I like to start each day with a victory. So this morning, before I left for the office, I beat my wife to the bathroom and my kids out the door and as a result, one of them had to walk the dog. That triumph put a spring in my step and some joy in my heart as I promenaded to the subway. I agree with Vince Lombardi, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”

The train was about to leave when I reached the platform, but I was able to get my hands in between the closing doors of one of the cars, which meant the conductor had a choice to make—release the doors and let me in or keep them shut and hope I’d withdraw my meat hooks. That second option was never a possibility. Although a couple of commuters inside the train tried frantically to pry my fingers loose from the doors and other passengers screamed at me to step back onto the platform, I did not yield. After a five-minute stalemate the conductor threw in the towel, and I entered the metro with a big smile on my face and two very red and swollen mitts. Ben Franklin was accurate in his observation, “No pain, no gain.”

At work, I went over to Jim Thompson’s computer and, using his email address, signed him up for subscriptions to twenty-five different magazines to be delivered to his home. Joe had embarrassed me in front of the boss three times in a row and I had to get my revenge. Robert F. Kennedy put it best, “Never get mad, get even.”

Back in my office I received a call from one of our customers. It seemed he wasn’t happy with an order that had been sent to him and wanted his money back. I told him we would send him a new batch of goods but we wouldn’t refund his dough. We argued back and forth for over on the subject for over an hour but in the end my threat to hire a hit man to kill him and his family if he did not agree with my position won him over. Dwight D. Eisenhower knew what he was talking about when he said, “No one can defeat us unless we first defeat ourselves.”

To celebrate my morning’s conquests I went to Danny’s Diner for lunch and ordered the meatloaf special. Sadly, they had run out of meatloaf. When I asked Danny if he would let me have the fish for the same price as the meat loaf special, he said no. Rising to the challenge, I explained to Danny that it was only proper that I should get a price break on the fish as the restaurant should have had enough meatloaf to satisfy its clientele. Danny didn’t buy my argument, which was unfortunate for him because, as Napoleon Hill, an eminent writer of personal success literature once stated, “Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.”

It wasn’t the money that mattered, it was the chance to compete. So I told Danny if he didn’t give me a discount on the fish, not only would I never eat in his joint again, I would put signs up all over the neighborhood dissing his diner, I would engage a lawyer to sue him for false advertising, and I would picket his place on the weekends. Realizing he was up against a force mightier than himself, Danny reluctantly took a couple of bucks off the price of the fish, thus confirming Winston Churchill’s advice to “Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing great or small.”

In the afternoon, I made a chump out of my administrative assistant when he claimed the state capital of Alaska was Anchorage. When I told him he didn’t know what he was talking about and that he should stick to typing and filing he offered to bet me fifty dollars that Anchorage was Alaska’s capital. Since I had been stationed in Juneau, the capital of Alaska, when I was in the service, I quickly took that bet and I rubbed it in real good when he lost. What joy it is to crush the opposition! Billy Martin was telling no lies when he said, “Everything looks nicer when you win. The girls are prettier. The cigars taste better. The trees are greener.”

On my way home I was mugged by a couple of punks who pulled out guns and ordered me to surrender my wallet. Fat chance I was going to do that. I lunged for the first guy, grabbed his weapon, and shot the poor bastard. But the second mug got off a couple of lucky shots that mortally wounded me and made me miss my dinner but the jerk ran off without taking my cash, so technically I defeated him. While this may have been a Pyrrhic victory, that’s a victory too, and that fact is essential because, in the words of football coach George Allen, “When you win you’re reborn.” That means I’m coming back. You gotta love winning!