And although my first 60-yard sprint is now a warm, distant memory, I actually had to try running before I knew it would be my driving passion.
Before I ever ran my first lap around Vaz Prep’s makeshift track, I understood how important running was in Jamaica. The capital shut down during the Olympics—and I don’t mean because Jamaica was the host country, because it never has been. Our enthusiasm for track and field was just so great that, no matter where the Olympics were being held in the world, our nation hit Pause during the event. Before I ever laced up my running cleats, I knew I wanted to be like the champions my family watched as a young girl.
But guess what? I still had to try it.
I had to show up to the first day of practice after school and learn to do warm-ups.
I had to run my first race against kids in my grade.
I had to show up. Feel awkward. Learn the sport. Try my best.
If I hadn’t—because of fear, or insecurity, or because I believed the boys who said that girls could never beat boys—I
would have missed out on the great joy of living out my purpose by doing the thing that God created me to do.
If I hadn’t shown up and given it a try, I never would have discovered that I could beat those boys who’d taunted me.
What Will You Try?
When I speak to students, I hear a lot of them say things like:
“I don’t know what I like.”
“I’m not that good at anything.”
“I haven’t found my passion.”
I get that. And if that’s how you feel, know that you’re in good company.
You may feel that other students have landed on the thing they’re passionate about: history or math or sewing or skating or running.
Whichever group you find yourself in today, I want to encourage you to keep trying new things.
The path to finding your passion and living your dreams is in trying new things.
Try out for the school speech team and stand in front of an audience and judges to perform your own original monologues. You may find you have something important to say.
Get an after-school job—babysitting, or waitressing, or working retail—where you can earn money and gain job experience for whatever your next, better job might be.
Start a lawn business—mowing, or raking, or shoveling sidewalks—to see if you have an aptitude for marketing a business.
Take a pottery class.
Compose a song.
Build a website.
You don’t have to land on your ultimate passion the first time you try something new. Chances are that you won’t! But no matter what you try, you’ll be gathering tools and skills that will help you once your particular passion becomes more clear. I guarantee that you’ll be stepping in the right direction each time you experiment by trying something new.
My sister Shari is a great example. I told you she was a great dancer. (She still is!) But when we were young, she was also interested in doing other girls’ hair. I had some of the coolest hairdos in high school—sew-in extensions for prom, microbraids for track meets, and cornrows for day to day—because Shari was experimenting with her passion for hair when we were young. If Shari had decided she was only going to dance, and had refused to try anything else, both of our lives would be so different now! Today we own a salon together, and I get to see Shari thriving daily as she shares her unique purpose with the world.
But she never would have discovered it if she had not also tried a host of other things.
My husband, Ross, is another great example. He didn’t play football for his high school until his sophomore year. Sophomore year! In a state where most boys start playing football at seven. He went on to play football at the University of Texas, winning the Jim Thorpe Award as the nation’s top defensive back. He also played for the New York Giants in two Super Bowls, including in 2007 when the Giants beat the then-undefeated New England Patriots!
But what if Ross hadn’t shown up for summer conditioning before his sophomore year of high school? What if he’d just bowed out because he assumed that other guys, who’d been playing longer, would beat him? My swift, strong, smart, faithful husband would not have lived out his purpose had he not tried something new when he was sixteen years old.
What new thing has your name on it today?
Live Courageously
Your purpose begins with trying something new, and trying something new begins with courage. It requires being brave.
But what if I could guarantee you that, if you tried something new, you couldn’t fail?
I can.
I guarantee that each thing you try—such as taking a cooking class, learning calligraphy, or serving older folks at a nursing home—is a guaranteed win, because that experience, whether a seeming failure or an obvious success, equips you with new tools. You might learn what not to do in the kitchen by forgetting to put yeast in the bread dough. You might learn how to get India ink out of the carpet following a calligraphy mishap. Or if you struggle to form relationships with older folks in the nursing home, that experience might move you one step closer to realizing you love caring for toddlers.
You can’t fail when you try something new because—even if your attempt seems like a fail—you’ve grown from what you’ve learned.
So, yeah, that was kind of a trick question.
But what I want you to hear is that the path to discovering your passion and living out your dreams begins with trying new things. And if marching band, or salsa class, or chess club don’t work out, you’ve still won because you’ve learned something about yourself and are one step closer to discovering what you’re meant for.
In my journey, everything I gained from netball and calculus and dance team and journaling has made me a richer person with a broader range of skills and interests that I can enjoy myself as well as offer the world. For instance, when I was sixteen I never would have guessed that I’d be writing a book. Yet as I open the journals I’ve kept for years, I’m finding all the little breadcrumbs that led me to where I am today.
So, for now, it’s okay not to know where you’ll land. If you can’t yet see the gold medal podium, or the Oscar statue, or the Oval Office, that’s all right.
The path to finding your passion is trying new things.
My Thing
The first time I raced in Kingston’s massive National Stadium, I had no way of knowing where those first adrenaline-fueled steps on my skinny legs would take me.
But, while gulping in air at the end of my race as I paced several more meters down the track, I glanced up into the crowded stands to see my mom and dad cheering wildly for me. Grinning, I waved at them, and walked to the edge of the arena to find my warm-up clothes.
As I was gathering my things, my mom and dad ran down onto the field. My dad scooped me up in his arms and they both hugged me. Each of them beamed with pride.
At the end of the meet, I stood on the highest step of the podium and was named the fastest seven-year-old girl in the region. I beamed with joy as the tall official draped a gold medallion over my head.
I loved feeling the heavy weight of the medallion around my neck.
I wanted to feel it again.
RIGHT ON TRACK CHALLENGE
Do you feel like you’ve discovered your thing? Have you found what gives you a sense of purpose in life?
•What is something that brings you satisfaction?
•What gives you great joy?
•What could you do for hours without ever looking at the clock?
•What do you do that nourishes you and fills your tank?
•What blesses others as it blesses you?
Make a list of the activities you enjoy and offer them to God. Ask God to show you what you’ve been uniquely designed to do.
CHAPTER 2
SETBACKS
By the time I was in third grade, I’d gotten a little cocky.
Because I had done so well at the Prep Champs as a seven-and eight-yea
r-old, and because I continued to win races, I’d developed a reputation in Jamaica. By the time I was nine, I was known as one of the fastest young athletes in the country. Race fans couldn’t wait to see me run.
I competed in my third Prep Champs when I was nine.
Even though elementary school runners didn’t use starting blocks the way the high school athletes did, our coach was training our bodies to learn the starting position we would use a few years later. We emulated the posture and stance of runners using the blocks, but that meant it was possible to lose our balance if we misjudged the stance.
For my 60-yard dash, I was slotted in lane 4, beside my biggest rival.
Vaz Prep had an ongoing rivalry with Wolmer’s Prep School. Both produced outstanding runners, and every year the competition got pretty intense. When two schools are that good, the trash talk gets fierce. The schools would even sit side by side in the stands and shout wildly for victory.
“Our girl’s gonna win!” Wolmer’s yelled. “You got this, Vanessa!”
Vanessa Williams was my most challenging competitor. And she also used the same starting position we’d been taught at Vaz.
The announcer began the familiar liturgy: “Stand tall . . .”
We each took a deep breath.
“On your mark . . .” We relaxed our bodies.
When he chimed, “Get set . . .”, we each dropped down into a three-point stance, almost like a quarterback.
Vanessa and I crouched down as if we were in the blocks, steadying ourselves with one hand on the ground. Without the stability of the blocks underfoot, the pose required stillness and careful balance.
Seconds felt like hours, waiting for the signal to run.
BANG!
The gun exploded to start the race.
Maybe I was too sure of myself. Maybe my focus was compromised. Whatever the reason, I lost my balance and rocked in reverse when the gun fired. I tumbled backward on my hands and Vanessa was gone.
It was my first moment, though certainly not my last, of complete panic.
In the split second of that stumble, a single thought filled my mind: I’m the fastest girl, and if I lose this race I won’t be the fastest girl.
I don’t know how to explain the weight and meaning of that moment. I think that I could have handled a loss personally, but the meaning of that race was bigger than me. I wasn’t just running for myself. I was running for my school. I was running for my family. And for the first time, I realized I was running to meet other people’s expectations.
Still startled by the fumble, but driven to remain the fastest girl, I hopped up and started running swifter than I’d ever run before. Though there’s no simple formula to calculate how fast I would have had to run to recover from my fall, pass the other competitors, and eventually catch Vanessa, the unlikely odds are what have me convinced that it could be the fastest I’d ever run before going pro. With just ten meters between the finish line and whoever would reign as the fastest girl, I eked past Vanessa to cross the finish line one stride ahead of her.
Having lost my cocky edge, aware of how close I’d been to defeat, I was thrilled and relieved to have won.
As you might guess, the fans in Vaz Prep’s section of the stands lost their minds. They went absolutely wild.
Rough Starts
What I learned that day has taught me as much about life as it has about running: sometimes you don’t get off to a perfect start.
I’m thinking of young people who didn’t come from the kind of secure, loving home that I had the privilege of enjoying. I’m thinking of kids, in the United States and around the globe, who are born into poverty. I’m thinking of those born with physical or intellectual disabilities. There’s no rulebook that says that everyone gets an equal start in life.
We don’t.
If not at the very beginning of your life, you may have faced obstacles a little later on. Maybe you didn’t have two loving parents in your home. Maybe you had to leave your friends and move to a new city. Maybe you thought you were running the 100-meter sprint, and halfway down the track you realized someone had put a hurdle in your lane you never expected: an illness, a death, a divorce, an injury. I want you to hear that no matter what kind of start you get, or what might throw you off along the way, you can still finish strong and live out the good purpose God has for your life.
If you’re wired like me, you might think that hopping up and scrambling to run for my life was the only choice I could have made. It wasn’t. Over the years I’ve spent on the track, I’ve seen athletes in similar situations who didn’t give their best performances when faced with a challenge. Some who’ve had a rough start have chosen to bail out completely. I’ve seen others fake an injury rather than completing the race with dignity when all eyes were on them. I think that weird moment when I was nine taught me not to give up, even if it meant not winning. It set the tone for my career and my life.
As you think about the obstacles you may have faced already, I hope that you can close your eyes and see yourself powering beyond them and finishing your race with grace, dignity, and power. If you pick yourself up and give it everything you have, even if you’re not the first one to cross the finish line, you can be as proud of that finish as someone else might be of winning gold.
I was when it happened to me years later.
The Final Finish
I’m going to give you a sneak peek at the conclusion of my racing career, because in some ways it mirrored my race as a nine-year-old, even though it didn’t end on the awards podium.
During the last six or seven years of my running career, the big toe on my right foot began to suffer compound injuries. When a 2012 surgery failed to improve my function or comfort level, and left two screws in my toe, I continued to suffer daily agony. Then an airline passenger stepped on that toe in 2015, crushing one of the screws, and the pain became excruciating. The requisite surgery cost me four months of training for the 2016 Olympic trials. When I was finally authorized to run, after a hamstring injury compounded my setbacks, I needed at least four to six weeks to prepare for the Olympic trials.
I had three.
Anticipating the trials, I was really excited about running on a track that was close to my heart, Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon—and nothing was going to keep me from it. I knew deep inside that I wasn’t likely to make it, because I just wasn’t healthy enough, but I still had to try. If God wanted me in Rio, I’d go to Rio.
I lined up at the starting blocks beside women I knew and respected: DeeDee Trotter, Francena McCorory, and Natasha Hastings. In this entirely counterintuitive situation, where you have to beat your American teammates in order to run together for America, we wished each other well. And we meant it.
The moment I left the blocks, I had a feeling something was off. Then, halfway through the race, I pulled up. Even though the other runners were beyond my reach, a more mature version of my inner nine-year-old, one who no longer needed to perform to please others, finished that race.
As I continued around the track, I heard a woman yell from the bleachers, “We love you, Sanya!”
There was a day when the proud Jamaican in me would have shrugged off her support. A little voice would have whispered in my ear, “Second place is the first loser.” But in that moment, I was able to receive her care and the cheers of so many others in the stands.
But because I’d already envisioned myself winning in Rio, it was a bittersweet moment.
I jogged to the finish line, where I received a standing ovation from the crowd of avid American track and field enthusiasts. I heard hundreds of people shouting out how much they loved me.
Though I wouldn’t have chosen to face the obstacles that prevented me from competing in Rio, I am proud that, ultimately, they didn’t win.
If the obstacles had won, I would have seen the end of my running career as a failure, rather than the gateway to the new opportunities I’ve been able to embrace.
Don’t Quit
I want you to hear that setbacks—whether literal, like mine, or figurative—do not have to sink you. If you’ve faced unique challenges that your friends or other people your age haven’t faced, you’ve been given opportunities to dig deeper and fight harder. Life will never be perfect, but the obstacles you face don’t have to hinder you from success. In fact, if you allow them, the obstacles will propel you forward to greatness.
When I was nine, a setback propelled me to victory on the track.
When I was twenty-nine, a setback propelled me to success off the track.
I know a young woman who’d just completed her track career at Norfolk University when she was involved in a horrific train accident. April was twenty-eight when she lost her leg. She had a good job and had just bought her first home. It was one of those unexpected, life-altering moments that no one anticipates. While she was still in the hospital being fitted with a prosthetic leg, April read about the Paralympics and was motivated to make her comeback to the track. In 2004, April Holmes competed and medaled in her first Paralympic games, and went on to win gold in the 2008 Paralympic Games in the 100-meter sprint.
What anyone would view as a setback, and what some would view as an insurmountable obstacle, didn’t keep her from running her race.
Your challenge might not be physical. Maybe you have to work really hard in school to get Cs and Bs. You may have to put more energy than most into making friends. Or maybe there are challenges within the family you were born into—disease or addiction or mental illness. The setbacks and obstacles you face don’t determine how fast or how far you’ll go in life. I believe that, in the face of any hardship, you have the courage within you to pick yourself up and run your own race.
The win is in getting back up again, no matter how many times you get knocked down.
RIGHT ON TRACK CHALLENGE
Consider the setbacks you have faced and are facing:
•What obstacles were caused by others?
•What challenges were unavoidable?
•What setbacks were a result of your choices?
•What roadblocks have you already overcome?
Right on Track Page 2
