In 2009, when giving a commencement speech at USC, then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger outlined his now famous Six Rules of Success. I must have lost count to how many times I’ve listened to this speech and reflected on those Six Rules. Many of them are idioms we often hear that drive and motivate us towards our goals: trust yourself, break rules, don’t be afraid to fail, and work hard. But the one that resonated the most with me is his last rule: give something back. I think the reason why I like this rule the most is because its inclusion on Arnold’s list showed that success is not a fait accompli once you’ve met your goals and completed your tasks. Instead, success is an ongoing process, and it’s incumbent on all of us to continue to contribute and give back to an environment or community which enabled our success in the first place so that we can collectively continue to succeed. Success is not a benchmark or an event, and you’ve not achieved success until you’ve given back.
It is then, very apropos, that the Governator’s own uncle-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, in his 1961 presidential inaugural address, uttered the famous words, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” upon obtaining the highest office. I’ve written on the topic of breaking free from the shackles of the Protestant Work Ethic as well as a tyrannically meritocratic mindset, in favor of providence and mutual obligation (this is also apropos because Kennedy was a Catholic, and the idea of providence and obligation features heavily in Catholic theology). I want to focus this piece on the necessity and obligation for Olympic Weightlifters to give back, because it is only through the giving back of members of our community, that this sport is viable to enjoy for all of us.
In Canada, where I coach and compete, Olympic weightlifting is governed by individual provincial associations that rely entirely on volunteer labor, with only a few positions offering very modest stipends. My understanding is that the US follows a similar decentralized governance model whereby the sport is administered at the state level. In short, no one is getting rich from Olympic weightlifting. The sport is upheld on the backs of the free labor of passionate and community minded individuals. I’ve often heard many weightlifters say that they want to see the sport thrive and grow, they want to see the level of competition rise, and that they want to see the sport get more national and international attention. All of these things sound good in theory, in practice however, each stage of growth will come with an exponential increase in workload and labor demands.

So, the question I ask back at all of you is, what are you doing for the sport of weightlifting? What are you doing for your local competition organizers and weightlifting associations and federations? I ask this with the assumption that the sport has done something for you. It has probably enabled you to compete and test yourself. It has probably helped you find a group of friends. Perhaps you’ve benefitted from the health and strength outcomes from training, or weightlifting has helped build your character and resilience, given you the mental health reprieve you needed from work and life stresses.
But the fact of the matter is, only a very small minority of people volunteer their time and labor supporting the sport. Most of us are free-riders, enjoying the benefits of other people’s hard work. Sure, we pay our dues, but you’ve got to admit, an annual fee in the double digits is a miniscule price to pay for what we get out of it, and I would be shocked if any of that money actually end up in the pockets of volunteers and organizers. Most of us peace out of the competition venue as soon as our sessions are over. Most of us ignore the check box for volunteering on competition registration forms. And most of us simply delete emails calling for help from our associations, if those emails even make it out of our spam folders at all.

In political science and economics, this is the classic collection action problem, by which you do not need to contribute to the production of the public good, in order to enjoy the benefits of it. This is because public goods are by their nature, non-competitive (my enjoyment of it does not diminish your enjoyment of it) and non-excludable (I cannot prevent someone from enjoying the benefits of this good). As such, public goods become prone to the free-rider problem, whereby individuals are incentivized to never contribute to its production, and it becomes more and more burdensome for those that do, until the cost becomes too high for those people to contribute. So on and so forth, eventually, no more public good. This is the tragedy of the commons.

Economists have some solutions for the collective action and free-rider problem. One is to make the public good excludable. We find a way to exclude those who do not contribute to the public good. But in weightlifting, this creates more equity issues than it solves. Individuals who simply do not have the time because they don’t have the middle-class luxury of free time will be disproportionately affected. In a time where we are trying to make the sport more inclusive, setting up barriers for inclusion is a step backwards. The other solution is to increase the cost of entry, which in our case, means increased membership dues so that people can be monetarily compensated for the labor they perform. Once again, this increases the barrier to entry into weightlifting.

There is a third option, and this just requires a bit of a paradigm shift on all of our parts: let’s do what we can, when we can. Studies show that when a critical mass of contributors to a public good is reached, it can encourage others to contribute as well because it becomes the social norm. If we all socialize ourselves to be contributors to our community, we in turn fulfill our mutual obligation to each other and ensure the longevity and collective benefit of the sport itself. This doesn’t mean you have to give up every free weekend to help volunteer at a competition. Maybe this means attending the AGMs. Maybe this means, just staying an extra hour after the competition once you’re done competing to help tear down, or arrive an hour earlier and help set up. Maybe it means taking a technical officials course and volunteer to officiate a session or two. Any act, no matter how small, to help diffuse and shoulder responsibility so it doesn’t just fall on the same cohort of ten individuals. And maybe you’ll find yourself more fulfilled through these acts of service and volunteerism, and in so doing, inspire others to do the same.

Olympic weightlifting is on the precipice. We are on the verge of being cut from the Olympics, which will undoubtedly come with decreased funding and membership. So, it becomes more important for the remaining athletes. The dedicated, but also those who have benefitted from a long competitive career, to really foster this attitude of mutual obligation and community. So that we all contribute to jointly produce the public good that we all know and love. I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but none of you made it to where you are on your own. Your ability to enjoy and progress in this sport to whatever level you are at, is a direct result of the hard work and free labor of others. Even if you’re an Olympic champion, remember Arnold’s sixth rule: give something back.