Passion Matters

I was reading an article in Time Magazine called ‘Crazy for Gold‘ about the communist country’s zeal for gold medals in the Olympics this year.

In China, a good majority of the athletes are essentially forced into sports. Chinese officials travel all over looking for young children who have certain characteristics that they think athletes in a given sport may need:

A year ago, a slender girl called Cloud had no idea she would dedicate her life to lifting disks of iron above her head. Then a stranger came to her remote village in eastern China’s Shandong province, took detailed measurements of her shoulder width, thigh length and waist circumference–and announced she would have the honor of serving her motherland as a weight lifter.

At first glance this may seem like a great way to ensure China’s total domination in sports. Pick stellar physical specimens and give them all the resources in the world to train for years in a sport and they should rock right?

But passion matters:

“Once, I liked to run in the fields near my village,” she begins softly. The propaganda official steps in. “But now, she prefers weight-lifting,” he says. “Her goal is to become a star athlete and make China proud.” Cloud looks down at her callused hands, which can thrust 35 kg into the air but are now shaking from nerves. “I prefer weight-lifting now,” she says. “I want to become a star athlete and make China proud.”

You see, as leaders with vision we often focus too much on people with ability, talent, credentials and skills. We have huge goals that we want to accomplish and we work really hard to assemble our own little dream teams.

But passion matters.

Give me a team of people ready to die for each other and I will take them to another level.

Jesus picked passion over perfection, we all saw how that worked out.

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