Audience Development Group 

Midweek Motivator

         Falling Up                                            October 20, 2010
Tim Moore
Tim Moore 
Managing Partner
Audience Development Group
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Gifted with talent, burdened by expectation, Paul Hamm in workmanlike fashion began moving through his routines: six events stood between Hamm and a first-ever Gold Medal in Olympic Men's All-Around Gymnastics. Each competitor approached the psychology of competition through a different prism. Chinese career Gymnast Yang Wei for example told the press, "If I don't win the Gold, my life has counted for little." Hamm entered the arena as Wei's major rival accepting the role of favorite, loose with calm dispatch.

 

Halfway into the meet leading Wei by .038 Hamm raced toward the Vault. His launch looked good as he hit the springboard, catapulting out of orbit for the vault turning one and a half somersaults, hitting the mat in a crouch with a catastrophic loss of stabilization. Hamm canted sideways off the mat, careening into the judges' table. Stunningly Paul Hamm's life as a world-class Gymnast suddenly vaporized. Before a hushed arena the humbled athlete left the podium, looking up only long enough to see his score: 9.137. He had in one sliver of time and space, fallen from first to worst...12th place, a half point behind the leader; an almost insurmountable margin in the unforgiving calculus of Olympic Gymnastics.

 

With two events left in his six-event routine, Hamm faced his reality of Gold gone-glimmering, and the disappointment that would follow all the days of his life as surely as sunlight finds the sand. Enveloped in this surreal up-or-out predicament, Hamm attacked the parallel bars with a perfect routine and dismount, scoring a sensational 9.837. One by one, competitors fell away with mistakes. South Korea's Yang missed contact and collapsed to the ground with medal hopes gone. Japan's Yoneda fell in a similar move, forfeiting glory.

 

Suddenly the impossible door of destiny re-opened for Hamm when Yang's serviceable-but-unremarkable routine ended, giving him his chance. Hamm eyed the high bar as a gambler eyes a strong hand. A picture of calm, Hamm started swinging slowly building more power, more momentum, with every motion: blind throws more than ten feet in the air; moves that defied skills even extreme acrobats wouldn't try. Hamm needed a 9.825 on the high bar...so he nailed it.

 

In an Olympic moment held in crystalline stasis for all time, Paul Hamm had done the impossible: from first to worst, then back to first, in the course of three events! His incredible victory was the closest point margin in Olympic history.

 

We must accept that just when we're winning, a thunderbolt can knock us off azimuth threatening our will to compete; a bad trend, a missed goal, a failed strategy. Paul Hamm lived the principle that says failure is never final and the timeless Satchel Page apothegm:"Ain't no chance, if you don't take it."


Sincerely,
 
Tim Moore     
Tim Moore
Managing Partner
Audience Development Group
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