To Be A Success, You’ve Got To Be Willing To Flop
Dick “Wizard of Foz” Fosbury, the guy who reinvented the high jump, bought the farm a couple weeks ago. I was always a big fan.
When I was a kid and the Summer Olympics were on TV, we would hold our own version in Ashley Reservoir. My best event was the high jump. The bar was a long bamboo pole that came inside a new rug my mom bought.
Once as I was running toward the bar, about to set the neighborhood high jump record, a piss-ant dog came ripping out of nowhere and nipped me. Little bastard. I bungled the jump and the event was won by Hamhock Johnson, my old friend Jim White’s half-brother.
Until Foz came along, professional high jumpers like John Thomas and his Russian rival Valeriy Brunel took the traditional approach by running parallel to the bar then using a straddle kick over, landing with the face pointed down. That ain’t what Dick did. In 1968, Foz did a most unusual thing. He took off at an angle and leaped backwards over the bar. It was a convention-defying move and, with the world watching, Foz won the gold medal for the USA and set an Olympic record.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SlVLyNixqU
By the next Olympics almost all high jumpers were using the “Fosbury Flop.” Dick changed the entire event with a technique that looked crazy at the time but the winning result made it a standard. They told him it couldn’t be done. Doctors said the technique would lead to people breaking their necks. People made fun of him. Said he looked like a fish flopping around in a boat. Foz did it anyway.
Over time, business leaders used the Fosbury Flop as a study in innovation. A willingness to take chances and break the rules. The Flop remains a hit and the Foz’s willingness to break the rules is a lesson from which we can all learn. It’s like Buck Norman always says, “Promote rebel thinking.” Keep your dukes up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF7V2dSvxpo
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