Don’t Confuse the Trophy with the Triumph

Will Tennyson has a charming documentary over on YouTube about, of all things, professional bodybuilders. Or, more accurately, its utter weirdness and the price people will pay to chase their dream.

When you see the serious downsides of the sport (and there are plenty), all in exchange for a shot at winning comparatively small, fleeting victories on stage, it hardly seems worth it.

Early deaths from heart attacks and other organ failures are among the sport’s darkest risks. Then there’s all the obsession around diet, weight, sleep, and potentially fatal performance-enhancing drugs.

Just to get a trophy, ephemeral clout, and maybe some money, if you’re lucky.

So why do people do it? Why do they sacrifice so much for so little in return?

Perhaps because we’re confusing what they’re doing with what they’re actually trying to accomplish.

Say you want to install a quaint little fish pond in your backyard, but a 250-pound rock sits right where you want to put it. It’s too heavy to lift yourself, so you think back to what Grandpa taught you about leverage. You find a long metal bar, wedge one end beneath the rock, and push down.

But the lever alone won’t do the job. You need something to push against. A cinder block, a dumbbell, maybe a log. Engineers and Grandpa call that a fulcrum.

For the people in Tennyson’s documentary, bodybuilding is their fulcrum.

The rock is something much more universal: the desire for excellence, distinction, mastery, status. Bodybuilding just happens to be the thing they’ve chosen to pursue those desires through.

And when you think about it, we’re all doing some version of this.

Wall Street job. White picket fence. Kids at Montessori schools. Different fulcrums. Surprisingly similar rocks.

We find things to dedicate ourselves to because they let us pursue something deeper. The danger comes when we forget the difference: when the bodybuilder becomes so obsessed with winning that they destroy their health, which ruins their chance at excellence, distinction, mastery, status. 

That’s when the means have become the end. And that’s a particularly risky mistake for leaders.

Because organizations are full of fulcrums. Revenue targets. KPIs. Quarterly goals. Product launches. Strategic plans. Even the mission statement hanging on the wall.

All useful things. All can bring people together and direct their efforts.

But none of them automatically answer the most important question: What are we actually trying to move?

Is the goal to hit a number, or to build something worth being proud of? 

To win a market, or to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives? 

To grow the organization, or to create something that makes the growth worthwhile?

Those aren’t necessarily competing ambitions. But they aren’t the same thing, either.

So, Fearless Leader… What’s your team’s fulcrum? What’s your team’s rock? Can you tell the difference? You sure?