Continuing on possibilities, I looked at cases of master piece performances, to find out the missing ingredient, the one that takes good performance to excellent or excellent to record breaking. I picked up 2 movies, “Chariots of Fire” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus”, depicting the journey of 3 ordinary people and “how” they achieved greatness in different fields – Sports and Music.
“Firing” your “Opus”
Selfless Eric and the competitive Harold Abrahams in “The Chariots of Fire”, and Glenn Holland in “Mr. Holland’s Opus”. Different personalities, who achieve fame and honour in their unique ways.
Eric and Harold are students at Cambridge, both born with a talent for speed with a will to win ONLY. While Eric wants to win for God, Harold wants to win ….for individual pursuit. Eric believes “God made me for a purpose and he also made me fast. I’m going to run for His pleasure”. For him, running is a way to spread Faith, a message that…..power comes from within.
Harold on the other hand believes “… in the pursuit of Excellence… I carry the future with me………..I even forget what I am pursuing”
Both prepare relentlessly for the Paris Olympics in 1924. Their preparation reflects their different beliefs about how they can get the best out of themselves. For Eric, spreading the Faith while for Harold it means hiring a good coach, who can help him improve his technique and make him “the fastest”.
While not all of us are like Eric, born with a special gift where “his feet are an extension of his spirit”, we are more like Harold, who looks at defeat not as a personal failure, but as an opportunity “I run to win…. It’s not Eric or the losing……. It’s me…… after all that hard work…….. I can’t run any faster…….” He searches for answers with his coach, to get that 2 extra yards with the same speed and time. His talent is just sufficient to get him an entry, but it is his determination, correction, practise, for that 10 second performance, which brings him glory.
Eric also wins, surprisingly. Unable to take part in the 100m heats because it is held on a Sunday, he takes part in the 400m and wins the gold, without practise, correction or analysis.
Mr. Glenn Holland on the other hand, was not even aware when his master piece was created. A composer, with dreams of writing his one piece of great music, one day, which will earn him a place among the greats. Unfortunately, life has different plans. Having to take up a music teacher’s job to make ends meet, as a “fall back option”, with zero commitment and interest, he redefines the meaning of “teaching”.
Change starts when he realizes how little an impact he is having on his students. Unable to digest the fact that the students do not “enjoy” playing music, he sets about getting each of them interested in music. Without any knowledge of motivational techniques, none in communication, he improvises different techniques to communicate with students in a way that they understand. One of his students, Lee who has been practising hard for 3 years, but still plays bad music, gives her an example, till she is able to get the connect, between, what she knows ( the notes ) and the source ( her love for music). With Russ, a wrestler, he lets him feel the vibration of the notes with his feet and on his helmet.
The goal of creating memorable music remains an unfulfilled wish. But what he does achieve is creating a love for music among innumerable students. Spreading what he loves doing, i.e. music, becomes his purpose and that is where he creates his masterpiece.
What I want to conclude it with, has been very aptly put by Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State during an address at the Colgate University in 2009. He calls it a “sense of purpose”. When imbued with this “sense of purpose” activities become achievements and the “means” emerge with clarity.
Be Purposeful to find the source of your “Opus”
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