Leaders Are Losers

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Leaders are Losers.

When you look at your boss, what do you see? Do you see a victor or a person who always seems to get it wrong?

You know the feeling right…you think you’re having a great time at work and then your boss comes in and changes everything.

Loser.

When I think of losers, some of the people that come to mind are the biggest leaders in the world.

Elon Musk, for example, is a loser.

Steve Jobs? What a loser.

Bill Gates, is a loser multiple times over.

We don’t remember leaders for what we should remember them for. We remember them for the great, amazing things they did and their contributions to society, the governments they built, the nations they changed, and so on, but we never remember them for what they actually were: a bunch of losers.

We can go all the way back to the American Revolution.

George Washington was a loser.

Further back.

Alexander The Great, loser.

Socrates? Died because of his own doing. Loser.

Socrates is credited with creating the Socratic method, in which a person continuously asks questions of another person until eventually–this could go on forever–we reach some kind of eternal truth about what topic is being discussed.

He was the type of guy that was destined to fail. No matter how much he tried to help the people around him, to help society, to help young people think differently, all he succeeded in doing was getting himself killed.

Let’s look at Alexander the Great as another example. He overthrew the Persian Empire, carried Macedonian arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. You probably have heard of him, a student of Aristotle and one of the most remembered leaders in history. He was also a loser.

Being a loser is looked at as a bad thing in our current meritocratic society, but in business, it’s a superpower and honestly, if you view losing as the end of your road then congratulations you’re not only a loser, but you’ve lost.

You can, however, be a loser and still succeed. That’s what these people in our examples have figured out.

How can you be a massive loser and still be successful?

The one simple key they all figured out is to keep going. No matter what obstacles or stoppages came, they kept going. I’m talking about death, famine, wars, and natural storms that tried to stop people like Alexander but he kept going. Socrates believed in his philosophy so much he was willing to do for it and today he lives on as we discuss him in articles like this. The world will continue to talk about people like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs because they kept going.

The failures don’t define you but you need them. Each one is like a brick in the foundation you’re building. Each one serves as the linchpin for the next one. Each one matters. Seriously.

While losing is cumbersome and overwhelming at the moment, it’s how leaders become successful. It’s like a secret equation:

Losing + Keep Going = Eventually Winning

That’s it. No overthinking is required. Just a little bit of persistence in the face of losing will make you into the successful leader you want to be.

Leaders are often criticized as insensible, bossy, emotionless, harsh, and disconnected but in reality, things are much different than that because when you arrive at a place where people start to praise your efforts and ability to lead you’ll notice that you’re an actual leader people want to follow.

You’ll finally be a leader, but only because you’ve been a loser.