There is a pet peeve amongst many Olympians and it goes like this…

A proper mindset allows you to do the work. But the work still needs to be done.

“I would tell my younger self to consider your future self. Ask yourself: what would your 60 or 80 year old self tell you now? Then think about how you might shift your choices based on those answers.”

My first thought was: “This is moving really fast and, if I’m being honest with myself, I’m having a hard time keeping up.”

My second thought was: “I am going to do my absolute damndest to figure this out.”

Not so fun fact: There was a time not long ago when a Paralympian winning a gold medal at the Paralympic Games was worth (don’t quote me here) about 10% of an Olympic medal.

‘I’m just going to decide I like it. It’s my brain, it’s my thoughts, it’s my feelings, it’s my choice. I’m going to like it.’

We should take stock, do our lessons learned, and plan ahead at some point. If we do it for projects at work, why shouldn’t we do it for the thing that is FAR more important – our own life?

You would think that if we all knew movement was key to a longer life, ALL OF US WOULD BE DOING IT RELIGIOUSLY.

And yet, a lot of people struggle to actually do it. I see this amongst some of my peers, and I’ve been there myself at times. In fact, the latest information says that only 23% of Americans are exercising enough, and even fewer Canadians.

In what should come as no surprise, nearly 70% of Americans say they want to live to 100 years of age. 

This is possibly the simplest, guaranteed method to improve performance. Athletes do it all the time. Yet so few people in the “real world” do it. 

What’s more important: an idea or the communication of that idea?

Teams are the vehicle through which we accomplish anything. This is true in sport, in business and organizations, in family, in just about any situation where we strive to get or do better.

It’s ok - when we avoid saying things that we want to happen, it doesn’t matter. It’s not the most important part. #BillsMafia

How do you keep your sh*t together when you’re busy?

I’ve been thinking about this lately since October is shaping up to be particularly busy for me. No complaints: it’s a great kind of busy. But I know that I need to keep my head in the game or I’ll feel like I’m falling behind and will be less productive/happy.

I also know what it’s like to need to keep yourself focused and stress levels low. In Olympic training and competition, you are constantly stressed - and I don’t mean the anxiety-type exactly. We looked at everything as stress to the “system”. Our system was our muscles, our nervous system, our psychological state, etc. And we examined stress so closely because high stress produces cortisol in your body, which has some specific negative outcomes for athletic performance.

We had a saying - “stress is stress is stress.”

That meant that often…

When I was training for the Olympics, we didn’t get to choose our team, but once it was formed, we all recognized it was special and we were all-in. 

Word to the wise, though - be careful to who you tell your goals. Research tells us that it can be a double-edged sword.

Did I want to fly an F-16? Um, yeah. I did… and I learned how to communicate going Mach-1.

At the heart of Growth Mindset is the understanding that anything is overcome-able. There’s nothing that we can’t get better at. There’s no “I’m just not good at that”. There’s always, “I’m just not good at that, yet.”

You’re great, you’re great, you’re great, you suck at this thing, you’re great, you’re great.