Negotiating a Blue Flame in a Soft Light Country

In a land of generally mild, courteous, tradition, I am told I play in fire. This isn’t new news to those that know me, nor unusual for a hard driving American, but it has been insinuated at various opportunities here in Bhutan and showed up directly after a meeting in Punakha last summer with all of the stakeholders for the Bhutan International Marathon (BIM). As we finished up official good byes and meandered into the parking lot, Karma leaned in and whispered with a gleam in his eye, “You are like fire.”

Most of the larger organizational meetings I’ve attended via the Bhutan Olympic Committee (BOC) are productive yet polite affairs. Someone calmly and politely offers information and then requests something of another. Discussion happens, then a cohesive relationship ensues, or not. There is a usually a significant amount of agreeing going on (even if one doesn’t agree).

Last summer during our several meetings with all of the different entities we were enticing to come on board to support our event, our whole team was in position to ‘sell’ the race to them. So Greg and I presented ‘America-style’ and I let my natural enthusiasm for what the event could offer this country shine brightly. For Greg and me it was status quo.

Yet working as a big flame in a country of predominantly soft light, agreeable people whom I respect, I take my negotiation of the size and color of the blaze I throw down very seriously. And much of the time like at home, I don’t tend to dampen things. This is usually a ‘good’ thing and has been described by HRH as ‘a lot of passion’. They like that I am asking the hard questions (most of the time) as well as excited at all possibilities—for them, its just not the norm. In a land where tradition and affirmative nodding are looked on favorably, and being someone who sees constructive disagreeing as productive, I often appear to be the curious, big idea, shit-stirrer in the room.

Karma has intuitively learned to guide my blaze prior to a meeting, by culturally prepping me when it is favorable that I dampen the flame a tad. I am eternally grateful as his calm requests help me fine tune my self-awareness. This is a perfect country in which to hone this skill.

But there is one arena regarding our event in which I not only starkly stand alone but have refused to back down. Instead I have blue-lighted my usual intensity to take it on. It involves big prize money in Bhutanese endurance events.

My base argument is this: Prize money can be important as you grow an event—if you can afford it, but it doesn’t support mass participation nor teach the virtues of participation. As we well know as athletes, 97% of us aren’t doing it for the money (and on a base level neither are the other 3%).

Their argument (when I say ‘their’ I mean all at the BOC and the Prime Minister) is: Prize money is the only way to get people to sign up. They are historically accurate only in that here in Bhutan they have always offered prize money and believe that that is why people sign up for races. And in a country where a $200 prize can be a month salary, I get it. Sort of.

Given that I spent a good many years making a living as a professional athlete it feels slightly odd that I am arguing against prize money. But in this particular case and right now, the ill-logic of it all is transparent. Not only is it not sustainable for them to offer money when participants are paying almost nothing to participate in an event and sponsorship opportunities in the country are finite (entry fee for Bhutanese Nationals for BIM is US$8 or less which doesn’t even cover their t-shirt). But their previously small event numbers show that offering the prize money they have, hasn’t generated mass interest. Their argument doesn’t work. Nor does it support an Olympic program or promote the base reasons that all athletes, talented or not as talented, participate—for the joy, challenge and self-betterment of taking on something personally big.

But understandably, Bhutan hasn’t had the opportunity to experience that last piece quite yet. They are still developing sport in general in the country and their participant numbers are too low for a reasonable number of people to connect with and share with others of the nebulous virtues of taking on physical challenge. Yet, this ultimate messaging is crucial in sustaining participation long term. So despite my readily used debating skills its tough to argue with locked-in perception. And though tradition isn’t always logical, it is to be respected and revered on many levels.

All that said, the awesome news is that that though we’ve kept our prize purse low for this first BOC, BIM, our race numbers have exceeded our expectations for this first year event, in particular for international participants. To me this makes total sense, and I can only hope over time it will to my colleagues here. Because what we know is that most of the foreign athletes coming to this event aren’t paying a lot of money to travel to Bhutan to race, at the off chance they might win a few hundred bucks. They are coming to experience this unique and beautiful country via a unique event.

So while my flame continues to burn bright on this issue, we’re taking on rewarding all the athletes at the BIM via another direction. We’ll be having the first raffle prize giving in an endurance event here in Bhutan. Minimal prize money will still be offered as well as beautiful locally made  awards for finishers who place well, but we will also offer the opportunity not only for all participants to win prizes, but for participants from all countries to offer prizes they can bring from their home countries to share with other runners. Sort of a cross-cultural prize exchange. The reception from participants has been exciting!

So while we sort out our raffle, our team is diligently hard at work putting the final touches on our upcoming event. My job this week is to negotiate the appropriate flame size for all meetings leading into the event. With Karma by my side I’m certain everything will spark just perfectly.