I have always been passioned about the Olympic Games. The supreme athletes’ competition, held once every 4 years, has an epic ingredient, which comes from the history of humanity. 3000 years ago, the ancient Greeks had begun the long journey of sports. From the 8th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D., the common people met in Olympia, a settlement in the western Peloponnese peninsula, to compete in honor of the god Zeus. And the ingredient was Performance.
”The Olympians” are the ones that made these Games possible and who carried on their flame, starting with the first champion – the cook Coroebus, who won the 192 meter race in the first ”documented” ancient Olympic Games edition, from 776 B.C. Altogether champions and defeated, they wrote, and continue to write a wonderful story, full of abnegation, ambition, work, talent, trust, and courage.
This ancient tradition was rekindled in Athens by Pierre de Coubertin in 1896. From the original combat sports and athletics, we now have 33 summer sports and 15 winter sports, with their many disciplines.
Citius. Altius. Fortius. Faster, Higher, Stronger. The Olympic motto is a call for scaling new heights, broaden the horizons, setting higher standards, and becoming better.
In my newest book called Demigods, Aliens, & Ordinary people, I make the connection between the Olympic Games and the business world and I’ve identified 14 tools for improving peak performance. Chris, the main hero of the book, is an athlete with a career I have followed since the very beginning when he was just a young boy. Over the years, using these 14 tools, Chris managed to represent Canada in Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000, competing in backstroke swimming.
The sports/business parallel is always captivating and many of the heroes I included in the book have proven that they have a compelling argument to inspire those who strive for peak performance in either business, work or in life.
In addition to my hero, I also needed a few more benchmarks to corroborate my findings. I was very fortunate to meet many successful Romanian Olympic athletes and coaches such as Nadia Comaneci and Octavian Bellu. Luck was on my side when Nadia and Octavian agreed to answer my questions, and this was the additional piece of credibility that gives the reader something that is interesting, relevant, and pragmatic.
Starting from “the 10,000 hours rule” (which stipulates that people who excel at anything, require at least 10,000 hours of practice to master one area) and, with the help of the 14 peak performance tools, Demigods, Aliens, & Ordinary people is a book about great athletes, intellectual giants, creative geniuses, or ordinary people who touch our lives. We all have heroic figures to whom we look up; talented people from whom we draw inspiration, real people who guide and mentor us in our quest to become the best version of ourselves.
Given 2021 is an Olympic year, I would like to wish success to all the Romanian athletes who will be competing at the Tokyo Olympic Games, hoping that their preparation leads them to achieving their lifetime dreams of Gold at the Olympic games. Bafta!