Comment trouver l'Olympien en dedans

par Denis Waitley

Vous vous tenez sur le plus haut piédestal, celui au centre. Vous entendez l'hurlement de l'approbation de la foule. Pendant que la première note du hymne national est jouée dans le stade olympique, vous sentez toute fierté et l'honorez qui accompagne ce moment. Heures de dix-millièmes de préparation pour ce moment un triomphant dans l'histoire. Vous avez gagné l'or !

Ce rêve d'un championnat olympique est au coeur de chaque athlète d'amateur, juste comme la finale, la tasse du monde, le superbowl et le Wimbledon grands sont les buts des joueurs professionnels de football et des joueurs de tennis. Quels sont vos rêves ? Vous êtes le plus susceptible pas un athlète de monde-classe, mais sûrement vous avez des aspirations de vos propres. Peut-être vous imaginez une médaille d'or métaphorique étant placée autour de votre cou par le PRÉSIDENT de votre compagnie ou par vos amis et famille pour être le meilleur dans votre propre manière unique. Peut-être vous vous demandez si vous êtes jusqu'au risque de commencer vos propres affaires.

Le dimanche, mes grand-pères nous prendraient des enfants pour monter le manège énorme à côté du zoo de San Diego. Nous pourrions à peine attendre pour monter ces zèbres, lions, tigres et étalons de pendillement, et tourbillonnons rond et rond en musique de l'organe antique de pipe. Entouré par des miroirs et des lumières, nos coeurs martèleraient d'avance pendant que nous nous étirions dehors désespérément, essayant d'être celui parmi tous cavaliers qui saisiraient l'anneau d'or et gagneraient un autre tour. A ainsi commencé mon esprit concurrentiel.

Puisque vous êtes probablement plus jeune que je suis, vous avez pu jamais même avoir entendu parler de saisir l'anneau d'or sur le carrousel. But in the 40s, and 50s, if you reached out and caught it, you not only got a free ride—your name was also announced over the loudspeaker and all the other kids and their parents would applaud. And, of course, the kids all wished it could have been them instead of you.

Reflecting now on my youth, I’ve come to some realizations. I guess I did start out thinking of success and winning as something that you got by reaching outside yourself and proving to others that you were worthy. Come to think of it, most of my friends also believed that you had to prove or earn or win or perform in some special way, and then you would deserve the gold ring or the Olympic gold medal.

The approval of others seemed to precede feelings of self-confidence and self-worth. You were entitled to feel good about yourself only after you performed well. Why did it take me so many years to discover that just the reverse ought to be true?

After devoting most of my lifetime to investigating the wellsprings of personal and professional success, I’m able to make the following statements with great confidence:

• You need to feel love inside yourself before you can offer it to anyone else.
• Your own sense of value determines the quality of your performance. Performance is only a reflection of internal worth, not a measure of it.
• The less you try to impress, the more impressive you are.
• What you show the world on the outside is a mirror image of how you feel on the inside.
• You should chase your passion, not your pension.

The key trait shared by athletic champions and winners in every walk of life is the fundamental belief in one’s own internal value.

If your success depends on external possessions, you’ll be subject to constant anxiety. When your peer group cheers one of your accomplishments, you’ll feel good for a while, but then you’ll wonder if they’ll cheer as loudly the next time. If they’re critical, you will feel hurt and threatened. The truth is, you can never win over a long period if your concept of success depends upon the perfect performance or the placing of a gold medal around your neck.

It’s obvious that talent, looks and other attributes aren’t equally distributed, but we’re all given an abundance of value—more than we could use in several lifetimes. The game of life certainly isn’t played on a level playing field for each of us in terms of education, a supportive home life and other circumstances beyond our control, but I can assure you that you were born with the qualities of a champion. That’s what I mean by value.

You see, champions are born, but they can be unmade by their perceptions, exposure and responses. Losers are not born to lose. They’re programmed that way by their own responses to their environment and their decisions.

There’s a phrase I like to use—The Inner Winner—that describes the kind of person who recognizes his or her internal value, and who is able to use that recognition as the foundation for achieving any goal. The secret of wearing the gold medal around your neck in the external world is that first you must be an Inner Winner. You must recognize that you’re already an Olympian Within.