“Without the spur of competition we’d loaf out our life.” — Arnold Glasow

We invited another dog into our home for the holidays, to help out a nephew who is away for a few days. The holidays are an interesting time to get to know a new dog, but she’s been a sweet pup in most every way. She is most definitely an alpha, and quickly established herself as such with our own pup. Our pup in turn learned to eat her meal immediately or risk losing it altogether to the other. We feed them in different rooms, but a girl only has to see her food eaten by another once or twice to hammer home the lesson. Live with urgency when your world turns competitive.

I joined a new company a couple of months ago and have received phishing emails and texts from someone posing as the CEO a couple of times per week ever since. It’s easy to let our guard down in such circumstances, but we must always be vigilant. Those who would take all we’ve earned grow more sophisticated every day, and so we ourselves must learn and grow as well. A simple check with IT confirmed what I knew already: it was a phishing attack. The real CEO can still reach me if he wants to chat.

We know that our true aim is personal excellence, but we still must keep an eye on the world around us. This world has always been competitive, and will be long after our last day in it. There’s always someone who wants what we want, so we must work harder to earn what we want for ourselves. And there’s always someone who wants what we have, so we must grow ever more resilient to protect what we’ve earned.

It’s easy to get comfortable when we reach a certain place in our lives. The world in 2025 will surely be different from the years preceding it. We can’t just loaf our way through the changes, we must keep reinventing ourselves to survive, and maybe even to thrive. All of this reinvention may feel exhausting at times, but it’s simply personal growth hidden as work.

That alpha dog visitor is still with us for a few more days. She’s been wonderful, but goodness she’s brought some changes to our home. It’s good to remember that our visitor is adapting to the challenge of living in a strange new home for a few days, full of creatures she doesn’t know all that well, and absent the people she’s grown to trust the most. We aren’t the only ones adapting to change. So reminding her that we’re equally invested in making it work is a good first step to growing together.