Continuing the Tiger theme this week, I thought his 60 Minutes interview on Sunday night was extremely refreshing.
In the interview, Tiger confessed that ‘winning’ was the big motivation to his success and work ethic.
Winning drives most elite sportspeople but few admit it.
Maybe it’s an Australian thing. We expect our heroes to be humble and promote enjoyment as their main motivation. But let’s be honest. Winning is a major carrot for elite sportspeople.
You only have to look at Andre Agassi. He admits in his autobiography that he hated tennis. So what drove him? It certainly wasn’t ‘having fun’.
Now don’t get me wrong, fun plays a major role for most sportspeople, but fun alone doesn’t motivate an athlete to rise at 5:30AM and do 1000 sit-ups. Winning does.
And that’s why Tiger’s interview was refreshing. Winning shouldn’t be a dirty word. Australian’s more than any other nation like to win. Athletes themselves like to win. So let’s not sugar-coat the truth. There is nothing wrong with wanting to win. It’s why the Michael Jordan’s, Kelly Slater’s, Lance Armstrong’s and Tiger Woods’ of the world are on top.
They use the concept of winning to drive them to be better. Aint nothing wrong with that. Refreshing isn’t it?
