High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 367: The Mindset to Overcome Adversity with Melissa Stockwell, Purple Heart Recipient, 3x Paratriathlon World Champion, & Motivational Speaker

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your goals and dreams. So I'm over here following my big dreams and I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man.

Starting point is 00:00:45 Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the High Performance Mindset. Welcome to episode 367 with Melissa Stockwell. This is your host, Dr. Cendra Kampoff, and thank you so much for joining me today here at the High Performance Mindset Podcast. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place. Because we talk about everything related to mindset here on the podcast, and this week,

Starting point is 00:01:19 we are talking about the mindset to overcome adversity with Melissa Stockwell. In 2002, Melissa graduated from the University of Colorado and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army. Two years later, she was deployed to Baghdad, Iraq. And in 2004, she was on a routine convoy when her Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb. The blast resulted in the amputation of her left leg above the knee and she was the first female to ever lose a limb in active combat.

Starting point is 00:01:50 After a year of rehab at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, she was medically retired with a purple heart and a bronze star. And she quickly adapted into life of sports and went on to swim in the 2008 Beijing Paralympics before turning to the sport of triathlon in 2009. She is now a three-time paratriathlon world champion and a recent bronze medalist from the 2016 Rio Paralympics. And Melissa currently travels the nation for her career as a motivational speaker and runs a prosthetic company with her husband in Colorado Springs. Melissa is a proud above-the-knee amputee

Starting point is 00:02:27 and a proud American who proudly lives a life of sport. She feels she has done more in her life with one leg than she would ever have done with two. And she's currently training in hopes of her third Paralympic Games in Tokyo 2021. And in this episode, Melissa and I talk about the power of choice, why staying in the present is key to success in life and sport, how pressure and passion connect, and how to keep going when the world feels upside down.

Starting point is 00:03:01 If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to head over wherever you're listening to leave us a rating and review. This helps us reach more and more people each week on the High Performance Mindset. And if you'd like to read the transcript from today's interview, it is over at cindracampoff.com slash Melissa Stockwell. Without further ado, let's bring on Melissa. Melissa, I'm so honored that you are here today on the High Performance Mindset Podcast. So thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Colorado Springs. I know you're joining us there today. It sounds incredible. Yes, it's a beautiful day out. Nice. nice, yes. And a great place to train as

Starting point is 00:03:46 well. Great place to train. So to get us started, tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do right now. So I am currently a para triathlete in the sport of triathlon. So I'm missing my left leg above the knee and I swim, bike and run a lot. The goal is the Tokyo 2021 Paralympic Games, which would be my third Paralympic Games. So I train. The training is really the focus of my days. But I do have a business in Colorado Springs with my husband, Brian, and we fit other amputees with artificial limbs. And I'm also a mother of two

Starting point is 00:04:27 young children. And I do a lot of speaking. Lately, it's been more virtual speaking. But yeah, the day the days are busy, but they're good. Yeah, that's wonderful. So so many things that you have to balance. And we'll talk a little bit about that today and how you handle everything with your own mindset. But just kind of briefly tell us about your decision to join the military and what that decision was like. Pretty short and sweet. You know, I love our country. And I realized at a young age how lucky we were to live in the country that we do. Wanted to give back and decided that I wanted to wear the uniform and serve our country.

Starting point is 00:05:12 Yeah. And I know you lost your limb in the Iraq war. So tell us about, well, first, maybe to start off, you know, what did you learn about mindset in terms of before even, you know, maybe when you were starting in the military, but I'm just thinking there's a lot of people in my field who work in the military. So I'm curious, like, what did you learn even before you went to war about mindset? You know, I honestly would never really would have thought about it in that way. I think in the military, though, like you learn, you learn so much about, like teamwork, about camaraderie, about putting a mission above yourself. You learn, you know, going over being deployed. I mean, you, you kind of have to trust in your training. You have to trust in the fact that you joined the military to serve your country and that's what you're going to go do. So you kind of just have to kind of trust everything that's led up to that

Starting point is 00:06:03 moment. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm thinking also like so much resiliency skills that you need when things don't go perfectly. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I feel like you go over, you're deployed over, you know, to a foreign country and you always expect things to go so well. It's like you prepare for the best.

Starting point is 00:06:22 You never really think anything else will happen. You always think something bad would happen to somebody else. Yeah. So give us a sense of, you know, I know you kind of woke up in a Baghdad ER and were missing your leg. So tell us about that experience and what that was like for you in terms of just coping with that. So yeah, I was 24 years old, you know,

Starting point is 00:06:46 and my vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb and woke up in the baguette emergency room and was told by the surgeon that I no longer had my leg. And, you know, I think, you know, pretty early on, I was pretty, I've always been a very positive person. And it sounds kind of cheesy to say that from the start, like I knew I was going to be okay, but that that's kind of the reality of it. I know that when I was when I was told that my leg was no longer there. You know, I was obviously under a lot of medication, a lot of pain medication, but remember being thankful. It was, you know, myself and not another one of my soldiers and just kind of knowing that I would be able to get through it. Yeah. So you had this hope, this belief, you didn't go to the worst case scenario. And kind of what I'm also hearing is like, just this gratitude to be alive. Yes, definitely. Yeah. So what was your journey like back coming

Starting point is 00:07:42 home in, um, in terms of you could no longer serve in that way, in that capacity, right? So tell us about your journey just recovering. So I did my, well, I did all of my recovery, actually, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which at the time was where all the wounded soldiers went from Iraq and Afghanistan. And, you know, it was there, you know, I looked around, I saw other soldiers missing two limbs, they had lost their eyesight, traumatic brain injuries, and really considered myself one of the lucky ones to have only lost one leg to, you know, still have

Starting point is 00:08:16 my life, you know, as you mentioned, just being very grateful. So really put things in perspective and kind of made a promise then to live my life for those who had given an ultimate sacrifice to not let losing a leg stop me from doing really anything that I wanted to do. Yeah. Well, I think just you saying that inspires me and inspires those people who are listening because, you know, no matter what you might be going through, I do think it's helpful sometimes to think about what other people might be struggling with and be grateful, even though that you might

Starting point is 00:08:49 be struggling as well. But there's always kind of a lens to look through that you can still see the positive and be grateful for what you have. Definitely. And I think, you know, I think it's okay to not be okay. I think that's, you know, that term is very apparent and that's with anything in life, really any after losing a limb or after just, you know, you don't have it, you're having a bad day. I mean, it's okay to not be okay, but at the same time, I think it's, and for some it's easier than others, but just to put things in perspective that a lot of people would love to have are bad days. And then, you know, just to kind of look around and kind of think about how good we really have things in our own life.

Starting point is 00:09:31 I know that you're a keynote speaker. So can you give us a sense of what are some of the messages that you might deliver in that medium? And I'm just kind of in that medium. I'm just kind of thinking about, obviously, you share your story, but I'm curious on how you might help the audience as you're speaking. So I do speak a lot to various corporations and groups.

Starting point is 00:09:53 And I would say the main message is that of power of choice. So I feel like choices are so important in all of our lives. And any obstacles that come our way, we have the power and really how we choose to deal with them and to overcome them and in my own life I mean after losing a leg I had I had a major decision was I going to you know take the downhill road the poor me never really accept the loss of my leg or was I gonna you know make a conscious decision to choose to accept the loss of my leg move on and see what I can do with it and that choice is really what propelled the start of the rest of this incredible life that I now live so my hope

Starting point is 00:10:41 is when I speak to groups that I finish up, tell my story, they kind of think about their own lives, the choices that they've made, and how they can then choose to make their life what they want it to be. Yeah, inspiring message. And I also think about, there's so much truth to that, that sometimes we make choices, and we don't really think about them twice, or we're really struggling. It's like, okay, how can I make a conscious choice right now, regardless of, you know, how difficult my situation is. Right. Yeah. Do you think, when you think about the moment that you made a conscious choice, can you give us a sense of when that moment was and what the choice was that you made?

Starting point is 00:11:23 Yeah, I mentioned that a little bit, but just at Walter Reed, I mean, just being around those other soldiers, I think, I mean, very early on, I just really made, I don't really have a specific day or I don't, I can't remember the specific moment, but I just know very early on, I just, you know, made that conscious decision to, you know, look around, saw others who had it much worse off than I did and made that decision to accept it and to move on. Yeah. So now, as an athlete who's gone to the games, give us a sense of what, well, first of all, what is that like to train? I know you went into swimming events, right? I got that right. Okay. okay in swimming and now working to go to Tokyo

Starting point is 00:12:07 21 so give us a give us a sense of what it's like to just to train I mean it's a very much a like a part-time job I mean 20 hours a week is about what I spend on swimming biking running um you know maintenance of my body so I can kind of get up and do it again the next day. So, I mean, I love it. I'm so fortunate that I get to wake up and do what I do. But yeah, I mean, I spent hours, you know, on my bike, in the pool, you know, running all with this goal of trying to get to Tokyo and hopefully be on that podium. What was it like during the last Olympics? I know you got third in the triathlon. So what was that like? It was the inaugural event. There we go. But give us a sense of what that was like just to stand on that podium. Oh, amazing. It will go down as one of the greatest moments of my life, just

Starting point is 00:13:00 being on the podium. It was September 11th 2016 wearing the USA uniform it was a USA sweep we got to see three American flags go up as we heard the national anthem and you know just thinking about everyone that helped get me there to that moment and it was um I mean it was incredible I don't it'll be it'll be tough to beat but the goal in Tokyo will be to beat that moment so what do you do now to train your mind in terms of, you know, helping you be able to be the best that you can be in that moment in Tokyo happens? You know, I'll tell you that that is probably the, it's, so we have a sports psychologist that we have access to. But personally, like life is very busy. So that's

Starting point is 00:13:47 honestly probably one of the first things that that typically goes off of the calendar. Not because I want it to just because there's always so much going on. So when I'm unable to talk with her, I have to find kind of my own, my own sense on how I'm able to kind of train my mind. And, and I feel like I do that by taking sometimes it's just, I mean, two to three minutes a day, if that's all I have, just to like sit down in a quiet space. I mean, clear my mind, do, you know, some, just some like deep breathing where I'm completely present in what I'm doing. So instead of trying to think about everything else that's going on around me, which is so easy to do, but just trying to be very present in that particular moment. And the hope is that, and it has worked, is that it kind of

Starting point is 00:14:37 carries over into my athletics. So when I'm swimming in my race, I'm not thinking about everything else that I'm about to go do or, you know, what happened that morning. I am completely present in that swim, you know, and trying to be as fast as I can be. And then I get on the bike and on the run. So really kind of training my mind to be in that moment. And, I mean, there's been such proven success behind it working. So, if I train it every day, then when I, when I am competing, it's going to be easier for me to stay in the present. Definitely. It's just like you're training your body for athletics. You train your mind for sure.

Starting point is 00:15:38 Yeah. Give us a sense of when you were competing in triathlon, what do you, I just think I'm a runner myself, I'm a marathoner, but I don't do any triathlons. My husband does. But, you know, just such an endurance event where you have to keep going. Give us a sense of like, what do you use to keep pushing and to keep going and to be able to like be able to push through that discomfort, you know, that you're really feeling if you're really competing your hardest yeah it's hard I mean I think the the a true athlete gets keeps going when it when it's hard so and you have to find ways that that keep you going and for some it's you know a mantra that they may have I mean for me personally, it's this, you know, a mantra of I can do this, I can do this.

Starting point is 00:16:28 And also, I mean, I'm so inspired by, by so many things. So I think about the things that inspire me. And to me, it's, you know, soldiers who have given that ultimate sacrifice. It's wanting to prove to myself that I can still do what I want to do and be the best athlete out there. So I've taken what inspires me and I just use it to push myself to be as fast as I can. I think about competing on a big stage, you know, give us a sense of what do you do to not let the pressure get to you? I mean, you know, some pressure is good pressure. I think if we didn't feel pressure, then we wouldn't be passionate about what we do. So I think what it's trying to channel that pressure.

Starting point is 00:17:16 And I mean, it's tough. I mean, it's, you know, you get up that starting line and you have to, at that moment, you just have to trust your training. You have to trust that you're going to go out there and give it your best because, I mean, there's really nothing else you can do. I mean, you can't think back and say, oh, I should have trained harder for this moment because that is it. So I think it's in the days and weeks leading into a race that are the most crucial.

Starting point is 00:17:44 I say the days, the weeks, the months, and the years, right? So I think, you know, I think a little progress kind of adds up to that perfection. So getting to that starting line and just knowing that you gave it your best and you're going to go and just being comfortable with the fact that your best is good enough. Yeah. Well, what I'm hearing in your response also is like, to be confident in your training that like by putting in the hours, hours a week, be confident. I mean, you know, you can, you get to that starting line and you just kind of look around and you think, I can beat these people and I'm going to do everything I can to try to beat them. And

Starting point is 00:18:22 you just kind of go for it. I mean, that's really all you can do. So I know the Olympics and the Paralympic Games were supposed to happen, like literally right now. So how investing to that change? And I'm just also thinking, Melissa, there's so many people who are listening who are going through changes in their own life, maybe some things that were supposed to happen that haven't, you know, just changes in the sport season in general. So give us a sense of like, how have you been dealing with all of the different changes within sport? Sure. So yeah, I mean, I think as most of us know, the Olympics and Paralympics are postponed a year. And I don't think it was a huge surprise to any of us. We kind of knew it was a possibility. And I mean, it happened. And obviously, health always comes first. So I think it was very much

Starting point is 00:19:11 the right decision. You know, I think, again, always trying to be positive and to put a positive outlook on things. But it, you know, I like to think that it's a whole nother year for me to get even faster. It's another year for my kids to grow up another, to get another year older and to realize why mommy swim lights and runs all the time. But there is so much change going on around us now. And I think what I've learned, obviously, I've dealt a lot with change after losing my leg, but it's going to help put things in perspective right now. I mean, we had this pandemic, right, that we never expected that we would have to live through. And I think it's so important that we go about our days as best as we can.

Starting point is 00:19:53 We can't compare our days to anyone else. We can't judge our own days based on what anyone else is doing. So you live the life the best that you can. I mean, if you're a parent working full time from home and you have young kids, I mean, I've talked to so many of my friends that are struggling because they do that and then they feel bad. You know, their kids end up in front of the screens more than they want to. But personally, I think if that's what you have to do, you do it. I think right now you just do what you have to do. You can't feel bad about the

Starting point is 00:20:26 things that you do to make your days the best as you can. And I think at night, you know, you lay down and instead of thinking about all the negative parts of your day to try to, you know, to try to think about the positive parts of the day and the positive things that happen and hope that positivity can hopefully somehow override those, the negative parts of the world that we're all seeing so much. Absolutely. And it's easy, I think, Melissa, to like be focusing on all the things that are going wrong or the things that are missing. But what I hear you say is, can you, can you look back at your day and say, hey, here's the three things that went well today, even if all of these things I can't control.

Starting point is 00:21:10 Definitely. Yeah. It's hard that you can't, I mean, we can't control everything, right? So much is out of our control. So I think focusing on what we can control is, is key. When you think about mindset and just, um, you know, making sure this is helping you compete at your best instead of hurting you, what do you see that the best of the best do? You know, I'm thinking about you're around a lot of great athletes, incredible athletes. Maybe you train with them. You know, you obviously see them when you compete. So what do you think separates the best of the best from a mental standpoint? I think it's confidence. I think it's being confident in training. I think it's not letting, using the stress and the pressure towards good instead of letting it get to you in a negative way. They find a way to kind of channel it into the energy that maybe they

Starting point is 00:21:59 didn't have before and just to kind of run with it. They thrive. I think the best athletes thrive under pressure. Yeah, yeah. And I think what you said earlier, I wrote down, it's like, well, if we wouldn't feel pressure, we wouldn't be passionate about what we're doing, right? And I think you're spot on. It's like, well, I feel pressure on things that I really want to do well at, right?

Starting point is 00:22:25 That are things that I do love that I'm choosing to do. And then I'm typically passionate about it because I really want to do well. So just using that to frame the pressure, I think is powerful. Yeah, definitely. So I'm thinking about the people who are listening. And I know you have have you're balancing your training with your own company with you know being a mom how do you balance it all I have an incredible team I mean my my husband number one who I mean my dreams kind of become his dreams and he wants

Starting point is 00:22:59 Tokyo 2021 to happen as much as I do so you, you know, I had this incredible support system. You know, my kids are at ages where they're in daycare or in kindergarten. So I had these hours during the day to train, help with the company, to do speaking, whatever it may be. So I think it's having a good team, surrounding yourself with people that, you know, have the same goals as, as you do. And also, you know, filling your days with the things that make you happy. You know, we only have so much time in, in our days. So making sure that we make the most of it. So what is your journey going to be like to, to, to Tokyo 2021? Like, obviously you got to keep training your heart out, but what other things do you

Starting point is 00:23:46 what are your kind of milestones that you're working towards to make sure that that um that you give yourself the best chance of success there yeah I mean the training now it's it's hard now because all the races this year have been canceled so you know kind of training towards some unknown race next year next March so trying to keep up with the training, just, you know, there are days where you wake up and you're like, do I really have to go jump in the pool right now? Is that really going to matter in a year? But the answer is it is going to, and what we do now will affect our outcome then. So continuing to train, I mean, we'll have trials next March. So, you know, first I have to make the team. So trying to do that, but along the

Starting point is 00:24:25 way, obviously trying to be the best mother, the best wife I can be trying to help our new business flourish and, and, you know, help with marketing and patients and that and, and everything that comes with that. So I feel like there's a lot of, you know, there's every day bring this new set of challenges, but kind of ready to tackle them and see where see where they bring me uh i think what what i one of the things that i wrote down i think is really powerful is like just remembering that you're training towards your this unnamed thing right and how that could like make you lose motivation or question why you're doing it but you still get up because you know it's going to impact the outcome. And for people right now who maybe are struggling with like motivation or sticking with something, if it's training as an athlete, I think just remembering that what you do now will help

Starting point is 00:25:16 you be able to perform the way that you want to. It will. And I'll say that, so I train with a team. There's five of us and we have a coach and we train, you know, multiple times a week together. And just having that team, that accountability, having a coach there, that is, I mean, that's huge. I mean, if I had to do it all on my own, it would be even harder. So just having that team for accountability, having that coach is huge. When you think about advice that you might give to other people kind of in your similar boat, maybe they're training but working and they have kids, right? And they're trying to balance it all. Do you have any advice or suggestions, you know, that you think's really helped you?

Starting point is 00:26:05 I think the suggestions is you have to, sometimes you have to like let go of the small stuff. So, I mean, for example, I use, I'm, I'm very much, I like things clean and organized, but if I need to attend to my kids instead of do, if I want to go play a game with my kids instead of do the dishes in the sink, what's, when I think about what's most important to me, it's going to playing with my kids, right? So it's kind of choosing what do I want to spend my time doing? And if the dishes aren't done at the end of the night, is it the end of the world? No. What means even more is that I spent that time with my children. So I think just kind of finding what's the most important to you. And if you have to let some other things go, that's just part of trying to do everything

Starting point is 00:26:46 that you wanna do. So it's okay to let some other things go just to figure out, just to do the things that make you happiest. Well, Melissa, I'm so glad, I'm so grateful that you took the time to talk with us today. Before we kind of wrap it up,

Starting point is 00:26:59 tell us where people can learn more about you, hire you to speak. I know you have an awesome TED Talk. So tell us about where we can learn more about you, hire you to speak. I know you have an awesome TED Talk. So tell us about where we can find you. Yep. So I have a website, just melissastockwell.com. And then obviously social media. So mstockwell01 is Instagram and Twitter. And that's a great place to kind of follow along on the path to Tokyo. And then as far as speaking, I'm on my website, there's a contact and that email comes directly to me and I would pass you on to my agent and hopefully it can work. Perfect. Well, here are

Starting point is 00:27:37 three things that you said today. I'm going to wrap up with these three things. Okay, a good summary. First, well, four, I guess, Melissa. First, just that we do each make, we can make a conscious choice, right? When we're in the middle of a difficulty, we can make a choice to see the possibilities. So I think that's powerful. What you said about being in the present moment and training yourself to be in the present and how just doing that in your normal day-to-day helps you compete in the present. You said that if we don't feel pressure, it's probably not something that we're passionate about, right? Or something about connecting pressure to passion. I thought that was

Starting point is 00:28:16 really awesome. And that when kind of you're unmotivated, you might think to yourself, your inner voice might say, well, you know, I'm fine if I don't train today. But you kind of quiet that in your voice and to say it will make a difference in Tokyo or on my way to Tokyo. So thank you so much for joining us. I'm grateful that you had a few minutes in your busy schedule to take time to inspire us. Awesome. Well, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive

Starting point is 00:29:02 community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.

High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 367: The Mindset to Overcome Adversity with Melissa Stockwell, Purple Heart Recipient, 3x Paratriathlon World Champion, & Motivational Speaker

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