LEARN
Something Worth SharingWhat You Need to Hear I absolutely love the Olympics and have revelled in the wondrous achievements of so many athletes over the past week. While I wish I could have fully immersed myself in each and every sport, I did have work to do! However, on Wednesday July, 31st I had to stop what I was doing to pay full attention to the triathlon. Given that a triathlon takes about 2hrs 45mins to complete, I’d had it on the TV in the background while I carried on with my various tasks for the day. Every so often I’d glance to see that the GB athlete Alex Yee was in the “leading group”. I’d spotted that as time ticked by and their third discipline of running was well underway, the clear leader was Hayden Wilde from New Zealand. Alex was in second place and considerably behind Hayden - with the French athlete Léo Bergère drawing ever-closer to potentially push Alex into third. They were now on the final lap and my hopes were dashed, until the commentator excitedly said, “Alex is catching Hayden!” This was the point I put down my pen. What happened next was incredible. Alex had fallen 18 seconds behind the leader and was suddenly accelerating. He overtook the leader - who couldn’t fight back - and Alex sprinted to the finish line to be crowned Olympic champion. It was an unbelievable spectacle - and as the commentators discussed the events that unfolded, even they were asking ‘what happened to make Alex accelerate like that?’ The answer was four words. One of GB’s most decorated triathletes Alistair Brownlee was in the crowd and shouted “Anything can happen, mate!”. This message - along with who shouted it - was the magic needed to push Alex Yee on. It gave him hope, belief and drive. The learning for me this week is the power of hearing what you need to hear. There are 3 elements of a message which are important in its delivery of hope, belief and drive: WHAT you need to hear WHEN you need to hear it WHO you need to hear it from
Read about the story in the Guardian
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