Bri­an Lewis

The unique­ness of sport and that hu­man be­ings view sport as a spe­cial ex­pe­ri­ence and hav­ing a spe­cial place in their lives un­der­pin what some say is a love-hate re­la­tion­ship.In the best and worst of times, sport is in­tan­gi­ble, ex­pe­ri­en­tial and sub­jec­tive. Bernard Mullin, Stephen Hardy and William Sut­ton prob­a­bly said it best– sports are ex­pres­sions of our hu­man­i­ty that can't be bot­tled like wa­ter.

They em­pha­sized that what each per­son sees in sport is sub­jec­tive in na­ture.Mar­ket­ing sport isn't the same thing as sell­ing soap or bread.Pe­ter Bavasi ex­pressed it this way: "You are sell­ing a mem­o­ry, an il­lu­sion. Each sport fan or par­tic­i­pant cre­ates a dif­fer­ent il­lu­sion."Many sport or­gan­i­sa­tions si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly com­pete and co-op­er­ate while fee sport or­gan­i­sa­tions can ex­ist in iso­la­tion.

Prod­uct salience and strong per­son­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion lead many sport fans and par­tic­i­pants to con­sid­er them­selves ex­perts.The ex­pert men­tal­i­ty ar­gues Bernard et al is a fea­ture not found in any oth­er busi­ness or sec­tor. "They made the point in this man­ner." No oth­er busi­ness is viewed so sim­plis­ti­cal­ly and with such per­son­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion–un­pre­dictable, in­con­sis­tent and open to sub­jec­tive in­ter­pre­ta­tion.

There is a great need for bet­ter sport mar­ket­ing so where do we go from here?

How do we cre­ate in­de­pen­dence rather than de­pen­dence, fu­ture fo­cused, en­cour­ag­ing ini­tia­tives that lead to eco­nom­ic in­de­pen­dence, and a sus­tain­able fu­ture? The long-term bet­ter­ment is through stand­ing on your own two feet and be­ing in­de­pen­dent. No mat­ter where in the world you trav­el, it's hard not to won­der if hu­man­i­ty has lost the art of hu­man in­ter­ac­tion. How to stand out from the com­pe­ti­tion and be un­stop­pable. How to de­light each and every per­son who calls on you and give them a great cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence.

How do we re­dis­cov­er that hu­man touch. It's as if life has beat­en the soul out of hu­man­i­ty.

Soul...it's a vibe that gives pur­pose.

It's at the core of what draws us to things and peo­ple.

Suc­cess doesn't have to be pre­dictable. Soul mat­ters. Pure pas­sion and de­sire mat­ters.

How do we re­main fear­less when am­bi­tion isn't enough?

What keeps your pas­sion go­ing ?

Fo­cus, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and a clear view of the end game.

How do we cre­ate rel­e­vance?

There are so many young peo­ple in T&T who are thirsty for per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al growth and de­vel­op­ment.

The great­est en­e­my of ex­cel­lence is tal­ent: tal­ent­ed in­di­vid­u­als as­sume they will do well be­cause they are tal­ent­ed. When times get tough, it's the ones who are used to try­ing their hard­est who stay the course.

Good lead­er­ship is about get­ting the best out of every­one.

There are times when it seems that the more things change the more they re­main the same.

Our ath­letes en­dure the same prob­lems and is­sues over and over.

Try­ing to get the an­swers that are need­ed to move sport for­ward seem nev­er to come.

Dai­ly those who can fa­cil­i­tate the bet­ter­ment of sport seem more fo­cused on cre­at­ing road­blocks rather than sus­tain­able progress.

As na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions face an un­cer­tain fu­ture, a bet­ter way must be found.

Sport can­not con­tin­ue along the path of fu­til­i­ty.

Forged from the love of lib­er­ty...this our na­tive land...where every creed and race find an equal place.

Side by side we stand is­lands of the blue Caribbean Sea.

Come T&T, awake from your slum­ber.

Sport wants to make a con­tri­bu­tion.

Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee.

Sup­port No 10 Golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund. Make your do­na­tions to any branch of Sco­tia­bank ac­count num­ber 171188.