A Silver is never Won, its the Gold that is Lost ....

I remember that day when i heard this statement for the first time in my life, and since then always believedin it and respected it in all phases and aspects of life.

It was the day in office as usual, tensed, as we were nearing the end of our Quarterly Based Review (QBR), a few weeks away to be the best performing site throughout the world, competing against the best. This quarter has been one of the best our site has performed so far. A couple of more safe weeks and we r the Numero Uno throughout the world. The Emperor of this world.

Our Big Boss conducted a Managers meeting and we all, around 25 of us stepped in the conference room thinking that we've gonna have our butts kicked again.But so was not the case this time. It was a session that we all will remember throughout our lives. Some things we will cherish in all the good and the bad that we do, thereon.

So there was it, the results of the QBR, which our Big Boss had just brought back along with him from US of A. This was the first time when all the Site Leads were invited to US of A for the QBR (every other quarter, its only video conferenced).We all were so exited to be there and to know if we had kicked some ass or is our ass getting kicked again. After a few good words and a few if and buts and so on and so forth, we heard that we ranked second across the globe.

All of us were so happy and satisfied by the result, as it was the first time out Mumbai site had been in the Top 5. It was cheer and claps and congratulation to each other and gala time to have a party on. All fair and all happy moments, something to feel proud of.
That went on for a few minutes and then our Big Boss proceeded to wrap up the meeting with his final words of wisdom. Here is what he said (not exactly, but the meaning remains the same).

"Congratulation's on the second ranking through the globe. This has been the best ever out site has performed. By the pace and position we were in a few days ago, i thought we would be through this time on the top position, but to what so ever reason, we were given a silver medal.Not that we acheived it, or we earned it (at this moment all we thought was, why the hell is he saying that we were given and we did not earn it, we all knew how hard we had worked to reach that position), but someone has given it to us. Because, "A Silver is never Won, its the Gold that is Lost".

Very true as we realised what he meant. We never compete in a race to be second, we always wanna win. We never rank second coz we finish second, but coz we dont win the first place.

P.S. - No doubt we had all the grand celebrations across the whole site, but that one statement always mades me do whatever it takes to be Numero Uno.