Signs of a Champion: The Paradox of Striving and Celebrating
What’s harder: Getting to the mountaintop, or staying there?
Lessons from legends
Earlier this month, I had the absolute pleasure of attending a beautiful event honoring the Wake Forest men’s golf team as it celebrated the 50-year anniversary of winning back-to-back NCAA Championships.
I always enjoy my visits to Winston-Salem and my family is honored to support the prestigious and successful women’s and men’s golf programs and overall athletic department. This trip was no different.
The 1974 and ‘75 men’s golf teams are legendary as Wake Forest is the only NCAA men’s golf program to have won back-to-back championships in the history of the sport. The 1975 team has even been called the best college golf team ever by World Golf magazine. The Demon Deacons set a record for the largest winning margin in NCAA history by taking down Oklahoma State by 33 strokes. Legendary, indeed.
The winning mentality
While it was certainly a night of celebration, there was one moment that struck me at the time and I continued to reflect on in the days after.
Curtis Strange, a member of both the ‘74 and ‘75 teams who most will know as a two-time U.S. Open winner and World Golf Hall of Famer, brought up the fact that he was disappointed and what he remembered the most was that Wake didn’t win that third title in a row in ‘76 with the same exact group of players.
I found it somewhat sad but also enlightening that this legend still thought about losing a championship 50 years later, when he had already won two.
If you follow sports, you’ve probably witnessed this sentiment before from the best of the best. Let’s call it the sign of a champion. Elite athletes are always pushing to be better, to improve 1% each day. They analyze their weaknesses as much as they hone their strengths. Many of them work so hard with one end goal in mind: to be the best. Second place isn’t good enough.
Michael Jordan famously spent his NBA Hall of Fame induction speech calling out the high school basketball coach that cut him from the team. This motivated him through his entire career, and clearly still struck a nerve even in retirement. Talk about compartmentalization.
Shift to striving and celebrating
There are many great lessons to take away from the mental and physical toughness that elite athletes and coaches provide us. I myself applied these lessons as I worked hard to grow my business and strived to develop people over my career. So I’m certainly not saying it’s a bad quality to be laser-focused and go all out for what you want.
Yet, I do think that we should embrace an equal amount of celebration to balance out our striving for excellence. If we can’t take pleasure in the wins or revel in the successes, then why are we doing it? We all must appreciate and enjoy the results of our hard work. We should be confident, but also humble. Being intentional about remembering our “why” during the process will also help to decrease the chances of burnout.
I’m sure Curtis Strange has many great memories of those title-winning teams of the 70’s, and that his comment about losing in ‘76 was just a small blip during his speech not meant to be taken too seriously. But I did think it was an interesting example of the way someone who has experienced the heights of success thinks about their accomplishments in hindsight.
Enjoy the climb up the mountain
It’s an interesting paradox, isn’t it? We want to win and grind, but also not take losses and failures so hard.
Well, if you are truly pushing to do something special, I’d argue that setbacks are a natural, and almost critical, part of the process. Life is a roller coaster, and sometimes recalling our wins in the down times will help pull us back up. As we get older, I think it’s natural to celebrate the wins more and enjoy our success more, as we should.
So go work, hustle, grind, strive—whatever you want to call it. But don’t forget to enjoy the little moments along the way, because success is a journey, not a destination. And the struggle makes the victories even sweeter.
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