“Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners.”

Who said that? I’ve done some Googling, but I’m not entirely sure. Does it matter who said it? Probably not. I noticed the quote and it has been gnawing at me ever since.

I accept that it’s a pretty testosterone-driven statement. In fact, it may have been said by Conor McGreggor, an Irish mixed martial artist and boxer. He’s got plenty of testosterone and I hesitate to quote him because he keeps getting accused of bad things and arrested. Let’s not worry about who said it.

Back to my point (yeah, yeah, I know you wish I’d get to the point faster–I read your damn emails)–why does this quote gnaw at me?

Because it has proven true for me. When I’m focused on moving my business forward, I win at business. When I focus on the competition, I lose.

Focusing on winning meant, for me, finding ways to attract and satisfy clients. That had little, if anything, to do with our competition.

My clients cared a lot less about how I stacked up against the competition than I did.

They had their agendas, their needs, and their priorities. They didn’t care what the other lawyers were doing. They cared about their own personal concerns. We either lived up to their expectations or we failed. The more I focused on helping clients, the more I won. I figured that out pretty early on.

But other lawyers–especially those I perceived as doing well (AKA ‘winners’)–were always a major distraction. Instead of focusing on winning, I found myself paying attention to the winners who were ahead of me in my market.

I convinced myself that paying attention to the competition mattered. I rationalized the hours I spent studying their websites, the number of associates they employed, the size of their houses (yes, I looked up that information online, which probably reveals something about my personality flaws). I completely convinced myself that I needed to know what they were up to, so I’d fully understand my clients.

But focusing on those winners never got me anywhere. Nor did it help my clients or prospective clients. In hindsight, it’s clear to me that the more I focused on our clients and our potential clients, the more I won.

Focusing on winning, by helping my clients, helped me win. Focusing on winners wasn’t just a distraction; it was always counterproductive. I should have known that intuitively, without an alleged criminal-mixed-martial-artist telling me. But it’s easy to get distracted by the winners–their headcount, their toys, their marketing–and lose track of what it takes to win. Winners focus on winning.