#90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/0f9a1830b3bc4e85

It was kind of around the same question, like why are you here?
Why and what do you want to do?
Is that even important to you?
And I did not have an answer.
There was no kind of clearing of the skies. There was no lightning bolt and like all of a sudden it's sunshine. Oh, you should go and become Olympic athlete. None of that. It was really at its most principled
You have a decision.
Do you think that you could do something spectacular in the sport that you tried at? Do you like it?
Are you making this decision because of your dad? Are you making this decision because of yourself?
I'm Shane Parish and you're listening to The Knowledge Project. This podcast and our website fs.blog help you sharpen your mind by mastering the best of what other people have already figured out.
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This week I'm talking with Apollo Ono, an eight time winter Olympics medalist.
Apollo dominated this board of short track speed skating for over a decade and was a legendary competitor.
He's also a New York Times best selling author.
In this conversation we talk about growing up with a single parent.
the role of self-sabotage and recovering from multiple failures.
Mindsets and mental training.
Where confidence comes from.
So much more.
It's time to listen.
and learn.
Hollow Man, how are you?
Ha ha.
I'm good. I'm I'm in uh I'm in Los Angeles. I I've been uh quarantined since March
I think it's March seventh.
So it's been an interesting
Process to say the least.
This conversation's been something I've wanted to do for a long time, man.
Ah, thank you.
I'm I'm a big fan of your of your
of your process and the way that you interview the guests that you've brought on. It's been it's actually been deeply valuable to not only my personal life, but I actually have suggested and recommended your
your work to a lot of friends who are who are looking for
what I would consider to be high quality
and produce content that is increasingly more important today than ever before.
So
Thank you, man. Thank you for the dedication. Thank you, that's really generous of you.
Let's just dive in, man. Like you grew up with a single parent. What was the biggest thing you would say you learned from your father?
Uh the single well, I don't think it's one single thing, but the the lessons that my father taught me
I think stem from him being an immigrant from Japan.
uh not having access to
financial resources like many who come to this country, but really
relied on the one thing that he had, which was his work ethic. And that
work ethic and that consistency of work ethic.
remained a constant theme in my life.
And then when you attach that with your father
always and continuously communicating to you that
You can be anything that you want.
Nothing can ever stop you.
from achieving anything.
regardless of whether you win, lose
Or fall short.
your job is to continuously get back up and keep attacking and learn from those mistakes. And my dad is not an amazing businessman. He never was. He's uh, you know, he's a business owner. My dad owns a hair salon in downtown Seattle still to this day.
And
He does it for all the reasons
Uh, outside of what usually are extrinsically motivating. He does it because he loves connecting with the community and he does it because he likes to work.
That's that's what drives him is going and having a place that he feels he can contribute to.
And I didn't notice that at the time, but growing up
the constant theme was that my father pushed upon me this belief system that
you are unlimited in your potential.
I think over time you believe that.
Do do you think the work ethic thing is like learned or is it sort of like inherited like genetically somehow?
I'm sure that there's some
there's some encoding of some DNA uh at some kind of a hardware level that enabious experiences that you have inherited. I I I would
I would bet on that.
Uh I also believe it can be trained.
It's obviously much different, right? So if your natural inn instinctive response is to just grind and have that kind of growth mindset and you know, really
you know, thrive and grip.
grit components and and and processes. I think that that's easier, but
Uh I I think that it can be trained, right? Just like anything. But I I do believe that it it's a combination of both that seems to yield the greatest output.
You started
Short track.
uh speed skating at twelve, I think, and then you went on to become the most decorated American athlete at the winter Olympics.
Um, can you sort of describe the event for people unfamiliar with short track speed skating?
Sure.
Short track speed skating is
uh is ice speed skating.
on a Olympic size hockey rink.
They skate around these blocks.
Um in an oval pattern.
Instead of traditional long track speed skating that is skated on a four hundred meter oval and you're really racing against the clock. So imagine a n a traditional track and field, but covered in ice and then you just race to see how fast you could go.
This is a race in which there's several other competitors on the same start line.
There's a lot of strategy, a lot of passing and jostling for position.
And
It is a equally exciting and volatile sport that is similar to that of like a car race.
So you can run the same race several times over in short track and probably get several different winners.
Just because of the different
strategies and techniques associated. You probably will have the same type of individuals in the final
But you can run it several times and
even the fractions of a second of strategy changes or hesitation can
can dramatically.
Go from first to last.
And typically
The races are
Um skated in around a hundred eleven meter oval, but there's a five hundred meter, a one thousand meter, and a fifteen hundred meters, and then there's the relay, which looks very confusing to most people who watching for the first time, four teams of four on the ice.
And you're kind of racing around doing one and a half lap exchanges. So the sport itself is
I would say, you know, the common term term people say is it it's it's the American NASCAR on ice.
Right. They're kind of spinning around and racing around at these impossible angles, leaning over
um doing these pivots on one foot and going thirty five to forty miles an hour
on one leg and accelerating and passing and uh it's
Yeah, the sport that I grew up
In and and loved, but it it's a very obscure sport.
widely celebrated here in the United States as it is in Asia.
Or Canada.
Or Canada. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, man. How did you get into this? Like you were in the Pacific Northwest, right? So like
Ha ha ha like I can imagine it being big in Vancouver almost, but like
In Seattle?
Yeah, I w was not big in Seattle. Uh I saw the sport on television when I was twelve years old with my father watching the Olympic Games.
My dad was looking for any outlet he possibly could that would give me a positive direction in which to channel my energy.
He didn't care what sport it was, as long as it wasn't like a football or a boxing, like where there was a risk for head trauma or injury. Everything else was pretty much free game.
And I saw this sport and my dad said, Sure, I'll I'll allow you to to to kinda jump in. I actually learned how to speed skate from my father driving me from Seattle to Vancouver.
And to Burnaby and to Calgary.
Which is a by the way, which is a very long drive.
Um
And that that's that's really how I learn. I learned by watching and mimicking and copying what I saw.
And then applying that in a way that I felt like was natural to my body. And so
I didn't w my when I first saw the sport of Tortra Speed Skating, I didn't know what it was like. I mean, I I it looked very cool and fun as a twelve year old, thirteen, and fourteen year old on television, but
Until you see it live.
that's when the real change happens because these these athletes lean over on this clean glass sheet.
at these really impossible angles and they're just whipping around
in this Hawking and it looks impossi it doesn't look real.
Until you you see it. And you know, as a twelve year old, they to me they look like superhero figures wearing these like, you know, aerodynamic outfits just racing around.
and they were wearing samurai swords. So that's how I learned how to speed skate was really
Driving up north from Seattle to Vancouver, which was like a two and a half hour drive from my house, and I learned by just watching and competing against the Canadians.
And then you got really good, right? So at fourteen you became the youngest US national champion
Um and that was
I think you started training at
Thirteen pretty seriously, is that right?
I would say fourteen. Fourteen. Um
But then there was a lot of
self-sabotage and hiccups between there and the Olympics. You can can you walk me through some of that?'Cause it seemed like you had all this natural ability and you were just innately really good at
At this thing, right? Like
You took to it naturally. You went from not having done it to sort of like US national champion. You're fourteen years old.
And you hadn't really put in the work.
Yeah, that and that's the
Think that's the crux of of
Of it all.
Right, is uh at the age of fourteen
I had moved from Seattle to upstate New York. I was invited to be a part of this.
Junior Development Olympic Training Center program in Lake Placid, New York.
And it was a hyper constructed environment in which they would take kind of the junior youth skaters and then propel them along the path towards making an actual Olympic team.
I accelerated so fast in that first year that within I think seven
Little over seven months.
I went from
Essentially becoming unknown.
to anyone in the World Cup circuit, international circuit, or even the US circuit.
to then go into the world team trials.
Winning the competition.
Which was
very strange and awkward because I I was beating grown men who were
Mm.
Double my age.
And who had been in the sport for
entire lives and I was this like young punk kid who didn't understand or know anything about
really the sport or sacrifice or dedication, I was just going purely on raw talent.
That's being instigated by some structured training, which would give me these leaps and bounds. So that naivety of me
kind of looking at the sport and looking at an athlete and thinking like I don't really you know, I know this yeah, everyone tells me this guy is really fast or he's he's a really high performer. I don't really see
how that's possible because
I don't think he's that good.
So it's that that kind of young cockiness.
And also naivety that exists that
is also really beautiful and strong because I didn't know what I didn't know and I also didn't never tasted pure failure and defeat after wanting something so badly for so many years and then not not receiving it.
Uh and so everything I did, I was excelling at in the sport very early.
And that was a really, really kind of big change, you know, seven years
It would be before I could ever go drinking with the team.
I mean legally, right? I mean I be on the team for seven more years.
as the captain of the team before we could even go at the banquet, break bread and and share a beer or or, you know, an adult beverage, so to speak. So it was
Psychologically that was I always liken it to like a child actor.
who reaches a tremendous amount of success.
at an early age and doesn't really understand the path or process of why or how they're doing it because it seems so natural and almost easy.
And then what you do after that point.
Can
greatly determine
your path and trajectory moving forward. And you talked about self sa uh self sabotage.
I've had my bouts with self-sabotage almost my entire career as an athlete. Uh and even I think post-career as as as a human, and these are probably deeper psychological
kind of traits and micro traumas that I think we all deal with on a day to day basis as we grow as humans. And the way that they expose themselves in my life as an Olympic athlete.
was I started to thrive
And desire
being at rock bottom and then coming back from that.
And I don't know, you know, I I have some beliefs in and theology. Yeah, like where does that come from?
Like that, you want to get so close to failure or even fail and then work your way out of it. Like that's the challenge. Is that the appeal?
Yeah, so I I think it's it it goes at a
deep level where
I somehow associated the impossible.
So being in an impossible position
And then coming up out of that impossible position to actually achieve the impossible against
A series of
three Canadians, three Chinese, and three Koreans in the race who are all working together to beat me and I somehow still win.
There was something very spectacular.
that seem to associate with that, right? Your your two b your your two strikes
You know, you base is loaded.
This is the last inning.
The last pitch.
And you somehow hit a grand slam. Like when everything seems to be on the line.
And
I think subconsciously
over the course of my career, I would replicate these situations both in terms of the strategy and terms of how I raised. And it's really it it's fascinating that you actually asked this because last night one of my confidants and closest friends
We were discussing about a potential talk that I would that I'm structuring right now.
about why it is that certain athletes go into these dark places.
And what is the reasons why they become addicted to that process? And so one of the things that we we understood last night that I was talking and which I've explained to you right now is
I would strategically race these races. So let's take a thousand meters, for example. The thousand meters is a nine laps nine lap race. Strategy is very important. If you are jostling in position with five or six laps ago and you are in first or second place, the chances and likelihood of you winning
Mm.
Drastically skyrocket.
If you are in the back of the pack, if you're in fifth or fourth place
the chances of you winning diminishes with every single second that passes.
as that five four three two bell lap happens.
I would place myself
consistently at the back of the pack until the last possible moment.
Partially in terms of my strategy, but also because I became
I there was this exhilarating flow state and feeling that I would be able to replicate
Of this.
absolute highest level of performance. And so I'd be in the heat box beforehand.
looking that to see that I'm the only American in the race
All of the odds are stacked against me, and it would somehow trigger
This hyper
Focused response which would allow me to get into this very deep flow state.
To concentrate in a way
That I almost almost
relish in the fact that I wasn't supposed to win.
And then I would. And so
A friend of mine showed me the other day who used to be my old coach. He would say he would he showed me, he goes, If you actually watch your pattern of competition throughout your entire career, you have kind of like this really interesting.
Up and down motion. It's always trajecting up.
But there's always a fall and a rise, a fall and a rise. And I'm sure that's with everybody, but it's not smooth like a normal kind of cadence would be. It was like the sharp rise and a sharp fall. A sharp rise and a sharp fall. Sharp rise and a sharp fall.
And so we saw this pattern that I would
That, by the way, is it's it's it's a very dangerous way to race in the sport of short track speed skating because you're just not you're not going aga you're not going with the grain that would greatly give you the outcome you desire.
Instead you're you're essentially creating obstacles to make it even harder. It it's it's like the Olympics wasn't enough. You you you not only need to challenge yourself against the best people in the world, you need to come down to the last two laps and see what you're made of.
Yeah, and I don't
And it it's not like
I think every athlete has their own unique experience in in this realm.
And you know, for me personally, it's not like I was so dominant that I had the luxury of doing this. It's not like a f Michael Phelps, right? Where Phelps will.
For ten years straight, like he's just winning literally every single thing. Or a Michael Johnson, the track and field sprinter, who
You know, he would just completely obliterate the competition. I was I it was always like a chance of me winning, but it wasn't guaranteed. And there was years and times when I was very dominant, but it wasn't like I was head over, you know, shoulders just greater than anyone else on the ice.
And I think a lot of that stems from like a deep insecurity, a fact that I would oftentimes when races
where the strategy was that I was actually at the front of the pack in first or second position and lead most of the race.
And it did not excite me. I felt very unfulfilled, and it didn't seem like that was
Enough.
Um now as I grow older, I look back at my career and I'm like, Man, that was the dumbest thing.
that you could have done. Like your y your actual results could have been two X of what they ever were had you been a smarter
more predictable athlete.
I'm not sure I would change anything.
But uh that's that's the reality. Is that that that was one that I guess that was my dark side is
My self sabotage.
to try to see how low I could get against all these odds and still come up out of this thing uh winning a race.
You didn't even want to go to Lake Placid, right? Like you didn't get on the plane when your dad dropped you off at the airport.
Yeah, the the the first time that my father told me at the age of fourteen that I was I had the chance to go and be a part of this
You know, unique experience of going through a training program to potentially make an Olympic team.
The United States Olympic Committee had pulled some strings and changed the rules for me as an exception. This was nineteen ninety-six, nineteen ninety-seven. And so they had said that typically you have to be fifteen years old to be a part of this training program. You're only 14. We see so much promise in your son.
That we would love for him to attend at the age of fourteen.
My dad being very ecstatic and happy.
This is amazing. This is life changing. My son could potentially, you know, do something extraordinary in his life, which is what he's always wanted.
And so my father explains this to me. I had other plans. I didn't want to be there. It was a summertime in Seattle. I was I was a kid. I mean, I was 14 years old.
I just wanted to hang out. I didn't want to go some foreign place and train with people who I didn't know under the tutelage and advisorship of some coach who I never had a relationship with. It was a very alien experience in looking at it. And it didn't seem like it that was the good idea for me.
And so my father drops me off the airport after packing my bags and essentially explains to me that if I don't like it, I can come home after one month. But this is something that I need to do.
And it was at that moment that I decided to take the decision into my own hands.
And I
w watch my father drive away.
After dropping me off at CTAC airport, I take my bags, I walk into the CTAC Airport, I walk back out.
I go to the payphone, I call a friend, inform my friend that I am no longer going to go to New York for this training program, and instead
I'm going to hang out at friends' houses.
from house to house, week to week, until I figure this thing out.
All while my father believes that I'm actually in New York training with his team, but I'm so upset that I don't call him.
And then he gets the call from the
you know, the the coach in Lake Placid who's really just prompting and asking him, Hey, are you still planning on sending Apollo, your son, here to the program?
because the offer's wide open, but we haven't heard from you and my dad
being very confused is like oh my God, you guys lost my son. Long st I mean you you fast forward through that story.
My father figures out
whose house I was actually staying at after I think like seven days or seven seven to nine days.
Picks me up.
Two weeks goes by, more arguments more battles back and forth between young son and father. And my dad makes the decision for me that he's going to go there with me
and flies with me to Albany, New York, and then make the drive to Lake Placid and upon there
Um
You know, basically drops off
the package and that package was me.
to the the training program. And and then like what was that like? So you get there, you're you're naturally gifted.
you you've been coached, but not coached at that level. And then
Y your training regimen wasn't
I mean it sounds like that's where you tapped out sort of like
Genetically.
I think it so
Yeah.
At the age of fourteen, I had the raw genetic and talent ability.
That would take me to the top of the competitive sphere in the United States.
And so when I made that first team under, by the way, some incredible mentorship and amazing coaching by someone who knew what to do with a rambunctious kid like me.
and help to harness the power of the raw ability that I had.
And after doing that and making my first team
going and competing internationally on the world stage.
Uh in Japan in nineteen ninety seven at the world championships. That was the moment. Trying to make the ninety eight Olympics, right?
Um yeah, so this is this is before this is after I made my first kind of world team and I had was my f my my first real
call it my first real
senior level competition, right? I'm I'm now in the big leagues and I'm competing against
Everybody. Yeah, the best. You're fifteen.
That's fifteen.
And it was uh I was f uh actually I was fourteen.
And so I was so
Taken aback by the fact that the way that we skated, even on the track on the ice, was so radically different.
That was the moment that hit me that said, Wow.
I actually thought that I was pretty good as an athlete.
And I had talent.
The reality is that we're not even close right now.
to what it's going to take.
In order for me to perform at the highest level
Um
In the world stage.
We being the US, correct?
And and was that where the like
So what happen you you c it's'cause the
The strategy was different. Is that what was happening with the other teams, like the Canadians and the Koreans and the
Was it just a better strategy? Was it better training? Was it like what was going on that made them
Yeah.
It was everything.
It was better strategy, better training, better technique, better equipment, better experience, uh a different level of seriousness associated with the competition.
Not to say that our
men's and women's teams was not serious. It just seemed different.
The way that the South Korean team carried themselves.
into the ice rink as a professional unit.
never showing sh signs of emotion, not laughing or joking around. It was it
It was different. I mean, I was fourteen years old, right? So everything to me was fun and a joke back then. It w everything was just
Natural.
Ас левел intensity і серіснес.
Through the eyes of not only the athletes, but the coaches who demanded so much from these athletes.
And it was it was almost uh
It it was both inspiring and as also very intimidating at the same time.
Is it scary at all, too? Like this is my future if I uh keep going down this path. You're fourteen, you're
I don't even know if I was thinking about my future.
it it was more just I was just experiencing in its most present raw form of
Noticing that you know, when you skate around this oval rink and y y if you imagine the shape of a peanut.
Right, where it's got these indentations and it kind of goes back out. So almost like a a a figure eight that doesn't touch in the middle. That's a typical track in terms of short track speed skating. The way that we would train and skate in the US is much more just like a just a typical oval.
So we're
We never we never go in on the straightaways and then back out for the corners. We kinda just our straightaways are quite straight. And so
I remember my very first fifteen hundred meter race with, you know, some of these world champions and looking to my left
And seeing the entire pack is skating literally
Inside of me.
And I'm skating on outside near the boards and just thinking like this feels like I'm skating a different race. It's this is the weirdest experience.
And you have to go farther that way too, right?
You have to go further that way, yeah. That's great. And milliseconds matter. Uh that's interesting. And so is the uh ninety seven world championships where
What did you finish there?
Uh I didn't f my my finish at the ninety ninety seven World Championships, which were actually held in Nagano
Um
I think I had gotten fifteenth or maybe it is nineteenth in the fifteen hundred meters overall.
But you're fourteen. Like you're you're nineteenth in the world.
Yeah.
And and so what happens after that between that and not making the ninety eight Olympic team?
So I come home after the experience at that world championships kind of
Deer in the headlights.
And now we are the US team is headed into the Olympic season. And the Olympic season meaning
nineteen ninety um sorry, it's it's really nineteen ninety seven summer.
going into um
you know the the remainder of that year. So
We have about three months from
The last race that we had
in the world championships in Japan until when we were supposed to report back to training camp
for the you know the off season training, so to speak.
And this off season training was
used by all of the senior level athletes
as a time to really
build the physical and mental base that would carry them through the rest of the year. I had no idea
To me, the off season was literally the off season.
Yeah, like video games and Cheetos.
Video games Cheetos talk about McDonald's Pizza Hut like going through puberty, growing up, hanging out with friends, staying up late.
No biking, no training, no skating.
Nothing.
And were you just oblivious to the fact that they were doing that, or were you like, That's not for me, I I need to be a teenager. Like did you know that was happening and you weren't doing it, or were you?
It was I mean it was both.
It was it I I I both understood that I
didn't want to do those things.
And
I also had no idea

On a year that is the most important for all of the athletes, internationally and domestically. And so when I arrived back into the training program.
the major differentiating factor was that I now walked in with like with literally this like spare tire around my waist.
Uh, I'd been going through puberty. I've been eating really bad.
I had not trained, I had not done a single workout from the moment that I left the world championships until I arrived.
And I just assumed that this was like the normal routine of what would what had happened.
Now the training program moved from Lake Placid, New York, which was the junior development program, and we had I was now a part of the national team training program.
I'm now fifteen years old. I'm now training with the grown men that I'd beaten before. I'd never trained with them.
I'd always trained with kind of kids around my same age.
And now I'm in an environment where
This is
The dedication and sacrifice these
individuals have made to pursue their dream of making the Olympic team. I did not understand what that concept was.
I was still a kid.
Living in this world where
Seemingly we thought that
Everything was just fun and games. And it was very quick.
For me to recognize that these men and and females in this group
had fun, but they were about business.
And this was also about making a team. And there's only four
uh men and four women who make the Olympic team.
Five with an alternate, but who make the Olympic team.
Come December.
And every day counted.
And I was beyond intimidated. I then started to lose my
fun kind of happy go lucky attitude towards a sport.
I had not yet applied.
or understood the power of the mind.
and its focal properties in association with streamlining something to generate massive
Output transcript:
Uh.
I just assumed that this was the way it was. And not only did I did not enjoy the process, I had new coaches and a new new environment.
But I
I mentally was not engaged.
The light switch never went on, even though I was there, I was still in the off season mode.
I was just going through the motions.
And so I arrived at the nineteen ninety eight Olympic trials.
No longer overweight.
But mentally
going into the competition thinking that I wasn't gonna make the team.
And so within one year I went from first place, which was being at the top of the mountain, to finishing dead last at those Olympic trials.
And that kind of spiraled downward.
uh into a way that, you know, it it was

next two weeks of my life as my father decided to take some real hard love and hard action into his hands in terms of
forcing me to come to a real determination about which path I should take in my life.
And how I should attack that path.
He he did that in a really unique way. Are you comfortable sharing that?
Yeah, so my father
saw this, you know, saw his son.
with all of the potential, by the way, and raw ability to make an Olympic team at the age of fifteen.
And to give you more context.
My father's Japanese.
The games are held in Nagano, Japan.
My grandparents
live and are from Tokyo and were actually living, I think, near Nagano at the time. They had bought their tickets already to go to the Olympic Games. They had already assumed
that I was supposed to be a part of this Olympic team.
So
I was not. I did not make that team.
And it was not because I didn't have the ability or the potential, it's because I threw it away.

And that deeply, deeply emotionally scarred my father.
Because that's not the psychology that he understands. He was never even given the potential or the chance to do something like that, let alone to see it being thrown away by his own blood.
And he also saw this pattern of self sabotage.
that potentially would be uh a a demon that I would face many times throughout my life if he could not help me understood where that source was coming from and how to change that.
And so
My father takes me from the competition.
explains to me that he's deeply upset, not because I didn't make the team
But in the way that I had
trained and left so much on the table that year.
To put it the most simple way. I didn't apply myself right.
And he just
You know, I'm I'm sure every father, every mother looks at their their their kids in the same way'cause they believe they can do anything.
And it it was it was powerful. So my dad took me to this area
Um, about three and a half hours southwest of downtown Seattle.
And it's right on the Pacific Ocean, this area he would take me to when, you know, when I was very young, and we would spend our holidays there.
And we used to rent this at the time, it was a very cheap kind of old rustic cabin.
And this area was called Copalas Beach.
And he drops me off at this place.
Rented this cabin.
uh at the Iron Springs resort, which has been redone and is really beautiful now. But this Iron Springs resort
And looks me in the eyes.

I'm not gonna stay here with you.
You were going to stay here alone.
And you are going to figure out the next step and path in your life.
I am not going to help you in that decision. You have to make the decision on your own.
I don't care which path that you choose, whether it's to try this Olympic path one more time
Or to study, be the best academic that you can.
Whatever it is, I want you.
To truly train
Your mind
and your body in a way that gives you
The satisfaction that you left nothing on the table.
And when your father tells you this at the age of fifteen, he's dropping you off and you have food and you've got clothes, but there's no cellphone, by the way. There's no video games, there's no Instagram. There's nothing exists. Walden esque.
This is very like rough nature. This is December.
In the middle of winter, it rains hard every single day.
It's I mean I find it really incredibly
Peaceful and calming and beautiful now.
At the time I really didn't.
And so my dad drives away, goes back to downtown Seattle, where his work was and
I am left here in this cabin.
kind of mindlessly still going through the training
cycle and pattern.
That I was before.
but not really understanding why what I was doing.
And then I and then I think the natural byproduct of this is to both have a s you know a significant
Anger towards my father.
Which was there.
A confusion against my father.
And why I was there.
And eventually
there was a conversation that I started to have introspectively. So this cerebral
internal question and answer began
I think
Probably on day three or four.
And
It was kind of around the same question, like why are you here?
Why and what do you want to do?
Is that even important to you?
And I did not have an answer.
There was no kind of clearing of the skies, there was no lightning bolt and like all of a sudden it's sunshine. Oh, you should go and become Olympic athlete. None of that. It was really at its most principled.
You have a decision.
Do you think that you could do something spectacular in the sport that you tried at? Do you like it?
Are you making this decision because of your dad? Are you making this decision because of yourself?
And I essentially told myself
That I wanted to give it one more shot.
I wanted to give this Olympic pursuit another try.
But really give myself
To that.
That you know, that cause.
And I called my father seven days after being there and explained to him that I've made my decision.
He drives and comes and gets me and I on the way home I tell him that I want to try the the world of short track speed skating one more time.
and give it its proper dues.
And so I went back to Lake Placid.
to train with all the athletes who didn't make the Olympic team.
who are hoping to make the world team that year.
And I ended up getting last
Oh sorry, I ended up
getting picked last on the double alternate as a part of that team.
So that means that I wasn't gonna skate any individual races. I wasn't going to skate the relay. You're like the bag boy, sort of.
Somebody gets injured, you can get in, but
I'm basically there to help videotape practice and and and provide support if someone gets sick or injured.
And I remember sitting in the stands watching the competition
Not only hating the way that that felt, but also making promises to myself, which seemed to be really interesting. So I actually wrote down on these little notepads promises to myself of what I would do when I got home.
And I would try to keep those promises upon my arrival back to Seattle. So when after the that experience in the world championships and world team championships um finished, I had went back to Seattle. Instead of getting back into the same pattern that I had before of hanging around the same crowd and groups of individuals that I had at the time.
I instead took a pretty drastic turn and said, Okay, I'm gonna stick to my promise.
And I had this piece of paper. I had no structure. I didn't know anything about sports science. I didn't know much about
Um
sport psychology yet.
Uh, it was really just still about raw effort and dedication and consistency.
And I didn't call a single friend.
that I had made up to that point.
And I went very, very
Kind of I went very quiet.
And I spent all of my time
Both studying.
Training in the morning and then training in the evening.
And I just wrote my own training program, which was like biking while watching skating tapes, going inline skating or running on the high school track by myself.
And throughout the course of the next four and a half months.
I was able to make leaps bounds in terms of my performance, but also in terms of the consistency of my levels of focus and my ability to
Kind of
narrow the focal
Um
you know, points that I was really concentrating on, which proved to be very, very beneficial for me when I went
Back to the program.
And showed up almost like a new person.
One of the things you said there that was really interesting is that you didn't hang out with the same people. How important do you think that was to
Reorienting yourself.
Like how hard is it to get out of your environment with people?
I I I mean I look I don't think there's enough that is talked about it. I think your environment
Із на аганті.
Of
who you are and your outcome, but I think is a great indicator
That
Yeah, and we hear this, right? You are the sum, you're the average of the five people that you hang out with the most. And so none of my friends, by the way, were athletes. None of them had any aspiration to becoming um um Olympians.
And m at the time, unfortunately, none of them were actually doing anything that was that productive.
And so I believe that because I cut them off.
It allowed me to become super uh obsessive about the sport in a way that allowed me to become a true student of it.
And that's where my growth began.
Had I not done that
I we wouldn't even be having this conversation today because I don't believe I would even have made that team.
Like you were able to turn that anger
into promises for yourself, but it was it was it seething, like watching
That competition from the stands going like I should be out there. Like is that the moment things started to really click for you?
Absolutely. I think I I I experience all of the emotions, right? I experienced the
Uh the pain of hearing the other parents
Basically kind of
talk about you in a way that you're just a fallen statistic. Oh, he could've, shoulda, but he just wouldn't. He cracked under pressure. He doesn't have what it takes. He he could have been the best, but he's just not
And then also there's also the
Kind of inner
competitiveness that says like, well, you've beaten all these people before that are now above you in terms of rank in the s in the sport.
But now you're not there simply because of your own lack of consistency.
Like step up.
Like it's time for you to really, really kind of take ownership over a lot of these these things. And
While sitting in the stands, while doing that kind of solitary training.
And I mean I I became a real st when I say I became a real student, I started studying
all different types of biochemistry books. I started to understand nutrition. I wanted to know much more about the mind, started studying Eastern philosophy. Like I just
You went all in.
I went all in to where I cared about not I really truly cared about nothing.
Except for what I was doing at that moment, which is very powerful. It's also
Not very balanced.
Uh but that's that's
The approach that I took.
D do you think you can achieve extreme success like you have had with
A balanced life.
Like, is that even possible?
I think that's the great question. Um
From my personal view, I don't think it's possible. Like I can't think of any examples. Nobody comes to mind who's achieved extreme success and
you know, would be living a balanced life.
I think
for an overall
Happiness.
perspective.
Um
having a balanced life, I believe, can yield wonderful benefits.
I think in terms of sheer performance when it comes to sport or other tasks.
Everyone has the same common trait which is obsession.
It can be in the form of narcissism.
Insecurity.
Fear of failure.
m trauma at a deep, deep level that you have a chip on your shoulder that
makes you go on to be that hedge fund investor who
Forty years in, still gets up at the same time every day, has seemingly everything in the world, but still attacks it as if he is the underdog.
Those are things that are deeply
ingrained in the psychological level, which I believe are the most powerful tools of all.

And mine was in that same realm where
I I would have rather cut my own hand off than it would would be to lose. Like I was willing to go when I lost races.
It was so deeply scarring.
and psychologically damaging to me that I took it so personally
The next time we trained
I did it with so much so much intensity that I was willing to go beyond the point of coming back.
And
I don't know if everyone I don't know if everyone is willing to do that.
I don't I don't think so. I didn't see it in my teammates and they would probably tell you that I was
not the best person to be around during training because of that.
those time periods. But I wasn't really there to
Either cotton
Yeah.
To help others. There was times when I had empathy, but for the most part, when I showed up, the level of intensity in training was at a different level. And I just believe that because
I didn't think that I was genetically superior to my other competitors. That's what I needed to do on a daily basis. And I was so much in mental anguish on a daily basis, battling
you know, equipment like this that didn't seem to go my way for many, many years. And I felt like no matter what, I was only at eighty percent of my potential, I had to make that up somewhere else. And so
That came off as a very
very, very competitive driven, almost uh you know
Unlivable situation with some of my teammates.
And so you you not only trained harder than everybody else, but that's when you sort of like clued into the value of mindset and
training your mind too. And is that when you started working with a sports psychologist?
Yeah, so when I was fifteen uh at the Olympic Training Center
after the Olympics had occurred and after I had showed up in kind of better shape
We had hired
an assistant coach and
uh a sports psychologist in the same role.
And it was this young guy by the name of David Creswell, who's a near dear friend now.
Um and he was studying at Colorado College and he said
That
sport psychology and mindset and meditation and mindfulness and visualization and all these techniques and strategies.
The this was the key.
To truly unlocking my own potential.
At the time.
This guy didn't seem like he was an athlete.
He, you know, speed skating is a very obscure sport, so he didn't know anything about it. So we really just literally shoved this guy to the side and just said, You don't know what you're talking about.
Eventually he broke me down.

So before we would lift weights in the afternoons
I would either go upstairs
Um above the weight room there was a basketball court, which was also a volleyball court, which was also on the far end a badminton court.
And on this badminton court, Dave and I would play badminton against each other. And Dave was a tennis player in college.
So he's very good at racket sports.
So he was pretty much
manhandling me throughout this process.
And I hated losing to this guy because I felt like he should not be able to to beat me.
Because of just my sheer athleticness my athletic nature of what I was doing in the sport.
And he would start to prompt me.
Why do you think Pay Apollo just a question.
Why do you think you lost that last point?
What happened?
And the last four points where you served into the net every time.
Which would make me so irate.
And just r I was had so much anger. I was like, who how dare?
This guy question.
You know, me.

The reason why I'm prompting these questions, Apollo is
Is because there's something deeper at work here.
You're showing patterns of a downward spiral.
that once you lose the first point it's very difficult y for you to reset
and recalibrate in a way that you can treat this new point as a as a new point. You're still talking about the point that you just messed up on. You're still feeling emotionally the trauma that just occurred on a micro level of what you just made in terms of that mistake. And you're saying why did I just make that mistake?
And
That was the moment that I said.
I'm gonna listen to this human and see what he has to offer.
And that became my pro that began my process into the world of
Meditation.
Visualization.
And self talk.
And the world of sports psychology. And it was from that moment that not only my career changed.
But I would say that my my life had really changed. It was because of that single incident of me coming in contact with someone
who was deeply ingrained in the clinical psych.
um component but had a eastern philosophical view of how to
introduce those elements into someone who was half Japanese, who kind of had that philosophical element from his father's teaching.
Everything seemed to be somehow co cohesively working together.
Talk to me a little bit about self talk. Like
I I think that a lot of confidence comes from
Not necessarily what we've done, but how we talk to ourselves.
I think that's an accurate statement.
I think that the way that we as hum beings have been hardwired.
in terms of our neurolinguistic programming.
I'm not a huge believer in N L P.
But I understand the concept that there's certain words depending on how they are emotionally tied to us at a young age, or what they mean or perceive or allow us to perceive or react to.
those can trigger certain elements and emotions in our body. And so if you're able to use certain words or language or expressions or statements to yourself
That illicit a response that would be positive.
Or that would increase some biochemical response.
The mind is very powerful.
That's the most powerful tool of all.
And I felt that at a young age.
Very non directional.
And not focused enough in order to make real impact, but enough to where
At some point for several months several months my trigger word was focus concentrate.
And I remember after about sixty days of trying that, I remember telling Dave
Hey, I don't know if this even does anything anymore. Like I keep saying focus and concentrate, but I don't even know if that's actually having an impact. And so that began the conversation down towards
What do you need to hear?
From yourself.
In a pat in a pattern.
That will help you start to believe it.
And help you start to get into that time when
you've been able to have a great corner or a great pass or a great lap technically that you want to duplicate
Time and time again.
What is it that makes you do that?
And what can you say to yourself?
To propel you towards what that is. And I and I do I still have self-talk today. When I work out or when I'm doing something or when I'm faced with immense challenge.
I'm still having this self talk, whether it's verbally outside actually speaking it like I am today.
Um
I have something right here.
Um that I'm looking at. It says, um, don't think you are, know you are. It's right here on my computer screen. Yeah, I like that.
And and really not just think that you are, but no, know the potential that you have within you.
know that and that's a good reminder for me. And so I I I agree with you. It's
It's absolutely important.
How did you learn to recognize
I think in poker they call it tilt, right? When you
You you lose control of your emotions. And that that's what's happening when you lose this point, right? In Badminton's the story that we were talking about, but
You you lose this point, you need to recognize that you've lost
control of your thinking, control of your
uh emotions.
And then that that's step one, and then you need to refocus and recalibrate.
Like how how do you even
gain a level of self awareness that
Man, I've lost control. If I don't figure this out in the next lap, like I'm gonna lose this race.
And so I need to do it in real time almost. You need to recognize and then recalibrate.
So the beautiful thing about short track speed skating, Shane, is
The sport gives you
Instantaneous feedback.
And so it's very easy for an athlete to punch him or herself out, so to speak. So
There's a fine line between trying way too hard and not trying enough.
And
It requires a level of relaxation.
That almost feels easy at its highest speeds.
And then trying so hard and fighting and and and fighting against the other athletes and fighting against yourself and the ice.
Where your actual top speed actually decreases.
So if you look at a lot of track and field athletes
And they're on the start line, Usain Bolt is my favorite example.
Here you have
one of the world's greatest track and field athletes of all time.
Preparing for a moment in front of 80,000 screaming fans on the Olympic stage, a billion people watching.
And this guy's joking around towards camera.
The psychology behind that.
is
His body is now primed in the most relaxed but responsive state.
To be hyper reactive.
Um
And everyone responds differently. Some athletes need to be like I have a friend of mine who's an Olympic gold medalist in Bobsled.
He had to be angry.
before his race. That's what he used as his lever. He was angry and he used rage in order to do that.
For me.
I recognize that when I perform my bell my best, I was the most relaxed. I was the most calm. My heart rate was at its lowest level. And I was able to remove the emotion.
from the process the added hand. And so like the trader
who's in charge of hundred million dollar trades.
And he starts to lose control and it's one after next after next. The same happened to me in speed skating. If I would lose, I would lose again, or I'd make a bad pass or fight another person or fight myself. And it was this downward spiral. And at some point you got to cut the the head off the snake, take a step back.
jump onto the balcony metaphorically and be able to have a very quick and transparent view of where am I? What battles am I fighting right now? Are they important? And what is the ultimate goal? If the ultimate goal is there, I need to take a step back, recalibrate the focus, and get back into the game.
Uh, and Short Track has that ability to give you that chance because we've got so many races
over the course of a day. So you have, you know, pre liminary
quarter final.
Preliminary heat quarter final, semi final, and then final.
And you're making mistakes along the way. And regardless of what happened yesterday or the race before, you have to recalibrate in a way that this is the new race, this is the new chance, this is the new opportunity right here and now. What happened before doesn't matter unless it's insight, learning lesson, or information about how you're gonna race moving forward. If it's not in that realm, it's disregarded.
It's completely out.
That's beautiful, man.
Um at the most elite levels, how much do you think it's preparation? Like how much preparation is mental versus physical that results in an outcome?
Like I would imagine everybody's basically physically pretty similar, genetically pretty similar at the the
Those levels.
Does it all come down to mental?
Well
Y yes and no. I I think that you are right. Everyone at that level is is a supreme athlete.
I think in certain sports
You have to have a natural genetic disposition.
at the fundamental layer to be good.
Right.
Like I'm not gonna play basketball.
Right. And I'm I'm probably not gonna play football.
Not probably I'm not gonna play football. I'm also not gonna be a boxer.
Right. I'm also not gonna be a track and field sprinter.
Like there's just certain things that my body does better than others by the sheer shape and biomechanics of how I was constructed.
So
At the absolute performance level, the last one percent.
I think that's the make or break.
There has been countless stories of world champions who've won ten world championships in a row.
But have never won a gold medal.
What's happening? Why this this race is technically no different than anything else you've ever skated.
It is no different. There's just more people in the stands. There's now a camera in my face. There's now billions of people watching. But
And it's core concept, this is the same diameter.
I'm skipping against the same athletes.
Everything seems to be the same.
Why do some athletes always compete in those clutch positions? Why does a Kobe or a
uh you know, Michael Jordan want the ball at the end.
And I think that that's the belief and confidence and alpha that comes with
If there's anyone gonna be responsible for the outcome of this, I believe I can dictate that outcome.

And I also had that similar
um mindset. I didn't, by the way, when I race, I never knew that I was gonna win the race. I believe that I had a chance.
As small chance as that was at times, I still believe that I had a chance, and that's all that I needed.
To feel like I had as good a chance as anyone else.
And that I just simply wanted it more or that I prepared more. Um, I I derived confidence from my training immensely and my preparation. That's what gave me a lot of confidence and satisfaction.
Because in the world of short track speed skating, just because you're the best or the most well prepared doesn't mean you're gonna win. So I couldn't guarantee that outcome by the time a four year period
um you know went by and I arrived at the start line.
I needed to find another mechanism to focus more on the process versus the prize to give me that.
happiness and fulfillment.
Or else I would have probably walked away from the sport very bitter because there's many races where I'd been like, Man, I should have won that race. I could have won that race had I not gotten pushed or fallen down or gotten disqualified.
How did you approach your mental training?
The mental training was the core fundamental layer that I that I used, I think, as the jumping off point for everything else.
I just I just believe that I had an unlimited potential within myself. I believe that I could rewire
the neurochemistry, whether that has any scientific evidence based or not, I believe that I had that ability. I believe that I could withstand
more physiological pain than anybody else in the sport. I believe that I wanted to win
more than anyone else. And I believe that that gave me the deserving right.
to capture the gold more than anyone else.
And so when you add up all those small incremental
attributes over time, over many hours and many days of consistency, they seem to yield a pretty powerful return.
You mentioned pain. What can we learn from pain?
I think f pain is is something that
I have derived and at times sought willingly
Throughout my life and career.
Um ph the physical pain was something that I became very accustomed to.
So to me it wasn't a work out until I could really feel the lactic acid in my
In my gums, in my teeth.
And I derived a lot of pleasure
Watching
the person next to me on the mountain do skating jumps start to crack.
Under the hot summer heat.
While I'm wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants and a beanie.
Somehow I that drove me to want to dig deeper.
To show that I had there's this inner monster inside of us that still had more to give.
Um
I thought that when I did the Iron Man in two thousand fourteen.
Where I I I was like seeking, I was hungry, like where is the limit? Where where when do I crack?
at this, you know, nine hour nine hour plus, ten hour plus race. Where do I where is the cracking for me?
And I sought that time and time again. So pain was an opportunity for me.
to recognize
What I
previously thought was possible going into this training session.
And then having either help through a coach or a teammate or a mentor
Help me actually recognize that's just
That's just one layer. There's many lay of pain. And I'm in no way, shape, or form saying I am the expert or I can handle the most.
But I know for sure that I I made myself crack, meaning like I had nothing else to give. I would st I would fall on the treadmill, I would break down, fall over. I I just I physic would collapse.
And there's something very gratifying about knowing where that limit is, and then slowly inching and pushing that limit a little bit further away every time you go and and touch that line.
I think Will Smith had this thing, this quote I remember a while back about being on a treadmill with somebody else.
It's like I might not run as far as you or as fast as you, but I'm not gonna quit until I'm dead.
I think there's yeah, I mean and
And I think that when you own something like that, that's that's pretty powerful, right? I it it's it I think certain people have that. I mean, I think our
Something that I've always looked to our
kinda servicem and women here in these states is this
psychological
barrier that separates those who are genetically gifted
Because by the way, there's been many Olympic athletes who have actually gone on to try to become Navy SEALs, for example, and they can't.
And it's not because they don't have the genetic ability, it's just because they weren't willing to go to those maybe perhaps it's those dark places that are wired.
Yeah, that are required to
I I I think showing up in shape is the prerequisite. Like
You know, when you get to the start line
And you look to your left and you look to your right, everyone is is a phenomenal athlete, right? It's the same, I think, on on when you talk about the military or the SEALs teams or
In any business sector, right, when you're performing at the elite level, the fundamental prerequisite is like
Okay, yeah, that's great. Those are table stakes now.
Those are table stakes, right? This is a standard. What are you gonna do now when I place all this pressure on you? How will you respond? How will you react? Will you rise to the challenge? Will you take this clutch moment, ask for the ball?
Do you want to be the sole athlete in that race against two or three other athletes from the same team?
We w when you were competing, were you trying to win
uh sort of be your personal best or dominate
The competition.
Which is different than winning, I think.
I mean it was I I think it was both. I think
The last three years of my life and in my career in the world of of the Olympic space was really about my best.
Uh when I was younger it was really about crushing the competition.
crushing their hopes, crushing their dreams, their desires. I mean it's a very almost a very negative not saying I'm n I'm not boasting it or or saying I'm proud of it, but
Even in my own team.
I would
You know, I the level of standard that I had for myself was that
I would train more than they would.
I would be more tired the next morning when we woke up and when we got to the ice rink
I expected that I could still dominate them in my weakened state.
And that would make me happy. And if I couldn't, I would be very upset at myself.
Uh, and then later on in my career, I recognized that the fight was really not against anyone else. The fight was always and had been against myself.
And if I and if I sought true change and progress and fulfillment in the sport
I'd have to really have the radical transparent look at myself and say
Are you willing to
Take the armor off.
And examine yourself.
in a way that you can if I was gonna compete against me
How would I do that?
Um
Which gave me a lot of strength. So that vulnerability later on in my career gave me a tremendous amount of strength.
Talk to me a little bit about realizing that all battles are internal ones.
Yeah, that's that's a that's a great question. Um
So th I think the process that I had gone through in the Olympic realm

Um
I think society places this like significant emphasis.
an expectation through a series of conditioning events.
That are just purely extrinsic.
And the Olympic Games is is no is perhaps a prime example of that. We don't celebrate you unless you bring home gold.
My very first race, stepping to the start line. I'm nineteen years old.
You know, the the the the announcer in the arena says shh.
And then all of the the the audience goes quiet. You can hear a pin drop in that time.

And I remember, you know, go to the start. I remember going to the start line.
And then one guy
In the stands, holding a beer.
Yells, Bring home the gold, Apollo.
And just remembering like
If I don't bring home the gold.
Like, does that mean that I've failed my country? Does that mean that I've failed myself and my family, my friends?
Maybe.
But
in the whole grand scheme of things, I I don't think necessarily.
And so
Very early both my father and
And another family friend of mine essentially said the following. They said, Apollo, your life is going to be a series of chapters.
One
That you're living
Which will feel and perhaps present itself to be the most important at the time.
The ones to come.
in the future that you don't know what is actually going to happen.
But if you're able to focus much more on this journey
Much more on this process.
Your likelihood
Of
having the happiness of achieving that success, of achieving that fulfillment.
skyrockets.
And
Uh it took me many years to really feel
What that was about.
The intrinsic motivations and the extrinsic motivations has all has been an ongoing battle.
I think it'll always always be just because of the societies that we live in.
I also believe that
You know.
To focus.
it it it really lends you know lends credits to the credence to the the sport itself of short track speed skating, right? Short track speed skating is a sport where
It's really volatile. I mean
Anything can happen at any moment. And if you're a fraction of a second too early or too late on a pass on a decision.
It radically alters the outcome.
And so you can't rely upon the extrinsic validation that because you won this race, you should be happy.
And in fact, there was many times explained early in our conversation that I would win races and I actually wasn't happy because it didn't go the way that I wanted. And so I became deeply engrossed in this battle against myself, my own internal.

And I wanted to just harden and callous that to a degree that
I can't control whether I win in Vancouver my final Olympic Games, but what I can do is I can control this process and experience to by the time that I arrive.
I'm able to exhaust
Any and all options at the present time to say that I could have done more.
And that was my personal win.
And I just deeply believed
That if I did go through that process.
And I was able to say that I had zero regrets about this path.
That is my personal victory. That is the gold.
that I can transfer into other life skills when I decide to retire.
And it was very difficult because we've been conditioned, I believe, to think about a results oriented society and a focus where
Unless you bring home the gold or the results as a metric.
It's not considered a real actual factual.
When
Um and I'm just I just think that that's not entirely sh
accurate in any shape or the you know, way or form.
I yeah, I totally agree with you there. I think
what you put into it is sort of like how you live your life after it, right? So if you
if you half asset for the months leading up to a major competition
And you win, you won't remember that. Like you it you won't remember that you half asked it, but if you lose
You'll have all these regrets for the rest of your life. You'll be like, Man, had I, you know, not done that or had I trained harder and and that just like stays with you for so long. But if you put your all in and you lose
Then you feel like, you know, you genuinely sort of lost. You controlled the controllables, you sort of
did everything that was within your power to do it, and then it doesn't haunt you. It sucks.
But it doesn't haunt you.
I I think that the word that is the most powerful there is the haunting.
Right. Do you want to have
And it a lot of this is perception, but
Yeah, if you have the ability
To eliminate the nightmare that can go on for decades. And I know this because I have friends who have that, right? They've left the sport.
in anguish mentally and ten years later I ask them how they're doing and they say that they've n not changed at all.
Do you want that to be in your mind.
Or do you want to be able to say that, you know, you you gave your all in its most simplistic form. Did you give your your your every ounce of your being to something?
And whether you won or lost is perhaps outside of your control. There's an amazing quote.
By
A philosopher, author, a writer.
called Nikos um his name is Nikos Kazansakis.
And the book is call uh I think the yeah, the book is called Report to Greco.
Yeah.
Butcher this, but
In a sense I had this
on all of my kind of post it notes about my house.
It is do not ask whether you will win or lose.
Uh that something like that is God's account.
What
you should focus on is your struggle to carry a further. Carry it further. That is what concerns you.
Ведена в є концер.
It's your ability to carry the struggle further is what you should be concerned with.
I thought that was really interesting in the realm of what I was doing as an athlete. And so
It also not only helped take pressure off of
What I was about to do.
Um
But it just it I don't it provided a deeper layer and texture associated with the path that I was pursuing.
I love that. Wha what was it like to win you won a gold in two thousand and two?
I mean what was that like when they played the anthem and you stood on the podium?
I know there's a little bit of controversy around that one, but
Are are you talk are you talking about the fifteen hundred meters in Salt Lake Sioux?
Yeah yeah.
Well so there's you know, I think lots of there wasn't controversy. Sorry, the wrong word, like Korea ended up hating you afterwards. That's what I mean by controversy. Yeah, there was controversy, right? And they were upset. They they think that they thought that their athlete should not have been disqualified and that I should have not been I finished the race second.
actually in that fifteen hundred meters and the guy in front of me
He was disqualified and uh I was awarded the gold. And so the the first thing was standing on the podium was very surreal.
It was incredible. So the reason why it was incredible was uh a few reasons. One
This was post
Two thousand
one September eleventh.
Okay.
So this is at a time where that we're not this
This is February now.
Two thousand two.
In Salt Lake City.
It is a very powerful
moment, I think, in in the United States history in which people were very hungry and looking for solidarity. And they are
And were doing
Everything that they could
To
Just find a team.
To root for.
Finding a team to get behind. And that team was not your local team. It wasn't your favorite team. It was one team. That team was Team USA.
And so it was a very powerful moment, I think, for me standing on the podium.
hearing the thousands and thousands of Americans kinda singing the national anthem and
And there was like a sense of like happiness and pride. And it felt like for me, Shane, that at that moment in time.
I had
F it felt like I had done something that was bigger than the sport.
And I felt like people were happier for me.
Not because they cared about short track.
But they were happy about the s about the way that
United States was able to win again.
And we deeply craved some sort of a win.
And collected unification and solidarity around
one thing on one moment in time
When there was many other countries there.
And it was that's what that first gold medal felt to me.
It felt like like that.
So much bigger than just accomplishing your dreams and sort of like winning a gold medal. It was
It felt
Like connected to every sort of American.
Yeah, indeed.
Uh, how is the source of what drives you sort of like changed as you transition from
Athletics into business.
Well, I think the the source of what drives me has changed dramatically. So when I first retired from the world of short track speed skating, I always joke and say it was the first it was my first great divorce.
Right. So the one sole identity that I had had
um become accustomed to and had learned everything from was the world of the Olympic space. And when I decided to retire
that first true love tells me that it no longer wants
Me and there's nothing I can do to come back to it.
And
It was a v it is extremely challenging transition for athletes to make.
Especially for Olympic athletes.
There is no salary associated with what we're doing. And I had, by the way, I had tremendous opportunities and I'm very blessed for those opportunities that I had received.
Uh, but still it's only a fraction of what was available to most professional athletes.
And
Um
It was
It was an understanding that I had to find something to replace my passion right away.
In the same intensity that I had with skating.
what I didn't recognize that it was probably not going to happen, and if I couldn't find that replacement, it's okay.
And that's natural.
But rather I should be concentrating on the attributes that I had within
These life skills that I learned in the sport.
And I could use those and lean on those as levers towards whatever path that I was doing next.

And so in the world of business and entrepreneurship and
Um, whether it's speaking
Particularly in the last three years.
I've really kind of recalibrated my own focus.

And done it in a way to where
I can concentrate on something that will
give me the greatest possible outcome
Not only in terms of success, but in terms of fulfillment and happiness. And so I recognize that after I retired,
I love
Helping people.
In some capacity.
I am not an expert. I have unique experiences through my life.
um and living process.
But hopefully I can help uplift and educate and provide insight and and context.
to the own inner potential that people have that it's been dormant for a long time.
And whether they knew it or not.
That that dormant power that is within people.
is within their control to unlock.
And it's not going to be easy.
And it's not going to be fast and there is no guru or
strategy, tactic, or tips, that's gonna be the one golden ticket.
Rather, it's accumulation of your own experiences, your own human condition that you've been accustomed to, finding what works for you.
And applying that in a way relentlessly
That is going to greatly advance you towards what you are seeking.
And
I think ever s you know, even more so now today, I I find myself asking like what's really important.
What do I really need? How can I wipe away the stuff that's not important?
And how can I help others
learn from both the psychological mistakes that I made
Um, from the wins that I've had.
from the lessons that I've been able to create. And that's I I just I become very happy when I hear and talk to people
who say, Hey, you know, I I I was headed in this direction in my life.
And
after hearing some of the things that you were kind of willing to bring to light.
I recognized that I needed to take to take back control over the steering wheel.
for once and own up to some of these things in a way that
Um, life goes on and it's always constantly moving and changing. And I can either sit back
and watch it go by or watch it happen to me.
Or I can change the perception of how the world is.
in my own personal experience.
There are no shortcuts, right? And and the
You know, there's

to overly generalize two types of people, the people who think the world happens to them and the people who think that they can
affect what happens in the world and
I think radically different outcomes result from both and we're we're
We're both at different points in time, but the more you can be that you control your outcomes, that you have some sort of say in them, the more you focus on what you do control.
Think the better you end up.
Like to end with like a big philosophical question, but like what is living a philosophical or what what does living a fulfilled life mean to you?

Living a fulfilled life to me
Um
means that the work that I'm ingrained with
And doing it
Not only pulls me out of bed every morning.
But it leaves an impact on other humans who have perhaps suffered in the same way that I have.
Inside of their own two ears.
And helps them change the trajectory of what that is.
Uh
That in terms of work, that is very fulfilling to me.
In terms of the overall context, I want to be a contributor to my family.
My friends
athletes and society as a whole.
That
hopefully I can imprint some of the
just the things that I've learned in my life.
That people can say, wow, that
That is useful.
And I can use that.
And
to hopefully have some small incremental increase in people's happiness and fulfillment in a way that they perhaps didn't before.
So
There are billions of people around the world who
are mentors, who are consultants, who are strategists, who are authors, who are amazing human beings. Uh and
My experience is my own personal unique one, and hopefully that can imprint
Something on someone.
in a way that will change them by
A quarter of a degree.
Which means side side stepping a bad mistake.
uh making the right decision, walking through a door they wouldn't have before.
and living a life that is full of meaning.
And importance in their own personal
So
That's what I want. You know, I want
healthy family and friends. I would love to have a a a healthy long life filled with these types of conversations in which hopefully we can touch and reach as many humans as possible.
Into a new era.
that we don't know what is coming next.
That's beautiful, man. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Hey, one more thing before we say goodbye.
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