5 LESSONS ON WINNING FROM RUDY’S BLUNDER

Mayor Giuliani is brilliant leader and American hero

• He did a spectacular job on many levels as Mayor of New York City, and that was before 9/11. He even wrote an excellent Leadership book detailing his successful systems, methods and philosophies.
• Then during the 9/11 crisis he sprang into action rallying the city into a tremendous response to a devastating event.
• He rose to the challenge in spectacular fashion giving everyone a sense of confidence and encouragement. 
• His response was the perfect example of the professional, personal and emotional command you want in a leader.
• People all over NYC, the USA and the world were impressed and proud of him and energized by his actions.

It was natural that he would run for President
He probably would have made a great President. Unfortunately, he never got that chance. Here’s how that happened.

In 2008, he had amazing early momentum
In the last election he got off to a fantastic start and was the clear cut early leader in a crowded field of candidates for the Republican nomination. Support was coming in, plans were made to secure the nomination were made and a strategy was developed. He seemed like a lock, how could he lose.

At least that’s what he thought
Since he was off to such a great start, he and his staff decided to skip the primaries in the Northeast to concentrate on the big state of Florida. The idea was, why waste time campaigning in those small, insignificant and low population states? Since he was already way out front, what could be gained? So they decided to just skip those states and spend those 5 weeks in Florida…a big win there and they could get an early knock out of the other candidates.

Well, nobody is perfect and no plan is perfect
What happened? Unfortunately for Rudy, people forgot about him. This was  a shocking and totally unexpected development that became easier to understand after it happened.

• All the news was about McCain, Romney and the rest fighting it out in the North. 
• Since Rudy wasn’t competing there, his name wasn’t ever mentioned. 
• Weeks went by with nothing said about Rudy. 

People forgot he was running!
When the Florida Primary came around, the front runners were McCain and Romney and Rudy was way down the list. He never recovered momentum and a short time later he withdrew from the race…humiliating because he became the one who was knocked out early.

I saw them on the driving range the next day
One day he’s in the thick of a Presidential primary race, the next day he’s out. Since we’re both members of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, I was used to seeing him around occasionally. But this was different. For the next week, you could see Rudy and Judith riding around in their golf cart, practicing on the driving range and playing round after round of golf, just the two of them, a cute and very nice couple. Their chance at occupying the White  House had disappeared.

No matter how smart you are, you can still make fatal blunders
What can we learn about winning from observing what happened to them? Here are a few obvious ones:

1. Momentum is a precious thing. Don’t ever take it for granted. It can disappear in a minute and you may never get it back.
2. Popularity can evaporate overnight as well. Don’t give people a chance to forget you. Keep giving them more and more reasons to think of you in positive ways.
3. Don’t let up on your competition. Never ease up. You see this in sports. The longer an inferior team stays in the game the more dangerous they become
4. Pride comes before a fall. Don’t let arrogance sneak into your thinking. Never think you have such a lead that you can’t be beat.
5. Don’t give your competition any easy wins! Fight every battle. Once you start picking and choosing you are on shakey ground because if you don’t fight, you can’t win and you’re giving someone else a chance to pick up an easy victory.

Rudy gave his advantage away and he never got it back. 

If you ever get in a position to win, keep the pressure on and never let up until the race is over!

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Related Posts: This is the part 3 of the series, The Free Multimillion Dollar, Multimedia Reality Series on Winning: WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM ELECTIONS.
Part 1: They're Not Really Idiots

Part 2: Painfully Imperfect 

Even YOU Can’t Please Everyone

The 1887 illustration by Walter Crane says it well.You can’t make everyone happy… Mayor Giuliani learns his lesson.

Rudy Giuliani tells the story of when he was first elected Mayor of New York City he learned that lesson immediately.  He said, “…I quickly discovered that if I came up with a plan to hand out $100 bills in Times Square there would be some people who would come up and say, 'Why are you giving $100 bills to these useless people for nothing? You're encouraging laziness, sorriness, you're encouraging people to look for handouts - This is crazy!'" He said on the other hand, there would be another group lined up to say, 'Why are you giving such a small amount of money? $100 is not going to make a difference in their life. If you're going to give money, why not give $1,000, something substantial, something that could make a difference? Why waste your time giving out $100 bills?'

He said, "I quickly learned that as Mayor of New York City there was no way I was going to come up with any kind of program that everybody would be happy with."  

The story of the Grandfather and the Young Boy
In a similar vein, there is a story of the young boy and the grandfather who lived outside of the village and wanted to go into town. The next day the grandfather put the little boy on the donkey and led him into town.  When they got there, they could see the town people whispering among themselves.  

“Look at that old man. Look how he's spoiling the young boy. He's making the young boy lazy. He's coddling the young boy. This is crazy! The young boy needs to realize he's got to pull his own weight in the world. He's got to take care of himself. He's got to grow up. This is terrible”.  

So the grandfather listens to this. The criticism stings him and he thinks about it as he's going home. and so the next time he went to town, he rode the donkey and had the little boy lead him.  

Now when he got into town, he heard others talking among themselves saying… “Can you believe the old man taking advantage of young, poor boy, making him work while the old man lazily rides the donkey?  

The boy's too young. He's not strong enough to lead the donkey. If something were to startle the donkey, he wouldn't be able to control it. This is crazy! What is the old man thinking? He's only thinking of himself.” 

So the old man pondered this in his heart on the way home and he came up with a plan to solve all the criticism. So the next time they went to town the old man and the young boy carried the donkey.

The Moral? Try to please everyone and you’ll just frustrate yourself.

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Feedback: Have you ever got caught up in a losing effort like this yourself?