We’ve been talking a lot about how champions maximize minutes—giving everything they’ve got into being the best versions of themselves. Thank you, John Wooden, Vince Lombardi, and Dan Millman for your wisdom. Today we’e going to invite Gandhi to the party to establish the fact that this isn’t a SPORTS idea, it’s a SPIRITUAL ideal. Here’s how Gandhi puts it: “Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.” Full effort is full victory. We do our best, let go of the results and then get back to doing our best. That wisdom is a central theme of Gandhi’s handbook, the Bhagavad Gita. Now, for a fun twist, let’s bring the conversation back to sports. Have you ever heard of The Legend of Bagger Vance? It’s an old-school movie starring Will Smith and Matt Damon. Guess what they’re doing? Playing golf. Short story: Matt Damon (playing Rannulph Junuh) has lost his mojo on the course. His caddy Will Smith (Bagger Vance) teaches him to trust his swing again. The movie is based on a book written by a guy named Steven Pressfield who, in addition to being a great author, is also a master of the creative process. I consider his trilogy on the creative process must reads. (See Notes on The War of Art, Do the Work and Turning Pro.) But get this: “The Legend of Bagger Vance” is really just the “Bhagavad Gita” on a golf course. (Get it? Bagger Vance… Bhagavad Gita…) In the Gita, we have a reluctant warrior named Arjuna (sounds a lot like Rannulph Junuh, eh?). Arjuna is counseled by the mighty Krishna who, basically, tells him to trust his swing and do what he’s here to do. Take that spiritual wisdom, put it on a golf course, throw two huge stars in there and voila, we have a sports movie delivering some pretty legit wisdom. Which, of course, is why sports are so popular. The super-clearly-defined rules of a given sport give us an opportunity to see life’s bigger challenges play out in a 60-minute game. For now, let’s bring all this wisdom back to our lives via a couple more sources of wisdom. In The War of Art, Pressfield tells us that we need to go from being “amateurs” to being “Professionals” in our creative lives. One of the key attributes of the professional? Here’s how he puts it: “The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like.” In other words, full effort is full victory. We do our best, let go of the results and then get back to doing our best. Pressfield got that wisdom from the Gita. Flip open that classic manual on the art of living to find this gem: “The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results.” In other words, full effort is full victory. We do our best, let go of the results and then get back to doing our best. That’s Today’s +1. Remember: Full effort is full victory. Let’s do our best, let go of results and then get back to doing our best.
