I originally had a you tube clip from a movie called Without Limits but the clip was taken down.
The clip showed a conversation between Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman and his famous middle distance runner Steve Prefontaine.
So, you will have to take my word for it that the clip I wanted you to watch is pure awesomeness. In it, Bill Bowerman is criticizing Pre for his strategy of always trying to lead all of his races from start to finish. The way Bowerman figures it, if Pre would just run a little slower at the beginning (and not go out so hard and fast at the beginning) that his overall time would actually be better and that it would be easier for Pre to win races.
But Pre sees it differently and it reminds me of something I’ve heard Doctor Phil say before.
Sometimes Dr. Phil will look right at someone and say “Do you want to be right or do you want to be effective?” Sometimes we are so concerned with winning and argument or proving that our way of thinking is correct that we miss the whole point of what we are trying to accomplish. Who cares if the way you see a situation is really correct and your wife’s way is technically wrong. If there is something that you could do which makes everything work better in your relationship, then who cares. Really.
And this advice is really great advice, most of the time. It essentially is Bill Bowerman’s advice to Pre, that to be effective is to win races with the lowest times. Bowerman is telling Pre to abandon his usual strategy of front running in races and Pre will actually win more races with lower times.
And yet? Pre doesn’t see it that way. This is Pre’s response from the movie.
“I don’t want to win unless I know I’ve done my best and the only way I know to do that is to run out front and flat out till I have nothing left.”
To Pre there is only one way to run a race, all out. In Pre’s head, to run a race any other way is cowardly. He calls it ‘stealing a race’.
Again, I said that Dr. Phil’s advice is almost always the correct advice. Almost. Every once in a while, something else creeps in the equation, especially for men, something called Honor.
And believe it or not, I actually see something very beautiful about Pre’s point of view. What he essentially is saying is that to him, the only Honorable way of running a race is from the front the whole way. I love it. You may not, but I do. I think there are all sorts of Honorable ways of handling yourself in sports and in life that aren’t always effective, in the eyes of the world.
Who cares. Every once in a while (certainly not most of the time), but every once in a while, doing things for Honor is actually more important than being effective!
So the question is this. What are the areas of your life, where you need to spend more time and energy worrying about being effective and less about being right?
And where are those few areas where it actually is more important to be right, to do something because of the principle of the thing, to stiffen your back, bolt out your chest, and do something for something that’s hard to define but is very real. Its a man’s own gift to himself. Its Honor.
