Margin of superiority

When Park City's Ted Ligety won another GS yesterday in Beaver Creek, he illustrated the importance of maintaining a huge “reserve” of strength until the finish line and, as a result, being capable of dominating a contest, not just by sheer luck, good fortune or other set of circumstances, but by overwhelming the field of competitors.

For those who know the lay of the land, the lower section of Birds of Prey is steep and unrelenting. It sucks energy and if you've watched the race, it was clear that by the end of the run, the vast majority of racers had nothing left in them to complete the race, hence the dramatic drop in the difference of timing, between Ligety – the benchmark – and them.

This illustrates that in order to win, whether it be in sports, business, or any other endeavor, power capacity and good storage are paramount. If you don't have enough “reserve” from the get go, winning is dicey and mostly in the hands of “Lady Luck.” Before anything, the assurance of winning can be found through some margin of superiority and this measure remains the best bet for making it to the tallest step of the podium.

Being just “close” or almost there, is clearly never enough, and for those of us who have tried it too many times, it almost inevitably ends in a lesson in humility. No matter what you do and what your stage in life is, always think about building that “extra margin...”