2nd place. Even the sound of that word strikes fear in most a-type leaders. Who wants to be the best loser? Even worse than that, what motivated and competitive person wants to look weak or fail at something they are striving for? It’s a part of the human condition to strive for greatness and within leaders that desire to be the best is usually a great trait. Yet, sometimes it’s unneeded and unhealthy.

I’m here to try and convince you that you don’t always have to the best at everything you do. We are programmed to ignore our weaknesses and focus solely on the things that are our strong traits.

While there is much literature written about focusing on strengths vs. improving weaknesses, I want to come from a different perspective.

There are times when failing is ok.

There are also times when walking away from a challenge is a great strategy. Even further, there are times when being good or finding enjoyment in a skill or activity should be benefit enough for us to continue, even if we will never be the best.

It’s an uncomfortable feeling, but I hope the following examples from my personal life may help give you the strength to settle for 2nd best.

Hopping into our time machine (what you don’t have one?) I take a look back at when the internet was starting as a fringe, slightly frightening place. With our 2400 baud modem, my brother and I dialed into RIPCO, one of the first BBCs (feel free to look up some of these acronyms if you want to learn more about the origin of the internet!)tom vranas tom

With zero graphics or anything resembling the modern internet browser, the first web pages were streams of text….and as things grew HTML started to come into play to make this information more organized.

So, as HTML started to develop, we read it on the screen as if it were a foreign language. This was awesome and helped me to learn HTML, on the fly.

Fast forward to the early 2000s when I started my first solo enterprise, making beautiful, hand-coded websites for business in the Chicagoland area. I loved the challenge of both my creative side, mirrored with the challenge of the more regimented language of the web. To this day, I still love designing websites, but have lost my love for the technical side and instead focus on the strategic and design questions to make sites user-friendly and to accomplish the larger goals of the organization.

In the past few years, there have been several national and worldwide pushes for everyone to learn coding. A lot of that is at the younger levels as part of traditional education models, but I figured if everyone is saying how powerful learning to code is, it was time to dust off the old & < and > not to mention the hrefs. Time to get back in the coding game.

I signed up for a few of the self-directed programs and was first of all blown away by the quality of the instruction and the platforms. This was different than the way I had learned how to code. And I had to walk 20 miles in the snow to go to BestBuy to buy my computer…

Needless to say, all the courses started with the same introduction to HTML, so it was a comfortable reunion with a long-lost friend….and I gained some quick confidence that I could master this stuff!

BZZZT! Wrong!

The concepts got more and more difficult to master. The fun started to subside. I found myself dreading to do this…. what was supposed to be a fun learning experience. At some point along the road, I made a conscience decision that I didn’t have the patience to learn something like advanced coding, especially when there are so many great companies (shameless plug for my buddy Josh’s firm, TableXI, who does incredible work in the arena) that could do it faster and more efficiently. A part of me was pained by backing away from the challenge, but sometimes you have to bite that bullet and stand down.

Recently, I decided I wanted to tackle a new hobby. I had advanced pretty far in the world of woodworking, but there are only so many pieces of wood furniture you can build before you start to get that look from the wife :) I have always envied people that could whip up a great drawing.

I think that skill is so incredible when communicating effectively and my drawings were fancy stick figured. So, off to learn how to draw I went.

I found an talented charcoal drawer who was offering classes and signed right up. Our first assignment was to draw anything -I chose a peanut butter jar…and boy was it rough! We settled into class and I was ready.

Well, it didn’t make me long to figure out why I never pursued the drawing arts. I hated every minute of the class. It wasn’t the instruction or the work or anything else.

I really hate drawing. There’s nothing more simple to admit than that.

Now, all that being said, I decided that if I was putting a line I the sand and never drawing again, I would at the very least put all of my time and effort to make ONE incredible drawing, no matter how long it took.

The crazy thing is with the pressure to become an artist off my shoulders, I enjoyed working on this one single drawing. It took about five times longer than the teacher expected, but I didn’t care. I knew that after this was done I could check off the “try to draw” box with a tangible product to show for my efforts.

My final example of this came when I was trying to find a more permanent solution to my continued back issues. As you have seen in my other writings, I am a huge fan of the positive benefits of yoga. Well, the first time I tried yoga it was an unmitigated disaster. I walked into a hot Bikram Yoga class in the early 2000s unprepared. Basketball shorts, double cotton Tshirt and zero idea what I was in for.

The longer version of the story is hilarious, but the short version is that I almost passed out and the teacher focused on keeping me laying down and IN the class for 90 minutes.

Jump ahead to my next few times trying yoga. I got the right gear, understood more about the process and the practice. One of the best things I did had nothing to do with the actual physical aspect of contorting your body in inhuman ways.

Part of the reason l continued to struggle so much with yoga is that I would look around at all of the incredibly fit people who could seemingly wrap their leg around their heads at a moment’s notice and I got so frustrated that I couldn’t do that…. classic a-type reaction. I want to do it the best, and I WANT TO DO IT NOWWWW!

Letting go of that desire to be the best, I found myself improving a little more each class. Sometimes I would flounder, sometimes I could feel myself hitting that pose, even for an instant. Instead of focusing on being the best, I focused on being the best…. for me.

Now, years later, I know that I will never teach a yoga class, I will most likely never balance on my head or dox any of those more amazing feats, but that’s OK. What I’ve also learned through yoga is that these things in life…. they are all practice.

So, give yourself permission to come up short, to hate something you thought you would love, or to pull the ripcord and abandon something you thought you would fight for. It’s ok not to be the leader of the pack all the time and in everything you do. If you are always the best, I can guarantee you that you are missing out on some incredible experiences in life.

To be the best isn’t a badge of honor, but rather should be an indication that you aren’t trying new things and getting out of your comfort zone.

So…what are you waiting for? Go forth and be….mediocre!

Go forth and be…mediocre!