Tough Competition Quotes

The editorial director of the Hysteria Channel needs to be tough. This is a highly competitive business. We thrive on conflict. Do you have any experience with the kind of human misery that drives our ratings?” “If you look at the second page of my resume, you’ll see that I have destroyed at least 114 civilizations, have threatened three dozen galaxies and have haunted dimensions you’ve never even heard of. Twice, I was named Demon of the Month. That earned me a premium parking spot.”  

Newspapers are owned and published by rich men. Rich men all belong to the same club. Sure, there’s competition—hard tough competition for circulation, for newsbeats, for exclusive stories. Just so long as it doesn’t damage the prestige and privilege and position of the owners. If it does, down comes the lid.

An island, on the other hand, is small. There are fewer species, and the competition for survival has never reached anything like the pitch that it does on the mainland. Species are only as tough as they need to be, life is much quieter and more settled [..] So you can imagine what happens when a mainland species gets introduced to an island. It would be like introducing Al Capone, Genghis Khan and Rupert Murdoch into the Isle of Wight - the locals wouldn't stand a chance.

Rousseau already observed that this form of government is more accurately an ‘elective aristocracy’ because in practice the people are not in power at all. Instead we’re allowed to decide who holds power over us. It’s also important to realise this model was originally designed to exclude society’s rank and file. Take the American Constitution: historians agree it ‘was intrinsically an aristocratic document designed to check the democratic tendencies of the period’. It was never the American Founding Fathers’ intention for the general populace to play an active role in politics. Even now, though any citizen can run for public office, it’s tough to win an election without access to an aristocratic network of donors and lobbyists. It’s not surprising that American ‘democracy’ exhibits dynastic tendencies—think of the Kennedys, the Clintons, the Bushes. Time and again we hope for better leaders, but all too often those hopes are dashed. The reason, says Professor Keltner, is that power causes people to lose the kindness and modesty that got them elected, or they never possessed those sterling qualities in the first place. In a hierarchically organised society, the Machiavellis are one step ahead. They have the ultimate secret weapon to defeat their competition. They’re shameless.

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack—yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away—jerk!—he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever.

The boys in the Clipper had been winnowed down by punishing competition, and in the winnowing a kind of common character had issued forth: they were all skilled, they were all tough, they were all fiercely determined, but they were also all good-hearted. Every one of them had come from humble origins or been humbled by the ravages of the hard times in which they had grown up. Each in his own way, they had all learned that nothing could be taken for granted in life, that for all their strength and good looks and youth, forces were at work in the world that were greater than they. The challenges they had faced together had taught them humility—the need to subsume their individual egos for the sake of the boat as a whole—and humility was the common gateway through which they were able now to come together and begin to do what they had not been able to do before.

Football is a great deal like life in that it teaches that work, sacrifice, perseverance, competitive drive, selflessness and respect for authority is the price that each and every one of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile

Time for gelato?” “Hmm, I don’t know. You already had gelato yesterday.”  “Please!” He squeezes my neck tighter. “You’re the bestest uncle ever.”  “Thanks. It was a tough competition with myself, but I’m glad I won.”  Chloe giggles and I want to hear more of it. “So yes?” Marko whines.  “Why don’t you go run around some more?” Go run. Go hide. Go rip grass from the ground like I did when I was your age. Anything to give me an ounce of privacy with Chloe.  “Then I get pukey.” He fake retches.

To achieve SEAL-worthy success, you must: • establish your set point, turning a deep sense of values and purpose into a touchstone that will keep your feet in the sand and your eyes on the goal • develop front-sight focus so nothing can derail you on your way to victory • bulletproof your mission to inoculate your efforts against failure • do today what others won’t so you can achieve tomorrow what others can’t • get mentally and emotionally tough, and eliminate the “quit” option from your subconscious • break things and remake them, improving them through innovation and adaptation • build your intuition to utilize the full range of your innate wisdom and intelligence • think offense, all the time, to surprise your competition and dominate the field • train for life to develop mastery of your physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual selves Though many of the

There was a straightforward reason for what was happening. The boys in the Clipper had been winnowed down by punishing competition, and in the winnowing a kind of common character had issued forth: they were all skilled, they were all tough, they were all fiercely determined, but they were also all good-hearted.

Every rhetorician knows that his most effective weapons by far are labels. He can demolish the opposition with simple and devastating labels such as communism, socialism, or atheism, popery, militarism, or Mormonism, or give his clients' worst crimes a religious glow with noble labels such as integrity, old-fashioned honesty, tough-mindedness, or free competitive enterprise.

The encounter demonstrated the difference between newspaper cultures on either side of the pond. In the US, three big newspapers enjoy a virtual monopoly. With little competition, they are free to pursue leads at a leisurely, even gentlemanly, pace. The political culture is different too, with the press generally deferential towards the president. If anyone asked Obama a tough or embarrassing question, this was itself

To weave this into office culture, leaders need to model appropriate boundaries by shutting off email at a reasonable time and focusing on themselves and their family. Do not celebrate people who work through the weekend, who brag that they were tethered to their computers over Christmas break. Ultimately, it’s unsustainable behavior, and it has dangerous side effects, including burnout, depression, and anxiety—it also creates a culture of workaholic competitiveness that’s detrimental for everyone.

we are left with a stark choice: allow climate disruption to change everything about our world, or change pretty much everything about our economy to avoid that fate. But we need to be very clear: because of our decades of collective denial, no gradual, incremental options are now available to us. ”(…) That’s tough for a lot of people in important positions to accept, since it challenges something that might be even more powerful than capitalism, and that is the fetish of centrism—of reasonableness, seriousness, splitting the difference, and generally not getting overly excited about anything. This is the habit of thought that truly rules our era, far more among the liberals who concern themselves with matters of climate policy than among conservatives, many of whom simply deny the existence of the crisis. Climate change presents a profound challenge to this cautious centrism because half measures won’t cut it. (…) The challenge, then, is not simply that we need to spend a lot of money and change a lot of policies; it’s that we need to think differently, radically differently, for those changes to be remotely possible. Right now, the triumph of market logic, with its ethos of domination and fierce competition, is paralyzing almost all serious efforts to respond to climate change. (…) It seems to me that our problem has a lot less to do with the mechanics of solar power than the politics of human power—specifically whether there can be a shift in who wields it, a shift away from corporations and toward communities,

On September 11, it was government that failed. Law enforcement agencies didn't detect the plot. The FBI had reports that said young men on the terrorist watch list were going from flight school to flight school, trying to find an instructor who would teach them how to fly a commercial jet. But the FBI never acted on it. The INS let the hijackers in. Three of them had expired visas. Months after the attack, the government issued visas to two dead hijackers. The solution to such government incompetence is to give the government more power? Congress could have done what Amsterdam, Belfast, Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Paris, and Rome did: set tough standards and let private companies compete to meet them. Many of those cities switched to private companies because they realized government-run security wasn't working very well. Private-sector competition keeps the screeners alert because the airport can fire them. No one can fire the government; that's a reason government agencies gradually deteriorate. There's no competition.

Soon, droves of children start to show up, keeping us rather busy. We start tallying up the number of Trolls, Batmans, Lego men, and princesses we see. The most popular costume? Batman and Superwoman with the fabrics and accessories varying from child to child. But my favorite so far is the girl who dressed as Little Debbie, but then again, I may be biased. “I think she might be my new favorite,” Emma says as a little girl dressed as a nurse walks away. “That’s because you’re a nurse, but you can’t play favorites,” I say, reminding Emma of the rules. She levels with me. “This coming from the guy whose favorite child was dressed as Little Debbie.” “Come on.” I lean back in my chair and motion to my head. “She had the rim of blue on her hat. That’s attention to detail.” “And good fucking parenting,” Tucker chimes in, and we clink our beer bottles together. Amelia chuckles next to me as Emma shakes her head. “Ridiculous. What about you, Amelia? What costume has been your favorite so far?” “Hmm, it’s been a tough competition. There has been some real winning costumes and some absolute piss-poor ones.” She shakes her head. “Just because you put a scarf around your neck and call yourself Jack Frost doesn’t mean you dressed up.” “Ugh, that costume was dumb.” “It shouldn’t be referred to as a costume, but that’s beside the point.” I like how much Amelia is getting into this little pretend competition. She’s a far cry from the girl who first came home earlier. I love that having Tucker and Emma over has given me more time with Amelia, getting to know the woman she is today, but also managed to put that beautiful smile back on her face. “So who takes the cake for you?” I ask, nudging her leg with mine. Smiling up at me, she says, “Hands down it’s the little boy who dressed as Dwight Schrute from The Office. I think I giggled for five minutes straight after he left. That costume was spot on.” “Oh shit, you’re right,” I reply as Emma and Tucker agree with me. “He even had the watch calculator.” “And the small nose Dwight always complains about.” Emma chuckles. “Yeah, he has to be the winner.” “Now, now, now, let’s not get too hasty. Little Debbie is still in the running,” Tucker points out. Amelia leans forward, seeming incredibly comfortable, and says, “There is no way Little Debbie beats Dwight. Sorry, dude.” The shocked look on Tucker’s face is comical. He’s just been put in his place and the old Amelia has returned. I fucking love it.

Visualize the success, not the failure. This part is tough for us perfectionists. We have a hard time ever seeing ourselves as winners; our heads tend to go to a place of “Nothing is going right.” Don’t get hung up on the minutiae. Say what you want, out loud, over and over again. Sound crazy? It works. Before I go onto the competition floor, sometimes I look in the mirror and say out loud, “I want you to do your very best, and I want you to be passionate and be in the moment.” Giving myself those marching orders often reminds me to focus on the positive instead of getting lost in what might be wrong (but likely is just in my head).

Power distance: the degree to which members of a society expect power to be unequally shared. Uncertainty avoidance: a society’s reliance on social norms and procedures to alleviate the unpredictability of future events. Assertiveness: the extent to which a society encourages people to be tough, confrontational, assertive, and competitive rather than modest and tender. Humane orientation: the degree to which a society encourages and rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others. Future orientation: the extent to which a society encourages and rewards future-oriented behaviors such as planning, investing in the future, and delaying gratification. national culture The values and attitudes shared

In the late fifties Romney had been a forceful advocate of breaking up GM. That, he believed, would make everyone leaner and more competitive. In 1957 he went before the Kefauver Senate committee on monopolies. Before he testified he was summoned to the Ford headquarters by Henry Ford and Ernie Breech, the chairman of the company, who were nervous about what he was going to say and wanted to get some idea of his thrust. Romney explained what he wanted: the breaking up of GM and perhaps even Ford. “But that would just make the competition tougher,” Ford had said. “If you broke up GM the rest of us would suffer.” “That’s exactly what I mean,” Romney had said. “Listen, I think it’s tough enough the way it is—it’s a damn hard dollar,” Ford had answered.

Such invocations of fin-de-siècle manliness are so ubiquitous in the correspondence and memoranda of these years that it is difficult to localize their impact. Yet they surely reflect a very particular moment in the history of European masculinity. Historians of gender have suggested that around the last decades of the nineteenth and the first of the twentieth century, a relatively expansive form of patriarchal identity centred on the satisfaction of appetites (food, sex, commodities) made way for something slimmer, harder and more abstinent. At the same time, competition from subordinate and marginalized masculinities – proletarian and non-white, for example – accentuated the expression of ‘true masculinity’ within the elites. Among specifically military leadership groups, stamina, toughness, duty and unstinting service gradually displaced an older emphasis on elevated social origin, now perceived as effeminate.160 ‘To be masculine [. . .] as masculine as possible [. . .] is the true distinction in [men’s] eyes,’ wrote the Viennese feminist and freethinker Rosa Mayreder in 1905. ‘They are insensitive to the brutality of defeat or the sheer wrongness of an act if it only coincides with the traditional canon of masculinity.

There is a persistent theory, held by those who prate most steadily about "the American way of life" that the average American is a rugged individualist to whom the whole conception of "leadership" is something foreign and distasteful—and this theory would certainly seem to be in accord with our national tradition of lawlessness and disrespect for authority. But it is not entirely consistent with the facts. We Americans are inveterate hero worshipers, to a far greater extent than are the British and the French. We like to personalize our loyalties, our causes. In our political or business or labor organizations, we are comforted by the knowledge that at the top is a Big Boss whom we are free to revere or to hate and upon whom we can depend for quick decisions when the going gets tough. The same is true of our Boy Scout troops and our criminal gangs. It is most conspicuously true of our passion for competitive sport. We are trained from childhood to look to the coach for authority in emergencies. The masterminding coach who can send in substitutes with instructions whenever he feels like it—or even send in an entirely new team—is a purely American phenomenon. In British football the team must play through the game with the same eleven men with which it started and with no orders from the sidelines; if a man is injured and forced to leave the field the team goes on playing with only ten men. In British sport, there are no Knute Rocknes or Connie Macks, whereas in American sport the mastermind is considered as an essential in the relentless pursuit of superiority.

supposed weakness on national security. Ours was a brief exchange, filled with unspoken irony—the elderly Southerner on his way out, the young black Northerner on his way in, the contrast that the press had noted in our respective convention speeches. Senator Miller was very gracious and wished me luck with my new job. Later, I would happen upon an excerpt from his book, A Deficit of Decency, in which he called my speech at the convention one of the best he’d ever heard, before noting—with what I imagined to be a sly smile—that it may not have been the most effective speech in terms of helping to win an election. In other words: My guy had lost. Zell Miller’s guy had won. That was the hard, cold political reality. Everything else was just sentiment. MY WIFE WILL tell you that by nature I’m not somebody who gets real worked up about things. When I see Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity baying across the television screen, I find it hard to take them seriously; I assume that they must be saying what they do primarily to boost book sales or ratings, although I do wonder who would spend their precious evenings with such sourpusses. When Democrats rush up to me at events and insist that we live in the worst of political times, that a creeping fascism is closing its grip around our throats, I may mention the internment of Japanese Americans under FDR, the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams, or a hundred years of lynching under several dozen administrations as having been possibly worse, and suggest we all take a deep breath. When people at dinner parties ask me how I can possibly operate in the current political environment, with all the negative campaigning and personal attacks, I may mention Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or some guy in a Chinese or Egyptian prison somewhere. In truth, being called names is not such a bad deal. Still, I am not immune to distress. And like most Americans, I find it hard to shake the feeling these days that our democracy has gone seriously awry. It’s not simply that a gap exists between our professed ideals as a nation and the reality we witness every day. In one form or another, that gap has existed since America’s birth. Wars have been fought, laws passed, systems reformed, unions organized, and protests staged to bring promise and practice into closer alignment. No, what’s troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics—the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problem. We know that global competition—not to mention any genuine commitment to the values

Unconditional blame is the tendency to explain all difficulties exclusively as the consequence of forces beyond your influence, to see yourself as an absolute victim of external circumstances. Every person suffers the impact of factors beyond his control, so we are all, in a sense, victims. We are not, however, absolute victims. We have the ability to respond to our circumstances and influence how they affect us. In contrast, the unconditional blamer defines his victim-identity by his helplessness, disowning any power to manage his life and assigning causality only to that which is beyond his control. Unconditional blamers believe that their problems are always someone else’s fault, and that there’s nothing they could have done to prevent them. Consequently, they believe that there’s nothing they should do to address them. Unconditional blamers feel innocent, unfairly burdened by others who do things they “shouldn’t” do because of maliciousness or stupidity. According to the unconditional blamer, these others “ought” to fix the problems they created. Blamers live in a state of self-righteous indignation, trying to control people around them with their accusations and angry demands. What the unconditional blamer does not see is that in order to claim innocence, he has to relinquish his power. If he is not part of the problem, he cannot be part of the solution. In fact, rather than being the main character of his life, the blamer is a spectator. Watching his own suffering from the sidelines, he feels “safe” because his misery is always somebody else’s fault. Blame is a tranquilizer. It soothes the blamer, sheltering him from accountability for his life. But like any drug, its soothing effect quickly turns sour, miring him in resignation and resentment. In order to avoid anxiety and guilt, the blamer must disown his freedom and power and see himself as a plaything of others. The blamer feels victimized at work. His job is fraught with letdowns, betrayals, disappointments, and resentments. He feels that he is expected to fix problems he didn’t create, yet his efforts are never recognized. So he shields himself with justifications. Breakdowns are never his fault, nor are solutions his responsibility. He is not accountable because it is always other people who failed to do what they should have done. Managers don’t give him direction as they should, employees don’t support him as they should, colleagues don’t cooperate with him as they should, customers demand much more than they should, suppliers don’t respond as they should, senior executives don’t lead the organization as they should, administration systems don’t work as they should—the whole company is a mess. In addition, the economy is weak, the job market tough, the taxes confiscatory, the regulations crippling, the interest rates exorbitant, and the competition fierce (especially because of those evil foreigners who pay unfairly low wages). And if it weren’t difficult enough to survive in this environment, everybody demands extraordinary results. The blamer never tires of reciting his tune, “Life is not fair!

is driven more by fear of not being a success than by a concrete desire to do anything in particular.” The postcollege choices of Ivy League students, he explained, “are motivated by two main decision rules: (1) close down as few options as possible; and (2) only do things that increase the possibility of future overachievement.” Recruiters for investment banks and consulting firms understand this psychology, and they exploit it perfectly: the jobs are competitive and high status, but the process of applying and being accepted is regimented and predictable. The recruiters also make the argument to college seniors that if they join Goldman Sachs or McKinsey and Company or any similar firm, they’re not really choosing anything—they’re just going to spend a couple of years making money and, perhaps, recruiters suggest, doing some good in the world, and then at some point in the future they’ll make the real decision about what they want to do and who they want to be. “For people who don’t know how to get a job in the open economy,” Kwak wrote, “and who have ended each phase of their lives by taking the test to do the most prestigious thing possible in the next phase, all of this comes naturally.

I simply am going to look you in the eye and say that if the United States hopes to remain a major player among nations, facing challenges such as poverty, inadequate education, and global market competition, we’re going to need to draw deeply from our entire talent pool, not just half of it.

RULE 3. Leaders get into everyone’s skin, exuding positive energy and optimism. You know that old saying “The fish rots from the head.” It’s mainly used to refer to how politics and corruption filter down into an organization, but it could just as easily be used to describe the effect of a bad attitude at the top of any team, large or small. Eventually, everyone’s infected. The leader’s mood is, for lack of a better word, catching. You’ve seen the dynamic a hundred times. An upbeat manager who goes through the day with a positive outlook somehow ends up running a team or organization filled with…well, upbeat people with positive outlooks. A pessimistic sourpuss somehow ends up with an unhappy tribe all his own. Unhappy tribes have a tough time winning. Of course, sometimes there are good reasons to be down. The economy is bad, competition is brutal—whatever. Work can be hard. But your job as leader is to fight the gravitational pull of negativism. That doesn’t mean you sugarcoat the challenges your team faces. It does mean you display an energizing, can-do attitude about overcoming them. It means you get out of your office and into everyone’s skin, really caring about what they’re doing and how they’re faring as you take the hill together.

Tough times brought on by the Gulf War were testing such assumptions, forcing us to consider our response. We needed to come up with new ideas, do more with less, make short-term gains through greater efficiency, and prepare for long-term gains. That meant cutting every dollar possible in overhead and procedures while maintaining or boosting spending in three vital competitive areas. Number one was product quality. World leadership demanded that we maintain world-class quality, and recession is generally a period when material and labor prices are lowest and room occupancies are down. So we renovated and refurbished at such normally busy properties as the Inn on the Park in London and The Pierre in New York at a time when revenue would be little affected and customers least inconvenienced. That meant we were spending when others were retrenching. We had followed that strategy in 1981-82, and the rebound from that recession had given us nine years of steady growth. I thought the odds were in our favor to score the same way again. The second area was marketing. It’s tempting during recession to cut back on consumer advertising. At the start of each of the last three recessions, the growth of spending on such advertising had slowed by an average of 27 percent. But consumer studies of those recessions had showed that companies that didn’t cut their ads had, in the recovery, captured the most market share. So we didn’t cut our ad budget. In fact, we raised it modestly to gain brand recognition, which continued advertising sustains. As studies show, it’s much easier to sustain momentum than restart it. Third, we eased the workload and reduced costs by simplifying reporting methods. We set up a new system that allowed each hotel to recalculate its forecast, with minimal input, to year’s end, then send it in electronically along with a brief monthly commentary.

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Competition is a tough weed, not a delicate flower.

My family doesn’t understand me. They think I have these headaches because my business is failing. They think I roam the house at night, moving from bed to couch to chair to floor, because I’m worrying about my business. They think I’m worrying about new possibilities and plans. So they soften me and treat me gingerly. Husband and father must have a quiet house, so the house is quiet. He must not be upset, so he is avoided. He must not be expected to be friendly and sociable because he is passive and shy. He must be indirectly talked into doing what they want, in the right way, at the right moment. It takes careful planning. He must have sympathy, even if it’s false, to be able to face the tough, competitive world outside. They cannot and will not recognize that this man they handle with kid gloves, whom they fear upsetting, whom they decide has to be coddled and manipulated into buying new clothes, a new car, a new home, all the other possessions a family feels it must have, this man does not really exist and never did.

Newspapers are owned and published by rich men. Rich men all belong to the same club. Sure, there’s competition – hard, tough competition for circulation, for newsbeats, for exclusive stories.

Everybody should get a good gym coaching from early age so that they grow up to have fit bodies, good bodily awareness, positive body image, relaxed body language and healthy habits. Everybody should be trained in dialogue and get the chance to participate in public debates or deliberations. Everybody should get a year off once in a lifetime to go look for new purpose in life and make tough life decisions under professional care and support—in a kind of secular monastery. Everybody should be “nudged” and supported to consume both healthy and sustainable food that prevents depression and supports long-term societal goals. Everybody should be trained in social and emotional intelligence so that conflicts arise less often and, when they do arise, are handled more productively. Everybody should have a proper sexual education from early on, knowing things such as how to tackle early ejaculation, tensions in the vagina, sexual rejections, making approaches in a charming but respectful manner, how to handle competition and how to handle pornography or sexual desires that diverge from the norm. Everybody should get some aid in managing the fear of death and facing the hard facts of life—to help us intuitively know that our time here is precious.

Perfectionism is not the key to success. In fact, research shows that perfectionism hampers achievement. Perfectionism is correlated with depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis, or missed opportunities.7 The fear of failing, making mistakes, not meeting people’s expectations, and being criticized keeps us outside the arena where healthy competition and striving unfolds.

The shaping of how we are feeling by how we are looking at life is always in tough competition with the shaping of how we are looking at life by how we are feeling.

Munger observed that it’s a problem to prevent success and wealth from creating your demise. General Motors was the most successful company in the world at one time and then became a victim of its success with large unionization and very tough competition eventually wiping out the shareholders.

● Developing your first-ever leadership strategy and don't know where to start? ● Are you stuck with a particular phase of leadership strategy? ● Having a tough time achieving corporational milestones with your robust strategy? If you're facing these questions and confused regarding canvassing a robust leadership strategy, this article can help you solve these queries. Several factors affect the development of a leadership strategy, such as the influence of decision-making processes for leadership/management, the personnel brought on board for strategy development and the resources involved. There are specific "keys" to effective leadership that help in efficient development and deployment of strategies. Professionals who want to develop robust strategies and move up in their leadership career can opt for online strategy courses. These courses aim to build concepts from the grass-root level, such as what defines a strategy leadership and others. What is a Leadership Strategy? Leadership is required for leading organisational growth by optimising the resources and making the company's procedures more efficient. A leadership strategy explicitly enlists the number of leaders required, the tasks they need to perform, the number of employees, team members and other stakeholders required, and the deadlines for achieving each task. Young leaders who have recently joined the work-force can take help of programs offered by reputable institutes for deepening their knowledge about leadership and convocating successful strategies. Various XLRI leadership and management courses aim to equip new leaders with a guided step-by-step pedagogy to canvass robust leadership strategies. What it Takes to Build a Robust Leadership Strategy: Guided Step-By-Step Pedagogy The following steps go into developing an effective and thriving leadership strategy:- ● Step 1 = Identify Key Business Drivers The first step involves meeting with the senior leaders and executives and identifying the business's critical drivers. Determining business carriers is essential for influencing the outcome of strategies. ● Step 2 = Identifying the Different Leadership Phases Required This step revolves around determining the various leadership processes and phases. Choosing the right techniques from hiring and selection, succession planning, training patterns and others is key for putting together a robust strategy. ● Step 3 = Perform Analysis and Research Researching about the company's different leadership strategies and analysing them with the past and present plans is vital for implementing future strategies. ● Step 4 = Reviewing and Updating Leadership Strategic Plan Fourth step includes reviewing and updating the strategic plan in accordance with recent developments and requirements. Furthermore, performing an environmental scan to analyse the practices that can make strategies long-lasting and render a competitive advantage. All it Takes for Building a Robust Leadership Strategy The above-mentioned step by step approach helps in auguring a leadership strategy model that is sustainable and helps businesses maximise their profits. Therefore, upcoming leaders need to understand the core concepts of strategic leadership through online strategy courses. Moreover, receiving sound knowledge about developing strategies from XLRI leadership and management courses can help aspiring leaders in their careers.

Ironically, it is often the most tough-minded, no-nonsense right-wingers who go all soft when it comes to economic competition. People who would never be so naïve as to suggest that athletes might “voluntarily” refrain from taking steroids will turn around and push for “industry self-regulation” over government intervention, as if corporations might just choose to stop polluting or refrain from producing false advertising. It’s difficult to imagine a more total misunderstanding of the underlying dynamic of capitalism. Part of the problem involves the familiar failure to distinguish between the virtues of the market and the virtues of particular firms in the market. When the competition is staged just right, corporations will deliver unparalleled levels of efficiency. But it is almost never in a particular firm’s interest to produce at a level that will generate efficient outcomes for society as a whole. Companies are forced to operate efficiently by the rules of the competition. If they can find any way around these rules, they will naturally go for it.

By my second year of college, I found myself thinking more and more about law school as a next step. I’d actually been considering it since my freshman year, when I had taken a class with a political science professor named Robert McClure. He was a tough, no-nonsense professor whose class I loved. I learned quite a bit from him about how to make an argument—and, more importantly, that I loved to argue. By the time I was a junior, I had decided to become a lawyer, which was empowering as a decision. I’d been searching for what my path would be and how I’d take control of my life. Now, finally, I’d seized upon one. From my journal entry on January 26, 1991: I am twenty years old now and have actively begun to make what I want happen. It’s a good feeling, though certainly frightening. I know who I am becoming and who I want to be. The horrifying threat of misplaced nostalgia will never affect me as I age, for—succeed or fail—I will have accomplished the satisfaction of attempting. When I applied to law schools, initially I thought I wanted to go to Notre Dame. It was Irish and Catholic, it was in South Bend, Indiana, and I thought it might be fun to see a different part of the country. Plus, it was a great school. I was turned down by Notre Dame, but got a yes from Albany Law School (ALS), right in my hometown, so I could live at home and save some money. Besides, everyone says it’s the Notre Dame of Albany. I would need all the confidence I got from my family and from Jim, because law school was not for the faint of heart. The work was intense and the competition fierce. However, to my mother’s delight, not only did I thrive in law school, but I paid for it myself.

You mind if I join you?” he asked. She straightened and her eyes immediately cleared and narrowed. She was one tough customer. “Knock yourself out,” she said coolly. He pulled out a chair and set his coffee cup in front of him. “You seem upset, Ellie. Was it something I said?” “It was something you didn’t say,” she replied. “Oh? What was that?” “You’re hired,” she said. “I thought I should give all the applicants a fair shot.” “Are you kidding me? I sat in my car outside waiting for my turn. I saw the other applicants—all two of them. One could barely get up the stairs; not a good bet for moving furniture. The other one had such a mean schnobble, she could break glass with her face.” “Schnobble?” he asked. “What my gramma used to call a sourpuss. Now, that’s a church lady, all right—if you’re looking for one as mean as a junkyard dog.” He laughed before he could reel it in. “Who knew you were checking out the competition.” Jack brought the pie, put it in front of them and got the heck out of there. Noah lifted a fork. “Pretty accurate, too. But I told you I’d get in touch.” “If you do, it’ll be to say I didn’t get the job.” He was quiet a moment, then he said, “Have some pie. Nobody makes pie like Preacher.” “Preacher? You made the pie?” “No, the cook—he goes by the nickname Preacher. That could lead to problems.” He nodded toward the plate. “Try it.” “Thanks,” she said. “I’m not hungry.” “Give it a chance, you’ll be amazed. And between bites, tell me why I don’t get the benefit of the doubt.” Slowly,

SECOND NECESSITY FOR MENTAL TOUGHNESS: TRAINING   It’s long been known that athletes and soldiers need to prepare by training the physical actions they’ll undertake when in competition or combat.   It’s only been relatively recently, though, that this has applied to people doing less physical activities.

Ideally, the ring was also a true democracy, in which men succeeded or failed under conditions of perfect quality of opportunity. But as a market place of violence, boxing symbolically mocked the liberal belief that atomistic competition led to social good. After all, bloodied bodies were what the ring “produced.” Spectators identified with those boxers who best represented their ethnic group, neighborhood, or trade. Personal toughness, local honor, drunken conviviality, violent display - every bout upheld these powerfully antibourgeois values. Bare-knuckle fighting was thus a transitional phenomenon, incorporating old values and new. The prize ring’s form was “modern” - achievement-oriented, meritocratic, egalitarian - but its content “premodern” - ascriptive, nonrational, hierarchical.

Jillian had charged into the bathroom on seven, but she just shot straight to ten. Her nature may be reserved, but she didn’t take shit off anybody. “Don’t patronize me. And don’t you dare come down here and judge us!” She pointed her finger directly at AJ. “We’re the ones doing the heavy lifting, so people like you can come along at the very end and ride along on our coattails. You can act tough all you want, but it’s just an act, AJ. You, with your expensive suits and shiny shoes,” she sneered. “You wouldn’t survive one minute out there on those streets. You’re weak.” Before she realized what was about to happen, AJ seized her by the shoulders and threw her against the wall. Pinning her with her own body, she pressed her index finger over Jillian’s lips. “That’s enough.” Those glittering green eyes warned Jillian not to say another word. The impact had completely knocked the breath out of her. AJ pressed her body tighter into hers, preventing Jillian from taking a replenishing breath, so she breathed short shallow breaths through her nose. Her heart pounded. What was happening? She wasn’t in control of the situation, and oddly enough, for once she didn’t want to be. She had just been manhandled, yet she had no desire to fight back. Instead, she wanted to hook her leg around AJ’s waist and draw her closer to where AJ’s heat seared her core.

I think Harry believed that when all was said and done, races were won or lost not based on who rowed the prettiest, but who wanted it more. He would prepare us physically for competition, but ultimately it was our character, our mental toughness that would drive us over the finish line first.

Perfectionism is not the key to success. In fact, research shows that perfectionism hampers achievement. Perfectionism is correlated with depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis, or missed opportunities. The fear of failing, making mistakes, not meeting people’s expectations, and being criticized keeps us outside the arena where healthy competition and striving unfolds.

We’ve since learned to the contrary that stress can help people grow, just as stressing a muscle by lifting weights helps it get stronger. I think exceptional people have always intuitively understood this. They’ve understood that they need tough competition to become the best players they can be.

It is not tough to fight against giant companies whose people don't talk to each other. Just ace team play.

The competition is tough in the roughest sport on dirt. The bulls are ready for smoke-blowing, snot-slinging, and tail-slapping action. The Native American bulls will be showing their dancing skills as they perform a special dance. There's lots of action, humor, and of course dirt.

Neuroscience Explains Why You Need To Write Down Your Goals If You Actually Want To Achieve Them.” (Excerpt)

They choose to believe that because of where they were born, or who their parents are, they don’t have a fair chance in life. They choose to believe that the competition in America, and around the world is too tough. They’re choosing to believe in someone else’s talent more than their own. They’re choosing to be mediocre.

You have to state why and how your business is going to be the leader. If the niche already exists, so too does a leader. Displacing an incumbent leader is always possible, but it is difficult. It’s not something to bet on, unless you have a source of competitive advantage that is totally compelling. Typically, star-venture start-ups create their own niche. If the niche proves viable, the venture starts in the wonderful position of ‘born leader’. To create a viable new niche is tough. The large majority of attempts to create a niche fail. Why? Two conditions must be met: ★ There must be a gap in the market. All existing players must have overlooked the gap, or judged it too small, too unprofitable or too implausible. For sure, this is possible. But it is not very likely. ★ There must be a market in the gap. The gap must be large enough to support at least one new venture (yours) profitably. This, too, is not probable.

The best way to work harder is to make your

Being an American boy is a setup. We train boys to believe that the way to become a man is to objectify and conquer women, value wealth and power above all, and suppress any emotions other than competitiveness and rage. Then we are stunned when our boys become exactly what we have trained them to be. Our boys cannot follow our directions, but they are cheating and dying and killing as they try to. Everything that makes a boy human is a “real man’s” dirty secret. Our men are caged, too. The parts of themselves they must hide to fit into those cages are the slices of their humanity that our culture has labeled “feminine”—traits like mercy, tenderness, softness, quietness, kindness, humility, uncertainty, empathy, connection. We tell them, “Don’t be these things, because these are feminine things to be. Be anything but feminine.” The problem is that the parts of themselves that our boys have been banished from are not feminine traits; they are human traits. There is no such thing as a feminine quality, because there is no such thing as masculinity or femininity. “Femininity” is just a set of human characteristics a culture pours into a bucket and slaps with the label “feminine.” Gender is not wild, it’s prescribed. When we say, “Girls are nurturing and boys are ambitious. Girls are soft and boys are tough. Girls are emotional and boys are stoic,” we are not telling truths, we are sharing beliefs—beliefs that have become mandates. If these statements seem true, it’s because everyone has been so well programmed. Human qualities are not gendered. What is gendered is permission to express certain traits. Why? Why would our culture prescribe such strict gender roles? And why would it be so important for our culture to label all tenderness and mercy as feminine? Because disallowing the expression of these qualities is the way the status quo keeps its power. In a culture as imbalanced as ours—in which a few hoard billions while others starve, in which wars are fought for oil, in which children are shot and killed while gun manufacturers and politicians collect the blood money—mercy, humanity, and vulnerability cannot be tolerated. Mercy and empathy are great threats to an unjust society. So how does power squash the expression of these traits? In a misogynistic culture, all that is needed is to label them feminine. Then we can forever discount them in women and forever shame them out of men. Ta-da: no more messy, world-changing tenderness to deal with. We can continue on without our shared humanity challenging the status quo in any way.

An eighteen-year-old must be able to cope with ups and downs of courses and workloads, college-level work, competition, tough teachers, bosses, and others. The crutch: We step in when things get hard, finish the task, extend the deadline, and talk to the adults; thus, kids don’t know that in the normal course of life things won’t always go their way, and that they’ll be okay regardless.

One of the keys to Tobi’s success: He turned Shopify into a platform that not only allowed merchants to easily set up online stores but also enabled app developers to build specialty stores for merchants. By opening up Shopify in this way, Tobi made a conscious decision to let developers make money off his platform, rather than trying to keep it closed so he could capture all of that app revenue himself. “What we did to get the platform off the ground is to basically leave all the economics for Shopify on the table and give it to the third-party app developers,” Tobi says. This helped him to rapidly attract more and more users to Shopify. And in retrospect, these decisions paved the way for their widespread success. But they were tough calls at the time. “It’s hard to do, because you are leaving a lot of economics that you could easily take for yourself on the table—or actually, you are investing it into your own future by giving it to other people,” Tobi explains. “And that’s very hard to do for most businesses.” The combination of a strong platform, a well-populated app store, and a community of developers helped protect Shopify against competition and built a positive feedback loop that ratcheted up innovation, attracting more users and more developers.

When baseball is bread and butter, you never question a man’s eccentricities as long as he continues to carry his weight and can hoist one into Railroad Street outside the park, when blue chips are down. I’m trying to give you a picture of those Yanks, and of Lou. And I am also trying to give you an unnamby-pamby picture of baseball as it is, or at least as it was in those days. It isn’t a game played for the sweet joy of sport by Sunday School book characters, but a rough, competitive game played as a profession and a business by a bunch of tough, hard bitted men who were and are just like any other groups of men. In a group of twenty or thirty players you find all kinds. That Lou Gehrig was an ascetic, practically, in his manner of living, was purely a matter of his own personal choice. No one actually demanded it of him.

Rich men all belong to the same club. Sure, there’s competition – hard, tough competition for circulation, for newsbeats, for exclusive stories. Just so long as it doesn’t damage the prestige and privilege and position of the owners. If it does, down comes the lid.

On average, males tend to be more dominant, assertive, risk-prone, thrill-seeking, tough-minded, emotionally stable, utilitarian, and open to abstract ideas. Males also tend to score higher on self-estimates of intelligence, even though sex differences in general intelligence measured as an ability are negligible [2]. Men also tend to form larger, competitive groups in which hierarchies tend to be stable and in which individual relationships tend to require little emotional investment. In terms of communication style, males tend to use more assertive speech and are more likely to interrupt people (both men and women) more often-- especially intrusive interruptions-- which can be interpreted as a form of dominant behavior.

Champions keep it in perspective.  They are able to accept responsibility and recognize the situation as a temporary setback nothing more, nothing less.  Yes it hurts, so they look at it, learn from it, and then let it go.  I’ve lost myself, of course. In fact, that was how I met Leo-tai in the first place. I was a young martial artist competing in tournaments and I’d just lost a major international competition—worse still, one that I’d been really expecting to win. I was having a tough time with the loss. People kept telling me, “You still did great!” But runner-up wasn’t what I’d wanted to be.  As time went by, in response to my annoyance with myself, my training tailed off, my determination flagged, and everything seemed either too boring or too difficult to fuss about.  I was slacking off. I remember an older kid asking me once if I had ever heard of Coach Leo. “I don’t think so,” I said. “What does he teach?” “Mostly Shaolin—Chinese Kickboxing, but he teaches other things too.  He really helped me once with my training.” “So, how’d he help then?” I asked, interested. “Call him, here’s his number.  He only teaches small classes.  Tell him you know me.” I carried that sheet of paper around with me for about two weeks.  Finally I thought, “Well, what have I got to lose?”  I called him and told him about myself.  Coach Leo listened quietly on the phone, so much so that I began to wonder if he’d wandered off or hung up. “Come tomorrow,” he told me, and that ended our conversation. When the next day came, I almost didn’t go.  I kept asking myself, “Why did I call this coach?”  I was looking for a reason to miss our appointment.  But before I knew it, and despite my best efforts to talk myself out of it, I wound up knocking on his door and then there he was.  A medium-sized, elderly, rather stoic figure, his face calm and genuine.

You have to decide what your goals are and you have to believe that you will reach them.

Means you’re untrained. You’re not client-ready. Modeling is a highly competitive field, honey.” She blew out smoke, looking at Elaine. “It’s tough to get work unless you’re client-ready.

In the weeks to follow, the Shin Bet would begin searching for lessons to be found in the rubble of what would come to be known simply as 9/11. Why had the U.S. intelligence services not been able to prevent the disaster? For one thing, they operated independently and competitively. For another, they relied mostly on technology and rarely collaborated with terrorists. Those tactics may have been fine in the Cold War, but it’s pretty tough to combat fanatical ideals with technology.

The highest level is Playing to Win, which occurs when the performer moves from competition to creation, where the primary goal is to be the best they can be.

There is no “born with it” gene. There is only a “worked for it” gene.

Learn the basics and do them over and over and over and over and over again.”- Kobe Bryant

The best way to work harder is to make your practice more difficult than the game or competition.

If you’re afraid of failure, you don’t deserve success.

take responsibility for EVERYTHING.

Failure is a necessary part of success. Learn to seek it out!

Mindset by Carol Dweck

off of the backboard rang throughout the gym like a bell as it flew back onto the court. “Zero, zero,” the coach said as he walked back to the top of the key. One of the other players in the gym got the ball from mid court and passed it back to the coach. “Check up,” the coach said as he passed the ball back to Matt. After that, you can imagine how it went. The basketball coach beat Matt pretty easily, scoring basket after basket with ease. It was almost like Matt wasn’t even there. Just like I had predicted, the coach beat Matt soundly, and he did it without having to say a word. Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot of players with grit talk trash, and we’ll get to that in a minute, but they usually only do it with people they perceive as real competition. There are a lot of things that go with trash talking and I can guarantee that you probably don’t know them. Don’t worry, you will after you finish this book. The coach in this story knew that Matt wasn’t real competition, so he just beat him. The other players on the sidelines did all the trash-talking for him. Most of the time, players with grit won’t talk trash to

I've ended up with what are essentially dinner rolls that tried to dress as pretzels for Halloween. Benny's, meanwhile, are mall-food-court-level perfection. Apparently the boiling part---plus baking soda---is what gives pretzels their tough, dark brown exterior. Add that to the ever-growing list of things I didn't know about cooking.

One variant of what I have been calling the "standard view" is the "safety-valve theory." The claim is sometimes made that women's emotional caregiving does more than secure psychological benefits to individual men: This caregiving is said to shore up the patriarchal system as a whole by helping to stabilize the characteristic institutions of contemporary patriarchal society. These institutions, it is claimed, are marked by hierarchy, hence by unequal access to power, and by impersonality, alienated labor, and abstract instrumental rationality. Now men pay a heavy price for their participation in such a system, even though the system as such allows men generally to exercise more power than women generally. The disclosure of a person's deepest feelings is dangerous under conditions of competition and impersonality: A man runs the risk of displaying fear or vulnerability if he says too much. Hence, men must sacrifice the possibility of frank and intimate ties with one another; they must abandon the possibility of emotional release in one another's company. Instead, they must appear tough, controlled, and self sufficient, in command at all times. Now, so the argument goes, the emotional price men pay for participation in this system would be unacceptable high, were women not there to lower it. Women are largely excluded from the arenas wherein men struggle for prestige; because of this and by virtue of our socialization into patterns of nurturance, women are well situated to repair the emotional damage men inflict on one another. Women's caregiving is said to function as a "safety valve" that allows the release of emotional tensions generated by a fundamentally inhuman system. Without such release, these tensions might explode the set of economic and political relationships wherein they are now uneasily contained. Hence, women are importantly involved in preventing the destabilization of a system in which some men oppress other men and men generally oppress women generally.

One variant of what I have been calling the "standard view" is the "safety-valve theory." The claim is sometimes made that women's emotional caregiving does more than secure psychological benefits to individual men: This caregiving is said to shore up the patriarchal system as a whole by helping to stabilize the characteristic institutions of contemporary patriarchal society. These institutions, it is claimed, are marked by hierarchy, hence by unequal access to power, and by impersonality, alienated labor, and abstract instrumental rationality. Now men pay a heavy price for their participation in such a system, even though the system as such allows men generally to exercise more power than women generally. The disclosure of a person's deepest feelings is dangerous under conditions of competition and impersonality: A man runs the risk of displaying fear or vulnerability if he says too much. Hence, men must sacrifice the possibility of frank and intimate ties with one another; they must abandon the possibility of emotional release in one another's company. Instead, they must appear tough, controlled, and self sufficient, in command at all times. Now, so the argument goes, the emotional price men pay for participation in this system would be unacceptable high, were women not there to lower it. Women are largely excluded from the arenas wherein men struggle for prestige; because of this and by virtue of our socialization into patterns of nurturance, women are well situated to repair the emotional damage men inflict on one another. Women's caregiving is said to function as a "safety valve" that allows the release of emotional tensions generated by a fundamentally inhuman system. Without such release, these tensions might explode the set of economic and political relationships wherein they are now uneasily contained. Hence, women are importantly involved in preventing the destabilization of a system in which some men oppress other men and men generally oppress women generally.

These are tough choices. You may find yourself torn between wanting to propose the very best, most effective solution you can and wanting to submit the most competitive proposal possible.

Competitive toughness is an acquired skill and not an inherited gift. —CHRIS EVERT

I believe Government should encourage competition, NOT prop up the weak when the going gets tough.

Several of them have moved up to the highest ranks of the organization, thanks to a strong track record of proving to their bosses, day in and day out, that they have what it takes to help the company succeed. They are passionately curious about the entire organization and how it can beat the competition. They have shown repeatedly that they can tackle tough assignments. They have built teams of complementary staff and rallied them around ambitious goals. They have distilled complex strategy decisions down to just a few priorities, helping align their employees around just a handful of focused goals. And they have pushed and prodded their bosses to shake up the organization, taking bold steps even when there was no burning need to do so. These are the people you find at the top of organizations. They embody these qualities and, as leaders, help develop them in others.

Getting the government on your side when you are facing a tough fight in the marketplace is a time-honored technique in American economic history. The usual approach is to equate the competitive threat to you with injury to society, to exaggerate the magnitude of the danger beyond recognition, then claim that government regulation is the only solution. Whether the fight is between domestic versus foreign producers, railroads versus truckers, or optometrists versus ophthalmologists, the pattern is always the same. So too in the clash between the establishment defenders and the takeover entrepreneurs.

In a social system there are three levels of democracy. The lowest level is the undemocratic system, where the government falsifies the voting system. This is a political tragedy. The middle level in a democratic hierarchy is pure democracy, where both the government and the opposition are in tough competition in political elections. This level of democracy is reminiscent of political drama. And the last - the highest level - is supra-democracy, where the falsification of the electoral system is carried out by the opposition, which leads to a political comedy in the political arena.

My story represents all that should be celebrated about America. Only here could a daughter of immigrants grow up to succeed in the competitive and exciting world of acting. And only here could a girl like me be invited to have a conversation with the president. I will always cherish those opportunities. And yet my experience in this country also reflects a reality that's still tough for me to face. In a nation that values keeping families together and safeguarding children, I was invisible. Either the immigration officials didn't see me or they chose to turn their heads. I'll never know which. But I do know that as Americans, we can do better than that. We can extend greater compassion. And we can push our leaders to protect the most vulnerable among us. It's one way we can help people who desperately need it.

Dustin Hoffman once said to me, “Alec, we’re all in line; some of us are just in a shorter line.” It was a very wise statement, because that competition between performers to get scripts and parts is very real and very aggressive, even to people at his level. The biggest stars in the world, when I came into this business there was Nicholson, De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman, and Michael Douglas—a lot of great movie stars, and they were all jockeying to get material. That’s something that never changes. The preciousness of good writing, it’s very tough to come by.

However, even emerging victorious doesn’t cultivate character; it merely grants a momentary opportunity to bask in glory.

User I am competitive by nature, and I am confident that's my strength. I apologize if anyone ever mistook my competitive spirit for arrogance, but I will never apologize for being too competitive and confident because that's what pushes me to not fail. I'd rather be criticized for my ambition than regret not giving my all. It's not about being better than others, as the truth is there is always someone better than you. But, as I said, it's about proving to myself that I am capable. By confronting my fears and failures, I learn to fail to succeed. I admit that at times I can be very tough, but don't ever think it's because of you. My toughness is a reflection of the high standards I set for myself. It's a personal journey of growth, where resilience and determination fuel my relentless pursuit of self-improvement . I have learned that in the arena of life, I aim not just to participate but to conquer.

Don Miguel Ruiz says in his book The Four Agreements, don’t

For five minutes every day, go through what you said to yourself that day. Go through all of it. Make sure that going forward, you only tell yourself what you want to be your reality. Remove anything that uses the word “don’t” and increase the times that you tell yourself what you want to see in your future. No

The psychiatric component of the game—urging players along with pleas and prods and love and tough love—getting them to play hard all the time and focus on competition, was only an occasional duty. The biggest problem that players had in the 1960s and 1970s was, according to Duncan, insecurity: the knowledge that if they didn’t perform, they would be up and out. It was a merciless environment for players. But now the problem is overconfidence, the job security they have earned over the years breeding, as

He spends more time than ever now schooling players on the value of competition. He explains to them in spring training the challenge and magnificence of getting a World Series ring, because “it won’t happen accidentally. You gotta tell ’em to want it.” He sees how quickly clubhouses empty out regardless of how sweet the win or how tough the loss, suburbanites hoping to catch the 5:05 home, all-night talk of baseball replaced by simply wanting to get to wherever they’re going. He wishes there were more team parties, but when so many players are glancing impatiently at their Rolexes because it’s almost ten o’clock, no party could generate much esprit de corps. In recent years,