If Gold is Our Destiny

“How do we all become the best we can be and reach our potential as a team? It's a fascinating question, because it is so complex, and there's no simple answer,” shares Sean Murray, CEO of RealTime Performance, Inc. and author of If Gold Is Our Destiny: How a Team of Mavericks Came Together for Olympic Glory. Sean’s professional background in leadership and organization development may not seem like the most obvious path toward writing a sports book, but when he was reading The Boys In The Boat about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Sean realized that there was a lot to learn about leadership and teamwork from sports. This led Sean to decide to write his book based on the story of the 1984 US Men’s Olympic team.

The title If Gold Is Our Destiny speaks volumes about what it really means to dedicate your life to being part of a team. It requires sacrifice, putting the team first, and really understanding your role in how it will all come together. It means always listening to your coach and growing into better individuals while growing as a team. This is true of both sports and business because in the business world, we are constantly working in teams. Leaders are always looking for ways to propel their teams forward and to strengthen their team dynamics. By looking at this story of a team that began in struggle, and seeing how they managed to work through their issues to become one of the best sports teams in the world, you can learn a lot about leadership and teamwork.

In both sports and business, we are often working together in teams to achieve a common goal. Individuals must put the team above themselves, fully respect the leader or coach, and be willing to sacrifice when necessary for the greater good of the whole. When we work together, we can overcome so many more obstacles than we ever could alone. Learning how to lead a successful team is critical to having a successful business.

• “If gold is our destiny, you have to work hard. If gold is your destiny you have to sacrifice, you have to put the success of the team above yourself. You've got to really listen to your coach. You've got to understand what your role is.” (6:54-7:06 | Sean)
• “How do we all become the best we can be and reach our potential as a team? It's a fascinating question, because it is so complex, and there's no simple answer.” (8:49-9:00 | Sean)
• “Of course, there's the individuals that make up the team, but it's really about the dynamics, the culture, the relationships, what you need to do as individuals to come together to reach your potential. It's one of the most difficult things we do. But it's one of the most prevalent in business today is we form teams all the time.” (11:41-12:10 | Sean)
• “In the larger sense, it's a story about how individuals come together to be a team and be collectively better than they can be individually to achieve something that they couldn't achieve alone. And to me, that's so important to being successful in life and business. And any way that we can get better at that and come at it from a different angle or try different techniques or tools, I think is well worth our time.” (39:22-39:55 | Sean)