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Speech to 'What Makes a Champion?' in Beijing
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This is China's moment. A moment to celebrate its culture, civilisation and achievement. A moment to thank the Chinese people for their warmth, their ingenuity and their enterprise. A moment to recognise that whatever the challenges - political, social and economic - there is, in this country, the will, the determination and the humanity to make the future work for China; and in partnership with other nations and cultures, to make it work for people everywhere.
What makes a Champion? We must start with an uncomfortable truth: natural talent helps and especially in sport!
I remember still, almost 45 years ago now, running in my first competitive race at my school Sports Day. I remember the running track, grass freshly mowed. A sunny day. The race was over 440 yards. Four times round our small track. I settled in behind the lead runner, calculating to overtake him on the last bend before the straight run to the finish. The race went to plan until just as I reached the bend, I tried to sprint forward. Suddenly, my legs just didn't have the energy. The mental will was there. The physical capacity was not. I remember that feeling of shock and disappointment now as clear as I did then, the disconnection between desire and ability. I still have my silver cup for coming second. But silver was not what I wanted. I wanted gold.
We will applaud the champions of the Olympics knowing that most of us would never have been able to do what they have done.
But I chose to try to be a champion in a different field and it is also true that most people have innate talent at something. Champions are not just athletes. They are scientists, entrepreneurs, artists, philanthropists. They are people who the world sees in photos and on TV, people of fame and wealth. But they are just as often people no one outside a small circle has heard of: champions of compassion, of fortitude under suffering, of works of humanity towards others. Such champions often enjoy less fame or fortune when alive; but are more often commemorated after death. They are champions of the human spirit.
So it is right that not everyone can be a champion. But many, perhaps even most of us, have the capacity to do something exceptionally well. Most of us have a gift.
The issue is: how to develop that gift? What are the qualities that take the talent and turn it into an achievement, that translate the ordinary into the extraordinary?
Because for sure, there is a part, perhaps even the major part of being a champion that is not to do with natural physique or natural intellect but is to do with character, attitude, the dimension of the mind that can be discovered and developed. You can improve.
You can, in doing so, cross the line between the average and the good and in time even the line between the good and the outstanding.
It can be dangerous to describe rules of improvement, to try to codify the qualities. Champions are about exceptions, not rules.
Nonetheless, I believe it is possible to identify characteristics you find in champions. I have chosen seven.
First, success comes to those who strive. Striving is a better concept than merely being competitive. In the Bible, Jacob is renamed after wrestling with God whilst asleep. He was thereafter called Israel meaning striving with God. To me, striving is more than wanting to be the best. It means even if you are the best, striving to be better. It is the product of a spirit that is restless for still greater things. It can mean a state of perpetual dissatisfaction, certainly with yourself.
Of course, it shows up in a strong competitive streak when in a race, be that in sport or a political campaign or anything else. But it is also an attitude that illustrates that the competitor is as much competing with himself as with others in the same race.
Secondly, champions are creative people. They are innovative. They are always pushing to the new frontier. They don't accept the "givens" of any field of endeavour. They challenge them. They are non-conventional people. Anyone I have ever met in any field, who is successful, is creative. That applies, incidentally, to the lawyer or the banker as much as the artist or thinker. The creative process is always fascinating to behold. It begins with an analytical capability that is free, not hidebound; not shackled to what has gone before.
I always found in politics that people had an amazing predisposition to conduct a debate within very defined parameters. This is what to be left-wing meant. This is what right-wing meant. This is the way the state works. This is how public services or welfare systems operate. Within the parameters debate is lively. But the parameters themselves are rarely challenged. Creative people challenge the parameters. They go back to the first principles of a subject. They ask not the superficial but the profound questions.
Which brings me to the third quality. Champions are endlessly inquisitive. I begin every day, hoping to learn something new. I regularly contemplate the vast expanses of my ignorance. I was hopeless at science at school. I regretted it ever since. I would love to learn about it now. But even in my chosen field of politics I am always searching for new insights, for original thinking, for something that makes me think anew and afresh. This also means knowing you can be wrong. You may have to re-think, and possibly radically. The characteristic of a champion is that they are prepared to do so.
All of this takes application and hard work.The fourth quality is therefore self discipline. That is more than just the hours you put in. But it is the discipline to lay aside other pleasures and concentrate hard on your own development. It is about focus and single mindedness. I remember meeting a famous pop star once who you may have thought was just a good time rock and roller. I asked him: "how do you do it?" and before he could reply, his partner said simply: "he is the most disciplined person I know". It is not just about deciding to work rather than spend an extra hour in the bar. It is about absorption in your task, about deep not shallow thought, about getting down to the core of what you are trying to achieve. It is about not accepting second best; about knowing in your heart, when something is not good enough and can and should be better. Notice that this is self discipline. Past a certain point, you and only you can provide that intensity of will.
The fifth quality is courage. No champion is without courage. It may be physical, it may be intellectual. It may be of mind or body. There is no greater courage than that shown by the Paralympians. These are the people who have not just demonstrated the normal will-power of champions, but in doing so have overcome by their passion to succeed their disability. Their courage gives hope to all. Special salutations to them.
Courage is invariably found in a champion. Inevitably a champion is out in front. Championship is like leadership. When things are in the balance, when you cannot be sure, when others are uncertain or hesitate, when the very point is that the outcome is in doubt; that is when a leader steps forward. The soldier who comes to help his fallen comrade. The health worker who risks their life to save the lives of others. The political activist who stands up for what is right when what is right is not what is popular or expedient. This is the person who when the mantle of responsibility is floating free reaches out and puts it on. The courage lies not in acting without fear; but in acting despite fear.
Such people are the people who are prepared just to go for it; to back their instinct when their instinct is all the certainty they are going to get. Taking the uncalculated risk is just foolhardy. But a calculated risk is still a risk. Calculate too much and you miscalculate. You wait for the perfect moment when such moments rarely if ever exist. At a certain point you have to step forward, with an insecure terrain beneath your feet.
What this means is that you must also be prepared to fail. This is the sixth and possibly the toughest quality of all. The strange irony of the champion is that the champion must be able to live with failure as well as enjoy success. The very act of courage, of leadership that sees you step out into the unknowable, carries with it the possibility of defeat. You must be willing to be humbled as well as exalted. You must accept that the risk, however calculated, may not pay off.
One of the most common reasons why people don't strive is the fear of failure. Yet virtually no one I have ever met who has succeeded, has not failed first. The question is what you learn from the experience, what you learn not just about the process of competing, but about yourself, the strengths you should exploit, the weaknesses you must eliminate.
The seventh quality is one some will disagree with; but which I think is the most essential of all. I believe that if you are to be a true champion, you must be motivated by more that "you". If the striving is purely selfish, if the love of personal achievement is purely the personal glory, something is missing; some aspect of championship that is elusive in definition but critical in action, Some people may see this in spiritual terms; that is one way of looking at it. Another way is simply a belief that to achieve to the highest level and beyond, to extend the frontiers of human knowledge or activity, is in and of itself, something good or worthy, noble even; that fulfils a purpose beyond your own recognition of your own self worth.
There is a reason why so many people who are champions look to use their success in helping others. Such a sentiment is located somewhere in the champion's character. It is the same reason you chose Nelson Mandela to launch this idea at the Sydney Olympics in the year 2000. Over the next three to six weeks or so of the Olympics and Paralympics, this city will be sparkling with the glittering accomplishments of the greatest sporting event in the world and billions around the world will share in the expectation, excitement and exhilaration of it all.
But we know in this same world, there is poverty, ignorance, and disease all of it preventable if humanity had the will. We know there is conflict and discord where fellow human beings suffer and die. We know there are challenges like the changing of our climate, which call us to take responsibility and to lead.
This month it is the Olympics. Next month, with rather less fanfare and publicity, will be the UN General Assembly where we will debate the Millennium Development Goals set by the world's nations in the year 2000 and due to be met in the year 2015. At present we will not meet them. We will fail, and if we do, the price is paid in the lives and misery of those who also would like to strive and compete in the world's myriad of opportunities to be champions, but who cannot.
The true champion is not just a winner. He or she is a person of compassion, of humanity, motivated by a sense of obligation to others as strong as the will to succeed for themselves.
So as we think of the champions who will stand proud on the podium, with their medals, with their nation's anthem ringing in their ears, let a part of the Olympiad spirit that is about human dignity as well as human achievement, take us to the places in our world desperate for our help. Let us hear the cries of the poor, dispossessed and oppressed, and summon up the true character of the champion to answer them.
Felicitations once again to the Chinese people. We are delighted to share in your pride and happiness. We wish this great country of China well for the Olympics and Paralympics. Thank you.
ENDS
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