Lean in to win

Noah Lyles was running a race in Paris, France a few days ago. Overflowing with confidence, Lyles had predicted victory. When I say predicted, I’m talking Muhammad Ali style. Ali would even tell you which round of the fight would be his opponent’s last.

Some of that was psychological warfare. Maybe the same was true for Lyles, who boldly announced he would win the signature race of the summer Olympics — the men’s 100 meter dash.

In the actual race, he was out of the blocks slower than his competitors. At 20 meters he was in last place. In fact he remained either last or almost last until there were only about 30 meters left to the finish line.

It is still a mark of excellence to run the 100 meter race in 10 seconds. In this race, every one of the eight competitors ran under 10 seconds. Several of them crossed the line so closely together that no results came up on the board: only the word “Photo.”

When the results were in, Lyles had won. He thought he had lost to Jamaican sprinter Kishane Thompson. But Lyles had crossed the line 5/1000 of a second faster.

To put that in perspective, “a blink of an eye” takes 1/10 of a second, or .1 seconds. The margin of victory was .005 seconds. It would take twenty of those to add up to the blink of an eye.

How did he do it?

As you might imagine, that race has been evaluated by experts all over the world. The difference between finishing first and second, while extraordinarily close in terms of time, will be worth a lot in terms of fame and fortune.

I am not an expert in sprinting, but here is one reason why Lyles won and Thompson didn’t: Lyles leaned in better at the finish line.

In a horse race, photo finish positions are determined by the nose of the horse. “Winning by a nose” came into use because of that. But in foot races in the Olympics (and other high end events), finish positions are determined by the torso of each runner.

Kishane Thompson’s foot, according to my eagle-eyed wife, hit the finish line before Noah Lyles’ foot. Doesn’t matter. Lyle’s torso — specifically his chest — hit the line inches before Thompson’s. It’s easy to see in the photo, but impossible to see with the naked eye.

All runners are taught to lean in at the finish, but Lyles timed it perfectly. Lean too soon and it slows you down, lean too late and you’ve already lost. You have to learn to lean in.

Do you lean in? If so, how is your timing? Perhaps more to the point, how and when would you lean in to win?

Bold Assurance

I was happy for Noah Lyles, happy for the United States team, and happy to see a great race. Believing he had lost, Lyles thought he’d be dining on humble pie that night.

Instead he paraded around the stadium with an American flag draped across his shoulders. It was bold, and it was beautiful.

But it was his lean in at the line that suddenly took me back twenty years to California. Through Do Good Music I met a delightful singer/songwriter named Colette Branum. She introduced me to a friend of hers, saying, “The two of you need to know each other.” He turned out to be Bert Decker, author, speaker, and (primarily) a nationally renowned communication consultant.

What is that? Well, when the Today Show wanted an expert opinion on how the candidates had performed in a presidential debate, they brought Bert on to tell them. That’s an expert.

When we met, Bert was not just teaching political candidates how to present themselves better, he was also coaching regular folks. I’d already done a lot of public speaking, but I’d never really been taught. So I signed up for Bert’s seminar, Bold Assurance. I loved it.

When he offered it again a couple of months later, I signed up went back. Eventually I learned it well enough that I gave a few seminars myself, and I kept learning.

And one of the most important things I learned is something Bert called forward lean. Maybe Noah Lyles learned that from Bert.

Forward lean

Way back in 1967, a psychologist named Albert Mehrabian came up with a “communication rule” that caught on big. The rule is often called the 7-38-55 rule, and it basically says that 7 percent of communication is delivered by what we say, 38 percent is from our tone of voice, and 55 percent comes through our body language.

Fun, eh? But also very specific, and so it is unlikely to be true all of the time. Ah, but the general principle is true, which is why Bert taught the forward lean.

Make sure you use that when you are speaking to an audience, because you are in a race to be understood. Your forward lean helps the audience relax and hear you.

However, if your posture is one of authority or superiority, the audience will feel that before you say a word, and your relationship with them can change.

When I became more conscious of the power of posture and started speaking with a forward lean, I learned something else. It helped me be more relaxed and more connected to the audience!

But what if you are not a public speaker, what if you only have an audience of one?

Your posture still matters.

In fact in Letters to Malcolm, C. S. Lewis wrote, “the body ought to pray as well as the soul. Body and soul are both better for it.”

So whether you are talking to thousands, to an individual, or even to God, give some attention to your body. Your hands matter, your facial expressions make a difference, and so does that forward lean. It shows that you care.

Lean in to win. It’s a great way to do good, and it is definitely in you!