Beware of “Under” Dog: Defend Your Power at all Costs
by Michael A. Thomas

I just got finished watching the Super Bowl, and I must say that I’m very disappointed while writing this post.

You guessed it; I was rooting for the Patriots.

I wasn’t around to see the Miami Dolphins accomplish “The Perfect Season” in ’72, and I would have liked to witness New England such a great feat in my lifetime.

What’s interesting is, at the beginning of the season, I didn’t care too much for Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and company. In fact, I was originally quite indifferent about them. As the season progressed though, I became fonder of them. I began following them more and more, and even began to, mainly because of their “Pursuit of Perfection”. Winning every time out is no easy task, and is especially tough when everyone wants to have a career game against you.

Yet, for 18 games, the Patriots were unbeatable. They were always the topic of conversation. Opposing teams would painstakingly plan find any chinks in their armor. And of course, the underdogs of the football world set their sights on a new upset victim.

The New York Giants seemed to have found that elusive chink in the Super Bowl while artfully playing the underdog role. Eli Manning silenced all his critics, and joined his brother and father as champion quarterbacks.

Now I could very easily go into the David slaying Goliath cliche, but I think there is a bigger lesson to be learned. You must always be ready to defend your power and influence against the “underdogs” in your world.

In the game of power you have to always watch out for the “underdog”, because when you are at the top you either stay there, or your fall. And Scrappy is salivating at the mouth to take you down.

To properly defend against and underdog you need to do two things.

1. Hide your weaknesses. If you can’t hide them, minimize them as much as possible. Underdogs thrive from knowing your thumbscrews.

2. Keep your ear to the ground. You need to know what’s going on around you at all times. Keeping yourself in the social loop helps you maintain your power and influence, because it’s a lot harder to plot against you if you know about it.

Of course, once you will not always win; we all at some time take a loss in our life. You pulled out of a stock investment too late, you run into slumps in your love life. You lose that big client. Winners understand though, that losing is a part of the game and will bounce right back.