Nike, Tigers, and Idiots – Oh my!

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When I saw this ad recently, I nearly hurled something at my laptop – a Nike running shoe no less. “Winning takes care of everything.” Bullcrap. It’s a stupid ad at best, at worst, it’s giving a horrible message to everyone that looks at it.

This is the sentiment I used to believe. I couldn’t win at anything. I was a loser. Therefore, things weren’t worth doing. Life wasn’t worth doing.

Well Mr Woods, you may be a champion golfer, but did that make you a better human being? Does that somehow make all the skankiness in your past okay? I have news for you — you are the same person inside whether you finished first or last.

Accomplishments and worth shouldn’t based on speed or score. It should be based on the finishing something that was hard! I know a man who can balance on one arm and put his legs over his head in a master yoga pose. It’s effortless for him. I have a yoga client that after a year, can do a downward facing dog. It’s work and it’s not perfect, but he does it anyway even though it’s hard. In my opinion, I think yoga man #2 has the greater accomplishment.

I strongly dislike the term winning. I tend to like to substitute it for finishing. While I won’t claim, “Finishing takes care of everything” – it does change an awful lot.

I believe every person who starts a race and crosses the finish is a winner. In fact I would give a special medal to the larger woman in the back that has to run three times as long to go the same distance. She’s the winner. She can do anything.

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