Courage, it couldn’t come at a worse time.
“Courage, it couldn’t come at a worse time.”
That line is one of my favorites, from one of my favorite bands, The Tragically Hip. I listened to this song as I walked out for each heat of the 2010 Olympic Games.
And I found myself thinking about it lately.
Most things in life that we want to accomplish, that are hard, that we're nervous about, that we're not sure if we can do, are all about having the courage to do something.
Sometimes I look at some athletes that jump off mountains or run incredible marathon times, or I think back about my own bobsled career, and I wonder about how people do these things that may seem hard or difficult or even impossible.
Then just recently I came across a video on Instagram and it reminded me what overcoming real fear is.
The video showed a crash at the exit of curve 13 in Winterberg, Germany. Here’s what happens in a crash like that: you're going over 80 mph and when you crash, the driver gets slammed right down on their head with no time to react for any safety. It's awful. Your head is sticking out, and you’re getting pile-drived by exploding G-forces with nowhere to go except into your sled and body. It looks like you should die, or at the least be sent to the hospital... It looks that way because that's exactly what should or could be happening.
And I did that exact same thing when I was driving Europa Cup on that track when I was learning how to drive.
Now when I look at that video, I think, “man, that just looks insane and terrible and dangerous. That could easily kill you.”
But back then, you know what happened after I crashed?
My brakeman Ethan Albrecht-Carrie and I went straight back to the top of the mountain, warmed up hard, pushed off the top as hard as we could and went down the track again.
Was I scared? Yes! I couldn't stop thinking about it on the way up the hill in the back of the sled truck. I kept flashing back to it when I was warming up. And you could have shaken a martini in my hands as I approached the start block at the top.
But something sport has taught me is that when it's time to go, it's time to go.
When you’re doing things that take courage, fear isn't relevant. It's natural, it's normal, and it's just part of your day-to-day. It’s not something that should throw you off course.
I had a track coach in college, Mike "Mouse" Holloway who used to say "If you're scared, say you're scared."
There was a sign right outside of our locker room highlighting the quote.
The meaning of that has evolved over time for me personally, but it always allowed room for vulnerability while not allowing fear to be an excuse.
So if someone thinks I'm afraid of a difficult conversation, or being wrong, or losing - they’re right. If they think that's going to slow me down or make me hesitate - that's possible. But if they think it's going to stop me - they'll need to think twice.
We've all had incredibly difficult things happen in our lives. And we all have things that we have to do on a daily or weekly basis that involve courage. Just look at what we’ve all been through over the past year. (As I wrote in my last newsletter, remembering the low bar can be useful.)
We might not all be driving bobsleds or careening down mountains. But we all have fear, and we all have courage.
It's in all of us.
I’ve been lucky enough to see some of my courageous moments on video. But we don’t always have audio or visual proof.
Sometimes we have to deliberately play the tape in our heads to remind us just how much courage we’ve got.
- Steve
As always, I LOVE to hear your feedback, what this meant to you, or anything else you’d like to share! Feel free to fire me a note, here.
