A key to health: How an ordinary man became legendary.
Health! We want it, and seek it. Often, we choose the right type of diet, sleep on an amazing bed, (if it is a bed created by EcoHealthLAB, our loved organic buckwheat hulls mattress – we are happy to hear. Our company creates the beds and pillows as we know that these beautiful things bring health and joy to those who use them). But, the beds and pillows are a part of the whole picture we call : HEALTH. Today, we will talk about a key to health, and examine another aspect of it, the one that is so profoundly simple and important, leads to a legendary life supported by your calm mind and healing body. Yes, it is possible!
Some people just know what to do, feel and think…
to create the lives they want.
They may come from modest backgrounds, have tough beginnings, yet lead tremendously amazing lives. Not necessarily measured by the Olympic medals, creating of the global companies, or fortunes they make. But often spent in joy and love. Not seeking public attention, but at the end of their lives, or sooner, delivering astonishing pieces of work, that many cherish.
Done without external help, financial support, family roots. Without fast growth, but… fueled by something else.
Today, we will talk about this specific thing, examine one Polish extraordinary sportsman, who recently, after years and years of training, started delivering results that astonish many… He will show us the path to an amazing paradise, a key to health, hidden within each of us. The miracle of constant surprise and wander.
I decided to write about this, as I know this path from my own life. Last year thanks to a few important “aha” moments, I understood the power of simplicity, love, focus, persistence and wander. The realizations, understanding I came upon are so important, so fundamental, that I wanted to start the discussion about it with you.
Greatness that can be yours
Let’s begin:
Einstein, Steve Jobs, Napoleon, Beyonce, Kobe, Janine Benyus and many more. Tremendous singers, scientists, sportsmen, entrepreneurs, leaders. People we know from the history books, tv, school. Those who changed our world. People we admire and cherish, learn from and get inspired by. Moreover, we perceive them as geniuses, being able to achieve greatness, “impossible to most of us”… it is how so many of us think. They, the achievers, the geniuses, and the grey rest, unable to live such inspired lives.
But… is this really true? they, and us? Let me tell you a story, that gives a true answer to this question.
A true story that looks unbelievable, but could happen again and again
So…
In Poland we are fascinated by a few disciplines of sport: football, ski jumping, cross-country skiing, volleyball. Mostly. In ski jumping we have got several accomplished sportsmen. Adam Małysz, Kamil Stoch, Dawid Kubacki and others.
Each of them is very interesting as a person. But for me, and because of what I want to tell you, especially Dawid Kubacki is the one we will focus on. You do not need to be a ski jumping fan, to find in his story something that could be your key to health in multiple areas of life, that is like a sunrise. Slow and steady warmth and light that cuts through darkness.
His story is amazing and full of meaning.
Dawid Kubacki was born in 1990 in Poland. As a member of the Polish national team in ski jumping, he is a 2017 World Champion at the 2017 World Championships in ski jumping, 2019-2020 Four Hills Tournament winner, a bronze medal in the Olympic Games winner. He started competing in 2005, when he was just 15 years old.
But despite a lot of work, and ski jumping competitions he took part in, success was not coming. In fact, Dawid Kubacki was seen as the one not so talented, flying too high, when his flight should be on a different flight path. In result, he was not winning, sometimes jumping nicely, and only helping the team achieve good results in team ski jumping competitions.
Not many people believed in him. As it often happens, the public openly laughed at him, when competition after competition he was failing to deliver the best results. Only one old Polish Ski Jumping Champion, Wojciech Fortuna had faith in young Dawid. When I had a chance to talk to him in 2012, he told me:
“Dawid Kubacki is very talented, he jumps powerfully, but makes some small mistakes, that if corrected, would deliver amazing results”
But nobody knew how to help the young ski jumper. So he was failing again and again. Time passed by like a rocket.
From the laughed at to a respected champion
And then… in the season of 2017 / 2018 something changed. In March 2017 Polish national team including Kubacki won its first title in World Championships. Winter came, and on the 30th of December 2017, Kubacki stood for the first time in his sport career on the podium of the ski jumping competition in Obersdorf. It took him … 143 individual competitions to win his first individual podium. It meant 12 years of professional jumping to be among the 3 best jumpers of the competition.
2018 was even better. The famously difficult ski jumping tournament called the Four Hill Tournament was lucky for him: he was 6th. That was January. In February, during the Olympic Games, Polish team which included Dawid, claimed a bronze.
The next season brought more and more improvements. For many of those who watched, these were just situations that proved nothing. He jumped well enough to stand on the podium, again and again, but it still did not look significant. Until the 1st of March 2019, when he won gold medal in World Championships in Austria.
At the age of 29 years, he was already an older ski jumper, but his results were better a month after month. He finished the World Cup on the 5th place.
But all of this was just a beginning of what was to come in a few months time. This ski jumper, who was laughed at, not believed in, who waited 143 competitions to stand on the podium for the first time, started achieving great results, winning in the toughest tournament : the Four Hill Tournament, standing on the podium in 10 competitions in a row, becoming the current Polish National Ski Jumping team leader.
14 years of daily work and then this
It took him 14 years… to start winning like the greatest champions of his sport. 14 years of daily trainings, hardships, disbelief and pain. Young people often give up, when the strength of their characters is tested, and the difficulties show up. But he was different. He would focus on work, even when his muscles ached and people ridiculed him.
Hard work, patience, incredible modesty, of which work has been the most important. When he is asked about his winnings, he repeats that he has work to do. Something needs to become even better, that he wants to train. He is also calm, like an oak tree in a storm. While other ski jumpers show nerves, lose competitions, he remains centered and focused. As if nothing special was happening.
Key to health of the body and mind
14 years of daily work delivered results many would only dream about. His work ethic is supported by strong faith and joy.
This is the incredibly important realization and a key to health. Moreover, the boy that nearly nobody believed in, worked on his craft day after day, for 14 years, not knowing whether success would come or not. He kept working on his craft. Kubacki has passions as well, that he has been following since early childhood. It is model making and gliding. His passions, give him the peace of mind, his own space, to heal his soul after losing the battles in the ski jumping competitions.
Let’s look closer on what he has been doing, as it is so important.
Dawid Kubacki:
- is working daily on his craft, no matter of the results, fame or lack of it, the behaviors of the public (for 14 years)
- he is not trying to manipulate the results of the competitions he takes part in, but does everything HE CAN, on his part, to maximize his chances of winning. This is what he can do, so he focuses on it every single day, polishing his craft, and letting the universe play its part with the result. When the results come as loses, he keeps working, and trying new ways, improving and improving
- Kubacki has always had a coach, and learned from someone
- the ski jumper has deep passions, that he has been giving his time to since childhood. For his passions he has a special room in his house, that nobody else can enter. It is his own heaven, a key to health, where he purifies his soul and body
- he had a psychologist of sport to help him work on his mind and remain calm in the heart of storm
Surrender the expectation, and let go of the results
Not easy to do, but a true key to health. These behaviors seem so obvious, but do not undervalue them. As you can see how powerful they are when you examine the results that show up. Dawid Kubacki by working daily, and focusing on what he could do on his part, and not trying to do everything, to manipulate the results, to show his persona in a better light, so the public would start respecting him, achieved truly amazing results.
This year, when he was winning in the tough Four Hill Tournament he beat the previous champions, who were known as being extremely talented and strong. He was calmer inside, more centered, and self-assured. Kubacki also seemed to be independent of the results he was getting. Other jumpers found it much harder to do. When the competition was tough, they would become nervous. But not him. As he won in the training, with himself. Other ski jumpers failed, because it was tough, the results were not coming, people were laughing at them, Dawid Kubacki kept working, and polishing his passions. He was facing his inner demon every day, and coming back to the fight space with a renewed mind, after resting and following his passions.
The hardest battles are won in the training… when you surrender the results, and let go of expectations
His most important battle was won in solitude, away from the public eye, facing his own tiredness, daily troubles of training without a promise of a success. A true key to health and achievement hides in daily work, no matter what happens. There is one “must”: love for the activity.
Reference links
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