A Quote by Ron Dennis

I always thought, from day one, that winning races was just doing your job. — © Ron Dennis
I always thought, from day one, that winning races was just doing your job.
It's nice to have recognition for doing a good job, but at the end of the day, I'm just an actor and I'm doing my job and I'm always trying to get better at doing that job.
If I'm winning races, it means I'm doing a good job. I've put down a marker now, against drivers with a lot more experience of the car than me. This is not going to be a one-off.
I've been a part of this before, where you think the racing gods are against you, then next thing you know, you can't do anything wrong. You're winning races and doing things you feel like you shouldn't have done that particular day. It all comes full circle in this sport. It has a funny way of doing it.
When you go to a film set, of course you're going to do your job, and you're excited about being there, but you somehow feel fatigued that you are just doing this day in and day out.
It's not hard to motivate myself because once you get a taste for winning races, you simply don't want to do anything else. You get a buzz from it. You want it every day. Only someone who has experienced winning can understand how good it feels.
Winning is, of course, rewarding; who doesn't enjoy winning? But for me, it's about more than just winning: it's about knowing I'm putting in the day-to-day work to get a little bit better every time.
I was entirely wrapped up in the idea of becoming an actor. I learned how to write on the job, basically out of necessity. I always thought it'd be fun to write something, but it never was an ambition of mine, per se. I just thought, "Well, maybe I'll do it one day just for the hell of it and see if it works."
I treat my writing like a day job, like my main job, even if for many years I was doing other jobs to pay the bills. I worked as a copy editor. I was a medical guinea pig. I was an eBay power seller of ladies' handbags. I was an assistant to a bookie at the horse races. I bartended. I did anything I could to make ends meet.
If they respect the craft and what we're doing and they bring something to the table and they work hard, I don't care what you do as your side job or as your day job.
People asked me, 'Why aren't you doing something more important?' When I was doing well in the D-League, they were like, 'Why can't you get an NBA job? Or a college job?' I don't think people thought much of what I was doing. That's fine. I was learning. Not just X's and O's, but team dynamics.
You are always racing against the other swimmers, but I always try to just focus on what I'm doing and how I want to swim my races.
I really want to have a possibility of going into the Hall of Fame one day. I think that's huge with a lot of baseball writers and old school guys. Of course, that's not the main goal - the main goal is winning a World Series. Hall of Fame is so far away. It's just something I've always thought about doing. I want to be as clean as I can.
When you are in your twenties you just think the races are what matter the most. When you are in your forties you really appreciate what you do every day.
I used to tell my graduate students at Stanford, 'Don't worry about what job you have to pick because your job picks you. Let your job pick you. Find something you are passionate about. Then when you are passionate, be persistent. Just keep doing it for a while because progress is always hard work. It never rests in ideas.'
For sure, 2010 was the best year I've ever had. It couldn't have gone any better for me. Even if I just won the Olympic gold medal, that would have made it the best year of my career and the best day of my life, period. Winning the World Cup races and the overall title just topped it off.
A successful competition for me is always going out there and putting 100 percent into whatever I'm doing. It's not always winning. People, I think, mistake that it's just winning. Sometimes it could be, but for me, it's hitting the best sets I can, gaining confidence, and having a good time and having fun.
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