Your Competitive Spirit

Posted on October 7th, 2013 by Steiner Sports

“Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking.”

Former Oklahoma Sooner quarterback and US congressman JC Watts once said that, and I think it applies nicely to something Mariano recently showed me about his competitive spirit.

Two weeks ago, I called up Mariano a few days before his final game, to check in, and he sounded a little upset.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “Is it because you’re retiring?”

“No,” he said. “It’s because we’re losing.”

“I’m bummed we didn’t play well in Toronto,” he continued. “I’m not bummed about my career ending. I chose that. But I hate losing.”

I thought that was amazing.

Here, Mo was at the end of his storied, Hall of Fame career, and he wasn’t thinking of his own glory; he was still just thinking about the team winning some basically “meaningless” regular season games in Toronto.

But that’s Mo. It doesn’t matter if it’s the World Series, or a spring training game in Tampa – he brought his full competitive spirit.

Do you take pride in every little thing you do? From the smallest, most mindless task to the biggest, “most important” project?

http://brandonsteiner.com/blog/competitive-spirit/