Compete, Play, Win: Finding Your Best Competitive Self

By David Apostolico

This book is a sociological examination of competition and the competitive drive, told from the viewpoint of a competition freak. The author explores the energy and force behind the need to compete, and what the consequence of that need is. In the chapter Sperm Wars,” Apostolico discusses conception as the beginning of the competitive nature of humans, while also discussing the competition for a mate that precedes it. Through this, he sets up the idea of a biological necessity for competition and how evolution has modified and enhanced that drive. In a later chapter called Competitive Nature,” Apostolico participates in as many competitive endeavors as possible (eating contests, drag races, dog shows, etc.) and answers a set of 10 questions about each, concluding with, Can a competitive junkie ever truly feel satisfied?”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Release date: Oct 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9781628731842

Book preview

Introduction

My wife, children, and I live in a new neighborhood that offers a real sense of community. Since everyone is new, there are plenty of social events and opportunities to make friends. However, as with any organization, there can be conflict—especially when rules, customs, and mores have yet to be established. The homeowners’ association takes on added importance in a new neighborhood. The initial board will set a number of precedents as it faces issues for the first time.

One of the issues our board faced was whether or not it had the authority under the current bylaws to fund a neighborhood picnic. The bylaws were somewhat ambiguous. The picnic had taken place for a couple of years and was a popular event when one of the homeowners claimed that the board did not possess the authority to fund the event. The board sided with this homeowner but, of course, the organizers of the picnic disagreed. One solution was to amend the bylaws to make them clear, and we had a meeting of the entire association to discuss this change.

I somehow became very involved in this debate though I was not on the board or one of the organizers. I felt strongly that the picnic was a wonderful event for the entire neighborhood and hoped that it would continue to be funded in the future. I arrived late to the meeting and walked into a heated discussion, albeit one where everyone was respectful of others’ opinions.

I patiently listened to all of the arguments before finally raising my hand. As soon as I started to speak, I was interrupted by one of the board members. A second attempt to continue was met with further interruption. I snapped and asked that I be allowed to speak uninterrupted. I had managed to get my blood boiling and, immediately, I took on an argumentative position.

I was no longer trying to make rational and influential points for my side of the debate. I was now engaged in an argument that I desperately hoped to win. The difference between the two is subtle but dramatic. The latter is far less effective than the former. I had lost credibility by making this an issue about my ego instead of about the relatively simple issue at hand. My thoughts became incoherent rants rather than carefully constructed opinions.

After my inappropriate outburst, I was extremely disappointed in myself. I should have been sensitive to the fact that the board members were volunteering their valuable time to help our community and were taking a lot of needless heat. No matter which way some issues were decided, some homeowners were sure to disagree. Furthermore, their position was certainly a reasonable one. By making the meeting personal, I not only embarrassed myself but completely neutralized my persuasiveness. I stood a much better chance of winning over the group if I had only remained calm and well reasoned.

The day after this board meeting, I was cleaning out my basement and came across a box of old stuff my mother had given me a few years back. It was one of those boxes of assorted memorabilia that I had never bothered to go through until that day. As I was weeding through assorted certificates for little league play—and even the occasional all-star recognition—I came across my report card from seventh grade English. I was a fairly good student and I had received an A in the class for the second marking period. However, what grabbed my attention was the section below entitled Comments which allowed the teacher to provide feedback. Most comment sections were left blank on the card, except for one.

Mr. Johnson, my English teacher, had written a couple of sentences that certainly did not follow the usual script of Nice Job. Reading his words unleashed some old demons. Mr. Johnson was a genuinely passionate and caring teacher—but he also established a competitive atmosphere within the classroom. Mr. Johnson had developed a series of simple yet fun competitive grammar games to keep the students interested. It was perfect for a student such as me. For example, instead of regurgitating words, we would play spelling baseball. The class would be split up into teams of two and each team would eventually play all of the other teams. Each team member would have a turn to try to spell as many words as possible during a time period. The more correctly spelled words, the more points accumulated.

I remember that these games sometimes caused heated debates when I thought the opposing team did not provide words quickly enough, even if it was unintentional. I played to win and I know I was often the center of many arguments, which explains why Mr. Johnson felt the need to write in the comment section of my report card: David has done a great deal of work both at home, in class, and study hall to earn high praise. My only complaint is his argumentative nature. He can become easily ‘carried away’ in our grammar games. He must curb his fanatical desire to win at any price.

I long ago recognized that I have a competition problem which I have struggled with throughout my life. I have fought hard in my adult life to control my competitive desires and to channel them through more appropriate outlets. I don’t necessarily suppress my competitiveness. Rather, I indulge my competitive drives in appropriate venues. As a corporate attorney, I have seen the best and worst of negotiations. I have seen otherwise extremely intelligent people possess an obvious and destructive Achilles’s heel. These people negotiate not to get the best deal but to win arguments. When I started my career working for a Wall Street law firm long ago, my mentor there taught me the way to negotiate: Get the best deal for your client and leave ego aside. Specifically, he said that there’s nothing like picking someone’s pocket and getting thanked for it. You don’t need to beat your opponent over the head to show you’ve won. Rather, win the point while letting your adversary feel good about himself. This isn’t being altruistic. Rather, it will help you win the next point as well. If you beat someone down, your opponent is sure to get defensive and fight back harder. Clients aren’t impressed by bluster; they are impressed by results. Yet, there I was in that homeowners’ meeting, full of bluster and doing my best to embarrass myself rather than win the cause.

I realized that as far as I thought I had come, I was still prone to regress to my seventh grade win at all costs self. I still have work to do and it got me wondering if there is such a thing as an optimum sense of competition—a way to win in everyday circumstances by honing one’s best competitive self. Certainly, people’s capacity and need to compete has evolved over the centuries, but the basic instinct still exists. How can that instinct be tempered for today’s world?

Our society is built on competition. Capitalism and the free market system not only encourage competitiveness but also depend on it for their ongoing viability. Cities fight for professional sports teams and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new stadiums to house them. Many citizens equate civic pride with the success of local teams and celebrities. Can we satisfy our competitive needs by being sports fans? Every day, we compete for grades, jobs, money, and our slice of the American dream. Our heroes are the victors—those who have vanquished foes in the boardroom, on the gridiron, in the political arena, and at war.

Yet, we do not, and should not, welcome victory at any cost. Cheating is unacceptable and not tolerated in the great majority of quests. People differ as to what constitutes cheating. I imagine that our tolerance is more flexible when the stakes are higher. We could probably all agree that a student caught copying the answers from their friend’s test paper should be punished, but what about the professional football team that spies on its opponents’ practices? As individuals, we face moral and ethical choices all the time that may be at odds with our competitive natures.

My competitiveness has served me well in many aspects of my life. The things I cherish the most are arguably the result of my competitiveness, yet at times I have certainly crossed the line and done harm to others and myself. There has to be a proper balance, but where is that line? Does that line differ depending on context? Is it a matter of personal perspective or are there universal truths? I know I have crossed the line at various stages in my life, and I will share a few of these throughout this book. Be forewarned that these situations are not, by any means, earth-shattering events. Rather, they are indicative of the encounters we routinely come up against.

I don’t intend to eliminate my competitiveness. It is a necessity to survive, thrive, and succeed in this world. For both the individual and society at large, competition leads to a higher good and a more productive and better world.

I know I still have a competition problem. I believe I have learned to channel it, nurture it, or control it depending on the circumstances, although I occasionally have setbacks or find situations where the lines are fuzzy. I am not looking to make a case against competition. I do, however, want to find answers to some of the questions I raised earlier. This book is about searching for those answers and learning to be our best competitive selves. By sharing my competitive successes and blunders, I hope to help you find the right balance for yourself and channel your competitive instincts in a productive and successful way.

Let me offer a couple of words about what to expect from this book. First, I’d like to caution what this book is not. I am not a biologist or psychiatrist. I’m just a self-proclaimed Competition junkie. Thus, this is not a how-to book from an expert. If you’re looking for the perfect blueprint for how to compete successfully, you won’t find it here—and I seriously doubt you’ll be able to find it anywhere. That doesn’t mean, however, that this book won’t assist you to compete more effectively. I sincerely hope and believe that by sharing my personal experiences with you, you’ll be on your way to reaching your maximum competitive potential.

I hope to help you achieve this potential through:

1. An exploration of how we are wired to compete

2. An analogous look at competition in various species and cultures

3. How we successfully and ineffectively harness our competitive natures to compete and win, through personal experience and self-reflection

4. Factors that contribute to becoming our best competitive selves.

Once you understand why you compete and how that instinct touches just about everything you do, you can work through how you can control, nurture, and channel that innate beast in the most productive way.

In the book, I will identify three types of competitors that exist in all of us and which type is most effective depending on the circumstance. I hope that by providing advice about competing to win and by illustrating examples from my own personal journey in becoming my best competitive self that you will be able to reassess your competitive nature in order to win in all circumstances. The desired result of this book is for you to look at how you compete in an entirely new light and ultimately, through your own self-reflection, find the right balance to reach your maximum competitive potential.

PART I

AN INTRODUCTION TO COMPETITION

All organic beings are exposed to severe competition.

—Charles Darwin

Chapter 1

Sperm Wars

The Great Race

At the moment of ejaculation, up to 300 million sperm begin their sprint to the egg. Only one, if any, will win the ultimate race. Those are incredible odds. To put this in perspective, the number of sperm in a potent ejaculate is almost equal to the number of citizens of the United States. Imagine a nationwide competition with every individual fighting for a winner takes all prize. There is no second place. With each of us conceived out of such a fierce battle, is it any wonder we are hardwired for competition?

To further complicate matters, the sperm race is the culmination of a larger battle: the war to copulate. A look at other species reveals intense battles between males during mating season. The battle among elephant seals for a mate can be ferocious and bloody as the alpha males batter chests and slash each other with their tusks. According to evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, In one sense all male-male competition is just so much sperm competition. As primitive as that sounds, a closer look at the role of sperm in conception from both the male and female perspective reveals a complex struggle that may be revealing of how men and women are biologically predisposed for competition.

A Sperm Surprise

British biologists Robin Baker and Mark Bellis of the University of Manchester have made revolutionary discoveries in their sperm research. Foremost among these discoveries is that not all sperm have the same function; it is not every sperm for itself, as we are sometimes led to believe. Rather than engage in a primal competition to reach the egg, the collective sperm of one male’s ejaculate may work together to compete against the potential ejaculate of other males. Baker’s and Bellis’s theory comes from their analysis of vaginal plugs found in rats after copulation. These plugs, made from male seminal secretions, can serve a dual purpose: The sperm plugs can prevent leakage, while making it more difficult for a subsequent male to advance his sperm. Baker and Bellis found that these plugs were full of dead misshapen sperm woven together. Instead of believing that abnormal sperm were just defective, Baker and Bellis hypothesized that these sperm may have another function.

In humans, these so-called kamikaze sperm could potentially form plugs at critical junctures throughout the passageway to the egg, providing a huge competitive advantage to the earlier male. Additionally, each sperm is equipped with enzymes to assist in penetrating the egg. For so-called defective sperm, these enzymes could be redeployed. Baker has theorized that [t]he other way bad sperm can help is through search-and-destroy. Sperm not capable of fertilization might be able to kill foreign sperm with enzymes.

At first blush, human life would appear to be conceived from a brutal yet simple competitive race of sperm. Yet, the notion that sperm can behave tactically in competitive concert against foreign sperm introduces an interesting evolutionary supposition. Desire, drive, speed, and strength are critical to many competitions, yet they are rarely, if ever, in and of themselves enough. The ability to reason and employ these attributes in a tactical way is a hallmark of a successful competitor.

Women as Judge and Jury

Thus far, we’ve been looking at the competitive nature of copulation through the perspective of the male implying that the female is either an unwilling participant or a prized possession. In either event, the implication is that the female does not possess the same innate competitiveness as the male when it comes to mating. Certainly from the male perspective, that could appear to be true on a surface level. It’s also quite easy to see how that perception could be extrapolated to areas besides copulation resulting in a belief that males are the more competitive sex.

Recent studies in this complex area, however, are beginning to reveal a much more tangled competitiveness than originally thought. The ability of the female to secretly manipulate the mating process unbeknownst to the male could give her the upper hand in the mating tango.

Let’s go back to our friends Baker and Bellis. In another study, they found that when women orgasm during intercourse, they retain significantly more sperm than if they