If I were to pick a title for this video, it would be: “Character Transcends”. So much has been made of the idea that one can’t control one’s destiny, that the majority of variables are left to chance and happenstance. Viewed on the concrete level, this is partially true. The world you are born into will largely determine your interests, your preferences, and what you tend to focus on and avoid. But the world you are born into will not, will never, determine your orientation, your will, your character– not the what you are surrounded by, but the how you choose to be surrounded by it.

Take Lance Armstrong away from his cycling, and he would still be Lance Armstrong. If we created some fantastical parallel universe, a wonderland where nothing was as it was supposed to be, would Lance Armstrong suddenly and completely change his spirit and character? Would he be mediocre? Would he settle for second best? Would he let others pass him, ever, under any circumstances?

No. He would still rise to the top. Somehow, in that parallel universe, whether he was the CEO of a major company or simply a common worker at a factory, I am confident of the following: Lance Armstrong would have been the absolute best amongst his peers. He would have risen to the top in any field, at any endeavor he applied himself to.

Why? Because character transcends. It transcends boundaries, culture, epochs. Being great, living great, is not about finding yourself in the right place at the right time. It’s about waking up and making yourself the best. It’s about facing the world with the vision and belief that you were meant to be successful, strong, confident, powerful.

A Lance Armstrong, or a Brian Urlacher, or a Serena Williams, could not even conceive of the possibility of being less than great. It’s not within their neural programming. These individuals spent years cultivating the character and mindset and personality that they were meant to excel, meant to win, meant to rise, meant to be the best. Transport them to a different field, a different time, a different set of circumstances, and they would still fight the world single-handedly until they stood at the top, or die trying.

I remember reading an Arnold Schwarzenegger article once where the interviewer asked him what relevance his bodybuilding days had on his larger life as a whole, implying that those years were spent pursuing hubristic vainglory and narcissistic egotism. “My involvement had a lot to do with the discipline, the individualism, and the utter integrity of bodybuilding. In two or three years I had changed my body entirely. That told me something. If I had been able to change my body that much. I could also, through the same discipline and determination, change anything else I wanted, I could change my whole outlook on life.”

Arnold’s character transcends. Whatever field he stepped into, he excelled. He worked and applied himself until he found a way to excel. Yes, he clearly had terrific genetics for bodybuilding, of that there is no doubt. And Mr. Amstrong clearly had great genetics for cycling. But genetics don’t drag your ass out of bed at 3:45am in the morning for a training session when you would rather sleep a little longer. Genetics don’t blot out pain, and make you impervious to hardship. Genetics do not compel you. Character does. Will does.

Greatness is not a specific event or activity frozen in time. It is not a record set in the Olympics, or a medal hung around one’s neck. It is not something, under normal circumstances, that comes and goes. Those adornments are simply concrete manifestations meant to concretize greatness, to bottle it up and represent it in physical form. Greatness is something one decides to strive for, and then inhabits. And once it has been tasted, it is something not let go of easily. It is a spirit that exists outside of conventional dimensions. It is an orientation towards the universe, of looking at the world and knowing it is your playground, your treasure, yours. It is knowing that you pull the strings and make the events, you are the one that sets the records and collects the medals. It is the refusal to ever suffer, feel pain, be a victim, seek pity. Greatness is a hymn one sings to oneself subconsciously, a theme song for one’s soul carrying one to ever-higher plains. Again, from the Governator himself, Mr. Schwarzenegger: “The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer”. That’s what he did, in field after field. Because he was a hero. Because his character was that of legend.

Because character transcends.

-David A. Johnston