162. Just Because You’re Good at It Doesn’t Mean You Should Keep Doing It

What are you still doing in life...just because you're good at it?

And what can a 21-year-old Olympic gold medalist teach midlife women about happiness? More than you think.

In this episode, Laurie shares the story of figure skater Alysa Liu — a prodigy who retired at 17 after reaching the top of her sport, only to return years later and win Olympic gold…on her own terms. Not chasing expectations. Not performing for approval. But choosing joy.

Through Alysa’s story, we explore a powerful midlife question:
 What are you still doing just because you’re good at it — not because you love it?

This conversation challenges the idea that success means continuing down the same path forever. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is walk away from what you can do so you have space to discover what you actually want.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in a life that looks successful but doesn’t feel aligned, this episode will help you rethink retirement, reinvention, and what your personal “gold medal” really is.

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Transcript

What can midlife women learn from a 17-year-old who retired at the top of her sport and then stormed back at 21 to win Olympic Gold on her terms? In today's episode of the School of Midlife podcast, we're talking about walking away from what you're supposed to do, redefining success, and having the courage to pursue your version of gold no matter your age.

Let's get into it.

Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson.

This is the podcast for the midlife woman who starting to ask herself big life questions. Like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work. Each week we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school and we're figuring out finally what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life. [00:01:00] 

Hey friends. Welcome back to another episode of The School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. And real quick before we dive in, I do need to add a little extra bonus intro to this episode because some things have gone down since I recorded the original intro. Uh, today's episode is about the Olympics and um, just what.

I, I don't wanna spoil it. It's about the Olympics. It's about the incredible display of tenacity and grit and power and strength of the United States athletes. And I'm focusing on the women in particular because it's a School of Midlife and we talk about all things women here. What you might have seen on Sunday to close out the competition. [00:02:00] Mostly close out the competition. They had to reschedule some things, but generally it ends with men's hockey. And the United States men were in the gold medal game against Canada.

Uh, it was tied one one at the end of regulation. They went to a sudden death overtime. The United States men captured the gold. Great. We're super excited about that. And then in the locker room, the director of the FBI Kash Patel, uh, is there chugging beers, um, very bro fraternity bro type behavior. And he gets Trump on the phone,

Who congratulates, the US men's hockey team on their success and then invites them to the White House. And almost as soon as he invites him to the White House, he makes a joke. About, [00:03:00] well, I guess I'm gonna also have to invite USA Women's hockey team too. And there were a couple of guys who were like two for two saying, yeah, the women also beat Canada, also won the gold medal.

Two for two. We went two for two. But. For the most part, the guys in the locker room just laughed with Trump at the joke.

Um, Trump said that he would probably be impeached if he didn't. It was an impeachable offense if he didn't invite the women's hockey. So it was, it was like this.

Uh, watch the video. It's, there's a recording of it. I really took it and, and I know I'm not alone looking at the backlash on what happened on social media, but it was like, well, I guess we'll invite the women too. Um, you know, we, we kind of have to, or I'm gonna get in trouble kind of a thing. And I [00:04:00] can't in good conscious, just let that go.

I am so sick and tired of this whole idea of that's just locker room talk. Or boys will be boys. That is exactly what got us in this mess to begin with.

 We knew going into a Trump presidency what he actually thought of women. There was video of him talking, bragging about what you can do if you are famous enough. We knew what he was going to do. He's given us absolutely zero reason to believe that he would show up any differently. So. I'm not necessarily taking issue with him.

He showed us who he was. He has actually, everything he has done to this point is consistent with the slime ball that we know him to be. I'm more disappointed in the men's US hockey team. Instead of standing [00:05:00] up for the women. Who also won gold medals. In fact, did it have the same number of gold medals as the men in the history of hockey?

But the women accomplished that in a quarter of amount of time because women's hockey was like, it just became a sport in the eighties or the nineties, I mean, what we've been able to accomplish. Incredible. But it goes deeper than that. It goes deeper to, to this whole idea that we are going to protect men at all costs, regardless of what they say and do to women, and I am sick of it. I'm, I'm so tired of it and I'm pissed that a Trump presidency just allows this to keep happening. We know it validates those [00:06:00] feelings. It doesn't even require men to. Think about these things in private, they can say it out loud. They're just following an example.

And as a country, we have turned a blind eye to it. It's like, yep, no, that boys will be boys. That's just locker room talk. No big deal.

If we really cared about women's sports, which the MAGA movement really claims to, I mean, we've spent a lot of time talking about transgender athletes in women's sports, when it's almost an in inte, like infinitesimally, small amount of people that, you know, the, we're protecting women's sports.

You can't protect women's sports and give the guys the, give the president. [00:07:00] And the guys in that locker room, another pass. This whole idea of boys will be boys is bullshit. It's boys will be boys 'cause we let them get away with that shit. It's just locker room talk.

For a country that is supposed to be protecting women and children, we're doing a really miserable job at it. And I know that I don't usually like to talk about politics on the podcast. This one really pissed me off though. Um, I.

God, we, we gotta do better. And if you are a woman who subscribes to the idea of boys will be boys, that's just locker room talk. This is on you. I'm gonna call you out directly and um, if you want to stop following the podcast, that's totally fine. But you need to hear this. You need to own your piece of [00:08:00] that, because this whole idea that we are raising generations of boys to believe that they can get away with everything, that instead of protecting women that we, uh, we go after them and we, we try and make excuses for, well, she led the boy on, or What was she wearing? Or maybe she'd had too much to drink. No, God no. That's not what we are here to do. As humans. And as women, we should be protecting other women. We should be celebrating other women. We shouldn't let the guys get a pass for bro talk.

I know that some people think, well, what's the harm in it? You know, boys will be boys. Don't worry about it. Nope. Um, I think we've, we've proven that, that there is some harm in it and it's time that we did [00:09:00] something about it. So, rant over. Please enjoy this episode of this Week's School of Midlife podcast. And I'll see you back here next week if you, uh, are sticking around.

Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of The School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. I am so excited to have you back here today. At the time this episode drops, we just wrapped up the Winter Olympics.

I am a huge Olympics fan. I obviously want the US to do well. But I cheer for all the athletes. I mean, it is such an incredible feat for them to be able to perform on a stage like they do. It just, it's amazing to me.

There, there was a meme that I saw on social media not too long ago that was like. Hear me out here. What if we just took a regular person and had them compete in the event before all of the [00:10:00] actual athletes go, just so we could see how good they are. I actually think that that's okay because there has been a lot of armchair experting going on for this Olympic games. People feel like the United States, like, why aren't our athletes winning All the things.

Uh, we wrapped up our most successful winter games ever. We, the US won more medals, not on home soil than they ever have it. It's incredible, and what's really amazing is 75% of the gold medals were won by women. 67% of the total uS medals were won by women. So the women really showed up, and I am super excited about that.

I want to talk about Alysa Liu in particular because I think that there is a really incredible message [00:11:00] for midlife women that we can learn from 21-year-old Alysa Liu. But before I do that, I wanna just shout out all of the performances, I realized that not everyone is as into the Olympics as I am. In fact, I had a coaching call last week, a call with my coach, and it was scheduled between the second and the third period of the US Women's Hockey game, uh, the gold medal game against Canada.

When I had to get on the call, it was one nil Canada. And I'm trying to pay attention to this coaching call that I have. I mean, I'm paying good money for it. We're, we're talking strategy and all I can do is keep staring at my phone, like, how are we doing? How are we doing? And I'm watching the minutes come off the, the board and the, the seconds take away and the third period and we're still down one nil. And this is after the US [00:12:00] Women's Hockey team has dominated play the whole time, but I, it comes down to three periods, right? It doesn't matter that you have outscored your opponents... I think it was like 31 to one or something ridiculous like that in the qualifying rounds.

Like they really showed up. They were really amazing in the qualifying. But they were in the fight of their life for gold. And finally they got the

equalizing goal with about two minutes to go in the game, and it was scored by Hillary Knight who went on because of that goal to become the highest scoring hockey player. In the US period. I mean, it's a, it is a big deal. Okay? So I'm watching, I'm, I'm paying attention to my coach. I'm watching the US ended up winning the game, which was exciting for the US. Um, [00:13:00] apologies to our Canadian friends because the women, the Canadian women, played a hell of a great game as well.

So good. Um, just good competition.

That wasn't the only thing that we had to celebrate though. I mean, Lindsay Vonn, who retired from skiing, had an incredible comeback to get to even be on the team. Amazing. And she tore some ligaments in her knee a couple of weeks before the games. Rehabbed her knee to be able to ski, actually did, I think was like the third highest qualifying time when she was cleared to ski at the Olympics, even after tearing ligaments in her knee.

I mean, think about this, if you are a professional basketball player, men do this all the time. They, they tear ligaments on their knee. They're out for the season. Lindsay Vonn [00:14:00] tore ligaments on her knee, slapped a brace on her knee, got back into the gym, busted her ass, was cleared to ski in the Olympics two weeks later. Her. I mean, that's, that's fucking amazing. That is incredible.

And because she was going for the win, she was going all out, She clipped a gate. Ended up with a devastating leg injury. She had to be helicoptered off of the, the, the race course.

And people have the audacity to say she took somebody else's spot on the team. She shouldn't have, she shouldn't have raced. What do you mean she shouldn't have raced? She is a professional athlete. There is no reason that she should have given up her spot. She was cleared to ski. She was the third fastest qualifying skier.

She did amazing. Unfortunately, she clipped a gate. She was, she was [00:15:00] going for the win. She was skiing so aggressively that she clipped a gate. what happens? I mean it, it has nothing to do with the fact that she was injured. No, it doesn't.

But we're quick to sit back and be like, well, she should give up her spot to somebody else.

And we've got other Monday morning couch writers who are like the US team not pulling their weight this year. I mean, it's fun to watch them in competition. They're doing amazing things, but they're not winning medals. So maybe I shouldn't spend my time. It's crap. I mean, look, breezy Johnson won a gold, Mickaela Schiffrin had a comeback win after.

I, you need, if, if, if you are not an Olympics person, fine. Totally cool. I get that. Not everybody likes that kind of adrenaline rush watching these sports. I mean, I can't even breathe during some of these sports because. I, I just, I, I [00:16:00] want every athlete to do so well. 'cause I know what it takes for them to get to that spot that I don't want the ice skaters to fall. I want the, the skiers and the half pipe to land, and I don't want them to fall. I, I want everybody to be as good as they can be at the Olympics. And I know that that's totally not realistic because people get sick. People have a bad day. I mean, we are talking about years of dedication for one shot at this medal.

And the pressure's on. Pressure's on.

Anyway. The Olympics did not disappoint this year. I love them so much. I cannot wait until the Summer Olympics are hosted in Los Angeles in a couple of years. Go team USA. Love, love, love.

I wanna bring this back to midlife women, and in particular, Alysa Liu. If you have [00:17:00] not watched Alysa Liu gold medal winning.

Free skate. It's four minutes long. Do yourself a favor. Go find it on the internet and watch it there. That performance. Was I, I was, I already knew that she had won because I received the text alert on my phone. I think it went out to everybody earlier in the day that she had won. But I had tears in my eyes watching.

I knew what the outcome was gonna be, but I have never seen a skater skate with so much unbridled joy. That's, that's the only way I can describe it. She was just loose and enjoying herself. She had a huge smile on her face.

You know, you can tell when there are skaters in particular that are really in their head. That they are worried about the jump [00:18:00] sequence or the be, and they're really tight, like you can almost see them where they're just not breathing because they are so focused on not messing up. Alysa Liu's performance completely different. She was just in the moment, just happy, enjoying herself, loving it so much. This is what brings me back to what I wanna talk about today with midlife women.

Alysa Liu. Skated in the 2022 Winter Olympics. She came in seventh and she was thrilled.

She was thrilled at seventh; Okay. In 2022. She was 17 years old. Just a couple of months after the 2022 Winter Olympics, She [00:19:00] announced her retirement. This is an up and coming skater who was taking the junior league by storm. She was winning championships. At, at one point she would've qualified for the Olympic team, but she was too young. Do yourself a favor, go back and read a little bit of her story.

What got her to the 2022 Olympics amazing. Her father emigrated from China. He was a, a, an attorney who was persecuted. Got in trouble during Tiananmen Square, came to the United States. China at one point was watching Alysa Liu thought that she would be good for what they call their naturalization program.

So where they go to different countries and they bring back athletes with talent and some sort of connection to China. They wanted her to skate for them. They wanted her to come up through the Chinese system because she was [00:20:00] so incredible at such a young age. She was winning competitions. She was at the top of her game.

She played seventh in the Olympics, her first Olympics ever at 17 and retired from skating. Why? She said she was satisfied with her career. She said, I, I've done enough. She had made a deal with her father that she would continue to skate until she made it to the Olympics, and she achieved that goal.

She wanted to honor all the sacrifice that he had made by leaving China to create a better life for him and his family in the United States. He, of course, invested so much time and money in her becoming a skater. She liked it. She was so incredibly good at it. And then at 17 was like, you know what?

I'm done. I'm good. I've achieved everything I want to do in skating. I'm satisfied with my [00:21:00] career. And she explained to the haters and the naysayers who were like, you are, you are so on the verge of doing everything you always wanted. She said, nah, I'm good. You don't actually understand how so into skating, you have to be that everything else, like you can't really do much else.

She retires. She gets her driver's license. She gets to hang out with her friends. She gets to go back to regular school. She goes to college, has just normal kid experiences like we all should.

Fast forward two years after retiring almost exactly two years, and she went on a ski trip with some friends and she'd never been skiing before.

She talked about the [00:22:00] adrenaline rush that she felt on that ski trip. And it was like nothing that she had felt before except when she was on the ice. And she thought. I am an athlete. What would happen if I would go back to ice skating? But here's the part that is so important. She went back to ice skating on her terms, which meant she was going to make a schedule that worked for her.

As far as her practice schedule. She was in college. She didn't want to be consumed. She didn't wanna wake up in the morning, go work out, go to school, go back to practice, go to rehab, go to physical therapy, go back to practice. She didn't want her life to be completely consumed with skating, so she wanted to practice on her terms. She wanted to eat what she wanted to eat. She wanted to choose her music. She, in fact, when [00:23:00] there was an artist who was in some legal trouble because, uh, some, I, I think there were sexual assault allegations, i'm not exactly sure, but she decided at the last minute to pull that music from her upcoming competition, which meant she also had to change her routine. But this is a principled young woman. This is a woman who said, I'm coming back, but this time I'm gonna do it on my terms.

I'm gonna pick my music, I'm gonna pick what I practice. I'm gonna pick what I eat. I'm gonna pick how I wear my hair, what I wear. This is a young woman who loved the sport, but did not want to be defined by it. She comes back, wins the gold medal on her terms at 21 years old. At the Olympics, she's quoted as saying, I'm the luckiest girl ever.

She's 21. Wouldn't it have been incredible to figure [00:24:00] out what you want? And loved in life so much at 21? Your life would be totally different now, wouldn't it?

What though? Let me ask you this. What would you be doing in your life if you could be doing it completely on your own terms? Not because somebody said that you should be doing something, not because all of the expectations are are around you. If you could do exactly what you wanted to do with your life right now, what would you do?

Let's use Alysa as the example and the metaphor, and you could do anything in your life because you loved it so much. You could choose your music, you could choose when you practice, you could choose what you eat. You could choose what you wear. That's the metaphor. That's the example. What would you do [00:25:00] with your life?

She figured this out at 17. She retired from the old version of of Alysa who showed up and did everything expected of her. She said, no, I'm good. I don't wanna do that. Fast forward four years.

She actually won the gold medal at the Olympics. Amazing. Do you know how hard that is? Think about your life though. If you could do what you wanted to on your terms without all of the pressure and the expectations and everyone telling you what you should do. What? What is your gold medal?

What do you need to retire from or stop doing right now so that you have the opportunity to do the thing that you really want to do? On [00:26:00] your terms because it makes you happy. Because you lose yourself in it, like you lose track of time. If somebody would watch you do the thing, whatever your thing is, they would look at you and be like, that is the epitome of unbridled joy.

That is somebody who is showing up for her life with ease and happiness, and you could just tell like the core of her being. Everything about her is radiating. That's what I want for you. That's what I want you to figure out before it's too late. That's what I talk about for most midlife women, we have lived more years than we actually have ahead of us.

I don't want you to wait too long. Feeling like I have to wait until the kids are out of the house. Or until the timing is right, or until I retire, or until everything is perfect.

You might [00:27:00] just run out of time. And I'm not saying that again because I... it's, it's just, it's the truth. I mean, the math, maths. It. It is what it is.

What is the one thing for you that if you, if you got to do that one thing, in addition to everything you've accomplished, all the achievements that you already have, what's the one thing that would make you say, I'm the luckiest girl ever.

I am the luckiest girl ever. What is that for you? For Alysa Liu? It was getting back on, back into ice skating, coming out of retirement. It's funny, you know that we talk about retirement at 17 years old. Think about having that foresight. Think about having the gumption to be able to walk away from something when you are at the [00:28:00] top of your career.

Think about stopping doing something when you're really good at it. That's the whole idea of just because you can doesn't mean you should. Just because you're great at something doesn't mean you have to keep doing it just because you can negotiate a deal better than anybody else. Just because you perform better in the emergency room than somebody else.

Just because you can put together a spreadsheet and crunch numbers faster than anybody else. Just because you can land a triple axle better than anybody else doesn't mean that you have to keep doing it. You get one shot at this life, my friends.

Most of us probably aren't gonna win Olympic gold. That ship is sail. I get it. What is your Olympic gold? It doesn't even have to be something that you win or something that you achieve. What is the thing that lights you up that when you do it, you are [00:29:00] just radiating unbridled joy. What's the one thing that makes you say to yourself, I'm the luckiest girl ever.

That's what I want you to figure out, and that's what I want you to start doing. And maybe you can't do it today. Maybe there is a little bit of a runway that takes you from where you are now to where you're going, but you can take steps today. You can get in motion, you can start pursuing that dream.

What is the thing for you that would have you say, I'm the luckiest girl. Ever figure that out? Get to work. If you need some help, I'm here. You know how to get in touch with me. Let's talk about it.

It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter if you came out of retirement and you started pursuing something else and that's still not the thing you thought it was, no problem. There's something out there for you. Figure out what that is. Go chase it. I want everyone, I just want a happy [00:30:00] family. A, a supportive group, a huge community of midlife women everywhere that show up,

and when somebody asks you, what are you doing? How are you? You can say. I'm the luckiest girl ever. Thank you so much for being here today, my friends. I will see you right back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session. Until then, take good care. I.

 Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I [00:31:00] personally read each and every one of your reviews.