Steve the Owl's Blog

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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Hi, everyone! I hope you are having a good day today and (if you find this around the time I wrote it) enjoying your weekend as well. Lately, I have been thinking about those who are critical of the idea that it takes money to make money in the world of business, as well as the issue of money in the world of politics. In a way, this came together as I stayed up late four nights ago trying to find out who would win the Iowa Republican caucuses, Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney or Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.

This blog post will not talk about the political views of either candidate (Readers of this blog know that, for the most part, I try to avoid discussion of issues on this blog, but I will talk about general lessons about politics that anyone can learn regardless of political ideology.) but about the approach that each candidate made. Mitt Romney was a one-term governor (2003-07) elected in one of the most liberal states in the country, and as such, his record was not something one would expect from those who come from more conservative hotbeds. He is also the son of the late George Romney, the former Michigan Governor and CEO of American Motors who ran for President in 1968, and he made his fortune as a venture capitalist. Romney decided not to run for re-election in 2006, and instead ran for President in 2008. Santorum was a two-term senator and congressman (House, 1991-95; Senate, 1995-2007) who was known as a lightning rod for his focus on social issues who lost to then-State Treasurer Bob Casey, Jr. by 18 points in 2006, the worst loss by an incumbent US Senator in 26 years.

Polls and Peaks

Romney has been the establishment favorite for the nomination, and Santorum barely registered for months in national polls. Romney, as the race’s most proficient fundraiser, at first decided to largely ignore Iowa (In 2008, he focused a lot of his energies on Iowa, lost to Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee by 10 points, 35% to 25%, and his campaign never recovered.), only deciding relatively late to make a push in the Hawkeye State after seeing an opening in the polls, spending millions of dollars on advertising. Santorum raised far less money than any of the other major candidates, so he focused on an old-fashioned door-to-door and small event campaign in Iowa.

The System and the Results

Earlier, I wrote about the Democratic caucuses in Iowa, and the way that they work. The Republican caucuses are a little bit different. There are still people in each precinct who make a pitch for each candidate, but rather than the multi-tiered process Democrats use, Republicans simply have a straw poll instead. There is still convincing and cajoling that happens before people get their ballots, and they still have to stay in the room until all ballots are received. However, unlike the Democrats, there is no 15% threshold in the room, although I think there is a 10% threshold in order to receive delegates to the national convention.

The polls were very interesting last year, with Romney leading or second, and an “anyone but Romney” getting his or her day in the sun. The first was Former Alaska Governor (and current reality TV star) Sarah Palin, then Huckabee, then Reality TV star Donald Trump. None of them got in the race, which was not surprising. Then, after a positively-reviewed debate performance, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann received this status, but fizzled after winning the Ames Straw Poll in August but being seen as out of touch in a couple of events at the state fair. Then, it was Texas Governor Rick Perry, whose polls peaked on his first day in the race, and imploded after several bad debate performances. Then, it was former pizza magnate and motivational speaker Herman Cain, who really seemed to be on a quest to sell books rather than a serious campaign for President (as evidenced by the fact that he refused to alter his book tour which went to places like Alabama, which are very late in the process) whose campaign imploded in the face of several allegations of impropriety, and Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who bore the brunt of several candidates’ negative ads because of his leading status when the ad buys came through.

This left every candidate in Iowa except for Rick Santorum receiving a moment in the sun. However, he kept going to event after event, visiting all 99 of Iowa’s counties, and holding a total of 381 town hall meetings. Iowans like this sort of attention, and eventually, he moved up to third in the polls behind Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul. The interesting thing about it was that, on the last two days of the poll, he improved to second.

The hard work paid off, as Santorum, despite being outspent by Romney by a ratio of 18:1 in Iowa, only lost by eight votes out of 122,000 cast. This was because he worked the state harder than anyone, and he received a huge boost in the polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina, especially the later, where he went from 4% to 19%.

I don’t think that Santorum will win the primary (in part because of the heavy scrutiny that comes with being a contender and also because of lingering questions about his ability to raise funds for states where he has days rather than months to get to know voters), but regardless of your political views, it is refreshing to see someone have success the old-fashioned way, campaigning with shoe leather rather than wallet leather. Yes, I think part of this was the hand that he was dealt, but he still went out and did it, probably emerging as one of the leading candidates (and one who I think may very well be Romney’s running mate in order to appease conservatives) and striking a blow for underdogs anywhere.

When have you exceeded expectations despite limited resources?

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