When you are in any contest you should work as if there were - to the very last minute - a chance to lose it. This is battle this is politics this is anything.
The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.
This is the real secret of life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.