Remembering 2011

One of the highlights has to be my Agile Pilgrimage with Carsten Ruseng and Henrik Kniberg to Snowbird, Utah on 12 August. Snowbird has a special place in my heart because it’s where only ten years ago, a bunch of enthusiasts got together to create the Agile Manifesto that became the definitive catalyst for the way we develop software and work together as teams today.

“Look what I found in my Agile treasure trove…”

As I looked through my Agile video library collected this year, I came across a video we made during our visit to Snowbird. It’s of Henrik Kniberg sharing his story behind the Agile Manifesto Translation Programme and the impact it’s had in forming new Agile communities.

“It’s nice to see you, to see you, nice!”

The coming together of this group has shaped not just my career, but also my life, in so many ways. People, purpose and play. These three words best describe the impact of Agile on my life as a whole.

Learning about Agile has meant that I’ve met more people than I would have done otherwise and learned something from each of them. Because Agile is a tribe of tribes the diversity that comes from this community is immense and the learning intense!

“Love what you do and do what you love”

If I had to sum up Agile in two words, they’d be “Continuous Improvement”. This passion for improvement has lead to many personal failures, learnings as well as successes. It’s made me realise that it is possible not only to love what you do but take you closer to doing what you truly love. By daring to fail in order to improve, it’s helped strengthen my purpose: to be better than I was yesterday every day and help others do the same if that’s their wish.

“Play once a day to keep the doctor and priest away!”

My Agile adventure started with playing The XP Game back in 2004 and has continued with playing many more games and even creating some of my own. My take on Agile has made play a key tool for tapping into people’s potential as well as increase it with time through shared experiences.

I look forward to meeting more people through more play in 2012! It’ll be nice to see you, to see you, nice!

Christmas has come early for me this year. I know this because I’m carrying holiday weight two weeks in advance of the big day itself. That’s when I decide to step up my visits to the gym and reduce my daily intake of “Christmas-in-a-cup“.

What’s Bodypump?

For those of you unfamiliar with Bodypump, Bodypump is weight-training en masse to pop music. In the early days, mainly only women went (something to do with it being perceived as “aerobics with weights”). Nowadays it attracts both men and women because it’s up to you how many weight plates you want to stack onto your bar. What you get out is what you put on.

Each class is made up of the usual sequence of warmup, followed by squats, then upper body training (biceps and triceps), followed by either lunges or more targeted training and finally always finishing with abs work. How good you are at crunches (and its variations) is a fair indication of how squishy/toned you really are. What they call your “core strength”.

Physical and Mental Training

Now imagine you’ve just signed up for a Bodypump class. The warmup’s gone fairly well and you’re not yet out of breath. You feel “warmed up”. Suddenly, from out of nowhere comes a steady stream of existential questions.

Booming Voice: “Why are you here?”

Voice-in-own-head: “That’s a very good question. To work out I guess. I’ve put on a bit of holiday weight and I’m hoping to work it off before the holiday binge.”

Moments later, displeased with the class’s progress or the answer, the Booming Voice poses a different question during the toughest of squat tracks.

Booming Voice: “What are you waiting for?”

Voice-in-own-head: “Another great question. It’s not an uncommon question I ask myself. I’m trying to give it my all, honest I am.”

Then a longer period of silence, leaving one more time to reflect on one’s previous answers to such wide-reaching questions confined to so stuffy and small a training room.

Finally, we get to core strength and we do the plank followed by side plank with rotations, same number of agonising reps on both sides. You have to try it to appreciate how tough it really is.

Booming Voice: “We won’t be here for long.”

Voice-in-my-own-head: “Best make the most of my time here then.”

And as the class wraps up with a cool-down, the Booming Voice leaves us with one final thought.

Booming Voice: “Well done. Good job. See you next Tuesday.”

Being a Work-in-Progress

Moments afterwards, as I get ready to return to work, I wonder how often we get asked such profound questions that truly shape our lives. And it is in searching for the answers that transforms us from who we dream of being to who we ultimately become.

A Hundred Years of Solitude

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always yearned to find a place where would I truly belong. A place where I’d spend most of my waking hours actively participating in what I call the 3 Cs: Communication, Collaboration and Community.

Communication: A place where my finger’s always on the pulse, a place where people say what they mean and mean what they say.

Collaboration: A place where people work together, play together, win together, working towards a common goal.

Community: A place where we care about one another, look out for each other and create opportunities together.

Then one lunchtime, as I peruse the shelves of business books at my local bookstore, I stumble upon a book to help me turn my dream into reality. To create a place where I long to belong at work.

The Power of Tribes

“Tribal Leadership” by Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright is a book based on the ancient concept of tribes. In it, they describe how organisations operate in a 5-stage model based on organisational research from numerous U.S. companies. The book is packed full of practical tips of how to “upgrade” your tribe from its current stage to the next in order to create an organisation that doesn’t merely survive, but thrives.

According to Dave and his co-authors, a tribe consists of a group of between 20 – 150 people who would stop and greet each other when their paths crossed. A small tribe (the equivalent to a small organisation) is between 20 – 50 people large, whereas a large tribe (a larger organisation) is between 50 – 150 people. The concept of “tribe” scales in that a large organisation is made up of a tribe of tribes. And what do all tribes in a single organisation have in common? Organisational culture, of course.

What Dave’s research tells us

The supporting research of Tribal Leadership is based on workplaces in America.

Stage 1: A person at Stage 1 is usually alienated by the world of them. Around 2% of professionals are at this stage. People at Stage 1 take shotguns to work. Tribes at Stage 1 are reminiscent of prisons in culture.

Stage 2: A person at Stage 2 is constantly complaining, wondering “Why me?” Dave refers to this stage as the “ghetto of corporate despair. Around 25% of workplaces operate at this stage. According to the model, Dilbert is at Stage 2.

Stage 3: A person at Stage 3 is all about “Me! Me! Me!”. Knowledge is power and they hoard it and keep it for themselves. A whopping 49% of workplaces are at Stage 3.

Stage 4: Individuals and tribes are value-driven at Stage 3. Around 22% of workplaces make up Stage 4. Interesting fact: people at Stage 4 require a common enemy against whom the tribe focuses in order to be better. Reminds me of classic James Bond movies where Bond needs baddies in order to be a goodie.

Stage 5: A person at Stage 5 “makes history”. People at Stage 5 take full responsibility for their words and actions. They are driven by leadership, vision and inspiration. Around 2% of workplaces make up Stage 5. Graduates begin at Stage 5 and usually regress to lower stages.

Tribal Leadership session at XP Days Benelux

For those who know me, one of my favourite hobbies is turning theory into experiential learning to help bring the theory alive and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do with Tribal Leadership at XP Days Benelux last week.

What Dave says about the session

Dave has seen the presentation and says, “Amazing work! Would you be open to our posting this on our website? It’s really outstanding!” Having seen the pictures from the session at XP Days, Dave adds, “This is really fun! Love the pictures. Looks like you get people really involved.”

I hope you have as much fun looking through the presentation as I did in building it with help from my tribe!

Where can I find out more about Tribal Leadership?

Begin with the end in mind

I still remember the moment when I first heard that Agile 2011 was going to take place in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was during an announcement at the end of Agile 2009.

At the time I wasn’t sure how I’d get there and with whom I’d go, but two things were certain.

Firstly, I thought it would be nice to re-live history by visiting the room where the Agile Manifesto was created 10 years ago. Partly out of curiosity and partly out of respect to the 17 visionary-signatories without whom I probably wouldn’t have a job I love doing and related to IT.

Secondly, I would have to go with a group. After all, Agile is fundamentally about people working together. It would be odd and sad for me to show up and no one to relive the historic moment with.

Almost everything I’ve ever experienced with Agile has been remarkable, so it came as no surprise that our journey to Snowbird was equally serendipitous.

Mission Possible

As soon as I arrived in Salt Lake City, I started polling for interest about a visit up to Snowbird. My mission was clear: to get a bunch of people up to Snowbird to celebrate the manifesto‘s 10th birthday. I didn’t do it in a fanatical way. Rather, I offered it as an option.

Some people would smile politely and nod, agreeing that it was a good idea in principle. Others would stare bemused since they felt it unnecessary; we were already at the conference, isn’t that all that mattered? May be for them, but not for me.

Two days into the conference, I only had one other person seriously interested in making the journey – Carsten Ruseng, a friendly Dane, from Systematic.

Over the course of the next couple of days, we tried to create and evaluate options for making the visit possible. We both wanted to make the most of the conference AND we wanted to visit Snowbird. I felt confident that we could achieve the mission if  only we applied Agile and Systems Thinking to the problem.

Information Gathering and Agile Planning

Meanwhile, I needed to find out the exact location of the room. Fortunately, I bumped into Alistair Cockburn during the conference and he gave me precise directions. It’s Lodge at Snowbird, exit 3. The rooms’s just above the reception. That was the most crucial piece of information I needed to complete my mission.

Then finally, last Thursday, on the evening before the last day of the conference, Carsten and I committed to executing the mission (the last responsible moment). We’d meet bright and early the next day (at 7 am to be exact) and go to Snowbird. It would mean that we’d miss Kevlin Henney’s talk but I knew Kevlin would understand.

Without a goal, it’s hard to score

Throughout our planning conversations, we always went back to our goals for the mission. In Carsten’s words, “We’ve already come all this way for the conference. Not going would be like not seeing Niagara Falls even though we were in Toronto.” Since we’d both managed to visit the falls independently during Agile 2008, I understood what Carsten meant.

But we were still only two. Given that three’s a crowd, I wished for one more person to join us on the pilgrimage. Just when I’d almost given up hope late Thursday night, Carsten texts me to say that Henrik Kniberg would like to join us and would that be OK. OK? I said. Most definitely!

Carpe diem

We arrive at 07.50 outside Lodge at Snowbird. When we get to the reception, I look the gentleman behind the desk straight in the eye and begin to explain why we are there.

We’ve come to see a very special room, I say. We’re in Salt Lake City to attend a conference and 10 years ago, a bunch of people created a manifesto related to the conference. They created the manifesto in the room just above your reception, I explain.

At first, the gentleman stares at us blankly and then he starts to ask us a whole bunch of questions. What’s the conference about? Where do you all come from? Why is seeing the room so important?

So close, yet so far

Just when I think he is going to decline our request, Monte tells us that 10 years ago, he left the IT industry. He tells us how, at the time, he thought there must be a better way of developing software and he even wrote an essay about it. He asks us to tell him a bit more about the manifesto. Have the lives of IT professionals improved, he asks. Are they happier? To which we reply things have improved, but with improvements come greater expectations. We’re doing our best. We’re always striving to learn, we tell him.

Monte ushers us into the office so that we could look up the manifesto online. Henrik had come up with the idea that we could double-check we’re looking at the right room based on the background picture of the manifesto with the signatories stood in a circle.

History is what we make it

Everything from there is history. Before taking our group picture, we scribble up the 4 values as though they were fresh from yesterday. We start joking and laughing at our adventure. At first, we ask Monte to take a picture of us. Then we set the camera on auto-shoot so that we can get a picture with Monte in it, too. This is the crowd I was hoping for.

We spend the next half hour strolling around Snowbird. It’s not difficult to imagine how such beautiful scenery would inspire people to come up with something like the manifesto, Carsten remarks. During the walk, we exchange more of our memories accumulated over the last decade. We talk about getting lost, following and leadership.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye…

The overarching theme of that day has to be closure. Henrik mentioned it several times. He explains how he was going to go on a family holiday soon for six months and has handed over the Agile Manifesto translation project to Shane Hastie, newly elected on the Agile Alliance board. Henrik describes how by initiating a translation project in a certain region or country, it has brought people together, in debate and discussion about what the manifesto really means. Translating the manifesto into a different language usually marks the start of something important.

Making work matter

For me, closure has resulted in a new beginning. One that builds on the past while clearly looking into the future. It reminds me of Tom Peter‘s frustration when he wonders out loud why it’s taken so long for us to realise excellence, and we’re not there yet, even though he wrote the book “In Search of Excellence” more than two decades ago.

And my answer is this. Everyone knows what’s right, but only the Spartans do it. That was the lesson I learnt in history class all those years ago. We can go around claiming to be “agile”, but everyone else recognises when we’re not. To make progress, we need to first be honest with ourselves. How agile are we really? Most importantly, why should it matter? What do we want to achieve, now and in the future? How will you make work matter today?

What does Agile mean to me?

Agile is a means not an end. It’s a means to improve the way we work to the benefit of individuals, teams, organisations and society itself.

Agile paves the way for a great adventure of personal and professional renewal, helping us improve our existing skills and develop new ones.

Agile takes us out of our comfort zones and teaches us how to adapt to change. It enlarges our comfort zones only to take us out of it again. It’s beyond survival. It’s about self-actualisation.

Agile is about being a “forever apprentice“, someone who begins as a student and becomes a teacher while remaining a student. A forever apprentice applies the principle “the best teachers make the best students and the best students make the best teachers”.

Applying Agile

I’ve been applying Agile to what I do for some years now, from delivering projects at work to projects at home. I pack in all the practice I can get. The way I use Agile is constantly changing through improvement experiments. Always learning. Always improving.

Applying Agile and being agile has helped make work fun and engaging. Again. Do you remember the very first day of your very first job? That’s the enthusiasm and energy I strive to re-create every day. For myself and for others. Some days, I give myself a day off.

Every day’s a new day when you’re trying to be better than you were yesterday. I’m improving, one baby step at a time. Sometimes the steps are so tiny that they’re invisible to the naked eye, but I can feel it, like a new shoot about to break through the ground after rain.

I don’t like to admit it, but I know when I’m getting complacent. A little voice in my head tells me, “You’ve been there, done that, seen it all, what’s the big deal?” That’s when I sense trouble. How can I know it all and still be constantly improving? Unless I’ve stopped, of course.

Evolving Agile

When people find out that I’m an Agile Coach (one of my many roles) they tell me, “Of course you want to make everyone do Agile, you’re an Agile Coach and that’s your purpose”. To which I reply, “If we do Agile right, Agile will evolve itself out of existence and something new will appear to take its place.”

As for my purpose, it’s to create opportunities and options to help us make the most of our potential, leveraging what we’ve got and increasing it day by day. I do it for me and for us. Agile is but one tool out of many that makes this possible. It helps to get the conversation started.

What does Agile mean to you?

“Only a mediocre person is always at his best” – Somerset Maugham

Personal Development

I started my career back in the Dot.com days when we celebrated the launch of new products with champagne and strawberries on a weekly basis. Back then, the going was good and everyone was encouraged to invest in training in order to deliver more value through personal development.

During the boom, I attended conferences such as JavaOne in San Francisco and TheServerSide Symposium in Las Vegas where I learnt a great deal from peers and thought leaders.  In spite of being a software developer, I even attended a course on Project Management where I gained invaluable insight into how project management can add value when it is applied correctly. All the training I participated in helped me see the bigger picture beyond writing code, my core competency at the time.

Then came the crash and organisations no longer seemed to care about the return on investment when it came to training. When the training budget eventually shrunk to almost a taboo, I got creative.

Get creative to learn

During the crash, I got into the habit of investing in my own personal development with my own money and holiday. At first, it was by setting aside a modest book budget. Then I extended it to include conferences. As a result, I learned a great deal by focusing on value when others were busy concentrating on budget cuts.

Nowadays, my learning budget includes events and trips that help increase the value I deliver. It’s not a big budget so I make sure I get the most value out of what I invest in.

Get personal about your development

Over the years, my attitude and approach to training has evolved immensely. My view is that training is a means to continuous learning. This means that anything which helps me learn qualifies as “training”.

Tip #1: Take responsibility for your own learning
You are your own greatest asset. Learning increases the value of that asset. Since you are the primary beneficiary of your personal development, it’s up to you manage that development, not your manager or anyone else.

Tip #2: Put your money where you mouth is
If you truly believe in the value of personal development, you need to invest, be it through time, money and/or effort.

Up close and personal

Here’s a list of things I do to maximise my investment in personal development.

1. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Most organisations have a training budget. Find out how much of it can be invested in you. Get details of training options, from training providers to ways of learning such as courses, conferences and 1-2-1 mentoring.

2. Identify your learning preferences to maximise the value you get from the different ways of learning. Do you prefer lecture-style learning or interactive learning? Get smarter by mixing and matching what your learn and how you learn.

3. Think of each training request as a business case. Identify the value you and your organisation will get out of the investment as well as the costs. How will you give back after getting training?

4. Present your training request as a set of options with varying value and costs. For instance, I like to come up with between 3 – 5 options for each course or conference I attend with the aim of getting the training request approved. My goal is to ensure that my request contains so much value that the cost is negligible by comparison. Think “Value for Money”.

Ways to increase your value proposition

For many people, learning is a passive activity such as being an “attendee” at a conference. The key to increasing the value of an investment is become an active participant.

Here are some ideas on how:

• Define your goals and success criteria before the course/event and regularly track progress in terms of your goals and criteria throughout the course/event. It’s also useful to reflect afterwards to determine the estimated vs actual ROI
• Active participation during sessions through personal contribution – This helps you exercise the theory of what you’ve learned right away and increase the effectiveness of the learning cycle
• Share what you learned with your colleagues through a series of lunch-and-learns – This helps generate conversations with others or give rise to new ideas
• Submit a proposal to the conference – This is a great way to get feedback as well as learn how to receive feedback and take improvement actions
• Present a session at the conference – Similar to submitting a proposal and at least 3 times more valuable in terms of learning through session R & D, public speaking and face-to-face networking. For me, it’s a great test of personal agility

Ways to reduce the cost of training requests to your organisation

• Become a conference presenter (presenters usually get free entry) – It’s a great WIN-WIN formula, as a presenter you get more value AND it reduces cost
• Offer to pay for one or more of the following where the number of $ denotes the relative and estimated cost of items: conference entrance fee $$$, accomodation $$, travel $$, expenses $ and days off work (by taking it as holiday – the value of holiday differs from person to person) $$

Learning as a personal investment

Something sobering happens when you start thinking about learning as a personal investment in terms of time, cost and effort. The most poignant moment is when you translate what you’re personally prepared to pay into $$$ value for an opportunity to learn. You know you’re serious about learning when you really put your money where you mouth is.

How much have you invested lately? How much will you invest this year?

One of the toughest moments for me as a coach is when it’s time to say “Goodbye” to my team. After months of intense moments, where we’ve collectively reverberated between Anticipation, Fear, Disbelief, Hope and Self-Belief then back again for the next challenge, it feels like a lifetime worth of experiences. No wonder it’s hard to say goodbye.

Opportunity Knocks

In many ways, the relationship between team and coach has the intensity of growing a friendship for a lifetime. It’s a time when each of us are put to the test because there’s nowhere to hide when the going gets tough. It’s also a great opportunity to learn from each other and, more importantly, help each other grow.

Goodbye is the New Beginning

To achieve, we have to “begin with the end in mind” (Stephen Covey reasons). That’s why the “Goodbye” moment is, in fact, my starting point for team coaching. From my first few days to the rest of my time with the team, I strive to get to know the team members as individuals. Why? So that I can work out what’s needed to equip them with what lies ahead. Why? So that the team will have the tools they need to continue to achieve long after the coach is gone.

Criteria of a Good Coach

According to Sally Gunnell (former Olympic British Champion in the 400m hurdles), a good coach has the following attributes:

1. Treat people as individuals
2. Use feedback as an opportunity to improve
3. Always listen
4. Always learning new techniques.

Being a good coach sounds simple, but isn’t easy. The ultimate test of how effective a coach is how well the positive outcomes of the coaching endures. My ultimate goal is to keep the team yearning for learning and to keep improving long after the coach is gone.

What’s the smallest step you can take today to help yourself and others learn again?

One of the life-changing moments for me back in 2010 was hearing Sally Gunnell speak at a great networking event organised by Women in Technology, hosted by BP.

The subject of Sally’s talk was ‘Rising to the Challenge – How to achieve a gold medal career‘. Sally shared numerous heartfelt stories from her 12-year long career in athletics and, most importantly, shared her insights on success.

Who’s Sally?

Sally is a former Olympic British Champion in the 400m hurdles. She’s the only woman to have held the European, World, Commonwealth and Olympic 400 metre hurdles titles at the same time. (Read more about Sally on wikipedia.)

Sally Says

Think big. Have dream goals. Define your goals. Know what you want in life. Have a role model. Work out what you’re bad at. Focus on what you’re good at. Remember that your comfort zone gets smaller every day.

Understand yourself. Learn how to deal with setbacks. Work hard. Make sacrifices. Believe in yourself. Develop a positive mental attitude. Don’t let people who put you down influence your whole life.

Put yourself under pressure. Live your dream.

Key Ingredients for Success

Nutrition. Your body isn’t so much a temple as the engine that enables you to realise your dreams. Watch what others eat and work out what works best for your mind and body.

Proper preparation. Build training into your schedule. Train lots.

Be professional. Take what you do seriously. Make everything count.

Respect your coach. Listen with an open-mind. Give things a go.

Don’t worry about things outside of your control. Believe in yourself.

Take regular physical exercise. At least 3 – 4 times a week. It’s the quickest way to feel good about yourself.

Plan for you. Define your goals. Take small steps to get you going and get you that gold medal.

The Difference Between a Champion and a Loser

Winners define what success means for themselves. You decide what constitutes a gold medal for you.

Winners know how to shut up that obnoxious voice in one’s head that says, ‘You’re rubbish. You won’t make it, so why bother?’

Winners know what they’ve got to do. They do the best they can. Once they achieve one goal, they set themselves another.

Being a champion is about sustaining excellence. Being a champion is about ever greater expectations of oneself.

Over to You

All this may sound simple, but it’s anything but easy. What are your goals for 2011 and beyond? And what’s your plan?

Make this year a great one. Because we’re worth it.

As I turn a year older, I feel compelled to question if I’m really a year wiser. What better way to do this than a personal retrospective?

What have I (re-)learnt?

Perfection doesn’t exist. Perfect doesn’t exist. Perfect is something we aspire to, it’s elusive by design.

Immer besser. It’s OK to make mistakes so long as you learn from them and don’t make the same mistakes. Being better matters more than merely being right.

Courage! Fear is what our lizard brain tells us to be. Courage is what sets us free.

What do I need to (re-)learn?

Drink my own champagne. I was disrespectful to a colleague yesterday. And last Wednesday. Twice in one day. It’s all well and good espousing the Agile Values and Principles. What really matters is that I apply them myself.

Work a Sustainable Pace. The problem with loving the work I do is that it can consume not only me but all those around me. Pretty soon I lose not only my perspective, but compromise my effectiveness.

Admit when you don’t know. This lesson consists of all the lessons I’ve (re-)learnt and need to (re-)learn. It’s not so much about what I know as recognising and then admitting I don’t know. The faster I acknowledge my not-knowing (or forgetting), the faster everyone can move towards creating value together.

“What do you do after you’ve won the World Cup? There’s nothing after that.”

What do I know about football?

I know I don’t know much about football, but I know what I see. Discipline, Teamwork and Common Goal. That’s what I see in a good game of football. And what do I mean by a “good game”?  I mean a game played by a real team as opposed to a disparate and desperate group of individuals.

Discipline, Teamwork and a Common Goal

How would I define Discipline? Practice, practice, practice. The kind of practice that amounts to what Malcolm Gladwell calls “The 10,000 Hour Rule“.  The kind of practice that makes your head and body ache all over but you still continue to strive because you know the prize outweighs the cost.

How would I define Teamwork? When everyone on the team sets aside their ego to get the job done. And not just done, but done well. So well that it makes you swell with pride. Great teamwork means working hard when people are together and when they are apart. A winning football team doesn’t just wait to play together for the several weeks in the runup before the cup (that’s far too late to be learning how to play together and still expect to win the World Cup). They create opportunities to get team practice in. And, of course, everyone learns. From each other. For the team. Even if that means exposing one’s weaknesses and our own lack of knowledge, skills and experience.

How would I define Common Goal? One that everyone in the team truly believes in. One that inspires each individual to be the best they can be so that, together, they can become more than the sum of their parts. And there’ll be lots of passing of the ball, like the way Xavi plays, because there is no single star or hero in a winning team. The brilliance lies in the team playing to each other’s strengths and strengthening individual weaknesses. The gleam comes from the team achieving the Common Goal together.

The secret beyond the riddle

What do you do after you’ve won the World Cup? Will you tie up your laces and hang up your boots? Will that be it? Of course not. I know I don’t know much about football, but I know what life shows me about winners and losers.

Winners carry on winning, moving the goal posts further out with each win, like Armstrong and Ferrera, winning not just once, but many times because the goal is much more than just the space between the posts.

Winners raise the game

Winners turn their expertise into repeatable formulae, achieving “conscious competence of unconscious competence“, so that they become better than they were yesterday every day. And true winners help others become winners, too.