Like many of you, I have been watching bits and pieces from the Paris Olympics over the past two weeks. There is something fascinating about watching the world’s best compete on the international stage. “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” as they used to say on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, captures my attention. Hundreds of millions of viewers around the world seem to feel the same.
To be fair, the Olympics have evolved into a spectacle that goes far beyond sporting competition. There are plenty of negative aspects to be found if you look for them. Budget overruns, corruption, scandals, commercialism, boycotts, politics, performance-enhancing drugs and discrimination are increasingly common at the modern Olympics, or indeed any event of this magnitude.
But I prefer to focus less on the transgender controversy or Snoop Dogg’s seeming omnipresence and more on what I can learn from the competition itself. So I ask myself: What are my positive takeaways? And what useful lessons have I learned?
Start with symbols
The symbolism of the Olympic Games has always fascinated me. For example, the official Olympic symbol consists of five intertwined rings that symbolize the unity of the five inhabited continents. The Olympic rings remind us that despite our differences and diversity, we should constantly work to find common ground.
These rings remind me of the Latin phrase “E pluribus unum,” the traditional, if unofficial, motto of the United States, which appears on many U.S. coins. This phrase means “Out of many, one,” a reminder that we should continually work together for the common good, with brotherly love and in a spirit of compromise.
Just as our own nation emerged from a melting pot of global immigrants longing for a better place to call home.
I am also inspired by the Olympic motto, “Citius, Altius, Fortius.” It translates as “Faster, Higher, Stronger,” a loud call to be a little better every day in all our endeavors, whatever they may be. The performance of an Olympic athlete lasts a few hours at most. Usually just a few minutes. And sometimes even less than ten seconds.
And yet each of them has trained day after day for years, even decades, to prepare for this fleeting moment of excellence and possible glory.
Why? Because true joy is in the journey. Greatness is never achieved all at once. True excellence is made up of small steps taken consistently throughout a lifetime. Anything truly worthwhile requires consistent effort, minute after minute, hour after hour, year after year.
Big things can happen with small and simple means. Every true champion knows that perfection doesn’t mean being flawless. It means getting back up when you fall, overcoming self-doubt, persevering despite pain, resisting the constant temptation to give up, and finally finishing what you started.
This, my friends, is an important lesson we all need to learn!
Less well known but just as motivating is the Olympic credo. It states: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not victory but participation, just as the most important thing in life is not triumph but struggle. The important thing is not to have won but to have fought well.”
Local hero
Currently, there are about 14,000 athletes competing in 40 different sports and about 450 events at the Summer Olympics. That means more than 13,500 of those competitors will not win a gold medal, and the vast majority will not receive a medal at all. Lexi Lagan, the “air pistol specialist” from Boulder City, is one of them.
Which in turn raises the question: Why should you even compete when the odds of winning, or even winning a medal, are so overwhelmingly against you despite your size?
Former President Teddy Roosevelt answered this question this way: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out where the strong man stumbles or where the doer could have done the deeds better. The credit goes to the man who actually stands in the arena, whose face is stained with dust and sweat and blood; who fights bravely; who errs, who keeps coming up short because there is no effort without mistakes and omissions; who actually strives to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasm and devotion; who strives for a worthy cause; who, at best, knows the triumph of a great achievement in the end, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails in a daring attempt, so that his place will never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
True victory has nothing to do with trophies. The real triumph lies in the pursuit and the struggle and the blood, sweat and tears that go with it. The real winners are those who dare to get up every day and just play the game. Real champions fail far more often than they succeed. But they consistently give their best. And they never give up.
Thousands of Paralympians and Special Olympics athletes, like my friend Andy Giroux, have discovered the same thing. Their courage to just go with it and keep going helps me better understand what it means to be a winner.
So what positive lessons did you learn from the Olympics? Regardless, I hope the Olympic spirit gives you the courage to do your best today, tomorrow and always. If so, you will always be a champion to me.
