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Each spring in elementary school, as soon as the weather turned nice enough to be outside, we would start the Physical Fitness unit in Gym class, culminating in the Presidential Physical Fitness Award tests. I’m sure that many of you remember practicing pull-ups or flexed-arm hang, sit-ups, broad jump, shuttle run, 600-yard run/walk, and 50-yard dash. This was pre-metric system. At the end of the month you were timed and scored.
I’ve told stories about running before, so you can probably guess how I felt about the once-around-the-playground-behind-the-school 600-yard run. This story, though, is about the 50-yard dash. And Tony Martinelli.
The driveway in front of Wyland Elementary School was almost exactly 50 yards long. The class made two lines at the west end (the near end in the photo). The teacher, most often Mr. Friedman for me, yelled “Go!” The student at the front of each line ran to the other end of the driveway. The times was captured on a pair of stop watches and recorded on a clipboard. The system was very efficient and the class of about 25 could finish in less than 10 minutes.
Tony was one of the best athletes in the school and by far the fastest runner. I was fast, but not as fast as Tony. When we got into our two lines, I would keep an eye on Tony. Everybody else did too. The difference was that while others tried to avoid him, I tried to maneuver to be next to him in line, counting the number of people ahead of each of us. It usually wasn’t a problem switching with someone.
We would inch our way to the starting line as others took their turn… ready at the front… “set”… “go”… run… lose. In five years of elementary school I raced against Tony ten or twenty times in practice and in tests. I never beat him once. Ever. At one point he asked me why I always wanted to race him even though I could never beat him. I replied that I ran faster against him than against anyone else in the class.
My goal wasn’t winning. My goal was getting the best time I could get for the test.
I first wrote this story as a college assignment. Since then I’ve recounted it more times than I can count. The school facade looks very different now, a half-century later. You used to be able to see the cars passing by on Wyland Avenue up the hill from the front classroom windows, but now the trees totally obscure the view. But the point remains the same. And I think of it often.
In the book, The Infinite Game, author Simon Sinek introduces the five practices of the “infinite mindset,” one of which is Studying Worthy Rivals. A Worthy Rival is defined as one that:
may make a superior product, command greater loyalty, are better leaders or act with a clearer sense of purpose than we do. We don’t need to admire everything about them, agree with them or even like them. We simply acknowledge that they have strengths and abilities from which we could learn a thing or two. We get to choose our own Worthy Rivals and we would be wise to select them strategically. There is no value in picking other players whom we constantly outflank simply to make ourselves feel superior. That has little to no value to our own growth.
This concept is applicable to any field. When it came to running the 50-yard dash, there was no worthier rival than Tony Martinelli. Find someone who does whatever you do better than you do it. There’s always someone. Then learn from them. Leverage what they have already learned. The success of one does not have to come at the expense of another: “An infinite mindset embraces abundance while a finite mindset operates with a scarcity mentality.” [p. 164]
Featured Image: “Wyland Elementary School” from Homes.com.
