it's hard to beat someone who won't give up

i've been thinking a lot about sports lately, mostly because i haven't played anything in a very looong while, which is both painful and shameful. And i think that if i don't play at least some ping-pong or badminton very soon i'm gonna start crying.

But anyway. The interesting thing is that i've come across some very interesting connections to sports recently, which made me think a little. First of all, i listened to the first IQads podcast (ro), which brought together Adrian Botan, Creative Director McCann-Erickson and Bogdan Naumovici, Creative Director Leo Burnett. And Bogdan said something which i considered to be brilliantly "sad but true", namely that our advertising industry is the "industry of the exempted from sports, the losers of the class", which explains both the behavior, and the results of many people around. Then, Mihai Coliban's article (ro) expanded Bogdan's assertion, making some great points about these people, these "exempted from sports", who don't know anything about competition, about wanting to win, about respecting, but beating your opponent, about effort and what it actually takes to win and so on. All these great things that sports teach you, and without which you become "exempted from ambition".

On the other hand, Paul Colman gave a brilliant record of his marathon, which was also discussed by Russell. I had all these things in mind and i realised just how much i learnt from sports, both from playing individually, and in a team. Now i've never been a pro, but "serious playing" :) started when i was about 8 or 9 and my neighbours and i started to have badminton championships in front of our blocks of flats. Each day, a new championship. Sometimes we'd even collect points and establish a weekly or monthly top. Sometimes we'd organize some mixed championships, with badminton, voleyball and a sort of football. And this lasted until i was about 15. About 7 years of daily championships :), and i was the only girl in the group, and i felt like i needed to win and be better and better, especially since one of the guys was training intensely to become pro-tennis player (which he did, in the mean time). After all this, i've continued playing basketball in highschool, until i had some severe problems with my right hand and was forced to stop. Kids games maybe, but I learnt fair play and ambition and working harder and harder in order to win. I learnt to exploit my will, my willingness, my competitiveness, my instincts in order to win. I think i gained a winning mentality. Or at least i hope so. But no wonder the words of Vince Lombardi keep on coming into my mind again and again, and sometimes simply resonate daily:

• Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.
• We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.
• If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?
• Winners never quit and quitters never win.
• Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.
• The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.
• Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser.
• Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later the man who wins, is the man who thinks he can.
• Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.
• The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall.
• Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.
• Dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price.
• A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.
• But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, his greatest fulfillment of all he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.

and so on. image courtesy gapingvoid.