The Fearless Warrior Podcast

124: Gold Medal Mindset: Olympic Examples We Are Loving

• Amanda Schaefer

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The 2026 Winter Olympics are a perfect opportunity to watch the world's best athletes compete both physically and mentally.

The Games will take place in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, bringing together thousands of athletes from around the globe competing in snow and ice sports such as skiing, figure skating, hockey, snowboarding, bobsled, and more.

Coach Kara, Sarah, and Amara take over this week's podcast to break down the importance of watching mental skills in action. Many of the same mental skills discussed in today’s episode are actively coached inside the Fearless Warrior Program.

If you want to help your athlete build confidence, stay composed under pressure, and compete fearlessly, this episode is your masterclass in Olympic-level mindset.


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Team Takeover And Olympic Hook

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Fearless Warrior Podcast, a place for athletes, coaches, and parents who know the value of a strong mindset. I'm your host, Coach AB, a mental performance coach on a mission, former softball coach, wife, and mom of three. Each episode, we will dive deep into all things mental performance, mindset tools, and how to rewire the brain for success. So if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, you're in the right place. Let's tune in to today's episode.

Favorite Events And Why They Matter

SPEAKER_03

Good morning, Fearless fam. We have kicked Coach A B off of the podcast, and we as Team Fearless have taken over. Dun dun dun. So we know that y'all are busy, but you're missing a huge opportunity if you're not watching the Olympics right now. You're missing out if you're not actively working on cultivating an elite mindset. But before we dive in, let's just have a fun conversation about our favorite Olympic event to watch and why. Coach Amara, what is your favorite Olympic event to watch during this 2026 Winter Olympics?

SPEAKER_04

So this 2026 Olympics season has actually been a new one. I am a usually a good classic ice skater, but this season I have been all about hockey. Hockey has grabbed my attention. Hockey has been my new hyperfixation this winter. So the Olympics could not have come at a better time. I've been going to my local high school hockey games and some of the Capitals games here in the DC area. And so watching the Olympics on a global scale has been so insane to watch. And seeing some of the best people in the world play hockey has been the coolest thing. So that's been my favorite Olympic sport this winter.

SPEAKER_02

And team USA women are killing it.

SPEAKER_04

Killing it, killing it.

SPEAKER_02

That's I think they saw they scored five goals in every game they've played in the whole stage, which is amazing.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Awesome. All right, Coach Kerry, what was your favorite?

SPEAKER_02

Man, I I am just an Olympics junkie all around. I just I just can't ever get enough. It doesn't matter summer, winter, whatever. I I want to watch it all. And I I it's super funny because I hear all the time you're like, you go four years without caring about any of these sports, and then all of a sudden you're like a diehard curling fan for a couple of weeks in the Winter Olympics. But I think every year, I think I think last Olympics was the first year, and I think is a fairly new sport that I discovered snowboard snowcross. And if you haven't watched it, it is like super fun, super exciting. It's only there's only four races on the course at a time, but it's essentially like a BMX race on a snowboard. So like they are coming downhill, but they're going over like bumps and jumps, and they're it's a live race. A lot of like the skiing and snowboarding races, they do it individually and just time them and then compare the times. This is like literally head to head. So there's like four people tearing down this course, going over jumps and bumps and going around like the big turns, and you see crashes because people like you know kick or accidentally hit each other, and it's super, super exciting and and really, really fun to watch. So that's been one that I just watched a bunch of it last night, and it it's super, super fun to watch.

SPEAKER_03

Sounds awesome. Yeah. I think for me it would have to be the half pipe snowboarding. I like to do recreational snowboarding. Y'all, I have tried skiing and I pizza doing the splits down the down the mountain. Okay, I tried, I did not conquer, so I can conquer during snowboarding. So I love that.

SPEAKER_02

I'm the reverse of you, Sarah. I've tried snowboarding, I think, once, and I said, nope, give me back my skis. I'm tired of just like catching an edge and being on my face in a second flat.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, I I grew up wakeboarding, and so I think that's what helped. And I do think softball helped a little bit because you're in the same stance. So that's I've convinced myself that I'm just a natural snowboarder. Not a good one, very recreational. But with that being said, I also love figure skating. I think it's just because if I ever had another life, I would probably want to do dance in the arts. I was not raised doing any of those things. So whenever the Olympics come on, I love watching the gymnastics, love watching anything dance related. And figure skating is just like so beautiful to me. And I have gone ice skating once or twice, and it is hard just trying to stay on the ice. And so knowing that these men and women can like jump and do backflips and do their triple quadruple axles like is so incredible. So it takes a lot of strength, a lot of elegance, and I am just not elegant. So I love watching all of the pretty things on the Olympics. That's that's mine. So Coach Amara, so we know that I'm a snowboarder and Coach Kerr is a skier. What do you do? Do you ski or snowboard?

SPEAKER_04

So what's crazy is I actually used to be a skier. That was my go-to. And then I did have an unfortunate ski accident that took me out of the game. So I always said, like, if I could ever get back on the slopes, I want to try snowboarding. I just, it's always been something I wanted to do and never did. So we'll see if I ever hit the slopes again. That would be my go-to. But I I love ice skating. I've always like wanted to, I think for the same reasons, could say, that you liked it, like watching it. I used to be a dancer, I used to be a cheerleader. So the idea of like doing taking dance to a next level, that's so insane to me. And like adding flips, and even the ice skater for the US team who was doing backflips on ice, like I'm like, okay, I can I can manage a backflip on the ground. I couldn't even imagine then having to land on blades, like just even landing on my own two feet alone is insane. And him just being able to do something that has like never been done before in the Olympics is amazing.

Learning From Elite Mindset On TV

Failure Recovery In Real Time

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah, it's all it's all just incredible. And that's and that's why we wanted to get together and do this episode. It's, I mean, we could talk forever about how much we love the Olympics and how great it is to watch these amazing athletes do these crazy, crazy things. But really, the reason we wanted to jump on and do this episode today was because not only are the Olympics fun to watch, but actually you can learn a ton from watching the Olympics as well. And so we wanted to get on here and talk about some of the things and some of the mental skills that we're seeing demonstrated in the Olympics. We're watching these elite athletes not only perform amazing physical skills, but if you watch, you can actually see as they actually use mental skills as well to be at their best. And we've all been paying attention and looking for those. And so we wanted to point out a few to kind of help you so that as you watch the Olympics, this can be something that you can watch. Parents, you can point out to your kids, kids, you can practice some of these skills or watch these elite athletes practice some of these skills that you're learning about from Fearless Warrior and the Fearless Warrior program. So I think the first one that most people say it's super easy is that they can see from the Olympics is the idea of failure recovery. And for me, this is one of my favorite skills that we teach in the program because failure is part of life. Failure is a huge part of softball, but it's also part of life. And so, failure recovery in order to learn to recover from our failures is an important skill to have for softball as well as for life. And so, what are we seeing in the Olympics? What have you guys seen with failure recovery and how how that is being demonstrated by these Olympians?

SPEAKER_04

Absolutely. I think also, too, just saying, like, even watching these Olympians being able to do this failure recovery on a global scale, right? Like we're watching them, like they're being televised to millions and millions of people. And so watching them compete at the top level and have these failure moments and being able to see, okay, what are they using to kind of change that course? And I know for me, a lot of it was watching figure skating, and we know like they have a certain amount of tries or amount of attempts to do their routines, and so not making an axle in the middle and watching them like not focus on that moment, but keep going and then just continue on with the routine. I think for me it's been like noticing those moments of like, okay, not making the jump, but then going on to the next skill, like not getting bogged down, okay. Like I did not what I what I didn't do, but like what can I now do next? And I saw for me, I've been seeing that a lot in figure skating, not making jumps or not completing turns as they're supposed to be doing, but then moving on to the next.

SPEAKER_03

We forget too, like how dangerous like skiing and half-pipe snowboarding can be and all the other things that are downhill. I mean, even figure skating, right? Like you have a bad fall and you know, you could hurt yourself really bad. And so what are the athletes doing after they're falling? You know, how are they, what is their reaction? I was telling Coach Amara and Coach Kara before this that I saw a reel where a one of in one of the skiing events, somebody made a jump and it looked like they were gonna fall, but they landed it on one ski. And, you know, that having to recover mentally from that, I know if I ever like almost fall, I keep telling myself I'm gonna fall, which also goes into self-talk, but we'll talk about that a little bit later. You know, and so you have to like be psychologically like flexible with what you are doing in that moment. Like we can't let those things of self-talk, the negative self-talk, like take over, or else we could get really hurt. I know personally, I have gotten really hurt when especially on the mountain, like when I think, oh, I'm gonna fall and then I fall, right? So I just think failure recovery, we really have to keep our minds malleable, right? So malleable just means flexible and able to mold. It's kind of like clay, like when clay is soft, you can mold it into a beautiful shape. So that's what our brains are also capable of. It's just incredible to watch as athletes just be able to figure it out, you know. And they've trained their last four years to be able to get to where they are.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I was watching, I don't remember the name of the event. I was watching the one where they ski down and it's like they go through the terrain park, there's pipes and jumps and whatever. I don't remember what that's called. But I was watching that with my kids. And in that, in that event, you have two runs and they they you keep the best score of your two runs. And we were watching some of the qualifying rounds. So these aren't even medals aren't even on the line, but you need to qualify to get into the medal round to be able to even have an opportunity to win a medal. So we're watching these athletes come down and go through these, go through these runs. And they always have a plan, right? They have a plan of what they're doing off the pipe, what they're doing off the the jump and whatever. And we would watch some of these athletes and they would come down. We actually saw one athlete who was in the women's, she she, I think she's from China, was one of the favorites to win the gold. Like right now, she's the best in the world. And she came down and off the very first pipe, he fell. And once you fall, like, I mean, it's not technically over, you technically still get a score, but it's over, right? You're not gonna compete with a fall on your on your score. So she fell, and my kids are like, Oh, she's supposed to be the best! Like, what she fell? I can't believe she fell. And I I told my kids, I said, but watch what she does now. Like, watch what she does now. How does she react? What is she doing? She's the best in the world, she's supposed to be the best in the world. And you watched her and she stayed very calm, she was very composed, she skied down to the bottom, and you could see that she was already getting herself ready for her next run because it's not over, it's not done. And so often when we have these failure moments, someone gets a hit off of us, the other team hits a home run, or we make an error in the field, and in our minds, we think it's over. And it's not over, like especially in a long softball game, one error, it doesn't make it over. And watching her, she came back in her second run and just grew down and nailed it. She qualified. I should have looked up how she did. I'm pretty sure she meddled eventually, if not won the gold medal. So I I just I thought that was a really good opportunity. And this is parents, this is what you can do as you're watching with your kids. They, I mean, their reaction is, oh man, she sucks or she's terrible. And I and I I very much overtly said, no, no, no, watch what she does now. And and to be able to do that, to be able to watch an Olympian on this stage, especially somebody who has all these expectations, who's supposed to be the best in the world, it points out that even they fail. It happens. Everybody fails. And just because you fail doesn't make you a bad skier. Is she all of a sudden now a terrible skier? No, she is a great skier who made a mistake. And I think when we can separate our worth or our overall value as an athlete from a mistake, and we don't, our mistakes don't make us a bad athlete. We're a good athlete who makes mistakes. And I think that's a very, very important decision or yeah, a decision in our minds that we we change that thought process. And we do that by using our failure recovery tactics that we teach in in Fearless Warrior. And it's actually a skill, it's a mental skill that you have to learn. You have to practice. You don't show up on Olympic day and say, okay, now I'm gonna be okay with failing and and and focusing on the next play or the next opportunity. It's something that these athletes have trained relentlessly as a part of their training. They do the physical stuff and they also spend tons of time doing the mental stuff. So I doubt that was a really, a really good example.

Breathing You Can Actually See

SPEAKER_03

We are huge advocates of being a multi-sport athlete. So you don't have to learn mental skills like just for softball. You can learn these mental skills in the Winter Olympics. You can learn these skills in basketball, in volleyball, in ultimate frisbee, in field hockey. That's why we wanted to hop on here today, too, is like just to show you that other athletes are using these mental skills. It's not just softball athletes.

SPEAKER_02

I would almost argue, too, that you actually learn these mental skills more completely and better when you practice them in multiple multiple sports. Now you don't have to be playing every sport at the top level because that's crazy and expensive and time consuming. But even if you're just playing rec or pickup or school or whatever in these other sports, like if you learn how to do failure recovery really well in softball, learning how to do it in basketball is gonna help you be better at it in softball. And I and it's I think a lot of athletes are missing out on that opportunity to learn across disciplines and to be able to learn and take things that that are more obvious. You'll learn things about yourself from basketball or volleyball or whatever else that you can then help you be a more complete, better, well-rounded softball player. So I think I think we're we're missing out sometimes when we hyper focus on one sport because we don't necessarily see the whole picture as well as we could from other sports.

SPEAKER_04

And I think too like a part of that failure recovery, right, is like having that like, okay, what am I gonna do in that movement in that moment to move on to the next? And I know one thing I've been, like I said, my hockey fixation I've been following, USA woman's hockey player Layla Edwards, and she's been talking a lot about how important breathing has been in one of her routines, and she's using her breath work. Like she talks about how when she's getting up, getting ready to score, and getting a goal, and sometimes it's not getting in, she realizes that her heart rate's up, right? She's breathing really heavy, and so noticing that, and she's always noticing like where her breathing pattern is and always trying to get herself back down. And so she's talking a lot about and a part of her failure recovery, is working on her breath and kind of coming, getting her to come back down from those high moments, and so that's been interesting for me to see is just a part of that recovery system being how these athletes are getting their breath work under control. Have you guys been seeing any breathing work or breath work at all in the Olympics this season?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I again since I like watching figure skating, I was watching the team competition. So team USA, it was an individual female figure skater. I am really bad with names, you guys. If I like recognized her, I would know. So, but, anyways, she is supposed to do really well in the Olympics. But during the team event, I saw her and her coach were like just talking, like basically like getting ready for her to go and perform. And the coach just said, okay, take a deep breath. So that's part of a routine is we can also like say, okay, before we go on, we need to take a deep breath. And it's not just to say, like, okay, that's gonna fix my anxiety or that's like gonna fix my fear, but just saying, okay, I'm going to try to re-regulate my system so that I can get ready to move on to what I need to do and how I need to perform. So I've been seeing it in figure skating, I've been seeing it in the alpine skiing, the slalom skiing. I think if you watch like their pre-run routines, a lot of them are like taking big deep breaths before they start their runs. Coach Kerr, what have you seen?

Visualization Beyond Closed Eyes

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think actually breathing, if you're having any sort of hard time seeing mental skills in real time, start by looking for breathing. I think it's one of the easiest ones to spot because they're all doing it. They all are using some sort of breathing technique. Like you said, before runs, you know, right, you know, in between things when they're trying to recover, all of these different things. If you watch for them taking their deep breaths, you'll see it all over the place. I actually was watching the Sweden USA mixed doubles curling match. Once again, I've I actually don't even understand the rules of curling. But here I was like watching it going, go USA, right? Like all of a sudden I care about curling and the US is not a country that's known for their curling prowess. Like that's not something that they've done well in the past. But here we had our mixed doubles team. It's kind of fun. Both their first names are Corey, which is a fun time. But they were in the gold medal match. So which that what that means is obviously one of them is going to win a gold, the winner wins a gold, the loser wins a silver. And so they get into this match, super high stakes. Sweden is a powerhouse in curling. And they they take them all the way to the line. It's back and forth and back and forth, and we're up and they're up. And it goes all the way to the very end. I think it goes to eight. I don't know what we call the eight segments of the game, but it I think that's the last segment. And it goes up to the very last shot. And the the female curler was taking the final shot. She was the one like pushing the little rock. And I watched, she was standing up there on like the little starting block things, and she was getting ready to go. And I saw her teammate say to her, Take another breath. And you could see her, she was about to go, and then she stopped and she said, And you could see her do like another big breath. And the announcers were talking about how this has been a huge thing that the USA team has been working on to prepare for this Olympics was preparing these mental skills and these mental abilities. So she takes this one more deep breath. She goes, she makes this huge shot, maybe the biggest shot of her life, right? And she goes and she shoots the shot. If she misses, they lose, they get a silver medal, right? Like it's just this crazy wheel of emotions because they lose, but they're still meddling and getting a silver medal. So obviously they're very pleased. But I was just thinking about when I was watching that, I think that's such a good example of here that the USA team is performing at a super high level, probably outperforming most expectations by even just being in that match. And then they get down a last shot, a super important shot. She's using a mental skill, she's breathing. And then the storybook ending is okay, she uses her breathing and now they win. Right. That's like the ending everybody wants because she used a mental skill. She should now win, but she didn't. And I think sometimes, and this is so important that our breathing techniques are any mental skill techniques that we're learning, they're not magic. They're not going to make you do something that you can't do. I mean, what they're what they do do is they remove some of those barriers to us performing at our best. So even though she missed a shot, I think she would tell you that's probably some of the best she's ever played. And I think that's an important thing to remember. And especially as we're learning these skills at these young ages, as we're teaching our softball athletes these skills, we need to remind them that just because you breathe doesn't mean now you're gonna play perfectly. Just because you visualize doesn't mean now nothing's gonna go wrong. It just means that using those skills removes some of that barrier to you performing your best. And we've all seen people that have the physical skills, they have the abilities, but because of some of their mental issues, because of some of their mental mindset problems, they play below those abilities. We've all seen that. We've seen people fall apart in competition. And you know that's not what they are capable of. And so when we look at it this way, that our mental skills aren't all of a sudden making us superhuman. They are allowing us, we're removing a barrier that allows our training and our preparation to be at its best. And now what how that best stacks up against our other competition, that we don't control. But when we practice these skills, we can remember that we can now be our best. And hopefully then everybody can be happy with a performance that's at your best. And and whatever, wherever that leaves us compared to other people's best, is whatever. But if we can remove some of those barriers, then we can be at our best and we can be pleased and happy with our whatever our performance is at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_04

Absolutely. And I think it's just the perfect reminder, too, that like we're human, right? And we're watching these Olympians who've been put on this pedestal and like this is what we've like all athletes want to aspire to be. This is like the highest of professional athletes. And I think too, it's that reminder that A B always tells our athletes, like, you are human and mistakes happen, right? And I think it's that reminder, like you said, mental skills aren't magic, right? They just help you. And I like um Coach Sarah's words, regulate your body, right? So even that word there, it's that reminder that, like, okay, we are human, right? This bath work is me regulating my nervous system. There's a like it's there's a structure here. This this is for a purpose and that reminder that you're human and that these things happen. But it's like again, like, how do we move on? And what are these skills that I can use to help me get back to a centered nervous system or a calm nervous system? And so I just I love that idea of just like these skills aren't gonna be your end all be-all and the perfect fix, and all of a sudden you're a gold medalist. No, it's this is how you perform at your best.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no one at Fearless is telling you to stop, take grounders, and just start visualizing them. No one here is telling you that. Now, do we absolutely want you to take grounders and work on your mental skills? Yes. They they both go hand in hand. We one without the other is not gonna lead you to the best success that you could have.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And you do have to train your breath work too. Like, yeah, okay, we're we're breathing right now. Like parents out there might be why do we have to like. Yeah, why do you have to train their breathing? Like that doesn't make any sense. But no, if one, it is physical preparation, and that's what helps with our confidence, right? But if we don't practice like how to like do breath work, we're never going to be able to think clearly into what we're doing. So that's just one my last thing on the breathing stuff. We could go on and on, you guys, about like so many good nuggets. Next, we did want to talk about so Coach Amar and I were talking right before we started hit recording that like so many of these things are like tied up in one big package. So it's not that you're seeing one mental skill at a time. So the next thing we wanted to talk about was visualization. So I know recently at Fearless Warrior, we have been discussing a lot of visualization. And I have seen so many reels on Instagram where you are seeing many of like the I think it's the Alpine skiers and any skiers, like they are doing that for their pre-run routine. And so, but something else I wanted to point out too with visualization is they're not just sitting there closing their eyes and visualizing what they're doing. So I don't know if you guys have seen, but they are actually moving their body and going down the run. Obviously, not going downhill, but they are like using their body and trying to visualize what their body is going to do around each turn. And I think that's to say something because you know it's when we're starting out with visualization. Of course, we're just going to be sitting there and visualizing what we're doing. We're going to visualize our surroundings. We're going to visualize like what smells we have, what we're touching in that moment. But it can become more advanced than that, and you can work on it. So if you're hitting, you can practice with your body what you're going to do. You don't have to have a T and a ball to be able to hit the ball. So we can visualize that. So what else have you guys seen?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I just, I mean, if you haven't watched Cool Runnings, and some of the some of the younger generation maybe hasn't seen cool runnings, there's a scene towards the end of the movie when they're like, yeah, when they're in there's a Jamaican bobsled team this year.

Routines Versus Superstitions

SPEAKER_02

I know. I haven't watched any bobsled yet, but I'm gonna I'm definitely gonna watch the Jamaican bobsled team. But if in that in that movie, which is a depiction of uh, you know, a long-ago Olympics, the driver of the bobsled at one point the coach comes into his room and he is sitting there with pictures of each turn, and he's going like turn one, left, turn one, two, whatever. And he's like leaning as he's watching those pictures. And so, I mean, obviously that's a movie depiction, but it's that same idea of like, I'm gonna see what I'm doing, and I'm gonna practice what my body is gonna be feeling and what it's gonna look like and how what my eyes are seeing. And and he was using pictures to help him with that. But yeah, it's a great example of how visualization can really get you prepped mentally. Once again, to remove that barrier so you can do your best. I think also like you and you mentioned this too, Sarah, it's like visualization visualization is part of this like larger routine that you'll see athletes do, and and routines is another thing that we teach in uh in our mental skills. And the idea behind routines is that when we do the same things the same way or have routines to be able to, it helps once again regulate our nervous system. It tells our body and our brain that we are in a safe space. We are we understand this space, we know what's happening, and it helps us bring back that regulation. So things like putting on your skates the same way and you know, saying the same things, or doing your same breathing, or doing your same visualization, all of these are routines that can help us feel safe and feel like we know what to expect in our body. So, like, what have you guys seen about these like generalized routines as you're watching, uh watching the Olympics?

SPEAKER_04

I know one thing for me, like I said, my me and ice hockey have been hand in hand. So the women's ice hockey team, what I love is the team routines they've been having. And so talking about these things that they do as a team before a game all the time, and even like their visualization, so like taking a moment together as a team to visualize passes that they're making and what those actual complete passes look like, and visualizing the communication that they're gonna have out on the ice, and so taking that idea of like even in your team sports, right? How you can take a moment as a team to use some of these mental skills together. I think that has just been really cool. And I've been seeing that in ice hockey.

SPEAKER_03

We can also see self-talk in that, also. I haven't seen a specific instance of that, but you can before somebody's about to do a run or like go out on the ice, you can see people not just breathing, but talking to themselves. They might not be saying out loud, like, I'm going to do my best or I'm going to go and play for my team or whatever, but like they are saying something to themselves, mouthing it, like thinking it. So they are using self-talk like as part of those routines. And it's routines also when we are practicing and like doing physical reps, so going back again to softball, many of us know how to take a ground ball. Or as you get older and like as you've been practicing for many, many years, you know how to take a ground ball. You like know how to hit, right? And so it might not be perfect every time, but you know how to make contact or you know how to get that ball in that glove. So it routines also help us like build confidence and competence, right? Like they help us to know what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And I think I think for a lot of time, I know there's been this for a minute, there was kind of a breakaway from routines. I think for a long time, routines and superstition were so closely related. And superstition, this idea that if I don't wear the same socks, I'm going to lose. Or if I don't put my skates on the right way or the same way every time, then it's going to make me lose. And that's superstition. And it's, you can see how it's so closely related to routines, because um, it's this superstition feeds on the same thing. It feeds on us feeling certain in an uncertain world. And so the superstition, I would argue, is not a good mental skill. Because then as soon as anything is out of the ordinary, as soon as we don't have the socks that we think we need, or as soon as our favorite stick breaks, or or our favorite bat breaks, or whatever other superstition that we have, as soon as that's not there, then it results in a bad outcome. Routines, on the other hand, are important because they help bring us back into that state of removing that mental, that mental block that we might have and reminding our brain that we're in a safe place. So it's not that we're doing these things because if we don't put our skates on the same way, we're going to lose. The outcome is already determined. Instead, we're putting our skates on the same way to have our body key in on the idea of about we are about to do this thing that we have been practicing our whole lives. And we are gonna do it in the same conditions that we've been doing it for forever. It's the same as we've always done it, and it's pulling down that anxiety level that we might be feeling in our brain because it feels different just because the stage is bigger. And so that's that's something to watch for. It's the difference between superstition and routines, and and the difference has to be in what how we feel towards our routines. Every athlete will tell you stories of like, oh, I had to rush and then I had to jump out and I was not ready yet, and they still can be able to perform their best. And that's part of a part of that process. But our routines can help us feel safe and feel ready to perform at our best, even when the outcome is uncertain. And it's not the same as a superstition. But once again, these this is if if you haven't really practiced this, if you haven't really been intentional about saying, I'm going to establish routines, not superstitions. I'm going to establish routines, what I'm going to do before every game so that I'm feeling ready and confident, then it becomes superstition because all of a sudden we won last game and we wore these socks. So now this game we're going to wear these socks. So that's it's superstitions tend to be retroactive in that way, whereas routines tend to be proactive that we're actually putting these things into place to help us feel comfortable and confident and, like you said, Sarah, competent. And so I think that's a really important distinction. But we have to practice those. It has to be intentional. It can't be like, oh, I'm seeing this athlete breathe. I'm going to do some sort of breathing next time. No, we need to take the time to learn about breathing, to learn the different types of breathing, find the type of breathing that we like, and then implement it in a way that works for us. And that's, I think, the the beauty of the of the Fearless Warrior program is that it really teaches you how to do those things. It's not just, I mean, to tell an athlete, all right, now you need to visualize is like throwing them into a cage without teaching them how to bat. Like you're gonna start pitching balls at them, but you haven't actually taught them how to swing the bat and hit the ball. And it's the same thing with visualization. We say, okay, visualize. And then most athletes are like, how? What? What am I doing? And the Fearless Warrior program really takes it step by step, breaks it down, teaches you how to do it. So then you can take the reps. So then on game day, you can have that ability to reach into that bag of mental skills and be able to perform at your best.

Joy, Gratitude, And Your Why

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So good. So many good nuggets, you guys. Well, we also don't want to keep you forever and ever, because we could probably have like a four or five hour conversation on this, and we know that nobody has any time for that. So, but we did want to wrap up just saying that, you know, it's these Olympic athletes are there to obviously compete and to win, but they're also there to enjoy the experience that they're having. So it's not that, you know, if they say they don't make the podium, okay, how are they reacting or how are they, you know, what is their response to that? And so we did want to just discuss really quick two athletes, whether it was through quotes or through like how they performed. Kyle Negomir, if I said that correctly, and I'm so sorry if I missed that, but he is an alpine skier, and something that he wrote was one of the biggest takeaways is recognizing how unique of a privilege it is to make sacrifice and structure my life around trying to be the best in the world at something. It's really special to have the freedom to take a leap of faith to see what's possible. Biggest piece of advice to young athletes is watching the Olympics is to not be afraid to care and try hard. For me, that's broader to the rest of life. I want to always take courage to try to be really excellent at something, even when the odds are stacked against me. And guys, like, I can't say this enough. I wish I would have learned this at a younger age. As a perfectionist, I struggle so hard sometimes to like just enjoy what I'm doing. And that even applies to like slow pitch softball today. And this is recreation. This doesn't even mean that I'm gonna win anything. But like if I whip a ball in a slow pitch game, which I have not done yet, but I'm sure that's coming down. But or like I miss a pop fly, right? Because sometimes those really high fly balls are really hard to see. And if I miss that, I get so hard on myself. And so I'm still doing this at like 30 years old. Guys, don't be like me. Okay. I but I want you guys to understand that like just enjoy the experience that you're having, enjoy every at-bat, enjoy every ground ball that you're taking, enjoy just life right now because life is so short, and you don't know if tomorrow you're going to sprain your ankle, if some freak accident happens and you're in a car accident, like life is not guaranteed. And so it's really important for us to really enjoy what we're doing in the moment and just being present. And I think all in all, if you learn anything today, like that is probably the most important thing is just to really love what you're doing and be present.

SPEAKER_04

I think it goes back, right? What we always say at Fearless Warrior, like remembering your why. And so remembering the love of the game and why you're playing. And so even these Olympians are a perfect reminder of them remembering the true why that they're doing this. And it's really for the love of the sport and the gratitude that they have for all that the sport has given them. I think that's just the biggest overall message in the Olympics, is just that gratitude that these Olympians have to be able to play their sport on such a on such a stage.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, totally. And here's another, I mean, I'm a parent to four kids, and so I'm watching the Olympics with my kids. And once again, parents, you can be overtly teaching this to your kids by how you watch. And what I've been enjoying doing this Olympics is watching the people who don't win. Um, and watching, it's easy. The spotlight, the attention naturally goes to that gold medal winner, and maybe sometimes the silver and sometimes the bronze. But there's a whole slew of athletes that don't win anything. And so watch them, watch those athletes that their win is to qualify for the medal round, right? Or watch the athlete who their win is to get two places higher this year than they did four years ago. And you'll see some of the happiest people that you can find. And I think that is such a good reminder. I've been thinking about this all yesterday. I was thinking about how what a great example these Olympians are of, like you said, Sarah, enjoying that journey and enjoying just the opportunity to be able to compete at whatever level. And once again, we talked about like if we use these mental skills, we now can perform our best. And when we perform our best, we can live with whatever the result is. Only a few people in the world get to be the best at any certain thing. And so if we wait to be the best to be happy, we are not going to be motivated to keep trying. And I think sometimes we think the opposite is true. We think if I'm happy today, I'll stop trying tomorrow. When actually the reverse is true. If I'm unhappy today and next day and next day until I reach whatever pinnacle I've decided is where I want to get to, then unhappiness today does not motivate us to try tomorrow. And I think that that is why we see such high burnout rates in our athletes, is because we are waiting until we whatever, whatever goal you've set, we're waiting until we get that D1 scholarship, we're waiting until we get that professional contract, we're waiting until we make that Olympic team to be happy and to enjoy where we are. We say once we get there, we'll be happy. And another thing I love about the Feeless Warrior program is the opportunity it gives our athletes to have access to athletes that are at these pinnacles that we that we point to. We get D1 athletes, we get professional athletes, we get Olympians that come and speak to our girls and share about their own stories. And we always ask them, what would you tell yourself if you had to go back in time? And the I don't have actual percentage on this, but the the percentage of athletes that say, I would go back and tell my younger self to enjoy it. How many of them say, I wish I could just go back and play one more game with my club team? Or if I could just go back and play one more game with my high school team, or if you're a pro, if I could go back and play one more game of college, because they're realizing as they move through their careers that every level contained joy to be had. And every level had opportunities to be happy with their success. Once again, you don't know, nothing's guaranteed. You don't know if you're gonna get that D1 offer. And just because you're happy today does not mean you're gonna stop trying tomorrow. And I think that's a huge mindset shift that needs to occur in athletes to be able to have the longevity that they want to have. Anybody who wants a D1 scholarship has to play like 10 years of softball before you get there. And if you start hating softball because it's not fun, because you never get to be happy with your success until you get that one big goal, you're not gonna want to keep trying tomorrow. And so I love watching those athletes and celebrating those athletes that don't win the gold and are still just happy to be there. And and just to think about these athletes, they've worked four years to get 12th place in the Olympics. And they have another four years of work to have another opportunity to try and get 11th place and they're happy about it. We as softball athletes, if we play poorly in a tournament this weekend, we forget that we have an opportunity to play better in a tournament next weekend. So we have that turnover time is so much shorter to where we can be happy today and be willing to try tomorrow. And I think as we teach that to our girls, as we teach that to our athletes, it will increase that longevity. And if the longer we play, the more likely it is that we're gonna attain all of those goals. None of those goals happen if we quit at any point along the way.

SPEAKER_03

We also want to just like really quickly talk about Lindsay Vaughn, somebody who has been, she's been in several Olympics now. We all probably knew this was gonna be her last Olympics. I remember even Lindsay Vaughn as a kid. Like, I don't remember when she started, but she's yeah, and she's one of those people that just you really wanted her to win. Like she has been a rising star and she has continued to do well throughout her career. She has experienced the losses, the wins. So it's not like her career has been like at the peak all the time, but I think we can learn a lot from her. And so, you know, with the two terrible injuries that she just sustained, Coach Caramela, you just briefly talk about that. And she's had so many good quotes. And even after her first injury when she tore her ACL, like I just saw something on social media where it was like, did her team make a mistake by letting her continue to compete? Like after that. And because I I thought she just tore ACL. I didn't even realize until a couple of days ago that she actually had a second fall and she like broke her leg. And so, you know, was yeah, was that a mistake? Now we're we're not gonna go into the medical side of that, whether that was wise or whatnot, but we think that her story is really beautiful and like her perspective on how she's dealing with her injury right now.

Lindsay Vonn’s Perspective On Risk

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and and she uh what's what's really interesting is she's an elder statesman when it comes to the Olympics, right? I think she's like 35. So she's not super old, but as an athlete, she is old. And so it was it was kind of touch and go. I think she might have actually fully retired at some point and then came out of retirement just recently and said she was gonna come put compete in the Olympics and and she had been at the top of the sport. So she came back and was at the top. And it was like a week before the Olympics that she had a uh crash in a race and she tore her ACL. And like you said, Sarah, she talked with her medical team and they decided that it was stable enough for her to be able to race on. And then she ended up, she was doing really well, and then she ended up having a second crash that involved her being airlifted out by helicopter, and she's gonna have to have a whole bunch like shattered bones in her leg, like just destroyed them. And so she's gonna have multiple surgeries. She's gonna be it's gonna be a long, long, long recovery process along with that ACL recovery process that she already knew she was gonna have to do. But she released a statement on Instagram that I saw that just was so, so inspiring to me. This is somebody who had every expectation of winning a gold, and most people thought she absolutely could do it. And it didn't happen. She crashed, she destroyed her leg. And she came out and she just made this comment on Instagram that she said, Yesterday my Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would. It wasn't a storybook ending or a fairy tale, it was just life. I dared to dream and had worked hard so hard to achieve it. And then she talked about how skiing is dangerous and she knows that. And she's then she goes on to say, Well, yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets. Standing in the starting gate yesterday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget. Knowing I stood there, having a chance to win was a victory in and of itself. Um, similar to ski racing, we take risks in life. We dream, we love, we jump, and sometimes we fall, sometimes our hearts are broken, sometimes we don't achieve the dreams we know we could have. But that is also the beauty of life. We can try. I tried, I dreamt, I jumped. And I that goes beautifully back into what we've been talking about of this idea of celebrating what she did accomplish and knowing that giving her all leads to no regrets. Giving her all doesn't necessarily always mean you in the middle, but it does lead to no regrets. And we can all live with outcomes if we have no regrets. And I think she's just a beautiful example of this idea of understanding that the opportunity to try is an amazing experience. And it would not shock me if four years from now she's coming back, going back to the Olympics. She's just got that kind of a mentality of if I can try, I want to try. And that's beautiful, that idea of having that fearlessness to just compete. And that's what we want our athletes at Fearless to have is a fearlessness to go out and let your training do the work. Go out and be your best self day in and day out, and then let the chips fall where they may. If your best day in and day out leads to a D2 scholarship, you own that D2 scholarship. If it leads to you just playing amazing Rek Ball the rest of your life, you own that and enjoy that. And it there is no outcome that is better or worse based on whatever your best was.

Practical CTA And Watch Party Challenge

SPEAKER_03

Well, there you have it, Fearless Fam. That's our quick TED Talk on the Winter Olympics. Thank you all so much for listening. But we teach many of these skills in the Fearless Warrior. And so if you are interested in any of these skills and want to learn more, please send us a DM and we'd be happy to get you connected and answer any questions that you have. Again, we know y'all are busy right now, but you're missing a huge opportunity if you're not watching the Olympics. We're not saying you have to watch every event, right? But pick one event. Pick one night, pick a family night where you're going to enjoy some pizza, enjoy some popcorn, maybe eat some ice cream. I love ice cream. So I encourage you all to eat ice cream because you just got to live a little sometimes. But again, you're missing out if you're not actively working on cultivating an elite mindset. Thank you again for listening, and we'll see you next week.

Contributor

Amanda Schaefer

Host