Roger Black and the Olympics

I heard a great interview recently with Roger Black, a British Olympic athlete from the 1990’s. Black was a 400 meter runner who performed for Great Britain at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and, again, in Atlanta in 1996. The interviewer asked why Roger had celebrated the 400m Silver medal he won in 1996 as if he’d actually won the race. Roger explained that if finishing first was the singular definition of winning, then 99% of those amazing, elite athletes who’d worked so hard to reach the Olympics at all, would all be categorized as “losers”.

That clearly seemed at best unfair, but frankly, just flat out wrong! Instead, Roger explained that over the course of his career he’d raced Michael Johnson, the near legendary US sprinter, about 20 times and never come even remotely close to winning.  Johnson totally dominated the Olympic final in 1996 and won going away from the rest of the field (including Roger Black) by at least 10 meters.

Roger continued, “Winning for me was not an Olympic Gold medal around my neck, it was actually crossing that line and knowing, under the greatest pressure of all - an Olympic final - I’d given it my absolute all and I’d left nothing out on the track. I could’ve easily finished 4th or 8th, but that just didn’t matter”.

What an amazing example of focusing on things he could control and letting go completely of those he had zero effect on. Additionally, a disconnection from the result, and 100% focus on the effort, the process and his performance in the moment.

No matter how hard he tried, he’d never be able to make Michael Johnson run any slower, all he could focus on was his own effort, attitude and approach. A singular focus on the process as it pertained to him, nothing about anyone else, nor the actual result of the race, just his own inputs.

Great lessons for all of us right there....we can’t control results, in fact if we singularly focus on them, we likely take our eye off the ball on what we’re actually doing.