Playing To Win

To succeed, you absolutely need to gain more knowledge in your selected field. How do you go about doing that? One of the most fruitful ways is from the living lessons role models provide. It's easy to become a winner if you're simply willing to learn from those who have been winners themselves.

Find out who has had the most success at what they do. Watch their technique. Observe their methods. Study their behavior. By finding the best people in your [industry], you'll learn what their routines are, the mistakes they made along the way and the various scenarios they're forced to confront on a day-to-day basis. Then not only can you imitate their habits, but you can also imitate their results. It can be that easy.

A perfect example: In 1967, an aspiring basketball coach named Mike Jarvis attended his first coaching clinic. The man conducting it was Indiana [University's] basketball coach Bobby Knight. At the clinic, Jarvis spent $1.50 to buy Knight's book on basketball tips and to learn the finer points of man-to-man defense. Almost a quarter-century later, Jarvis was hired as St. John's [University's] basketball coach. In the 1999 NCAA college basketball tournament, St. John's played Indiana. And Jarvis ended up beating the man whose book he committed to memory.

This article was originally published in the September 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Playing To Win.