Perhaps we need to redefine our idea of role models; they're not always elite athletes whose success might seem too distant or unachievable. Sometimes it's our friend who just smashed her first 10k, or our Zumba teacher who is enthusiastic, encouraging and real.
Interpretation
Role models can be everyday people who inspire us through their achievements and support.
In this quote, Tanni Grey-Thompson emphasizes the importance of redefining who qualifies as a role model. Rather than solely focusing on the elite and famous figures, she suggests that we should also acknowledge the achievements of ordinary individuals in our lives, such as friends or teachers, who motivate and uplift us by their genuine efforts and relatable successes.
In practice
In a motivational speech to encourage young athletes.
I wouldn't have had a sporting career if it hadn't been for the volunteers who agreed to coach me, as a teenager, growing up in south Wales, at a time when others were telling me that wheelchair racing wasn't really athletics.
As a disabled person I have to think and plan far more than anyone else. If I want to catch a bus I have to consider whether the ramp works, whether there will be someone in the one space who doesn't want to move. It can be a constant worry.
Disability sport came about largely because of exclusion, because mainstream sport didn't want disabled people to be part of it.
The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly; who know the great enthusiasums, the great devotions, and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who at best know the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if they fail, fail while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were.
If you improve 1% a day, then in 100 days, guess what? You're 100% better.
One must dare to show what he wants. You have to go and ask for things rather than wait for them to happen.
I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick.
And if after all this you eventually fail; don't take it personal. Don't be ashamed to start all over again.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.