Well, it’s good to be back. Although I must confess that I have been captivated by the Summer Olympic Games, and a couple of other projects as well.
As with past summer and winter games, these are proving to be quite exciting. Being somewhat enamored with endurance sports, I typically wait until the second half of the summer program for the track and field events, in particular, the women’s and men’s marathons.
This past Sunday morning, or Saturday evening for us on the East Coast, saw the running of the Women’s marathon. It started out at a fairly pedestrian pace with no real leader emerging to take charge. Mind you, a pedestrian pace for these women is more like a killer pace for part-time athletes, weekend warriors, and us mere mortals. Only about halfway through the race did we see someone take a risk and step forward.
Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania eventually separated herself from the group. Over the course of the race, she succeeded in putting a minute between herself and the rest of the lead pack. Even when there were only 5 miles left in the race, no one in the lead pack stepped forward and said, “Hey, we need to turn this into a race and catch the leader.” It was as if everyone was expecting Tomescu-Dita to blow up and fall out of the race. After all, she’s done that in some of her past races.
But not this day and not this race.
After all, these are the Olympic games where once every 4 years, the world’s best athletes get together to compete and discover who is actually the best athlete that day.
So you steel yourself against the discomfort and pain, and you take a chance with the stuff you got right now.
Parallels between Running a Marathon and Living Life
On Sunday, it was Tomescu-Dita, who assessed her resources, took a chance, ran her race, and ran away with the gold.
Kind of like life.
So many people get tangled up in the belief that if you do what other people are doing then you will be successful. So they suppress their own gifts and talents and try to follow a formula for success. In the process, they turn into a robot and blend into the rest of the background business machinery.
They end up running in the pack, waiting for something to happen. They wait for somebody to rescue them, that big break that’s due, or that one big client that’s going to put them on the map.
They wait for the economy to turn up, their business partners to get on board, the right business conditions to happen, or to get everything else in their life fixed up.
And sometimes, they wait for someone else to take the lead, tell them what they should be doing and that it’s time to get going.
All the while, they never assess their own strengths, resources and capabilities. They never look at the environmental conditions for themselves. They never trust their own instincts. And they never take the big risks that will produce the life changing results that they keep expecting.
Constantina didn’t wait. She took a chance, took off, and took the prize that all of the other runners dreamt about but weren’t willing to leave the comfort of the pack to make happen.
Don’t wait for your dream to come to you. If you want to win big, you have to play big.
Go make it happen.
