Feel the Rhythm, Feel the Rhyme
A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you’re not enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it.- Irving Blitzer, played by John Candy in Cool Runnings (1993)
Hi, everyone. This weekend, I was checking the listings on TV, and I saw that one of the local channels was rerunning Cool Runnings, the 1993 movie based somewhat loosely on the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team, the Caribbean country’s first entry in the Winter Olympics, this one in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. While it is true that some of the events are fictionalized (such as the tension between the Jamaicans and the other countries in the competition, having Olympic-caliber sprinters rather than members of the army track team, and the role of the coach as a single individual rather than a team), there is a lot that this movie can teach about determination and what it means to truly compete with honor.
Training for Winter without Snow?
One thing that the movie did get right is the fact that before they began to prepare for the Olympic bobsled, none of the members of the team had ever seen snow before, and they were getting ready to ride at 70 or 80 mph down a hill in a sport where, “Bones don’t break, they shatter.” (I’ve heard of luge participants who say that the real question of the sport isn’t if your bones will be broken, but how many will be broken.) Needless to say, it is very difficult to find people who are willing to go through this when they were in a warm climate. The movie solves this problem for the purposes of the story by having one of the future bobsledders trip and fall during the finals of the 100-meter Olympic trials and taking out two other runners, including the team captain and driver, the son of an Olympic gold medalist. In the movie, the lead character, Derice Bannick, refuses to give up on his Olympic dream, and knowing that four years is an eternity for a sprinter, he decides to focus his efforts on the Winter Olympics instead, and he seeks out his father’s friend, Irv Blitzer, who was disqualified from the 1972 Olympics and wants to get away from the sport.
In the movie, the four finally come together, battling the elements, each other (one of the bobsledders has not yet forgiven the one who tripped him), and the doubters, to finally qualify for the Olympics. Along the way, there are three very important lessons learned. One of the bobsledders, named Yul Brenner (remember, this is a fictionalized account; the character probably got his name from the shaved head of the actor as a reference and tribute to the actor) decries the attitude of people who seem content for a life of poverty where they are “going nowhere and you’re thrilled to death about it.” He then takes out a picture and says that this is where he wants to live, revealing a picture of Buckingham Palace. Here is the scene, which is one that moves me:
Another comes in the form of the actual races. At first, Derice sees the Swiss team, ranked #1 in the world, and decides to emulate them. However, this does not work for the team, and they struggle in the first run down the hill in the competition. For the next one, they decide to be livelier and find their own style. The result is that they become contenders in the race.
The most important lesson, and the one at the heart of the movie, is about what it truly means to be a great person. Even though the character is fictitious, in the movie, John Candy (in one of his final roles before dying of a heart attack at the age of 43) plays a down-and-out two-time gold medalist who decides to add excessive weight to his sled in an effort to get an edge over the competition. He was discovered and had to give up his gold medals. His young protege dreams of Olympic glory, but Blitzer had the hard-earned life lesson at the bottom of the quote at the top of this entry. The instant that you only start to think about winning, you lose all perspective in life. I have seen this with people in network marketing who get so obsessed with getting that close or getting that sale that all of their friends stop coming around for fear that they will be pitched. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t want success, but I am saying that if you end up alienating everyone along the way to trying to earn a fortune, you’ll probably end up with neither friends nor money.
To me, that is the heart of the movie. It is about the desire not only to be the best, but to be the best person as well, and the pride that comes with earning a place at the top of your field, no matter how you finish when you get there.
In what ways do you seek to become a better person, even when the rest of the world thinks you are crazy?
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Tags: authenticity, Cool Runnings, gold medal, hard work, honor, integrity, Jamaican bobsled team, John Candy, underdogs
This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2012 at 11:06 pm and is filed under Culture, Movies, Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 10th, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Hello Steve
You share an excellent message about what it truly means to be a great person. Each of us are here for a very special purpose and we have the unique gift that is necessary to achieve that mission. In the clip that you shared these words, The more Yul Brenner we have in the world making it the better this world will be.” echoed the message that we are to become Yul Brenners because we each have a special mission.
Thanks
Perry A Davis Jr
Music City
Perry A Davis Jr´s last [type] ..What is the one thing that network marketers need to know about leadership?
January 10th, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Thank You Steve
For an excellent, insight to a good movie,We all have wants and desires and dreams, but at what cost.Help family and friends, to understand your desires and dreams and maybe they will except the direction you are going.We all do need support in our quests.
Thank You again
Sharon
Sharon Johnson´s last [type] ..SEO is not easy to work
January 10th, 2012 at 5:03 pm
I’ve never seen this movie, but I will definitely correct that oversight! Wonderful message Steve. I would love to see more people cultivate the courage to find greatness in his or her own way rather than spending so much time worrying about how to fit into the multitude of one-size-fits all approaches to lifestyle.
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January 11th, 2012 at 11:39 am
I love Cool Runnings. I remember I use to try my imitation at a Jamaican accent because of it.
However, you do have the goal of the movie… it is not about being the winner, but about being a better person overall. A lot of people lose insight. We can definitely take a lesson from this movie and apply it to our personal life and our own businesses.
Nile´s last [type] ..Determining How Frequent You Should Blog In Order to Be A Success
January 15th, 2012 at 9:39 pm
Good advice on a key issue, Steve.
Focusing on success, a sale, or making money totally obscures the really important goal of plying your trade… online or otherwise… because you are immersed in the process, not the product.
When you love what you do, when you are emotionally immersed in the process of doing it, you will frequently lose sight of the end results. But that’s ok, because that’s not what’s most important anyway.
And… by the way… when people sense your detachment from the results, they will be greatly attracted to the process you are in, and they will be more apt to join or follow you in that process.
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January 17th, 2012 at 9:36 pm
I remember that movie. I always enjoy any kind of sports movie. There are so many lessons we can apply to anything we are working at being successful again. Thanks for reminding me of that.
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January 24th, 2012 at 7:40 pm
Thank you for your reply, Perry! Please forgive the lateness of my reply. You are so right that we each have our purpose in life. Imagine how great things would be if more Yul Brenners did go out, get their palace, and help others get theirs, too.
January 24th, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Thank you for your reply, Sharon! You are so right about the need to bring people along who will accept where we are going, because if we don’t, they will try to sabotage us every step of the way.
January 24th, 2012 at 7:48 pm
Thank you for your reply, Marty! One size does not fit everyone, which reminds me of something that I read about the world of finding duplication: duplication in network marketing does not mean that everyone does the exact same thing. Instead, it means that we should help everyone else get their path to success, however they may find it.
January 24th, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Thank you for your reply, Nile! It seems like there are so many people who only focus on one area of their life that they ignore every other area of life that they end up living out of balance, and never end up happy.
January 24th, 2012 at 7:55 pm
Thank you for your reply, David! That truly is the irony. It seems that the more that we obsess with the end result and forget about the people along the way, the worse our results will be. (There are others who will make more money, but they end up losing customers and business partners, as well as alienate more and more people, that it seems like too steep a price to me.) It’s far better to me to be a good person than have what others think of as success if it’s not there on the inside, too.
January 24th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Thank you for your reply, Melodie! You are so right about the lessons for sports movies, all well as any movie where you see how people fight for their dreams.
January 29th, 2012 at 9:45 pm
Hi Steve! Movies are created with a reason and a lesson as well. This movie that you have shared up here is truly great and it represents on how to become a great person base of who you really are.
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February 5th, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Thank you for your reply, Nicholle! It really is amazing what happens when we focus on being a better person rather than the trappings of what others consider to be success.