When Does 1+1=3?

I read a great story this morning about how helping people out makes us all better.

From The Education of an Accidental CEO, by David Novak.

Back in 1991, when Novak was the president (I think) of Pepsi, he had a meeting with Magic Johnson.

Novak writes:

I asked Magic if he had always been a superstar, if he was always that much better than everyone else growing up.

"You know," Magic said, "I learned a lot back when I was in the junior leagues. My team would win, like, eighty to twenty every time, and I would score maybe seventy of those points. But at the end of the game, everyone was always angry. Not just the other team, but my teammates and their parents. I monopolized the ball so much that nobody else got to shoot, so no one was having any fun.

"I realized that I was going to have to get more people involved or no one was ever going to like me. That was when I decided I was going to learn how to become a great passer. We still won eighty to twenty, bt I'd only score maybe twenty points and the rest of the team would score the rest. The parents liked me, my teammates were happy, everyone was working together. I had learned how to go from 'me' to 'we.'

"Later," Magic continued, "when I got to the Lakers, I told my teammate Byron Scott that I was going to help take him to another level, that he was going to make the All-star team, and he did. I told Kareem Abdul-Jabbar that he was going to score more points than anyone in NBA history because I was going to throw him the passes that would get him there. When Kareem broke the record...the first thing he did was come over and give me a hug and tell me, 'I owe this to you.'"

That really drove home tho me this whole idea of synergy, of one plus one equaling three. If everyone knew his role and fulfilled it to the best of his abilities, than the whole would invariably be greater than the sum of its parts.

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Here's to all of you in the MDB health and fitness community who are helping to make the other guys all-stars, too!

Kevin