Cheating to Win

Cheating to Win
– by Coach Colle Davis

Your problems begin when you want to stop cheating, when you must stop cheating, or when you get caught. The consequences of your behavior begin to take on weight and reduce the value of the perceived winning.

There are few areas in life where cheating is not common. In sports, be it individual events, team events, motorsports, or any other ‘sanctioned’ event, cheating is rampant. Cheating is often encouraged by the sport’s regulators because they believe cheating makes the sport/competition look better to retain their audience.

Banking, finance, politics, the world of art, the building trades, retail business, wholesale, and the services industry are all rift with cheating and dishonesty. Even some government contractors have been busted for cheating.

Why? How did we get here?

It’s all about the Benjamins. If you win, the money, the prestige, the power, the glory, the accolades, and the smugness of getting away with it, is what you want and that makes you a cheat.

Do you want to change the system? Be honest. Would you do it if you knew you could get away with cheating? Or would you be virtuous and pass on the opportunity?

People cheat in different ways. Race cars have specific rules and guidelines that must be adhered to, or the owner/driver will be penalized. The financial services industry bakes numbers and charts to make their products look better to sell to more people. Politicians will say anything to get elected and stay elected.

In today’s rules for valor, it seems we reward the outcomes, not the process.

If you ignore cheating, you encourage and support its use and spread. If you discover someone responsible to you is cheating, would you call them on it? Or turn a blind eye the 21^st Century’s method for avoiding conflict. After all, whistleblower’s fates are often unpredictable.

Never ask anyone to lie for you.

It teaches them to lie to you.

Lying is cheating in its simplest form.

“Change is never painful, only the resistance to change is painful.” –  Buddha

How can you become honest and stay true to your word?

Read on if you think, “There is no need to be consistently honest in today’s world. Honesty is not expected. Why bother?”

Because many have accepted cheating and lying as a usual way of life, we now have people like Putin, Mitch McConnell, Tucker Carlson, Trump, Boris Johnson, and similar dastardly people in power. These people are perhaps your role models.

Why do we admire Zelensky, Jacinda Ardern, Greta Thunberg, and Ruth Bater Ginsberg? These are virtuous, honest, and courageous people. Do you want to be respected and thought of in the same vein as these people?

Being honest and not cheating is hard work if you’re not used to telling the truth.

Big ‘IF’ here, if you want the feeling of being honest, caring, trustworthy, and valuable, there are steps you can take to achieve that end. Start small. It is the little things that count and add up to a better life.

The big ‘Assumption’ here is that you are willing to put in the time and effort to get to that level in life. 

What ‘reward’ do you expect for your truth-telling? Think about the time and effort required to build and maintain a reputation for being a good person. Your efforts may be more than you want to invest in your job. Some professions do not lend themselves to transparency and honesty. If this is the case, consider changing careers so you can tell the truth.

The small steps include learning a new sorting pattern. Changing is often seen as unpleasant or scary. Change is easy, it is our resistance to change that makes us uncomfortable.

Most people sort for same: same in their life; they want the same make of car, same neighborhood, same vacation spot, same colors, same foods, same, same, same, and more of the same. These wonderful people are the worker bees of the world, and they do most of the work. They also hate change above everything else in life. They are 80% of the population.

A smaller group sort for same with exception. They are willing to have some differences and choices in their lives but limit the size and scope of those changes. They are also wonderful, creative, and supportive people. This group comprises 15% of the world.

The last group is tiny, they sort for differences. They are risk takers, and adventurers, who look for ways to see or do things differently and are constantly changing things in their lives. Coincidentally, they are also the most likely to be leaders, wealthy, intelligent, and flexible. They are 5% of the world.

Here is the trick. You can learn to be more flexible without being dishonest. Harsh, but possible. When flexibility gives both parties an advantage, it is a win. What are you not doing to get your outcome? What do you have to compromise to stay honest and get your result?

Today, take the time to look at your responses and see how close you are to the honesty you want to live. The other way may be far more lucrative, but baggage piles up, especially if you use social media. Two helpful authors for your journey: Machiavelli and N. N. Taleb.