The Heroes we don’t sing about
The heroes we don’t sing about
The Paris Olympics have come and gone, with numerous memorable performances recorded in our collective memory banks. I tried to watch as much of the action as possible and regained a deep appreciation for how exceptional these people are. Watching cyclists speed around a slanted track at 80km/h on million Rand bikes, within millimetres of each other blew my mind!
I’ve never heard of almost all of these athletes, especially those participating in the more obscure sports. Obviously everyone knows who Raygun the break-dancer is now, but she’s more infamous than famous if we’re being honest. One sport I follow closely throughout the year is athletics and as a result, I am familiar with many of the athletes that participated at the Games. I follow my favourites on social media and have over the last couple of days seen posts of them getting back home and celebrating their respective results with the people who made it possible for them to be there.
This made me realise that it takes a hell of a lot of support to make it to the Olympics!
We see these people compete in front of massive crowds, but often I forget that they are real people. They have parents, siblings, romantic partners, aunts and uncles, coaches, physios, teammates, managers – the list goes on. Yet, we tend to look at the people on the track, court or field and regard them as the heroes. Don’t get me wrong – these athletes are incredible and they are the ones putting in the performance. But we tend to forget that they form part of a team, system, tribe, collective and community. It’s easy to think of resilience, performance and excellence as something that exists solely within a person and a portion of it does. But a significant part is also made possible by the people around you – your support system. Greatness is not only intrapersonal (something that exists within a person), it is also deeply interpersonal. I am willing to go so far as to say that not a single person who made it to the Olympics, irrespective of how they performed, got there by relying only on themselves. All of them were part of a team effort.
I met someone recently who works as a Sports Psychologist with some of the most illustrious teams in the world of sport. He is a South African who looks and sounds a lot like me and boy was I impressed to see pictures of him online with members of the South African Olympic team in Paris. Very few people know his name or that he even exists, but he was a crucial part of the success the athletes experienced in their respective areas.
The moral of the story is this: You are not going to be sustainably successful on your own! You need a great team around you, whether it be in life, family, business, school or sport. You cannot do it all on your own, so be deliberate about selecting the crowd you surround yourself with. Overcoming setbacks and dealing with challenges is just as much a function of the support you can rely on as it is about your own capability (if not more).
The unsung heroes are those people who make it possible for a select few to have their names in lights. Take the time to celebrate those heroes in your environment that make it possible for you to succeed!
And if you are one of those unsung heroes, thank you for what you do. We see you and appreciate you! Keep doing what you are doing, even if you never get to an Olympic podium yourself.
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