What I learned from watching the Olympics in person

“The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.”
– Dawn Fraser (Australian swimmer, 4-time gold medalist, 8 medals overall, and 1 of 3 people ever who won the same event in 3 consecutive olympics)

I returned a couple weeks ago from a bucket list trip.  I went to Rio with my best buddy from high school for the Olympics.  It was wild.  It was crazy.  It was educational.  It was inspiring.  The night before I left I was packing with Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA playing at full volume.  I got a retweet from Lee Greenwood himself!

This trip started off right!

Over the next few posts I will share some experiences and fun stories and what I learned.  But I want to start with the biggest lesson learned.  Everyone has greatness inside.  Did you see this commercial that played in August?

We all have 0.2mg of gold inside each of us.  The highest concentration is in the heart.  But what is 0.2 mg in real life?  Common household items that weigh approximately one gram include a paperclip, the cap of a ballpoint pen, a stick of gum, a U.S. currency bill, a quarter teaspoon of sugar, a raisin and a thumbtack.  (source:  this article)

But 1 mg = 1/1000^th of a gram.  Most things that weigh 1 mg are invisible to the naked eye.  0.2mg is 1/5 of that which is 0.0002 grams.  So 0.2 mg is 0.0002 of the weight of those items mentioned above.  Or 1/5 the weight of a small snowflake.

Gold.  It’s in us all.  Do you have the strength to dig it out?  Out of yourself?  And out of others?  Everyone has it inside of them.

One of my mentors Pat always says we hold a crown above people’s heads and let them grow into it.  Hold that crown above them and draw that gold out.  Gold.  It’s in us all. We need to have a vision for who they could be.  Gold.  It’s in us all.  Do you have the courage to call greatness out of others?  And out of yourself.  Do you have a vision for who you could become?

“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” — Wilma Rudolph, American runner and three-time gold medalist.