How to Succeed Like an Olympic Champion

Fri, Dec 9, 2011

My friend Adam Taha (http://www.facebook.com/adamtaha) recently shared an inspirational video and story with me on facebook.

It’s the story of Haile Gebreselassie who was recently voted the greatest distance runner in history. This amazing athlete was born and raised in Ethiopia. He was the son of peasant farmers and one of ten children – all living in a one room house. Yet he achieved greatness despite not having access to many of the facilities, nutritional supplements and other performance aids we associate with modern athletics.

But there are other things he didn’t have which I believe were critical to his success too!

He didn’t have :

cable TV
the internet
email
texting
facebook
twitter
smart phone
clubs and bars
fast food (antelope doesn’t count as ‘fast food’ !)
newpapers
magazines
and so on…

In other words, NO DISTRACTIONS.

We constantly bombarded by messages promising instant fixes.

Taking sport as an example, how many amateur golfers do you know who spend a fortune on the very best golf clubs they can afford hoping they will improve their game?
How many people buy expensive training shoes, clothing, supplements in the belief they will get bigger, slimmer, stronger, faster, better etc ?

Some aids clearly do serve a useful purpose BUT, the problem is that they distract your focus away from where it should be – ie with YOU.

YOU doing what’s necessary to make real progress, rather than putting your hopes on something outside yourself to ‘make’ you better.

In some ways not having fancy training aids may have worked in Haile’s favour.

In the world of online marketing, distractions are our biggest enemy too.
I’m speaking from experience and in my observations of others.

Every second a thousand other marketers are competing for our attention.

Each promising to have the solution to our problems.

I’m sure you’ve been there before.

You have a plan. You set it out. You get started. Then it happens…

That dreaded email drops into your inbox.
You can’t resist opening it and BOOM.
Before you know it, you’re chasing the next shiny object.

For most people who are getting started online (and even those more experienced), just staying focused long enough to get the basics in place is a major challenge.

Whether you are being distracted by the latest performance enhancing gimmick for sport or the latest online shiny object, the principles are the same.

Haile’s training environment was harsh, but simple.
Just him, the scorching sun, the dusty trail and the clock.

Haile Gebreselassie’s environment might just have been PERFECT for him to achieve his best. He had nothing to distract his focus from where it should be – on him running faster. Period.

When race day came, he wasn’t worried about which training shoes he was wearing, or whether he’d taken his supplements or his aerodynamic, teflon-coated, uv protected, lightweight sunglasses that give him a 0.01 metre advantage over a marathon distance.

No…. when the day of reckoning came, Haile had everything he needed.

Haile had Haile…