When Ming Davis was young, his parents placed him in a soccer program. He didn’t like it, but their reasoning made perfect sense. Their new son, adopted from China, was born with a birth defect. He didn’t have a left arm. Soccer, of course, did not require hands.

Ironically, as he began to play, Ming wanted to become a goalie. The goalie is the only player permitted to use hands to handle the ball. Ming was not going to be deterred. He became a goalie.

Now, at 14, Ming can do just about anything he chooses, and some things he does very well. He has medaled when he hurls the javelin and he also participates in the shot put and runs track.

His handicap is not the missing arm. The handicap was eight years in a Chinese orphanage along with emotional and physical neglect.

Ming was in the orphanage with two older brothers. They often escaped, with Ming living under a bridge. He learned to panhandle, drink, smoke, cheat at cards and steal. His early years taught him to fight for every advantage and to overcome every obstacle.

Today, Ming is the acknowledged leader of every youth team on which he participates. He competes hard, but he also works harder during practice than his teammates. He cheers his teammates’ successes with infectious enthusiasm. He also helps coach younger players.

“Sometimes I just think other kids are one step ahead of me,” Ming stated in a newspaper article, “so I have to work twice as hard. I just want to push myself to be the best I can be. I never knew I would be an athlete. I was always the smallest kid. One thing I don’t want to do is give up. I want to keep my grades up so I have a great future. Sports is secondary. Sports is something you do for fun.”

I am not surprised to hear about Ming’s many accomplishments and I know he will have many more in sports and in life. He just knows how to overcome any obstacle.

Jim

We often don’t really know much about someone until they are gone. That’s when we hear the remembrance stories that explain a life of shortcomings followed by successes, commitment and innovation. Like me, you probably never heard about Allen Rosenberg. I only learned about him recently from his published obituary.

Allen started as a coxswain during the 1950s and then he became a coach. His innovations in rowing technique helped produce Olympic and world champions.

At five feet and one inch in height, Allen never weighed much more than 100 pounds. He was described by fans as a half-pint in a world dominated by gallon jugs. But, this did not stop him from mentoring athletes who were twice his size and, during a couple of decades, spurring them to victory in international competitions with his intellect and shrewd motivational skills.

“I can’t possibly explain the difference between the silver and the gold,’ he once said to his rowers, “but if you win the silver, you’ll wake up the next morning and know that someone rowed a better race than you, and I don’t want you to go through life thinking of that.”

By profession, Allen Rosenberg was a lawyer and pharmacist. He relied on his learning skills to help transform rowing from pure brute strength into a blend of science and sport. He actually studied the ways to make a boat move, learning that there was more to it than simply using an oar and frantically pushing the water. He spoke more about lightness of hands, plus relaxing and balancing in the recovery part of the stroke. He concentrated on a long pull in the water, quiet and even. The less water disturbed, he figured, the faster the boat will travel.

Allen’s successes are numerous, including a 1964 gold medal as a U.S. Olympic coach in Tokyo. He even developed a successful rowing style, teaching rowers to fire their muscle groups in a rotation rather than all at one time. The technique became known as the Rosenberg style, and he often compared it to a group of men who attempted to move a boulder.

Rather than exhorting a great heave, Allen contended it was better to use muscle groups in sequence—first legs, then shoulders, backs and then arms—because the solution was not to budge the boulder but to keep it rolling as smoothly as possible.

That’s how I see things in business. It’s not the heavy lifting that is important. It is the Rosenberg technique that maintains momentum and ensures the ride to success remains smooth.

Jim