the ELITE project

What began as a conversation over coffee, has turned into David Glover’s quest to accelerate excellence and expedite results.

David Glover rappelling down Cullasaja Falls in NC

A few weeks ago, I sat down with Sam Horn, Intrigue Expert, professional speaker and author of Pop! to get her help in helping me tie together all the disparate pieces of my business and personal life.  I was looking for an answer to one question: What am I all about?  What is the common theme of an Eagle Scout, US Naval Academy graduate, cancer survivor, elite level triathlete, race director, coach, fiancé, graduate student, author, etc.?

At one point in our conversation I told her, “The saddest thing in life is to live with regret – to look back and wish that I had done something that I hadn’t or to do something and not do it well. I don’t want to live with regret.”

That was it.  That was the common theme – I don’t want to live with regret.  I want to learn and grow, to live life meaningfully and to be exceptional in the things that I choose to do.  In essence, I want to be elite in the things that I do.  As an elite author, I want to write a best-selling book that thousands of people will read.  As an elite athlete, I want to continually challenge myself outside my comfort zone.  As a cancer survivor, I want to set a positive example to other cancer survivors that you can live an active life after cancer.

The ELITE project is about finding elite people in their area of expertise, learning from them and then helping others achieve their own elite success and a life without regret.

Q: What do you mean by “elite”?

Webster’s Dictionary defines elite as “the best of a class,” but I also consider elite to be a relative term as in a continuum.  My definition of elite is simply “to become much better.” For example, although a high school student may never acquire the fitness of an elite Navy SEAL, the student can still adopt some of the Navy SEAL behaviors and characteristics like self-discipline and commitment to start and maintain an exercise program.  For the high school student, achieving elite status may mean going from doing nothing to training for a 10km run.

Q: What are some behaviors and characteristics of an elite?

First and foremost, elite status is earned and indicates a level of mastery.  Becoming elite requires doing the work.

Elites are purposeful and passionate about what they do – they have a vision for the future and they may walk a lonely path to get there.  They’re not easily distracted, like my dog Twix who wants to chase after all the squirrels he sees. Unlike Twix, we don’t have leashes that keep us from straying from our path so being elite requires a level of discipline and commitment to stay on the path in spite of the squirrels that might distract us.

Finally, being elite means always being in motion.  As a former boss at Capital One used to say, “The performance bar just keeps getting higher.” Being elite means it’s not good enough to keep doing the same things in the same ways over and over.  Being elite means continuously learning and practicing to raise the bar and become even better.  Learning from other elites is an excellent way to do this.

There are other characteristics and behaviors that I’ll be exploring and discussing with the ELITE project going forward.

Q: What are your plans for the ELITE project?

What I’m interested in finding are the common behaviors, characteristics, processes, etc. that the elite do that enable them to be so successful.

Initially, I’ll be interviewing and writing about “elite” people like Gary Rossi, a former Navy SEAL who now coaches a high school women’s soccer team, about what his Navy SEAL experiences taught him and what the rest of us can learn from it.

I’ll be speaking with triathlon Olympian Joanna Zeiger who’s attempting to qualify for the Olympic marathon trials at age 41 after a terrible bike accident has kept her from competing in triathlon.

I’ll interview sports marketing guru Graham Fraser who starting with Ironman Canada successfully built the Ironman Triathlon brand in North America – a brand logo that Ironman participants will tattoo on their body – and has recently launched Centurion Cycling, which will be another sports marketing success story.

I also plan to interview my friend, Mike Guzek, who played basketball at UNC – an elite basketball school – then quit basketball to start anew in triathlon.  As tall and as big a guy as Mike is, he may never win a race, but he is committed to train to achieve his own level of eliteness while balancing with his rules of being a worker, a husband and the father of a toddler.

There are many, many fascinating people with stories worth telling, and I think we can learn something from all of them.  What I like about this project is that elite status is not limited to athletes or the military.  You can be an elite salesperson, an elite mom, an elite entrepreneur, an elite student, etc.

I eventually plan to write some books and do some speaking, too.

By the way, if you know of a good candidate for being an “elite,” please send them my way.

Live life richly and without regret!

David B. Glover, MS, CSCS
Director, The ELITE Project
Email: david (at) theELITEproject.com