Cure The Other Sickness For a Day To Win

Flip the switch. This might sound like a cliche, but the ability to shift our mindset is one of the most powerful tools we’ve got. 

Having attended three Olympic Games as an athlete (plus one as a spectator and two as an administrator), I’ve seen this again and again: it’s the athletes that can shift their mindsets that win. The competitors who can reorient their focus away from what motivated them to get there and into what will allow them to win-the-whole-damn-thing. 

The athletes who do this win. And I think there’s a lesson here for our lives in general.

What Gets You There

For the better part of twenty years of my life, I was motivated by getting better at athletic pursuits. From soccer to track to finally bobsled, I was fantastic at working harder than everyone else around me to serve my purpose of being great enough to win. It wasn’t until my last competition that I realized that’s only 99.9% of the puzzle. And yes, that extra 0.1% matters.

The overwhelming majority of Olympians you’ll watch these next two weeks have woken every single day for at least the last four years of their life with one single goal in mind: be better today than they were yesterday. And then wake up tomorrow and do it again, every single day until you compete at the next Olympics. (I know, because I was one of them.)

That’s it. It’s that simple. Each little day builds on itself until you’re the best in the world. It’s simultaneously one of the most beautiful and difficult skills to manage in life. And it’s especially unique when the goal is four years away and culminates with one shot.

I mean, can you imagine waking up tomorrow, and every day after that, and working as diligently as you possibly can on that project at work that’s not due for 1,400 more days? It’s probably the reason entrepreneurs are 2x more likely to suffer from depression and also the reason why I’ve buried multiple teammates from suicide… being hyper-focused takes a toll.

The Olympians you’re watching on your devices or TV right now all worked insanely hard for an insanely long amount of time to get to where they are with an insane amount of discipline. 

It is, in theory, a certain kind of insanity. A sickness of which they are certain the only cure is success. But it’s a sickness that’s helpful during those years, and so you not only tolerate it, you feed it.

The sickness says:  “I have control. If I work harder today than I did yesterday, I will get better. If I work harder today than my competition, I will control my destiny. It’s up to me.”

That state of mind is what’s on display right now in Beijing. And I love it.

Over the past 4, 8, 12+ years these athletes went to bed at a hyper-specific time regardless of the party their friends were at. They woke up like clockwork to ensure their prescribed amount of sleep, even if it meant waking up their partner. Because too little sleep and you’re not recovered. Too much and you’re sluggish. 

That means that everyone in your orbit, in your gravity, revolves around you. They are at the beck and call of your training and lifestyle.

As Oscar Wilde once said, “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”

And this is part of the sickness. It’s with you for the entire journey and it’s what gets you to put your entire life on the line to succeed. It’s not optional. It’s necessary. 

The Mindset Paradox

But there comes a time when you can’t get any better. Or, to put it a bit differently, there comes a time when you need to trick your mind into thinking you’re as good as you possibly can be and thus there’s no need for any more improvement. 

The successful athlete is adept at being able to realize when it's time to switch from the mindset that got you the first 26.1 miles of the marathon, to the one that’s going to get you the last .1. 

Those who can make the subtle but important switch will succeed in Beijing and those who can’t will be left to wonder what happened. 

I’ve been on both sides of the equation. I found myself wondering what happened back in 2006 when we were medal favorites and finished a lackluster 7th place. I remember it as clear as the crisp Italian Saturday night that it was: seeing Team Andre Lange celebrating on the podium while I stood in despair watching for just long enough to burn the image into my mind before retreating back to the sled garage.

It’s so difficult because the mindset to get better becomes part of you and it’s one of your favorite, most prideful traits. It’s the reason you are who you are and it’s the reason you are where you are. (Shoot—it’s basically what this entire newsletter/blog series is about!)

It’s also the reason why there’s an emptiness at the end of competition, or selling your company, or achieving whatever success you spent the bulk of your life chasing. I went deep on this topic at the dawn of the Tokyo Olympics last summer on the Slate podcast, How To: Congrats, You Won the Olympics. Now What?

So why do these athletes, or anyone culminating something they’ve worked so hard for a long period of time for, need to flip the switch?

Because the mindset to succeed, the sickness that envelops you, is an “I’m not quite enough today” mentality. 

To win at the highest level at some point you have to have a mindset that says, “Today, I’m good enough. I am whole.” 

Those athletes that can unburden themselves of the desire to get better are free to take the risks needed to win against global competition of the highest level.

When we had our press conference the day before the Opening Ceremonies in Vancouver at the 2010 Olympic Games, we were haunted by a 62-year gold medal drought in 4-man bobsled. A journalist asked me if we thought we could break the streak.

My answer was simple and it surprised my teammates: “It’s a funny thing to walk into the Olympic Games and know that if we do our jobs, we win.” 

I was ready and I wanted Holcy, Curt, and Justin (my 4-man teammates) to wrap their heads around the idea that we were, in fact, good enough now. We didn’t need to get better. We didn’t need to step up. We didn’t need to put in more work. We were ready. And I wanted them to begin the process to get their minds there, too.

And it worked. We were confident and we weren’t worried about getting better. In fact, we skipped the last day of training on the world’s most dangerous track because we didn’t need to get any better and we wanted to send a message to our competitors - “We’re ready. Are you?”

We became the first (and still last) American 4-man bobsled team to win Olympic gold since 1948. AND we beat the greatest bobsledder of all time by the largest margin of victory in more than 20 years at that point. (click here to re-live that final run and celebration in 3-minutes with us)

The moral of the story: it’s not only OK to be able to switch between different mindsets, it’s absolutely necessary to do so when the time is right. 

I believe that flipping that switch is necessary to win. It’s also necessary to enjoy your life after your big win (or your loss, for that matter.) 

It’s a gift to understand what motivates you, and how and when to apply the right kind of motivation. (We explored that last time in When the Novelty is Gone.) To understand and be able to change your own mindset as needed is truly one of the most useful skills you can possess.

So when you’re watching the Olympics the next couple of weeks, pay attention. Enjoy watching these incredible people. Listen to the way they carry themselves in interviews and what they’re talking about before they compete. Watch the looks on their faces when they’re warming up. Test yourself to see if you can see the flipped switch in them.

The athletes that succeed will have cracked the code of success in a way that only few do and they will, at least for a day, occupy the rarest air on earth - to be the undisputed best in the entire world at one’s chosen pursuit.

It’s a beautiful thing and I can’t wait to share it with Axel and Brett!

- Steve