{"id":3049,"date":"2022-10-16T20:27:55","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T02:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:10043\/?p=3049"},"modified":"2025-07-14T12:37:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T18:37:21","slug":"silver-linings-yes-they-really-can-happen-when-you-lose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/silver-linings-yes-they-really-can-happen-when-you-lose\/","title":{"rendered":"Silver linings? Yes, they really can happen when you lose"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

t\u2019s college football season and my team\u2019s on a losing streak.<\/p>\n

This is nothing new for me.\u00a0 No matter what team I have hitched my wagon to over the years, a national championship has never been in the cards.\u00a0 Losing, whether by a lot or a little, has been a consistent theme.<\/p>\n

I grew up a Vandy fan and experienced a profound sense of loss for years on end.\u00a0 We had a few upsets and some moral victories, but even in our best seasons, suffering through a decent number of losses felt inevitable. \u00a0It was sometimes tough to be around friends whose teams seemed to always be winning\u2014but I was happy for them (at least sort of) as they got to celebrate while I sulked.<\/p>\n

Why couldn\u2019t I experience the thrill of victory like they did?<\/p>\n

It took me only a few decades to have an epiphany: I didn\u2019t have to root for just one team.\u00a0 Although I consider myself a very loyal person, celebrating a win is much more fun than suffering over a loss. \u00a0Why not find a winner to root for?<\/p>\n

At the bequest of a friend who bribed me with a free team jersey and some hot wings at a watch party, I decided to become an Oklahoma Sooners fan.<\/p>\n

At first my friends and family laughed at my sudden life-changing decision. Given the fact that I\u2019d never actually set foot in Oklahoma, they all thought it was weird. But I theorized that the Sooners have had great teams for decades.\u00a0 Following a team that had a history of winning more than losing seemed like a logical way to make Saturdays in the fall better. I was all in\u2014Boomer Sooner!<\/p>\n

But it was only a few games into the season when something shocking happened. They lost a game. \u00a0No matter who you root for, it seems that losing never completely goes away.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same way in business.\u00a0 Over time, no business has ever gone undefeated. Just like the top football teams, even the most successful companies don\u2019t win 100% of the time. \u00a0Whether you run a big corporation or a one person startup, the way you deal with setbacks and losses can determine your long-term success.<\/p>\n

When I first got into the IT consulting and software development business<\/a> 30 years ago, losing really hurt.\u00a0 Whether it was losing a sale or losing an employee, I reacted by losing sleep.<\/p>\n

But somewhere along the line I came across a great quote that changed my attitude:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you lose, don\u2019t lose the lesson.\u201d\u00a0 \u2014 Dalai Lama\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This sounded simple enough.\u00a0 If a loss can teach you something that helps you improve, you will ultimately come out ahead. \u00a0Maybe this Dalai Lama guy was on to something?<\/p>\n

Given the competitive nature of business, it took me years to fully embrace this.\u00a0 Even with the silver lining of a lessoned learned, losses are hard to feel good about.\u00a0 So it takes some practice and humility to follow the Dalai Lama\u2019s advice.\u00a0 But long term, it\u2019s paid off.<\/p>\n

Now, whenever we lose a big sale or lose money on a bad investment, I have found it helpful to literally write down the lesson learned.\u00a0\u00a0 We then use these lessons to proactively tinker and tweak to help us win the next time.<\/p>\n

So, as of this writing, my Sooners have lost three in a row.\u00a0 It\u2019s not fun, but like every team and every business, the lessons learned from the losses will pay off.\u00a0 If your team has had some losses this year, as the Dalai Lama says, \u201cChoose to be optimistic, it feels better.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean. t\u2019s college football season and my team\u2019s on a losing streak. This is nothing new for me.\u00a0 No matter what team I have hitched my wagon to over the years, a national championship has never been in the cards.\u00a0 Losing, whether by a lot or a little, has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atiba-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}