Hero of your Game

[Music]

do you

recognize that moment in your life when

your future looked like

one big question mark

that moment after years of hard work

you finally discover this is not what i

want to do

but what do you want to do or maybe

that moment the coronavirus turn your

life

completely upside down and you have

totally no clue

what to do next i had that moment

mid-august 2015

while i was managing my professional

cycling team

i received an email with a short video

and a little note the video

shows a huge american baseball stadium

and in the middle major doctor

daniel posley dan

as we call him was decorated that day

for his heroic actions saving many lives

of soldiers and civilians

in the afghan war zone he was

celebrated as the hero of the game

the little note in the email said

thanks to you coach you’re the hero

the very first moment i received that

i was speechless but i was very proud

i didn’t know what to do because

hey i had coached a real hero and he

called me a hero

but after a few minutes the video and

the note

hit me so hard it felt as if i was

run over by a truck

my brain was like one jungle

of emotions and memories

memories like how it all started with

housing one american cyclist

in 93. soon after

we sold our house bought a small bmb

remodeled it into a cycling center and

grew

towards an international development

center

where we mentored over 50 cyclists

per year then in 2013

we became a professional cycling team

right at the moment

of the email i got with the video

i was managing and running the program

and the logistics of the team meaning

handling a fleet of cars trucks

bus 100 bikes a crew of

20 members all to provide

20 riders a program of about 150

race days per year all over europe and

in the us

that’s why months in a year i lived out

of a suitcase at 200 kilometers an hour

in a mode of 24 7 being online and on

call

that night i went home and i

looked at the video several times

together with my wife

and i was still shaking like a leaf

thinking

what the hell am i doing i hate my life

the way it is right now

and i have no clue how my future is

going to look

what did i miss what did i not see

and while i was thinking that more

memories came came popped up

for example about dan i still see dan

arriving

because he wanted to become a

professional cyclist and he was

very enthusiastic but after three years

no contract no more money

no trophies just one big

broken dream in the eyes of the cycling

world he was a zero because he didn’t

achieve it

he went back to the us went into medical

school

became a doctor went into the army

became an orthopedic surgeon when they

send him to afghanistan

there he did heroic things so you can

see

that was his journey from zero to hero

but then i really realized like wait a

minute

i worked in those 22 years i worked with

about 800 riders

and they all had the same dream like dan

becoming a professional cyclist

about 25 made it meaning all the others

went home

some sort of like dan but

they were not zeros because when i

checked that out

i could see that those guys made a great

life

as they became lawyers doctors pilots

physiotherapists plumbers whatever they

were

good husbands proud fathers and that was

the moment

that late at night on digged up

a present that we got from dan the year

before

in 2014 when he stopped

uh his duty in the army

and in afghanistan he sended us a

present

an american flag with a certificate that

the flag had flown at the war zone cap

and a note the note

said coach

you told us over and over and over again

go find your values and your talents

discover your passions

and do something with it i saved lives

over here

as as an orthopedic surgeon thanks to

you and um

i gotta say the video i just talked

about

that was a wake-up call but this

that was the final knockout never

in my entire life had i noticed that i

did not

practice what i preached as i had never

thought about my own values

my own talents left alone my passions i

did not even notice

that my job in a way over those 20 years

went from mentoring

to managing i just

followed my gut feeling i had ideas i

worked them out

and i got things done over and over

again go go

and that’s exactly why i want to share

with you the two

lessons i learned out of all this two

lessons that changed my life

and made me way more comfortable towards

my future

allow me to take you with me in the

learning journey that i made

since mid-august 2015. first i thought i

was in this alone

but soon i discovered that the me story

is a wii story simply put

without my wife on no cycling center

meaning no stories and no learnings i

wouldn’t even be here

number two the lesson is that

the manual how you get there how you

can go find your values and your talents

discover your passions

was right in front of me it was in the

title hero of the game

where your hero is humble empathic

resilient and optimistic

and your game is a chain of actions

that have a growth mindset have

awareness

meaning and enjoyment so

allow me to take you through all this

and by the way would you know where your

values and your talents are

first i’m going to tell you where i got

triggered to find my values and talents

discovering that the world i was so

passionate about in

in the early 90s looked very

hypocritical to me in 2015

full of lies false promises and hidden

agendas but

i discovered that honesty and respect

are my two most precious values

and my talents i ask myself three

questions

what actions give me energy what actions

make my time fly

and what actions make other people ask

me

bernard how did you do that managing my

professional cycling team

might look glamorous from the outside

but it was a fake

circus to me it sucked away all my

energy

and my joy but hey i found my talent

zone

which was inspiring mentoring and

guiding people

in their talent zone i ask you again

do you know your values your talents

let’s talk a minute about the game so

i have a question what type of actions

would you think you can have for

yourself to grow your talents

hard huh yeah it is hard

learning about yourself is hard but it

is not

ten percent as hard as not knowing what

your future looks like

that uncertainty is a hundred times

worse

believe me i was there awareness

how would you see awareness i would see

it this way are you

curious enough have you patience enough

to notice what your behavior does

with yourself and with your environment

the answers on those questions helped me

a lot to discover that my game

was an infinite game even more so it’s

an infinite

learning game and meaning

what is meaning for you for me it is

doing something i like doing

but that i’m good in in a way that

i can fulfill somebody’s needs

so if that is in balance perfect

and enjoyment i think by now you will

understand that if i see somebody grow

in his talents

gives me a tremendous joy i gotta say

that discovering your hero

that takes more time again my experience

in my uh cycling period

i had no clue whether i was

emphatic resilient or optimistic

no i don’t know i don’t know if i was

humble maybe i was not even any of those

but discovering my game

made me enough hero to stop my cycling

center

yeah i killed my darling but only

after discovering my new darling

helping all kinds of people finding

their values

their talents and discover their

passions to do something with impact

you might ask but what is now the

biggest advantage

of this program of the hero of the game

i would say it’s the combination of

knowing your values

knowing your talents and your continuous

learnings

because that combination grows your

competence

and we all know that competence builds

confidence

but do you also know that it really

inspires you

more deliberate practice

and deliberate practice that is

assessing

and adjusting your practice methods in

little tiny steps

and because you do it that way you get

way more agile

and you feel safe for your future

to end i have one more question

it’s a one million euro question

when when can you do this

are you not too young or too

i personally would say only people that

stop learning are too old

and you can wait for a personal crisis

or

for a world disaster but i would instead

say

be proactive and whether you are in your

20s

your 30s your 40s 50s 60s like i am 70s

80s 90s 100s

doesn’t matter it’s not about age it’s

about

enjoying your game where change

becomes your competence for your future

i helped dan finding the start

of his journey from zero to the hero

of his game i thank them

for helping me

discovering my hero of my game for my

future

and today i want to inspire you all

and take immediate actions dare to go

find your values your cha your talents

discover your passions

and do something with impact as that is

the start

of becoming the hero of your game

for your future and i wish you all

[Music]

success

you