At the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, Omar Dallal swam his hardest! He had trained and trained and trained. He was the fastest 400 hundred meter freestyle swimmer in his country. At fifteen years old, he carried the weight of his home country on his back. Jordan isn’t known for their swimmers and the country has had limited Olympic success, but that didn’t hinder their lofty expectation for their hero. During the race, he said that he kept repeating the words “I think I can!” To compete in any Olympics requires dedication, preparation and most of all performance. Omar was at his moment of truth. These are the moments when heroes are made. He was at that point that we all hope to get to, where all of our preparation culminates in one defining moment.
When it was all said and done, Omar Dallal had a personal best. He performed like he had never performed before. He overachieved. All his practice and preparation culminated in the greatest performance of his life. Out of the 34 swimmers that competed in that race, his time was dead last. That’s right! He was 34th of 34. His name was never called that day and I would bet you money, that you have never heard his name before reading this. It is not often that anybody writes about the Olympian who placed last in his event. Omar is important, because Omar is what success is all about. Let’s face it. We all can’t be Michael Jordan. Most of us aren’t Albert Einstein and we can only dream of being Pablo Picasso. While we may not achieve their lofty heights, we can still be successful. Society says success is winning the Super bowl, coming first in your academic class or building a multimillion dollar empire. That’s easy. You know what’s hard. Training all your life for the Olympics, being the only hope for your country, swimming your absolute hardest and placing 34th out of 34, now that’s hard. For Omar, success is getting back in the pool again.
Our understanding of success is all wrong. There is no question that the result matters, but the result isn’t always how the success is measured. Success is long, arduous and incremental. It isn’t always glorious. It isn’t always in front of a crowd. It doesn’t always happen with thousands of fans screaming. Sometimes success happens by working your entire life, incredibly hard, giving all you have to finish dead last. Success may just be going to your dead end job every day and performing your personal best. When no one cares and no one is watching, performing your personal best may be what success is all about. How many of us give up, because we know that our result will be 34th of 34? How many of our kids stop pushing because Johnny is just “better” than them? How many of us only do what is expected at work, instead of exceeding expectations? If we truly knew what success was, we would perform our personal best every single day in everything we do. We would perform our best even if it means being 34 of 34.
Slightly different!
doc mu