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| 15 Jul 2010 03:44:37 pm |
| GRAEME MCDOWELL, Winner 2010 U.S. Open Golf Tournament |
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“I’ve got to go out and earn it.”
Today’s Real Zeal quote came from Graeme McDowell, first time major golf champion and 2010 winner of the U.S. Open. He spoke these words on the first day of the tournament: “I’d be lying if I told you I hadn’t thought about holding the trophy. But I’ve got to go out and earn it.”
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On June 20, Graeme McDowell, a professional golfer from Northern Ireland, won his first major tournament – the prestigious and coveted U.S. Open. He is the first European to win the tournament in 40 years.
If you watched this tournament, you saw firsthand how unforgiving Pebble Beach is – the ONLY way to win is to “earn” it.
Graeme McDowell knew this. On the first day of the tournament, he acknowledged: “I’d be lying if I told you I hadn’t thought about holding the trophy. But I’ve got to go out and earn it.”
We, too, have dreams of holding our ‘trophy’ – the perfect job, a home in the country, a chance to start our own business. Yet how many of us operate as if our dreams are to be earned? Hoping instead, that through some miracle of miracles, our success will be handed to us on a silver platter.
For Graeme McDowell – ‘earning it’ involves much more than playing well in the U.S. Open. It required a lifelong set of commitments, choices, and actions.
Take a minute and examine your own dreams. What are you doing to earn them? What – in the form of commitments, choices and actions – will it take to achieve what you’ve set out to accomplish?
Graeme McDowell has given us a gift. He has reminded us that no matter how badly we want something … in the end, we have to earn it!
To learn more about the inspired Graeme McDowell, please continue reading below.
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I’d like to add two things to this week’s Real Zeal message.
One, Graeme McDowell’s first major victory came on Father’s Day and as serendipity would have it, Graeme’s father (who had traveled from Northern Ireland)was with his son for this momentous occasion. In an interview with Tom Renaldi from ESPN after the event, Tom asked Graeme: What do you think this day and that moment meant to him?
Graeme’s response:
“He’s been living every golf shot I ever had. He introduced me to golf. And I don’t think he ever quite imagined what he was setting me on a journey towards … to win the US Open on Father’s Day with my dad walking around with me is one of the more special feelings of my life.”
Second, it is inevitable that a big win precipitates a look at Graeme’s life history and how he got to where he is today. There was one conversation that stood out for me above the others. It came from Professor Eric Wallace from the University of Ulster:
“What marks him out as special is that he is not afraid to win.”
If we combine a mentality of not being afraid to win with I’ve got to go out and earn it, we have a powerful success mechanism alive and well in Graeme McDowell. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : admin |
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