Remember Dan Jansen, the Olympic speed skater whose sister Jane died of leukemia on the day of his 500 meter race in Calgary in 1988? Had the fates been kind, Jansen would have won that 500 meter race he dedicated to his sister, or at least the 1,000 meter race he skated four days later. Instead, he stumbled twice and went over in defeat.
You can write his mistakes off to grief and be partly right. But it wasn't just sadness that made him stumble. It was fear of success, too, and possibly survivor's guilt. He just didn't feel right celebrating a victory so soon after his sister's death. It was more important to mourn her passing.
Six years later, he felt more ready and deserving of the honor. In fact, he felt worthy enough to set a new Olympic world record in the 1,000 meter race at Lillehammer and to take victory laps with his daughter Jane nestled in his arms.
While such well deserved victories are obviously heart warming, Jansen believes that the battle to accomplish your goals is more important than any medal or award. Some of his fans agree.
One of his favorite post Olympian memories came from a well wisher who told him: "You would've been a hero whether you won the race or not." Like Jansen, she believed that his ability to persist in the face of adversity was every bit as admirable as the medal. Jansen's father agrees, saying that the way his son handles his defeats is every bit as impressive as the way he handles victory.
This is not about being a good loser. It is about the dignity of wholehearted commitment and effort.
Prejudice
Some failures are the result of ignorance not your own, but other people's. Such ignorance typically reveals itself in the form of racism, sexism or ageism.
A successful accountant in Philadelphia was his employer's "favorite son" right up until the day the company discovered he was gay and summarily discharged him. What resulted was a down and dirty lawsuit that the accountant eventually lost. But in the process, he gained something more important: a sense of integrity. Never again would he hide his sexual orientation. He vowed that from then on, he'd always live an openly homosexual life.
He also decided to establish his own practice. He was gratified to discover that most clients care little about their accountant's sexual orientation and a great deal about his or her ability to save them tax dollars. This knowledge made him much more secure about his professional future and place in the human community.
For people who have felt the need to hide their religion, sexual preferences, age or other sensitive information from their employers, to have that information come out into the open can be liberating, even if they end up losing a job as a result (which hopefully they won't).
While how much personal information you reveal should always be your choice, you won't always have that luxury. Should you find yourself on the wrong end of prejudice and ignorance, you can use it to affirm your essential values. Standing up for who you are and what you believe can armor you with self knowledge and resiliency that will make it difficult for anyone to successfully undermine you.
Poor Support Systems
The power of community was probably the single greatest variable in the success and failure of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist during World War II, whose exploits have been recorded for posterity by writer Thomas Kenneally and dramatized by Steven Spielberg in Schindler's List.
Schindler was a conniving, manipulative womanizer whose initial goal was to exploit a wartime economy by using the Jewish people as cheap labor to staff his start up enamelware company. His motivation was strictly economic self interest. What he didn't bargain for was the incredible father son relationship he would develop with his chief accountant Itzhak Stern, and how Schindler's desire to please his surrogate father would so transform his psyche.
Stern was an astute businessman who taught Schindler how to make money. In the process, he also taught him love and compassion for the people who brought him profits. Eventually, Schindler's mission to save the people who worked for him became larger and more important than his desire to make money and did, indeed, interfere with his capitalistic motives. By the time the war was over, the wealthy Schindler was a poor man who had managed to save hundreds of lives.
After the war, without his trusted business adviser, Schindler was never able to grow a viable business again. He died a poor man, dependent on the people he'd saved for his own survival.
Was Schindler a success or a failure?
In his lifetime, Schindler succeeded and failed several times.
Financially, he did not succeed.
In other ways, it's more difficult to judge.
In Israel, he always received a hero's welcome from the people he had saved. In his native country, he was often jeered as a Jew lover.
Maybe it isn't fair to judge a man's life in terms of some great final curtain call. Schindler's greatest accomplishments occurred in the middle of his life, when a trusted adviser and a nobler purpose created a unique window of opportunity for him to succeed financially. Ironically, at a time when he was most able to achieve financial success, he cared more for something (or someone) else.
That Oskar Schindler, a conniving, manipulative womanizer, was capable of such noble acts should give us all pause for thought.
Strong people connections were also at the heart of Dan Jansen's ability to recover from his setbacks at Calgary. Jansen (who credits much of his success to his extensive network of supportive family and friends) uses a technique called the "mental war room," which he learned from sports psychologist Jim Loer.
The room is a place he peoples with his favorite memories, photographs, conversations and even songs. When the outside world threatens to overwhelm his capacity to concentrate, he goes into his "mental war room" for comfort and calm.
