What Can We Learn from World-Class Athletes of the Olympics?
By Kahlilah Jennings Guyah
United States’ women’s 4 x 100-meter relay team members from left, Tianna Madison, Carmelita Jeter, Bianca Knight, and Allyson Felix at the 2012 Summer Olympics, London. Credit: Ghetty Images
We love the Olympics and I believe the reason for their popularity is they inspire, motivate and challenge us to believe that it is possible to live our dreams. One of the most inspiring stories of this thirtieth Olympiad was the women’s 4×100 relay in track and field. In the previous two Olympics, Team USA was unsuccessful at living up to the United States relay winning reputation. In Beijing the team did not qualify for the finals and in Athens they faltered in the finals—but 2012 brought redemption with a world record setting gold medal performance.
There are a number of success principles that can be extracted from this story but this article will focus on just a few.
Your success is dependent on others. While most events in track and field are individual, the relays are team events. They are not about which athlete is the fastest but how effectively they work together and how quickly the baton moves around the track. The baton moves the fastest when each runner has attained maximum speed prior to passing the baton.
How does this relate to success? There are times when we have to pass the baton—we have to relinquish control of some aspects of our lives and realize that success is not only dependent on our own abilities and strengths. Those who are most successful understand that certain areas of their life must be “outsourced.” This provides the freedom to focus on the areas in which they are truly gifted or that are directly related to their mission—passing the baton allows for a goal to be completed more efficiently.
In the case of our life’s work or mission we do not stop running when we pass the baton. The ladies of the 4×100 still train and compete for their own individual races; in fact, it is because of their individual performances that they qualify to run the relay. This means it is critical to pass the baton to those who are elite in their ability to “run their race” or succeed at their own mission.
Do the difficult things. This is one of my favorite chapters from the book Jesus CEO written by Laurie Beth Jones; while you may not ascribe to Christianity, most agree Jesus attained unmatched success as a leader with an estimated following of 2.18 billion people more than 2,000[1] years after his death.
Living successfully requires sacrifice, commitment and focus. Certainly these requirements are evident in the Olympic athletes we have been watching over the past few weeks and they are required of each of us as we strive to achieve our own goals. While Olympians need to sacrifice certain foods, commit to their training and focus on the goal of gold, success in life often means:
- 1. Saying “no” to things and people that do not align with our mission.
- 2. Rejecting being led by popular opinion.
- 3. Saying “yes” to internal instinct.
Give room for and learn from failure. Team USA was unsuccessful in obtaining a medal in the prior two Olympic competitions. Lauryn Williams was involved in both mistakes that cost the Team USA a medal—yet she was back on the track in London pursuing the gold. The coaches could have removed her from the relay; instead they used the opportunity to improve Team USA.
We must do the same, allow for those on our teams – those to whom we have passed the baton – to fail. I personally do not like the saying “failure is not an option” because failure is often the only way to success. A number of greats that we celebrate today—Thomas Edison and Michael Jordan, for example—failed multiple times before attaining success. The keys to their successes:
- 1) they viewed failure as an opportunity;
- 2) evaluated the failures;
- 3) learned from the failures;
- 4) made adjustments in the “game plan” and
- 5) tried again.
In life, it is easy to give up, settle, or to change course when faced with a defeat; but success means facing the failure, modifying the approach and trying again.
I hope that you are inspired by the Olympics and these principles to continue pursing your life’s mission with more purpose, drive and determination! I am looking forward to incorporating these principles into my life, how about you?
____________
[1] The Pew Forum of on Religion and Public Life.Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population. 19 December 2011 Available at https://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-exec.aspx. (accessed on August 10, 2012)
Kahlilah Guyah is the President of EHS Compliance Services Inc. (https://www.ehscsi.com), a consulting firm that creates, implements, maintains and improves environmental, health and safety (EHS) programs for small and mid-sized companies. She enjoys writing inspiring articles and helping people and companies accomplish their goals. Her article ‘Interracial Relationships: “I don’t date white guys …” I said’ was featured in December 18, 2010 edition of Dunia Magazine.
