Are You Going For A Gold Medal At Work?

As the media is aglow with the London 2012 Olympics, it made me wonder, what if there were an Olympic event on my day job? I imagined myself going up against the Russian Federation or the all powerful US team. I’d be proudly wearing my Canadian made suit, lining up for my turn in the corporate boardroom to go up against my competitors.

But in reality, aren’t we doing it already?

The Olympic motto, in use since 1924, is “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. For 17 days, you will hear, and due to the TV time delay, see repeatedly, athletes trying to go faster, stronger or higher. Today, I watched Om Yul Chol from North Korea lift 3 times his body weight. He set a new personal best. This new personal best also was better than everyone else for this event and he won the Gold Medal.

I also watched Tera Van Beilen from Oakville, Ontario. She made it into the Women’s 100 metre semi-finals to compete against 15 other competitors where only the top 8 go to the finals. In something you don’t see very often, she had to swim an extra race as she was tied for the eighth and final spot in the finals. In watching her being interviewed after she found out she had to race again, the joy and excitement was incredibly infectious. She couldn’t wait to race again. In the swim-off, she did not advance, but we should not look at it that she lost and failed to advance to the finals.

I prefer to look at it that she won the right to represent Canada at the Olympics and that she ended up with a personal best of ninth in the world! We seem to focus on gold, silver and bronze, but forget to celebrate every single person is a winner as they are representing their country on an international stage.

Today, Van Beilen, didn’t take a long lunch, she didn’t take a day off, she didn’t call in sick. Today was the result of many hours in the pool training and the result was a personal best.

Are you competing at your day job as if it was the Olympics?

In most cases, there are not any competitions that we can compete against one another to see who will place first. Every day we should be focusing on a personal best; a personal best in the report that you are delivering, a personal best in the presentation you are giving, a personal best in the interview you are about to perform.

While at work today, did you achieve a personal best?