Meritocracy: the holding of power by people selected on the basis of their ability.

As a college athlete, I made some mistakes.

I got on the wrong side of the person in power: the coach of the basketball team.

I had a poor strategy for dealing with this conflict with the person in power.

To make matters worse, I had no system for dealing with the perceived unfairness and inadequacies of the coaching staff.

The cost of these mistakes: I spent my last year and a half of college NOT on the basketball team.

In the end though, none of that mattered. Because I could play basketball really well.

I had GAME, and that game carried me to a nearly a decade-long career as a professional player.

This all happened because sports is a meritocracy.

In a meritocracy, the best performers ALWAYS win. They get the rewards, the money, and as things play out, the best players are obvious to point out. In sports, a person who doesn't play or know much about sport XXX can watch a game and point out the best player. Your wife or daughter who’s uninterested in sports can watch an NBA game and will NOTICE LeBron; a soccer match, and point out Messi.

In any meritocracy, the best players' ability is obvious, and they usually win.

The fact that I am extremely logical, dispassionate, and able to look at things objectively have contributed to my affinity for and inclination towards sports.

In sports, you get coached on your flaws. Exposed in front of everyone, with nowhere to hide. You have no choice but to deal with it, accept it, and come back stronger.

By design, athletic experience breeds and demands mental toughness.

This works because sports has one arbiter of outcomes: The Scoreboard.

Scoreboards do not have opinions, feelings, or political leanings. It tells you the black-and-white objective truth of what happened. Because of the scoreboard, in the sports world, you ARE your outcomes. Period.

Business, on the other hand, is not a meritocracy.

Businesses say all the right things about rewarding performance. In reality, business rewards people who are superior at three things – and performance ain't one of them.

1) Strategy
2) Systems
3) Politics

Business rewards you for having a great game plan, a clean process, and for knowing the right people.

Fail at any ONE of these in business, and your business will fail along with it.

In sports, you can have no game plan, a poor process, and know nobody. And, if you’re good enough, your skills will overcome all of those flaws and you’ll still win.

In business, no matter how good you are, if you have a crappy plan, no process, and don't know who’s who, you will fail regardless of how good you are.

You must know what game you’re in.

Come learn how to play: http://www.WorkOnYourGameUniversity.com