Olympic gymnast: ‘Check your ego at the door’ to excel at teamwork

Key Takeaways

Three-time Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes championed teamwork, saying “checking your ego at the door” is the key to success, at NACo’s General Session on July 14. She inspired a ballroom filled with county officials from across the country, whom she called “the heartbeat and bloodline” of their communities back home.

“What you all do on a day-to-day basis is what I did for a bit for my Olympic career,” Dawes said. “You’re planting positive seeds, you’re educating, you’re empowering, you’re inspiring, you’re ensuring that there’s a safe environment, not only for our children, but also for our families and adults, so I want to thank you for what you’ve committed and been called to do.”

Gymnastics is an individual sport, but Dawes and her U.S. Olympic teammates had to work together and uplift each other to get the gold in 1996, she said. The U.S. Olympic gymnastics coach had the team pick affirmations from a jar each day and one of them stuck with Dawes, shifting her perspective on success: “Team together, everyone achieves more.” 

“You cannot work in harmony with one another if you have an ego,” Dawes said. “So, what my team was able to do — that became known as ‘the Magnificent Seven’ — the next day, we went to practice, and we took those blinders off that had always been on our heads. The sport of gymnastics is ‘me, myself and I, focus on getting your job done,’ but at those Olympic games, there was something bigger than just me.”

Dawes, who won a gold medal in the 1996 Olympics for the team event, said material measures of success are “fleeting” and don’t last forever; she stores her gold medal, which is beginning to tarnish, in a junk drawer next to packets of duck sauce and spare batteries, she said. Real success is planting a positive seed in someone else’s life and creating a legacy, she added. 

“It’s very hard these days, where there’s a great deal of tension, a lack of forgiveness, a lack of love, but remember we should not judge others until we walk a lifetime in their moccasins,” Dawes said. “And so, if we make that concerted effort to check our egos at the door, we will see life differently and we will embrace all of the greatness that is right in front of us. That is truly success. 

“And success is not standing on top of a mountain top, success is not standing on top of a podium with a hand over my heart, success is standing right in front of us each and every day, but you will not embrace it, you will not see it and you will not live it, if your ego is attached.”