Anyone Can Win! That's What I Love About America!

Okay, it was just a horserace, but it illustrates what I love about America!

Big Brown was considered a shoo in to be the first horse in thirty years to win the triple crown. The win was all but guaranteed!
No need for the other horses to even show up!
Might as well just pay the winner’s purse to the owners and not risk injuring one of the horses by running the race!
It was a foregone conclusion…only a fool would bet against Big Brown!

Or so ran the hype the week before the race…one problem
Somebody forgot to tell Longshot Da'Tara (who was supposed to finish last) and Big Brown.
Or, maybe somebody did tell them.

Maybe, Big Brown started believing all the hype going around the stable about how invincible he was. Perhaps he began thinking about how he had gone undefeated in his first five starts, how well he ran at the Kentucky Derby and Prekness, leaving the other horses to eat his dust.

And possibly, Da’Tara had been teased and made the brunt of jokes from the other horses in the stable (you know how it is when everybody thinks you are a big loser). If that happened, Da’ Tara probably started thinking, “Alright self, you have a decision to make. You can just accept everyone’s opinion of you or you can suck it and prove them wrong!”

Wrestling with that decision wasn’t easy, I mean the poor horse hadn’t performed up to expectations recently, it would have not have been hard to reason that “the planets were aligned wrong,” or “the trainer has turned against me” or “if I had better jockeys, I’d show ‘em a thing or two.” Couple that with the knowledge that “I know I’ve got the bloodline and potential to do better” and Da’Tara could have had a real pity party.

But, as Charles Brenner, (pioneering psychoanalyst who recently died at age 94) taught us, “the engine of motivation… ”[is] more like a psychological calculator, continuously computing ratios of pleasure versus pain.” So as Da’Tara’s motivation engine began calculating, the decision was made that more pleasure would be found in trying to prove the skeptics wrong that wallowing in the pleasure of self-pity.

And, as they say, the rest is racing history. Big Brown became the eleventh horse in thirty years to fail to win the triple crown and the longshot “loser” won the big race!

Since I’m not a horse whisperer, I assume horses aren’t capable of such thinking, but this little fable points up some important points for us to ponder.

First, when you are doing well in your profession, don’t believe all the hype! Doing so can make you complacent and like Big Brown, your past successes can become yesterday’s news.

Second, if things haven’t been going well lately, don’t let it defeat your spirits by allowing yourself to dwell on the negative criticisms from others (or your own internal critic). Instead consider what you can do to improve and then discipline yourself to make the necessary changes.

Finally, allow your “engine of motivation” to work for you. Determine what you will find the greatest pleasure in (as far as your career, family, etc), assess the potential “pain” (risk and effort) involved in attaining it, set new goals and get moving toward them because as Bishop Thomas Monson once wrote, “The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.”
Have a GREAT and profitable week!
Robert Hidde
bob@confidentliving.com