they scrutinizing themselves. Why? Simple. The ego doesn’t like to be questioned.
The thing is that all this winning inflates the ego.
So now the ego is flexing all the time. But the ego does not care about creating sustainability. It does not care about wellness or wholeness. It does not care about others. In fact, it may turn us into something we never would have wanted to become.
Davis’ statement taken out of context seems like he’s promoting a “win at all costs” mentality. But he connects it with examples from his experience training SEAL cadets, who although they scored high on their tests and did well in their evolutions, either didn’t make it through BUD/s or got caught doing bad things on or off the job.
Davis contends, just because some of these people were elite performers and some of the most highly skilled people in the world, it did not necessarily guarantee they were successful, nor had they developed the character necessary to truly succeed. Using the example of BUD/s he suggests that most who make it through this stage of training are usually the ones finishing in the middle of the pack.
Interestingly, many of the winners of individual competitions, ended up quitting altogether, or getting kicked out for bad behavior and/or breaking protocol.
Anyone who has ever played sports when they were younger, may remember the old adage: “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.
In other words, precisely how we play the game that will reveal our level of character.
Winning Is a Smokescreen
Winning can be a smokescreen. Especially if this alleged “success” comes early in a pursuit or career.
In my coaching career, I landed a job as a head basketball coach only two years into the profession. I thought I had made it! (**Sidenote the average 1st-time head coach has 10 years of experience**) We were winning games early in the season. Then the bottom dropped out.
I was losing games to people I should have been beating. My team was losing faith in themselves because they had lost faith in me. And I couldn’t figure out why. But I was winning early on. What gives?
Here’s the thing about “winning”:
We can win due to sheer luck. We can win because we competed against an inferior opponent. We can win because you trained our butts off and made the people around us better. We can win because we bent the rules to give ourselves an advantage. We can win because a few absolute studs are pulling the weight of everyone else. The scenarios go on and on.
When we see the final score, or read the final reports, all we’ll get from a glance are numbers. There will be a quick headline or soundbite with a couple of quotes from the premier athlete or person in charge. That’s it. We see nothing about the character of the persons involved or the journey it took to arrive at that particular victory.
In essence, the numbers tell a story. And oftentimes, the story behind the winning and losing is left untold.
Why then are we so surprised when we discover that Tiger Woods was a pill-pooping sex addict while he was dominating the PGA Tour?
Why were we shocked in 2008 when were learned brokers lent money to people who had no chance of paying it back so they could take advantage of an interest rate?
What happened? Technically, they won.
Winning became the main objective. Then winning became the only thing.
But what was the cost?
Look at the long term effects. Millions of people lost their homes. It taxpayers had to bail out these companies to the tune of trillions of dollars. These brokers turned into people they’d never planned on becoming and used a short term win as justification. No one cared about their character when they were winning.
Tiger Woods, the golden boy of the golf world and one of the greatest athletes of all time, tarnished his image in the public eye. He betrayed his wife and children. He lost millions of dollars in sponsorship money which caused people to lose their jobs. What happened?
No one cared about his character when he was winning.
The In-Between
Character is developed in the preparation between events. If this is the prime focus, then winning eventually will come. We will win and we will have won by playing the game properly. If winning is the sole focus, we may win some. We may taste fleeting success. But we traded the bird in our hand for the two in the bush that have long since disappeared.
Davis uses examples in the book from what is famously known as Hell Week in SEAL training. During this week recruits are put in situations where inevitably they are going to be wrong, fail or lose regardless of what decision they make. What is the point for this approach?
According to Davis, SEAL training is designed this way to teach recruits that failure happens. So does loss. Losing is not a big deal unless we don’t learn.
What is anathema is not owning up to mistakes or blaming something or someone else. The world of the Navy SEAL Davis warns, not owning failures could get a recruit hazed, kicked out, or worse, it could get others killed.
Why is owning failures or loss important? Because this is how we grow. It puts our egos in check. It takes courage. In essence, this allows us to develop the humility necessary to carry on.
Dr. Jordan Peterson, in a recent series of lectures, makes an interesting illustration.
He says that we should teach our kids to view life as a series of games. If winning the game in front of us right now will cause us to lose every game for the next 35 years, maybe we should reconsider our approach.
Sure, developing character is not scandalous or sexy. Sure, it’s not going to generate a lot of buzz. In the short term, it may look and feel as if the failure may never stop. But if we keep learning, it will cease. And we will have developed the character necessary to carry the torch of winning in a real and sustainable way.
