The Benefits of Coming Second

What??? What kind of stupid notion is this? Everything we've heard during our upbringing tells us to aim for FIRST! Winner take all. First in, best dressed! Be first past the post! Second place is the first loser... (and nobody likes a loser.)

And sure, winning is nice. It brings glory, recognition, prizes, the ego-reward of believing you're the best... So, why would anyone suggest that there would any benefit to coming second?

Well, I once heard the notion that a car sales CEO would always give critical new clients to the second best salesperson, because the second best always tried the hardest of anyone. I thought that was an interesting idea, and it got me thinking...

SPRINTING

When I was a young man I was a sprinter. I was often the fastest in my division, but not always. And my best times – my best individual performances – were often those where I was not in the lead. If you win a 100m sprint, and you were first out of the blocks you didn't see anyone else for the whole race! But if you're not in the lead, you have a target to beat.

In a 200m (which I always hated) if you draw the outside lane, you start in front of everybody else, and then can get mercilessly overtaken into the head of the straight by competitors you don't even see coming! If you have the inside lane, on the other hand, you can see everyone you have to beat right from the gun! Having someone in front of me always gave me that added edge that pushed my performance higher... Even when I didn't win, I often ran faster than my winning times in other races...

So what's more important? Beating everyone else? Or performing to the best of your ability?

Of course there is nothing contradictory in these two goals: you can win and perform to the best of your ability. That is undoubtedly what top-level athletes are mostly required to do. But like most of us, I was never a top-level athlete... And it remains true that some of my best performances came from when I was in 2nd place.

FAILING

I think this notion can be applied elsewhere. I have known some very smart and capable people in my life: academically brilliant, coordinated, good-looking, funny... Don't you hate them?! No, sorry, I didn't mean that! (😄) Although I was often jealous of such prodigies when younger, in later life I became aware that being "first" (undefeated... the best) in nearly all realms of challenge throughout their formative years could ultimately become a handicap.

A couple of these people never really learnt how to fail, and hence the first time they did fail – and nobody will get through their entire life without failing something – the experience was devastating: their self-image did not include failure.

Dealing with failure – knowing and being at peace with your limits – is an important life lesson that most of us get young, but that super-achievers risk missing out on.

If I can personalise this again, I was occasionally first in my class academically for some things at school, but more often than that, I was just behind the leaders. This was frustrating in a social context where winning is glorified, but in retrospect, I believe it has stood me in good stead: it motivated me to work to my utmost, but without falling victim to the (potential) complacency of always winning. In later life, failures were not psychologically catastrophic because I had had practice. Again, a benefit of not always being first!

LEADERS

And a related idea: as those who study trends and group movements know well, "leaders", "first innovators" are just lone wolves, outliers, possibly weirdos, until something very important happens: they get a follower.

This first follower (who is the second adherent to the notion) is the one who potentially changes a "lone nut" into a leader. And if you want to take that first follower as a "first", then a similar logic can be applied to the second follower (who is therefore the third adherent to the new notion) because they are the beginning of a tipping point to a trend.

Sure, it was the leader's idea: don't get me wrong, I'm not denigrating innovators here! But there is great and critical power in the role of the second person onboard, and without them no innovation will ever have occurred. Furthermore, while the innovator is demonstrating creative genius, the first follower is demonstrating great courage!

This is comparable to my sprinting example where the winner is showing great speed, but the person who came second may well be demonstrating even greater effort!

Competition can be healthy and striving to be all you can be and to do your best is rarely a bad thing. If "winning" (and the benefits it brings) are the carrot for that kind of effort, then I would not want to do anything to undermine that. But the notion that second place is the first loser needs to be set aside as an inaccurate, unfair and damaging lie. Those in second, third, fourth place know that they have been pushed to produce their best performance. They have excelled in a way that the first place getter might not have had to. I'm thinking of Usain Bolt now: his powerful loping stride always looks so effortless, sometimes I wonder how fast he would be able to run if he really had someone to beat!

THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE?

Striving for first is a good motivator, but coming second is far from losing! In fact I think aiming for first but coming second is often the best personal outcome. Always winning might make you the popular hero, but how would you ever know what you were really capable of?

Someone has to win in any contest. Tasting victory is a nice thing, but let's not underestimate the power and utility of the silver medal...