The mantra we're led to believe is that sport, especially at the highest level, is all about winning.
Yet Newcastle Red Bulls head coach Dan McFarland is cut from a different cloth.
For him, the prime motivating factor is not winning but the constant search for self-improvement on an individual and team level.
"I actually prefer a Monday to a Saturday, whether you've won or lost. That's the truth," he said. "I love a Monday.
"When you're a professional sportsperson, your purpose can't be winning. It can't be the main thing that drives you every week.
"It can be your vision or goal, but when you come in, it's about being the best you can be every day.
"You don't win on a Monday or Tuesday. You get one chance every week to win so stacking all your eggs in one fleeting moment at the weekend is not what the best athletes do."
After a coaching career that has taken him to Ireland, Scotland and Japan, the Englishman has been tasked with leading the revolution of the Red Bulls at Newcastle.
The 54-year-old has referenced taking over a team with 25 new players this season as like starting on the back of the grid in a race.
Having finished bottom of the league in each of the last four seasons, that is a tall order.
The new-look side has opened with three defeats out of three in the new Prem season, albeit taking four bonus points. They sit in ninth, two points ahead of bottom side Harlequins.
McFarland knows the challenge in trying to create an identity and build a team, so the work done during the week carries huge significance.
But what exactly is it about Monday that fires up his juices?
"When you play the game at the weekend, until you come in on Monday, you spend the whole time analysing, talking to your fellow coaches and debriefing," he told BBC Sport.
"You're creating a Monday where you can use the information you've gained from the week to drive improvement.
"Sundays can be hard work when you've lost and so can coming in on Monday, but by the time you've done your debrief, had your conversations and shared that disappointment, you can focus on getting better and making decisions on where you can get better.
"You're effectively putting together an action plan that can move forward in the week.
"Even after you've won, you're thinking, 'we could have done that better', so by the end of it, I feel a real energy."
McFarland says the change in his attitude came about in his playing days after a move from Stade Francais, where he had won the French Championship, to Connacht, traditionally the least successful of the Irish provinces.
"I realised pretty quickly that I couldn't be relying on winning every weekend to be what made me happy as a person," he said.
"Something else had to drive me. I made it my point that I was going to enjoy myself on a Monday whatever happened at the weekend."
'It's normal to feel deflated'
In a ceremony with a group of American college students, tennis great Roger Federer once admitted that dealing with instant disappointment was one of the key challenges he had to overcome during his career.
Despite his brilliance and 20 Grand Slam titles, throughout his whole time on court, he actually won only 54% of the total points he played, therefore the need to forget losing a point in a heartbeat was essential.
As Newcastle prepare to take on Sale Sharks on Friday night, McFarland has shown his players videos of Michael Jordan and his legendary Chicago Bulls team overcoming a 15-point fourth quarter deficit to defeat Portland Trail Blazers to win the NBA Finals in 1992.
"In sport, you go into a game believing you're going to win and you are going to do what you say you're going to do," he said.
"Sometimes you get punched in the face. It's actually a normal response to feel deflated.
"What you are trying to create is a resilience to accept that is normal and to recognise it in the moment and to turn around your own personal momentum to create better performance and outcomes.
"It's a very good lesson to see the likes of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen suffering, thinking, 'we're not playing well, what are we going to do' and them finding a solution as a group."