More Than Just a Comeback

What Steve Jobs, David Taylor, and Kyle Dake have in common.
By James Kaishian

“our time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

Steve jobs is arguably the greatest innovator we’ve seen in our lifetime.  He lived a life full of creativity and passion, but also littered with failure. He not too unlike two of our new American World champs pursued a dream with relentless passion, and rode the roller coaster ride of success and failure.  David Taylor, and Kyle Dake were some of the most dominant Division 1 wrestlers of all time. After not making the world team they could have quit they could probably made a six figure salary doing camps and coaching and no one would have blinked an eye, especially after both falling to Burroughs (USA Olympic champion) multiple times.  Steve Jobs’ net worth was 100 million by the age of 25. But his meteoric rise to stardom came with a humbling fall, Jobs was fired at the age of 30. “I was out — and very publicly out,”  said jobs at a Stanford University commencement. “What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.” After adding, “I was a very public failure.”  Parallels could be drawn between this match at two of the most dominant collegiate wrestlers not making the world team for YEARS. Including an incident where Taylor failed to pass an injured Jayden Cox in a best of three match, or Kyle Dake failed to finish the job against Burroughs despite having a one match lead.

“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.”

We know how it all ended up. Steve Jobs made a comeback and quite literally changed the world of technology, which in turn is shaping our world. Taylor beat a returning Olympic champion and won a world title, while Kyle Dake didn’t give up A SINGLE POINT at worlds.  The mistake that everyone makes however is attributing all this success to talent. While Jobs was a brilliant man, and Dake, and Taylor are fantastic athletes it’s their attitude that made the difference.  As Jobs said “I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” This refusal to take no for answer, and the relentless pursuit of their dream got them the results you see.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, [GOD] life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Champions do extra. These men found something they were literally willing to dedicate their life to, and that is the champion’s mentality. Jobs said “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” It stems from the love of the sport, or work, and ends with their courage and composure under pressure. As Steve Kerr (author of Legacy) put it “Champions do extra. They find something they are willing to die for, and give their life to it.” These champions of the world embody that philosophy day in and day out.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”- Steve Jobs