It is a beautiful story of teamwork , leadership , peak performance and … inspiration ! Because winning at this level requires a whole nation to be inspired . And victory , in turn , inspires a nation .
Space does not allow me to go into the detail of the effort and grit , over many years , that is required for success . It is immense . It requires designers , engineers , boat builders , sail makers , fitness experts , weather experts , computer programmers , financiers , marketing and public relationship teams , security staff , psychologists , lawyers , managers and sailors – the list is long – to work together towards one goal .
It is a sport that requires participants to be away from their families for long stretches . It is also a dangerous sport . Over the years , lives have been lost ( e . g ., when equipment explodes under the immense tension of competitive racing at an extreme level ).
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Without inspirational leadership , the whole project would be futile .
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The leader of New Zealand ’ s successful 1995 and 2000 America ’ s Cup campaigns , Sir Peter Blake , will be remembered for some memorable quotes . Perhaps his most famous is : “ If it was going to be easy , it would not be worth trying .” He also said : “ We have taken on the rest of the world at the hardest game available – the America ’ s Cup – and won . All that I could ask for was that everyone could put their hands on their hearts at the end and say : I have given everything there was to give , I could not give anything more .” That is the stuff that stirs and inspires a nation !
In closing , something from another famous New Zealander , Sir Edmund Hillary . He once wrote : “ At some stage in our lives , many of us are filled with an inspirational dream to achieve something that we know will stretch our abilities to the utmost . But all too often , sadly , the dream fades and we revert to being very normal human beings .”
He added : “ I have often been asked : When you have spent some years of your life devoted to achieving some great objective and finally succeed – is there a sense of anti-climax and emptiness ? Although a person of modest abilities , I have never experienced this problem because I always had many other adventures churning in my mind to carry on next . I remember standing at the top of Mount Everest , having reached the top of the world in every sense of the term and looking east to the unclimbed summit of Makalu … Real success is a continuing process of finding new inspiration .”
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Faith , or an idea , without work , is dead .
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May we continue to find inspiration as we pursue our professional challenges and other endeavours .
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