“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it”

It’s true. When I was training for my first Olympics everything came second – relationships, work, my social life, my finances. Sure I would try to create balance in there and juggle all the balls in the air as best I could. BUT, if it came down to it, I knew which decision I’d make. It was clear. I would sacrifice and give up to reach my goal / dream. I exchanged a lot of life to achieve that goal. It extracted a high price … but it was worth it.

It’s funny though. I saw the other side recently. I went to the London Olympic Games athlete farewell dinner. It is always inspiring and motivating as you see videos and hear interviews with current and past athletes. (Bring on the London Olympics !)

Olympic athletes farewell dinner video

In fact at one of these dinners 3 years ago I remember hosting a corporate table (each athlete is assigned to host a corporate sponsors table) and I remember thinking – “I don’t want to be one of these business guys sitting here on the table – there’s plenty of time for that. I want to be the athlete. And in any case, when you’re retired, you’re retired for a long time !” And in that moment I decided to come out of retirement and began training for Vancouver 2010 … And despite what happened in the race in Vancouver, I have no regrets. I’m glad I did it. The price I paid was fine. The life I exchanged for achieving my dream was worth it – despite the way it turned out.

So there I was at this London Olympic team athletes farewell dinner, having just recently retired a few months ago. I was inspired. I was motivated. But I knew that this time I wasn’t going to come out of retirement as the price was too high. I wasn’t prepared to sacrifice my career any longer; or commit all those hours to that hard training; or put relationships second; or to put all that money into training / travelling / equipment; or to always make apologies for social events or leave early if I did go. Simply put, the price was now too high. The opportunity cost was too high.  I was and am no longer prepared to exchange that same amount of life in order to get to my 3rd Olympics in Sochi.

And don’t we see this in all areas of our lives … we see marriages breaking down as people work longer hours and are never home. They exchange a lot of life to be successful in business – but is the exchange and the price you paid worth it ? We see people become stupidly body conscious. We see people pursuing money at any cost – even of their own integrity. It’s always an exchange isn’t it.

“It’s true … the price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it … food for thought !”