MAY 16, 2011
Now that I’m over a year into the transition that us Olympians like to call moving into ‘the real world,’ I’ve truly started to grasp how all of the preparation that Olympians and Paralympians go through to perform at their best begins to play out once they’ve left the field of play. I’ve highlighted a few habits from sport in myself that I can’t seem to kick (and don’t want to) that have really helped me become successful off of the field of play. I truly believe that if you can apply these things to your daily life you will find even more success than you are seeing right now!
Wake up at least 1.5 hours early…
Something I learned when I was at the University of Florida as a decathlete was that if I had training at 9 a.m., I could not wake up at 8:30am and be worth anything when I stepped on the track. Back then I had a coach who’s job depended on our performance to remind me of that. As I grew as an athlete, reached my first Olympics and moved to Calgary to train in 2003, I was on my own. I was living either with friends or friends/teammates, and everyone has their own habits. It’s very easy to fall into other people’s destructive habits when you are around them often, especially if they ‘seem’ to work for them. I eventually found that I needed to be up an hour and a half before I began training to give my body a reasonable amount of time to come to, as opposed to another teammate of mine that was very good at rolling out of bed and heading to training. As an aside, he never did make an Olympic Team…
That was the MINIMUM amount of time I allowed myself to be awake for while training. If it wasn’t too unreasonable, more time was always better. (If it was race day, 3 hours was the minimum!) What occurred to me just a few days ago as I was at my home in Calgary (which is Mountain Time), is that I still do the same thing for business. I had a 10 a.m. Eastern Time important call for Classroom Champions- which meant 8 a.m. for me. The night before, out of pure habit I set my alarm for 6:30 a.m.- an hour and a half early. I was up in plenty of time to shower, eat breakfast, prepare and have a great 45 minute call. Bottom line, get out of bed early enough to allow your mind and body to wake up and be at an Olympian Level!
Know your opponent, and learn from them…
Another habit I learned as a track athlete that carried over to bobsled was that of watching video. I would watch, for hours on end, the people that were better than me and try to mimic their best attributes. When it came to pushing a bobsled, we watched our competition thoroughly to see what they were doing better than us. In fact, the style in which Justin and I attacked the push bar from the start block during the 4-man race in Vancouver was something that was picked up 5 years earlier while watching video of the Germans!
Once you move into the business world, with the rise of google and youtube, a very similar thing is now possible. I find that if I have a meeting or a phone call with someone, an easy search can allow you to study your ‘opponent’ thoroughly- helping you understand what they are good at, what they believe, and what they are better then you at! Adapting yourself to constantly improve and using your competition to do it is something we can learn from all Olympians.
Find at least 45 minutes to escape…
One thing that took me a long time to figure out was how important ‘un-focusing’ really is. As a young athlete I was in preparation mode 24/7. I allowed my sport, training, diet, etc to engulf me fully. For me, this was not healthy. Because trying to get better is stressful. Trying to get better is exhausting. And unless you’re Apolo Ohno, the rest of us mortals need a break every now and then.
One of the best hobbies I took up in the last few years, and most successful, of my athletic career was that of fly fishing. I know, sounds completely unrelated to becoming a better bobsled pusher, right? Exactly! When I would fish, I wouldn’t think about sport, training or success on the track. All I thought about was the flow of the water and finding the next beautiful rainbow trout in the Alberta Rocky Mountain streams. And you know what? I was a better push athlete the next day in training because of it.
The lesson I learned was that the ability to escape from your current situation, even for just 45 minutes, can be one of the most energizing parts of your day. These days, unless I’m fishing in Michigan or back near my home in Calgary, then a simple workout in the gym- sans cell phone or a yoga class will do the trick. The ability to let yourself not touch your smart phone and actually do something else for at least 45 minutes can be the difference in having the focus through your next meeting or letting yourself crash in your bobsled going 95 mph. Choose a little bit of de-stressing and un-focusing and the next time you zero-in , you’ll have the focus of an Olympian!