The sports-minded among you no doubt think “madness” when it comes to March. Even those people who don’t follow basketball know about this, because of all the office pools during the tournament. The opening round for the 70th Annual NCAA Men’s Division 1 Basketball Championship is set for Tuesday, March 18, so get your TiVo on. During the following three weeks, 65 teams compete until, on April 7, one is named the No. 1 team in the country.

I’ll admit that I’m not a huge basketball fan. But when it comes to the NCAA championship—I’m in. Especially when it gets down to the Sweet Sixteen then the Elite Eight and then the Final Four. I turn from being an indifferent and detached observer to a real basketball fan. I think that any of us, sports fans or not, can appreciate when some little-known team makes it to the Big Dance. We all love a good Cinderella story.

I started thinking about all this in terms of competition in the business world. And two things occurred to me:

• The more successful you are, the higher the stakes and the harder the competition.
• Winning the ultimate prize, while certainly a great thing, isn’t the only goal.

The tournament competition heats up as the teams move through the single-elimination process. Win, and you go on to the next round; lose, and you’re out of the tournament. Likewise, the more successful you are at what you do each day, the more business you’ll have. The stakes get higher and the competition gets more intense as you achieve more and more of your goals.

And speaking of goals: The ultimate goal of the tournament is to come out on top. And of course, winning matters very much to the teams involved. But truth is, there are hundreds of other goals in play during these three weeks. Some of the teams are true underdogs—they are lucky to be competing on these courts. Others are “dynasty teams” that want to uphold a winning tradition. These different teams will play with vastly different goals.

Each day, you work with various goals in mind. There are the big, overall goals you set at the beginning of the year. (If you follow The 7 F’s of True Success concept, you will have set worthwhile goals in and out of your office. And right now, near the end of our first quarter in the coaching program, it’s a good time to take measure of all this.) Then there are the countless, everyday goals that move you closer to your ultimate success. These are the fundamentals of work or your efforts to live a life of faith, or the very act of being a good partner and friend. Like in the NCAA tournament, what you do each step of the way matters and brings you closer to your success.

Finally, consider this: There’s only one No. 1 team. But there are many, many winners—depending upon how successful they were at reaching their various goals. Some of these teams will be joyful just to have made it to the tournament. Others will be happy to be one of the Sweet Sixteen or the Final Four. I encourage you to count up your own successes. Take measure of your accomplishments. Think like a winner.

March Madness is upon us. Take a cue from the NCAA tournament. When the competition heats up, rise to the occasion. Play (and work) like it matters, because it does. Put effort toward all your various goals—they are unique to your success and they are the steps to achieving that success. And focus on improvement. Celebrate accomplishments. What are you doing to be a better performer, team, division or company? How can you live a life with more balance? Win or lose—focus on doing what you do better.