Laurie's Blogs.

Have you been glued to the television?  It’s been hard to pull away from all of the Olympic action!  Of course, I love watching the Canadians, but it’s been awesome watching some of the other countries do well.  I find that I’m also loving watching anytime that Brazil plays as well, because it’s awesome to watch and hear the crowd get so passionate about cheering for their home team.  But what I want to tell you is about how Canadians view Olympic medals.

Every night, my hubby and I watch highlights of the Olympics for the day and watch how the Canadians did.  So, if you look at the medal standings, nobody else can touch the number of medals racked up by the USA.  But does that make the rest of the teams failures or losers?  NO! They are still top in their country.  They are still competing with the very best in the world.  They still deserve to be celebrated.

Now what struck me was on day 5, when the TV announces exuberantly announced that Canada had won a medal EVERY day of he Olympics.  We were five for five!!!  And I found myself feeling so full of pride!  Then I went online to see where we stood in the medal standings, just to realize that we were #22 in the medal standings.  Hmmm.  But I found that I was still happy and proud and so delighted for our athletes.  As I write this, we are #10 in the total medal standings (#20 in gold medal counting), but this Olympics has seen Canada win more medals than we have EVER won in a Summer Olympics.  

So I wonder to myself, is this just a Canadian thing?  Are we just easy to please for a personal best?  As excited for a bronze medal as we are for a gold?  Delighted to have qualified?  Eager to announce that ‘Athlete so-and-so’ made the best debut in a certain sport as compared to any Canadian before him.  Proud to mention each and every athlete and how they did in their sport that day, even if it was a non-qualification?  This is how I found the Canadian Broadcast Corporation to be announcing the Olympics for Canadian viewers.  Is it just a Canadian thing?  No, ‘rah, rah, we’re the best’.  No leaving out athletes that didn’t medal.  Just a pride for what we did accomplish – no ego – no arrogance – just happiness.  And I thought to myself, ‘What can I take away from experiencing the Olympics in this way?’

This made me think about competition, and more specifically competition in business.  So one way of looking at competition is to believe that the goal is to win all the time:  “Be the best, destroy the rest.”   But whom does this serve?  It only serves your ego and your greed.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I do want you to be your best, and to do the best you can, and to continue to get better, and provide better and better services, and to grow your business.  These are all worthy goals to strive for!  Do not get complacent!  However, can’t there be more than one winner?  If all rehab facilities & practitioners delivered top quality service, wouldn’t it be the animals that are the real winners?

This leads me to the following:

1) I remember talking to a businesswoman a number of years ago, and she said, “I wonder if I would have as much passion for doing this if my competition didn’t exist?”   We discussed it for a while, and we came to the conclusion that ‘no competition’ might not be as exciting.

2) Another ‘new-to-rehab’ person just e-mailed me 2 nights ago.  She was tickled pink (aka. Happy) because at a recent agility trial, she had a booth and saw a number of injured dogs and had worked collaboratively with some massage therapists to treat the dogs in a very wholistic way.  She was over the moon (aka. Happy) with her success at the event and the collaboration she had with the massage practitioners.  

3) The last point I want to bring forth stems from the multitude of e-mails I’ve received over the last few years.  I’ve received dozens upon dozens of e-mails from practitioners thanking me for teaching them something, or for a piece of information learned on FourLeg that helped them to treat a particular patient of theirs.  “Without your teaching, I never would have known where to look or how to fix that problem.”  So, let’s put that into the achieving a ‘personal best’ for that practitioner.

And when we put it all together, here’s what the Olympics has made me realize.  

• Be grateful for your competition.  They force you to strive to be better, and in the end, more animals are being served because you both (or all) exist.

• Can you collaborate?  Can you make your services about ‘patient centred care’ and look at what others can bring to the table for the best interest of the patient?  Can everyone win?

• Strive for your personal best.  Learn more.  Do more.  Be more.

On that note, Yah Canada!  Number 10 in the world (or #20 if you only care about gold) of the Olympic summer games!

Cheers!  Laurie