WHY team work

So you might be thinking WHY! It’s all about TEAM work?

Would you agree that these games have been so exciting? And so much to celebrate, especially if you like me, as a “Brit”, have been watching Team G.B. achieve our “Best Olympics ever” finishing ahead of China and coming 2nd in the medals table. As we have now reached the end of the Olympic games in Rio 2016 “The Greatest Show In The World” like me,  you maybe already eagerly anticipating the Paralympics that start on the 7th September.

Looking at the results: 27 gold, 23 silver and 17 bronze from the Cycling with the most medals to Badminton & Judo with a bronze each you can see the vast array of individual medals and team medals we’ve won.

From the surprise gold for ‘Magic” Max Whitlock to the “at last” moment for veteran Nick Skelton in the show jumping and even for the “youngest star” at just 16 years old, Amy Tinkler, who won a bronze, you can see how much the medals mean to them.

We also saw how disappointment can far outweighed the delight of winning a medal, as Lutalo Muhammad won a sliver:

“I’m so distraught,” said a tearful Muhammad after his defeat.

“I was so close to becoming Olympic champion and making my dream”

“I don’t want to cry but I am so sorry to the people that stayed up to watch. I let them down at the last second. This is so hard”

These scenes got me thinking about how much harder it is to be a lone sportsman or woman – all the pressure just on one and even those individuals who were celebrating their wins with big smiles still looked vulnerable and isolated, alone on the podium.

Compared to the scene of the ladies hockey team as Hollie Webb scored the winning penalty as you can see here, the teammates all ran together to share in the glory.

Hockey team GB

It was the words of the women’s hockey captain Kate Richardson-Walsh that really summed up the games for me:

We wanted to be the difference, create history and inspire the future

And this is exactly what they did – as a team.

So you might be thinking what am I trying to say – that the individual medal winners were not as important? Should we only play team sports?

Well, no, that isn’t what I’m saying at all, you see those individual medals were not really won alone, they just looked alone. Think about it behind every success is a TEAM, whether or not it is obvious. For example Nick Skelton couldn’t have won his gold medal without his beautiful horse Big Star and all of the Olympians had managers and coaches that we saw celebrating from the side lines and there are of course the unsung heroes that are not front stage and centre, the family, the friends and those that keep the “star” going in.

You see without these unsung heroes the star wouldn’t be stars. And WHY! Well it’s because we are not designed to do it alone, as Marion Bevington (co-creator of The Live Love Laugh Lounge) wrote in a recent blog Collaborate or Compete. Here she shares how the concept of being separate and alone breeds fear and “set us up to become cut-throat, competitive and self-centred.”

All of this makes me think about the Ego, and how it can lead to such ugly traits (we’ll discuss that in detail in a future blog) it can be the part of you that feels attacked and afraid and this is when all those “trust” issues come to the forefront, ideas like “I can’t trust anyone” or “No-one can do this as good as me”, “I can only rely on myself…” It’s a downward spiral my friend… And I’m sure you know how it feels to be on the receiving end too, you know the one where you are supportive and co-operative and you contribute to or do something great and then someone else takes all the glory… So that’s what I mean by UGLY!

Going back to Nick he said you have to trust to be part of a TEAM, that is to be part of a winning TEAM. That’s because T.E.A.M is all about sharing the load, sharing the glory and sharing the joy; because I believe Together Everyone Achieves More!

So I’d like you take a minute, to nominate those who are in your TEAM and who you would like to award a medal to, put this in the chat box below.

In the meantime remember to Live Love Laugh everyday, and continue to be you in your unique way – because your TEAM needs YOU!

Love Cheryl x

If this resonates with you, you might like to get your hands on a copy of the book Find Your WHY! to become frickin’ awesome (the book is FREE all you need to pay for is a small fee towards shipping & handling)

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