It’s Personal

They hate to lose more than they love to win.

Tomorrow the sporting world’s focus will shift to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, but one of the Greatest Olympic athletes of recent years won’t be there. Evan Lysacek was expected to be a top contender for the gold in Men’s Figure Skating, after winning it in the 2010 Vancouver Games. Unfortunately, an injury took him out of this competition; however, he has already set his sights on the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Last year, I had the privilege of spending several days with Lysacek as we discussed the possibility of writing a book together. What I learned about his mindset and motivations was a true testament to Greatness. From my notes, I’ll let him tell a piece of his story in his own words:

Contagious Enthusiasm

They are positive thinkers… they are enthusiastic… and that enthusiasm rubs off.

For the past twenty years, I have been saving and indexing meaningful quotes I come across that are especially impactful in my personal pursuit of Greatness.

I have always marveled at the ability of some people to say something profound in just a few words and I’ve long found myself pulling these quotes up – or using them in conversation – to help think through a moment.

A couple of years ago I started sharing one quote every day with a few friends and now several thousand folks get them every day (you can join the list here if you’d like)

Recently, I was asked what my top five favorites were and why; and while it was difficult to whittle my list down to just five, my selections are below.