The Game Of The Two Words

Defend your honor in the event of failure, by giving up any negative thought that distracts you from your deepest values.

In 2008, Barack Obama, America's current president, won 52 percent of the popular vote, the equivalent of 338 electoral votes compared to the 163 of his Republican counter, John McCain. It was a victory appreciated by all as a first step towards a more efficient leadership based on honesty, ethics and competence.

Even so, more and more I liked the reaction of the defeated.

The Republican, John McCain has accepted his defeat shortly after the televisions announced Obama as a winner, and he had a speech considered "elegant" by analysts, that urged Americans to support Barack, and has assumed his full defeat.

"We fought -- we fought as hard as we could. And though we feel short, the failure is mine, not yours" declared McCain to the supporters, gathered in Phoenix, Arizona. "Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much. And tonight, I remain her servant." also said the veteran McCain. *

Do you deviate from the values ​​that formed the basis of your ascension at the risk of losing your inner measure, to the final verdict of conscience that weighs your dignity in the face of failure?

If a landslide victory can propel you to the heights of success, then failure, for your unhappiness, can push you back. At least this would be the opinion of some of us. However, as we have seen, there is no generally valid truth.

Undoubtedly, for the Republican, John McCain's, his defeat was just another stage that he had to pass, a stage that he has exceeded it with dignity, with honor, adopting that moral attitude specific to leaders, which I consider as indispensable - an attitude that clearly shows respect to the opponent, fairness and accountability for the failure.

Defeat is a great responsibility that you must assume with your chin up, not droopingly. You must be able to take advantage of that moment to get up in the midst of others and show off your inner resources that sustain your personality, which define your leadership. It is the moment when your truth emerges, when it is tested your strength to accept the result, whatever it may be, interiorly accomplished that you did everything it stayed in your power to win, but at the same time analyzing the causes that led to failure.

The secret to your ascension to fulfillment is given by strengthening the power to be superior to who you were yesterday compared to what you want to grow within you.

Just as a healthy and active lung compensates well for the loss of the other lung - so a well-thought-out message shared with absolute conviction, a dose of responsibility and a sense of honor compensates well for a bitter defeat. Authentic leadership means pushing past your limits in the service of a noble ideal, not just victory.

When you lose you cannot change the script or to change the course of things, but you can come out victorious in the confrontation with yourself. And you can even grow amazingly much your influence if you approach the failure in the most efficient and favorable manner to you in order to convey an honest feeling and a clear message: "I was not ready yet to win".

Do you integrate your past, present and future under the force of an understanding born of the maxim: "In all things consider the end"?

Leadership is a "play" with different levels of skill and competence, where only two words, two reference marks can test your character traits: "victory" and "failure". It is a game where you have to be the master of yourself and to bridle your emotions, a game in which you can conquer or overcome.

There are no beautiful defeat, but really valuable people, gifted with leadership talent, know how to exploit those adverse situations in order to boost their image and reputation in top choices of the others.

Just as a diamond must be polished to shine - so you should oust some layers that adumbrate your "brilliance" and to reveal that deep side, bright, which characterizes your personality as a human that adopts the fair play in any case.

Fair play is based on the freedom to believe in a supreme ideal, as long as your efforts to assert it do not exceed what you have to gain.

The Game Of The Two Words refers to the relativity of success, when the nuances of winning and losing intertwine. A great thinker said that victory should not make you drunk and failure should not break you down. It is a call to temperate behavior in both situations. Today a "victory" can push you towards tomorrow's failure, just as today's "failure" can turn into tomorrow's victory.

In both cases, you must prove fair play, to recognize the qualities of the opponent that led to his victory and to acknowledge your defeat coming out from confrontation with the head up, with dignity, without deviating from your deepest values - those values which formed the basis of your ascension to the final verdict. Winner or loser.

Leadership is a fair play from which the higher version of your Self must win.

* Note: https://www.revista-politica.ro/cum-a-devenit-obama-presedintele-statelor-unite.html