Silver Medal Linings: In sports, business, or elections, it is the runner-up who defines a memorable winner
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“I would rather come last than be in the second place,” says Seinfeld.
“You win the gold, you feel good.”
“You win the bronze, you think, ‘At least I got something.’”
“But if you win that silver, that’s like, ‘Congratulations, you almost won. Of all the losers, you came in first of that group. You’re the No. 1 loser. No one lost ahead of you’,” says the comedy star closing the gag. Go ahead and finish laughing. Once you have done that, think about these dates: IPL final on May 26, 2024, Cricket World Cup final on November 19, 2023 and, of course, June 4, next week. On the first two dates mentioned, someone walked away with glory and someone else with misery. It will be the same next week.
Evolution has hardwired into us the idea of a winner and, by the principle of complementarity, a loser. Out of breath and hiding away from a sabre-toothed tiger, managing to grab a seat on one of those Polynesian canoes headed to Hawaii (no stops), escaping the yearning jaws of prehistoric crocodiles at a watering hole, it was either ancient cremation rites or a few extra happy years for furthering hominid genes. Not a surprise that our genes learnt to be selfish, to think of a binary of win or lose.
We don’t have to be stuck in that thinking. It is precisely this notion that has created a winner-takes-all economic scenario in sports (remember tennis player Sumit Nagal’s statement that he was struggling financially), business, entrepreneurship and even academics
