Posted February 2, 2016

 

Your may remember this oldie but goodie:

 

Two guys were camping when a bear suddenly appears and growls. Steve starts putting on his tennis shoes. Mark says, “What are you doing? You can’t outrun a bear!” Steve responds, “I don’t have to outrun the bear – I just have to outrun you!”

 

Sometimes, being a little better is all you need to succeed – or to avoid a mauling. Ask Hillary Clinton. Monday night, she was .03 percentage points better than Bernie Sanders, and now she’s now off to New Hampshire with 23 of Iowa’s delegates.

 

Being a little better often involves being lucky, too. The Seattle Seahawks can attest to this, after a “gimme” field goal hooked left in the closing seconds, securing the Hawks’ 10-9 wild-card playoff win in January. This after putting themselves in a position to be a little better.

 

And who’s to say Punxsutawney Phil isn’t a little better at predicting the forecast than the most degreed meteorologist? We’ll see, come (I hope an early) spring.

 

That should be everyone’s goal – being at least a little better than your competitors, better than your co-workers, better than even you think you can be. Every day, we should wake up and strive to be better at all things in life. Professionally, ask yourself such questions as: How can I make this product a little better than the guy’s down the street? How can I save the company money so we’ll be in a little better financial shape? How can I help my boss look a little better (which, ultimately, can only help you look a little better)?

 

Transformation and success are possible, if we believe we can be a little better than the other guy or gal – then take the first step to making that possible. The late, great Jim Valvano, the former N.C. State basketball coach, certainly believed his 1983 Wolfpack could be a little better than any team it faced – but first, he had to make himself believe that. Then he had to help his players believe it, before making believers out of the rest of the world when his team defied all odds to win the national championship – by a mere two-point dunk at the buzzer. That’s being a little better.

 

At the Southern Textile Association’s Winter Technical Seminar last month, leadership trainer Andrew Wittman, Ph.D. gave a powerful presentation on becoming better by making better decisions. He noted that 11 million bits of information per second enter your unconscious mind – but only 126 bits per second reach your conscious mind for action. Often, though, emotion controls the “boardroom,” he said. In being the “CEO of you,” he said, the No. 1 rule is you must separate logic from emotion. Let your mind be the steering wheel, emotion be the engine, he added.