Over the last week, I’ve watched more sports than I have in the last year thanks to the Olympics. I imagine that’s true for pretty much everyone; at least it seems that way from my social media feeds. While the crowd favorites range from break dancing or shooting to more well known like track and field, there’s one competition I’ve loved since I was a little kid: gymnastics.
My love for the sport began in 1996 when my family lived just a few hours away from Atlanta in southern Georgia. My brother and I were obsessed with all things Olympics whether it was archery or swimming. Everything we did that summer was not just a competition, it was an Olympic competition. Fast forward to today and my girlfriend and I love the US Olympic gymnastics team, too. There’s just far less competition for gold in our house unless we get medals for van life. In that case, we definitely earned the gold in a few categories.
Back then, I was obsessed with the sport. Now, I’m far more fascinated by the dynamics between the team. As much as the folks on team USA are teammates, they’re also competing against each other in the individual events. I imagine that would make for some interesting relationships and dynamics in corporate America, but for this group? They are each others loudest cheerleaders. Not just for today, but throughout the journey to the Olympics.
Simone Biles invited Jordan Chiles to come and train at her gym in 2021, long before this medal was on the table. Personally, I can imagine it would be incredibly intimidating to have the best gymnast in the world ask you to train with them. I’d expect to be treated like a second class citizen if this was corporate. But that’s not what happened.
After training with Simone, Jordan went from 11th in the US to, as of this week, 3rd in the world for floor. In articles about their time training together, Jordan shared that it was less about learning technique or access to the gym. What made her great was watching Simone have fun and learning to have fun again, too. As much as winning a medal might change Jordan’s life at this point, what really changed her life was that relationship.
Society would have you believe that accomplishments are the things to chase. That wins will change your life. In my experience, accomplishments haven’t changed much for me at all. I know it’s hard to believe that making the Top 100 Influencers list on some vendor website didn’t change much, but here we are. Same me.
I sure have used a lot of energy chasing that success. I was always convinced that I was one big opportunity away from being back on track as if I was always 3 steps behind the leader. Turns out? There’s not 1 accomplishment that changes everything for most of us. No big fork in the road. No promotion, no medal. The big changes come from relationships - all of the relationships in our lives. Friends who thought of you. Colleagues who recommend you. People who mentioned your name when you weren’t in the room. Teams where people really care about each other.
Big change happens when we’re having fun doing what we love with people we love even more.
As we all recover from another week full of uncertainty, I’m thinking we could benefit from leaning into this new definition of success. Leaning into our friendships and relationships instead of driving toward yet another accomplishment. We don’t need any medals or max efficiency to “win” at life. We need to remember how to have fun doing what we love with the support of some amazing friends.
