YouSaid · the spoken record

Apolo Ohno

lines on the record: 94
first: 2020-08-18
most recent: 2020-08-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Our mentors who are consultants, who are strategists, who are authors, who are amazing human beings. My experiences, my own personal unique one, and hopefully that can imprint something on someone in a way that will change them by a quarter of a degree, which means sidestepping a bad mistake, making the right decision, walking through a door they wouldn't have before, and living a life that is full of meaning and importance in their own personal context of what that is.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Living a fulfilled life to me means that the work that I am ingrained with and doing Not only pulls me out of bed every morning, but it leaves an impact on other humans who have perhaps suffered in the same way that I have inside of their own two ears and helps them change the trajectory of what that is That in terms of work is very fulfilling to me. In terms of the overall context, I want to be a contributor to my family, my friends, athletes, and society as a whole that hopefully I can imprint some of the, just the things that I've learned in my life that people can say, wow, that is useful. And I can use that. to hopefully have some small incremental increase in people's happiness and fulfillment in a way that they perhaps didn't before. So there are billions of people around the world who”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are kind of willing to bring to light, I recognize that I needed to take back control over the steering wheel for once and own up to some of these things in a way that life goes on and it's always constantly moving and changing. And I can either sit back and watch it go by or watch it happen to me, or I can change the perception of how the world is in my own personal experience.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tactic, or tips that's going to be the one golden ticket. Rather, it's accumulation of your own experiences, your own human condition that you've been accustomed to, finding what works for you and applying that in a way relentlessly that is going to greatly advance you towards what you are seeking. And I think even more so now today, I find myself asking, what's really important? What do I really need? How can I wipe away the stuff that's not important? And how can I help others learn from both the psychological mistakes that I made from the wins that I've had, from the lessons that I've been able to create? And that's, I just, I become very happy when I hear and talk to people who say, hey, I was headed in this direction of my life. And after hearing some of the things that you...”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Three years, I've really kind of recalibrated my own focus and done it in a way to where I can concentrate on something that will give me the greatest possible outcome, not in terms of success, but in terms of fulfillment and happiness. And so I recognize that after I retired, I love helping people in some capacity. I am not an expert. I have unique experiences through my life and living process. But hopefully I can help uplift and educate and provide insight and context to the own inner potential that people have that it's been dormant for a long time. And whether they knew it or not, that dormant power that is within people is within their control to unlock. And it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be fast and there is no guru or strategy.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Especially for Olympic athletes, there's no salary associated with what we're doing. And by the way, I had tremendous opportunities, and I'm very blessed for those opportunities that I had received. But still, it's only a fraction of what was available to most professional athletes. And it was an understanding that I had to find something to replace my passion right away in the same intensity that I had with skating. What I didn't recognize, it was probably not going to happen. And if I couldn't find that replacement, it's okay. And that's natural. But rather I should be concentrating on the attributes that I had within these life skills that I learned in the sport. And I could use those and lean on those as levers towards whatever path that I was doing next. And so in the world of business and entrepreneurship and whether it's speaking, particularly in the last...”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think the source of what drives me has changed dramatically. So when I first retired from the world of short-check speed skating, I always joke and say it was my first great divorce, right? So the one sole identity that I had had become accustomed to and had learned everything from was the world of the Olympic space. And when I decided to retire, that first true love tells me that it no longer wants me and there's nothing I could do to come back to it. It is extremely challenging transition for athletes to make.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It felt like I had done something that was bigger than the sport. And it felt like people were happier for me not because they cared about short track, but they were happy about the way that United States was able to win again. And we deeply craved some sort of a win and collected unification and solidarity around one thing on one moment in time when there was many other countries there. And that's what that first gold medal felt to me. It felt like that.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was incredible. So, the reason why it was incredible was a few reasons. One, this was post 2001, September 11th. So this is at a time where this is February now, 2002, in Salt Lake City. It was a very powerful moment, I think, in the United States history in which people were very hungry and looking for solidarity. And they are and were doing everything that they could to just find a team to root for. Finding a team to get behind. And that team was not your local team. It wasn't your favorite team. It was one team. That team was Team USA. And so it was a very powerful moment, I think, for me standing on the podium, hearing the thousands and thousands of Americans kind of singing the national anthem And there was a sense of happiness and pride, and it felt like for me, Shane, that at that moment in time I had.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there was controversy, right? And they were upset. They thought that their athlete should not have been disqualified and that I should have not been, I finished the race second actually in that 1500 meters. And the guy in front of me. He was disqualified, and I was awarded the gold. And so the first thing was standing on the podium was very surreal.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Something like that is God's account. What you should focus on is your struggle to carry it further, carry it further. That is what concerns you. Whether you win or lose or is not of your concern. It's your ability to carry the struggle further is what you should be concerned with. I thought that was really interesting in the realm of what I was doing as an athlete. And so Also, not only help take pressure off of what I was about to do. But it just provided a deeper layer and texture associated with the path that I was pursuing.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think the word that is the most powerful there is the haunting do you want to have And a lot of this is perception, but if you have the ability to eliminate the nightmare that can go on for decades, and I know this because I have friends who have that, right? They've left the sport in anguish mentally, and 10 years later, I ask them how they're doing and they say that they have not changed at all. Do you want that to be in your mind? Or do you want to be able to say that you gave your all? And it's the most simplistic form. Did you give every ounce of your being to something? And whether you won or lost is perhaps outside of your control. There's an amazing quote by a philosopher, author, writer called his name is Nikos Kazansakis. And the book is called, I think that the book is called Report to Greco. And I'm going to butcher this, but in a sense, I had this on all of my kind of post-it notes throughout my house. It is do not ask whether you will win or lose.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is my personal victory that is the gold that I can transfer into other life skills when I decide to retire? And it was very difficult because we've been conditioned, I believe, to think about a results-oriented society and a focus where unless you bring home the gold or the results as a metric, it's not considered a real actual factual win. And I just think that that's not entirely accurate in any shape or way or form.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so you can't rely upon the extrinsic validation that because you won this race, you should be happy. And in fact, there was many times I explained early in our conversation that I would win races and I actually wasn't happy because it didn't go the way that I wanted. And so I became deeply engrossed in this battle against myself, my own internal insecurities and weaknesses and mindset. And I wanted to just harden and callus that to a degree that I can't control whether I win in Vancouver, my final Olympic Games. But what I can do is I can control this process and experience to by the time that I arrive, I'm able to exhaust any and all options at the present time to say that I could have done more. And that was my personal win. And I just deeply believed that if I did go through that process and I was able to say that I had zero regrets about this path, that”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The intrinsic motivations and the extrinsic motivations has been an ongoing battle. I think we always be just because of the societies that we live in. I also believe that to focus, it really lends credits to the sport itself of short-term speed skating, right? Short-track speed skating is a sport where it's really volatile. I mean, anything can happen at any moment. And if you're a fraction of a second too early or too late on a pass on a decision, it radically alters the outcome.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Maybe, but in the whole grand scheme of things, I don't think necessarily. And so very early, both my father and another family friend of mine essentially said the following. They said, Apollo, your life is going to be a series of chapters. One that you're living, which will feel and perhaps present itself to be the most important at the time, the ones to come in the future that you don't know what is actually going to happen. But if you're able to focus much more on this journey, Much more on this process, your likelihood of having the happiness of achieving that success, of achieving that fulfillment skyrockets. And it took me many years to really feel what that was about.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then all of the audience goes quiet. You can hear a pin drop in that time. And I remember go to the start. I remember going to the start line. And then one guy in the stands holding a beer yells, bring home the goal, the Pollo, and just remembering, like, if I don't bring home the gold, like, does that mean that I've failed my country? Does that mean that I've failed myself and my family and my friends?”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's a great question. So I think the process that I had gone through in the Olympic realm, I think society places this significant emphasis and expectation through a series of conditioning events that are just purely extrinsic. And the Olympic Games is perhaps a prime example of that. We don't celebrate you unless you bring home gold. My very first race, stepping to the start line, I'm 19 years old. The announcer in the arena says”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And examine your way that you can, if I was going to compete against me, how would I do that? Which gave me a lot of strength. So that vulnerability.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I think it was both. The last three years of my life and in my career in the world of the Olympic space was really about my best. When I was younger, it was really about crushing the competition, crushing their hopes, crushing their dreams, their desires. I mean, it was a very, almost a very negative, not saying I'm not boasting it or saying I'm proud of it, but even in my own team, the level of standard that I had for myself was that I would train more than they would. I would be more tired the next morning when we woke up. And when we got to the ice rink, I expected that I could still dominate them in my weakened state. And that would make me happy. And if I couldn't, I would be very upset at myself. And then later on in my career, I recognized that the fight was really not against anyone else. The fight was always and had been against myself. And if I sought true change and progress and fulfillment in the sport, I'd have to really have the radical transparent look at myself and say, are you willing to take the armor off?”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are there table steaks, right? This is standard. What are you going to do now when I place all this pressure on you? How will you respond? How were you react? Will you rise to the challenge? Will you take this clutch moment, ask for the ball? Do you want to be the sole athlete in that race against two or three other athletes from the same team?”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that are required to I think showing up in shape is the prerequisite. Like, you know, when you get to the start line and you look to your left and you look to your right, everyone is a phenomenal athlete, right? It's the same, I think, on when you talk about the military or the SEALs teams or in any business sector, right? When you're performing at the elite level, the fundamental prerequisite is like, okay, yeah, that's great”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think there's, you know, I mean, and I think that when you own something like that, that's pretty powerful, right? I think certain people have that. I mean, I think that I've always looked to our kind of servicemen and women here in these states is this psychological barrier that separates those who are genetically gifted, by the way, there's been many Olympic athletes who have actually gone on to try to become Navy SEALs, for example, and they can. And it's not because they don't have the genetic ability. It's just because they weren't willing to go to those maybe perhaps it's those dark places that are required.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Crack, meaning like I had nothing else to give, I would fall on the treadmill, I would break down, fall over, I physically would collapse. And there's something very gratifying about knowing where that limit is and then slowly inching and pushing that limit a little bit further away every time you go and touch that line.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Somehow that drove me to want to dig deeper to show that I had there's this inner monster inside of us that still had more to give. I thought that when I did the Iron Man in 2014, where I was seeking, I was hungry, like, where is the limit? When do I crack at this nine hour 10 hour plus race? Where do I, where is the cracking for me? And I sought that time and time again. So pain was an opportunity for me to recognize what I previously thought was possible going into this training session and then having either help through a coach or a teammate or a mentor help me actually recognize that's just that's just one layer there's many layers of pain and I'm in no way shape or form saying I am the expert or I could handle the most but I know for sure that I made myself”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think pain is something that I have derived and at times sought willingly. Throughout my life and career, the physical pain was something that I became very accustomed to. So to me, it wasn't a workout until I could really feel the lactic acid in my gums, in my teeth. And I derived a lot of pleasure watching the person next to me on the mountain do skating jumps, start to crack under the hot summer heat while I'm wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants and a beanie.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mental training was the core fundamental layer that I used, I think, as the jumping off point for everything else. I just believe that I had an unlimited potential within myself. I believe that I could rewire the neurochemistry, whether that has any scientific evidence-based or not. I believe that I had that ability. I believe that I could withstand more physiological pain than anybody else in the sport. I believe that I wanted to win more than anyone else. And I believe that that gave me the deserving right to capture the gold more than anyone else. And so when you add up all those small incremental attributes over time, over many hours and many days of consistency, they seem to yield a pretty powerful return.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Win so I couldn't guarantee that outcome by the time a four year period went by and I arrived at the start line, I needed to find another mechanism to focus more on the process versus the prize to give me that happiness and fulfillment or else I would have probably walked away from the sport very bitter because there were many races where I'd be like, man, I should have won that race. I could have won that race had I not gotten pushed or fallen down or gotten disqualified.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why do some athletes always compete in those clutch positions? Why does a Kobe or Michael Jordan want the ball at the end? And I think that that's the belief and confidence and alpha that comes with if there's anyone going to be responsible for the outcome of this, I believe I can dictate that outcome. And I also had that similar mindset. By the way, when I race, I never knew that I was going to win the race. I believe that I had a chance, as small chance as that was at times. I still believe that I had a chance. And that's all that I needed to feel like I had as good a chance as anyone else. And that I just simply wanted it more or that I prepared more. I derived confidence from my training immensely and my preparation. That's what gave me a lot of confidence and satisfaction because in the world of short track speed skating, just because you're the best or the most well-prepared doesn't mean you're going to.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. And I'm probably not going to play football. I'm not going to play football. I'm also not going to be a boxer. I'm also not going to be a track and field sprinter. There's just certain things that my body does better than others by the sheer shape and biomechanics of how I was constructed. So at the absolute performance level, the last 1%,”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well Yes and no. I think that you are right. Everyone at that level is a supreme athlete. I think in certain sports you have to have a natural genetic disposition at the fundamental layer to be good”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Downward spiral. And at some point, you got to cut the head off the snake. Take a step back. Jump onto the balcony metaphorically and be able to have a very quick and transparent view of where am I, what battles am I fighting right now? Are they important? And what is the ultimate goal? If the ultimate goal is there, I need to take a step back, recalibrate the focus, and get back into the game. And Shortrack has that ability to give you that chance because we've got so many races over the course of a day. So you have preliminary quarterfinal preliminary heat, quarterfinal, semi-final, and then final. And you're making mistakes along the way. And regardless of what happened yesterday or the race before, you have to recalibrate in a way that this is the new race. This is the new chance. This is the new opportunity right here and now. What happened before doesn't matter unless it's insight, learning lesson, or information about how you're going to race moving forward. If it's not in that realm, it's disregarded.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Psychology behind that is his body is now primed in the most relaxed but responsive state to be hyper reactive. And everyone responds differently. Some athletes need to be, like I have a friend of mine who's an Olympic gold medalist and bobsled. He had to be angry before his race. That's what he used as his lever. He was angry and he used rage in order to do that. For me, I recognize that when I perform my best, I was the most relaxed. I was the most calm. My heart rate was at its lowest level. And I was able to remove the emotion from the process that had at hand. And so like the trader who's in charge of $100 million trades and he starts to lose control and it's one after next after next. The same happened to me in speed skating. If I would lose, I would lose again or I'd make a bad pass or fight another person or fight myself. And it was this.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the beautiful thing about Shortrack speed skating, Shane, is The sport gives you instantaneous feedback. And so it's very easy for an athlete to punch him or herself out, so to speak. So there's a fine line between trying way too hard and not trying enough. And it requires a level of relaxation that almost feels easy at its highest speeds and then trying so hard and fighting against the other athletes and fighting against yourself and the ice where your actual top speed actually decreases. So if you look at a lot of track and field athletes and they're on the start line, Hussein Bolt is my favorite example. Here you have one of the world's greatest track and field athletes of all time preparing for a moment in front of 80,000 screaming fans on the Olympic stage, a billion people watching. And this guy's joking around towards camera.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And really not just think that you are, but know, know the potential that you have within you. Know that. And that's a good reminder for me. And so I agree with you. It's absolutely important.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Concentrate And I remember after about 60 days of trying that, I remember telling Dave, hey, I don't know if this even does anything anymore. Like I keep saying focus and concentrate, but I don't even know if that's actually having an impact. And so that began the conversation towards what do you need to hear from yourself in a pattern that will help you start to believe it and help you start to get into that time when you've been able to have a great corner or a great pass or a great lap technically that you want to duplicate time and time again. What is it that makes you do that and what can you say to yourself to propel you towards what that is? And I do, I still have self-talk today. When I work out or when I'm doing something or when I'm faced with immense challenge, I'm still having this self-talk, whether it's verbally outside actually speaking it like I am today. I have something right here.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's an accurate statement. I think that the way that we as human beings have been hardwired in terms of our neural linguistic programming, I'm not a huge believer in NLP, but I understand the concept that there's certain words depending on how they are emotionally tied to us at a young age or what they mean or perceive or allow us to perceive or react to those can trigger certain elements and emotions in our body. And so if you're able to use certain words or language or expressions or statements to yourself that elicit a response that would be positive or that would increase some biochemical response, the mind is very powerful. That's the most powerful tool of all. And I felt that at a young age, very non-directional and not focused enough in order to make real impact, but enough to where at some point for several months, several months, my trigger word was focus.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then he started to explain the reason why I'm prompting these questions, Apollo, is because there's something deeper at work here. You're showing patterns of a dowld spiral that once you lose the first point, it's very difficult for you to reset and recalibrate in a way that you can treat this new point as a new point. You're still talking about the point that you just messed up on. You're still feeling emotionally the trauma that just occurred on the micro level of what you just made in terms of that mistake. And you're saying, why did I just make that mistake? And that was the moment that I said, I'm going to listen to this human and see what he has to offer. And that became my process into the world of meditation.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he would start to prompt me with questions. Why do you think? Hey, Apollo, just a question. Why do you think you lost that last point? What happened in the last four points where you served into the net every time, which would make me so irate and just, I had so much anger, I was like, how dare this guy question me?”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Eventually, he broke me down. And I'll give you some backstory on where this actually happened. So before we would lift weights in the afternoons, I would either go upstairs above the weight room. There was a basketball court, which was also a volleyball court, which was also on the far end a badminton court. And on this Badminton court, Dave and I would play Badminton against each other. And Dave was a tennis player in college. So he's very good at racquet sports. So he was pretty much manhandling me throughout this process And I hated losing to this guy because I felt like he should not be able to beat me because of just my sheer athleticness, my athletic nature of what I was doing in the sport.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so when I was 15 at the Olympic Training Center after the Olympics had occurred and after I had showed up in kind of better shape, we had hired an assistant coach and a sports psychologist in the same role. And it was this young guy by the name of David Creswell, who's a near-dear friend now. And he was studying at Colorado College, and he said that sports psychology and mindset and meditation and mindfulness and visualization and all these techniques and strategies, this was the key to truly unlocking my own potential. At the time, this guy didn't seem like he was an athlete. Speed skating is a very obscure sport, so he didn't know anything about it. So we really just literally shoved this guy to the side and just said, you don't know what you're talking about.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not the best person to be around during training because of those time periods, but I wasn't really there to either coddle or to help others. There was times when I had empathy, but for the most part, when I showed up, the level of intensity and training was at a different level. And I just believe that because I didn't think I was genetically superior to my other competitors, that's what I needed to do on a daily basis. And I was so much in mental anguish on a daily basis, battling equipment like this that didn't seem to go my way for many, many years. And I felt like no matter what, I was only at 80% of my potential, I had to make that up somewhere else. And so that came off as a very, very, very competitive driven, almost, you know, unlivable situation with some of my teammates.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Beyond the point of coming back. And I don't know if everyone, I don't know if everyone is willing to do that. I don't think so. I didn't see it in my teammates. And they would probably tell you that I was.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think for an overall happiness perspective, having a balanced life, I believe can yield wonderful benefits. Think in terms of sheer performance when it comes to sport or other tasks. Everyone has the same common trait, which is obsession. It can be in the form of narcissism, insecurity, fear of failure, trauma at a deep, deep level that you have a chip on your shoulder that makes you go on to be that hedge fund investor who 40 years in still gets up at the same time every day has seemingly everything in the world, but still attacks it as if he is the underdog, those are things that are deeply ingrained on the psychological level, which I believe are the most powerful tools of all. And mine was in that same realm where I would have rather cut my own hand off than it would be to lose. Like I was willing to go, when I lost races, it was so deeply scarring and psychologically damaging to me that I took it so personally that the next time we trained, I did it with so much intensity that I was willing to go.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I went all in to where I cared about nothing. I really, truly cared about nothing except for what I was doing at that moment, which is very powerful. It's also not very balanced, but that's the approach that I took.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All different types of biochemistry books. I started to understand nutrition. I wanted to know much more about the mind, started studying Eastern philosophy. Like I just”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. I experience all of the emotions, right? I experience the pain of hearing the other parents basically kind of talk about you in a way that you're just a fallen statistic. He could have should have, but he just wouldn't. He cracked under pressure. He doesn't have what it takes. He could have been the best, but he's just not. And then there's also the kind of inner competitiveness that says like, well, you've beaten all these people before that are now above you in terms of rank in the sport. But now you're not there simply because of your own lack of consistency. Like step up. Like it's time for you to really, really kind of take ownership over a lot of these things. And while sitting in the stands, while doing that kind of solitary training, and I mean, I became a real, when I say I became a real student, I started studying.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, look, I don't think there's enough that is talked about it. Not a guarantee of who you are and your outcome, but I think it is a great indicator that, yeah, and we hear this, right? You are the sum, you're the average of the five people that you hang out with the most. And so none of my friends, by the way, were athletes. None of them had any aspirations of becoming a Olympians. And at the time, unfortunately, none of them were actually doing anything that was that productive. And so I believe that because I cut them off, it allowed me to become super obsessive about the sport in a way that allowed me to become a true student of it. And that's where my growth began. Had I not done that, we wouldn't even be having this conversation today because I don't believe I would even have made that team.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Track by myself. And throughout the course of the next four and a half months, I was able to make leaps and bounds in terms of my performance, but also in terms of the consistency of my levels of focus and my ability to kind of narrow the focal points that I was really concentrating on, which proved to be very, very beneficial for me when I went back to the program and showed up almost like a new person.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would try to keep those promises upon my arrival back to Seattle. So when after that experience in the world championships and world team championships finished, I had went back to Seattle instead of getting back into the same pattern that I had before of hanging around the same crowd and groups of individuals that I had at the time, I instead took a pretty drastic turn and said, okay, I'm going to stick to my promise. And I had this piece of paper. I had no structure. I didn't know anything about sports science. I didn't know much about sports psychology yet. It was really just still about raw effort and dedication and consistency. And I didn't call a single friend that I had made up to that point. And I went very, very kind of, I went very quiet and I spent all of my time both studying, training in the morning, and then training in the evening. And I just wrote my own training program, which was like biking while watching skating tapes, going inline skating or running on the high school.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT