Sports are in the headlines this week with both Super Bowl LX and the Winter Olympic Games grabbing attention around the world. Bad Bunny may have stolen the show at the Super Bowl, but for my Patriots, it was just plain bad! I’d rather talk about the Olympics!
And there I found a riveting story. Lindsey Vonn is known as among the greatest athletes to ever compete in any sport. In her amazing career, she’s won four World Cup overall championships, the gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Winter Olympics, and a record eight World Cup season titles in downhill (2008–2013, 2015, 2016), five titles in super-G (2009–2012, 2015), and three consecutive titles in the combined (2010–2012).
This year, she was not only trying to compete in the dangerous and physically demanding downhill again, but she was trying to do so at the age of 41, well past the time when almost all Olympic athletes retire. Undeterred, she performed at the top of the field during weeks of preparatory races.
Then, a week before the opening of the Olympics in Milan Cortina, she lost control during a race in Switzerland, crashed, and was airlifted off the mountain. The medical report was conclusive: she’d torn her ACL—a devastating injury in any sport, but a particularly devastating one for a skier. Career over, right?
Wrong. This past Sunday, just over a week after her injury, Vonn was on the mountain ready to compete in the Olympic downhill—with a torn ACL! When I heard this, I thought I was misunderstanding. How could that be? She can’t possibly fly down a mountain of ice and snow with her skis cutting into turns at speeds close to 80 mph without a functioning knee, can she?
As it turns out, she sure can try. Still clinging to a chance for a medal, Vonn started the race with the guts she’d shown throughout her career and without an ACL. But early in the race, she clipped a gate, lost her balance, fell into another brutal crash, and then was airlifted to the hospital again.
Thankfully, we’re being told that she’s ok. But I’m left stunned by her fearlessness and grit, because I think our dignity movement depends on us having a large dose of fearlessness and grit too. All great athletes like Vonn start their path in sport facing skepticism, but somehow, they believe in themselves enough to persevere. Our dignity leaders are facing skepticism and need to believe in themselves too.
Vonn persisted in the face of countless setbacks and failures by staying focused on her craft. Our leaders are trying to build dignity cultures and they need to stay focused on their craft in the face of setbacks and failures too. Vonn was clearly imbued with a sense of purpose that sustained her for decades. Those of us who believe in the dignity of others need to be infused with that level of purpose too.
Recent events are a good reminder of how much perseverance and purpose our dignity leaders need. Last week, a new study from The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISC) came out finding that there’s been a 241% increase in violent rhetoric targeting US public officials in the last 4 years. The rhetoric targets both Republicans and Democrats with Republicans receiving 33% more violent threats. The study reports that “the data reveals an ecosystem in which threatening language has become normalized, alongside a rise in real-world violent incidents, some with devastating impact.” That’s a trend that our movement aims to stop, but many are cynical and think it can’t be done. I’m asked frequently about how we can possibly succeed in promoting dignity when the trend is against us. Here’s how: by believing in ourselves and our capacity to defy the odds! Vonn did it and so can we.
Setbacks are common for us. The ISC study has another shocking finding: “Public officials themselves often catalyze violent rhetoric against their opponents or others.” In other words, the very leaders who we are asking to help us prevent violence are the ones who are often inflaming it. How can we possibly be successful, one might ask, when the very people we’re counting on to help shift our culture from one of contempt to one of dignity are the very people making things worse?
Here’s how: by keeping focused on our purpose and not allowing anything to distract us from it. We’re not trying to win in politics; we’re trying to win in culture and we need to stay focused on that.
The challenges are long-term too. Dignity cultures are hard to build. Over the last week, our team trained a new cohort of educators to return to their cities and embark on multi-year efforts to promote dignity schools. At the same time, we introduced over 1000 local officials in Massachusetts to the practices of “dignity politics.” Any one of these leaders will have to stay the course for years to have a chance of success. How can they do that? By staying focused on the “craft” of dignity: the skills and practices that expose contempt, elevate dignity, defuse conflict, and solve problems. We practice, practice, practice, and that’s how we win.
Some might say we’re crazy, and Lindsay Vonn is too. Some might even say that Lindsay Vonn is an extremist. Maybe so, but as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote: “the question is not will we be extrexfmists, but what kind of extremists will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?”
I like to think we’re trying to be extremists for love. Contempt is all around us, but don’t count the dignity movement out. We’ve got purpose and grit and skill and a belief in ourselves. We need you—all of you—to join us and see how much fun it will be to defy the odds and change the world!
Tim
