DO WE REALLY UNDERSTAND THE PURPOSE OF THE WORD COMPETE
My father taught me that to understand an English word, it is always better to refer to its origins. About 80 percent of the entries in any English dictionary are borrowed, mainly from Latin. Over 60 percent of all English words have Greek or Latin roots. Today I want to discuss a word that is a source of most of humankind’s problems, the word Compete. The English dictionary defines the word as meaning “strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others”. Because most of us in life want to gain or win, we naturally assume that in order to do that we must out do or defeat other fellow humans thereby leading to the scarcity mentality where we assume that there are limited resources.
However if you go back to its Latin origin, it derives from LATIN verb=“Competere” meaning to meet, come together. Also means strive in common, strive after something in company with or together. Tracing the word to it origins actually tells us that we can collaborate and win together if we strive together. Imagine the cohesion we would have if we understood this word, not to mention impacts on our livelihood as far is it affects:
- Marriages
In a marriage like any partnership, it is very important to remember that you are part of the same team with a common goal/s. You should appreciate the different strengths that you each bring and enjoy your different perspectives as all this contributes to a winning team. However, in some marriages, we bring the personal self rather the higher/authentic self, which leads to us pulling in different directions with ego. Always important to understand why you married in the first place. They say that marriages last longer when you bring all this love you have to share rather than going into a marriage looking for love that you don’t have internally.
- Siblings
As parents, we need to be branding/marketing experts and super motivational speakers. Marketers know the importance of labels and can take any mediocre product and hype it up with labels. Similarly coaches and motivational speakers can have mediocre teams believing in themselves leading to unbelievable results. As parents we need to be deliberate about the labels we give our children and make sure it’s all positive labels as labels stick like hypnosis.
We must be careful never to compare our children even with all the best intentions, whether to motivate or encourage. “Why can’t you be more like your sister”. Sibling rivalries are very dangerous. We have seen family dynasties being destroyed by sibling rivalries. Our children need to know that they are part of the same team and should always give their best. We must raise them with a growth mind set, believing that anything worth doing is worth doing well.
- Work
Companies all over the world are grappling to implement reward systems that promote and reward collective efforts rather than individual effort. The current reward systems drive bad behaviour whereby employees believe that they must defeat or outsmart other colleagues in order to be the best.
- Innovation
Marcus Buckingham promotes that we all have a responsibility to find our strengths. According to his work, there are 9 strengths that are available with each individual having 2 dominant strengths. Imagine the limitless innovation that would be possible if diverse teams were brought into projects whereby all 9 strengths are available to drive performance and come with new products and new ways of doing things.
Instead, most project teams are composed based on who is the flavour of the month instead of the core skills required for the project. The project still gets delivered more as a vanilla box ticking exercise rather than as the next exciting thing where the creative juices are flowing with passion. Inevitably you also find the project team members competing rather than striving together.
- Race
The whole world is grappling with issues of racism that have caused havoc for centuries. At a fundamental level, racism is about the belief that some races are better than others. The majority of humankind know that this is fallacy but it continues to divide us to this day resulting in different races competing for superiority or their place in the Sun. A closer look reveals that for human beings of whatever race, at the root of human aspiration, there are three core psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness (the need for social connection and intimacy). You need to feel autonomous, that you can make choices in your life. You have to feel effective and competent, doing things that make you stretch. And you have to have close relationships with others to satisfy your social mandate.
Attaining these core psychological needs does not require any race to be defeated nor superior.
I understand that to some people, the word Purpose is an old, outworn and threadbare notion/buzzword. However, we have just dealt with the consequences of not understanding the purpose of just one word. Imagine the consequences of not understanding our purpose as individual human beings here on planet earth. Dare I say that the notion of Purpose might be a buzzword but the consequences of not understanding our purpose live on all around us.
Written by Slingsby Mda
Slingsby Mda is the founder and Managing Director of Esto Quod Es (Latin for Be who/what you are), a South African company that specialises in Transformation Coaching, Impact Speaking and Strategy Facilitation. This was borne out of his ambition for understanding why some people don’t reach their true potential. Having gone through his own transformation journey to find his purpose, he then decided to follow his passion and assist others to reach their potential.
He likes to refer to himself as a reformed accountant with more than 20 years working experience in both the public and private sector. His motto is: The world is what it is and we are what we are.