Start value = 6.5

I have been watching a LOT of the olympics and recently when the individual events for gymnastics came up some differences in approach started to show. There were some athletes that would do a reasonably hard routine, but not go for the highest start value = 6.5. They would execute well and then wait and see if anyone could challenge the well executed, but maybe not the 'all for glory' type of routine. Then other athletes would go for the highest start value and basically go for gold. It was all or nothing baby. It was a mentality of 'in it to win it' and if they fell...they fell and that was it, game over...but if they executed perfectly it was all about the podium...all about gold.

This mindset has challenged me a little in general life, work and whathaveyou. I only get one shot at this life, why not go for a start value of 6.5 on things? I most of the time will do a 'no guts no glory' attitude on things, but today as I was putting together a plan for some experiments that I have to run off site, my co-worker interrupted me as I was still in the middle of the laundry list of things I wanted to do during this experiment and said: Are you on drugs?? (OK maybe I am asking a lot...but that's the way it goes.)

No guts no glory right? Shoot for the stars and you might hit the moon. But I don't always take this approach and sometimes, well...sometimes maybe it is worth it to go for a start value of 6.5 and just see what happens. Maybe I will fall on my face, but maybe I will stick the landing and then...gold.