It Was Never About the Race

By John Register, CSP, CPAE, PLY

Most people I meet think relationships are built through accomplishments. I believe relationships are built through presence. Sometimes losing something you thought mattered reveals what mattered all along.

I learned that lesson from my son, John.

When he was three, four, and five years old, every Sunday after church in Crawfordsville, Arkansas, he would challenge me to a race. About 100 yards from the church was a dry creek bed. As soon as we stepped outside, he’d look up at me and say, “Dad, race you to the creek.”

Then he’d take off running.

He was sprinting with all the determination a little boy could muster while trying to cut me off before we reached the finish line.

The funny thing was that he was racing his father, a world-class hurdler, a two-time Olympic Trials qualifier, and someone preparing for what I hoped would be the 1996 Olympic Games.

The outcome was never really in doubt.

Yet every time we arrived at the creek, he would ask the same question.

“Dad, did I win, or did you let me win?”

And then we’d begin the walk back.

That walk became our ritual.

We talked about school, friends, and questions only a three-year-old, four-year-old, or five-year-old could ask. We talked about what mattered in his world.

What I remember most today is not the race.

It’s the conversation.

The race lasted seconds.

The relationship was built during the walk.

Then everything changed.

In May of 1994, a training accident ruptured my popliteal artery. Seven days later, my left leg was amputated.

Life changed instantly.

The future I had envisioned disappeared. The identity I had built as an athlete was suddenly gone. I was learning how to walk again, how to manage pain, and how to navigate a reality I never expected and certainly never wanted.

Several months later, after church, my son stood on those same steps and asked the same question.

“Dad, race you to the creek.”

I looked at him.

Then I looked at my prosthetic leg.

My residual limb was covered in blisters. Every step hurt. Physically, emotionally, mentally—I was not in a good place.

And for perhaps the first time in his life, I told him something neither of us wanted to hear.

“I don’t think I can run.”

It hurt to say those words.

Because I wasn’t just talking about a race.

I was confronting everything I feared I had lost.

My son looked down at my artificial leg.

He looked back up at me.

Looked back down again.

Then he smiled and said,

“Well, Dad, can we just walk down there?”

And in that moment, I realized something that has never left me.

It was never about the race.

It was always about the relationship.

That realization has shaped far more than my relationship with my son.

It has shaped how I lead and how I serve.

And it has shaped how I show up for every organization that invites me into their conference, leadership summit, executive retreat, fireside chat, or strategic conversation, because I know speaking works best when it is built on a relationship.

Speaking is a relationship that begins before the event and continues after it.

It is a relationship.

Too often, keynote speaking becomes transactional. A speaker arrives. A speaker delivers content. The audience applauds. The speaker leaves. Information may have been delivered, but transformation rarely occurs through information alone.

Transformation happens through connection.

I have never viewed my role as simply delivering a keynote speech.

My responsibility begins long before I ever step onto a stage.

Before every engagement, I spend time with event leaders and stakeholders to understand what they are trying to accomplish. What challenges are they navigating? What questions have they not considered? What opportunities are sitting in front of them that have not yet been seized? What leadership behaviors need to be strengthened? What decisions are being delayed?

Every organization is at some point along its own transformation journey.

If I don’t understand that journey, I cannot fully serve it.

The relationship begins before the event ever starts.

That is why I often create customized video messages for attendees before a conference begins. I want attendees to think about the questions that matter before they ever take their seats. I want them to arrive prepared to engage, not simply to consume.

Then, during the keynote itself, I don’t believe in one-way communication.

I don’t believe my philosophy should exist in isolation from the people expected to apply it.

My framework, The StrikePoint Decision Path, was built on lived experience, but its value is tested through others’ experiences.

That is why I use audience polling, real-time interaction, and active participation throughout my presentations.

I want to hear the voices in the room.

I want leaders to

• Wrestle with the concepts
• Challenge assumptions
• Identify where hesitation may be slowing momentum

The audience is not there simply to hear my story.

They are there to discover their own.

The goal is for people to leave asking better questions.

• What decision have we been avoiding?
• What commitment must we make?
• What fear is slowing our execution?
• What do we need to release to enable growth?

And the relationship doesn’t end when the applause stops.

After the event, I often create follow-up video messages that reinforce key lessons and reconnect attendees to the commitments they made during the experience.

Because momentum is fragile.

The energy of an event can disappear quickly once people return to overflowing inboxes, competing priorities, and daily pressures.

• The follow-up matters.
• The reinforcement matters.
• The relationship matters.

Just as the walk back from the creek mattered more than the race itself.

The more I reflect on that Sunday morning with my son, the more I realize it revealed a leadership truth I would spend the rest of my life teaching.

People rarely remember every word you say.

They remember how you helped them move.

They remember whether you listened.

They remember whether you understood what they were saying.

They remember whether they felt seen.

My son wasn’t asking me to be an Olympic athlete.

He wasn’t asking me to be fast.

He wasn’t asking me to win.

He was asking me to be present.

Organizations are not all that different.

The strongest leaders understand that people do not follow titles.

They follow trust.

They follow relationships.

They follow leaders who create enough safety for people to acknowledge reality and enough belief for people to move forward together.

Perhaps that is why my own leadership journey has unfolded across three very different worlds that ultimately point to the same truth.

As a combat veteran, I learned that leaders rarely have perfect information. The mission still moves forward. Decisions still have to be made. Leadership is revealed when conditions are changing, and consequences are real.

As an elite athlete who pursued the Olympic Games and achieved Paralympic Silver Medal status, I learned that championships are rarely won on game day. They are won through preparation, discipline, and commitment long before the spotlight arrives.

As an amputee, I learned something many leaders struggle to accept. Some decisions are irreversible. Once the amputation happened, I didn’t get my leg back. Once certain decisions are made, there is no return to the previous reality. The future must be built from where you are, not where you wish you were.

Three different experiences.

One common leadership truth.

• We must decide – Reckoning
• We must commit – ReVision
• We must adapt – Renewal

Those are the foundations of the StrikePoint Decision Pathway.

Yet underneath all three disciplines sits something even more important.

Relationships.

Because every decision affects people.

Every commitment impacts people.

Every adaptation requires people.

And every transformation succeeds or fails based on the quality of the relationships carrying it forward.

Today, CEOs and executive leaders are facing unprecedented levels of disruption. Artificial intelligence is reshaping industries. Workforce expectations continue to evolve. Markets shift overnight. Competitive advantages disappear faster than ever before.

The leaders who thrive will not be the ones who wait for perfect conditions.

They will be the ones who move decisively.

In the military, victory rarely belongs to the force with the most information. More often, it belongs to the force that seizes the initiative.

In athletics, championships are won by competitors who recognize strategic openings and act.

In business, organizations rarely lose because they lack opportunity. They lose because hesitation allows opportunity to pass.

Many organizations believe they are playing offense when, in essence, they are studying, evaluating, piloting, discussing, and waiting.

Meanwhile, someone else is moving.

Someone else is committing.

Someone else is building momentum.

Every advantage requires commitment.

Every commitment eliminates alternatives.

Every transformation requires the courage to let go of something that no longer serves the mission.

That is why the inability to let go of the past creates paralysis.

Leaders cannot build a new reality while remaining attached to an old one.

Organizations cannot create tomorrow using yesterday’s assumptions.

Growth requires release. An amputation.

Movement requires commitment. After all you cannot steer a parked car.

Leadership requires relationships.

Which brings me back to a little boy standing on the steps of a church in Crawfordsville, Arkansas.

A little boy who taught his father a lesson he would spend decades sharing with leaders around the world.

The race was never the point.

The relationship was.

And perhaps that is the question worth asking today: What will you choose to release so you can move forward together?

• What race are you still trying to win that no longer matters?
• What opportunity is waiting on the other side of a decision you have been delaying?
• What relationship deserves more of your attention than the finish line?

Because long after the race is forgotten, people remember who walked beside them.

And sometimes the greatest leadership lesson is realizing that movement was never about getting there first.

It was about making sure no one had to make the journey alone.