EPT
I love Judo, in Korea they call it Yudo and they refuse to use the Japanese terms, but its the same. Korean training style after you're 18 or so is very repetitive happy, you do the same thing over and over again and the basic steps and you learn the complex moves very very slowly (that is, if you are at a good place); so earning your belt/grade isn't a priority, but rather ensuring that what you do is perfect in technique first.
Now if you're not dedicated, this gets old fast, but once you get to that level, where everything is instinctive, well its like breathing and you start to learn everything faster as everything is simply an adjustment from the basics you learned for 2 years. So what happens is, you rarely get caught because your techniques really cancel each other out, so when you do get caught, its really because that guy is better or knows something you don't know.
And it's a joyous day.
Because now you are going to learn something new that you didn't before. Because you were not practicing to win, you were practicing to simply be better.
When I went to visit my parents in Canada last year, I went to a Judo dojo to training for fun. And in Canada, they do all this Judo ground game, which I never learned because I'm a very low level and I've only focused on throws and breaking my own falls and thats it. Now here at this Canadian dojo, they do 1/4 warm, 1/4 fall, 1/4 throws, 1/4 submissions. Now, I'm fine with everything up to throws, but the submissions, I have no idea at all what they are etc. I've never done an arm bar or whatever, throw em, then done.
So, I'm a heavy guy, not big, but heavy and strong (at pretty fat nowadays lol), 178 cm and 116kg (5'10, 255lb). While 30 kg is fat, the rest is muscle and bone from years of playing rugby, but I don't look 116 kg and I don't look that strong because all my weight is in my back and legs. So anyway, I'm doing fine standing up, but when it gets to teh ground, I'm still holding my own because I'm just so damn heavy. So I get caught here and there, but nothing outrageous.
So then the instructor, who is just a big mountain of man says, 'lets spar on the ground' and he is big, fast, stronger, taller and he is a really great instructor and he completely owns me, destroys me, toys with me and I love it; I'm like, 'wow, that is so amazing, can you do it again', and he is crushing me, I can feel my spine get cracked here and there and I feel dizzy cause I'm getting choked out and I can't help but smile. I am doing everything I can not to be submitted in less than 20 seconds, but I can't, and its so great to be owned that hard because I know he is that skillful and I'm getting an opportunity to know to experience this really high level of judo submissions (granted I'm a noob at this, but I can tell how talented and experience he is). And the master has this incredible look on his face that I've shocked him in my reaction.
I know a lot of North Americans, they get upset during practice, they get angry for losing and when they practice, sometimes they forget it's a practice and go overboard or even get into fights; this never happens in Korea. Never. So anyway, I guess he thought that he would have to break me in a bit so I could recognize how good he was and that I didn't stand a chance and let me go through the natural stages of trying too hard then being humiliated by trying too hard then be humble to learn, but actually, it was such a great experience to just see his level of expertise that it made my entire trip!
Smart People are Bad Competitors
The problem with being naturally good at something is two fold. #1 generally the first thought you have is better than 99% of what your peers could think of after 30 mins to an hour of thought. #2. It is hard to find a true teacher that can beat your ass so soundly that you're unable to justify your loss and start to be humble enough to learn as much as you can from that person.
Now, with issue #1; this is all well and good when you're with the general population, but when you're head to head with guys who are just as smart as you and 10 years of experience on top of that; no matter what you can think of, they've actually done it and done it well.
But if they are in competition with you, they aren't going to say, 'hey retard, you don't know what the fuck you are talking about' maybe in a SC2 forum they will, but not in real life. In real life, they will let you shoot yourself in the foot multiple times until you die of blood loss or until you are embarrassed into complete submission and loss of confidence. If they tell you want you're doing wrong, then you're still not in the highest level of competitors. So you need to know what you know to understand what you don't know- meaning, you can't assume that others don't know more than you in any given situation- you can't assume that they are the retards because unless you have already proven yourself in that field, then for all intent purposes, until you prove otherwise, you are the retard.
As for point #2; besides being totally out to lunch, as in point #1, it is hard to completely be open and say, while I maybe partial right here, fundamentally I am wrong. The more specialized you get, the more difficult it is to say that, because in many respects, when you are wrong, its not a big mental jump for you to see how you were wrong, just a slight difference in approach, but that is where you are dead wrong.
The more intelligent and competitive you are, the more the slight incremental gain are. Because likely, there are no earth shattering revelations left in the game for you, but if you don't say clearly, 'ok, i fucked up' even if it wasn't a total fuck up, then you can't ever clearly distill what you've just learned. So, lets say, you have 5 years of experience in your field, top of the game, but its unlikely you'll find anyone to spank your ass so soundly that you'll really recognize what you could be learning.
Stop Justifying and then You'll Learn when you're at that Level
There is no gain from justifying a loss or a setback. No gain at all except for ego, even when you were not totally wrong, but the fact that you were wrong at all, says, you weren't able to fully tackle the competitive task in the first place, regardless of environmental issues or issues outside of your control, especially if someone was able to be successful and you weren't. Now I'm not saying beat yourself up, but intelligent people never reach the absolute top of their field because they are able to rightly justify everything, when in fact, even if you were to be injustly blamed for something, it at least put you in a position to really and honestly assess where was the possible error in improvement.
STFU, Being Wrong is the Only Time you can Learn
When I get a new intern to train, I have to break them first, because these kids were picked because they were either from a privileged background or cause they are damn smart. So whenever they do something where the result wasn't perfect, I blame them, and cut them off before they start to justify why it turned out like that. Of course I'm being unreasonable, of course its not completely their fault, but if i don't do that, THEY NEVER LEARN ANYTHING. Seriously, because in their minds, the never actually took time to reflect on what was wrong, instead they get this false sense that it was just an honest mistake and it won't happen again. But the fact that it did happen, shows that they weren't flawless, so me being reasonable here takes the focus off the mistake. Instead they will have this false sense of confidence that they can do the work at my level but with some random mistakes here and there which could happen to anyone. But actually, THEY NEVER HAPPEN TO ME and these mistakes will never happen to anyone at my level. So the reality is, they aren't random mistakes, they are very incremental small mistakes, but mistakes nevertheless than need to be completely addressed or they will NEVER BE improvement at that level.
I'm Still an Intern of Life
So, I talk with my investors, some conversations, mostly good, but I had one with an investor and he basically just attacked me, saying that him and his team laughed at my forecast and thought I was either trying to rip him off or just in fantasy land. I'm not a young guy, so I tell him, obviously I wasn't trying to rip him off and that the numbers were based on real market and revenue figures that I have have and have done. But I missed the point. He didn't say all that extreme stuff because he didn't know that I did give him an honest and sincere proposal (if that wasnt' the case, he would probably never have spoken to me again), rather, he was trying to teach me something about setting up a responsible cash flow business structure (which took me about 1 month to realize what he was really saying) and it was it was the right approach by the investor because my head was so big because I know I'm one of the best in the industry, but that being said, I still am relatively young for business and especially since I' haven't proven myself outside of the corporate environment. It was an ass kicking and humiliation I needed in order to work in the new sphere that I am with private investors and asset management firms. Now was I totally wrong, no I wasn't, but if I had just justified it, would I have ever really focused on what I did wrong and learn from it and really be a better competitor, no I would have missed it completely and I did miss his point completely for a full month. Lucky for me, he cares.
To compete: to prepare to do battle for your Ambition
So a main point of this is: you need to know that most times, you have the benefit of preparation and practice and during that time you need to learn to be competitive and focus on your mistakes. The reality is, you can be in a competitive mindset all the time, but really being competitive is an action of both preparation and the actual battle and in my mind is a 90/10 split and the real mind set of being competitive is ambition. Not to simply win a competition for ego, but to go the distance and be the undisputed best in what you do or at least pointing in that direction.
well keep going 
