Sometimes We Lose.

I took this picture after my Daughter’s soccer team got a beat down and lost 7-2 few weeks back. Sitting across the sidelines a fellow dad said “Man that’d be a great picture of the girls with the mountains in the background, but who wants a reminder of that loss?” As I walked over to meet with my daughter I was thinking, “That would make a great picture, but do I want the reminder of a loss?”

As I walked closer, I thought “This is a great memory I don’t want to forget” and snapped the photo on my phone. And looking back on it, I was thinking why are we so conditioned to hide, or look at losses as failures. I know this is nothing new, and we’ve all heard the quotes on resilience etc. but who doesn’t lose? I guess DJ Khalid, But We lose all the time at work. Missed sales plans, wrong hires, systems we thought would solve our problems creating new ones, and whatever outside influence(s) take us to places we could never foresee.

As I’ve matured both personally and professionally, I’ve found I never shy away from my mistakes or failures at this point, and wish I’d learned that earlier in my career. The losses keep me humble, they unite my team on how to work better together, and knowing that we are going to lose again, to me, makes the wins oh so sweet. So next time you’re hesitating to capture that reminder of a loss, maybe just capture the memory to remind you how fortunate you truly are.