Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
The Drive to Win
The mind-set of a champion
The Zone, and how to get there
Desire + Action = Motivation
The four great fears
What makes a winner?
The stair-step method
Nobody else is going to take you fishing
The Mind-set of a Champion
The human spirit . . . the triumph over pain . . . the new dynamics of winning. On July 23, 1989, they all come together in one unforgettable moment.
A young man on a bicycle is speeding along the roads of France. His mind is focused on just one thing -- get to Paris as fast as he possibly can. His name is Greg LeMond. And in the final leg of the Tour de France, the world's most famous bike race, Greg LeMond, from Wayzata, Minnesota, is performing one of the most remarkable feats in the history of any sport.
For a moment, pretend you're there with him. Try to imagine what he feels: pain, fatigue, perhaps doubt that the task can be successfully accomplished, but at the same time, an unshakable determination to give the very best effort possible. I want you, through your imagination, to put yourself as close as you can to Greg LeMond in that race.
It's vitally important that you do this. Because you, and all of us in American business, are facing a situation that's very much analogous to that which confronted Greg LeMond in 1989. It makes no difference whether you're part of a large corporation, or own a business, or make your living in sales and marketing.
You want to build a good life for yourself and your family. You're determined to providefor the education of your children, and for your own retirement, and for all the things you want to do right now. But you're living in a global village where competition, change, and complexity are increasing at unprecedented speed. The unexpected is occurring on a daily basis. The opportunities are still there, certainly, but you're going to have to prepare yourself differently, train more thoroughly, act more intelligently and proactively and anticipate future trends. You're going to have to make them happen.
What will it take to succeed? Hard work, of course. Careful decision-making. Technical expertise. The support of friends and family. Those are all part of it, but what's most important is your ability to access the inner resources of strength and commitment that are the defining characteristics of a champion in any field.
In these pages, I'll help you to do that. I'll show you how the same mental training and self-motivating techniques that worked for champions like Greg LeMond can work for you.
Now, picture this: LeMond starts fifty seconds behind the leader, Laurent Fignon of France. The final leg of the race is just twenty-four kilometers, or about fifteen miles-too short a distance for LeMond to have a chance of catching Fignon.
The French are already celebrating. Fignon is a certain winner. That's what the experts say.
But the experts can't see into the mind and heart of Greg LeMond. The experts can't see his burning desire or his willingness to pay the price for victory. The experts write off Greg LeMond, but the man himself never gives up. Because he's already overcome something bigger than just fifty seconds in a bike race -- he's had to fight the greatest battle of all: the fight to stay alive.
Greg LeMond is racing toward Paris with thirty shotgun pellets in his body. Two of them are in his heart.
In April, 1987, on a hunting trip at a ranch near Lincoln, California, LeMond, his uncle, and brother-in-law split up while in the woods. Because they couldn't see each other, a disaster occurred. A shotgun blast broke the silence, and sixty number-two-size shotgun pellets ripped through the back and side of Greg LeMond. His brother-in-law had accidentally shot him.
Greg thought he was dying, but a helicopter rescued him. He was taken to a hospital and somehow he survived. He endured the worst pain he had ever known, but he made it. Somehow champions always do. It's 10 percent talent and 90 percent guts and determination. All this made Greg LeMond a superstar. He'd already won the Tour de France in 1986, the first person from outside Europe ever to win this great race. After the accident, all his inner qualities, all that mental fortitude, brought him back from the edge of death.
Not only did he recover, but he returned to bike racing, even though thirty of those shotgun pellets were still inside his body. The road back to a championship was brutal and punishing. It was so hard that at one point he almost quit.
The same year as the accident he went back into the hospital for another operation, this time for appendicitis. After being almost completely out of action for twelve months, he suffered a tendon injury the following year that required surgery, and he had to give up nearly another full summer of racing. But champions are made of special stuff, and Greg LeMond hung in.
And it all pays off on that warm day in July.
The New Dynamics of Winning. Copyright © by Denis Waitley. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
