Tales from the Diplomatic Corps 1

Hey folks!

Seems like my birthday came several days early, since not only the Cube went live, but also starting today, the 30 outstanding Young Ambassadors will be presented individually. I'd like to take those individual presentations to write about some of the countless memories I had with the Young Ambassadors in Singapore. Some of them contain valuable life lessons, others are just too funny to be left out and there will be also stuff that might not be too interesting for the general public, but that is definitely important to me.

The first one to be presented is Elise Rechichi, the ambassador of Australia and one of the three Olympic medalists on the team. I first met Elise at the Island Adventure during lunch, shortly after my near-death experience with a durian. We talked a bit about sport and also that she knew two sailors from Austria (that I only knew from the news) and that she had been competing in Austria as well.

I don't really recall if it was during this initial conversation or maybe later, but there was this one sentence I will always remember from her. First, you might need to know that Olympic champions - actually champions in general - always had a tremendous fascination to me. I just wanted to know what you need to do in life to become that successful -and hence apply it to be as successful as them. Since Elise is one of the few Olympic gold medalists I came at close enough range to ask, I of course took my chance. What she said was as simple as it was astonishing:

"Probably the most important thing is that you have to know how to win."

That might sound confusing at first, but let me explain: If you thought that it's hard work, dedication, will power and so on and so forth that makes for a champion, you are of course right as well. However, what Elise pointed out back then was that if you want to be a winner, you have to know how to win, that is to know that you are capable of winning.

Social psychology has it that we usually compare ourselves to others. One the one hand, this is very important, because you thus get some guidelines. However, on the other hand, it can also lead to the point that you lose a feeling for your own capabilities. An example: You are a weight lifter and every other competitor so far has failed at 100kg. If you want to be a true champion, you have to know that it doesn't matter what the others did or did not. The only thing that matters is that you know that you can do it and hence go out there to win.

I also struggled with that problem for quite some time. Although I always got good grades in school and college as well, I was completely nervous before all the exams. It was a long, long learning process that took me to the point where I could just say: I studied for this, I know that I am well prepared, I will know the answer and thus succeed with this test. And that's what it comes down to: No matter if you are an athlete, a student, an artist or anything else: All you need to do is to know that you can win. Elise's ambition for example is to enroll medicine in Australia. She has shown that she knows how to win in sports - and I am thus fully convinced that she will also succeed with her career ambition.

So that was my favorite moment with Elise. Since she is not only a champion in her sport, but also when it comes to partying, there are plenty of other great moments. However, I believe that there are more appropriate places to share those than this blog ;).