Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Pivot With Purpose — How To Navigate Life Transitions | Apolo Ohno

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

This episode of Finding Mastery features the one and only, Apolo Ohno. A 2019 inductee into the Olympic Hall of Fame, Apolo still holds the title for most decorated American at the Winter Olympics with 8 medals as a short track speed skater. However, after hanging up his skates in 2010, Apolo found himself struggling with purpose, and confused about how he was going to navigate his transition from sport.His bestselling book, Hard Pivot: Embrace Change, Find Purpose, Show Up Fully, details this journey while offering up five golden principles for practical and psychological steps toward success.Apolo has walked the walk and I can’t wait to share his insights around navigating transitions, the constant pursuit of new goals, and how managing energy and attitude are integral to high performance._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And that is the foundationally important factor, which is the hard work. You do that consistently. You lean into that. You use it. You recalibrate. You try it again. Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. And for this week's conversation, I'm very excited to welcome back to the podcast the one and only Apollo Ono, a 2019 inductee into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame. Apollo still holds the title for the most decorated American at the Winter Olympics with eight medals as a short track speed skater. So after hanging up his skates in 2010, Apollo found himself struggling with purpose and confused about how he was going to navigate his transition from sport. Transitions are real for all of us. And as we all know, a lot has gone down in the last

four years where we have all had to navigate some real shifts and there's been a ton of uncertainty. So Apollo was first on the podcast back in 2019. And it's a privilege to have him back on the studio to hear how he's taken his mastery of the hard pivot in speed skating and applied it to life. His bestselling book, aptly titled Hard Pivot, Embrace Change, Find Purpose, Show Up Fully, details this journey while offering up five golden principles for practical and psychological steps towards success. When it comes to reinvention and resilience and vulnerability,

Apollo has walked the walk and I can't wait to share his insights around navigating transitions, the constant pursuit of new goals, and how managing energy and attitude are integral to high performance. So with that, let's dive right into this week's conversation with a finding mastery favorite, Apollo Ono. Apollo, it is, it's great to have you back on. It's great to see you. It's good to see you, man. You look great. You sound great. Like life is pretty good for you. It feels like life is good and healthy. So that's, that's the number one thing. Okay. So congrats on hard pivot, like the book and all the thinking that went into creating that. And so congrats on that. I'm stoked to talk about your lessons there.

And I thought maybe what we would do is zoom right into one of your first transitions. You've had many, but one transition that grabbed me, and I want to read a quote to you. This was after your final games, your final Olympics. You said you were, quote, confused, vulnerable, and adrift without purpose, and that you didn't know what was next, but you knew that you wanted to change. Can you bring me into that experience and that phase of your life?

Yeah. I mean, I think it's probably very similar to every Olympic athlete's experience when they retire or they decide to retire or they're forced to retire. I mean, it was just hyper-competitive, wanted the simplicity of saying, well, I was really good at one thing. I want to be the best at the next thing, but there's no roadmap or experience or understanding of what those skill sets and attributes would be. And so I always call them the guardrails, right? The guardrails that you have that kind of kept you aligned in that focus. It was like the training program, the coaches, the teammates, the family, like the head nods of approval of affirmation that you're doing something that is good and you're good at

it and therefore this is your purpose. That was pretty like center and clear for me for 15 years. That's a really cool wrinkle that you just added, which is the other people giving you head nods and affirmation, like you're on the right track. Oh yeah. That was a huge part of it. And so how much of you was looking outside to see if you were okay? Uh, like if I was on the right track. Yeah. Or just that you're okay. Because what you just described is like, feels like, um, those guardrails would help you stay the course. And there's a calibration experience there that would be awesome.

Left in an unsophisticated way, that is problematic. Which is like, I'm looking outside to see if I'm okay, to see if I'm on the right track, to see if I'm training the right way, to see if da-da-da-da. So that type of externalizing a sense of who you are and how you're doing life is dangerous. How did you parse that? Just that, that one part. I mean, to be completely frank, I had no idea back when I was doing those things. Yeah. Right. I was just doing them. I was just being looking back. It was very clear. I think at points of my career, you know, we talk about mastery a lot, right? When I exhibited the, I exhibited the best parts or the closest to mastery I could get was when my internal

compass was aligned with the external affirmations and actually probably overpowered getting the external feedback. Because I just, it felt right. I knew it was right. And this was the path that I was going to take. But I would say the majority of my career, this is like 80%, was always looking outward for the answer of whether, was that a good lap? Was that a good repetition? You know, how's my technique?

Was my joke okay? Was my joke, whatever it might be. I think it's like natural. I love the clarity and the honesty you have about this because that got you really good. Yeah. And then, but it sounds like there was some, maybe there was some phase looking back that like you knew when your internal compass was overriding or bigger than needing validation or approval.

Do I have that right before I ask the follow-on? A lot of it comes with the confidence of knowing. Knowing what? So if you do something that you're unsure of, right? So when you are venturing into an area that you feel like you don't fully understand all the variables and complexities, then you're looking around if like, am I going in the right direction? I love this because if you're looking to elders, people of wisdom, people have been down the path, greats, if you will, then when they nod their head, it's almost like, okay, I'm onto something.

Yeah. Right. So did you have that kind of counsel or your dad, your mom? It came in waves. So I was very much, I think even at a very early age, I sought the approval of the coaches. I sought the approval of my dad, right? Growing up in a single parent household, like all I wanted was the external validation that I was good enough for my father. That's like the underlying arc of my life, right? And then as I grew, there was a deeper, like, competitive desire to say, like, well, I actually want these things too. So not only do I, I seek the approval of my dad. And then there was a point in my life, Mike, where I actually got the approval of my dad,

but it wasn't enough for me. That was a really interesting point, which I think that was like, probably like towards the last third of my career career where I was good enough for my dad. He was like, you're doing great. But for me, it was like, that's not good enough. Did you have medals at that point as well? So you got approval from dad and medals. Yeah, I had five medals at that point. At that point.

So did dad give the approval because the medals happened or because of the process was honest? The first time I truly got the approval of my dad was I was very young. So I had just risen when I was 14. I was number one in the US. And then immediately the following year, I was last place in the US. So I'd fall down back down the mountain. And then I had made another team, which was like I was the double double alternate before I had decided to go back to speed skating. That was the final approval of my dad. And so basically he hated the fact that I had exhibited a pattern of behavior that went through the motions versus doing the work. Oh my God. Right. And so when I showed him that I was willing to do the work, regardless of outcome, is when he said, okay, for him, he was very clear.

He was like, it doesn't matter to me whether you win or lose because you can't ultimately control that. He's deep, like Nikos Kazantzakis, report to Greco, mixed with his Japanese Zen philosophical view of the world. So he infuses those two and he tries to teach me consistently of your opportunity to carry your own struggle further and like perfect whatever it is that you're trying to pursue is all within your control. And if you win, great. If you don't, then let's analyze what happened and try to figure out how you can improve upon the next time. Okay. Did your dad metabolize those insights? Did he live that way? That's a good question.

I think in a different sense, he did. My dad is a master of routine and consistency. That's like really clear. Is that code for OCD and rigidity? Or is that like, no, like really what it means? Look, I think it's culturally relevant in Japanese culture where my dad is from Japan he comes to this country doesn't speak a word of English doesn't know how to survive how old was he he was 17 18 years old when he came here

radical uh didn't have any money so I think like his only superpower was just volume of work plus consistency equals like high percentage likely outcome of having and reaching that success. That was his equation time and time again. I'm going to pause the conversation here for just a few minutes to talk about our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true.

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and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless,

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So let's frame the conversation around mastery. And when you say the work, where do you naturally go? And this is influenced by your dad and your coaches, what you've come to learn on your adventure. But when you think about the work, where do you naturally go? And this is influenced by your dad and your coaches, what you've come to learn on your adventure. But when you think about the work, where do you naturally go? I think the work is the embodiment of all the things that you like to do and you don't like to do. So like most athletes don't like every facet of training,

every type of training, whether it's lactic capacity, alectic power, endurance, sprint, weight room, every athlete has their thing that they just don't like. And I think all of the greatest athletes that I've seen throughout history have shown that they just do the work regardless. And some, let's take Michael Jordan, for example, sees that weakness point and says, I'm going to lean into that and make that significantly more elevated than it was before. Embodying the work as a speed skater, this obscure sport, was just, let's just completely

immerse myself in every facet of the training there is and just do it to the most intense, obsessive way that I know how. And that became the barometer for everything that we did in sport. And then when I retired, I think I also danced around the idea of work because it no longer was a physical barometer of doing something. It was, okay, like I have this goal, whether it's financial, whether it's business, whether it's a personal intimate relationship, I can't shy. Like the equation is still probably very much the same. I think it's, it's, it's a personal intimate relationship. I can't shy. Like the equation is still probably very much the same. I think it's altered slightly differently for all of us. At the core to me, like I say this in the book,

like the shortcut for everything is always the work. And the work has always been the shortcut. I just think that we live in a society, and this is not by anyone's fault. This is the natural evolution of technology where the lowest hanging fruit for performance increase is by eliminating those distractions, going into flow, right? Olympic athletes, military, these people know that the quality of work that is in the layer when you can say I'm in the zone is it's so outpaced. It's just, it's outsized everything. It's right. It's remote. And the experience

in and of itself is so deeply rewarding. Yeah. You get this hockey stick experience for sure. So what percentage of the time, this'll be fun actually for folks listening. Um, I got a number in my head. And because I've asked this question thousands of times to people that are extraordinary. What percentage of the time when you are in your grind, when you're doing your thing, and then we'll do part two of that like now in life. But when you're doing your thing, skating, were you in flow state? I probably entered into flow state often during the hardest parts of training

because it just is so demanding physically where you kind of lose yourself in the moment. And I think during the 40 second or minute and a half long actual race duration, so in a competition, it's less than on two hands my entire career your entire career being in pure peak flow state during competition yeah probably like 10 times in my entire career 10 times which is less than one time a year i was going to say for how many years then so let me call that like i started doing meditation and visualization when i was 14 okay so i would say like 14 15 years so during practice what percentage of the time would you drop into low? Elements, like, I guess I'm using the word flow slightly different. So

like when I think of flow, I think of like pure, like Neo matrix style flow state, right? Where like time feels slow down. That's high flow. And then there's low flow. I would say like low flow, almost every training session. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Like right now in this moment, are you in, are you working in a weird way that it seems like you're in low flow, but are you working in a way that it's like internally, it's really difficult to be you right now? No, no. Like, is this a low flow where it seems fluid and easy and we're just rolling or is it? Yeah, this is very easy, very smooth, but it also it's,, it has elements. So if I was going to describe to the listener what it feels like to see through Apollo's eyes, right. Besides the little voices I have. Okay. Let's remove those for a second. It's almost like I have this tunnel around you and I'm, but my peripheral vision is very clear

of the other objects that are in the room. Right. So they probably can't see the light that's over here, light above, over here, behind me, dog over here that was there, and my phone down here. Like they can't see those things. I'm aware of those things that exist, but they are not a part of my direct attention zone. So I like everything that is in this like scope right here is fully – I feel fully present and aware and I'm showing up as my full self. Yep. You got it. And those conversations – Flow follows focus You got it. And those conversations.

Flow follows focus. And what you just described is deep focus right here. The other stuff, you know, that's there, but it doesn't have value in the way that the words that you're choosing have value or paying attention to the words I'm about to choose. Right. So that's where the focus is. Okay. Yeah.

All right. So then in training, what percentage of time would you say? In that low? I mean, especially during the peak of my year, my peak of my career often, quite often. Yeah. And then high flow? Removing the competition, I would say at least, at least once a month. Okay. At least once a month. Yeah. So that's a little bit less than I thought. Yeah. I thought it was more somewhere around 15 to 20% of your time, but maybe low flow. If you do low flow, it's more like 30, 40%, something like that. When I first started the arc of the performance, really jumping when I was focusing in on this, using that time wisely on the ice and during training that entire year, my,

my quality of work skyrocketed, meaning like the quality of like, when I would walk into the weight room, I was like, I just remember the feeling. Like I could just feel like, even now thinking back, I have a memory layer of like the squat rack bar just sitting on my traps. Your traps were huge. Like you were a savage.

It's like, how did you fit in your jeans by the way? Like you didn't, you didn't always wear shorts. And when you need to be in pants, like what kind of customized pants? When I used to be in pants and I would walk up the stairs in like the high school, I remember girls behind me like, oh my God, what's wrong with his legs? Seriously. It was so freaky looking. Yeah.

I got all these like veins and like, yeah. But when you were in pants, would you have to go get customized pants? Oh yeah. You did. Yeah. Everything was. I mean, my waist was like 28, but my, my legs were like 35 inches around. It was like ridiculous. Each. I mean, it was like, yeah. Oh God. Okay. All right. So fun aside. What are you now in

non-athletic life, if you will, what percentage of flow are you in and how do you get into that state more often? In conversation, much easier for me to get in that flow state. So I started something when I retired back in 2015. I started whenever I would go to these conferences, I felt like I would meet like hundreds of people, but then like I wouldn't keep in touch with anybody. Okay. So this is where this started. And so I was like, man, there's got to be a more effective way to really connect with people when I go to these places.

So I can't control, you know, I could do some prep and try to reach out and set up some meetings beforehand. But if I'm just like showing up to a conference or an event or a symposium and I start having a conversation with like four or five people, I just try to go really deep, really fast with those people. And I feel that's where I can harness the power of that flow state. And it's almost like in a very loud conference room, I'm just there with that person. That's cool. And I've been told from other friends that are observing or watching, they're

like, dude, you were there and it's like time stood still and you gave a hundred percent of your attention towards that person. So I, so then like, obviously I'm like, oh, that's great. Cause that's what I would want to show up as for someone else. So if I show up like that to someone, they typically will mirror that back to me. And thus there's a much deeper connection that's made. So I get the flow state in that realm, team workshop environments where we're facing a challenge that seems insurmountable, but then everyone has the same linear goal of overcoming that challenge. That is another state of flow.

And then, you know, obviously still the training and working out and stuff like that. That's like my sanctuary where I don't need to be around anyone. I can still find that place. Music or no music when you work out? I change it up. You do? I used to do, when I retired, I did music always every time. And now

I try to actively go into a state where I don't use it all the time because I noticed it was, became a real crutch. Yeah. It's a great tool. I play with it now too. Same way. Sometimes there's like, I, I feel like I need it. Sure. Right. Like I'm a little bit drag ass and I need, I need something. And then other times it's like, it's an active meditation, focusing deeply on what I'm doing. So, okay. So let me go back. You said you use this really cool word, which is like a full embodiment. And at a young age that can lead to an identity foreclosure that can lead to this, what I would consider a very dangerous phrase, which is I am an athlete. Did you have any identity foreclosure?

Whereas your complete identity was that of an athlete so that everything you did, your complete identity was on the line each time that you would do something. Did you have that type of intensity spotlight foreclosure feeling or it was not that when you say the word embodiment yes you did have that i did and i subscribed to the belief that this was my purpose so any athletes that are listening to this like they can all relate like you're good at something the world tells you that you're good at something. And then you just get these like external hits of chemicals, you know, releasing your brain that you're on the right path. And this is why you're on earth is you have this unique talent set that only 0.0001% of the world has. And you're amazing at it. And it sometimes feels easy to you. Therefore, nothing else in

the world is ever going to be like this. I felt that. And I, and I, by the way, I loved it. And I felt that, that I believed in it so much that at the age of 17, we back, you might remember these Mike back in like the late nineties and early two thousands, uh, the USO, the USO PC, the USOC back then used to host these things called the athlete summit. Oh yeah. They were great. And then all these like, you know, Olympic and, and, and Olympic hopefuls would come to a location for about a week. So you have like athletic legends come and come there who are retired, come and just talk about the experience of the games. What to prepare for is usually about two years before Olympic games. That's right. And one of the exercises we did, I think it was in park city. Um, it wasn't Park City because I was 17 years old.

That's right. It might have been in Breckenridge. So we were in Park City and we had to write down like what legacy would mean to us. What do we want to leave the sport with? And I remember writing something down, but then I don't know what happened to this piece of paper until someone told me that I saw it at one of the universities in Utah. And it's this answer. It's

like, oh, like I want to be the greatest athlete to have ever done speed skating. I want to change the way speed skating. I had no idea that I wrote this stuff. And then someone asked like, what do you want to do when you retire? And I was like, there is no retirement. This is what I'm here for. So you can imagine like that was- Therein lies the crisis that we started this conversation with. It's beautiful. And it's like jumping out of the, you know, the plane with no parachute, looking at a target, you land, you're safe. You don't, you die. That subscription and intensity was very much like embedded in me. And I didn't realize, like you said, the day, the other side of that, at what cost do you want to do that? Right. So at what cost? I know that now, but back then it was, it was a superpower that I'd love to hear from you.

Like, do you think, so, okay. So you have, you have young Apollo, right? Young athlete, who's believing in this subscription that this is who I am. This is all that I am. And this is all actually who I want to be. I actually don't, this is, you know, if I, someone asked me after I won my first medal, like, what do you, you know, are you happy? Oh, like if you could bury me right now, like facetiously saying that, but actually believing it.

Like I'm, this is it. This was the pinnacle of my life. Dude, you're 18 years old, 19 years old. This is not the pinnacle of your life. This is a pinnacle arc point in your life for this chapter, but there's many more chapters. So do you think that an athlete can still reach the same level of success? Not taking me for an example, just like, let's define success without having that potentially negative detrimental conversation that this is all that matters in the world to me

do you think it's it's possible if you were to ask me 10 years or and earlier 10 15 20 years ago i said no chance and i swallowed that pill that high performance begins where health is compromised and there was high performance begins where health is compromised like to go into the into those rare places you had to make some sacrifices like i don't know about for you in particular but i don't know if you're as healthy then as you are now and that is physically emotionally and you know everything so now though i think that that's the great experiment. And the experiment is, can you have, and the word is not balanced, but can you be integrated in a very healthy way with what you do? And if we're to increase, let's call it just flow state, frequency of flow state,

aligned with purpose, and you've got a wisdom council around you that everybody there has the shared purpose, which is at the intersection of health and true potential, then I think you got a chance. But I think it's very difficult to do. And the easier path of the two is to default on high performance only. And there's a deep cost to wellbeing and health. And the great price after it is noted 87% plus after playing in the NFL, NBA, fill in the blanks of traditional stick and ball professional sport are divorce broke or both. And they're a bit of a mess. So the 13%, they did it well. So that's minority number, right? So I'm way more interested in that

13% than 87. So what are the 13% do is that they've got resources that they've got internal resources and external resources that they're empowering and leveraging towards being as dynamic as they possibly can in the very short window of pro sports, but they've got their eye on next as well. So what we would do in a, in a Olympic training camp or another high performance training camp, call it Red Bull or whatever we're doing these for is that, and I'm curious what your response would have been as a 19 or 17 year old kid is that we say, okay, right. What are the goals, you know, that you're working towards? What do you think you need to be able to do? What time do you think you need to be at? We back in all of that,

and this is for hardware at the games. And then towards the end of that, let's call it week arc, we'd say, what is next? And there's very specific ways that people respond. Many athletes go, why'd you even bring that up? Some athletes like, man, that's been stressing me out. I don't know. Like I've, I've been thinking about a lot, but I don't really know. Like, I don't, I don't really want to have the, can you help? I don't really want to have the conversation. Can you help? So there they've got some conflict. And then the other one's like, oh, I know exactly what I'm going to become a helicopter pilot. And I can't wait. And I'm going to use, you know, this experience to learn it.

And I really want to metal and I'm going to get there because I'm going to use that platform for, you know, A, B and C other kind of purpose driven. So those are the three responses. Which camp would you have landed in, in one of those three camps when you were like in the thick of it? Do not talk to me about the future. Oh, I know exactly what I'm going to do. I don't think it was that last one.

No, it definitely was not. I know exactly what it was more. Was it ambivalent high stress or do not bring it up? It was, it was like non-conversation. It's like, what are you like? Why are you talking about? This is what I'm doing. Yeah.

This is like, and I think I would have probably felt if I open this door, I'm conceding. That's exactly. So that's, that's what happens. Most councils around an extraordinary talent, they don't know how to have the next life arc type of thing that you're talking about. So they, they concede to your, to your, use your word. They, to just keep it really tight and narrow. The problem is when the rabbit gets the carrot or whatever. What's no, when the, when you're forced to hard pivot. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. When that, when that happens, it's pretty difficult. So teach, teach for that place, you know,

but to, to, to teach really well, go back to the pain. I want to understand the pain that you felt because I think people misunderstand the value of pain. Without being honest and touching your own pain, it's really hard to make the changes. So can you share that? Sure. Pain was a huge part of developing fear of failure during the career, which kept me sharp, consistent, obsessive, and never allowing myself to let up. So that relentlessness came from a deep sense that I was never enough. Someone was better genetically designed than I, and thus I had to do more work. And I didn't have the mental negotiation of whether I do something or not. I didn't have the luxury of doing that.

So it was just do every time. It was setting the schedule and doing. Repeat, rinse, repeat. So I think the pain can be looked at as a paralyzing factor, at least from my perspective, for your life if you allow it to be. Or it can be an incredibly strong lever to lean into to understand. Yeah, we're on the same page there. Everyone has pain, right? And suffering.

Suffering and pain. And I think the more that we can understand what are those factors that are causing me to react in ways that I normally, if I gave it pause, would respond better, how do I interact with those initial feelings and bouts of psychological pain, deep traumatic pain? And whether it's like from age five to 15, which that's like, I feel like that's where a lot of my stuff was developed. With your relationship with your parents? With my parents and then just like society and the world and my competitors and my teammates, and then myself and the insecurities or whatever it might be. Those, I look back on those things now. I'm like, wow, those were huge, huge edges that I sharpened because of those. If I had removed those

insecurities, if I had removed those self-doubts, not a little bit, but entirely, I'm not sure if I would have been as hungry and stayed the course as long. Okay. No one does it alone. And I want to share a couple of sponsors that are making this show possible. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not

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You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Let's jump right back into the conversation. You don't have kids right now. I don't have kids, but love kids. I want kids. You do. Okay.

Absolutely. How will you navigate the first 15 years? Oh, yeah. That's a great question because I think every parent has their plan until boom, their kid shows up and they're like, how is this kid mine? But yours has worked.

Like I look at you and I'm like grounded, together, articulate, ambitious. I mean, maybe now, but like Like I look at you and I'm like grounded together, articulate, ambitious, purpose-driven. I mean, maybe now, but like when I was a kid, I was crazy. You were. Like I was out of control. I had so much, and I needed sport to help hone in that focus. That's why sport was such a lifesaver to me because it just, it forced me to use that excess energy in a way that actually propelled me forward. So like, I think back to the pain and the hard pivot, I think, and this is why I spent a lot of time writing the book was, I was like, God, there's got to be an open conversation around the difficulty of subscribing to what's on your business card or signature for so long. And there's nothing wrong with this, right? But

there absolutely is all of us, whether you were an accountant for 20 years or you were head of marketing for something and at the snap of finger, right? Like you got to make a change, right? Of the thing that you did for so long. And then something either by force or by choice, you have to make that hard pivot to go in a completely different direction. And now you have this entire repository of skills and attributes you've developed, but they may not be all transferable to the new career path. And now you're venturing into a world where you feel it's unfamiliar, you're uncertain, you're not getting the affirmation. So you don't feel like you've yet landed on that ikigai or that purpose yet, where the world's

paying for you for stuff. Here's your strengths. This is what you feel like the world needs and all these like perfect, you know, purpose-driven stuff. And so I can't teach. All I can do is just talk about my own experiences. I chased everything when I retired. And partially because I spent an entire, I spent a lifetime saying no to everything unless it was speed skating. Literally no to personal relationships, like no to friendships, no to everything except for this doesn't help me skate faster than it's a secondary priority or third or fourth or it's way down the list. And as I started to grow, I was like, wow, like it's not the kind of human that I want to show up to the world as, right?

So that, we talked this offline, but that selfishness was very powerful for my individual races, but that selfishness didn't help when it was for the team environment. So I had to already start to create catalysts to say, okay, like you're not the same as me. I'm not the same as you, but we all both want to win. So how do we work together? And then when I retired, it became very clear that I needed to say yes to stuff to open up the mind of my curiosity and allow myself to fail. If I could go back and really be able to drop some hints on myself, I would say like, go harder. I'm not going to tell you which direction to go, but go harder and go knowing that you may fail at these things, but you're going to go

regardless because the learnings that I have had from those experiences up, down, left, right, are really powerful for me in this, I'm now 40, in this latter half plus year of my life. And I feel like as a person who's in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, there's different phases of confidence, right? That come with that. So we, like, I know now when something is congruent with the person that Apollo wants to become, continue to become. And I also know if I'm being distracted by something over here again. And I like, I enjoy being distracted. So because I like learning, which is a two-edged sword, but without getting getting too much off topic, I just want to go back to, because it's really important. The thing that I found that helped me the most was, number one, full immersion into whatever new thing that I was really wanting to be a part of. Two, realizing

that if I just mirror the path of an Olympic athlete and I say, all right, I want to make the Olympic team. Okay. At the bare minimum, we're talking four years here, Apollo, four years of doing something consistently, basically seven days a week until you were able to get a chance to make the Olympic team. That's how good you need to be. Okay. So that's a lot of dedication. You're just starting something new. It's only been one week and you want to give up? That's not how this game works. So again, the equation that I think all of us have to remind ourselves that these things take time, they take consistency, and they take effort.

And I think that if you can just like remove all the other noise and expectation stuff is like that low-hanging fruit is still the same. And so if you need to make a hard pivot, lean into the pain to create more urgency around the momentum that you must create. And that is the foundationally important factor, which is the hard work. You do that consistently, you lean into that, you use it, you recalibrate, you try it again. It's awesome. And let me go back to the work one more time. So there's technical work as an athlete. There's technical work that you need to

do, like leaning a certain angle or trying to get the way that you're going to contort your body to carry speed. There's the physical, which is to have all of the sub capabilities to hold that technical position, right? I'm oversimplifying, of course. And then there's the mental skills, which is to be focused and present and calm and confident while you're in a rugged or high stress moment, especially a high speed moment like yours. So when you think about the work now, post pivot, and you're thinking you're speaking to an audience of people that are in a highly ambiguous time right now with AI on board, with business changing, with relationship structures changing in business at a home. So there's lots of ambiguity, lots of uncertainty.

People like yourself and people from the sport world, that's the game. You don't know how the outcome of a game is going to go, the games or whatever. So we must deal in high uncertainty and control what we're able to control. I would say even master what's in our control. So now let me drill back down to folks that are not in the physical game. So they're doing intellectual creative work primarily, I should say, is what is the work for them? And I'm interested in both the mental and the technical work. How do you think about those? Without like knowing too much more specifics around each role or which career path? Let's pick tech for, you know, the AI type of thing. And let's say they're senior leaders or they're managers in big business right

now. And you might say, how could I possibly know that? And then defer to the mental, which is totally cool too. But when you say the work, you're very clear that you're trying to be consistent and high effort. Those two ingredients are really important. So consistent with what? In leadership, it's a bit different than someone who's in charge of back-end code infrastructure of a company who may not interface with a lot of other people outside of supplying the code and doing your weekly stand-ups, et cetera. So doing the work would be, okay, there's parts of the work that probably come natural to everyone, right? So those things are still considered work, but like I would say less so. The work is the things that have been

prioritized in your to-do list that typically are the hard conversations, the most difficult tasks and challenges that you're facing, and maybe the fires that need to be put out. Like those, you can't hide from those things. And so if you can't hide from them, you might as well lean into them with the intentionality of achieving the outcome that would best serve not only yourself, but the organization that you are working with. So no one likes to have hard conversations, right? It's like really uncomfortable, whether it's talking about money or pay. I mean, this stuff is just, it doesn't make us feel good, because culturally we haven't been brought up that way. As a leader, the role is to be as

authentic as you possibly can, to showcase strength, leadership principles, but also that you can connect with another person so that you're also human. So, you know, there's this hierarchy structure within your organization. Someone is a decision maker, which therefore, you know, people below them report up. But that person, especially during the pause we had the past two and a half years or whatever, you know, that made people show up on these like, you know, open zoom meetings and calls with like kids running in the background, cats, dogs, like, Oh, that's a real person. Well, why would he not be?

Why would he or she not be a real person? Right? Like, of course they're a real person. They just put on a mask when they show up to the office because they're trying to be as effective and efficient as possible so they can get back to their family to do the stuff that really makes them feel whole again, right? That's the whole piece. And so when all of that got merged, I think that we saw new forms of leadership come alive. And the ones who exhibited the types of behaviors that we gravitated towards were someone that showed strength, but they showed

vulnerability. They showed empathy and they showed understanding and communication. That leadership role is in the hard stuff. And if it doesn't come naturally to someone as a leader or someone who's working inside the organization, no one's going to do it for you. It doesn't matter if management's telling you to do this or not. You have to want to do this for yourself. And then you have to feel, at least for me, I like when I start to taste progress in anything in my life, oh, like this feels pretty good. Like I want a little bit more of that. Right. And that is a really powerful, addictive quality that I think is beneficial. So I would say the work is all about like not obviously not

only just doing the to do list list doing the communication list with your team but it's also when you leave that space and you go home like what are the things that you are doing for yourself as a person so that you can show up and you're not fighting like the fatigue the tiredness like all this other stuff that normally would make you respond or react in a way that is less conducive to the outcome that you want. So to break it down really simply, like, you know, cause being an athlete, like we love routines. So what is the routine that works best for you? Right. That helps you show up on your first call in your first meeting and your energy. Don't have to say anything. People know like you're there because you're leaning in. If you show up to the meeting and you're

disheveled and your attitude is laid back, you're leaned back and you're not fully engaged with that, people are going to read into that. It's natural. So how do you create moments of your life that can elicit consistent behavioral responses, just like an athlete would for a race? So, you know, obviously not everyone's racing for the Olympics, okay? But if you were gonna look at your career and your life as the Olympics, all right? And you could say, okay, like, what are the things I need to do in the morning

so that when I get to work, I can show up and have my best training sessions with my team? And that they respond to me in the best way. Oh, like, I'm feeling this. I'm buying into this. I like this movement. Like, this person cares about the outcomes and they'm buying into this. I like this movement. Like

this person cares about the outcomes and they care about me as a person in this organization. And it's really hard when you get really big. We know that. But I think that's why you need to rely upon the ripple effect of each individual who's in these decentralized leadership positions to keep pinging the entire organization system, right? And then you get that ping that is just like reverberating through the whole system. And then when you go home, same thing, right? And then you get that ping that is just like reverberating through the whole system. And then when you go home, same thing, right? Like your partner, your loved ones

are there to love you as a person, not you from work, to love you as a person. And so like, it's just challenging to be able to navigate these things when it feels like the clock is just getting faster and faster and faster. And the only way that I have found that it works the best for me is I just try to show up more authentic. And it's hard, right? Because we have our work hat on, we have our physical training hat on as an athlete, we have our societal expectation hat branded as we are,

but at the core is actually who we really are. And so when we take that mask off, I think a lot of leaders that I look up to have shown that they don't have to wear the mask anymore. They can basically just shuttle between the different locations of home, work, friends, and it all seems to be a bits of the same person. You know? That to me, so we get called in a bunch to help organizations with the fatigue that's in their ecosystem. And like, it's a real thing.

People are like that. Most modern workers are, have a double shift, you know, 7.30, 8.30, something like that, especially if it's a multinational. So they've got early calls. They come home. They get a little respite with some family or do their hobby or whatever. And then they're picking up emails at like 9.30 to 11.30.

And so it really feels like a double shift for most folks. And if they knew what i knew they would compete within themselves to have great recovery like they would eat in a world-class way they put the right micro and macro nutrients in place that hydrate properly they would 100 be training their body and they say when when can i possibly do that and they would be great with the way that they think and when you start to do those and i they would be great with the way that they think. And when you start to do those, and I haven't even hit sleep yet, when you start to do those, you can show up eloquently and authentically across low stress, high stress, home, work,

whatever the environment is, and you can be authentically you. That takes incredible work to do. And most people are saying my plate's too full. I can't even get six and a half hours of sleeping on a consistent basis. What are you saying? You and Apollo sound like freaks that live this luxury world that you don't live in the real world of the business that most of us are in. And, I have great compassion for folks that are struggling in that way. I think you do as well. And then also have like a thing. It's like, you haven't had enough pain yet. And I don't want to be callous when I say it, but when your head hits the concrete hard enough, often enough, you say, I'm not fucking doing this anymore. Like this, this is not a way to live. I wish that I could figure out the right words to help people not

have to hit their head on the concrete and go, they look to you and they go, man, he's got it together. Like, what is he doing? And then, so if we could just take that moment and say like, what are you doing to be so vibrant as a human right now? And I'm thinking about all like sleep. Are you, are you, are you doing it right? Or are you just running on fumes and you've got just an incredible horsepower and intellectual and physical that you're doing great. I'm human. Like everyone else. I have amazing days, amazing weeks, amazing months, and I've got terrible ones. And I've got times where I fall off the wagon and I've got, yeah, I've got like work to do.

What are you talking, drinking problem? No, like my advice has come, I drink a lot of caffeine. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoy caffeine. I do too. You know, but- Tea for me, it's not coffee. Yeah.

I love coffee, but I don't do well with coffee. I drink a lot of tea. I would say that the things that I have found that helped me, if we use the word vibrate the most effectively are really simple foundational pillars. So the first one is going to be how I'm sleeping. The second one's going to be, how am I eating and drinking the stuff I'm consuming? The third is going to be, how am I moving exercise? And the last is going to be how am I thinking. Like how am I thinking meaning like how like my social environment. Do I have a friend group?

What does my personal intimate relationships look like? And then how am I thinking about myself? Like when I look in the mirror, am I disgusted at what I've seen and what I've become and how far I have fallen from the original goal that was set January 1st. Right. And I'm like, how, how dare you? Like, so, and by the way, I have had these conversations with myself all the time. Are you hard on yourself? Absolutely. Now, absolutely. You're hard on yourself. So when you hear that like self-critical narrative, like that, it's not healthy to have that type of relationship with yourself. Do you say, I do not know what you're talking about? Like, I'm really hard on yourself. So when you hear that like self-critical narrative, like that it's not healthy to have that type of relationship with yourself, do you say, I do not know what you're talking

about? Like I'm really hard on myself. If I just compare it to what I used to be, I'm in a way better place today. Um, what would you say to yourself that you would, you would never like, it's almost embarrassing to talk about. I mean, just like the repetition of things like you, like you're so weak. And I look back and I'm like, dude, you are so freakishly strong. It's unrelievable. Like, what the hell are you talking about? So I think like we get obsessed with the details and it's all relative, right?

It's all relative too, because we're always comparing to something that we think that we should be at. And, you know, perfectionism has its paralysis in the same respect, right? If you're too addicted to perfectionism, then sometimes you have an inability to act, which is never good. I think having perfectionism elements of trying to do something to the best of your ability consistently, not hitting the mark, recalibrating, trying again, that's the beautiful art of someone who's trying to demonstrate what mastery is, right? Knowing that you can never actually reach

their level of perfection. So let's go back to your kid or somebody that you're coaching. How do you want them to speak to themselves? So like, if I'm talking to my kid, I think it's important for them to – I think it's important for my child to understand their own, I guess, founding principles of expectation. So that can be effort. That can be result-oriented. result oriented. I would really stray away from too much of the addiction to the actual result side. I think we have to be very realistic and say like we live in the Americana culture, which is we celebrate champions and winners. And so when someone gets second, we don't talk about them. So what does that do to a kid's childhood dreams? But then if we give everyone a medal down to the 110th place, what does that do from a competitive psychological perspective? The feelings that you get from not getting what you want is literally the definition of having an

expectation that was not met. That's disappointment. And now one final word from our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much

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Taking away somebody's pain is like the worst thing you can do for that person. So helping them feel that pain, helping your child in this way to feel the pain of not getting the thing that they're sorting out. But at the same time, I would add in there, because we're talking about self-talk and your relationship with yourself really, is that to pull that around with the first principle of mastering what's in your control is like, did you back yourself? Were you truly aligned with your core principles, whatever those three to seven or whatever might be? And now you have a second tuning fork that is always under your control.

And you don't have to beat yourself up about them. You can just be a great learner. Like, okay, how am I going to get better? How am I going to get better? How am I going to get better? And then I can also hear as I'm talking that there's people like, what is wrong with you? Like, why do you have to always be better? Why can't you just be here?

Sure. I get it. What is wrong with you? But you can be. You can just be here. I don't understand it., but like I do value, I deeply value being present. Yeah. Not for some later unlock, but because it's so wonderful to be fully present. Like you're talking about the low flow. And at the same time, I'm, I sometimes don't wish this obsession

on my son or other people is like, if we're not about getting better and progressing and like at a radical clip to explore, because I feel like I'm in a rush to, which is dangerous, but I feel like a rush because I don't know when I'm going to die. There's such a long terrain to potential that what am I doing to maximize that? Because it's almost like blasphemy in my mind to not do that. So that's my tension is like, there's a, there's a rush. That's your urgency. Yeah. The reality is not everyone is the same. Not everyone has the same ambitious goals and desires that I would have, you would have, this person would have this, but they're all different. And our definition of a well-lived life is also probably

very different. So the question I think maybe we all should be asking is like Apollo at 80, looking back and talking to Apollo at 40, what would Apollo at 80 tell Apollo at 40? Revolving around time, love, relationships, anger, stuff that just doesn't freaking matter. What would the 80 year old who has all the wisdom, but as little time remaining, let's say the person lives to 90, I don't know, but like, let's just say. So extremely small, finite time left on this planet, has experienced a ton and looks back and probably, probably says, I would have only just told myself to not waste that time on things, people, experiences that didn't matter to impress people, things, and others that I don't really know. Right. Like IE

definition of Instagram. Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. That's right. And I have no problem with social media. Like I think it's a powerful tool if used correctly and whatever, like we're human beings and we get addicted to everything. So that like addicted to everything. So this is like a newer concept, right? For me, the past couple of years, I have just been asking myself, because again, I make the same mistakes and I find myself having the same maybe negative conversation with myself or in a place where I'm not progressing. And for me, I don't need to be progressing all the time. I just want to make sure that I'm not going backwards to Apollo 1.0, which was the one that had gotten me to a certain stage in my life performance-wise for sport, but also

had kept me caged and undeveloped in other areas of my life. I do this all the time. I ask folks, what version of yourself are you? And they go, what do you mean? I say, well, iPhones had X number of versions. There's a lot of versions with small little software upgrades. And so if I didn't give you any more information, what the version are you as a human? I would say that I am version 3.5, 3.5. Yeah. So like 1.0 to 1.5 is kind of like

midway through Olympic career. 2.0 is the second half and 2.0 to, to today was a whole like 2.0 to 2.5, 2.5 to 3.0 was up until the past, let's call it up until 2020. And then there was a real shift in the past three years with, I think a lot of it has to do with like the confidence and the desire to want to help guide people to their own answers. This is like a big thing that I deeply believe. I think like most of us are outward seeking. The answer is already there. We just want the outside affirmation that collaborates with this interior voice that we already have. So just want to remind people, like you are a really powerful human. It's going to sometimes take you hitting your head on the

concrete and saying enough is enough. And then that's the catalyst that makes you change. Not because this guru did it or I said it or whatever, right? Like comes from within. And sometimes that decision comes from a place of loss in the beginning or pain or suffering. And that's where the most beautiful things can be sprouted from, right? And we've seen that time and time again. So I think a part of my 3.0, 3.5 in this next stage of my life is like purpose-driven, want to do really important work with people and organizations that know that life is finite, or at least I can remind them how finite life is. And at the end of the day, I don't care what role that you have in what organization.

Once you identify the things that are the most important to you, the faster and more effective that you will start to realize that whatever you're doing to create that monetary urge to help support what you have becomes much more effective. And sometimes it's a decision of like, this is actually not the path that I want to do it. And that's also okay. So it's just like, I seek, you know, to be an evolved version of myself and I'm far from perfect in so many ways. And I, I'm hungry to learn. And, um, I look back on my life and all of the missteps or failures, whatever they might be. And I just say like, man, like I've been gifted like a life here that I've been

done very good things in sport and I've had all these business opportunities. And so like, what is the next path for me? What's, what's alignment. So like as close as I can get to the congruent of what I want to be while allowing myself to just explore the world is kind of what I'm after. It sounds, it feels like early versions were about being the best. Yeah. Second versions are about being your best. Third versions are about helping other people be their best. Yeah. So there's some sort of arc there that seems really natural. Okay. I could go on and on and on and on. I love what you're doing and how you're guiding your life and you're, you're an emblem and a beacon for for like what humans can be and so congrats on like the life arc and the clarity still going yeah 100 and the

clarity and i know i think you're way more interested in eulogy versus resume you know that that thinking about at the end of your life that look at my resume versus you know what somebody or some people are going to say about you but i I don't even think you care too much about what they're going to say about you. It's about living authentically you. I think the authenticity part is where you gain real freedom. You just, you can break free from the shackles of preconceived expectations of people that it just, I think that if you show up as your, as yourself and continuing as your best self, people will love you. So that was actually the subtitle of the first audio book I did, which is learning how to live and lead authentically. You know, it's called compete

to create living and leading authentically. And it's a difficult thing to do. What you just said is easy to say and difficult to do. Is that where your five golden rules comes in? Do you hook around those in any way? And gratitude, giving, grit, gearing up and go. Yes, it's gratitude, giving, grit, kind of gearing up or setting your expectation and then go, which is just like, just go, just go. You gotta go test it. Go get it, yeah. The authenticity part came in when I was just noticing a correlation between the friends who I had seen who had incredible financial success, the friends that I'd seen who had incredible personal relationship, intimate relationship, and family success, people I've

seen who had incredible health or personal friendship success. And then the friends that had a little bit of everything. And what I found is that every one of them that had these different areas, none of them were faking the funk. That's right. Yeah. All of them were just like, this is just who I am. And I, and, and, but they had confidence in knowing what they were really good at. And they had confidence in knowing what they were not good at. That's on the financial side. On the personal relationship side, they were like, this is who I love. This is what we want together. And I can be myself with that person. And that person loves me. It doesn't mean that person doesn't want me to improve. I've seen this correlation, right? And also, again, this is my own personal experiences with my own relationship failures in my life where I had failed to be my best self or I was projecting

someone in my eyes who I wanted that person to be versus who they really were. And that's not fair to that person. So lots of learnings there for me. And then the last part is like piecing all together. And I've just found the correlation is that people are really hyper-authentic, right? So you look at someone like Warren Buffett, that man is so authentic to his own brand and himself, he can't help himself at this point. You don't think a PR firm told him to stay in his- It doesn't even matter. They could try whatever they want. He is just going to be himself. Yeah, I know. It's refreshing. Sam Zell, right? This real estate tycoon. If you watch any of Sam Zell's interviews,

Sam Zell is just gonna cut it straight and he's gonna tell you, I think that's garbage and baloney and I think it's real. So the reason why authenticity is so powerful is I believe that it's hard to show up as your true self because we're afraid that it won't be accepted by other people.

But we've seen others around us hard to show up as your true self because we're afraid that it won't be accepted by other people, but we've seen others around us call our crazy uncle or crazy aunt, right? You know, just using this as like an example. There's something about that person that's so endearing, they can't help it but to be themselves and therefore we love them because embedded in that is truth. That's right. We actually just want the truth. I want the truth of this person, this thing. And so I think the more that we can attempt to show up as our best self, whatever that is, our authentic self, is unveiling our truth, which then takes the weight vest off, takes the mask off, and it no longer is like, okay, judge me. It's like, hey, I'm just here.

I'm floating through life the same way you are. I think that's really hard. I'm channeling my early life. I couldn't do it. Yeah, I couldn't either. Yeah, I couldn't do it. And the mistakes I made from that, you know, stupid and hurtful to others

more than me in many cases. And then I channel my wife now, which she sent me a text what's up lisa uh just the other day that says um sometimes i feel like i'm not for this world i can't conform to the bullshit and there's a pain in that because there's so much bullshit about look a certain way and speak a certain way and whatever that the world's zigging. And she's like, why am I always the one zagging? You know, like, and so there, there is some, there's a phase of it that is painful. So I don't want to just miss that part. And I, you know, we've been talking

about pain a lot and we're both, I think saying, go know your pain and suffering, like sit with it, get to know it, which is a very Buddhist idea. And it's been so difficult, but at the same time, liberating. And so, yeah. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore. When it comes to my health, I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth.

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finding mastery for 25% off and then plus an extra $50 on us because quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance. Do you have a process that you go within? Do you write? Do you meditate? Do you have a wisdom? When I meditate often is when you see the best Apollo show up. Oh, yeah. How about it?

I just am more patient. The vibe and energy is more calm and accepting and present, which is like always a battle when you're like a heavy caffeine consumer. It's like this, like just imagine this like monk, like meditating and this dude just like vibrating around the room. I would say like, yeah,

like so like when I, there's many ways in which I feel like my best self, but I think writing is a great way. So I travel a lot. I live on, I don't live on planes, but I think writing is a great way. So I travel a lot. I live on, I don't live on planes, but I travel quite often. And I found that taking like 15 minutes on a plane and just writing, just like, just, just brain dumping thoughts, dreams, aspirations, and then keeping them as notes on my computer is like really powerful. I like to take, I like to write down

stuff to like by physical hand as well and keep those as well. What do you do with your notes? Like on your, do you have a program that you're using or what do you do with your physical notes? You just keep them in binders or do you translate them? So sometimes I translate them. Sometimes I just keep them. Like I have, I have quite a bit. And what's interesting is I think I got this from my dad. So I went back to my dad's house this last Christmas and I was going through all these old tapes because I was going to digitize all these photos and tapes that he had. It was like thousands and thousands of videotapes and pictures of me when I was a kid. I was like, oh my God, I didn't know half of these things even existed. And then I saw this huge row of books. My dad has journals

from when I was three, four, five, six, of him writing to- Oh, his stuff, his journals in English with like a little bit of Japanese writing, writing to me, writing about me. So I had just like lost a race or something that I basically had given up. And it was, and I was like, wow, I had no idea my dad was keeping a recollection account of, he's saying like, you don't know your own potential. You're throwing away something because you don't realize the stake that is at, the cost that it has for you to get to this point.

He never showed me these things. I just stumbled upon this stuff. Oh my God. Yeah. And then, so I think I get a lot of that writing from my dad. And also like, you can kind of tell, and this is like for a different conversation, Mike, but like, you can probably tell like my dad

was a deep believer in doing the deep work. Like, so he would like wake me up at like 12, 13 years old. And like at three 30, four 30 in the morning, he'd wake me up and take me to these empty school and charge church parking lots.

And then strapped like a minor's light to my helmet and make me skate around these empty parking lots. Like just roller skating with like a clipboard. I don't know what the hell he's even writing down. I'm so young. Like what are these, you know, lap just roller skating with like a clipboard. I don't know what the hell he's even writing down. I'm so young. Like what are these lap times even matter? And that was like how I began speed skating. So like his barometer for excellence was quite high

at a very early age. So that has its own like stuff associated with it. I was talking to a four-time Olympian the other day and asking about their kids. And, um, and they said, uh, one of our kids is waking up at 5.00 AM before school. I go, for what reason? Uh, the whole family's really good. And this, this kid has like two left feet. And so really trying to sort it out. I'm like, Oh my God, imagine like they got more than one kid. So imagine that, like, I hear you saying that. And I kind of

identify with the kid that's just trying to get better for approval and to fit in. And you know, yeah. Do you have regrets that you, that have fueled you well, or how do you think about regrets? I wrote a book. My first book was called zero regrets be greater than yesterday. Wait, I missed this. Yeah. Oh my first book was called zero regrets be greater than yes wait i missed this yeah oh my first book was called zero regrets 13 years ago believe it or not okay it did well new york time bestseller okay um i just throw that in there it was um it was a philosophical view it's actually very similar kind of to what my view is today albeit less less edgy and sharp and more like understanding the world because i mean i was just fresh out the Olympic games.

So my view of the world was very linear, but it was pretty clear. So it was just about like, let's first state the obvious elephant in the room. No one lives a life with no regrets. Let's just be very clear. Everyone has regrets, but how can we pursue a life of zero regrets is really the effort philosophical view. How do we pursue a life of preparation? And it was really geared towards performance, right? So the trigger therapy that I used psychologically for my final Olympic Games was zero regrets. So I knew that short track is so volatile. By the time we got to the Olympic Games, I just wanted to be able to tell myself at every

training session leading up, zero regrets is what you want to be able to tell yourself about the preparation that you had. So like no stoned unturned. This is you. This is your full self. You had cracked your mental capacity many, many times getting to the stage. And this is you. This is you in its entirety. You the stage. And this is you, this is you in

its entirety. You cannot hide. So this is zero regrets. And I felt like, you know, I just believe that so much. And I felt like most people never get to that stage of obsession where they say like, okay, like if I can get to the point of like having zero regrets in my job, in my relationship, in whatever, it's impossible to get to. But that should be the path that we are headed towards. It gets wonky for me and I think for many folks that don't have this singular one thing, skating, right? It's like zero regrets as a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, you know, and a global citizen. And so like the compromises in between those every day is hard. Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I'm folding up today early to go watch my son play. Amazing. He's an eighth grader. I'm going to go watch it. And so they only have eight games a

season as an eighth grader, but he's got club outside of it, which is different. It feels different when you're playing for your own, your school. So I'm folding up early to go and I'm trying to make every one of his eight and I'm going to be gone for two of them. So I'm like, damn, but there's, but then I'm not leaning into the other three areas in the way that I know I could, if I didn't turn off the lights at the studio, the mastery lab till 30, you know? And when I was like really in a crazy phase, I think you'll recognize this is that when my wife and I were just talking about the other day, I wasn't turning the lights off until 1.30 in the morning. And it was up at 7.30.

And it was work and dissertation and clients and building a business. And I don't want to be back in that phase. But I have no flipping regrets about I chipped in. Sure. And it gave me a base to be able to build from. So I kind of crave that singularity, but I don't have it now because it's like a hedgehog. What's it called? Like wide and deep.

Is that the hedgehog? Yeah. Yeah. Wide and deep. And so I'm a little bit more wide in many of the things right now. Do you have any guidance on that bit? I can relate to that a hundred percent. I mean, there's, there's many parts of my Apollo 1.0 that served me very well for that period of time that I actually do not want to bring back into this world. Like I don't, if, if I am who I was back then today, I have no

ability to develop long-term, deep connection and relationships that have nothing to do with my work. Yeah. But they value, that's what I value as a human being. I love how you said that the world does not need, the world now does not need who I was when I was 20. Right.

But the world probably needed that when you were 20. I needed it. You needed it. I don't think the world did. You know, I had a nickname when I was surfing, like my friends did not like to surf with me because they call me La Machina, which is a, I know it's feminine, but I w I didn't care about if anyone else had a good time, I was going to get my waves. And so I think that that's how you were, right? Like, I don't think I would have liked being your teammate. Yeah. Right. I wouldn't

have liked being your team. No. Right. I wouldn't have liked being your teammate. Right. No, especially if you were competitive. You might've made me better because iron sharpens iron. Yes. But we probably would not have liked each other. Yeah. I made it.

I made the environment. I would have made the environment. Yeah. See, exactly. Too funny. Yeah. Did you see yourself as a hero or a villain? I mean, I don't think I viewed myself as a hero or a villain i mean i i don't think i viewed myself

as a villain or a hero i think i did i viewed myself as the american hero against others that were skating against me in team skating so like against south korea against the chinese against the russians the japanese it was always like um one apollo versus like three chinese three south koreans two two Canadians, and just one of me. So they could all skate together and team skate, but I was going to win. So it wasn't like I was villain or hero. It was more like I was, I always thought of myself as the underdog, which is weird.

Even when I was the best, I always thought that like I was the underdog. Strategy around like my competition strategy for races, I was known to stay in the back of the pack, four or five or six people in a race. I would be in very, very last place or second to last place until the last two and a half or two laps, which is like 18 to 17 seconds remaining in the race. So if we remove everything again and we just go one by one,

number one, I have draft, so I'm saving lots of energy, lots of energy. Okay. Number two, because you're saving lots of energy and there's only two laps remaining, you're playing with fire, which means the window is smaller for mistake. So every lap, like if I attack it seven laps ago, I have, I can make a mistake and do it for lap six and a half, six, five. If you make a mistake,

two laps to go remaining, you, it takes a long time to recalibrate and then reconfigure momentum to make a pass again. So there's no room for error. Basically. There's also something really psychologically. It feels like I had this belief system that if I was in front, I was very hard to pass. But if I'm behind you, I know, like,

that person is waiting for me, right? So I feel like I'm already now in control. You were nasty. Right? Yeah, yeah, very much. So like, I want you to wait for me, even though you go, I'm not ready yet. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going yet. One, one and a half laps ago. Nope. I'm still here waiting. One up to go. Coaches are screaming. He's coming. So imagine psychologically what this is doing subconsciously to the athlete. They're just waiting for this guy to pass him. Like almost kind of already conceded.

So that was like my belief is like, I want to be able to control the race without even having to be in the lead because they're waiting for me. So it was almost, it's like part physiological of getting the draft. Part of it was like psychological. And then I became very used to,

the whole thing in speed skating is conserving as much energy as possible for as long as you possibly can. And then you lay the hammer down to just explode and give all of your energy to the ice and then propel yourself around. It didn't always work right, obviously, but it probably wasn't that as like complex psychologically for these athletes, but I believe that was because that's the stuff that I would do in my own head because that's what i would feel when i was in the lead and someone was behind me i was like oh shit if i feel it these other guys got to feel too right so an athlete uh he was a heavyweight boxer he was a champion and we talked about um not pre-fight the day before it weigh-ins and i was talking about that moment because he was great at it and he goes if he looks me straight in the eye, I know I got him.

I'm going to beat him right there. Right. If he looks away, I know I got him because he couldn't make eye contact. So it's like the point is, even if they didn't have the experience, you're like, I'm winning though. That is awesome. We would do. There was so many silly little games we would do. So like before you get on the ice, everyone's in this like little heat box off of the ice.

Right, yeah, the waiting room. There's an ice steward that rips the pad and allows all the athletes to then walk onto the ice, take the guards off and skate. And so I knew that certain athletes, like certain Canadian athletes, love to be first in line to get on the ice. I had such an ass back then.

So like what I would do, last minute I'd just go right in front and this guy they'd lose it right because they were like how dare this guy so rudely cut in front of me in line or then

and then another thing that we would do is at the start line you have like a see there's like a dot you guys probably can't see you have dots that are like

they're supposed to be like right in the middle of your nose right down your groin so you're supposed to like be straddling the dot, like one, two, three, four, five. That's your starting position. And so what I would do,

or what other athletes would do the same thing is we would kind of like, we would cant the angle a little bit. So like, although my legs are there. You're crowded now. I'm actually just crowding the guy next to me. And then you would even put the hand out and you would touch the athlete.

That's like a big, no, no, never touched another athlete because you're now in another person's space. Right. Yeah. And so you would do that. Right.

And then it just would change the energy of the athlete, like almost instantly, just, just that thing. And then, um, sometimes like, you know,

athletes would talk to each other, like, you know, the start line or just, you know, funny stuff. So that's awesome. Yeah. Psy ops. Yeah, total psy ops.

And honestly, sometimes it would take me out of my own game. It would. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You have to have a rich command to play in that way. Or you have to thrive on it. Yeah.

Is that what you were? You would thrive on it? I actually like to stay on my own lane. You did. But then I would, you know, I would play with fire sometimes when I was never in the Olympics, always in like World Cups. I would try to play around with different scenarios and try to identify and see. Because for me, it's like a poker game.

I'm trying to see if this guy's actually having a really great day on the ice or if he's just faking like he's having a really great day on the ice because I can't really tell. And so like I try to find these different areas in which, how do I poke to see if I get a response that gives me an indication that he's bluffing or he's actually performing really well that day? And he actually has some real confidence. That's awesome. Because the real confidence stuff is dangerous for me as an athlete. Because if he actually really has confidence, oh shit, I got to prepare better. If he's faking the confidence, then I, okay, I know what to do now. And faking the confidence, the evidence would be, he gets frustrated or irritated. He, you somehow knocked him off. It's not mind like water. I'm a

badass. I'm here. Do it. Whatever games you want Apollo, like it's going to be a long day for you. That's real confidence, right? Fake confidence is like quick to irritate. Like they're just, they're rattled. No one in speed skating to irritate. Like they're just, they're rattled. No one in speed skating ever wants to show that they're tired after they finish a race. They kind of want to stand up and no one wants to be breathing really that heavily. But it's like really hard, right? It's like we all are. But just it's a funny game that everyone's playing, especially in the practice days leading

up to the competition. So on the competition day, I will watch to see what the lap times are they're skating. And I'll try to gauge if the effort level is matching the lap time. Cause everyone wants to keep both arms in their back or only swing one arm. Keeping both arms in her back theoretically means that you're trying less hard than everyone else. You're still in a very reserved state. So you can see guys like struggling to keep both arms in their back and they're skating those up times. And so if I saw someone skating really fast and they made it look easy, that's when I was like, oh, like I have to change up my strategy with that person because he is having

a really good day on the ice. I can't use the normal strategy. So like with the Canadians, for example, they were, they're just, they're really fast. Their top end speeds really fast. But what they're not good at is there's a style of skating strategy called like the slinky. So you want to create this motion. So I'm in first, they're behind me. You want to go fast and then slow down. So they have to basically run into the back of you and then they have to like rebuild their momentum again. So if you make them restart

twice, they can't pass you. It's too much energy expenditure. So when someone was really fast and they were skating faster than me, that I would skate a track pattern that would create the slinky motion where they would basically run into the back of you. And that's really frustrating too. I want to do more with you. Like I, I love what you're doing. Where do you want people to go to find you? Hard pivot? Yes. But you've also got businesses that you're guiding and supporting. So how can people think about your business life right now? And where can we drive them?

Obviously on all the social channels, Twitter at Apollo Ono, Instagram at Apollo Ono, which is a little more lifestyle slash like me talking head to camera stuff. LinkedIn will probably have a little bit more of a corporate push and look and feel

in terms of like sport, athletics, in terms of like, what are the challenges you're facing today? That's some of the content that I focus on. And then the other areas of focus is just really anything around kind of mindset, physical performance, longevity, kind of those areas of just showing up as our best self. So, um, yeah, would love to look, I, I, these types of conversations are super fun because they are real. They're important.

They affect everyone, no matter which career and direction you're going in your life. And, you know, the book was dedicated to people that if you have, or are facing loss or a big decision or a hard pivot, like here's some reminders for you. These aren't, these aren't rules. These are reminders that you have the steering wheel in your hand. That's cool. Brother. I for you. These aren't, these aren't rules. These are reminders that you have the steering wheel in your hand. That's cool. Brother. I appreciate you. Thank you again for coming in and spending time and sharing your wisdom, your insight, and more than anything, I appreciate who you are. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for diving into

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