It’s not about the bike - Lance Armstrong

-Report by Ajinkya Choudekar, Roll no 15

Central Theme:
The book talks about the majority of Lance Armstrong’s life both personal and professional
emphasizing the struggles and victories over them in different phases. There are three broad
phases in focused in the book viz. the life in general, fighting cancer and making it to the top in
the career. Problem in every phase has been articulated very well almost in a patterned manner.
Starting with the description of the problem, the story moves ahead about how the problem was
tackled and is concluded with a retrospection on how the feeling of victory is. The story starts with
the introspection and discovery of a purpose amidst all the negativity, a purpose that drives Lance
Armstrong to take up cycling as a career and from there on the struggle to make it to the top starts
where he is fairly successful and is hit by cancer, he is pushed in suffering and he again discovers
the purpose and goes ahead and beats cancer. Post this victory, he faces problems with career,
suffering again, almost to the point to where he contemplates quitting and that’s when he
discovers purpose and goes ahead to makes it big. Thus the story follows a cyclic pattern of
suffering, discovering purpose, self-defining, victory and back to square one with different
problem.

Author’s Intention:
As described in the book, Lance Armstrong was a totally different person after surviving cancer.
From a brash, arrogant person, he turned into a humble person with zeal to help people specially
those who are fighting cancer. The book talks about small instances where he displayed this trait
and also about philanthropic work done towards this cause. That was just the start for him, he
wanted to reach out the maximum people and touch their lives by inspiring them through his
learnings form his experience, a book is the best and timeless way to convey the sentiment with
the same intensity as intended and causing paradigm shift.

Key Learnings:
It is in the difficult times when a person learns the most about himself and the people around him.
Never give up, even when the odds of winning/surviving are negative.
Don’t blame the situations, confront them with full energy and will.
Believe in yourself and stand for your dream, be passionate and positive.
Never take an unethical path to win, victory comes to you when you work with right intentions.