High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 723: Performing Under Pressure with Connor Fields, Olympic Champion and Keynote Speaker

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

In this episode of The High Performance Mindset, Dr. Cindra Kamphoff sits down with Olympic gold medalist Connor Fields to unpack the mental journey behind elite performance, resilience, and reinvention. Connor shares how he learned competing at a young age, and how his mindset evolved across three Olympic cycles—from disappointment in 2012 to standing on top of the podium in Rio in 2016. He opens up about the mental tools he relied on under extreme pressure, how he learned to reframe failure, and the self-awareness required to perform at your best when the stakes are highest. The conversation also dives into Connor's recovery and growth following his devastating crash at the 2021 Olympics, including how he uses his "Now What?" framework to turn setbacks into momentum—both in sport and in life. Now a speaker and coach, Connor shares practical insights for leaders, athletes, and high performers on building resilience, managing pressure, and training the mind even when physical preparation is already elite. You'll learn: How confidence and mindset evolve across different stages of a career What separates surviving pressure from performing under pressure Why self-awareness is a cornerstone of resilience and peak performance How to turn disappointment, failure, and setbacks into powerful comebacks One mindset habit every leader should adopt—on and off the field This episode is a masterclass in confidence, resilience, and choosing your response when life doesn't go as planned.     HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE 🔹 Register for the Upcoming Mentally Strong Conference: Mentally Strong Conference – January 9, 2026 | Virtual Event 🔹 Learn more about Connor Fields: Connor Fields | Olympic BMX Champion and Motivational Speaker 🔹 Download the 2025 Confidence Crisis Study at https://confidencestudy.com/🔹 Request a Free Mental Breakthrough Call with Dr. Cindra and/or her team at freementalbreakthroughcall.com 🔹 Learn more about the Mentally Strong Institute at https://mentallystronginstitute.com/  Love the show? Rate and review the podcast—and you might hear your name on the next episode!

Welcome to the high performance mindset. I want to start off today inviting you to something I'm really excited about. As we step into 2026, I'd love for you to join me for our first ever mentally strong conference. It's a powerful virtual event designed to help you start the year confident, focused, and energized. And it's happening this Friday, January 9th in the morning, so you're not going to want to miss it. And guess what? You can join us from anywhere. This conference is true.

We got Hall of Fame speakers, best-selling authors, world-class professional speakers, uh-huh, and you're going to walk away with practical, tangible strategies that you can use immediately to strengthen your confidence, clarify your purpose, and build real momentum for this year. And guess what? There's a bonus. Registration is only $39. Yes, only $39. And when you register, you're going to be among the first to receive my upcoming book on confidence with Simon and Schuster. So huge value either way. You can join us for the full morning. You can drop in when you can.

Either way, if you can attend live, no worries. It's going to be recorded. So I'd love for you to go to Mentally Strongconference.com to learn more to register. And let's kick 2026 off with confidence, momentum, and energy. It's going to be amazing. You're not seriously going to want to miss it. So go to Mentally Strong Conference.com. And today I'm so excited for episode 723 to interview Connor Fields.

He is an Olympic gold medalist. And today we unpack the mental journey behind elite performance, resilience, and reinvention. So Connor shares how he learned to compete at a young age and how his mindset evolved across three Olympic cycles, yes, three, from disappointment in 2012 to standing on the top of the podium in Rio in 2016. So he really opens up about these mental tools that he relied on to perform at his best under extreme pressure. And he learned how to reframe failure. He learned that self-awareness is required to perform at your best when the stakes are highest. We also dive into his devastating crash in the 2021 Olympics and how he now uses his now what framework to turn setbacks

into momentum. All right, this episode is a masterclass in confidence, resilience, and choosing your response when life doesn't go as planned. I can't wait to hear about what you think about it. Let's dive into my interview with Connor. Welcome to the high performance mindset podcast. I'm excited today to Welcome, Connor Fields to the podcast. Thank you so much, Connor, for being here. I'm so grateful to have you share your wisdom with the people who are listening today. Yeah, absolutely. Happy to be here and happy to share what I have learned and continue to learn.

Awesome. So I want to start with just like learning more about BMX. Like how did you get into BMX? And at what point did you know that this was kind of more of a hobby that would really define your life? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, take it all the way back. So BMX stands for bicycle motocross. And basically, it was started in Southern California by kids who would make homemade racetracks out of dirt. They'd grab their bikes and then they would race around those tracks. Obviously, it's evolved and it's changed since then. But come 1999, I was seven years old. My mother found a flyer that was advertising the local Las Vegas where I live, the local Las Vegas PMAX track. And, you know, I was a super active kid playing all sorts of. different sports and, you know, wouldn't give my mom a break. And so I think, you know, the main intention of my mom taking me to try it was to give her a breather, a few minutes a piece and quiet. So I went out, I tried it. And right away, I loved it.

I think the things that I was most attracted to, number one is that it was an individual sport. And I was always hyper competitive, even at a young age. And I would struggle in team situations when I would feel like my teammates were not taking it as seriously as me. I mean, I've got store I have my parents mostly. They have tons of stories of when I was playing like wreck basketball, you know, and it's like the intensity of the NBA finals, but we're at the age where eight years old where everybody plays the same amount of minutes and it's about fun and I'm like screaming at kids because they're not passing the ball or they dribbled it out of balance or whatever, you know, which which is fine if you

stay with it to the to the point you're playing D1 and pro, but it doesn't really work when you're a kid. So my parents saw that and then I also just like this. So the individuality of it, I like And I also just liked the adrenaline. I've always been attracted to the rush, the speed. That was always something that I liked. And so I started racing BMX. I dropped out of sports around maybe the age of 10. I stopped doing everything else.

But at that point in time, BMX was not in the Olympics. There was no college opportunities. Like there was really, there was like a dead-end sport kind of. And my parents were stressing. But I loved it and I was dedicated. So they let me keep doing it. And then in 2008, when I was 15, they announced that BMX was going to make its Olympic debut. So we were- Amazing.

We were the first action sport that was added into the Summer Olympics. So due to the successes of freestyle snowboarding and half-pipe and things like that, you know, think Sean White, that whole era. Yeah. The success of that in Winter Olympics, they decided to bring it into the summer games and we were first. So I watched it when I was 15 on TV. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. And I was already competing at a national level at that time. But I was like, I was like, I got to do this.

I have to go to Olympics. I'm all in. Let's go. And that was the moment. Amazing. And obviously you're able to participate in the Olympics three times in 2012 and London, 2016 and Rio and then 2021 at Tokyo. What do you think it took just, you know, a lot of people who listened to the podcast.

Obviously, they'd listened because they'd listen. because they want to learn more about mindset and they want to learn what it takes to be, you know, the highest at your career or your sport or whatever that might be. What do you think it took to get to, like what are the mindset principles it took to get to the Olympics? Not only just once, but multiple times.

Yeah, where to start, where to start. So many. I'll say it is different mindsets because there's a different mindset of being a 16-year-old kid who's fired up and trying to make it. Then there's a different mindset of, you know, for my second Olympics of like, it's win or bust. And then there's a completely different mindset of I've won, I've done the thing,

I've climbed the mountain. I'm going to try to do it again. You know, I'm going to maintain and sustain that performance. So they're all very different, you know, and I've learned tons of different tips and tricks along the way, but I'm going to start by saying the base level of the pyramid, right? If you think about it like an old food pyramid, the base level where everything begins and nothing gets past this if it doesn't happen, you can have all the tips and tricks and fancy stuff in the book,

but you just have to freaking do it. And nobody likes to hear that because they're waiting for that magic bullet of, you know, here's your sixth step thing. And like that stuff helps. But at the base of it all, if you've got a New Year's resolution, you want to do something new, you have to wake up every morning and make the choice to do it. And I think that that is what's seven,

rates. The grade from the good and the athletes who can go to one Olympics versus the athletes who can do it for three and beyond is the ability to mentally get themselves to do something over and over and over again, even on days they don't want to do it. What it always boiled down to to me was a simple question. What do I want more? Do I want to go to the Olympics and win a gold medal? Or do do I want to stay in bed this morning? What do I want to be the world champion? Or do I want to open that beer? Do I want to be the greatest of all time?

Or do I want to skip training to go to that party tonight? You know, and it was always about what do I want more and what's right in front of you is the easy, I guess, shiny thing to distract you. But if you focus on what you want more, which is the big thing long term, that's where your decisions can be made from. I love it. I think the attribute you're describing is like Brit. You know, your ability to stick with something when it's hard and to persevere and to know exactly what you want. And I think most people really haven't decided what they want or definitely don't have like this commitment that they're willing to prioritize it over the things that are maybe fun or enjoyable or the short term like feel good, ice cream, whatever that might be over the hard stuff. the long-term training and everyday committing to be excellent. Yeah, 100% I agree. And I think, you know, it's not literally a muscle, but it acts like a muscle just like anything else that can be trained.

Now, obviously, I guess, you know, if we're talking to muscle terms, I've got a very developed grit muscle. But anybody can do something or make changes to develop resilience and grit. It could be as simple as I'm going to take a 30 second cold shower every morning. you know like hey i'm gonna do 30 seconds of something i don't want to do every single day and then when it comes time for something else that you have to make a choice or a decision or a perceived sacrifice you've developed that muscle and that mindset and i always i encourage all people to set themselves some sort of routine or a goal for a time period not indefinitely but for a time

period of something that you might not necessarily like be dying to do or want to do i use cold shower as an example, you know, it could be read. I don't like to read, but I make myself read for a certain amount of time every day, true of the week, because I know it's good for me, right? And just doing things that you don't necessarily want to do. And you develop the muscle and the ability to do that just like anything else. Connor, I was listening to Andrew Heberman's podcast a while ago, and he actually provided some research about why that's really important from a brain perspective. And he said when we do things that we don't want to do, our anterior accruciate, oh, I had this a minute and you go,

let's see if I can get it. Interior mid-sigular cortex. There we go, the part of our brain that actually gets bigger, the more we do things we don't really want to do. So I think, you know, there's some science to what you said. I'd love for us to tell the audience more about the three Olympics you were in. And obviously, I've heard your story about how they were so different. And I'd love for you to also talk about then how the mindset shifted in those three different Olympics.

Based on, I think, maybe your expectations or expectations of other people around you. Absolutely. And, you know, and they shifted my expectations. But also what is important to remember, and I guess I didn't realize it until I got older was the difference between going to the Olympics when you're 19, 23, and 27. Okay. I mean, the first one I went to I was 19. I was a child. I was a year graduated from high school.

I look at 19 year old kids now and I'm like, I think to myself, wow, like that was me. And I was balancing, you know, trying to figure out how we were going to get some beer on a Friday night and winning the Olympics. You know what I mean? Like the stark age, just how old you are. Then 23, you're a little more mature. You're living on your own. You know, you've got a little bit more life experience. Then 27, you know, 27 year old, the night senior.

are so different. Yes, that's true. The things that you go through in life change you. Changes your expectations, the way you approach situations, you know, and your ability to be resilient. You know, and before I get into the Olympic stuff, I like to share this with people because a lot of people don't realize it as well I say it, but there's kind of two different types of Olympic athletes.

There's the Olympic athletes that are there to compete. And what I mean by that is if you look at a, time to sport or, you know, a distance-based sport, like high jump or long jump, everybody knows what their best is. And if there are 30 people competing in the long jump and you know that your best ever long jump is only the 15th best long jump in the competition, you know that even if you do your best, you're probably got about 0% chance of getting a medal. You're not going to get a medal.

Yeah. So you're going to do your best and to compete and you really don't have much. much pressure. And now, America loves to make it seem like everybody wins and that we all come home with buckets of medals, but there's roughly 500 Olympic athletes on every summer Olympic team, and only about 60 to 80 of them win a medal. Over 80% of the athletes don't win a medal. I mean, it is more rare to win a medal. You know, when you watch the Olympics on TV, that's not how it's perceived. That's not what you think. Right. You see just the medal. ceremonies and the competitions where maybe the U.S. athletes are winning.

Well, it's tough because we, you know, the year that I won, I'm going to divert and come back. The year that I won the Olympics, we won 102 medals as a country. I was one of 40 Olympic gold medals. Wow. And Michael Phelps won five. And Simone Biles won three. At the same Olympics that I won, the woman who won BMX women is from Columbia. and she was the first ever gold medal in the country of Columbia.

She is Michael Jordan in Columbia. She cannot leave home without security. She is a absolute superstar. The government gave her property. Like she set for life. I got home and they were like, congratulations, thank you. We'll see you later.

You know, it's just part of being in a country with a lot of medals. So anyway, that's of the two different kinds of medals. There are two different kinds of athletes. is the athletes there to compete. They know they are going to win a medal. They're having fun. You see them taking selfies and chatting, and they're having a blast.

They're having a really good time. But in every sport, there's, you know, five or six athletes or teams that they are there with one goal and one job, and that is to win a medal. And if they do not win that medal, it is a failure. Nobody wants to get fourth or fifth or sixth place at the Olympics.

Those are the worst places that you can get. Yes. And so I was always in that category. I never had fun at the Olympics. For me, it was always, well, I'm going to win a trophy or this was a failure. And being 19 years old, being the favorite, being the number one seed, being in the poll position, having the commentators, very last thing that they said, my money is on fields. David Beckham is in the audience. You know, the prince or one of prince, I don't remember which one.

of them is in the audience. The moment was just so big that I just, for a, and they don't, you know, other sports are different, like tennis or basketball or other sports that have really massive events, right? Kind of the main mainstream sports. But for 90 plus percent of Olympic sports, there's nothing you can do to prepare for that moment.

The world championships is a big deal. The national championships is a big deal, but it's not the Olympics. And so until you're in that moment, you don't realize what that moment feels like. And, you know, and ultimately I just froze. I choked. I finished seventh place out of the eight. And it was a catastrophic failure.

It was terrible, right? Like I didn't go there with any expectation other than honestly to win. And I should have won. How did I, if I could put my 33-year-old brain on my 19-year-old sub-hour, one easily. But I didn't know what to do. physically I had every time I needed meant so I did know. When you lose the Olympics, there is a moment when you realize that it is over and there's not another shot tomorrow. There's not another shot next year that you have to wait four years to try again.

And you have to start all the way back at zero. You have to qualify for the team. You have to make it all the way back there. have to get through the qualifiers, make it to the finals. Like there's that moment when you realize that and it's daunting. And then you spend time battling between, on one hand, you're kicking yourself, you're frustrated, you're mad at yourself, you're depressed, you're upset, you're feeling all the negative emotions while simultaneously feeling fired up and angry

and vengeful and wanting to come back and go. And so also dealing with being 19 moving out of my house. going and renting an apartment, figuring out that car insurance is more expensive than I thought it was and that you have to pay for your electric bill and, you know, the fridge doesn't just refill itself because mom went to the grocery store and, you know, like, I'm so navigating like being a 19 year old kid and all that emotion. And now looking back, I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back, I'm like, that was a lot for a kid to deal with, you know, throw in trying to get a girlfriend and you know all just the normal problems of a 19 year old kid um but all simultaneously

for the next four years preparing for one moment yeah and having everything yeah everything from age 19 to 23 everything came back to knowing that there was going to be a moment that i was going to get back to and it was going to be the same moment that i had been in before and when i was in this moment last time I completely screwed it up, but I'm taking the risk of putting myself back in that moment to try to get it right. And if it goes wrong, that's going to be a tough one to swallow. Like, how do you come back from that? Do you ever come back from that? And I don't even just mean from a sport perspective. I just mean from a human perspective. Or can I crush the demon? Can I squash it? Can I get it? Can I get it? Yeah. And knowing that both of those,

outcomes are on the table and preparing for that moment and having that moment be in the back of your mind for years and years and years and years and um you know ultimately lots of lots of trials and tribulations about time to get into today ultimately getting back to that moment and getting it right when fixing it um crushing the demon and executing to the best of my abilities under the most pressure you could possibly imagine and doing it winning the Olympics um doing the thing. Yeah. That's awesome.

Thanks. It was as much of a relief as it was elation. Because I'd not only have how hard I'd worked and how much everybody gave me to get there. But just knowing what would have happened if it went the other way. Right, right. But it did. I appreciate your vulnerability and your, honesty because maybe it's not the Olympics that we've all felt pressure in, you know, but we've all

had moments, at least I have, where, man, I just fell flat on my feet. And that's not exactly what I wanted, right? And we know that when people feel pressure, their attention narrows. And many times we can't perform to our best because our anxiety and our body is so high, our anxiety and our mind is so high. What do you feel like you learned from your first Olympics on how to manage that pressure that you used four years later? You know, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about, you know, at the simplest of terms, focus on the process, not the outcome. Yes. I developed routines. I developed systems that I followed. I did the same thing every time, whether it was practice, a small race, a medium race, a big race.

I really learned out to use self-talk. And I still use self-talk, and I would literally talk out loud to myself. Awesome. When needed. I think it was, you know, on one hand, it was getting to know myself, learning me, learning what works, what doesn't work, how to navigate situations, my strength, my weaknesses when to ask for help, when to power through, trial and error. I tried a lot of different stuff and things didn't work.

And then, okay, cool, scratch that off the list. But then the other thing that, you know, is invaluable. When I was a young athlete, I set records for being the youngest rider to ever do a bunch stuff. I came in guns blazing. And I used to be, I was that stereotypical, cocky. I wouldn't even just say confident. I'll go right out.

Cocky, 17-year-old kid who thought he was better than you, and he was. And I used to say that experiences something old athletes say is good so that they don't feel so bad about being old. That's hilarious. And then I got older. And then I got older.

And I realized experience is pretty invaluable. Yeah. I don't have some experience. and that was some experience I learned that that was pretty dumb on me to say. But appreciate your honesty. But really, there is nothing, you know, like I mentioned earlier, there is nothing like the Olympic final. And so there's nothing you could do to really prepare for that moment

and what it's going to be and how it's going to feel. And so having gotten to that moment the first time and knowing what was coming and then preparing for that moment and then when that moment arriving, being settled and being comfortable and not letting that molder be too big. Well, it's the biggest thing. How do you think you did that? Because, like, one of the things I heard, even when you were describing the first, the first time of you're at the Olympics, right, where you got seventh out of eight,

like I heard you say things like the trophy, if I didn't get the trophy, that was failure. Right? So, like, a lot of, like, and from this is my, just hand, my sport psychology hat on, that when we, like, connect our identity and our failure to, like, an outlet. that we actually can't fully control because, you know, you can control anybody else race that day. So even if you raced your best, you couldn't control if you want or not. So, you know, when you think about calming your body in the moment and being more processed, focused than outcome focused, how did you do that?

And I'm asking you that because people are listening thinking, yeah, I need to do that too when I get a little pressure. So I think two things. Number one, I think that it's not so much what you do on the day or in the exact moment. It's how you've programmed yourself to be prepared for that moment. So yes, you need to do the right things on that day, but I had four years to prepare for that day. So during those four years, I had to reprogram everything and it was more like I mentioned process focused on outcome focused. And then when you get to that race day, it's just a continuation of everything that you've been doing already.

And so I had a moment that after the London Olympics when I realized that I didn't do everything that I could do to be prepared and I didn't execute at my best. And that was the thing that hurt me the most was that I didn't even do my best. And I couldn't. And I've had races where I've got in third place,

but it was like such a hard fought third place and I dig so deep that it was more exciting and more gratifying than it win because it was so hard. yet. I did, I did, I could say I did everything that I could do to get third. Not having the ability to say did my best was the worst part. So as I went into Rio, my goal was at the end of the day, but I'm back in my room and I'm brushing my teeth before bed. I want to be able to know that I did my best. And if that means that I got fifth place, and that's all I had, I'll be sad and I'll be

bummed and I'll be upset, but at least I'll know I did my best. Then my goal with training was to train and prepare so hard and so thoroughly that my best is good enough to win. And so that I can control my outcome by if I execute to the best of my abilities, nobody can beat me. Awesome. That was the mindset for those four years. And that was really what shifted. And then even then on through the next five years before Tokyo.

And, you know, we talked about the three Olympics, the three big ones. But there's hundreds of races in between the Olympics, too, national, national championships, world cups, things like that. But my goal was always just to finish the day and know that I did my best. And when that became my mindset, I did that probably over 95, 98% of the time. It was very rare that I didn't do my best. And then at that point, I have to figure out what I did wrong, how do I fix it? My best wasn't always good enough to win.

But it helped me get off the roller coaster of riding the highs, you know, in the lows of sport. Because I stayed a little bit more mid-range because I just, was doing my best and if I controlled what I could control, which was my effort and my preparation, my execution, then that was all like. And then where the competitor comes in, because here's the thing that people miss. People always say, I need to just do my best. I need to execute the best of my abilities, focus on the process. Yes, but you better prepare so freaking hard that your best is good enough. And that's what people, that people focus on the doing their best. They don't focus on the preparation. And if that's your mindset, that's what you're going to do, then your preparation

has to be such a foundation that your best is good enough. And then it takes the pressure off. So helpful. Hi, this is Cinder Campoff and thanks for listening to the high performance mindset. Did you know that the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing? If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively and get to your goals quicker. Visit free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches. Again, that's free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free call. Talk to you soon. And so I think about, all right, first Olympics, seventh out to eight, second Olympics, you win, you have that redemption.

and then five years later, and it was five because of COVID, you're at the Tokyo Olympics. Tell us a bit about your mindset going in there, and then what happened that day? Yeah, I mean, you get hold with the Olympics, and I live in Vegas, so we had a good time. If you've ever seen a hangover, that's probably the closest description. But then you're still, you're met with this moment of like,

all right, what do I do now? Now what do I won the Olympics? Like where do you, where do you go when you're 23 years old and you just won the Olympics and you achieved your lifelong dream? Yeah. And you kind of have two choices at this moment. You can hang up the boots, go out on top, or you can try again. And I was 23, you know, mid-20s to late 20s is prime physical age for my sport. So I was in a prime place to keep going.

you know now I had some endorsements and I was going to make some some better money and I had I had felt what it felt like to win the Olympics and I've never done heroin but I'm pretty sure that winning the Olympics is the best drug on earth

like the feeling and the rush and what happens like there's nothing that's going to top that and so I wanted to do it again and I knew what I was getting myself into I knew you know at this point I'm round three so I know exactly what I'm getting myself into. But it's a totally different mindset when you're trying to sustain success

versus reach success. No, I'm, I've already won. I've done the thing. It's all, I'm in extra innings now. It's all gravy from here. But you can't think that way. Right. Because, you know, I talk about this in my keynote.

I was like, it's like, I will be the Olympic champion forever. Like, nobody's ever going to take my Olympic gold medal away from me. Every single BMXer on Earth wants to take the next one away. And so you have to attack that new medal as if you've never won a medal before, as if you're trying to take it from somebody else. But at that point, again, with the experience, I had a lot of experience, I had a lot of things I could draw from, physically in great shape, things are going great. deal with the challenges that COVID presented. We eventually gets Tokyo. It's a two-day format.

The first day was the quarterfinals. I won my quarter-finals. Second day, I was the number one seed. I was the favorite. Everything's on track. You know, I've pretty much dominated this sport for a decade at this point. Everybody's like, all right, it's going to be Connor, or there's a couple guys maybe that can get him. But he's definitely got a shot.

You know, we get to day two, and we're in the second. semifinals and I collided with a French rider and I went down and it was one of the worst accidents in the history of the Olympic Games. Live television, my parents are back here in Vegas because they can't be there because it's COVID. They watch it on TV. Oh my goodness. Gracious. No. I broke ribs, collapsed lung, tore ligaments in my shoulder, tore my bicep and had a traumatic brain injury involving four brain bleeds with injury to my frontal lobe, my parietal lobe, my corpus colossum, and my brain stem. As I was on the track, I immediately stopped breathing. I had to be intubated. You know, initially for the first 24, 48 hours, I had brain

swelling and they were concerned if I was going to survive, if they were going to have to open the skull up if they were going to have to, you know, what was going to happen? Eventually everything kind of stabilized. And then the next question was if I would even remember who I was when I woke up. Oh. And meanwhile, your parents, did they fly there? But they still stay here? They couldn't get their due to COVID. I mean, Japan was one of the strictest countries due to COVID. The hospital initially didn't want to take me because it was like their protest. The hospital didn't think that the Olympics should be happening. Japan was very split 50-50 on the Olympics, similar to America.

Half the country wanted to open up and go. Half the country wanted to sit inside and mask, right? It's just, everything's polarized. Japan was the same way. Half the country thought the Olympics should happen. Let's go. Half the country was like, what are we doing? Why is this happening?

The hospital lodged their own little protest and didn't want to take me. And I'm in the ambulance. they're like, this kid is dying. Get him into this hospital. The conversations went all the way up the chain to the U.S. ambassador to Japan. Oh, wow. My dad had to feel a call

from the U.S. ambassador to Japan that basically told him that the only way that he would be allowed into the country was if I died, he could come and escort my body home. Look, good. I'm having a hard time listening to this as a parent. I'd be like,

like gosh, no. It's like you're worst, you know, the worst thing that could possibly happen. Yep. Luckily, not happen. I woke from the coma a few days later. I remembered who I was. I was not like normal or okay.

I had a brain injury. About a week or two later, it's all very fuzzy, but a week or two later, I was cleared with medical transport to fly back home to America. So I had to fly with a dock And then I landed and I went directly to Prey Rehab and spent the next year

Not there, but I spent the next year doing brain rehabilitation And then in the middle of that when my brain was good enough They went into shoulder reconstruction because my shoulder was all messed up So about year, 14 months later I ultimately was cleared and had made a full recovery That's amazing, amazing story. And, you know, I appreciate just like the details that you provided us. How did you deal with the loss of not only, you know, like you're going there to get to the Olympics and that didn't happen, but then also, you know, you couldn't race.

And just how was that and working through kind of your own identity, especially after your third Olympics? Yeah, I mean, that was tough. So a couple things come to mind. Number one, and then, you know, when I do my, you haven't heard of my folk, you know, you've heard parts of it, but it's kind of a plot twist where I'm talking about the Olympics and, you know, my first one, then I do it, and then all of a sudden, bang, it's like a plot twist,

and this all happens, right? As cheesy as it sounds, when you go through a near-death experience, the way that I did, it's impossible for it not to change you. Yeah. And on that day of the accident, when I woke up, I thought the worst possible thing was getting fourth place. And when I woke up, I had an entirely new perspective. And fourth place really wasn't so bad.

And when you have to, I couldn't drive. I had to relearn out of drive past my driver's test. I couldn't speak properly. I had all these cognitive impairments. And nowadays, you know, when something goes wrong or when life gets tough, it's like, hey, I'm here. I'm alive. My brain works. I've got a whole future in front of me.

I can remember my third grade teacher. I can pick up a phone and call my friend that I grew up with. Like all these things ground you and balance you and make you realize that, you know, maybe the, maybe that stuff's really not that big of a deal. So I think that's one thing is it was very easy for me to look at the bright side and and that's not to say that there's not moments or times when I do get bummed out or I do go down the pathway. But it's very easy for me to correct and get back on the pathway like, hey, I'm here. The hardest part was about a year later when I was cleared, the dock was basically like,

Hey, Connor, we're going to clear you out. You made a full recovery. Your brain's working, how it should. Now, we're not going to tell you that you shouldn't race again. We're not going to tell you not to do anything. But when we are going to warn you is that you had a traumatic brain injury, you likely can't take it the way you used to. And we highly advise you to not put yourself into situations where you hit your head.

And I did the most dangerous sport at the Olympics. So, you know, it's kind of a tough spot to be in. Now, I had to sit in faith, you know, okay, so let's do the math on this. I've been to three Olympics. I was the number one seed and it just choked. So I probably should have won that first one. I won the second one. I was in the semifinals on pace to win the third one.

There was a year delay, so now we're only two years away from Paris. It's true. The killer athlete in me, the person that won the Olympics gets to three Olympics, was like, oh, what a story, what a comeback. This is going to be some movies are made out of. You got to go. It's two years away. You were so close to winning again.

You've never gone to the Olympics and not been in position to win. Yeah. Yep. That boy, that was the devil on the shoulder, right? That was one side. The other side. Dude, you've won three, or you've been to three Olympics. You've won the gold medal.

You've won World Cups, World Championships, national championships. You've done it all. You've got a college degree. You've got a fiancé. You've got a life. If you've got 50, 60, 70 years ahead of you, why would you risk it to go to your fourth Olympics?

Ooh. And so those were the two battles, the two of the devil and the angel that I was dealing with for a little bit, trying to figure out what to do. And I ultimately decided to listen to the good shoulder, which, you know, was like, hey, tap out. You know, you got to brush with death. Let's go ahead and move on and let go.

And I'm very glad I did that. You know, I'm healthy, I'm happy, life is good. But they're that killer instinct, that dog, if you will, whatever you want to call it. Like that's still in there. And there's always going to be that little piece of me that's like, dude, you could have won that. You could have done that, you know. But it's just something I got to navigate. But it's really easy for me to put my energy and my focus on all the good stuff, all the positive,

the fact that I literally hear talking to you today. Exactly. almost wasn't. The fact that I get, the fact that I get to go do house chores when this is done, you know, right? You know, maybe life's not so bad after all. And it's a much more, much more positive and gratitude-filled way of living compared to how I was before. And I think it's better. And so I'm curious, Connor, thank you so much for sharing that and just, you know, particularly how it really changed you. And so your keynote is really titled, Now What?

It's interesting now hearing your full story in detail on how I can hear why you chose Now What, but what can the listeners learn from this idea of Now What? What does that mean to them? Yeah. Well, the idea of Now What is that, no matter who you are, what you're doing, like every single person has in common that they're going to come to moments in their life, pivotal moments that they're going to be faced with the question of now what. It doesn't matter if that moment comes when they figure out what they want to do.

You know, like me, when I set the goal of winning Olympics, when they come up short, when they lose on something they were going for, they don't quite reach their goal. It could come after you achieve it. It could come when everything is going fantastic. You know, because a lot of people don't talk about that. Everybody talks about climbing them out. But what do you do when you've climbed them out?

And then it could come when everything goes wrong. You get fired from your job. You lose this. You lose that. everything goes catastrophically wrong, but that question is going to be there. And I know you're going to be faced with that question at some point. I'm going to be faced with that question at some point. Everybody on earth is. And what it's all about is that that is always going to happen. That's always going to come. Embrace that. Here are some techniques, strategies, and things that you can use when

you get to those moments. But don't shy away or fear from those moments because those are the moments that propel you forward. What's one strategy or technique you tell people when they're in those moments of now what? I mean, I'll, I've touched on a couple of them today, not in like super detailed, but just starting backwards and working back. You know, with the catastrophic failure, it's gratitude and its perspective. And it's keeping failure in perspective. If you're here, if you are alive and you're walking the earth, you could figure out an answer to that question of now what. You can keep moving for it. And shift your perspective instead of everything is bad, everything's terrible.

It's why it's happening to me. You have to shift that. It'll be like, hey, I'm here. And I have the opportunity to figure out that answer. I'm going to keep working. I'm going to keep punching. I'm going to figure this out. It's that gratitude and that perspective when everything goes bad to dig your way out of it.

You know, talk about like success. It's like success is awesome. You've got to celebrate it. You know, I share some funny stories in my full keynote about what it's like to be 23 years. old win the Olympics and come home to Las Vegas. There was like literally a month. I went out for a month straight. It was insanity.

But you have to celebrate the wins, maybe not to that extent. But people forget to celebrate the wins. And everybody celebrates in their own way. It doesn't need to be going out to Vegas. Celebrate your own way. But like that is why you work so hard. And if you will lose touch of celebration, then they can lose touch of being human, you know? But after you.

you're done celebrating, you have to remember that prior success does not automatically guarantee continued success. When you win the Olympics, it doesn't mean anything for the next Olympics. I have to start all the way back at zero. I have to qualify for the national team. I have to qualify for the Olympic trials. I have to qualify for the Olympics. I have to make it through all. I have to start all the way back at zero. And now all that success is done is it's created to you a blueprint. And it said, hey, you did it once. Here's the blueprint. You have to do it again. and you don't get any shortcuts. And so those are, you know, a couple things that people can remember.

But I think that's important. Like a lot of people reach the top of the mountain. They reached their success. And then they stopped doing the things that got them there. That's true. That's true. Connor, so insightful today. I loved hearing all of your story.

I really appreciated it at the beginning even when I was asking you, like, what does it take to become the best in the world of what you do? And you're like, you just got to do it, right? and you've got to sacrifice and do like the hard things for what maybe is shiny or easy. I loved hearing just about your three mindsets for the Olympics and like how that changed. I appreciate what we talked about like process versus outcome orientation. I think that a lot of people can relate to that. And then particularly at the end like what now what means to you.

And like choosing gratitude and perspective, keeping failure in perspective and celebrating the wins. and, you know, just continuing to grow because prior success or the equal future success. How can people learn more about you? Tell us how they can learn more about your speaking and other things that you offer. Yeah. I guess my website would be the easiest place, www.connerfield.com. I'm pretty active on their blog at least once a week. I've got a LinkedIn, Instagram, all the social medias, and it's all the same.

it's at Connor Fields, my name, 11, which is my racing number. My Instagram is mostly going to be my dog and memes. LinkedIn's going to be a bit more business-related stuff. But yeah, I mean, anyone feel free to reach out. I reply to every inbox message that I get. You never know how you can help or touch. So I always try to make sure I do that. Connor, this has been incredible.

Thank you so much for sharing your story. And I know people got a lot of insight that they can reply to their lives. Is there anything final advice or inspiration you want to provide us? I'll leave you with a quote. Perfect. And it was a quote that my coach told me when I was younger, but I didn't understand it. And then I got older and I understood it.

And it's how I try to live my life. He said, you can have it all, just not all of the same time. Nice. And how would you like people to apply that to their lives? you have to pick and choose what you're focusing on people have a lot I have a lot of things that I want to do but you can't do everything at the same time because things take energy and effort and focus and you can have everything that you want but you have to figure out when and how and you're not going to be able to do everything

together you have to pick and choose when you do what and this goes back to like sacrificing kind of like what you talked about at the beginning like sacrificing maybe the things that are shiny and awesome for the things that you really want exactly and i didn't understand it but you know i i couldn't have the i couldn't have the romantic relationship that maybe i wanted when i was trying to win the olympics because i was always going to be so focused on myself and selfish um but now that i'm not trying to win the olympics anymore i can have a romantic relationship that I want. Right?

And it's like, you can't have it all. You just can't have it all together sometimes. And I think that was part of what I didn't realize that I was learning when I was young, trying to figure out how to navigate that. But the sooner people can learn that, I think the sooner people can be more effective at whatever they're doing. Awesome. Thanks for any new to your mic drop moment.

Thank you, Connor. I appreciate you. And we appreciate your time and energy today. Absolutely. Thank you. Way to go for Facebook. 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 enjoy my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can add over to Dr. Cyndra.com. See you next week.