Defeat is Optional

The Key to Progress: How to Be Content Without Being Complacent

• Ronnie Baker

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In this episode of 'Defeat is Optional,' host Ronnie Baker, a professional track and field athlete, shares his personal journey of overcoming setbacks, injuries, and adversities throughout his Olympic career. The podcast focuses on themes of resilience, tenacity, and faith, all rooted in biblical truths. Baker draws upon his experiences and various Bible scriptures to discuss the importance of contentment and godliness in the athletic world, encouraging listeners to shift their perspective on success and setbacks. He emphasizes the significance of being content not through external achievements but by deepening one's knowledge of God and embracing godliness. Through his reflections and scriptural insights, Ronnie aims to guide Christian athletes on finding fulfillment in their sports journey while keeping God as the priority.

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Welcome to Defeat Is Optional. The podcast dedicated to athletes determined to achieve success and overcome adversity. I'm your host, Ronnie Baker, a professional track and field athlete here to guide you through this life-altering journey. In this podcast, I'll share powerful, real, and transformative stories from my own Olympic journey—stories of turning pain into victory, overcoming injuries, and using adversity to my advantage.

If you're driven, seeking motivation, struggling with setbacks, or on the verge of giving up, this podcast is for you. You'll discover the power of resilience, tenacity, and, most importantly, faith. **Defeat Is Optional** is about gaining the mental strength to succeed in sports, all rooted in biblical truth. Get ready to unlock your potential and defy the odds with every episode.

Defeat Is Optional is not just a podcast; it's a way of life.

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Before we get started, I want you all to know that 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

My words are not God-breathed; they're merely my inspiration from God. While this podcast may be helpful for you, my goal is to encourage you to seek Christ. Romans 12:1 says, "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." This is how you spend time with God: by offering yourself in study and prayer. All the inspiration I get for this podcast comes from the time I spend in prayer and reading my Bible, combined with some life experiences. If you don't know the Word, you cannot test what I'm saying. 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 says, "Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything. Hold fast to what is good."

So hold fast to God's Word, not mine, and you'll start to know in your heart that defeat really is optional. Now, back to your regularly scheduled podcast.

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Intro

📍 Hey friends! Welcome to Defeat Is Optional, the place where I remind you of the power of resilience, tenacity, and, most importantly, faith.

This podcast is all about gaining the faith you need to succeed in sports as a Christian athlete, all rooted in biblical truth. I'm your friend and your host, Ronnie Baker. Do you struggle with contentment? Are you elated in winning but miserable in defeat? No matter how much you improve and get better, are you always straining and longing for the next big thing? How can we be content while also not becoming complacent in our athletic careers? Today, that's exactly what we're going to unpack. In this episode, I'm going to share what it takes to have contentment and get back to enjoying your sport through the Lord. I'm going to give you the key to unlocking contentment in your life. If you're listening to this episode, you may feel like you're not very blessed, maybe because you didn't win that competition you prayed God would help you win. Maybe you feel like you don't have favor because every time you're on the verge of a breakthrough, you get injured. Or perhaps you just feel like your performance is declining and you haven't had a win in a long time. You might be discouraged because you don't feel like any of the hard work you're putting into training is paying off and you feel like you're wasting your time. I've been in all of these scenarios, and I'm here to tell you that it gets better when you take this simple step that I'm going to outline in this episode.

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Episode Start

Personally, guys, I know how it feels when it doesn't seem like anything is going your way. I want to share a few scenarios from my life where I felt like I just couldn't really break through. In my senior year of college, I was dealing with all kinds of injuries, and I couldn't get my hamstring 100% healthy. This was my last chance to make an NCAA hundred-meter final, and I never made one in my four seasons at TCU. So that year, at the NCAA meet, my heat was the fastest of the three, and I actually had the sixth fastest time overall, which would have put me in the final. But because they ran three heats and they took the top two as automatic qualifiers, and obviously the next two fastest times, I ended up with a 10.09 while the other guys above me, the two spots that were the next two fastest times, were 10.05 and 10.07 coming out of my heat. 

Needless to say, I really wanted to perform well at that championship because I was trying to get a high-paying contract to be a professional coming out of college. And if you're in the world of track and field, you know that the guys that finish in the top three of the events at the NCAA meet are the ones who get kind of first dibs on the big contracts, as far as Nike and Adidas and all the big shoe companies go. 

So that was my senior year of college. The next year, I actually came out as a pro and I was having the best season of my life. At the world championship trials for London, they were. 

So, guys, pushing onto the next year, I was having the best season of my life, and the world championship trials for London were actually in Sacramento that year. I remember it being blistering hot. It was so hot to the point where they had to put water on the track so that we could put our hands down before the start because it was so hot. I was extremely confident that I could make that team that year. This was 2017, and this wasn't my first trials. 

I'd actually tried out for the world team in 2015 and also the Olympic team in 2016, so this is kind of my third big major trials. But in the first round of the a hundred-meter trials in 2017 in Sacramento, I strained my hamstring 80 meters into the race. So needless to say, I did not make that team. 

In 2018, the next year, I had arguably one of the best seasons of my entire life as a runner. I won multiple Diamond League races. I actually finished third in the world championships indoors. 

I ran the third fastest time in the 60 meters ever, and I actually ran two personal bests in the hundred meters that year. So I felt I was finally ready to make an outdoor team and get a medal, but in 2019, the next year, I strained my hamstring two weeks before the indoor season in practice, doing some sprint work. 

And then I had pain in my left adductor all year, which kept me from competing. I only competed in one meet in 2019, which was the world championship trials for the world championships in Doha that year. I actually made the final, but I came up short in fifth place—two spots out of representing Team USA in Doha. 

Flash forward to 2021. Everyone knows that 2020 was a COVID year. So in 2021, after placing second in the trials and making my first outdoor team and first Olympic team, which I was super excited about, I made it to the final in the Olympics. I placed fifth, just outside the medals, after running the second fastest time in the semi-finals and the fastest time of my entire life, 9.83. Since then, what would have been effortless for me a few years ago, which was running nine seconds, became a task for me, and I couldn't dip under 10 seconds for over three years, from 2021 to 2024. 

I ended my 2023 season in July after not making it out of the first round at the trials—the world championship trials that year. I ran my slowest time that I have run since high school, which was 10.46 at a major professional track meet. Which was pretty disheartening. 

So I'm telling you, I know what it feels like to have all your hard work come crumbling down. I know what it feels like to be in a place where you're asking yourself, "Is all this work and the sacrifice worth it?" I know what it's like to be hungry for a win and still have nothing go your way. I know what it's like to envision yourself winning countless times over and over, only not to see it come to fruition or to severely underperform and feel kind of defeated in that moment, wanting to quit and to give up. But we can change those negative feelings you're having with a shift in perspective, which is what I had to do, guys. 

So, I want to remind you that God cares about you and He knows how you feel. 1 Peter 5:6-7 says, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you." So with that being said, your situation will get better. In fact, all the adversity you're currently experiencing—the feelings that everything goes wrong for you, but everything works out for everyone else—that's exactly the thing you need to grow and become a better athlete. That feeling of defeat is the spark for you to adopt the **Defeat Is Optional** mentality and commit one more time to your goals. 

First off, let's change our perspective about the tough times and understand that your tough times are there to help mature you in your faith. Without the trials, without the tough times, you would never grow into the athlete you need to be to overcome your setbacks. After all, in James 1:2-3, it says, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you

 meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." So the testing that we go through, the trials that we go through, the adversity that we go through test our faith and produce steadfastness. And our faith actually helps us grow. So we should count it all joy, is what the scripture says.

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Transition 1

At the beginning of this episode, I posed the question: How can we be more content while also not being complacent in our athletic careers? And if we're searching for answers, we need to look at the Word of God and ask ourselves, what does God say about contentment? So, let's dive into some scripture regarding contentment. Now, first off, I want to tell you guys that there are many scriptures regarding contentment in the Bible—probably hundreds—but we're going to focus on 1 Timothy 6:6-8, and it says, "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content." Pretty self-explanatory, right? Be content with food and clothing. Godliness combined with contentment is great gain to us. But I think we can break this down a bit more. And as I read scripture, I like to ask questions of the text. 

So, what we're going to do is we're going to ask some questions of this text so that we can better understand it. We're going to actually ask four separate questions to help us be more content in our athletic endeavors as Christian athletes while also not being complacent, which I think a lot of Christian athletes struggle with. They want to be content where they are; they want to be content with the blessings that God’s given them, but they have this struggle in their mind where they feel like they're battling between wanting to be competitive, wanting to win, but also being content with what God’s given them. And that is something that I struggled with.

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Question #1

So I want to highlight some scripture, really. I want to highlight some truth so that you guys don't have to go back and forth struggling with this internal battle within yourself, because that's where I was. Right? So when we read that scripture, 1 Timothy 6:6-8, the first question that comes to my mind is if we need godliness, what is godliness? What is the definition of godliness? What is a biblical definition of godliness? And I'm going to back everything up that I say with scripture because I told you guys at the beginning of this episode that the Word of God speaks louder than anything I can say. 

And so I want to be able to give you guys scripture that you can recite, learn, and really apply to your life. So, 2 Peter 1:3 says, "His divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him." 

Another scripture, Titus 1:1 says, "Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to further the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began." 

Basically, Titus 1:1 is saying that Paul is a servant of God and he's an apostle of Christ Jesus, and he was sent basically to further the faith, right? To increase the faith of God's people and their knowledge of the truth. The truth being that Jesus came to die for us so that we could be saved by grace through our faith, and that knowledge of truth leads to godliness in hope of eternal life. 

So it would seem that through these two scriptures, really, the knowledge of God. As we read these two scriptures, it would seem that through the knowledge of God, we have been granted all the things that pertain to life and godliness, and Paul flat out says that knowledge of the truth leads to godliness. So I would conclude from those two scriptures that it appears that godliness depends on knowing God's revealed truth and having a progressive knowledge of God. Right? So in order to increase in godliness, in order to obtain godliness, we need to increase in our knowledge of who God is. And how do we do that? We do that by reading the Word of God.

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Question #2

This all leads me to my second question—Question number two—which is: if knowledge of God is how we obtain godliness, then how do we increase in the knowledge of God? So let's go to scripture to answer this question. We know that we need to have the knowledge of God to increase in godliness. So how do we increase in our knowledge? 1 Timothy 6:11 says, "But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness." 2 Peter 1:5-8 says, "For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of your Lord Jesus Christ." 

What a powerful scripture, right? 2 Peter 1:5-8. So, let's break this down. Increasing in these qualities that are laid out in this scripture is one way we increase in our knowledge of Christ. When we increase in these qualities, we will not be ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, thereby increasing in godliness. And only when godliness is combined with contentment is it considered great gain, according to 1 Timothy 6:6-8. So these qualities should guide how we conduct ourselves in our training and in our competitions. 

The first sentence in 2 Peter 1:5-8 says to make every effort... As athletes, giving effort is something that we do on a daily basis. It's honestly something that comes second nature to us. We probably put more effort into becoming better athletes than we do into anything else. And honestly, it's not just on the track or on the field. Typically, it's literally in every area of our life. 

Even in 1 Timothy, it says, "Rather train yourself for godliness, for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way." And it also says that it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

So effort, I feel like, is an easy thing for us. Now, can we apply that effort to growing in our knowledge of Christ? 

Can we apply that effort to acquiring the qualities laid out in 2 Peter 1:5-8, which are self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love? 

What I want to say is that your growth in godliness and knowledge of Christ doesn't just happen by happenstance. It's not something that just happens to you. Your faith—which you start with right at the beginning—should grow into virtue. And virtue, in this case, is moral excellence. 

It should grow into moral excellence, which should then grow into the knowledge of God, which leads to self-control. Proverbs 25:28, Titus 1:8, and Galatians 5:22-23 are all scriptures regarding self-control. And ultimately, all of that culminates into love, and love is really the crowning achievement of all God's work inside of us. What we've laid out here is that we know godliness involves growing in the knowledge of God. And we know that in order to grow in His knowledge, we need to put forth effort to acquire the qualities laid out in the Bible that are clearly defined for us as Christians—working just as diligently in acquiring these qualities as we do in the weight room, on our diets, and on the track. 

But 1 Timothy says godliness with contentment is great gain. Contentment is more than just being happy with what you have. So let's see how the Bible really defines it. I think when I hear "contentment," that's exactly what I think—the first thing is just being happy with what I have, being happy with where I'm at in life. 

And I think that that is a solid definition, and I feel like that's the definition that most people would use. However, it is not technically the biblical definition, and what I want you to do—and what I want you to start to do as a Christian athlete—is really not to define the Bible and the Word by your own terms. 

The biggest thing for me now that I do when I study is I try to let scripture interpret scripture. So I want to go to the Word to find out how we are going to define contentment.

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Question #3

So our third question is: what is biblical contentment? The word used for contentment is in the Greek, and I do not know how to pronounce it. I believe it's pronounced "autarkia." 

Now, don't quote me on that; I'm going to spell it for you. It's spelled A-U-T-A-R-K-E-I-A. And what it means is complete self-sufficiency. It's a frame of mind completely independent of all outward things, and it carries the secret of happiness within itself. So contentment never comes from possessions or external things.

I'm going to repeat that: contentment never comes from the possession of external things, which is something that we all have to learn. But I'm going to apply that to your athletic endeavors here in a minute. So Philippians 4:12-13 says, "I know how to be brought low

, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." 

It's true that material possessions don't corrupt us.

Let me say that again, right? 

Because I just said that contentment never comes from the possession of external things, and then I just said that it's true that material possessions don't corrupt us. And both of those things are true. In this scripture, in Philippians 4:12-13, Paul explains that he specifically could have abounded in material things and still keep his proper perspective. 

If you read anything about Paul, he did not live a very illustrious life. The man had been put in prison; he had been stoned; he had been beaten; he'd been run out of towns. It would seem for him that he did not have favor; he was not blessed looking from the outside in. 

But he says in this scripture that he can abound in material things and still keep his proper perspective. But too often, many of us use the truth of Paul here as an excuse for our own materialism and lack of contentment. We only find true contentment and strength when our minds are set on eternal things, not on trying to build an earthly nest. Contentment can never be found in worldly possessions or achievements.

Godliness truly can bring almost unbelievable contentment. But before it can, we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds to place material things in the proper place. And that is behind God Himself. Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

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Question #4

So all of this kind of brings me to my last question, which is: what can cause us to corrupt or jeopardize godliness in our hearts? We've defined here contentment, and we understand that contentment never comes from the possession of external things. And those external things could be a lot of different things. I'm actually going to get into some of them that might relate to you. 

They could be things that you've probably been striving for or straining to get, which has caused you to lack contentment in your journey as an athlete. They could be things that have caused you to lack contentment as a Christian in your athletic endeavors. 

So this last question: what can cause us to corrupt or jeopardize godliness in our hearts? 1 Timothy 6:3-5 says, "If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are deprived in mind and deprived of truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain." 

It says imagining that godliness is a means of gain. So those who seek godliness as a means of gain never receive it because a means of gain would be the opposite of contentment. They misuse God's truth. Their interest in the things of God is not entirely for God's glory, but it's motivated in part by a desire for wealth and comfort. 

In this case, wealth and comfort can mean an Olympic medal; it can mean a state title. It can mean a world record. It could mean a school record. It could mean worldly recognition. It could mean an increase in pay. It could mean a special invite to a big event that's happening. It can mean special treatment. It can mean a lot of different things. It could be a bigger house. It could be a nicer car. 

If your interest is in those things and it's not entirely for God's glory, then you're being motivated out of a desire for wealth and comfort. This takes the focus off of Christ and puts it on what He can give us. 

And this is kind of a dangerous place to be and a place where I was at for a long time. Because what it does is it takes the focus off Christ and puts it on what He can give us. Many of our hearts are set on blessings and not on the one who blesses. Whenever we think that getting a win on the track or a title will answer our life's needs, we lack contentment. When we are grieved by losing, we lack this contentment. When we get inordinate pleasure from succeeding or from material things, we lack this contentment. 

And man, can I just say that for the majority of my life, I lived exactly in this treacherous mindset. I misused God's truth and tried to manipulate it to get what I wanted for a very, very long time in my life. As a competitor, I wanted to win and be at the top of the sport. I really wanted the glitz. I wanted the glamour, the fame, the money, the recognition. 

What I heard pretty much all my years growing up as an athlete is that in sports, if you want to be the best, you had to be obsessed with your goals to achieve them. You know, you hear all those videos about rising and grinding, waking up early, making sacrifices. 

You hear your idols and the people that you look up to in sport tell you that you have to be obsessed with this goal to be the best in the world. And so that's what I grew up hearing, and I'm sure a lot of people listening to this podcast have probably grown up listening and hearing and doing the exact same thing. The problem is you'll start to do pretty much anything to get to your goals. 

You'll do anything to be the best, including taking God's Word about blessings out of context to see if it will get you the very things that you're praying to God for.

📍 I had a quick thought in editing and I wanted to insert it here because I don't want you guys to get confused. I want you to understand that making the sacrifices is what you should do. You do that stuff out of the love that you have for Christ; you do it because of the salvation that He's given you already. You wake up early, you eat the right diet, you exercise hard to achieve your goals. I'm not saying that you shouldn't do that because hard work is actually a key component to success. 

Even success in the world—hard work is required to provide a luxury lifestyle for your family or take more vacations or break a record or be the best athlete in the sport. All I'm saying is that as you do the hard work, as you listen to this podcast, as you grow in your faith, as you read your Bible more, as you pray more, don't take those qualities of godliness that you're acquiring and developing through discipline and use them as a claim ticket for your desires. This is not an exchange. 

You can't use your actions to put God in debt to you. At the end of the day, He really owes you nothing. If you don't get anything out of this podcast, remember this: this scripture is actually saying that godliness is enough for our contentment and that, flat out, we should just be content in knowing Christ deeper. 

So please don't confuse hard work and success with being discontent. Hard work and success are part of life and they're part of being great and achieving great things in your life and helping a lot of people. We just have to view the attributes through the proper lens. 📍 

When we operate this way, you're not living in contentment. Your heart is set on the things of the world, not on Christ Himself. 1 John 2:15 says, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." According to this scripture, I may have loved God on a head level, but I didn't in my heart because I sought my own success more than God's will for my life. I sought God for my own means of gain. 

So for me, this was really tough, but it was a very eye-opening moment for me. And am I saying you can never want to win or have nice things or be successful in your sport? That is not at all what I'm saying. And if you think that's what I'm saying, then you're missing the point. 

I'm telling you that if worldly possessions and achievements take precedence over God's will for your life, and you sacrifice God's will for worldly success, you're surely going to be empty and you're going to have nothing. 

You'll always be searching, going in circles, and wondering why you can't seem to make progress. This is exactly where I was. I had a lot of great things going on in my life. I had a lot of blessings that were happening all around me, and I couldn't see them and I couldn't appreciate them. I was not content in them because I wasn't putting God first. I was always, again, striving and straining for the next thing, always wanting to be bigger and better. And it was very ego-driven and very prideful.

And I don't want you guys to have to go through that. So you've got to make sure that you're putting God first in everything! And take it from me, someone who for a long time defined my career by medals—right? How many medals did I have? Honestly, this is the world's standard. 

How many outdoor medals do you have? 

And imagine how miserable I felt because I was using the world's standard to determine my level of contentment. You know, my level of blessing. Because I'm someone who couldn't be content with all these blessings God had given me because I was so focused on winning at the highest level. 

Someone who suffered great grief after placing fifth at the Olympics because I put my hope in the wrong things. Guys, I was so consumed with being the best and having these medals that I couldn't even appreciate being able to make an Olympic final, which if you think about the gravity of it, if you're an athlete, that's a Christian athlete in the place where I was, where you feel really defeated even after these last Olympics in Paris. I felt very defeated after that because I did not medal. 

And I felt like I was one of the best in the field. It was very, very hard for me. And what I want to remind you, and I want to encourage you to remember is that you have to realize how incredible it is to make an Olympic final. You know, there's only been 30 Olympiads, and I believe the U.S. wasn't even in one of them. They boycotted it, and then one of them didn't happen because of a war. 

So you imagine there are 31; there are eight people that make a final. So you multiply eight by 30. You're looking at 240 people. And you have to remember that a lot of those people are repeats. There's probably less than 200 people in the entire existence of humanity that have ever made an Olympic final. 

So if you've been in that place, understand the gravity of what you've done and how God's blessed you and how elite you actually are, no matter if you have an Olympic medal or not. And that was my struggle. I couldn't even see that, guys. I was that guy, and I want to help you guys realize that being content and trusting God—not just saying it, but truly in your heart—is the proper way to achieve in your walk as a Christian athlete. At the end of the day, the medals and accolades are going to perish. 

They're not going to last forever, and Luke 21:33 reminds us of that. It says, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." So to wrap this thing up, I want you guys to be content with where you are in your athletic pursuits. I want you to start to grow in your knowledge of God. Increase your effort in developing the qualities in 2 Peter 1:5-8, and it will be a great gain to you. 

Right? 1 Timothy 6:6-8 says, "But godliness with contentment is great gain." Increasing in the knowledge of Him, increasing in the qualities of Him, spending time with Him, offering your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. 

So increase your effort in developing the qualities in 2 Peter 1:5-8, and it will be a great gain to you—not in material things, but in eternal things, and this will bring contentment into your life.  And living in contentment with what Christ has already done for you, which is giving His life for you—that's truly how you become blessed.

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Outro

So thank you guys for listening. 

Do me a favor: If you enjoyed today's episode and it helped you, then share it with a friend. Remember, Defeat Is Optional is not just a podcast; it's a way of life—a series of choices you get to make every day to grow your faith so that you can be successful as a Christian athlete. Make sure you subscribe so you get future alerts about upcoming episodes so you can continue to build your faith through biblical truth. I love you guys so much, and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.