It is easier to win.

Earl Nightingale recorded a talk called “It’s Easier To Win” more than 30 years ago. It is one of my favorite audio recordings and is part of the best-selling “Lead The Field” program. I’ve listened to that set dozens of times.

Some of the ideas Nightingale shares are:

Success is easier than failure. Winning is better than losing. You never pay the price for success – you enjoy the price of success. Only five percent of people achieve unusual success in their lives. What motivates people to live as they do?

Everyone has the option to work and live on whatever layer of life’s pyramid they choose. The view is better, the air is fresher, the sun shines earlier and later, and the crowd is smaller at the top. It’s easier to settle for the lower levels. Most just get in step with their peers. Most just don’t know how to succeed. They want to be accepted. They follow the follower. They conform to one another. Belonging seems to be all important.

Therein is the trap that gets practically everybody. Most end in it. They live their lives playing to the wrong crowd, trying to be one of the boys. The important thing to them is to be liked. They have no identity of their own. They find their identity in a larger group.

Successful people follow independent paths. They break away from the crowd. They join a smaller crowd. They don’t have the television on all day long. They use their time constructively.

It’s never too late, for with a purpose, a worthy goal and a motivation to reach those upper layers on the pyramid, a person can travel further in a few years than he might otherwise travel in a lifetime.

I was reminded of an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled, Ten Reasons Winners Keep Winning, by Rosabeth Moss Kanter.  The article was published in August 2012.   Once you start winning it is easier to stay winning. You get more respect, more publicity, a better support system, more self esteem.

So it is important that you do what it takes to win now, because once you start succeeding it is easier to stay successful.  Commit to make success happen, then work at it and you will enjoy a life that so few get to live!