By James Johnson, Columnist
Organizations put their best foot forward to participate in a friendly competition during Homecoming.
This is the perfect time to discuss styles of competition—friendly and not.
I went to high school in a small town called Bangs. It’s a rural community. Let me put it this way, I had 58 people in my graduating class.
Being in this Texas town, there weren’t many astute minds to compete with. Also, football being ‘king’ in Texas didn’t quite foster an environment for academic competitiveness.
This didn’t mean that our school wasn’t competitive. On the contrary, we went to state in football—twice.
We lost both years.
It wasn’t until becoming an actor that I realized the true purpose behind a competitive atmosphere.
Going to college at a conservatory was competitive. Because of the inherent nature of the entertainment industry, the first thing we would learn about was perseverance.
There are more workers than there are jobs. The only true way to be competitive in an industry where failure is eminent was to only be competitive with yourself.
It is a natural human reaction to feel anger, frustration and resentment when one fails.
But when you learn from your failures—what worked and what didn’t work—then you can start to formulate a strategy to succeed in the future.
I’ve learned through experience that the only thing you can do to give you an edge is to only be competitive with yourself.
No matter how much you want to land the job of your dreams, you have no say in what the other competitors have done to prepare for the opportunity.
All you can do is be you. You have the power to shape your future.
When you start to try and compete with others, you invite in disaster.
Only when you learn to compete with yourself will we succeed as a group.
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