Part 2: Can’t always get what you want? 3 principles of the athlete mindset

While his fellow eight-year-olds could be seen riding bicycles, shooting baskets, or frolicking on nearby playgrounds, Lex was having a very different experience. 

As a boy, Lex Gillette’s sight began to slowly fade entirely due to recurrent retina detachments. Ten operations failed to stabilize what little sight he had left. After the final surgery, Lex’s mother, Verdina Gillette-Simms, had the difficult task of telling her son he would likely never see again. As painful as this was, she vowed to teach Lex everything he would need to know to be successful in life. Her hard work and love were the foundation for Lex’s accomplishments.

Lex’s trademark is: No Need For Sight When You Have a Vision.

Today, because Lex pursued his goal through adversity, he is the best totally blind long and triple jumper in the history of the U.S. Paralympic movement. He is the current world record holder in the long jump, a five-time Paralympic medalist, a four-time long jump world champion, and an 18-time national champion. He is the only totally blind athlete to ever eclipse the 22-foot barrier in the long jump. (And I’m proud to say he’s also a member of the Board of Directors of Classroom Champions.)

Lex’s story is what happens when you set a vision for yourself. It’s the second principle of the Athlete Mindset, which is this: 

You don’t get what you don’t ask for, and you don’t get what you don’t pursue. 

Lex embodies what is possible when we choose to envision and chase - pursue - what we want for ourselves, regardless of what others might think is possible or even likely.

But clearly there’s another part of this principle, too. Because the truth is, sometimes the vision isn’t there. We don’t have crystal balls. Sometimes we have no idea what the heck is going to happen next (just consider the past two years.)

So sometimes, you just have to put yourself out there. Raise your hand. Take a shot.

This is how I went from the University of Florida to the cold mountains of bobsledding. 

I bring back a fair amount of bobsled stories in this newsletter. I can’t help it. But to this day I look back at that scared 22-year-old kid and smile in amazement. Now, almost 22 years later, thinking back on this aspect of the athlete mindset feels like I’m peering through the looking glass at another person.

In August of 2000 that 22-year-old version of me was sitting on my couch in Gainesville. I was two days out of Tommy John surgery, after tearing my elbow throwing a javelin only weeks after being kicked out of the training room for being a waste of everyone’s time the winter before. 

Yes, I was considered a waste of time by the coaches and staff. I kept getting injured again and again and again. I’d gone from being a high school national champion in 1996 but by the time I was on that couch four years later, I’d been banned, considered a waste of a scholarship. Because of my injuries, I hadn’t been able to deliver. 

But I wasn’t ready to be done yet. I wasn’t ready to think I peaked when I was 17. So as I sat on that couch in my post-surgery sling, I pecked with my left hand - U-S-O-C - and I emailed the Olympic committee to see if my old coach, Jerry Clayton, was right when he compared me to a bobsledder he once knew, years before. I wrote to them and said “I”m this big, this strong, this fast. Can I do this? If I can, let me know, if I can’t, just let me know.”

Well, I received an email the next day from USA Bobsled and I was off the races. 

Incredibly, two days after we won our gold medal in Vancouver, the coach who fielded that email, Greg Sand, forwarded me my original email. I burst into tears sitting right in the Olympic Village. I was amazed to see that scared, 22-year-old athlete grasping at Bobsled of all things.

That’s how the second Athlete Mindset principle — you don’t get what you don’t ask for or pursue — was set in stone for me. 

In the words of the Rolling Stones, you can’t always get what you want. 

But bring the Athlete Mindset to the table and you can always, at the least, give it a shot.

- Steve