JOURNAL
Compete. Learn. Grow. A Better Way to Define Success
The older I get, the more I realize most people are measuring success with the wrong scoreboard.
We celebrate trophies. We celebrate championships. We celebrate awards, titles, rankings, and accomplishments. And while those things can be meaningful, they're often temporary.
The trophy eventually collects dust.
The season ends.
The game is forgotten.
The title changes.
What stays is the person you become along the way.
That's why I've never believed success should be defined entirely by outcomes.
Some of the strongest people I've ever met didn't win everything. Some of the best leaders I've worked with failed repeatedly before they succeeded. Some of the most confident young people I've encountered aren't the ones who always come in first. They're the ones who keep showing up regardless of the result.
The older I get, the more I realize that success is often less about achievement and more about who someone is becoming while they're pursuing it.
That idea eventually became the foundation of SOREN.
Compete. Learn. Grow.
Not because the words are catchy.
Because they're simple enough to remember and powerful enough to carry into every stage of life.
Most people think competing means beating someone else. I don't.
I think competing means caring enough to try. It means showing up when it's uncomfortable, pushing yourself when nobody is watching, and being willing to put yourself in situations where failure is possible. Competition isn't always about winning. Sometimes it's about effort, courage, and refusing to quit when things become difficult.
Learning comes next.
And learning is harder than most people realize.
It requires humility. It requires mistakes. It requires accepting that you don't know everything. The people who grow the most aren't the people who avoid failure. They're the people willing to learn from it.
Research from organizations such as the American Psychological Association, Harvard's Center on the Developing Child, and decades of work surrounding growth mindset and youth development continue to point toward a similar conclusion: resilience, confidence, adaptability, and long-term success are often built through challenge, effort, reflection, and continuous learning—not through avoiding difficulty.
And honestly, that makes sense.
Most of the lessons that shape us don't come from success. They come from struggle, mistakes, setbacks, and the decision to keep trying again.
That's where growth happens.
"One of the biggest lessons we've tried to teach our kids is that winning is great, but growth is better. Winning comes and goes. Growth stays with you. If you continue competing, continue learning, and continue showing up, the results eventually take care of themselves."
— BRENT WILTZ, FOUNDER OF SOREN
That belief sits underneath everything we create at SOREN.
Not because we believe young people are defined by a single game, a single grade, a single season, or a single moment. We believe they're shaped by thousands of moments that happen over time.
The difficult practice. The missed shot. The hard conversation. The setback. The comeback. The decision to keep going when it would be easier not to.
Most of those experiences don't seem important while they're happening. But over time they begin to compound. They become habits. Those habits become character. And eventually, character becomes identity.
That's why we've always spent so much time thinking about moments.
Because moments have a way of becoming something bigger.
They become stories we tell ourselves about who we are. They become lessons we carry forward. They become beliefs that shape how we approach challenges, relationships, opportunities, and life itself.
And when I look back on the people I've admired most, very few are remembered because they won everything.
They're remembered because of who they became.
Their resilience.
Their humility.
Their willingness to keep learning.
Their willingness to keep showing up.
Their willingness to keep growing.
That's why success has never felt like the right scoreboard to me.
Growth does.
Because success comes and goes.
Growth stays.
And after everything we've learned, we've found that three simple words capture that journey better than anything else:
Compete. Learn. Grow.
Research & Development Sources Referenced
American Psychological Association (APA)
Harvard Center on the Developing Child
Growth Mindset Research
Youth Development Studies
Character Development Research
Resilience & Confidence Building Research
Topics Discussed
Youth Development
Growth Mindset
Character Development
Confidence Building
Resilience
Identity Formation
Leadership
Personal Growth
Parenting
Life Skills
Compete Learn Grow Framework
Related Journal Entries
Why the Moments Matter More Than the Score
The Power of Environment: Building Kids the Right Way
Confidence Is Built Through Small Wins
Why Kids Need Hard Things More Than Easy Wins
Why the Future Will Belong to Kids Who Can Disconnect