Secrets to Success: Achievement From Within

Success Seminar April 20, 2018

Secrets to Success: Achievement From Within

(Hester)

Success as Personal Satisfaction in Hard Work and Commitment When defining success through internal standards, it can become a goal attainable by all, regardless of such external measures as wealth, titles, or wins. However, when one exhibits their true passion and commitment towards a goal, improved performance often comes as a result. Inside, explore the values of this definition of success, with special attention to its relevance in professional sports.

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Elements of Success in Professional Sports

When evaluating success in professional sports, far too many spectators look to the scoreboard, count gold medals, or tally up points. However, instead of conforming to an “outcome-driven” system, sports leaders should promote internal values such as enthusiasm and grit as benchmarks of success in sports (Wallace 3). Unfortunately, Geno Auriemma, coach of the University of Connecticut women's basketball team explains that with parental pressure and overemphasis on winning he sees in today’s youth, recruiting “‘enthusiastic kids is harder than it's ever been’” (Wallace 1). Although rare, these internal values can leave a lasting impact on an athlete's image, exemplified through American gymnast Kerri Strug’s demonstration of grit at the 1996 Summer Olympic games in Atlanta (Neiman 11). Despite having just torn several ligaments in her ankle, Strug landed a vault that would secure a gold medal for the U.S. women’s gymnastic team, displaying the “inner spirit and will people possess” (Neiman 11). As a result, the evaluation of success in professional sports should involve both athlete enthusiasm and grit.

Enthusiasm serves as a prerequisite to athletic success by highlighting an athlete’s enjoyment of and personal satisfaction achieved through their sport. In addition, enthusiasm can motivate and help boost team morale, positively impacting game performance as a result. Indeed, several leading professional coaches will value enthusiasm even over raw talent, as Auriemma explains that he often focuses on “what’s going on on the bench”, rather than on the court,

when watching game films (Wallace 2).

Auriemma then takes this a step further by stating that an unenthusiastic, apathetic athlete on the bench “will never get in the game” (Wallace 2). Athletic performance enhancement counselor Dr. Chris Stankovich corroborates, stating that professional sports require a high level of enthusiasm, as athletes will utilize their passion to efficiently respond to stresses and failures (3). Thus, athletic enthusiasm should hold recognition as an element of success.

In addition to enthusiasm, athletes and coaches alike have identified grit, or “strength of character”, as a measure of success in professional sports (Falco 2). Grit also entails perseverance, necessary for athletes to endure busy schedules, long practices, tough games, and many more of the inevitable difficulties they will encounter in their careers.

Furthermore, grit can foster personal growth, as Troy Morgan of the University of Mexico Albuquerque finds within a case study of head coaches, that grit increases individual development while also enhancing team culture (5). Therefore, grit plays a key role in athletic success.

Overall, these findings should motivate young athletes concerned with their sports performance by displaying the emphasis top coaches place on internal values such as enthusiasm. Coaches of professional sports should also seek to emphasize and award grit and hard work over raw talent in their athletes.

Consequently, they will enhance team culture and boost performance as a result.

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Pictured: UConn Women’s Basketball coach Geno Auriemma values enthusiasm and grit in an athlete (Bethune)

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Responses to Failure in Professional Athletes

experience success utilizing her passion and personal satisfaction achieved in her work.

Failure also presents the opportunity for the development of perseverance. In his article on professional tennis stars Venus and Serena William, John Sullivan of the New York Times reveal the considerable disadvantages they faced, growing up in the low-income, gang-ridden city of Compton, Los Angeles and, in Venus’ case, battling Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that causes severe joint pain (Sullivan 1, 10). However, their perseverance and incredible work ethic, rising “at six in the morning” everyday to practice, allowed them to overcome disadvantage and dominate professional tennis (Sullivan 6).

Additionally, NBA legend Michael Jordan experienced failure as a teenager cut from his high school basketball team (Ha 1). However, Jordan reacted to the disappointment by developing and incredible drive to persevere, and he continued to spend his offseasons taking hundreds of jump shots a day (Nisen 1).

Thus, if properly handled, failure can present a defining and motivating moment in one’s career.

These inspiring examples in the field of professional sports should prove to athletes the inevitability of failure in their careers, and outline constructive ways for them to deal with disappointment. If viewed as an opportunity, the experience of failure can highlight one’s passion for their sport and foster the growth of the perseverance and hard work necessary for achieving success.

As we discuss the values of success, we should also consider its alternative: failure.

Sports analysts have long regarded failure as inevitable in a professional athlete’s career.

For example, in his ​In Praise of Failure: The Value of Overcoming Mistakes in Sports and in Life ​Mark Anshel, a professional sports team consultant, argues that athletes should embrace failure as part of the process of achievement (ix). Thus, failure can play an instrumental role in a professional athlete’s path to success in reinforcing their passion for their sport and fostering the development of perseverance.

Influential figures in professional sports regarded as highly successful in their individual careers have all experienced failure in their field. For example, Vera Wang competed professional in pairs figure skating as a teen, but failed to medal and make the U.S. Olympic Team at the 1968 and 1969 U.S. National Championships (“Vera Wang Biography”). As her professional figure skating career stagnated, Wang graduated from college and decided to instead pursue a career in fashion design (“Vera Wang Biography”). In this field she utilized her passion for figure skating by designing figure skating costumes for such iconic competitors at the Olympic games as Nancy Kerrigan, Michelle Kwan, Evan Lysacek, and Nathan Chen (Frey 1-3). In 2009, U.S. Figure Skating welcomed Wang into their Hall of Fame for her contributions (Frey 1). In this way Wang overcame initial failure to

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Pictured: U.S. Figure Skating’s “We Get Up” campaign, celebrating perseverance after failure (U.S. Figure Skating)

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Advice Column Here, we answer our readers’ questions, outlining ways to implement the values of success into everyday life.

Dear Success Seminar, I work extremely hard on my school’s volleyball team and used to be one of the best players, but this year many of the girls experienced growth spurts and now can spike a lot better than me. I have loved playing volleyball for as long as I can remember, but now, I worry about even making the team.

Frustrated in Flint

Dear Frustrated, It sounds like you really love playing volleyball and exhibit hard-working characteristics as an athlete. In that case you have fulfilled the requirements for success and should by all means continue to play. Try not to evaluate success by such outward measures as ranking as a top player in your school, but instead by whether you find passion and give your best effort. From what you have written I do not think you should worry about making the team, especially if you have already displayed to your coaches your passion and commitment to volleyball. Good coaches will value internal characteristics of a player such as enthusiasm for the sport and grit over external characteristics such as height or even athletic talent.

Dear Success Seminar, My parents, both track and field stars in college, made me sign up for the track team. I want to make them happy and work hard in practice, but I do not think I will make the varsity team and everytime I run I feel like a disappointment to them.

On top of that, I do not enjoy running very much and do not have many friends on the team.

Dejected in Denver

Dear Dejected, First, try not to put so much pressure on yourself. While hard work accounts for half the definition of success, the other half requires personal satisfaction in an activity, which will not occur under excessive pressure. Due to your parents’ achievements, I can see why you may feel pressure, but try to avoid unrealistic expectations.

While you could make lettering a goal of yours, you should not feel as if you must excel to please your parents. You can even ask your parents about their running careers- they probably experienced some difficulty at the very beginning, too!

In the meantime, you should introduce yourself to other team members and possibly establish new friendships with your teammates.

However, if you find you still truly do not enjoy running, you should not feel pressured to continue.

Remember that success entails personal satisfaction in addition to hard work and commitment, so if you do not enjoy an activity you most likely will not achieve success in all its aspects. Most parents do not expect their kids to grow up exactly like them, so I believe your parents will exhibit understanding and support your choices.

Pictured: Passion proves essential to success (Saloutos).

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Definitions of Success Seen Through John Wooden and Jay Carty’s ​Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success: Building Blocks for a Better Life​ and Sue Monk Kidd’s ​The Secret Life of Bees

The nonfiction work ​Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success: Building Blocks for a Better Life​, offers UCLA’s championship-winning basketball coach John Wooden’s and his apprentice Jay Carty’s step-by-step definition of success. Represented in the form of a pyramid, each building block accounts for an aspect of success, including “enthusiasm” and “industriousness” (Wooden 13). Wooden breaks his philosophy into 32 accessible and easy-to-follow daily readings. While his ten national championship titles as a coach could lead to a simple definition of success as a championship win, Wooden instead regards success as a “peace of mind” and “self satisfaction” from one’s own hard work (Wooden 12). Thus, the work contributes to the idea of success as a personal enjoyment of one’s own commitment. Additionally, Wooden and Carty add a unique perspective gleaned from their personal experiences with faith in religion; Wooden, a devout Christian, and Carty, a traveling preacher for 25 years after his college basketball career. Thus I conclude that the work, while a bit formulaic, offers a clear cut definition of success as personal satisfaction from such a as unique perspective as legendary basketball coach John Wooden.

Sue Monk Kidd’s fiction novel ​Secret Life of Bees ​explores the idea of success more indirectly. The story centers around Lily Owens, a fourteen-year-old on the run from her abusive father. Lily also seeks to learn

more about her deceased mother, and she makes her way to an address in Tiburon, South Carolina that she had found written in a box of her mother’s belongings. There, she meets the Boatwright sisters, who reveal several truths about her mother. Lily learns that her mother had left her with her abusive father, and on a later return to pick up Lily became caught in a fight with Lily’s father, in which Lily accidentally picked up a gun and killed her mother. The rest of the story then details Lily’s struggle as she suffers an enormous amount of guilt and harbors resent towards her mother’s irresponsibility and father’s abusiveness.

However, not until Lily learns to forgive herself, her mother, and even her father when the Boatwrights offer to adopt her, does she experience peace of mind. Thus ​The Secret Life of Bees​ portrays success as personal satisfaction, which Lily achieves after resolving her internal conflicts, in commitment and hard work, which Lily exhibits as she dedicates herself to the Boatwright’s beekeeping business and works to build a new life for herself in Tiburon.

Overall, I would prefer to read ​The Secret Life of Bees​. While C ​ oach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success ​offers a thorough and efficient definition of success and outline steps to achieve it, I personally enjoy the storytelling aspect of a fictional novel. Through Kidd’s compelling writing, I felt invested in her story, and could discern for myself her definition of success implied throughout the book.

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Discussing the Path to Success: Jen Seng Lee The first in his family to complete high school, Jen Seng Lee holds Master of Law Degrees from National Chung Hsing University, Indiana University, and New York University as well as a Master of Business Administration degree from New York University. Today, he holds bar association admissions and Certified Public Accountant licenses both in Taiwan and New York. Here, he discusses his views on success, which he defines through the achievement of personal goals. However, he also alludes to the internal satisfaction achieved through goal setting and speaks of the hard work and commitment necessary for achievement to occur.

Q: What drives you to continue goal setting? satisfaction when my goals are Can you think of any specific events in your life accomplished. The feeling of that you feel have caused your motivation to accomplishment usually serves as succeed? another force to push me to set more A: During my elementary and high goals for the next step of my life. school years, I worked on the fields of

our family farm over summer and Q: Can you think of any time when you winter vacations. I came to realize that experienced failure? How did experiencing farming is a laborious and time failure impact your determination towards consuming work. I saw my parents’ success? struggle, as sometimes, farmers have A: Experiencing failure caused me to no harvest at all even after hard work reflect on the causes of the failure, due to natural disasters such as making me determined not repeat it typhoons or floods. I resolved that, in again. Through failures, I realized that order to provide a more stable life for life is difficult and that I must my family, I could not be a farmer. overcome these difficulties to survive.

Therefore, I worked hard in school with That way, when I experience failure, it the goal to have opportunities other will not impact my determination than being a farmer. This became a towards success. Due to the language personal goal of mine, so I worked very barrier I experienced after immigrating hard in high school to be able to attend to America, it took me eight tries to college and secure a better education pass the New York bar examination. and future for myself and my family.

However, I always want to change my

self for better and do something good Q: Do you find personal satisfaction in goal for my family. Therefore, I plan in setting? advance and stick to it until fulfillment.

A: I had set many goals and plan to This mentality allowed me to persist achieve them so far. Fortunately, through failure, and I eventually many of my goals have been passed the New York bar examination completed as planned. I always feel and became a certified CPA.

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Pictured: Jen Seng Lee (third from right) with his wife (far left) and four granddaughters

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About the Author: Grace Lee

As second generation immigrants from South Korea and Taiwan, my parents have always emphasized to me the importance of hard work and education. Thus from a young age I worked hard to achieve success through academic performance.

However, I began to realize success did not merely entail sheer diligence. Instead, as I watched the example of my parents and many other inspirational figures, I noticed a common trait associated with success: passion. My father, for example, turned his passion for sports into a career as a doctor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Thus, my definition of success entails the personal satisfaction and enjoyment that comes from developing a passion in addition to hard work and commitment in a particular activity. Indeed, throughout my life I have found passions in several activities, allowing me to begin to experience this definition for myself.

I first developed a passion for stories. Since kindergarten I read books almost obsessively, and beginning in middle school began to write my own stories. The middle school Power of the Pen Team served as an extremely influential experience for me, as I could commit and work towards a more tangible result as a writer. In 2015 I placed in fifth at the Power of the Pen District tournament, and in 2016 placed in eighth at the State tournament.

Music serves as another passion for me. From the age of seven, I played the piano. Initially, I played

Pictured: Grace Lee

for the sole purpose of following through with my parents’ wishes, and although I made progress and practiced diligently, my reluctance proved that hard work alone cannot result in true success.

However, at my first recital I discovered an inner passion for music after listening to the older and more advanced students play. Through their performances, I realized music did not merely entail hitting the correct keys on a keyboard, but instead could serve as a storytelling medium. Much like writing, a performer could uniquely shape the way a series of notes sounded and made an audience feel. Once I discovered this connection to my passion for storytelling, I began to experienced improved results. Not only did I achieve the enjoyment aspect of my definition of success, but my playing began to improve technically and artistically, proving the relation between personal satisfaction and hard work. I qualified as a finalist in the Young Artist Division at the 2013 Cincinnati World Piano Competition, a semifinalist at the 2015 Carmel Debut International Piano Competition, and have performed as a National Federation of Music Clubs member since 2009. Overall, I express gratitude for the various opportunities that have allowed me to find personal satisfaction through writing and music. As diligence remains a value deeply ingrained into myself and my family, I will continue to work towards my definition of success by finding personal satisfaction in commitment and hard work.

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Works Cited

Anshel, Mark H. ​In Praise of Failure: The Value of Overcoming Mistakes in Sports and in Life​. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

Bethune, Ian. ​Former Women's Basketball Stars Return to Storrs for Team USA Training Camp​. 22 February 2016, ​The UConn Blog​, http://dailycampus.com/stories/2016/2/23/former-womens-basketball-stars-return-to-storrsfor-team-usa-training-camp.

Falco, Howard. “Grit, Grind and Mind: The Path of a Champion.” ​Huffington Post​, 6 December 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-falco/grit-grind-and-mind-the-p_1_b_7648672.htm.

Frey, Kaitlyn. “Vera Wang Reflects on More Than 20 Years of Designing Olympic Figure Skating Costumes.” ​People​, 8 February 2018, http://people.com/style/vera-wang-interview-design-figure-skating-costumes/.

Groysberg, Boris, and Robin Abrahams. “Manage Your Work, Manage Your Life.” ​Harvard Business Review​, 21 March 2014, https://hbr.org/2014/03/manage-your-work-manage-your-life.

Ha, Apeksha. “Five Sports Persons Who Failed At First”. ​Sportskeeda​, 11 November 2012, https://www.sportskeeda.com/football/five-athletes-who-failed-at-first.

Hester, Adam. “Happy Black Athlete Celebrating On Track”. 2018, ​Getty Images​, https://www.gettyimages.com/license/700710429.

Kidd, Susan M. ​The Secret Life of Bees​. Penguin, 2002.

Morgan, Troy P. “Grit and Student Athlete Performance: A Case Study.” ​University of New Mexico Digital Repository​, 9 June 2016, http://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=educ_hess_etds.

Neiman, Ryan. “True Grit: Top 10 Gutsiest Performances in Sports History.” ​Bleacher Report​, 25 January 2011, http://bleacherreport.com/articles/583727-true-grit-top-10-gutsiest-performances-in-sports-h istory.

Nisen, Max. “16 People Who Worked Incredibly Hard to Succeed”. ​Business Insider​, 5 September 2012, http://www.businessinsider.com/16-people-who-worked-incredibly-hard-to-succeed-2012-9.

Saloutos, Pete. “Group of Young American Football Players, Celebrating.” ​Getty Images, ​2018, https://www.gettyimages.com/license/597314821.

Stankovich, Chris. “The Importance of Passion and Purpose for Sport Success.” ​Advanced Human Performance Systems​, 21 July 2011, https://drstankovich.com/the-importance-of-passion-purpose-for-sport-success/.

Sullivan, John J. “Venus and Serena Against the World.” ​The New York Times, ​23 August 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/magazine/venus-and-serena-against-the-world.html?p agewanted=all.

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U.S. Figure Skating. ​Get Up PSA​. 2018, P ​ rofessional Skaters Association​, http://www.wegetup.com/GetUpPSA/.

“Vera Wang Biography.” ​Biography.com​, 2 April 2014, https://www.biography.com/people/vera-wang-9542398.

Wallace, Kelly. “In Coach’s Rant, A Lesson for Parents and Athletes.” ​CNN, ​23 March 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/22/health/uconn-basketball-auriemma-video-youth-sports-pa renting/index.html.

Wooden, John, and Jay Carty. ​The Pyramid of Success: Championship Philosophies and Techniques on Winning​. Revell, 2005.

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