How to Win?

I'm not always the kind of guy that learns from life experiences. Really, I'm pretty daft. Recently, while running, a memory of my high school cross country days came back to me:

In one of my first races as a cross country runner, I found myself running most of the race with another runner from my school. Kerry. Kerry was tall and skinny and was an experiences sprinter and hurdler. It was his first cross country race as well, I believe.

As we neared the finish line, we both started to sprint in, trying to beat the other. Sadly, he destroyed me in those last hundreds of feet.

Impressively, I did learn something from that defeat. I learned that to beat Kerry, I needed to be way ahead of him when the finish line came into view. In the next race, I did just that. I beat him in the long game, so he wouldn't have a chance to beat me in the wild sprint to the finish.

Lesson Learned.

Or, was it?

How often now do I look at my situation, at my opponent, and analyze how to win? The key in the story was to not allow Kerry to use his incredible strength against me. I created a situation where his sprinting ability never came into play.

I'm older now. I've left the imaginary universe of high school and joined the slightly more real world. My opponent is no longer a 6'5" sprinter. It is now me against the world. Not the people of the world, mind you. I like to think that most of them are on my side.

So, how does one win against the world? If we apply the lesson I learned in high school, it's easily explained:  Just don't play the world's game. You have to beat the world with your strength, and don't let it use it's strengths against you.

So, what are your strengths? What are your world's?