Work From The Inside Out 166: Keep on Pushing Through the Obstacles with Devon Harris
Devon Harris is a founding member of the first Jamaican bobsled team, which competed in the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary, Canada. Their exploits inspired the Disney movie Cool Runnings. Devon competed again in 1992 and 1998 as captain of the Olympic teams.
His very early years were spent in rural Jamaica with his grandmother, an amazing storyteller. Her stories had a great impact on him, especially those about soldiers and their extraordinary abilities. He then moved to Kingston, Jamaica to live with his Dad and attend school. He describes it as a challenging, rough, violent, ghetto environment. Early on, Devon focused on school and sports as he knew that excelling in these areas was his ticket out of the ghetto. At 15, he discovered the Olympics ABC Wide World of Sports series on TV.
“When you think of Olympic athletes, I think of these superhuman beings. What I saw in those series were very average people but they had extraordinary dreams. And they had an equally extraordinary desire to make those dreams a reality. So that's when it dawned on me, wow, anybody could become an Olympian, within reason you need a talent. But outside of that, if you dare to dream that extraordinarily, then backed up that dream with work ethic, sacrifice, and commitment. That's when I decided that I wanted to become an Olympian.”
Of course, bobsledding was not on Devon’s radar as his dream Olympic sport. Listen to our conversation to learn how that came to be. While Cool Runnings tells the story of how the original bobsledding team was formed, Devon shared that the movie is highly fictional.
Today, Devon is a motivational speaker, author, and philanthropist. He shares his lessons about persistence over obstacles to living one's best life. He wrote a children's book Yes, I Can, and a semi-autobiographical book, Keep on Pushing Hot Lessons from Cool Runnings.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Devon’s amazing journey:
- Devon is a graduate of the prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England. He served as an officer in the Jamaica Defense Force retiring as a captain.
- He is a philanthropist creating the Keep On Pushing Foundation, which supports the education of kids in disadvantaged areas and his original schools in Jamaica.
Learn more and connect with Devon here:
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