After watching Lance Armstrong’s miraculous 3^rd place finish in the Tour de France, I read his book, “It’s Not About the Bike”, an inspirational read about his triumph over cancer.

I first became enthralled with him during a keynote I saw him give at a conference several years ago.  He told the story of his rise to prominence as the world’s premier cyclist.  Having had cancer spread throughout his body, he had brain surgery in an Indianapolis hospital where he had found one of the few doctors who thought he had a chance to live a productive life.

The day after the surgery, he was visited by his agent, one of his closest friends.  When the agent asked him how he was doing, Armstrong said he was incredible (I am paraphrasing).  The agent, befuddled by his state of mind fired back, “Lance, you almost died, how can you be so positive?”  “I am as low as you can go.  It can only get better from here.  I am going to reinvent myself,” said Armstrong.  And he did.  He went to the only race team that would have him and rebuilt the organization including the team, the equipment, the sponsors and training regimen from scratch.

The Tour de France (cycling 2200 miles through the Alps including several 7,000 foot mountains) is amongst the world’s most grueling sporting events.  Armstrong’s feat of winning seven Tour De France titles in a row may be the most incredible sports achievement of our lifetime. 

Many of us have our own mountains to climb, but we don’t have to wait until we hit rock bottom to do it.  We should be reinventing ourselves and our companies constantly.  Our clients expect it. Global hyper-competition requires it. To re-imagine your business requires the decline and focus of a world champion bike racer.  What will you reinvent today?