The ten year anniversary of the Sydney Olympics has just passed and with the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi almost over, here are three powerful lessons we can learn from elite athletes.
1. Be the person you need to be.
On the sports field the combination of training and natural ability decide the winners. Some people are just hardwired to be athletes, their body shape perfectly suited for a particular style of sport. For example West Africans, for the most part, tend to be physically better long distance runners than most other ethnicities. And Caucasians are physically, for the most part, better in water sports. That is not to say people cannot break this mould, many have and many will continue to, and it is not to disregard the impact that environment and attitude play but traditionally the above is somewhat true.
From this we can learn that we should identify what we are either naturally good at or have a strong passion in, it would make no sense for someone who has no natural ability or passion for the law to study it, just as it would make no sense for someone who doesn’t fit in the outdoors and does not really enjoy being outdoors to become a landscaper. The strange thing is many people take paths that they are not gifted in, nor have any passion for, not because they possess the successful traits of the professions, or even due to their personal belief and motivation about their abilities, but usually because it’s what their parents wanted or they thought they could make a lot of money. I see this as the hope plan: ‘I hope I will become good at this’. Isn’t it easier thought to start with something your good at now? Just think about all the things you ARE naturally gifted and passionate for right now – there must be money and success in at least one of the many.
2. It takes years of training to become an overnight success.
We then come to training, when an athlete sets out to make a national team, for example the Olympic Team, they have to make that decision years before any of the glory of the event. I had the privilege once to be trained by a dual Olympian and he was telling me in July of 2009 that he was deciding whether or not he would TRY and make the London 2012 rowing team. This person was naturally gifted and passionate about rowing – a crucial step but only the first on the way to his goal, yet he was informing me that a decision to try out for the Olympics Team, and would need to start training 4 days a week almost twice a day just to make the first round of trials. And that didn’t include the out-of-boat training. All of this to make a team that was not going to compete for another 3 years.
Our second valuable lesson from elite sports can be taken from this Olympian, that is, should we want to succeed in any particular path we’re best to start training now. If you have your heart set on studying law at Harvard, or business at Wharton, give yourself a head start. Learn everything you can about your subject matter – prove you deserve to be there to the admissions board by training your natural ability to excel.
3. Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity.
Another lesson we learn from sports is that sometimes people just get lucky, but it takes more than mere luck to achieve success, rather a moment when their preparedness meets opportunity – and they capitalise on it. I, like many other Australians, will always remember the Short Track Speed Skating event at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Steven Bradbury, a reasonably accomplished skater, having won medals in relays, yet on the international stage he still had something to prove as an individual competitor. Making it to the semi-finals of the individual Short Track pursuit, on the final turn the competitors in front of him fell over, a common occurrence in short track, Bradbury pushed past, winning the race by capitalising on the opportunity.
In the final of the event, coming last by only a metre, as in the semi-final, Bradbury saw everyone in front collapse before his very eyes on the last turn. This allowed Bradbury to cross the line in first place and securing Australia’s first ever Gold Medal in Short Track.
Many people dubbed this ‘luck’, and there was a certain element of luck, and suggested any ‘half decent’ skater would have won if everyone in front of them fell over. However the only skater in that race who could take advantage of this situation was Bradbury. So the crucial lesson is, to use a cliché, ‘you gotta be in it to win it’. Many times I hear people say, mostly about investments, ‘if I had have bought a house there 20 years ago I would be a millionaire ‘and my only answer is ‘but you didn’t, you weren’t even in the race’. Therefore we may want great results, like to study Law at Harvard, but in the end you have to apply action. There is no use wishing if you never do anything about it to make yourself lucky. As a friend of mine says ‘why take the action to plan, if you don’t plan to act?’
Scott will be busy when not working, studying and writing these blogs, to watch as much of the Commonwealth Games as possible (and maybe see some Australian gold medals).