The Olympics and Success Beyond Success
After two weeks of viewing the Olympics, I find myself reflecting on this experience and the purpose it serves to the average person who will never stand on a podium. Is this pure entertainment, a reality TV show with athletes who put years of passion on the line for television ratings? Are the Olympics merely meant to inspire us, but like a great movie, it’s impact diminished after the closing ceremonies? Or is something fundamentally deeper going on here?
To witness the success that Olympic athletes exhibit after focusing and dedicating years of their lives to a sport is nothing short of inspiring. Discipline of the mind and body, accompanied by the pursuit of excellence in the face of insurmountable odds awakens in each of us our own hidden potential. No athlete goes to the Olympic games unwilling to give their all in the pursuit of the expression of their passion. What makes the games so exciting is that with so many variables at play, there is no guaranteed success. Years of training can be obliterated in a split second.
But Olympic athletes do more than inspire us. They teach, if we will be open to learn. The obvious lesson is that any one can become world class in whatever you do by putting in the disciplined effort to excel at your chosen trade, craft, or profession. You can eventually win at whatever game you choose to play, if you’re willing to pay the price.
Olympic athletes inspire and teach us by the way they think. They respond to the world differently than the rest of us. The best athletes are able to ride the waves of distractions, nervous energy, adversity, and emotions in a way that helps them focus. Nowhere, in the two weeks of the Olympics, was this more evident than in the brilliant and courageous performance of Joannie Rochette, the bronze medal Canadian figure skater. Just days after her mother’s sudden death, Joannie carried her world of pain to the podium. In seven minutes, fifty seconds she somehow connected to every person watching her, like her story had become a part of each of our lives. This was more than an athletic event. It was a transformative experience of focus and courage, long before the judges added up the scores.
A year ago, if you’d asked Joannie if she could have gone on to compete just days after the death of her mother, she would have answered with a resounding “no.” As it happens, Ms. Rochette asked herself that very question. Just before the world championships last year, she went to an athletes’ seminar in Montreal. Diver Alexandre Despatie was the scheduled speaker, and she thought she might learn something, even be inspired. As it turns out, Mr. Despatie had to cancel, and in his stead was synchronized swimmer Sylvie Fréchette, who talked about how she managed to fly to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics just days after her fiancé committed suicide in their apartment, went on to compete and even win a gold medal.
Ms. Fréchette brought Ms. Rochette to tears with her speech, but, she said, “I told myself at that time, I could never do it, if that happened to me. I could never do it. There’s no way.” And yet here she is, the first Canadian female figure skater to win a medal in twenty-two years. Joannie embodies the five tenets on which the Canadian team of 206 athletes was built: passion, resiliency, unity, confidence and readiness.
Alex Bilodeau, the twenty-two-year-old moguls skier from Quebec, who will go down in history as Canada’s first gold medal winner on Canadian soil, showed us that the Olympics are more than success on a ski hill. Behind these amazing athletes are coaches, family members, friends, and community who have selflessly given years of their lives to support the athletes and loved ones.
Alex’s acknowledgement of the inspiration of his older brother, Frédéric, reminded us that the true meaning of both sport and life comes from our achievements as well as our connections to those who matter most in our life. Frédéric Bilodeau, who has cerebral palsy, was told that he would never walk beyond the age of ten. He is now twenty-eight and he stood on his own power at the finish line and pumped a red mitten skywards in celebration of Alex.
“My brother is my inspiration,” Alex Bilodeau said, wiping tears from his eyes. “He taught me so many things in my life……I have great friends in the stands waiting for me. I’ve got everything on my side.”
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir danced off with an historic gold medal, becoming not only the first Canadians, but the first North American couple to take this title since Ice Dance was included into the Olympic Winter Games in 1976. Even more inspiring than this accomplishment, however, was the scene from the Ilderton, Ontario community centre where hundreds of people who helped raised this pair gathered to celebrate their achievement on the night of the their performance. This young couple understood the real meaning of community. No medal is ever achieved alone.
When Clara Hughes, the great Canadian speed skater, capped off her Olympic career on the Richmond speed skating oval with her sixth medal, she donated her $10,000 medal bonus to an East Vancouver outdoor program for at-risk youth. With equal generosity, she credited Canadian fans for lifting her across the finish line. “They gave me wings,” she said. Clara, let me tell you, the feeling is mutual.
The Olympics remind us all that while there is no way to ensure that the result of our behavior is going to be a gold medal, there is a much more powerful guarantee as a result of the striving and sacrifice. That guarantee is success beyond success: the inner sense of joy, of happiness, of peace that comes from acting in full alignment of one’s values. On the surface, it is far too easy to define success at the Olympics as in life, as standing on the podium or winning the prize. But the deeper success is the success that moves us toward the inner peace that comes from integrity. For there is no success without peace of mind. While achieving goals is important, external success is not the only critical factor for living a life of fulfillment and meaning that comes from committing our lives to something beyond ourselves.
Years ago, when my father inspired me to train for the 1980 Olympics, he reminded me that the purpose of a dream is not necessarily to achieve your dream. The purpose of having a dream is to inspire you to become the kind of person it takes to achieve your dream. Few will ever stand on a podium and accept a medal for their success. But anyone can become the kind of person that it takes to get there. That is the purpose in the games and the role they play in the modern world as we sit and take part in the experience as a spectator: to remind us that the human stage of success in its myriad of forms, is a valuable legacy that inspires all of us to live a life that matters.