From the time I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, I understood what winning was all about. Whether I was playing football in the street with friends or an organized game of football on a field, there was always a winning team and a losing team. When we played in tournaments, I understood that only the winning team deserved a trophy at the end of the tournament. It didn’t matter whether you were in second place, third place or fourth place. There really is no second place in life: you either win, or you lose.

Sports taught me early on to strive to be the best in everything I did. Because I wanted to WIN!! When I played football, my goal was to win every single game. When I ran track, my goal was to win every single event. When I was in the classroom, my goal was to be at the top of my class. Even if it meant I had to work harder and longer than everyone else, I would sacrifice anything to be the very best.

That mentality carried over into my adult life. I worked my ass off to be the best in my class in college. And once I entered into the business world, I made sure I had the best business plan in order to build the biggest and best advertising agency in the country. That mentality has obviously served me well over the years.

Things have changed since I was a kid. In today’s world, everybody is a winner. Everybody gets a trophy. Everybody is given a gold star in classrooms across the country. Our children are being taught that the only thing that matters is effort – it doesn’t really matter whether you win or lose as long as you try. That’s complete CRAP! It does matter whether you win or lose in life. What kind of a lesson are we teaching our children? If we don’t teach them early on that winning matters, they are in for a rude awakening when they get older. Imagine what would happen at Zimmerman if we took second place in every pitch. It would mean we have no business, so we’d be out of business. Second place does not pay the bills.

America was built on winners. It was built on competition. It was built on people who had a grit and a determination to compete to be the best. Second place wasn’t an option for them. So those of you who read my blog have two options. You can go through life thinking second place is acceptable and be satisfied with mediocrity. Or you can go through life striving every day to be the best, always working to come in first. As someone who hates to lose, I refuse to associate myself with anyone who thinks second place is an acceptable option. This is real life: THERE IS NO SECOND PLACE.