Competition

This morning, I received an email from one of my dearest friends and fellow coaches back in the States. It seems her daughter has a terrible football (excuse me, "soccer") coach who is ultra-competitive and not a good role model. After reading and replying to the email, it hit me: there's just not the same level of competition here in Chile that there is in the USA.

Now I know I haven't been down here long enough to truly comment on this area, but I have been a coach for 10 years and I'm a pretty hard-driving, type-A personality; I think I have expertise in this area. But when my daughter comes home from school saying that she played volleyball and all the girls had FUN and no one was worried about winning or losing, I began to wonder. Sage observation from an 11-year-old: the girls just wanted to play, even though most of them were fantastic players. No one was forcing them to be the best. My daughter could not have been happier.

I shared this with Dave, who in turn repeated a comment he had heard that day from one of his consultants and close friends, an economics professor here in Chile. His friend claims that Chileans, for the most part, are not competitive. He tells his economics students that if they were removed from the Chilean environment and dropped in the USA, they would get eaten alive.

And Chile is still a very prosperous and economically booming country, not to mention that the Chilean football team made the quarterfinals in the World Cup. Perhaps there is some competition, but it definitely seems healthier.