Olympian…

Did you enjoy the Olympics?  Who wouldn’t want to have “Olympian” on their resume! 

During Olympic coverage, the sports media poured tons of hyperbole over the gold medal performances.  The spotlight may even have shined brighter on those athletes that failed, true?  Either end of the extreme is good for the ratings business, I suppose. 

In Olympic competition, not every competitor wins every event.  Their day is a lot like our day.  Following the closing ceremonies, what do you suppose the Olympians are doing this week?  Getting ready for their next competition, I’ll bet. 

Competition is about striving to win; preparing to win; competing to win.  Winning (or losing) is simply the end result, isn’t it?  You and me, we compete in our daily lives, don’t we?  And when we fail, what motivates us to try again?  Here’s Steve Richard’s view: 

            Who motivates you?  You! 

Of course, others can also play a big part in helping us leverage the power of motivation to overcome failure in pursuit of success.  For instance, teammates. 

As a sales professional, I advocated “hunting as a pack”.  There is power in the team.  I learned this approach from Joe Newton, who coached, “running as a pack”.  You may have read my writings about “Tiger Joe” before.  He was one of the most successful high school boys cross country coaches ever.  Although I was not a runner, he was the person who most influenced my sales process.  (BTW – he also coached 4-time Olympic gold medalist, Sebastian Coe.) 

There were many elements to Joe Newton’s competitive approach; the principle of continuous improvement; the ability to earn great success yet going back out every day to prepare anew; etc.  One key I remember was his focus on offering positive motivation to his kids.  His key to positive motivation?  Pretty simple, really. 

Every day at every practice, Coach Newton called out every kid by their first name - every day.  Every kid (and most of his teams had 100 runners or more) would hear his coach call him by his first name (or nick name), every day.  Joe Newton coupled this with saying at least one positive thing to every kid, too. Every day. 

It’s amazing how far a simple; “Way to go!” goes.  Joe Newton’s positive reinforcement helped his runners, run; every day.  They were motivated to train hard – harder than their competition.  On race day?  They dominated.  And after dominating?  Back to preparation because: 

It requires a strong constitution to withstand repeated attacks of prosperity. 

Joe Newton 

Back to business - Loren Brockhouse, a former colleague of mine, offers this link to Inc. Magazine’s “9 beliefs of remarkably successful people”. I particularly like Belief #9:

            The extra mile is a vast, unpopulated wasteland.

Enjoy the full article - 9 Beliefs of Remarkably Successful People 

Way to go Loren! 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.