Teamwork

Mr. Jordan: Well, I think that if you sacrifice personal achievements in order to work with others and help others, you gain more than you lose. And I think unity, or common understanding, and working toward common goals make for better performance. If you work only for yourself, sometimes your performance is not quite so high in standard. So I believe in the teamwork concept. You never cease to be an individual by being part of a team or part of a group; you just get stronger. Your individuality becomes more dominant and your personal performance improves. At the same time, by giving and sharing and even taking within a group of people, you make everyone else stronger as well. I have felt this very much in my life. I was talking a moment ago with one of your group. I said I feel that commitment is so important because until there is a commitment, nothing happens — you just wait for things but they never come. If you want something to happen, you have to commit yourself to it. You have to decide in yourself to give your time to it, work at it and do your work as best you can. If you have the commitment and are willing to work, then you are willing to set goals. When goals and dreams are put out in front of you, then things can happen in your life. You reach, you strive, you step higher, you share more, you ask more and you give more. Then, lastly, with that comes humility. You understand that all of this is only possible because you were able to commit yourself: you were able to work at what you believed in and you had the ability to set dreams and goals out in front of yourself and others. So you have to become humble and you have to say thanks and appreciate other people. This is generally what I feel we have in sports. We have it in poetry. We have it in art. We have it in writing. It is a very spiritual thing too, as you well know. Nothing happens if you separate those things.

Sri Chinmoy: I always say that you cannot separate the drop from the ocean. Individuality is the drop. If the drop enters into the ocean, it does not lose its individuality; it just expands so much that it becomes the ocean itself. You are a great athlete. Once upon a time I also tried to be an athlete. But the difference between what I was and what you are is like the difference between a tiny flame and the living sun. Today the flame is entering into the sun. By mixing with you, talking with you, I am not losing my own identity or individuality. On the contrary, on the strength of my oneness, I am becoming part and parcel of your reality.

Mr. Jordan: So true. I think we are together in our fundamental belief about what goes on between people when they do work together. It's very fundamental and very exciting. It's a thrilling thing to see people create together, share together and feel things together. It's an exciting thing to me.