“People reflexively assume that competition is always a good thing, that it always brings out the best in people, but that is only true of people who can forget competition. The art of competing, I’d learn from track, was the art of forgetting…
You must forget your limits. You must forget your doubts, your pain, your past. You must forget that inner voice screaming, begging, “Not one more step!” And when it is not possible to forget it, you must negotiate with it. I thought over all the races in which my mind wanted one thing, and my body wanted another, those laps in which I’d had to tell my body. “yes, you raise some excellent points, BUT let’s keep going anyway…”
- by Phil knight in his book: The Shoe Dog, A Memoir by the Creator of Nike.
These statement just hit a nerve as I was discussing with a startup founder before vacation the obsession with competition! Yeah, one should see it, act but never let it interfere with how we do perform…or at least try to!