Using The Setback to Pull Ahead with Bode Miller

The moment your plan gets wrecked by an injury, a delayed start, or a COVID style shutdown, you learn who you are. Bode Miller talks about that exact moment and why he sees disruption as leverage: if you use the time well while others spiral, you create a real competitive gap. This conversation blends elite sport mindset with practical habits you can apply immediately, whether you’re chasing podiums, scholarships, or just trying to stay consistent.

Turning passion into purpose by building a personal process, not a borrowed one, Bode shares how watching athletes learn at a tennis camp shaped his love of growth, why early “first win” moments matter, and how sports develop character through patience, determination, and redefining success. He emphasized on how connecting performance to applied learning and education reform, including how self directed scheduling builds independence, time management, and long term confidence.

Bode Miller breaks down B Strong blood flow restriction training, plus the trio he measures everything by—efficiency, attentiveness, and intensity. If you want a clear, grounded framework for mental toughness, athletic development, and sustainable motivation, visit the ICL Foundation where you'll find resources, training frameworks, and community support designed to help you achieve athletic excellence while building unshakeable character.

Transcript

Control What You Can Control

SPEAKER_00 0:00

That's outside of your sphere of control. And whether that's injuries or delays in the start of your competition to COVID, it does represent an opportunity. And the reason I say an opportunity is because you know that lots of your competitors are going to waste that time. They're going to spend that time depressed or, you know, being a victim. And that creates the potential for more of a differential, right? You can separate yourself from them if you use your time effectively.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Welcome to Building Champions for Life, where we dive into the minds of extraordinary leaders, trailblazers, and champions from every corner of the world. I'm your host, Kirk Spahn, and together we're going to meet with visionaries who've conquered challenges, shattered ceilings, and redefined what's possible. From sports, tech, entertainment to entrepreneurship, our guests have one thing in common. They're building legacies of greatness. And they're here to share their passion and their process with you. Welcome to the show.

Meet Bodie And The Six Ps

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Well, welcome everybody to uh happy summer. Those of you in South America, hopefully you're getting ready for a good winter season. But most of you are probably embarking on end of school summertime now. So a little uh off-piste and off-mountain training. We thought it'd be fun to have a webinar. Pretty much my favorite person to introduce because there are a lot of different ways to do it. Bodhi has been part of the ICL now for it's gonna be coming up on two decades, I would say almost, which is incredible. To introduce Bodhi on on the sports side, one of the greatest athletes, competitors. I think it's it, I don't have in front of me, you know, multiple-time world champion. We've gone through how many how many races he's won. My favorite stat is the comparison to tennis grand slams. It was like, what did what did you win? You gotta help me out with this again. The uh all the divisions.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Yeah, it's it's it's not comparable directly to tennis, but I had a good career. I can look back on it fondly. My best records are of the most DNFs, the most crashes of anyone historically, more than double the next guy in World Cup. I like those those records. I like the most consecutive World Cups raced um without missing one by about double what the nearest guy has. So I like those Iron Man determination. Those are the qualities I'm the most proud of. But uh yeah, six Olympic medals, five world championship medals, two overall titles, and six uh seven discipline titles. So I did all right.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Did all right in that. But also as a coach and mentor, I think you've worked out kinks on my backhand. I think that you've uh stepped in and and yeah, your your dedication to uh helping kids is something that we talked about very young, just the understanding of uh just sharing your journey and and wanting to get back and wanting to help people get better and fulfill their potential. And you know, you've you've always been one to never care about the medals, the accolades. It's it's to help every person fulfill their their what they want to do, create the best problem. You you pretty much uh lived ICL six Ps. And I think you know, we've we've done some webinars together in the past, we've we've talked about them, but I think really walking through how to create that process, how to take what you're passionate about, how to make it a purpose, and then create that process.

Joy Of Learning Through Others

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Now you're in the time where you're really gaining probably the most perspective in your life as a dad, but that how that perspective fills in, your you know, perseverance above all else, and then how you personalize it. So I think I'd love to kind of break those down and we're gonna do a lot of Q ⁇ A's, but but really just overall, as you mentioned, you know, what what part of your journey would you go back sort of that now looking back at at yourself and those Ps? What do you think were the things that gave you that edge or personally that that made you turn that passion into purpose and and how did you create that process that was so uniquely yours?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yeah, I mean, I I think as you said, growing up the way I did at a tennis camp, watching all these various athletes from different backgrounds with all different personalities and different skill sets come into my home, right? It's where I lived all the time. But then they would come into my home and and I'd see the way that they competed, the way that they learned, the way that they improved, the way they dealt with failure or adversity and all this stuff. So for me, it was like the interaction was the most rewarding. I liked, I liked watching people, you know, experience something better than what they had right before that. The first times that I would be watching, I mean, before I was old enough to go to my camp, I would sit there and watch lessons and I didn't always watch the best kids. Like you'd think, you know, maybe you'd gravitate towards the kids who are the best because they're the most impressive. But the first time you see somebody who maybe hadn't played tennis ever before coming to our camp, you the first time you see them like rip a forehand, get the ball in the middle, usually not even like knowing how to do that, but just connect right in the middle and hit a topspin forehand. Like that look of like inspiration and excitement and all that. Like I somehow could viscerally experience that myself, and I really enjoyed that part. And I sort of I liken it to my inner personality is like that grandmother on the wedding singer who makes the meatballs, the one who's like, you know, he's teaching to play the piano. And you know, she puts the meatballs in Adam Sandler's hands and he she's like, You gotta try them. I like to see you like enjoy it. That's my favorite part. Like, that's that's how I am. And it's it was the same when when I, you know, got Darren to ski on my skis in GS that one year. It was, I got as much out of watching him shock himself and and get to the top three and and you know, threatening to win giant slums after a long career as I did winning myself and you know, watching other guys when Ted sort of really found his own in GS, those are incredibly inspirational for me. I think that that falls back on that the root of why I love sports, how you learn and what you know, sports as a tool to develop character and develop your human side. And I think it's easy to get sucked into overcompetitive, you know, side of things. It's just kind of the way our sports world operates these days. But I kind of like to revisit that that bit of it because I think ultimately it's what inspires, it's what you know develops the passion, and then it also sort of defines your process a bit because you become uh an active participant in other people's development in life and therefore bring them into yours. And that process is like much more healthy than a one-way street, right where your coach is just like pounding information into you, or and I think it it ultimately is more sustainable. It becomes something that is easy to enjoy even when maybe you're not having your best improvement phase. I mean, everybody has those like plateaus and and uh even tough seasons or whatever, where you kind of you know feel like you're getting worse. But yeah, I mean, for me, like you said, it was kind of a natural thing for me. I didn't really have to think it through. I think I was fortunate in the people that were around me and also the nature of my sport. You know, skiing is is such a humbling sport that you really you're kind of forced into certain developmental practices, patience and and determination, and and defining your own versions of success, really. I mean, that's that's what it is. I mean, I've sort of I think I've said it on on our webinars before, but that moment where that person hits that first forehand and hits the middle of the strings and sees it go over is as thrilling as it will be for that same athlete 15 years later to win their state championships or or win their, it's all proportional. It's what you experience at that moment where your expectations are. And and sometimes it's those are usually bigger in the beginning because you're doing the unknown. Whereas, you know, once you're a collegiate athlete or a professional athlete, you've done so much preparation and there's so much, your expectations are higher, your you know, your whole process is so much further along that it takes so much, takes something unique to sort of shock you or really kind of get you excited at that point. You know, you look at Nadal, right? He's ripped every possible forehand, how many hundreds of thousands of times? Like, is he gonna hit a forehand that inspires him? I don't know. But for him, it's more about how he puts together a masterful match, you know, and and all those things. And I think it's important to enjoy those moments early on because they do stay with you. I mean, some of the great things that I still rely on now to keep me motivated and inspired happened when I was really young. I just I kind of think back on those often and feel what that feels like because it is mine. It's something I earned and owned. And the fact that it hasn't happened recently, especially in tennis, it doesn't matter. You still have it in there.

Why Education Must Evolve

SPEAKER_01 9:03

So it's interesting that on the on the concept of applied learning. So ICL is really trying to reinvent how kids get educated. I mean, you had your own way, both in sports, the way you approached your academics, your life. It was it was a little bit what we'd say non-traditional, but if you really think about it, it lines up with the idea of I want to be engaged, uh, how do I apply this to all facets? You know, and so ICL wants to, you know, that concept of applied learning, how do you feel about that in terms of people come on and they want to talk to you as a skier? You start talking about tennis. You can talk, I mean, you can talk about anything because you, in my mind, are the definition applied learner. So I guess to to people out there, you know, wanting to think about something new and a new approach in education, that this idea of of ICL applied learning or or integrating academics to what you're passionate about. What are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Yeah, I mean, I think you know, it was one of the some of the first conversations we had about ICL and about the I would say the lack of evolution of our educational system. And I could appreciate what you were doing. And like you said, uh unconventional is probably understating it. But I think my the uniqueness of what I did did fit really well with the concept of ICL and the idea that everything else in our world has evolved dramatically. Our educational system hasn't really. I mean, if you look back historically, it's kind of the same categorical classes as were there 50 years ago or whatever. If you look at any other sport, the way we're developing athletes now is very different than the way we were developing athletes a long time ago. And and I think that, you know, ICL represents a catalyst for evolution in education where you're taking common sense and the nature, I would say versus, you know, if you call it you know, unconventional is maybe not the right term, but it was more natural though. I had a natural education. And my education was based on the natural needs and desires and abilities of a human. You know, when I was younger, I learned things that I was excited about. They made sense. And then when I was a little older, I really was behind probably in reading and sort of the English side of things, grammar and stuff like that. But but then it was much easier to catch up on. And kids need that. You need the pressure in a sense. Like I do well under pressure in that regard. I went to public school and I was behind in things. And I was like, okay, like I had the foundation to be like, that's not the end of the world. I'm not embarrassed about it. It's just I have to catch up. And then because I was behind, I could see all the way kids were dealing with it, and I just was able to catch up really quickly. And I think there's a necessity to evolve, period. I mean, our world is changing all the time. And the fact that we haven't really on a grand scale evolved our educational system is, I think, a failure on our part. So the fact that I get to be a part of this and and you know, sort of be on that innovative edge is is exciting. And I have a big family, a lot of kids that I hope can have a different educational experience than people did 50 years ago. It just doesn't make sense to me that we haven't improved that or made it better. So I just want to pop through a couple of these. I started to do that.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, no, I mean we're actually gonna bring we're actually gonna bring the kids up to to ask. Um so we'll get we we gotta get some faces besides baby and I up. So we're gonna uh we'll we'll start with some Q ⁇ A. I think I want I wanted to get through like two more topics, just you know, that a lot of kids this year, you know, COVID uh messed with things a lot, people's trainings schedules. Uh is there anything that you would recommend on on the process and on on the mental side of things to keep that engagement and been it's been a weird couple of years, and and you know, things that you passed down to your kids or just a couple a couple kind of areas just to to stay focused or with that process.

Injuries And COVID As Opportunity

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think I mean I I spoke at a couple, you know, graduations and and some stuff. And it it was, I think it was actually really informative for me, honestly, because I I didn't face anything like COVID in my life or really my active athletic career. And there was athletes who were, you know, trying to win scholarships to college, trying, you know, their senior year, and all of a sudden school's canceled and and they, you know, sports were canceled. Those are, I think, can be absolutely devastating. But in through the process of kind of digesting what I wanted to say to these kids and and in a lot of cases having dialogue with the kids about it, I sort of recirculated back to how it was when I injured my knee in 2001. And the way that I, you know, approached that, I think mostly from my grandmother, but also just naturally the way that I viewed it was when you have those type of things, there's several ways to look at it. And the most common way is like, I'm a victim, right? Like, oh, this happened to me. It really disrupted my plan. And then the way that I sort of evolved into treating it was use your time, you know, use it for the best purpose you can. There's tons of stuff that's gonna happen in your life that you just can't control. It's outside of your sphere of control. And whether that's injuries or delays in the start of your competition to COVID, it does represent an opportunity. And the reason I say an opportunity is because you know that lots of your competitors are gonna waste that time. They're gonna spend that time depressed or, you know, being a victim. And that creates the potential for more of a differential, right? You can you can separate yourself from them if you use your time effectively. It's the conversation I have with my nine-year-old right now is is that every day you have a chance to improve. Every day you have practice, every day you have free time. You either use that time or you don't. And for most people, it seems like, okay, well, those are little tiny moments, but they add up over the course of a year, two years, five years. They end up being weeks and months of really potential gains that you could have over yourself without those gains, is the base measurement, but also over other competitors. And I think it was interesting to go through that process because, like I said, it was unique, right? None of us had really dealt with anything like COVID before. And it's really still impacting people right now. But I do look at it as maybe it's it's a little bit idealistic, but like you make the best of it. And it did represent a chance for kids to have more freedom, uh, experience the need for self-motivation because they weren't in a structured environment that kind of laid things out for them. And if you did that well, you you had a potential gain over lots of other people. And ultimately, the success in a sport or success in anything comes down to to how well you use your time and how well you motivate yourself. So it could be really tough on certain people, but you know, I think it's important to look at it that way as an opportunity or as an opportunity to potentially improve yourself more than other people.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

I love that. Always helpful. Yeah, just just thoughts about again how we how we integrate this. And for everyone listening, we talk a lot about the uh physical, mental, emotional, academic pieces that they all fit together. And you know, you're coming in an off-season. Some of you might be entering a big season for nationals, some of you may be in winter sports in off-season. I think how you spend your time thinking about that process and and maximizing it. It's good to reaffirm that. I think I think you probably hear it from your coaches or parents, but I think that you know, those little wins, those we mentioned the doll, but every ball has a purpose, everything that he does and and and to enjoy it. I've never not seen Bodhi with um with a smile on my face. I mean, sometimes it's him beating me and he likes to have the smile on, but I I've really seen that that joy. You know, I think that you're very joy-driven in in what you do with a purpose, knowing that even the pain and the hard work is helping you, you know, you get to another place that you want to push yourself to.

Create Micro Competition At Home

SPEAKER_01 17:04

We have some questions coming up. I think we're gonna bring up another little boatie. We have a lot of people here under Bella, I think invited a lot of her friends. They're Andre Bella. So we're gonna start just bringing some some kids up to ask uh ask some questions. So if you pop on, put on your camera, and uh that's another is that is that Italian for Miller? Don't get that that last name. All right. Hi there.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Hi, do you have volume? Yeah, just in the meantime, what you were saying, Kirk, about like, but and also what I was touching on is creating that micro competitive nature in your head alone is a really valuable skill. So when you have that downtime, when you're off of practice, when you're at home over the weekend, or in this case during COVID, just kind of thinking of like what are the like pick somebody, pick anybody, pick Nadal if you want, but pick a competitor on a different team or somebody on your team that you uh aspire to be more like and be like, what are they doing right now? You know, and and use that to be like, you know what, I'm gonna do a stomach routine right now, even though I feel like watching TV, or I'm gonna even just those little things, that's what I was kind of touching on, is they might seem pointless in that one moment, but when you add them together over a longer period of time, if you can kind of make that a consistent routine, they end up being really powerful, you know, individually. Yeah, one stomach routine doesn't do anything. But if you do them over and over again, you become much stronger and ultimately, you know, better. So and it's the same with the same with the same with reading and same with everything else. You know, it's just like taking that, you know, however you can create that little push in your head of like, I bet this person's doing it and therefore I'm gonna do it. It can really help.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

I love that. Well, I think the the question here is in the chat from from Bodhi. It says, Hi, Bodie and Loveland Ski Club, and we don't know what age you started skiing.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

I'm an October 12th baby. So I had been on skis before the winter before, uh, because I turned one and I, but they it was just I had some little boots and they were little wooden skis about that big. And they were more like Nordic skis. You kind of like just strapped your foot in there. And so I have pictures of me walking around on skis when I was one, but I don't think I ever like actually progressed to sliding. But then when I turned two the next year, I actually skied proper. I don't think I I necessarily spent a lot of time zooming, but I I we had we were on the side of a hill and I would uh step it out and and ski. So it really started when I was two, and I I had I was homeschooled, so I skied a lot, a lot. When I was two, three, four, five, I skied basically, you know, every day that I could, which in New Hampshire winter's pretty long. It's a lot of days.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Does it still mean if my five-year-old only skis once or twice a season, he's got a shot?

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Yeah. Interestingly, look at Chad Fleischer. Chad Fleischer ended up being a great American downhiller, second place, World Cup finals in downhill. He didn't even start skiing, I think, until he was 14. So but he was he was a great athlete and had had a love for the sport and was was passionate, was very driven. So he ended up being one of the best in the world and didn't even start young at all. So I I definitely it he's he's the outlier, but it it happens all the time.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Okay. And Ashley, do you want to come up? Thanks for uh I won't try to pronounce Bodhi's last name, but Ashley, do you want to uh come up and ask Bodhi a question?

Handling Injury Emotions Without Dwelling

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Hi so you talked about how when you get an injury you shouldn't become depressed and like just kind of keep focusing on getting better and stuff. But I was wondering like what steps you take to do that. Like it's easy to say, obviously, don't like be depressed and all that, but like Yeah, and it's not it's not so much that you shouldn't be depressed, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:49

There's a natural aspect to really everything that happens in sports. And I think that's a really important thing to respect, honestly. Like, you know, after you lose an important match or an important competition, yeah, people are like, don't be upset. Like, well, I am because I was committed to this and I put in the work and I didn't go the way I wanted. So you're you're bummed out. How you express that is the part that would fall under like sportsmanship or whatever. And that that part, yeah, you got to work on to not like go punch trees or or like have a tantrum. But to actually have the emotion, I think is a hundred percent natural and right and probably necessary. So when I blew out my knee, yeah, I was, I mean, there's there's interviews right afterwards. I was super bummed. I was but the point is you don't dwell on that. You know, the point is don't let that compound your already annoying injury and then go and waste a bunch of time. You know, it's like everything in sports is about how quickly you get back up, right? It's sports are just they're 90% failure. I've said the stat like I raced 450 or so World Cup races and I won 33. So you do the math, right? Less than 5%. So the other 95% of the time, you're Getting your ass kicked or you're crashing and you're pulling yourself out of the fence. So how long you dwell on those failures and how much time you waste afterwards directly impacts how you succeed in the end, right? Like there's a bunch of interviews where I blew out an aspen, I was about to win my first race in 2002 and the 2001 two season. And it's an interview afterwards, and I'm just like so mad. I blew out like four gates from the finish. I was gonna win my first race. And I'm just like swearing and grumpy. And then and I say in that interview, and it's always easy to say when you're older, and everyone's always picked on me for that because they're like, oh, it's easy to say when you're winning or whatever that you don't care. But I said it then. I said, look, when I've won a bunch of things and I've won, you know, Olympic medals and everything, I'm gonna look back on today as just a part of the process, right? And but it's really annoying right now, and that's like almost word for word what I said. So I think that's the idea is like you get injuries, they happen. To get through a sport without really disappointing annoying things or injuries is just not gonna happen. So you just have to deal with that and then immediately look at like how can I use this time to get better? Because incremental gains are what add up to success in the end. And it's really easy to waste a lot of time when you have disappointments or injuries. And I think that's the important thing. You can even work out or be effective while you're depressed. In some cases, it works better because you have that anger edge where you're like pissed off, you know, and you're like push yourself harder. But like I said, I don't think it's something you ignore. I don't think it's something that's inappropriate. I just think you have to minimize the time that you waste on that as best you can.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

So there are a couple questions.

Pre Race Nerves And Focus

SPEAKER_01 23:48

I guess who can come on? We'll we'll we'll just pick the first one that we see, which was wondering what you did off the snow to help achieve your goals.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

No, yeah, there's one here. What do you do before a race to make yourself not so nervous about the coming race? That that's an interesting one because I don't necessarily think I was particularly good at that. I think it was one of the things that I was struggled with. I I would get really fired up and then I would try to do things that I wasn't really capable of doing and end up crashing a lot. But I will say that the first race that I remember specifically, there was a race in New Hampshire that where if you won the race, it was a uh what do you call it? Like a race for a a passed away athlete who who passed away in our area. And they gave you a season pass. And I had to work all summer to pay my grandmother back for my season passes. And so I came into that race and I was like, for the first time, I was like, whoa, I gotta like, I gotta step it up here. Like, I need to win this race. And I was little, I was probably like, I don't know, eight years old or so. And I just remember feeling so determined and like focused on what I was like, I gotta do what I can do, like not try to ski like somebody else, not try to go crazy. If I ski absolutely to the limits of what I can do, but not take risks that's gonna make me, you know, just crash, which was my normal routine. And I ended up winning that race. And a lot of people were like, whoa, dude, you skied unbelievable. And and I think those two kind of go hand in hand. A lot of the time when you guys are at your age, you don't necessarily even know what you're capable of. You know, when you get old enough, you kind of you've seen yourself a lot. But even then, I think you're it's always possible you surprise yourself. But staying focused on the mission at hand and kind of like narrowing it down instead of speculating about what's gonna happen, I think is really good because when you start thinking about outcomes and like what's in the future, it tends to really mess up your whole process. So just being like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stay within myself and and not go crazy, I think is was important to me. But again, I was kind of an easily excitable athlete.

Off Season Training Without Breaking Down

SPEAKER_03 25:56

During the off season, what do you do to to like train? Like I've been looking around things in my neighborhood to do.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yeah, I think you know, it's it's honestly very personal, right? I mean, everybody trains in different ways, especially when you're when you're younger. I really liked the cross-training aspect. I like doing other sports because I I really enjoyed them. Uh, it was easy to get motivated to go out and play tennis or play soccer. Or, but, you know, as I got older and and now at my age, I actually am really sore, sore today. I did uh a B Strong workout. And I know I've kind of told you guys about that before, but it's the only thing that I would really recommend for younger athletes because most of what frustrates me about looking back on, you know, my own development, but also lots of athletes that I know personally is that the training just beats your body up so bad. It's completely necessary. Like you have to train because you have to get stronger and you have to build yourself into the athlete you want to be or need to be to be competitive in your sports. But that training is is so abusive to your body, weightlifting, plyometrics, you know, super heavy anaerobic stuff. And be strong. I did it just right here in my in my living room with those restricted blood flow. You put these bands on your arms that you, you know, you get and you pump them up and do some really easy like knee push-ups and you know, step-ups onto a couch or a bench or something. And it took it took me 10 or 15 minutes. And I'm not kidding you, I'm I'm super sore today as if I did a max weight workout. And I think, and the reality there is because you're not doing extreme lifting or plyometrics, you're not beating your body up the same, but you still get the gains and you can do it so often that you can get a lot more training into a much smaller amount of time. So I think, and that's what I ended up doing at the end of my career exclusively was be strong workouts. And I was shocked at how effective it was and was bummed out that I hadn't discovered it earlier because it helped with so many of my kind of old nagging injuries and and it was just so much faster. I was doing two a days, you know, or three a days, and it was like doing two or three max weight workouts with plyometrics in one day, which I simply couldn't do before that. So, but I think, you know, at your age, other sports that I mean, that's really what I did. But if you can get be strong and and sort of put that into your routine, it's just a really good way of at your age doing the max weight workout type stuff without putting all that strain on your joints while while they're not ready yet.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

What would be a better what would have a better result? That be strong workout or roller skiing with the Nordic team.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

I guess they're they're different. They're really different. The Nordic skiing, uh the roller skiing is is really good, I think, for aerobic, anaerobic, and it's also good mentally, because it's such a difficult thing, right? Like it's coordination-based, but it's just the determination it takes, you know, you're you're building your mental toughness as well. So I think they're they're really important, both of them. But in my mind, at your age, the prep you're preparing your body for what's coming up is really important. If you can, if you can get your body to a place where you're less likely likely to get those injuries, those nagging injuries, it'll really help. I mean, injuries set you back and then they get in your head and your body's imbalance. It's you want to avoid those. So that's a big part of the training now at your age is like preparing your body so that you don't have injuries as you really start to grow and and work really hard. It sort of gets you set up, and that's where be strong is really effective.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

All right, this is great. I think that you know, everything that you have, you can uh we're we're kind of coming up on a little bit of speed dating time. If anyone has questions, because I know Buddy likes to get get pretty thorough on it. We've covered the uh the training ones, off the snow, uh you know, the uh polymers about not being nervous for a race that was a good one.

Time Management For School And Sport

SPEAKER_01 30:00

But you know, really just kind of talking about the I guess the balance on the academic side, why how to balance some of that. We found that the racers this year, you know, in competition, uh sort of doing time management, energy management, if there were things that you felt uh helped when you would train or or anything the advice you had, how to how to do that, how to balance the the training with the academics is key.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Yeah, I mean, I think it it was a huge challenge for me. Uh I never really took my academics, weren't that hard for me. I was in a public school that was pretty basic, and then I went to a ski academy, and the ski academies are typically not very academically strenuous. And you know, it wasn't until that kind of where I got the intervention, all my all my sort of teachers and mentors said that uh, you know, they really were pretty hard on me and said that I was just kind of coasting along. I wasn't fulfilling my potential and I and therefore wasn't really welcome back. And that was I I sort of made a promise to them that I would step that up if they let me back the next year. And so I mine was kind of out of obligation and guilt, is how I first developed the desire to really do it well. And then once I had that, I just had to figure out the process. So for me, it became really important to set sort of my own, my own program in place. Like when I trained, I had to do this first. I wouldn't like let myself go and do any of the fun stuff, any of my free time stuff until I got the other stuff done because it was easy for me to see the compounding effect of falling behind. And ultimately I'd sort of made that promise or obligation to people that I wasn't willing to break it. So it wasn't like I just was like, oh, I'll just do it later, I'll do it later. You know, like I felt like I had to live up to that promise. And, you know, I I would say that it's it's always difficult, but being disciplined with your time management, being efficient is ultimately a skill and a and a personality trait that will serve every person well for the rest of their life. So being really efficient, not wasting time kind of lollygagging through things, just being like, boom, boom, I gotta do this, and then preparing your your whole program so that you can be really efficient with your time will allow you to do your sports and then get your academics done without wasting those 10 or 15 minutes in between each incremental thing that adds up to hours a day of not getting stuff done.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

That's great. That's totally, and that's uh that's a forever practice, right? I mean it goes on for for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

It's literally efficiency of time is like when you have a bunch of kids, you gotta be efficient on on everything.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

So yeah, you got one here, another one about preparing your mind for the Olympics and what that's a that's a pretty big deal.

Olympic Mindset Across Five Games

SPEAKER_01 32:46

So I think for you as part of the journey, right? Because you would sort of you didn't necessarily think you were gonna make the team or be on it. So maybe a little a quick little background on on how that all came about in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Yeah, very, very different. I mean, I was I was in five Olympics, so no matter how you slice it, that's gonna be 16 years in between. And and most of you guys probably aren't 16 years old, so it's 16 years of of different Olympic experiences, right? With four years in between, and a lot changes, a lot you do, a lot of maturing, a lot of things change. My first one, I would say I was just purely unprepared. It was more about going there, seeing the process, watching the people who are really effective, watching the experience develop for them and watching it for me and kind of sort of understanding it. And that was Nagano in 1998. And I was still uh a kid in a lot of ways, and definitely I didn't perform very well, crashed about nine times in in my two events that I competed in. But I did get to watch Hans Peter Buras, uh Norwegian guy. He wasn't that much older than me, and he won the slalom. And just watching his whole process and the fact that he wasn't that much older than me was stunning. I had the you know, the opportunity to see some really amazing young skiers who were my age or uh or right around my age. You know, Kali Pollinder won the slalom the year before or the year after that in in 99 world championships at Vale. And I was like, what? He's a 1977. That was that was my age. And I couldn't believe he was so focused and had so much confidence and was so disciplined, and I just wasn't there yet. But that was a really impressive accomplishment in his case, but also a benchmark for me to like look forward. So as I went to the O2 Olympics, I kind of developed that in myself. I was like, okay, what am I capable of? It's obvious that I'm gonna get fired up in the Olympics and probably try to do stuff that I'm not entirely prepared to do. But the Olympics is one event, one race. You make one mistake and you can take yourself out of the race. So I sort of had to figure out how to ratchet things back and also be very specific about how I tried to win. Which parts of the course was I gonna try to be faster than everyone else? Because I wasn't one of those athletes that could count on going start to finish with no errors or anything else and and just winning. I was against guys who are in a lot of cases better than me. So I had to try to take risk in very specific spots and really pick those spots well, similar to in tennis, right? Like when you get your forehand and it's in the right position and you're loaded up, that's where you got to take your risk. You don't just, you know, flump that one back. You gotta whatever your strength is, you have to be willing to jump on the opportunity when it presents itself. And that Olympics in in Salt Lake City had those. It had these really steep breakovers where I knew that other guys weren't gonna take the same risk. And I was like, all right, yes, I still am taking risk. I still might blow it there, but that's the place where I'm gonna be able to make up time on everybody if I if I do it right. So, you know, each each Olympics was different for me, you know, all the way up until 2014 in Sochi, where I was preparing very differently than I was in any of the previous ones because I was, again, four years older and had different skills and had different expectations. And in that one, I was really just focused on enjoying it. I was like, look, this is very likely going to be my last Olympics. I want to be in the moment. I wanna, I still wanted to really kind of inspire, inspire myself, inspire the other athletes. And and in one of the training runs there, I had, I would call it the most inspirational turns of my whole career, which was really amazing for me and was amazing for a lot of the coaches who were right in that area. That, you know, I had four or five coaches come down afterwards and say, you know, I've never seen anything like that. Like you changed the way that I thought about skiing by what you did in these three turns. And, you know, ultimately that was something I was really proud of in my career, but but cool to have that moment late in my career. And I think only because of my previous Olympic experiences was I able to do that in that Olympics at that point in my career.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

That's awesome. I mean, it's I mean, mindset shift is it's pretty amazing, right? I mean, if you really think about a normal person with all those elements of that 20-year career span, 16 years between Olympics, that that uh it's like every four years, it's like going from a freshman in high school, and all of a sudden your next one's a freshman in college to the workforce to being married or dad, like it all these elements, and yet you're doing the same thing. You're you're a different way to approach the exact same goals. It's kind of wild to think about that.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Like, yeah, I'm right. Think of a freshman in high school to by the time I was in my second Olympics, I was a freshman in college. That one, that's like a that's a huge, that's a huge jump. And that and that was why I went from crashing nine times in two events to winning two silver medals. And I really didn't necessarily even belong in the first Olympics, but it was it was hard work and determined just to get there, right? Just to be there was huge. And and I think if I hadn't been there, I certainly wouldn't have been prepared for the next one. It's it's just part of the process, but it is really, it's the reason that most Olympians only go to one Olympics because there's a lot in between there.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Yeah, it's it's interesting that that the P's line up that way, right? Process, then perspective, then perseverance. It's like you can you can you can mix around the P's a lot, but you know, they're all part of it, right? I mean, everything you say crashing nine times, that's perseverance, get perspective. All right, so last last question of the day is on the chat.

Online School And Efficient Intensity

SPEAKER_01 38:22

How does an online school like ICL, you know, in your opinion, help someone with skiing?

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Um I mean, you know, I'm a proponent, but at the same time, I think it's it's really across the board. It gives them the it gives athletes, kids the chance to take ownership of their time management, of their independence, self-reliance, and uh sort of you know dictating their own schedule as well as teaches them efficiencies. Efficiencies in in life and in sports are their incremental moments where you can get more out of it, right? Imagine if imagine if you had 40 hours in your day versus everyone else having 24, right? Like you could do better, you'd get better at everything than everybody else. That's the same thing by being efficient. And I think ICL just creates a framework to be very efficient with the requisite things that you have to get done. And it also, because of that, teaches you how to do it in other areas. So outside of the actual curriculum, kind of sets the framework where you're gonna do it in sports, you're gonna do it when you have chores, you're gonna do it in all sorts of things. And ultimately, the more efficient you are throughout your life, the more time you have to allocate specifically to things. And it seems like the two go hand in hand where efficiency ends up ramping up intensity for some reason. I don't know exactly how they correlate in psycho psychologically, but they do. It seems like when you're super efficient, you tend to bring more focus and more intensity to each individual thing. And as we all know, if if we can look back on our lives and say I was hyper focused and hyper uh attentive in each training session, each moment, each time I sat down at my computer to do my work, then you're you're gonna be proud of yourself and you're gonna you're gonna do well, period. So those are the measurement sticks that I use the most is kind of like attentiveness, intensity, and efficiency. And if you can hit those three things in your life as often as you can, you're gonna make gains.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

That's great. Yeah, the all the shy people jump on, but but Nadia can ask a question before we pull Nadia up on screen. How do you balance being 100% committed to your sport while enjoying and experiencing other things in life? Well, I I can or I can answer part the beginning of that with Bodhi, that having met Bodhi, you were uh incredible. I mean, like the commitment that you showed to your sport, but also uh as a friend, uh confidant, mentor. I don't know. I mean, it's a superpower that you you you kind of do have. And you know, I don't know if you've if you've thought about that, but your commitment and you're joy-driven. You know, you're such a joy-driven person that it's great to be around. I mean, I I mean there's a reason that there are champions, and Bodhi's been a champion of ICL. You know, he's really inspiring in all walks of life. But I think this is a great question to Beth's anonymous attendee. We bring you up. But I do I do agree with uh with what with what you wrote. So I'll I'll let that to Bodhi do that, and then we'll have uh Nadia ask the last question.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Yeah, I think it touch on touches on what I was just talking about is is intensity or attentiveness. And that goes for your own activities, but also how you communicate with other people. If you're gonna talk to somebody, you know, have a conversation, then you it's about how committed you are, how how attentive you listen and and what you take from it, because ultimately it's the combination between we'll use academics and sports in this case, but it really is the same with friendships, with free time, movies, or anything else, right? Like, you know, it's about moving from one thing efficiently and then focusing on the next. And then when you want to go back and train your sport, you bring it immediately. You just you don't waste a lot of time, you go straight to it and and focus on that and bring intensity to it. And you know, kind of like again, it cultivates a sense of of, like you said, purpose, but also excitement, passion-driven elements. And that that goes to everything else in your life. Like it kind of just automatically translates. I mean, I was always, you know, excited and passionate about my sports. And it when I transferred that to academics and figured out the mechanism, I would say, as weird as it sounds, I was I was fired up. I was I was committed and intense and focused and passionate about my academics because I realized that was the best way to do it. It was the best way to get it done. And and I got more out of it. So, you know, I think it's you know, it's it's kind of a a weird, it's a broad topic thing to talk about. But as I said, I I do view sports as the best teacher because they develop these characteristics and it's really about looking at yourself and then looking at the aspects that you have to do and the things you want to do. And then, you know, wherever your your passion, the things you it's like you don't need to be told to do it, you just start doing it and motivated, taking that same thing and trying to twist it around so you can do the things you have to do with that same kind of intensity or focus or passion.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

Enjoyment. I love that. You always have joy in it too. So, Nadia, you get the last question, last word before Bodhi's kids get him. And I know what that's like. Mine are mine are in the same position right now. So, Nadia.

Favorite World Cup Venues And Why

SPEAKER_04 43:24

Uh, just a question. A lot of people seem to really, really like the Beaver Creek races. What is your favorite World Cup race? I mean, I'm asking because I'm in Beaver Creek right now.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

You know, mine kind of moved around throughout my career. A lot, it was so condition-dependent, right? Like you go to one race one year and it's like the snow is awesome and the race is unbelievable, challenging, and great. And then the next year it's raining and it's like it's you wish you were somewhere else. So I was around long enough to experience that type of thing at about every different venue. But yeah, I did love Beaver Creek. I liked it also because it was home venue kind of, and and we got to, you know, have Americans in the stands and and it was a a very feel-good race. You know, it just the snow was so grippy, and and even when it was sort of icy-ish, it still wasn't ice like we get in some spots. But I loved you did pretty well there too. I feel like if I remember Beaver Creek, I think you had I love Schlodming, the slalom, the night slalon there. That atmosphere and having you know 50, 60,000 people in a night slalom that finishes right in town was just so unique. It was, you know, that was uh just a super intense environment. I like that. And uh, you know, in terms of the hills, Bormio was one of those crazy challenging hills that everybody at the start is all kind of in that same like, oh god, like we're doing this again. And vengen's the same. Vengen's so long and so challenging and has so many different parts. I really enjoyed Wengen, you know, even though you kind of knew you were gonna suffer. It was like a lot of my training workouts where I'm like, okay, I'm about to be in a lot of pain in in like four or five minutes, but in between, I'm gonna do everything I can. And the but there's so many great World Cups, honestly. I like I said, I raced, think of that, 450 World Cup races. That's like, I mean, that there's you shouldn't do that many, honestly. Like, if I had an advisor, I would go back and and punch him in the knee because it's like what like, but it was amazing because I did get to see so many different courses with so many different conditions, different course sets on different equipment that had different strengths and weaknesses. And it was just, yeah, not any one of those is the same. And that's not including all the training runs that went before the downhills, you know, and all the, you know, it was like I just I I really am thankful that I had that many opportunities to to sort of test my skills and grow on such spectacular mountains with crazy, you know, demands on the athlete.

Closing And Next Guest Tease

SPEAKER_01 45:51

I think that's a great way to wrap it. Thanks, Nadia, Bodie. Always, always fun, always a pleasure. And thank you for all the support. And uh the best to your kids, your wife, and uh look forward to seeing you soon and hopefully uh you know in the non-COVID year. Let's start getting getting some get-togethers.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, for you, you students and athletes, we're gonna try to get Ted Liggetty and and Andrew Weibrecht on here with me to chat it up. Good friends of mine and competed against them for years and both super studs in their in their uh their events. And uh so you guys get your questions lined up. Sounds great. Thanks a lot, Bodhi.