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Are you consistently doing what it takes to “win” verses simply “not lose”? It’s a completely different mindset, leading to vastly different outcomes. Fortune favors the bold. Great leaders are shattering the norm, changing the game, doing things that have never been done in an effort to propel their team to the next level. The are courageous–not only in terms of innovation, but in terms of perseverance: Taking step after step, day after day, relentlessly pursuing excellence. We won many a race not only by “slowing down less” than the other teams, but by coming up with some game changing solutions. Once, in a 100 mile whitewater canoeing leg to the finish, my teammate taught me the “be ruled by the hope of success” lesson through some tough love. We were paddling our whitewater raft near the front of the race on day 6, and every couple of minutes, I looked behind us to see where our closest competitors were. That is, until the teammate sitting behind me grabbed the top of my head, spun it back around to face forward, pointed down the river and said, “Winning is THAT way”. My other teammate overheard the admonishment and realized my teammate was right. We had to focus on winning versus not losing. So in the next leg, when race organizers gave each team two separate inflatable canoes, my innovative teammates decided to toe our two canoes together with our climbing robe, end to end, creating one very ling, rigid and FAST new boat, powered by every member of the team. We also switched out our canoe paddles (single blades) for kayak paddles (double blades) which was far outside the norm for canoe travel. With those visionary changes, we caught the team that was an hour ahead of us and went on the win the race by 2 hours on that final leg. In another race, the Borneo Eco-Challenge, we took the lead halfway through the race by turning a proposed “hiking leg” of the race into a swimming leg by jumping into the rising whitewater rapids generated by the recent flash flood and swimming for several hours downriver (just yards from the hiking trail). Much of it in the dark. It was extremely risky, but also cutting edge cunning. We never looked back, and led the race all the way there to the finish line.

Written By: Robyn Benincasa

World Champion Adventure Racer, San Diego City Firefighter, Founder of World Class Teams, Flashover Seminars and Project Athena Foundation, Motivation/Leadership/Teamwork Speaker.

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