Some problems can be avoided more easily than they can be eliminated, and some solutions are more costly than the problems they solve.
In your efforts to be successful, the emphasis must be on winning with a purpose, not merely on winning. Trying to succeed in every single thing you do, winning every disagreement, and getting to do everything your way would lead you to a myopic focus on meaningless confrontations instead of a big-picture focus on what you really want.
Ki Suh Park is one of the leading architects in Los Angeles. He graduated at the top of his class with degrees in architecture and city planning from Berkeley and mit.
A Korean refugee who came to America during the Korean war, he accepted nothing less than total effort from himself. And he demanded total effort from those around him. He was known for setting records for firing secretaries who had made a mistake, and he raised the hackles of his architectural partners for returning their memos to them with grammatical errors highlighted.
When Los Angeles suffered through the violence and destruction of the riots of 1992, his perspective began to change. Ki Suh was asked to lead Rebuild L.A., an initiative to both replace destroyed buildings and reinvigorate the economy of impoverished sections of Los Angeles.
The experience changed his perspective dramatically. “I used to look through my eyes on everything, form an opinion from my eyes. But I learned that you really have to have empathy for other people, how they see the same thing.”
When he took on the project of helping Los Angeles, he was suddenly thrust into thinking about the big picture. “The whole world lives in this city, and if we can make it happen, this can be a model for the future of the entire world.”
His purpose has changed—from getting everything done his way to making a contribution to what needs to be done. “I feel like a tiny grain of sand. But you can’t remake the world overnight or remake the city overnight. The question is: Are we even taking the first step?”
He gains great satisfaction from working on projects that reflect his vision as well as the wishes of the community. “It is,” says Ki Suh, “exhilaration.”
The will to succeed comes in two distinct forms. Hypercompetitive people (60 percent) focus on winning all the time, regardless of the importance of the matter. Self-oriented competitive people (40 percent) focus on doing well but with an emphasis on improving themselves so that they can do even better in the future.
Glaman 1999