A Slice of Humble Pie with P2
🥧 A podcast where we curiously explore nutrition, fitness, mindset, sports, wellness, & beyond. ☕️Host @parastoobadie
A Slice of Humble Pie with P2
Olympian Mindset: Resilience Beyond Sport
In this episode, I reconnect with an old friend and two-time Olympian, Mirela "Mimi" Rahneva.
Known for her fearless approach to skeleton racing—hurling headfirst down ice tracks at 130 km/h—Mirela built an incredible career, earning three Crystal Globes, 15 World Cup medals, and a historic bronze at the IBSF World Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
She also competed at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Olympics, where she finished 5th.
But beyond the medals and records, we dive into her personal story: the mental demands of high-performance sport, the sacrifices behind the success, and the tough transition into life after competition. Mimi shares the identity struggles of retirement, the financial barriers in elite athletics, and the mindset shifts that carried her through it all.
We also explore:
✅ How she discovered skeleton racing after a career in national-level rugby
✅ The power of visualization and mental performance in elite sport
✅ Her work with Fast and Female, Classroom Champions, and KidSport Calgary
✅ What it really takes to sustain a long career in high-performance sport
✅ Navigating the fear and uncertainty of starting over
Whether you're an athlete, coach, or anyone facing big life transitions, Mirela’s journey is packed with insights on resilience, reinvention, and embracing the unknown.
🔊 Listen now!
Website: https://parastoobadie.com/podcast/
Email: asliceofhumblepiewithp2@gmail.com
Instagram: @asliceofhumblepiewithp2
Welcome back to A Slice of Humble Pie. I'm your host, P2. I'm a nutrition and fitness professional, a lover of pie and a curious human on planet Earth.
Speaker 1:Today's episode is a special one because I get to reconnect with an old friend, mirella Reneva, or, as I know her, mimi. You probably know her as a two-time Olympian and one of Canada's best skeleton racers, but before she was flying headfirst down ice tracks at 130 kilometers per hour, she was charging into rocks on the rugby field with me. Mimi was destined for elite sport. It was in her DNA. She ran cross country, played varsity rugby for Guelph University and even suited up for Canada's sevens team, but then she made the leap to skeleton, where she competed for over a decade at the highest level. She recently announced her retirement after an incredible career.
Speaker 1:Amy is a three-time Crystal Globe winner and a 15-time World Cup medalist. In 2023, she earned her first World Cup victory in St Moritz, switzerland, breaking the track record at the legendary Olympic quad run. She also competed at the 2018 and 2022 Olympics, finishing fifth in Beijing. But as impressive as her resume is, that's only a part of her story. Mimi has been deeply committed to the next generation, mentoring underserved classrooms, championing girls in sport and making athletics more accessible through organizations like Fast and Female Classroom Champions and Kids for Calgary. She's also balanced life as an elite athlete, while earning a master's in innovation management and working multiple jobs. And that's a big part of what we're diving into today what it really takes to make it in high performance sport the sacrifices, the financial barriers and the moments that almost made her walk away. But more than that, we're talking about identity, because when your entire life is built around sport, retiring isn't just about leaving competition. It's about figuring out who you are beyond it.
Speaker 1:Mirella's story is one of resilience, determination, transformation and humility. I can't wait for this conversation. Let's get right into it. I actually have full memory of you charging headfirst into a wreck. When I first heard that you started skeleton, I thought, of course Mimi would. Can you take us back to the moment when you first realized skeleton was your sport?
Speaker 2:I think it was actually during university. I've gone snowboarding with a couple of friends friends from high school, so I think it was just snowboarding and just kind of pointed the board literally down the hill, no carving, and like flying down the hill. And I think when the guys caught up to me, they're like you're a little bit of a lunatic on the on the ski hill and I was like, oh am I? Is that a bad thing? I just wanted to go fast. Then I think that, um, that winter the 2010 games were happening and Heather Moyes had won gold with Kaylee Humphries, and Heather Moyes is a rugby legend and she was kind of someone that I looked up to playing rugby and I thought you know what, if Heather Moyes can go from rugby into bobsleigh, then maybe I can. I've got some speed and so I just looked up. You know, online, online. What is like how do you, how do you start bombslay? And an email popped up. I emailed the person. It was someone from Ontario and they suggested I come out to a recruitment camp and basically they test your speed. So you go through some like a 60 meter timing eye and they time your 15, your 30, your 60 and your 30 meter, fly Um, and then they test your strength with some fast squats, cleans and some broad jump, and then at the end of it they're like hey, now it's time for you to try the sport. We're going to put you in like classed and you're just going to try it out and see if you like it.
Speaker 2:But at the time I was, I was actually originally told that I was too small for bobsleigh and so skeleton was more the direction that they pointed me in, and so when they sent me to like class, they're like we think you should try skeleton, not bobsleigh. And I was like sure, what is it? And yeah, they put me on this tiny little sled and kind of just kind of booped you off the top, and then you decided whether you liked it or not and, of course, going fast. I was immediately intrigued and was like yeah, this is amazing. And most people's reactions are like ah, this isn't for me, like thanks, but no thanks. You either you know right away like you either love it and you're obsessed, or you're like cool, I'm never doing this again. And I was the kind of person that was like yeah, like sign me up, what's the next step? Like do I move here Like what's cool? What happens next?
Speaker 1:That was an awesome story. I love that. You were like, yeah, what's next? Let's go. Never saw that coming. But also, at the same time, I'm like if anyone thought this was a good idea, anything I remember from you, from school I'm like, mimi, she's got. She's got the courage and the and the just just enough lunatic to make this work Amazing.
Speaker 1:I'm a little bit reckless, it adds up Courageous, reckless. Same same, same same, yeah. So obviously that was your start, which was over a decade ago, and over that time you really did get into it and ended up having a really wicked career, from world cups to two olympic appearances. So if you could share with us now, relive one of those moments of your career, which one stands out the most, bring us on a journey, one single moment from an 11 year career.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll do my best here.
Speaker 2:So there's a skeleton in sport in general in Canada is quite um a challenging topic. I would say I'm gonna choose. I'm a very positive person. I think I really like to draw the highlights and the positive out of situations and focus on those. Uh, the biggest highlight for me was winning my first world cup, like gold. It was my first year on the world cup circuit so my first medal was in like placid. That's the track that started it all. And then my first world cup win was in saint marie, switzerland, which is like the dream win for any athlete in the sport of bobsleigh or skeleton.
Speaker 2:It is a track that is completely made naturally from snow. So the swiss and italian ice makers literally like pile a whole bunch of snow into this, like basically it's a bike trail during the summer, but then in the winter they pile snow into it and they like carefully like carve it out and make these massive corners and each ice meister like has a corner and it's the corner for like the entire tenure with the track. So you go through these like family generations of just creating this ice track that actually starts in saint maritz but finishes in a different town of cellarina and, uh, the entire. It's the longest track that we slide on. It takes about a minute 10 seconds to go down. You go under this cobblestone bridge that this red train grows over. You are driving down this like beautiful forest and the scenery is amazing and it's so quiet and there's no concrete or refrigeration or anything. And, yeah, I, I had done well at that track on a previous race, like on the development circuit in Europa Cup. And then being back to like my second time in Maritz was my World Cup kind of debut season and I won by 1.8 seconds, which I think to this day is like a record because our sport is so close. Our sport is so close, um, we win and lose races by a hundredth of a second left, like 0.01. For someone to win by 1.8 zero is like insanity, and so, um, I remember just being like this isn't real, this must be like some sort of a dream. Um, and then one of the Austrian sliders, janine Flock, who had been sliding forever. She popped the champagne and it's a fancy champagne, and I just remember Janine popping the champagne after I received my medal and just writing me down with the champagne. Okay, this is the life, I can get used to this.
Speaker 2:It was a really fun, fun race. Like I went through all the nerves and the expectations and the doubts and then it just like I let it, like I entered the state of flow and I just slid very intuitively. Sometimes you go down a track and you're like, hey, next corner you have a two pressure. You're steering the first pressure, you're holding height to get around the corner and then you're steering the second pressure and you're exiting. Middle didn't have a program that day, I just kind of felt and watched and observed and it was just a very meditative kind of kind of a race and I think that very few athletes get to experience that. I think we talk about the state of flow and we talk about performing in it, but it's it's rare to experience and I think that that was my very first times of experiencing a full race and flow state.
Speaker 1:That was so captivating. I love that for you. I remember seeing that like on socials. Like you know, there was this and then just you know, we're all cheering from afar. But first of all, switzerland is a dream and everything you just described really sounds like a dream. So I love that. That's something that stood out for you and it's a big memory.
Speaker 2:that's awesome yeah, you see it the same way. It's popping up in social media a lot now. It's like a very prestigious place. Like you, they play polo when the uh lake freezes over so they don't have flat ground. Everything's in the mountains and, um, you have these ladies in fur and all these brand stores. So, just crazy, like Valentino and Louis Vuitton, you're walking down these cobblestones and you're like, oh, this is not my level, like I would never choose to vacation here, but I come here to compete every year, which is so cool.
Speaker 1:You got to get a little bit of both worlds, I guess. Yeah, I love that. Okay. So going on the opposite side a little bit, obviously you shared a lot about. You were talking about the flow state and high performance, but, as we both know, it's not just about your victories. There's so much you know mental battles, injury, setbacks and again I know I'm saying for the sake of the question, but obviously if you have more, but is there any specific moment that really tested you and pushed you to your limits?
Speaker 2:Wow, we're going from like a high high to low, low, the full rollercoaster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know immediately, just right in there.
Speaker 2:Very on brand for you. I appreciate it. I respect that. So low lows. There's honestly so many challenges.
Speaker 2:I think that anytime you enter a competitive environment, there are lots of hurdles, like physical ones and literal ones. But the sport in canada is at an intersection where really we're good at it. We have so many talented athletes. We don't necessarily have the proper resources to support all the talent that we have, and so there's this constant shifting of funds from like one bucket to another, from one sport to the next, and the big pool of funding has never really changed. It's still been the same amount, but like more athletes have been popping up and more female athletes have been representing Canada at the Olympics and World Championships.
Speaker 2:And one of the biggest hurdles, I think, in my career was year of the Olympics. We didn't have a coach. Like the coach walked away, we were headed to China literally coachless. We nobody had really been to that track before. We didn't have any track notes. Imagine going into a competition completely blind. It was really scary for the whole team and I found myself in a position where we had to figure it out.
Speaker 2:I think that if one strength has come from my diverse background is that I will find a way and in chaos I will just be like it's fine, everything's fine, and like it's it's not an option to fail. And so I was like it's fine, I'll be the coach. I just took that on and I was like, um, we have people that are gonna film us. They don't really know anything about skeleton one was like a bobsleigh manager and the other one was like a physio and so they knew nothing about the sport. But what they could do is provide eyes, and literally the eyes. As an athlete, you experience what you experienced down the track, but it's nice to see visually what is actually happening in the corner as like a zoomed out perspective. So we had two cameras and I would get everyone together. I would don't download, and sometimes other nations would film us because it was such a new track and they knew that we weren't there with anybody. So we had like three cameras and we had like six athletes. So that provided us with six viewpoints times of each corner, times three corners each run. So we would gather everyone's videos and I would sit everyone down and everyone's kind of down in the dumps and we're like what are we doing here? We're crashing every run and I'm like it's fine, look at all this video we have. So we reviewed.
Speaker 2:I ended up really gelling with the track. I entered this like state of flow where I just kind of let the sled run and just experienced and flowed through the track and so I was able to talk about how, what I felt. And then I asked the other athletes questions as to what they felt, and then we got everyone to buy in and get on board. And so I remember once, like video sessions, what we call them video review. One of the athletes was like hey, I don't, this corner is still a mystery to me. Why don't we all try something different? And we'll come back after run one and we'll talk about what we tried and what was the result. And I was like brilliant, this is absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 2:So I think one plan was for someone to go completely neutral, which means not drive the corner at all, which is probably the bravest thing anyone could do. And then another athlete's like well, I'll go in and I'll control the first pressure and let the second pressure go again another brave act. Third person's like I'll control the first pressure and let the second pressure go Again another brave act. Third person's like I'll go and I'll control the first pressure, go neutral, control the second pressure and so, anyways, we had this open and honest communication and I think it fostered a trust relationship within a team that really didn't trust each other and we had no leader. We had no leader to be like. Hey guys, like, figure it out. Like this is the guidance I provide you, even though it was a really hard moment in my career. Like all of us had been working towards this olympics for years and years and years, like some of us like eight years right, and we get there and we feel ill, ill prepared, which is not a feeling you ever want to feel when you're committing your entire life towards this one race. So, luckily, that was just a World Cup race.
Speaker 2:We had the opportunity to do a full season and come back for the Olympics, but it was a challenging time. So we walked away from that with a lot of video, a lot of question marks and then the rest that season, I was like asking people who weren't engaged in the sport under other countries contracts to be like, hey, can you come back for the olympics and coach us? Like and not only was I asking you know everybody that, like, I had known within my network that was involved in the sport of skeleton previously, but not currently because I can't go to Germany. I'm like hey, germany, can you please give us one of your coaches? They would obviously say no, but I also had to vet them in front of our NSO. So our national sport organization also had to like, engage this person and vet them, and so I remember writing these like recommendation letters. I was like, hey, this Latvian that used to coach development can come, he's available.
Speaker 2:So it was a very full on season of just me finding solutions to problems that, as an athlete, I shouldn't have had to solve. But here we are and I think my creative brain got spinning and I was like, well, it's not an option to go back to Beijing with no coach. We need one, we need someone to give us a bit of guidance. That's not me. So, yeah, that was another really long winded answer to your question. I apologize. I really like to rant and talk about my sport, apparently.
Speaker 1:Again very captivating, right there with you. Thank you so much for that story. Honestly, a lot stood out. The very first one anyone listening super obvious, your leadership like kudos to you for stepping up and the capacity that you must have to not only show up at such a high level as an athlete but to bring also super high level athletes with you. And it's really wonderful to hear the vulnerability and the communication and the community that you athletes created amongst yourselves. That's beautiful and obviously you did make it to the Olympics. There's a couple of things that you said that really intrigued me. Can you expand on that flow state? You brought it up a couple of times. I'm curious what your process is and how you end up in flow state. Like what? What mindset work have you done that's perhaps supported you getting into that?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question. Before I answer that, I want to just say thank you for making like you. You, you bring up leadership, and I think that this is something that athletes often lack is is bringing experience from their athletic career into after sport careers, and I think that this is something that athletes often lack is bringing experience from their athletic career into after sport careers. So when I retired, entering interviews and scenarios where I had to talk about my life and experience in life, I found it really difficult. I found it really challenging to talk about leadership or any really tangible quality that I had to bring to the table. So I think it just made me realize that, even though I don't have 10 or 15 years of work experience in a high performance culture within an organization, I think that as an athlete and I hope that other athletes out there can really pull these little golden nuggets from their athletic career and are able to talk about it outside of the sports environment because it's valuable and being in it now, I do realize that a lot of organizational leaders do value athletes' achievements and athletes' skills that come from sport. Back to your question about flow.
Speaker 2:I think from a young age my dad introduced me to meditation and visualization. I remember there was an instance where we were just like vacationing, we were on a beach and you know there's lots of time and you're just leisurely kind of enjoying the sun and the water and I remember my dad stuck like a little stick in the sand and he's like observe this stick and just like take it all in and look at all the beautiful little marks on it and crevices and where there used to be a branch but now there isn't, and the color, like try and really take it all in and then like close your eyes and still see the stick. And I think that was like my earliest introduction into visualization and I for me it was a normal thing and I think that when you go through life, you just you go like you have your own experiences and you don't stop to think like, oh like. Did my friend's dad stick a stick in the sand and ask them to visualize it? No, probably not. But I think when I realized that some of my teammates couldn't visualize, like they were like can you talk about what you see when you visualize the track, and it made me realize you mean, you don't see the corners, you don't see the ice like. You don't see the bubbles, the the pebbles of the ice when it freezes that it creates. That was a big realization for me. I think visualization.
Speaker 2:Visualization and meditation are really key in my upbringing and my ability to experience flow and to me flow is is being absolutely present in the moment and taking in all of the visual and physical stimuli or stimulus and being able to react accordingly. So, going 140 kilometers an hour down an ice chute on a little sleigh that weighs 30 kilos, there's a lot of information that's coming at you and it's visual because you're looking at entrances and you're gauging what's going to happen in the corner ahead of you based on how you've entered, whether you're like, angled this way or angled this way or angled this way, like. All of that matters. And not only are you visually receiving information, you're also physically experiencing whether your sled is skidding underneath you, whether you're feeling pressures in the corner, like are you feeling a little bit of pressure or are you feeling a lot of pressure pushing down on you, and that also matters in what response or how you respond with your steers. So being in flow state, I would say, is being completely in tune with everything that's happening in your environment and reacting accordingly, without much analysis, almost like it's. It's automated.
Speaker 2:And I think that's what humans, human brains, love automation Like we love being on autopilot, we love not having to make difficult decisions, we love for it to just kind of naturally flow. And I think that's where flow state comes from, like sometimes, like later at home. I don't know if you've ever experienced driving home and being like, oh, I don't know how, I don't know how I got home, I'm just here. I just I got tired and my brain went into autopilot and it it did things that it knew how to do automatically.
Speaker 2:We and athletes know this. But we train a skill and we even something as small as doing a power clean in the gym over and over and over and over again. You think about it, you visualize it, you premeditate it, you do the exercises, you do the shrug, you do the fast elbows and then, when it's time to compete, you have to turn that brain off, you have to stop coaching yourself through an exercise and you just have to do it. Like that's the flow state. If that's what I think is the nail and coffin on what flow is for me? Turning off the analytical brain, the train brain and letting the autopilot on and just doing it out of pure nature.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. I love that you started young and that it was so normal for you. It sounds like you really we'll come back to you made a really important point, like five minutes ago about transferable skills, which obviously we're gonna to talk about, but in the concept of mindset and the meditation visualization that you had from being a kid with the stick and it moving with you through every stage, and I can really appreciate that. Funny enough, I don't know if I've ever entered that state and part of my choices with sport was really to help me overcome my anxiety and hesitancy, because I'm quite analytical and in my brain so I can understand exactly what you're describing, because I'm like, yeah, that's what I'm trying to achieve and we're not there yet. You'll get there, we'll get there. We'll get there Very soon.
Speaker 1:You briefly touched on the doing like cleans. I was about to ask if you have other stories of where this came with you throughout other sports you've done through your life, like I was thinking, when you were at Guelph for rugby or when you were racing cross country. Do you have any stories from how that applied in those sports?
Speaker 2:I think one story stands out One of the best games that I've had in rugby was when it was. It was actually a series of really good games. I played my best whenever I played my best friend's rugby team. So you know Mel, mel Tree. She went to McMaster and Guelph and McMaster faced off all the time. We're kind of in the same vicinity, we're in the same OUA, like. It was a game that we played probably every year, maybe twice.
Speaker 2:We faced each other, maybe again in OUA finals, but I always found that I played best in those games versus the games against Western or Brock or, and I attributed that to the sense of familiarity, like I I knew how Mel played and Mel played wing and I played wing, or if I was center, she was center. So like it was, it was almost like that repetition, that training that you've put all the work into knowing what to expect and then being able to put the analysis away and just play, and so I always felt really comfortable playing against, like a player that I knew. And Mel was someone that I knew really, really well. I not only knew how she played, I also knew how she thought and how she reacted to certain situations and how she handled herself. And so I think that's why it's so important these days to do video review and, like football and like hockey players, they sit and they spend hours and hours and hours reviewing plays and teams that they haven't faced off and just to get a sense of how the other team responds and and controls the game and manages unexpected plays or situations. And so I think I think the goal in any sport is to enter that flow state.
Speaker 2:I think it's when things are effortless and the analysis part like you're constantly analyzing, you're constantly, as an athlete, aware of your surroundings, but when something's familiar to you, you know how to react and the decision is, the decision making process is shorter.
Speaker 2:Um, by no way it means like I'm not a psychologist or a sports psych and I this is all just kind of from experience but I do believe that having trained your brain to experience scenarios ahead of time, being placed in a situation that is similar, prepares you to be able to make a quicker decision, a better decision, a smarter decision, and just be able to go with the flow.
Speaker 2:I think that sometimes we talk about analysis paralysis, and I think that that is basically you've unprepared or you find yourself in an unfamiliar situation. So you're just kind of paralyzed by the decision making of should I go this direction or that direction, and then kind of have to play out the chess pieces of if I make this play, then it can go into these two directions and then those two directions will span out into those decisions we make. And so it just takes a guesswork out if you show up to a game or to a race prepared, having kind of already seen all the scenarios that may play out and obviously you can't predict everything. But I think getting as prepared as possible to any scenario happening puts you in the best position to be able to respond quickly and with the best decision.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. I love hearing your story there. Yeah, so basically you're describing, you know, putting in just as much work into your mindset and your mental game as you are in the other aspects of your sport, whatever sport it is, and then you can really focus more on your sport instead of you know the analytical you were describing, or your headspace or your stress or your nervousness, which one would feel as a human and I'm sure is really amplified the higher you go. Right, Did you feel the pressures the same, or are you able to enter different headspaces because of the fact that you put in so much work in your mental game before you even got to whatever sporting event like? How did you handle that?
Speaker 2:you do your best and then, um, the race or the game comes and it throws your curveball and, um, anything can happen. And I think that inner dialogue is really important. I think that you can do all the prep work possible and you show up and it's a lot to manage. I don't know if I can properly explain the pressures of being at Olympics or the pressures of sitting first after the first heat in the Olympics. It's where I found myself after the first heat in Beijing. I didn't expect we barely put together a coach and a team of support team for the athletes, and I think preparation is one thing, execution is another. And one thing that I didn't properly prepare for is the inner talk. I didn't prepare myself on how to talk to myself.
Speaker 2:So I got up back to the top of the track after my first heat and I remember Tyson, the bobsleigh physio, who happened to love skeleton, and he showed up to the race even though he didn't have to. He was not a physiotherapist. He met me at the track and was like, let me take your sled for you and, um, I remember him taking the sled off my hands and carrying it to the park for me, which is where all the sleds are parked and I remember, and I remember him saying like great job, like wow, that was a beautiful run. And I remember saying out loud like I was, like well, it was a really good run, but here comes the shit run, next heat. And I was I don't know why I said it. I I think there was some inconsistency in my training, like my training runs were like hot and cold, and I don't think I was able to like hone in on that consistency of just like laying them down, like one run after the other, like them being similar and what they looked like and time wise.
Speaker 2:And so I've had a lot of time to reflect back on that comment that I literally like I thought it and then I literally spoke it and I've come to realize that what you speak, whether that's in your brain, within your inner dialogue or out loud, what actually programs your brain to do and tells your body what to do next. And so I've really and that's that goes in regular life too Like whether you're an athlete or not the way you speak to yourself is so important, it's crucial, it literally determines your destiny. So your thoughts determine your actions and your actions determine your results. And so I think one way to really prepare properly is really like determining a dialogue that you want to have and coming up with a strategy If something and intrusive thoughts happen all the time to all of us as important as how we manage that. So if an intrusive thought comes up and it's not so positive, like, how do you divert your attention and your, your effort and your focus and your energy away from that negativity and then into, like that positive light? So I think back on that moment a lot and I think could it have been a different result? I went from sitting first after first heat to sitting, I believe, nine. I had the first and the 18th ranked runs, run one and run two, which I think averaged out to me sitting ninth overnight.
Speaker 2:I think about how I would have diverted myself talking to a different light, like, oh, here comes the bad one. As soon as I thought it, I probably should have said it's not going to happen. This is what we've trained for, this is what we've done. All those visualizations I visualized going down the Olympic track, probably hundreds and hundreds of time over the course of the season. The night prior to the race I had visualized every inch of that track, probably like 15 to 20 times.
Speaker 2:And so what I didn't visualize is coming up from the truck from the first heat and really re reconfiguring the race strategy. So, depending on how that first heat went, it's like okay, if it went well, how do we replicate it? If we didn't go well, how do I get back on track to making sure that the next heat is still a competitive heat? And so I think that there's a lot of strategy work that must be done in preparing for a race to enter that flow state. It's probably one of the things that I didn't think of is is the strategy aspect of it and positioning. I just kind of went out and was like get down the track as fast as possible every single run. So I think it's important to visualize and to think about the moments where it can go wrong as well.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that really human story, and I'm sure that your brain does think like what if I did that? We won't know, we can't go back there. But you did. You did share with us that coming up to the Beijing Olympics, you shared already a couple of times the amount that you handled.
Speaker 1:We talked a bit about your leadership, which we're about to dive into, all of the initiative you took to pull your teammates with you and to get a coach, and you just even said that the physio was the one that brought your sled up. It sounds like you had a lot on your plate that you were juggling, so I could see where, like you know, you're a human being and can't be there for all of it. So of course, it's just understandable that you put in all of this prep, but if you didn't have, maybe fully, that support system set from the whole time that there will be a moment that something slips, you're being a person. But you did amazing and you you did so much with it, like all the other good that we've already described, but it's like that's one tiny aspect of the mountains.
Speaker 2:You moved for that to happen yeah, and I think it is important to give yourself credit where it's due, and I think I'm not so great at that. I think I always think like what's next, what's the next challenge, what's the next hurdle or um, I think it is. It's a it's good to reflect and, uh, to give yourself some kudos once in a while, but I think the challenge with high motivated individuals is that we constantly look for the next thing, and I think it's a good reflection to just to pause and to kind of rein yourself in and just kind of acknowledge past achievements and past struggles and really think about, like what, your learnings from each one of those was absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Building on that, then you've had, you've balanced obtaining a master's degree, multiple jobs, elite training everything you've shared with us so far, we have some insight. Like you shared some stories about, like, specifically, the year before the Beijing Olympics and you didn't have the coach. But I'm curious that through all of these accomplishments, so to say, the phases of your life, how did you manage it and what was your support system like?
Speaker 2:Really great question. I think any athlete or any person that achieves great things has an incredible support network behind them. My support network is small. I immigrated to Canada when I was nine years old. We didn't really have the family connections in Ottawa or really Calgary where I ended up for sport. So, yeah, you have a small pool to pick from.
Speaker 2:To begin with, as an athlete, not a lot of people can get on board and be like, yes, you should go for a skeleton at the age of 24 and completely disregard your education and working career. At the time I chose to do skeleton. I had just graduated from university, I started working in Toronto, a full-time job, and it was like I was at a fork in my life where I really didn't enjoy sitting in a concrete building working nine to five. I really really loved sport. I was really good at it, it. And then the skeleton thing came up and I remember having to walk into the office of the place that I worked at the time and I was like, hey, like I, I think I'm gonna go down this path and explore this, this sport, and see what's gonna happen there. And I remember them looking at me being like and how old are you? I'm 24 and this is before hybrid work. I had suggested my. My work involves a computer and a spreadsheet. Can I just work from placid? I just want to go down and slide? Absolutely not, that's not gonna happen. And I'm okay, cool, um, well then I'm just gonna go do this thing. And they're like okay, you're so crazy. And um, I remember also having to tell my family that I was gonna go down to like placid, new York, and just slide into Boggin and I remember my sister being oh, okay. And then my mom at the time was are you sure that this is like what you're going to be doing? And I was like yeah, I really. I just want to see where it goes.
Speaker 2:And it took a while for my family to really get on board, but they did and they fully supported me. Obviously there was questions of like hey, when are you gonna get your career going? Or family and relationships. There was little moments of like nudges, but wholeheartedly my whole family got on board and they're like the biggest fans. I remember my mom coming to watch races in Lake Placid and she absolutely hated like the sport. She was like why do you go so fast? And I'm like that's the point. And she's like well, why is it so close to the ice? And I'm like I don't know, that's just the way you get to an aerodynamic position to go fast. And she's like I don't like when I hear the scraping noises of your helmet, like hitting the ice, I was like I don't particularly enjoy it either. But here we are. There was a lot of yeah, it's an odd thing.
Speaker 2:Anytime anyone deviates from the normal path or what we deem normal path in life, there's going to be some questions and people that are on board. But they just want to make sure that you are doing what's best for you. Yeah, so work was not supportive. That was the question. Work was like we'll see you later or never again. My family was like okay, like what's the long term goal here? And I was like the Olympics and they're like cool, that's pretty fun.
Speaker 2:And then there was obviously some people from you know my past lives, like I remember like high school friends and I moved away from Ottawa so I didn't really keep in touch with a lot of people in Ottawa. People kind of popped up and they're like hey, I saw that you were doing skeleton. I think that's really cool. And then I created new relationships in Calgary when I moved out here. It's a small community. It's a very niche sport. When you tell people you do skeleton, most people won't even know what the heck you're talking about, let alone know the nuances of being like centimeters from the ice, your sled weighing 100 or 30 kilos or going 130 kilometers an hour, or where you go to race or why you wear a skin tight suit.
Speaker 2:But people get on board once you start believing in yourself and believing in what you're doing and you share your story and you share your goal. I think that you find people that align. Align with either your desire to achieve something that's very difficult to achieve and you know, maybe, that they've they've had a moment in life where they had the option to pursue something and they went for a safer choice and they just want to live through you and your story, um, and support you in that and or there's people that are like, well, I think you're absolutely nuts and I'm just not going to talk to you. So there's some people choose to support and then you also have the option of picking and choosing who you surround yourself with. Who you surround yourself with is really important because it's a direct reflection on who you are and also who they are and what you can achieve. And so if you're in a high achieving circle, you're going to achieve high things.
Speaker 2:If you are kind of playing it safe and you're, you know, maybe the smartest person in the room, you've heard that expression like you're not really learning anything or achieving more than what is kind of you're limiting yourself to achieve. So I actually have run into this kind of conversation sometimes with people that I see day to day. Part of work is it's my circle is Olympians. My circle of friends are people that have competed on world cups, have traveled the world, have seen olympics, have experienced olympics, and so often me myself, I often kind of like laid down to what I've achieved, because one of my closest friends, erica Wiebe, is an Olympic champion and so I didn't achieve that. Therefore, I feel like maybe I'm less than that, but I think that that relationship is really, really important because she's really pushed me to be better, to have harder conversations, to train harder, to really surround myself with people like her, like-minded people that are high achieving, have a can-do attitude, never give up, set high goals and just go for it, and so I think it's really important to really surround yourself with a tribe that can get on board. But keep you honest. So there's a lot of people that enter sport that are a little bit naive as to how it all works.
Speaker 2:I think, being in the right circle of people that you know, have experienced it, know it, and then you're kind of entering the scene and you have a little bit of support to lean on, to be able to ask the questions and kind of be shown the ropes, even though you're carving your own path and you know we talk about, oh, the first woman to do this or the first person to do that, I think anybody going for something that is on their goal map. You're the first, just be the first. You're the first person to believe in yourself. You're the first person to achieve the milestones that you've set out to achieve for yourself. And so you got to be the first person to a believe in yourself and put the work in and really make sure that you have a stable foundation of friends and family that surround you to be able to kind of really elevate you and grow with you and um, and really allow you to be you and for you to do your own thing, if that makes all sense.
Speaker 2:I kind of went into different directions on that one, but if I could bring it all together, I think that if you're an apple and you have rotten apples around you, you're going to become a rotten apple. That's how it works. You are your environment and be very careful for any athlete, or really anybody, when choosing the environment to place yourself in and we see this with kids all the time and it's important for kids to have the right role models and be exposed to the right environments, because if they enter an environment that is unhealthy and things expose them to dangerous, situations like that is going to be their, their reality and that's what's going to end up happening to them.
Speaker 1:That was incredibly powerful. You did say a lot of things and they were very inspiring. You drop in a lot of knowledge bombs in a really good way and, like in truly, you just brought up your mentorship. So I want to get in there in a moment, but before I say that, as you were describing what choices you made, you know you're like I'm 24. I'm going to go this way, and I was chuckling when you first said the story, because I can, I can picture, like I recall, like your sister, and I can recall these conversations because you know, from when we were younger. Also, like we're the same generation, we were the same grade.
Speaker 1:We, you know, we hung out when we were in middle school and high school before we went off different places and I had a parallel timeline, didn't become an Olympian, but I recall also leaving like the government, and then being like, yeah, I'm gonna go back to college for nutrition. Yeah, I'm gonna start my own coaching business. It was like, yeah, this makes none, of this makes sense. We're gonna do it.
Speaker 1:But I remember, as you were stepping into this and you know, and I was like thankful for the internet because I would see this every once in a while if you're accomplishing all over the world, it would just I would get really excited that you're doing this. It's like to look beyond the room and to see people that are also doing crazy things and pulling you inspires your own story. I don't even remember what event it was, but like you popped up on Instagram and then it's like all these people we know everyone's commenting on it, and then I got all excited because I had to work on something and then I went off and did my thing. But it was like this inspiration and this like web that you have that you don't even realize perhaps in the moment, because you're like oh, I'm just visualizing this race, race, or I'm just here for my own goals, but that does pull people with you that aren't maybe even in the room with you.
Speaker 2:I think you honestly like, I think you bring up a really good point. I think we had a really powerful cohort, like we went to high school and Tyler Holmes like went on to play oh, my god yeah, and then the CFL like I think we had a, really, and like you were out in Thailand, like what?
Speaker 2:like pursuing your Muay Thai, and I did follow your journey as well and I like I knew you were pursuing this nutrition course and I am also. I just think that it's the power of who you grow up with. Like I think when we have examples and people that are achieving things and they may not be on the same path like obviously, skeleton isn't for everybody in like the high school that we went to but, um, it just pushes people and it shows that there's endless possibilities in whatever direction you choose. I think it's important to have people that have goals and chase them, because it kind of reminds you that you're also, like the ideas you think of and like everyone's, so unique because your experiences and your life has shaped you to be who you are, your ideas are so unique to you and your passions. And I think, yes, social media is a bit of a nightmare, but it also has the ability to connect us and really keep us in a little bit of an alignment with what else is going on within our circle. For sure, we're not connected to everyone in high school, but we see online what they're up to and it's a positive in as much as it can be a negative. It's you take away what it is for you, what you, what you wish to take away from it. And I always took it as a positive because it allowed me to to really keep up to date with what everyone in high school and university and beyond were up to, and it is inspiring. I think, anytime that you have someone that is pursuing a passion and is making a life out of it, that's really cool.
Speaker 2:Comparison is obviously the death of joy. You don't want to compare yourself to anybody, but I think it's a good reminder. I think what we're doing is reconnecting and talking, but there's lots of things that I feel like I missed out on in life. Like I don't have, like not married, don't have children. Obviously I want those things, but I think like those are the sacrifices that I take, like I've chosen to put aside while pursuing two olympics. So, like my babies are two olympics, like and did they turn out the way that I wanted them to? Like children do sometimes I assume they don't always turn out the way you want them, but yeah, like I think that we have to be proud of what we've achieved and what direction we've chosen to. And one thing I'm just going to touch on here. I'm so sorry. I know you're eager to get to your next question, but no, not at all.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:In sports psych we often talk about decision points and everyone comes across decision points, like absolutely everyone and we. When we get to a decision point and there's multiple paths to go, what we have to remind ourselves are what is the bigger, the bigger goal? Like like under, like the umbrella of, like my life are what is the bigger, the bigger goal? Like like under, like the umbrella of, like my life, what is the big goal that I want to achieve? And when you face yourself with a decision point and you have, do I go out with friends and have like a fun night and blow off steam, or do I stay at home, make an early night and get to the gym at 5am and not be hung over and hurt? And for me, like this, like constant draw to achieve like physical highs or physical achievements, was always always the winner in my decision points. It was always like, oh, like stay home, eat protein and get to the gym early and train for five hours and then go home and recover.
Speaker 2:But I think it's important for a lot of young athletes and not just athletes, just young people to know that these decision points are critical in making sure that we get to where we want to, and for some people those decision points like everyone's got different goals, like some people want to get married and have kids and those decision points are are different. They look different for them. So there's no wrong or right. It's not like you made a wrong decision. It's only wrong if it doesn't align with your bigger goal. So that's kind of where I'm going to wrap it up.
Speaker 1:Sorry, no first of all, stop that. Stop the sorry. I love it. I want you to go on your rants and I appreciate them so much. They're such captivating stories, and the question I was going to ask was for you to expand on mentorship and how that's fitting in your life, and you're clearly doing that. I feel like I'm being mentored in the best way. So that's what I want to ask about right now, because you've really illustrated what you already knew you had. It's been so clear over this conversation again the word leadership and your passion, and it's beyond just the sport itself, like the way you've been talking about community and character and growth. I'm I know that you have a couple of, I guess, set mentorships through fast and female mentoring classrooms supporting young girls in general. You can now share more stories. Please go on another rant about how mentorship has been in your career and how it's shaped everything from sports, life, work.
Speaker 2:I've been really lucky to be involved in some programs that were set up prior to me entering the sport scene. Fast and Female was started by a cross-country skier, chandra Crawford. She had nothing like this when she was an athlete and she just realized that girls were falling out of sport. They were abandoning sport at an earlier age and we were just we were losing girls to other things. And so she created this program where it started with, just like a run out in Canmore. It's a beautiful, beautiful town. If you have never visited Canmore, please do. It's absolutely stunning. It's at the bottom of the mountains and this beautiful blue river flows through it. And, yeah, she just started a girls run, and a girls run turned into try all these other sports that we have and then, as athlete mentors they call them real role models rrms entered the scene. They were able to introduce more sports to the girls and then they turn into these like almost like conferences, but not really because it's sport and it's like just like a sports day for these girls. So getting involved in that was really eye opening. Obviously, you and I have gone through phases where we've lost our way with sport and we've gone down different paths, and for some reason, it has this draw for me, but it doesn't, and for you, of course, but for some reason, like it's, not everyone has it and that's fine, but I think it's really important for young people to be involved in sport. It's hugely beneficial. We know the benefits of physical exercise. We know the benefits to the mental aspect of mental health and just the human brain developing properly with exercise. So that's one program that I just am so in awe of, and it went from Canmore to Calgary to Edmonton and now it's like a Canada-wide program.
Speaker 2:Another program that was so crucial to myself and other athletes really being able to give back was so crucial to myself and other athletes really being able to give back is Classroom Champions, who was started by Steve Masler, who won gold in 2010 in the sport of bobsleigh and, as an athlete, you're asked to come visit classrooms and talk about your experience, but then you kind of lose track of those kids and Steve was like well, I'm going to create a year-long mentorship program where this one athlete has relationships with all these classrooms and they check in all the time and you give lessons on goal setting and community and leadership and emotional intelligence or not emotional intelligence, but like dealing with emotions. Classroom Champions was born here in Calgary and so between those two programs, I think you're expected to impart all this knowledge, but I think it was equally mutually beneficial. I think I learned a lot about myself and I hope that there was a lot of benefit to these classrooms. I visited some really remote classrooms like Hudson, hope and 14 John up in northern BC. I've been to Shawnaven, saskatchewan and just some really underserved schools here in Calgary and you make these connections with these kids and you have this year-long relationship with them and they get to see you evolve and you get to see them evolve with you and it's just a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:I think it's absolutely critical for any athlete to really be involved in something that is community-based. I think that as an athlete, you kind of have your horse blinders on and you're so focused on your performance, your health, your circle of friends. But you have also this, this gift, and it's so beautiful to be able to share it. And then here's one thing that is actually really selfish, that I had a realization. Um, not a lot of people know about skeleton, as I mentioned earlier, and it's really cool to walk into a classroom and them all knowing what skeleton is because they've done the research. And then they ask you questions of like, how many G's do you experience going through corner 16 in Whistler? And you're like, oh my god, I've been waiting my whole entire like sport career for someone to ask me this. Thank you, great tour. So it's just, I think it's part of your community.
Speaker 2:Like when we're talking about that support network, one of the things I missed out on sharing is that the people that are most excited about what you're doing is often kids, and kids are the ones that know no limits. Their thinking is boundless, like anything is possible. And it's only as we go through life and people say no and close the door on you do you start hesitating what you're able to achieve and go for in life, and so that kind of naturally, life breaks you down a little bit, and I think with kids it's like that doesn't exist, like they believe that you can go to the Olympics and you can win all the medals in the world, and so that kind of helps support and boost and elevate your confidence. And that is the selfish part of it, it's not why I do it, but I think it's an important realization to know that it's a part of your community and I think kids are so easy to relate to as an athlete, because, as an athlete like you almost have to be a little bit delusional to be like yeah, like I can go to the Olympics. Like, okay, like 0.01 people in the world go to the Olympics, but I have this whole classroom of 30 children that are eight year olds. I believe that I can do it and so it's powerful. Yeah, most people that you know you talk to and I've had a lot of conversations with sponsors, because as an athlete, you have to reach out to partners and sponsors and say, hey, like I'm 35 years old and I'm trying to go to my second games, and they're like you're 35, like how long have you been doing this? Are you any good? Like there's all these question marks and and points of doubt that could really be detrimental to your own belief in your own achievement. And so being involved with kids I think is is mutually beneficial like you're able to show them that things are possible and that if they have a dream and a goal, like they need to chase it and you're basically showing them the way. Like you're. I remember like having calls with my classroom from Austria and I'd be like here are the Austrian mountains, like how cool are these? And they're like, wow, they're so cool and so you're able to share your experience, which is so enriching for them, but also you're getting a whole bunch of support from them as well and it's just a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:I think that any mentorship program is is a beautiful thing, like especially when it involves kids and especially when it involves community and under underrepresented communities. Like, in order to be part of classroom champions, you have to be. Either your school has to be either 50 on a lunch program, so you're getting assistance with with food and security, or you're 50 kilometers outside of a metropolitan, so outside of a major city, where you most likely don't have a role model, or someone in the community that has achieved big things or or can show you that big things can be achieved. So, yeah, mentorship I have had mentors and I have also shared my story and, in a way, mentorship to other kids and I think it's just it's an ever flowing loop and it's it. That's what community is. You share your experiences and you you lend a hand and your support when people need it, and then you've also got this community where you can lean on people when you need assistance and I it kind of has led into what I do now for work is I work for Kids for Calgary, and so that aligns really well with my values and passions in life. I work on the business side of things, so I do partnership development, a lot of building relationships through stories, and ultimately what our organization does is we pay for registration fees so kids can access sports that normally wouldn't be able to because their families are facing social, economical challenges.
Speaker 2:But again, like sport is so important and I think that it is, it should be like it's a basic, like right anyone that wants to play should have the right to play. Unfortunately, we're fortunate to live in canada, where women are able to participate in sport and kids are able to practice sport. But we we do see it in some of the communities here where girls again are dropping out of sport at a faster rate than boys are, and a bit of that is cultural, a bit of that is just resource-based. But when we look at the stats, like 60% of our funded kids are males, even 65. And it's 40% to 35% females, I think I've moved a little bit further away from the question of mentorship on that one. But I just want to end with like sport is just so important.
Speaker 2:Play is international. You don't need to know the language to be able to play a sport and it just. It teaches you so much about life and it all ties in if you play sport at a young age and you're able to draw some skills from it and draw some mentorship along the way as well, like all that really matters when you grow up and you're entering the working world. Those skills from rugby and from cross country really they've shaped who I am. They've laid the foundation and the biggest skill I think I have is the ability to collaborate and teamwork with people and that comes from sports. So I think it's a.
Speaker 2:I value that.
Speaker 2:I value that a lot and I value mentorship.
Speaker 2:I value when people have knowledge that they are willing to share with you.
Speaker 2:And Steve Messer, who started Classroom Champions, I definitely have called on, like called him to ask for help, because that one year when we had no coach and we had no structure and we were booking our own accommodations, like I found myself in Winterberg with no heat, no wi-fi and no bed sheets and I was like, oh my god, how am I going to survive this week. So being able to have that network of people and mentors to call upon and be like hey, like I kind of hit a little bit of a wall here. What do I do? Where do I go? It's a lovely thing to be able to have someone to share their experience and share their advice, and I think if you've ever been someone that's gone through stuff, you have the power to mentor somebody else as well, because if you walked out the other side, you walk through a storm, you've made it through something difficult. Someone else is going to find the strategies that you use to get through that useful and it's important for you to share them.
Speaker 1:That was just wonderful. Yes to everything you said and it also is so parallel to me and my values and the alignment of it, especially when you were talking about community, youth, sports, the. You know the, the, the role of sport and play in developing us as people. Even our conversation right now is super. As much as I'm so grateful to connect with an old friend, it's also very aligned with my whole purpose, which is to offer a platform for us to share our stories and then to be able to, you know, have these conversations for the youth and for the next group of people, if like.
Speaker 1:Obviously we have that in common, but for me and I tell this to so many people, especially being around the fight world, like rugby, shaped me as a person and the concept of community and camaraderie is like essential to my like thought process and being so, I just naturally want to network and I want to learn from mentors and I want to share everything I can with anyone else that crosses my path, because why not lift each other up?
Speaker 1:Why not move forward?
Speaker 1:And so, like I'm on a personal mission for no athlete to be left behind, and it is like a massive undertaking that has obviously way beyond my capacity.
Speaker 1:So to hear you know Olympians such as yourself and all of this wonderful stuff you're doing, if there's anything I can do in my tiny pebble of the universe to, like you know, leverage something else and my favorite stories are when I did have the privilege of coaching youth and high school, so like that's what I want to do too. It's like the more I built my coaching up and the more resources I have, the more I can give it back and we can do stuff for the kids. So I love, love, all of that. We started the conversation with talking about your leadership, and you did. You did announce a few months ago that you retired from Skeletons. Two part question what led to your decision of retirement? And part two is you've obviously shared throughout the past hour with us like a little bit about the different snippets of your life, adjusting your purpose from, you know, the elite Olympic training to what you're doing now.
Speaker 2:To be fully honest, it's a really, really difficult transition. I don't think people talk about it enough. I knew I needed to retire from sports a long time ago, like it was initially. It was right after Beijing. I was going to do Beijing, I was going to achieve everything that I had ever wanted and dreamt of, and then I was going to retire. And then often what happens with athletes is you know you maybe didn't achieve what you wanted to, or maybe you achieved you know that highly el't achieve what you wanted to. Or maybe you achieved you know that highly elusive gold medal at the olympics and you're like well, why do I retire on a high, like I'm top of the game right now? So people get some people really get like looped in. It's kind of like a bad addiction that is just good for you, but also it can be a little bit unhealthy. And I haven't experienced like real retirement obviously yet I'm far from it like retirement from like a career, how normal people see retirement. But retirement from sport is probably one of the most challenging things I've ever had to go through and I like I've lost my mom, I've immigrated to a new country, like there's just been challenging times in my life. The transition, it's just a different. It's a different one. Like having loss, like family loss, is extremely, extremely difficult, like nothing can prepare you for that. A challenge like transitioning out of sport is a different kind of challenge, I think. For me it was like the only reason why I can compare those is because they were both so traumatic.
Speaker 2:The transition out of sport for me, like your identity, is so closely tied to what you've done for the last 11 years, and for me it's more than 11 years. Like I take into consideration my rugby career and that's like high school rugby, university rugby. I played rugby sevens for Canada and then, like, obviously prior to that, like I ran cross country and so there's this like constant, like ever since I can remember this identity to me being improving my worth physically, like I, like I don't have to tell you what I can do because I'm going to show you that's a really, really powerful gift that I have had, also one of probably I see as like my biggest detriment now is because I haven't developed those communication skills to talk about my worth outside of sport. So transitioning into a world where I have to, for a living, talk about how valuable we are as humans in like an interview setting is extremely difficult. Also, talking about the value of an organization like Kidsport to one of the big oil and gas companies here in Calgary, like that's a lot easier to do, but again, like there's this struggle of communicating and really knowing what is valuable to somebody else and yeah, for, for an, it's like.
Speaker 2:It's like an identity crisis. That's how I would compare like a transition out of sport into real world. You're basically just like okay, and I'm no longer training five hours a day, five days, six days a week and fully encompassing my holistic health because that is how I earn my bread to now being able to go into boardrooms and talk about like business. It's just a complete like night and day switch. It's so different.
Speaker 2:And what I struggle most with is like a lot of athletes. I feel like I've put my health on the back burner a little bit and now it's more of putting everybody else's needs at first. And I think that's a really rude awakening for a lot of people. All the athletes coming out of out of sport and being like, oh, like you, don't care about my calf being a little bit tight or my trap being a little bit sore, like um and my like your nutrition, like as an athlete, it's all about your holistic health and I think that it's kind of.
Speaker 2:It's kind of sad that the regular world we get so busy with like our other priorities that we really put our health on the back burner and and so it's. I think that was a really like a big shock and I know people experience that way earlier than I did. I think that when you enter the real world as a 24 year old out of university like you are experiencing that, that shock and that sense of responsibility. But I think that's like the natural path or the normal kind of societal path right now is like you get educated and you start earning income to support yourself and support your family, whereas an athlete it was all about making sure that I was putting the optimal fuel in my body, that I was training optimally, that I was like able to put my mindset in a high performance state where I could perform to my best ability, and then really entering kind of life after sport is is who am I Like? What, what, what, what do I have to offer? What value do I bring outside of like me physically hurling myself down an ice chute at 130 kilometers an hour.
Speaker 2:So it's a you have to really sit and reflect and dig into the transferable skills and I know we've touched on them, but it is, it's a bit of a different pace of life and I think that anytime people enter transitional phases, like you, are experiencing a little bit of like unfamiliarity and like it's it's it's it's scary because it's unknown. And that fear, I believe, is really where growth happens, because not only are you doing something that you're unfamiliar with and you don't know what the result is going to be, but, like you, you're committing to go through it and learn the ropes and and and grow into a more rounded individual. So this last year I retired Officially. The retirement, I think, went out beginning of the season, so November or December or October of this year. But really when I took my final run at World Championships in Winterberg last March, I believe that I think I knew you know what Cortina's a year away and I can see myself going through it. I'm still top of the game, I'm still winning world cup medals, I'm still competitive.
Speaker 2:But it was a question of priority and it was like hey, mimi, you're 36, what do you want to prioritize in life right now? And for me, my priorities had shifted from when I was 24 years old. That's kind of ultimately the decision or the catalyst of the decision. It was like that decision point that I was talking about earlier. You come to a fork in the road and you have to make a decision. It's like, well, what is your end goal? Here, like do you? And I had to really sit with it. It was really difficult and I was like, do you, do you commit to another two years of grinding it out and potentially getting to another Olympics and having another opportunity to maybe earn a medal for your country? Or do you prioritize, um, um, your long-term health, financial stability, family life? And you know, if you ask me at 24, like, what is your, what is your ultimate goal?
Speaker 2:And it was like getting to the olympics, having the opportunity to medal and represent canada, whereas now, at 36, like that goal has shifted and it's just like I literally craved a little bit of normalcy, which is crazy, because often we think, oh, you know that person, I got to travel and I went to all these exotic places that previously held olympics, like Lillehammer on Norway, or St Moritz, switzerland, and you know it's, it's such a fun life and it is really hard to pull yourself out of it. But it came to a point was like I wholeheartedly believe that it'll be healthier for me if I just kind of left this environment and pursued other things and really got better at things that I identified as gaps in my in my life, which are career and financial stability. It's no secret that canadian athletes are struggling a little bit. I think it was a little bit exposed during the paris games, but yeah, it's, it's. It's a bit of a grind. Being an athlete, you sacrifice a lot and you do it for the love of sport and for the love of representing something bigger than yourself, which is your country, and so, yeah, it's a really difficult decision to make. I think that it's two things that you identify as important in your life and then you have to be like okay, which one's more important? So it's been difficult, but also beautiful as well.
Speaker 2:I've discovered a lot of other things that I enjoy to do. I've gotten back to snowboarding. So I live in this beautiful, beautiful city, calgary. I'm going to take this back. Calgary is beautiful, but I wouldn't say it's beautiful, beautiful. It's got access to beautiful, beautiful. We're so close to the mountains. We've got these two beautiful rivers that intersect the elbow and the boat and they're glacier fed rivers, so they're super green and super beautiful and the mountains are just like 45 minutes away and I've been able to rediscover snowboarding and being out in winter and experiencing winter in a different light, like I'm used to going out and like skeletoning or sliding um. But yeah, and this whole year has been a year of experimenting Like. I've been going to live music, I've been going to networking events, I've been making friends that are like, not like Olympians, which is so refreshing. Olympians can be so like knuckleheaded sometimes. I love all my friends. I just think that to be an athlete like you really have to put yourself in a little bit of like a cocoon.
Speaker 1:I'm done, I promise thank you, no, no, this is so again. I keep using the word captivating. I was trying to think of another one, but it's it's just so. I'm so into your story it is.
Speaker 1:Thank you, first of all, for your vulnerability. I realize this is a hard conversation that you can't necessarily articulate because it is so loaded, and thank you for sharing that challenge and how, like it's not clear cut and it is a mishmash going on and you're doing the best you can as a human and I can appreciate the different seasons you know like, of course, 24 year old you had different ambitions and 36 year old you. But good for you for having the courage to make that choice on your own terms and recognizing what you need for you. I feel like that's also another example of leadership, and courage is just what it took for you to leave your job in 24 and pursue everything you've done to become an Olympian, to step away from a life you've known for 11 years also takes it's a different type of courage, but maybe even more, like you said, because you've known sport your whole life and to go into the unknown.
Speaker 1:You said you were sharing the loss of your mom, and the loss of this is trauma. Thank you for sharing the trauma with us and, like you know, trying to verbalize some of that story because, yeah, it's, it's, we need more of it. So, now that you know, but it's been done, it's been well. But the thing is, it's your perception of it, right, and it is two things that are really important to you, and I was going to ask this because you did mention earlier that, like you know, as much as your mom didn't really understand skeleton and she was afraid of the speed, she was, you know, a huge part of your support network 100% yeah, she like hated it and loved it.
Speaker 2:like I don't understand it, but like if you're going for it, like I love you. So I think she had this like feeling of like it doesn't matter what it is. If it's something that you care about, I support it as well. She just full buy-in like I think most parents do To all your crazy adventures that you choose to do.
Speaker 1:Well, that's beautiful and you know you have created, you know, a list of your achievements in the sport and every other sport. It's a testament to all of the energy and the sacrifice and support of yourself and your mom, and you know your beautiful support network and look at everything you've achieved and done and the person you've become is I know you were talking about the physicality of everything that you know you were a very talented athlete. We could all see it from when we were young. We're like, yeah, she's going places with this. It's like meanwhile I'm tripping over myself, like, do you remember this? You took me for a run around center point and you were like basically walking and I'm like dying in the corner and I'm like, yeah, some of us are destined to be Olympias and the rest of us?
Speaker 2:oh my god, I don't know if I do. If I'm being honest, I remember, like you and I, hanging out in center point, but I always I thought it was more like library hangs and more civilized things, like I think I was.
Speaker 2:You know, what's funny about this is like I my memories of like are how, like you positively impacted me, which is like I feel like you were very, very studious in education, like I think that I drew those things from like our friendship, where it's funny how, like you remember me trying to like push you to like run. It's like I'm sorry about that, I feel horrible. No, I'm so glad you did. And one of my favorite memories is actually when you signed us up for ballet dancing. Like I think we had a show, I don't know like assembly or something, and it was like a talent show and you were like we're going to do ballet dancing. I was like, excuse me what? And you're like, no, no, no, no, no, the belts and all the music and I've got the choreography and this is definitely the path we're going down. I was like, okay, let's do this. But again, like I think my memories are of like how you positively impacted me, like exposing me to culture, and like school.
Speaker 1:So thank you for that. Well, thank you for that, that's lovely.
Speaker 2:That's lovely, you remember traveling to make me like, move, like a belly dancer, like I do not have any creative juices, so it was very awkward.
Speaker 1:I actually remember. I can actually remember Mel as well. I remember you and Mel. We were in the hallway at the edge of school.
Speaker 1:What a random memory, but it just goes to show how it's interesting what we all take from each other and like my intention with bringing that up was that from the time we were young, it was just always clear that you had this natural talent but you did something with it and it's beautiful that it wasn't just like, oh, yeah, it was inevitable, like the sacrifices and the work you put in and the character and all of that's also part of it.
Speaker 1:It wasn't just because, yeah, she's fast, like cool, great people, you can be fast, but not everyone becomes an Olympian and not everyone takes that experience, everything they've been through the good, the ups, the downs, and is transferring it to their community and like building a legacy. So that's really where I wanted to come from, that and it's really really cool that you've done that. And you didn't mention all the work you've done and you're exposing yourself to different things. We didn't really touch on this part. So I'm curious in your transition because it is really challenging. You've had a lot of professional support, like obviously in the realm of sport. Besides your beautiful friendship group and other people that you're networking with, is there any professional support or any specific program that's helping you transition from your sport retirement to the world?
Speaker 2:now, good question and a really good point. Canadian athletes do have access to game plan, which is like literally to support athletes through their transition, but also just education, career and mental health. They, yeah, no, it's, it's actually a really good program. It's in partnership with the canadian olympic committee and they do a lot of great work. Um, they have. We have game plan advisors so at every canadian sport institute um throughout the country. We have one here in calgary, there's one in vancouver, there's one in whistler, saskatchewan, I believe, has one tuscatoon, um, and then all the chapters out east in ontario and quebec. Um, these game plan advisors are literally like little personal coaches or professional coaches, but for athletes and I've been so lucky to have had Kara Button and Amy Van Burskik and those two ladies literally like would just I would forget, like you're so focused on like your goals as an athlete that you forget that you have these resources, and they're those two ladies were so good at like checking in, especially when my mom died or when I was kind of like looking at exiting sport, so those like touch points with those two advisors were crucial, like crucial to like me exiting a sport and really surviving through some of the challenging times, but they do provide mental health. So they provide funding for like psychology and I've definitely leaned into that. I think that I like wholeheartedly. Thank you so much for bringing this up. I think it's so important to share like.
Speaker 2:I literally went through a really really hard time around like this time last year. I wasn't able to talk about any of my struggles or challenges, questions of identity and, I think, having a. I had a sports psych that I had worked with throughout my sports career, but I started seeing like a sports psychologist of different certification and just sometimes people have a bad experience or not a bad experience, but they just don't click with one person. I think it's really important to to put yourself out there and really experience multiple people, um multiple psychologists or psychiatrists, um. So, anyways, I found someone here in Calgary that like really connects works with a lot of athletes. At first it was like we checked in every two weeks and then it was like every three weeks and now it's like every month and it has like built, it's been the building blocks of like creating some sort of sanity back in my life and I think it's it's really important to talk about.
Speaker 2:I often mention that I struggled, but I think it's really critical to talk about the support. Okay, I actually received a lot of support because I was struggling and that's how I came out the other end. Yeah, so between the friends, I reached out to a lot of people that had retired sport prior to me to be like, hey, I had no idea it was this difficult and a lot of athletes feedback is you know, you don't know until you go through it yourself. So a lot of the time I'm so sorry I didn't reach out to like in on you and they're like there was no expectations from you to do that. It's a lot of the retired athletes that have to do the checking in on athletes that are retiring and I had that.
Speaker 2:I was really lucky. Steve Meisler took me out for coffee and he's like, hey, how's life? And I was like water work, it's horrible, my boyfriend's breaking up with me, me, my dog is dying, I have to retire from sport. It was just it all hit all at once and it was just it's really hard and those like things often happen in threes and that has been my experience, like when it when, when it rains, it pours, and you really, you really hope that your support network that you've chosen to be around is there for you and sometimes, like people that you didn't even know, like were part of your support network, will come out and be like hey, like, just check it in, you're right. No, no, um, it's important to, it's important to be able to talk about it, and I knew it was a difficult thing.
Speaker 2:I didn't expect it to be that hard and like I thought I was doing everything I possibly could do to come out of like sport and be set up for success. Like I was. Like I have a bachelor's degree. I did my master's that one year in COVID, where we couldn't travel, and I had a neck surgery. And I'm educated. I've worked this entire sports career. I've had, I've had at least one job at all time I've had a sports like the entire sports career.
Speaker 2:And so you think that you've like set yourself up for success and then you like you're like the door opens and you're let out of this one world and into the next, and you're like this is totally different, like I, and everyone's experience is a little bit different. Like obviously I had a whole other personal things that hit at once. But and even within sport, like I don't, I don't think I exited completely on my terms. I think I did get a little bit of a push out as well from the coach that I. That is now part of the program, so that also is a messy situation and it's it's just important to talk about the, the professional help that is out there. It's so underrated and it's absolutely critical to just making sure that you're coming out healthy and you're just able to stabilize yourself in a different world and it's just so different. It's so, so different.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your vulnerability, mimi, for sharing that and for highlighting the professional support you're getting, and I'm really happy that you are. You know we took a second to chat about that because it's like you said, you can't power through and you might have all of the knowledge and the skills, but you're still a human going through something new, carrying all of your own stuff as well. So, to wrap this up, I am really really grateful. We've almost talked for two hours. I could listen to your stories for ages.
Speaker 1:So thank you so much for, first of all, your time for making this happen, even hopping on my little, my little podcast, for everything you have shared, for your vulnerability and for, you know, what you're doing with a whole career that was wonderful. And what you're doing with a whole career that was wonderful and what you're doing with it now. Like I'm just so excited to see what you're going to do next, especially in your job and and with the kids and the youth, like I'm sure you're going to do incredible things. So one last question, I guess, for our listeners, if there is one last golden nugget you want to leave them with, if they remember anything from this beautiful chat there's two things that really stand out, so I'm having a really hard time picking one.
Speaker 2:I think the more relatable one is acknowledge the fear and jump right in, and that goes for anything in life that you think is unknown. The unknown is scary. Anytime we go into a new chapter in our life, it can be there's fear. A lot of the time. I feel like you know, these anxieties creep in and that's driven from fear. So I think it's important for us to acknowledge that we are faced with something unknown or uncertain. But just be reminded that that is where growth happens and it's okay, like if we're not in immediate danger, it's totally fine to fully commit and jump in, and I think that it's the indecision that gets us into trouble.
Speaker 2:Acknowledge the fear, acknowledge that you're in a decision point, weigh it all out and then make your decision and go, go for it. It's it's very heavy to sit at a decision point and it really weighs on you because you're constantly contemplating and playing out the scenario and going through the situation. I think that, yeah, it's fear exists for a reason, but this day and age, you know, we could all be a little bit more risk tolerant. So acknowledge the fear and jump right in. I think that that's my last little piece of nugget, if I could share.
Speaker 1:it's where growth happens you said you had two. Do you have the other one?
Speaker 2:yeah. My other one was just like be your your, be your own cheerleader, like the first person to believe in yourself. Often we have these ideas and we're like oh, I just, I just need someone to support my idea. I just want someone to like acknowledge that this is a good idea and it's like no, you don't need that, you need you. Like, you need to believe in yourself, you need to believe in your idea, you need to believe in your journey, and people will hop on or hop off, but it's fine, like you need to be number one, so be your own believer in you. See why I chose the first one.
Speaker 1:it's way better both of them are really, really important and very relatable to everybody and hopefully someone listening uh, is going to become an olympian following your shoes, or not? Or not? No, of course not. I mean whatever. Whatever path you take, it's applicable. Be your own cheerleader and be bold I just.
Speaker 2:You don't have to be an olympian to enjoy sport and what it has to bring to you, and not every sport is in the olympics, so it's whatever you choose, be your own olympic champion of believing in you. That's, maybe that's the one that's that's.
Speaker 1:That's a little good soundbite. Thank Thank you, Mimi. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thanks for taking the time.
