For the uninitiated, Lance Armstrong is an American cyclist who won the Tour De France record 7 times in a row. When you consider that the race spans over the length and breadth of France, spanning more than 3000 grueling kilometers, in all kinds of weather and across all kinds of terrain, you'd feel that it's a great achievement indeed.
Now, just consider this.
Lance Armstrong achieved this feat after he had recovered a from a rare form of testicular cancer, where the doctors had given him just a 40% chance of survival(realistically speaking it was lesser than 2%).
The question that I had in my mind was, "What makes some people tick?"
It was the endless support given to him by his friends, coaches, agents, doctors and his sponsors during the times of his illness and recovery, that probably helped him rebuild his career.
Post tumor recovery, it was the much needed perspective about life that his wife gave him, otherwise he was well on course to a life of decadence to be just another person; forgotten forever.
His self belief was reinforced by his mother and nurse, who were always with him to give him confidence that he was capable of recovering from his illness.
I guess without them, he wouldn't have achieve all the glory that he did.
And since Tour De France is a team event, no victory would be possible without a great team effort. One interesting fact that I learnt from the book was about a typical team composition.
At the beginning of the race, one or two riders in a team would be designated as the lead riders, the ones who were most likely to win. And the rest, are chosen as workers around them. Together they form a peloton, shielding the lead riders from the wind and also from riders of the other teams.
So many riders perform a selfless job for the team, knowing fully well that they are not here for individual glory, but to win as a team.
In my opinion the biggest factor that made him tick was his Determination.
A lot of it came from his mother, who used to tell him, "You never ever Quit. You just go through it." even in the most adverse of situations.
I guess this was the biggest learning for me from the book.
In life, how many times do we give up on our dreams and our aspirations even before we have made an honest attempt?
How many times we choose to settle for something that we don't deserve just because we are not determined enough to get what we want?
How many times we run away from taking up a challenge, just because we fear the ghosts that haunt us if we fail?
How many times do we take a safer option, just because we are not prepared to endure the pain and difficulties that might arise in overcoming our challenges?
Once I read this, "If you think you can, then you can. If you think you can't,then you probably are right."
Most of the time, its the boundary that we set in our minds that makes us think we are not capable of doing something that we consider difficult.
There's no better satisfaction that proving everyone wrong about one's own capabilities. Somewhere in some corner of our mind, there's that cynic who creates that doubt about our own self belief. Why not start off with proving him wrong?
And once we've done that, the naysayers around us are automatically taken care of.
In essence, we should never forget that old proverb that we learnt in school, "Where there is a will, there is a way."
This was the first book that I have read in the last 10 years or so. There was this compelling urge to buy this book when I saw it on the shelf of a book store. A totally unintended buy, but it was more than worth it.
And if you wanted to know if I liked the book, and if it made a difference, I'd say that I am planning to buy the book, "Every Second Counts", an extension to this autobiography.
