A Life Worth Living

Michael Johnson won four Olympic gold medals, seven World Championships, and held the 200m world record for 12 years before Usain Bolt broke it in 2008.

His success didn’t stop at the track. After retiring, he built a career in broadcasting, founded a sports management agency, and launched an elite performance training center.

When asked by Dr. Michael Gervais on the Finding Mastery podcast what single factor drove his success across all those domains, Johnson didn't mention hard work. It was self-discovery:

"The single most impactful thing in any of my successes has been understanding who I am at a very deep level... and still wanting to learn more. Why do I react this way to certain things? When I'm in this situation, why do I feel anxious? Why does this particular thing scare me?"

In a recent training session on player leadership, a coach shared an honest reaction to my book, The Culture Captain. She admitted that the most overwhelming part of developing leaders on her team was realizing how much personal work he still needed to do this work themself. Thirty years into coaching she was still just figuring out who she was.

Many leaders experience that exact moment of panic. They assume that lacking confidence in who they are disqualifies them from leading others.

It doesn't.

Recognizing you have work to do doesn't disqualify you from leadership. The curiosity to know yourself and lead yourself is precisely what qualifies you to lead.

When I was writing the early drafts of The Culture Captain, a reviewer warned me that describing Level 1 Leadership (Knowing Yourself) as a "lifelong journey" would feel daunting and overwhelming to readers.

I disagreed.

Socrates would have disagreed as well. He famously said: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

High performers don't engage in self-examination because they have to. They engage in it because they want to. Their driving curiosity isn't for more general information; it is for deeper self-knowledge.

Don’t resent or resist the work of self-discovery. Enjoy it.

It is the very thing that makes life worth living.

— J.P. Nerbun

The Culture Captain

If you want to help your athletes and yourself build deep self-awareness, pick up a copy of The Culture Captain: The 4-Level Framework for Athletes to Know Yourself, Lead Yourself, Lead Others, and Lead the Team.