The ‘Secret’ of The Secret Sauce

---

As I sit down to write this article, one of my favorite sporting events of all time, The Summer Olympics, has just wrapped up in Tokyo. After a year of waiting for what should have been the 2020 Olympics, these games did not fail to provide some truly inspiring moments. From the professionals of men’s NBA basketball starting off with an embarrassing loss to France in group play and coming back to avenge themselves for the gold medal, to the women’s indoor volleyball team losing their star player and rallying together to win the USA’s first gold medal in the sport, it’s been an amazing two weeks of games.

Going into the final couple of events, the USA was even trailing China in the gold medal count, only to win two of three golds in their finals attempts and climb to the top of the leader board. That type of comeback is enough to make a Democrat and a Republican high five. Say what you will about our world’s politics, leaders and divisions, but it's still pretty cool that we live in a world where individuals can devote themselves to competing in games that they love and become the very best in the world. I’ve always found that to be pretty cool.

And I think the verbiage of ‘Olympic Games’ really does this mass gathering of athletes justice. Because sometimes when I watch the NFL or the NBA, you can tell that there are players there that have lost a bit of love. Every year when a guy gets traded or holds out for a better contract you hear them state that their league is a tough business, and with the money that these guys get paid, that’s truly what it is.

A business.

Now I don’t know all of the details surrounding some of the less popular sports, but I don’t think that the two guys I watched duke it out in archery are signing million dollar contracts and have endorsement deals lined up by the dozens. Even all the drama that surrounded American gymnast Simone Biles, and I won’t get too deep into that whole saga because who really know what was going on there, becomes very interesting right now while the Olympics are occurring, but give it a year and I doubt that gymnastics is going to show up on my ESPN ticker quite as much as it did in the past two weeks. The lights are going to fade, the casual fans are going to return to their regularly scheduled programming and there’s going to be nothing left but the athlete and the game that they love.

The games have always inspired me.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve rededicated myself to a regular running program and when I hit the beach to play volleyball, it seems more important. One of my friends has even adopted the beach volleyball norm of visor, ponytail and high-fives or hugs after each point. And it’s just kind of funny how you can really get into the story of it all. We’re not just a couple friends playing volleyball on the beach. We’re Olympians putting our bodies on the line in the grand spirit of competition.

My runs have taken on new meaning as well. For anyone who’s ever done any amount of distance running, you know that you’ve got a ton of time for self-talk. During the year I may be winning arguments that nobody is having with me, but during the Olympics? I’m hearing the announcers talk about the kid from Staten Island leading the pack. I can see the outside the lines special they filmed to be released in the moments before my big race where they show me running around Santa Monica early in the morning or through the crowds of Venice in the afternoon. Where people will call out my name and wave to me as I zoom by knowing that I’m this nation’s best hope for gold. I’m giving the interview after my big win where I’m so overcome with emotion but trying to thank everyone in my life from my parents to my trainers to my friends to the barista at my local coffee shop.

I do all of this as I jog three miles and get passed by old and young alike.

All of this brought me to the thought that we all want some kind of secret sauce to get us to these bright lights. We want to get our time to shine on the podium, but we’re not even sure where to start. I get this a lot in my work as a physical therapist. A lot of people want to do some really big things, and I think that’s pretty cool. One milestone that comes up quite often is a marathon. It’s pretty cool to have run a marathon. It’s awesome to be able to tell people that you’ve done it, get a medal to put on display and even put a little 26.2 bumper sticker on the back of your car. The odd thing is that when I ask a client or patient if they enjoy running, the overwhelming answer is no. You’ve got people that want to challenge themselves but in a way that doesn’t really bring them any joy. They want to hit that ‘goal achieved’ mark in the game, but don’t realize what it takes to do that.

So you want to run 26.2 miles? How does it sound to run three miles right here, right now? If it doesn’t sound like a fun way to spend thirty minutes on your Sunday morning, then I’ve got some bad news for you. To complete a marathon, you’re totally going to have to run three miles. And then you’re going to have to run it again. And again. And again. And so on and so forth until math has led you to complete that entire run from Marathon to Athens (and the extra two-tenths to finish in front of Buckingham Palace) like Philippides did all those many years ago.

But three miles isn’t really that cool. Three miles isn’t sexy. Nobody interviews you about that three mile run you muscled through on the morning you woke up with your alarm clock when you much more easily could’ve just stayed in bed.

That’s the secret sauce.

It’s not a special ingredient that you add once and change the game. It’s not a new pot or pan hawked on late night television promising the perfect casserole. It’s the same sauce that you’ve been making every single Sunday since you were old enough to cook. It’s doing the thing so incredibly regularly and with such great consistency that it becomes the norm for you. Then, and only then, when the sauce has become something that you make so often that it’s akin to brushing your teeth, will people start to notice that you’re doing something great. They’ll talk about the absolute best sauce that they’ve ever had and tell all of their friends how they’ve got to try it. To you it will just be the sauce. Because you make it every day.

In the Japanese cartoon Dragonball two young martial artists come to train with the world renown Master Roshi to become great heroes. His training consists only of milk delivery, where they run, hike and swim to deliver milk to the people of his island every single morning. They wake in the early morning hours and step to their task with the enthusiasm that they would someday bring to the martial arts arena. I purchased a metal print of the master and his two pupils well into their work as the sun rises, and hung it beside my bed. I’m hoping that it will inspire me to get up every day to make the sauce, with the thought that my regular routine might lead me into something special.

By the time it does, I might not even notice what made it special in the first place.

---

Did you enjoy this read?

Please leave a comment below and share the link!

---

RECENT ARTICLES

---