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

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I'm basically there to help videotape practice and provide support if someone gets sick or injured. And I remember sitting in the stands watching the competition, not only hating the way that that felt, but also making promises to myself, which seemed to be really interesting. So I actually wrote down on these little notepads promises to myself of what I would do when I got home.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do you think that you could do something spectacular in the sport that you tried at? Do you like it? Are you making this decision because of your dad? Are you making this decision because of yourself? And I essentially told myself that I wanted to give it one more shot. I wanted to give this Olympic pursuit another try, but really give myself to that cause. And I call my father seven days after being there and explain to him that I've made my decision. He drives and comes and gets me and on the way home I tell him that I want to try the world of short track speeds getting one more time and give it its proper dues. And so I went back to Lake Placid to train with all the athletes who didn't make the Olympic team, who were hoping to make the world team that year. And I ended up getting last, oh, sorry, I ended up getting picked last on the double alternate as a part.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was kind of around the same question why are you here? Why and what do you want to do? Is that even important to you And I did not have an answer. There was no kind of clearing of the skies. There was no lightning bolt. And like all of a sudden it sunshine, oh, you should go and become Olympic athlete. None of that. It was really at its most principled. You have a decision.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is very rough nature. This is December in the middle of winter. It rains hard every single day. I find it really incredibly peaceful and calming and beautiful now. At the time, I really didn't. And so my dad drives away, goes back to downtown Seattle, where his work was, and I am left here in this cabin, kind of mindlessly still going through the training cycle and pattern that I was before, but not really understanding why or what I was doing. And then I think the natural byproduct of this is to both have a significant anger towards my father, which was there, a confusion against my father and why I was there. And eventually there was a conversation that I started to have introspectively. So this cerebral internal question. Answer began, I think probably on day three or four.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Help you in that decision, you have to make the decision on your own. I don't care which path that you choose, whether it's to try this Olympic path one more time or to study, be the best academic that you can, whatever it is, I want you to truly train your mind and your body in a way that gives you the satisfaction that you left nothing on the table. And when your father tells you this at the age of 15, he's dropping you off and you have food and you've got clothes, but there's no cell phone, by the way. There's no video games. There's no Instagram. There's nothing exists.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To put it the most simple way, I didn't apply myself, right? And he just, you know, I'm sure every father, every mother looks at their kids in the same way because they believe they can do anything. And it was powerful. So my dad took me to this area about three and a half hours southwest of downtown Seattle, and it's right on the Pacific Ocean, this area. He would take me to when I was very young. We would spend our holidays there. And we used to rent this at the time. It was a very cheap kind of old rustic cabin. And this area was called Kopalis Beach. And he drops me off at this place, rented this cabin at the Iron Springs Resort, which has been redone and is really beautiful now. But this Iron Springs Resort and looks me in the eyes and tells me I'm not going to stay here with you. You are going to stay here alone. And you are going to figure out the next step and path in your life. I am not going to.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he also saw this pattern of self-sabotage that potentially would be a demon that I would face many times throughout my life if he could not help me understood where that source was coming from and how to change that. And so my father takes me from the competition, explains to me that he's deeply upset, not because I didn't make the team, but in the way that I had trained and left so much on the table that year.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so my father saw this, you know, he saw his son. With all of the potential, by the way, and raw ability to make an Olympic team at the age of 15. And to give you more context, my father's Japanese, the games are held in Nagano, Japan. My grandparents live and are from Tokyo, and we're actually living, I think, near Nagano at the time. They had bought their tickets already to go to the Olympic Games. They had already assumed that I was supposed to be a part of this Olympic team. I was not. I did not make that team. And it was not because I didn't have the ability or the potential. It's because I threw it away. And that deeply, deeply emotionally scarred my father, because that's not the psychology that he understands. He was never even given the potential or the chance to do something like that, let alone to see it being thrown away by his own blood.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Into a way that it was perhaps the most important and impactful next two weeks of my life as my father decided to take some real hard love and hard action into his hands in terms of forcing me to come to a real determination about which path I should take in my life and how I should attack that path.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Intimidated, I then started to lose my fun kind of happy go lucky attitude towards a sport. I had not yet applied or understood the power of the mind and its focal properties in association with streamlining something to generate massive output. I just assumed that this was the way it was. And not only did I not enjoy the process, I had new coaches and a new environment. But I mentally was not engaged. The light switch never went on, even though I was there, I was still in the offseason mode. I was just going through the motions. And so I arrived at the 1998 Olympic trials, no longer overweight, but mentally going into the competition thinking that I wasn't going to make the team. And so within one year, I went from first place, which was being at the top of the mountain, to finishing dead last at those Olympic trials. And that kind of spiral down.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Training with the grown men that I'd beaten before. I'd never trained with them. I'd always trained with kind of kids around my same age. And now I'm in an environment where this is the dedication and sacrifice that these individuals have made to pursue their dream of making the Olympic team. I did not understand what that concept was. I was still a kid living in this world where seemingly we thought that everything was just fun and games. And it was very quick for me to recognize that these men and females in this group had fun, but they were about business. And this was also about making a team. And there's only four men and four women who make the Olympic team five with an alternate, but who make the Olympic team come December and every day counted. And I was beyond.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was I mean, it was both, I both understood that I didn't want to do those things. And I also had no idea what it was going to take on a year that is the most important for all of the athletes internationally and domestically. And so when I arrived back into the training program, the major differentiating factor was that I now walked in with literally this like spare tire around my waist. I'd been going through puberty. I'd been eating really bad. I had not trained, I had not done a single workout from the moment that I left the world championships until I arrived. And I just assumed that this was like the normal routine of what had happened. Now the training program moved from Lake Placid, New York, which was the junior development program, and we had, I was now a part of the national team training program. I'm now 15 years old. I'm now”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Video games Cheetos talk about McDonald's Pizza Hut, like going through puberty, growing up, hanging out with friends, staying up late, no biking, no training, no skating, nothing.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I come home after the experience at that world championships kind of deer in the headlights. And now we are, the US team is headed into the Olympic season. And the Olympic season meaning 1990, it's really 1997 summer going into the remainder of that year. We have about three months from the last race that we had in the World Championships in Japan until when we were supposed to report back to training camp for the offseason training, so to speak. And this offseason training was used by all of the senior level athletes as a time to really build the physical and mental base that would carry them through the rest of the year. I had no idea to me the offseason was literally the offseason.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't finish at the 1997 World Championships, which were actually held in Nagano. I think I had gotten 15th, or maybe it was 19th in the 1500 meters overall.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't even know if I was thinking about my future. It was more just I was just experiencing in its most present raw form of noticing that when you skate around this oval rink, and if you imagine the shape of a peanut, right, where it's got these indentations and it kind of goes back out. So almost like a figure eight that doesn't touch in the middle. That's a typical track in terms of short track speed skating. The way that we would train and skate in the US is much more just like a typical oval. So we never go in on the straightaways and then back out for the corners. We kind of just our straightaways are quite straight. And so I remember my very first 1500 meter race with, you know, some of these world champions and looking to my left and seeing the entire pack is skating literally inside of me and I'm skating on outside near the boards and just thinking like this feels like I'm skating a different race. This is the weirdest experience.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was everything. It was better strategy, better training, better technique, better equipment, better experience, a different level of seriousness associated with the competition. Not to say that our men's and women's teams was not serious. It just seemed different at the way that the South Korean team carried themselves into the ice rink as a professional unit, never showing signs of emotion, not laughing or joking around. It was different. I mean, I was 14 years old, right? So everything to me was fun and a joke back then. Everything was just natural. And I saw this level of intensity and seriousness through the eyes of not only the athletes, but the coaches who demanded so much from these athletes. And it was almost inspiring and is also very intimidating at the same time.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was 15, and it was actually 14. And so I was so taken aback by the fact that the way that we skated even the track on the ice was so radically different. That was the moment that hit me that said, wow, I actually thought that I was pretty good as an athlete and I had talent. The reality is that we're not even close right now to”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so this is before. This is after I made my first kind of world team and I had my first real senior level competition, right? I'm now in the big leagues and I'm competing against everybody.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think so, yeah, at the age of 14, I had the raw genetic and talent ability that would take me to the top of the competitive sphere in the United States. And so when I made that first team under, by the way, some incredible mentorship and amazing coaching by someone who knew what to do with a rambunctious kid like me and helped to harness the power of the raw ability that I had. And after doing that and making my first team going and competing internationally on the world stage in Japan in 1997 at the World Championships, that was the moment trying to make the night.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then he gets the call from the coach in Lake Placid who's really just prompting and asking him, hey, are you still planning on sending Apollo, your son here to the program because the offer's wide open, but we haven't heard from you and my dad being very confused is like, oh my God, you guys lost my son. I mean, you fast forward through that story, my father figures out whose house I was actually staying at after a seven days or seven to nine days Picks me up, he's very upset. Two weeks go by, more arguments, more battles back and forth between young son and father. And my dad makes the decision for me that he's going to go there with me and flies with me to Albany, New York, and then make the drive to Lake Placid. And upon there, basically drops off the package, and that package was me to the training program.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Advisorship of some coach who I never had a relationship with. It was a very alien experience in looking at it. And it didn't seem like that was the good idea for me. And so my father drops me off the airport after packing my bags and essentially explains to me that if I don't like it, I can come home after one month. But this is something that I need to do. And it was at that moment that I decided to take the decision into my own hands. And watch my father drive away after dropping me off at CTEC Airport. I take my bags. I walk into the CTAC airport. I walk back out. I go to the payphone. I call a friend, inform my friend that I am no longer going to go to New York for this training program. And instead, I'm going to hang out at friends' houses from house to house week to week until I figure this thing out, all while my father believes that I'm actually in New York training with his team, but I'm so upset that I don't call him.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, the first time that my father told me at the age of 14 that I had the chance to go and be a part of this unique experience of going through a training program to potentially make an Olympic team, the United States Olympic Committee had pulled some strings and changed the rules for me as an exception. This was 1996, 1997. And so they had said that typically you have to be 15 years old to be a part of this training program. You're only 14. We see so much promise in your son that we would love for him to attend at the age of 14, my dad being very ecstatic and happy. This is amazing. This is life-changing. My son could potentially do something extraordinary in his life, which is what he's always wanted. And so my father explains this to me. I had other plans. I didn't want to be there. It was a summertime in Seattle. I was a kid. I mean, I was 14 years old. I just wanted to hang out. I didn't want to go some foreign place and train with people who I didn't know under the tutelage.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, as I grow older, I look back at my career and I'm like, man, that was the dumbest thing that you could have done. Like your actual results could have been two X of what they ever were had you been a smarter, more predictable athlete. I'm not sure I would change anything, but that's the reality is that I guess that was my dark side is my self-sabotage to try to see how low I could get against all these odds and still come up out of this thing winning a race.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I don't mean it's not like I think every athlete has their own unique experience in this realm. And, you know, for me personally, it's not like I was so dominant that I had the luxury of doing this. It's not like Michael Phelps, right? Where Phelps will, for 10 years straight, like he's just winning literally every single thing or a Michael Johnson, the track on Field Sprinter, who he would just completely obliterate the competition. It was always like a chance of me winning, but it wasn't guaranteed. And there was years and times when I was very dominant, but it wasn't like I was head over shoulders just greater than anyone else on the ice. And I think a lot of that stems from like a deep insecurity, a fact that I would oftentimes win races where the strategy was that I was actually at the front of the pack in first or second position and lead most of the race. And it did not excite me. I felt very unfulfilled and it didn't seem like that was enough.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To concentrate in a way that I almost relish in the fact that I wasn't supposed to win and that I would. And so a friend of mine showed me the other day who used to be my old coach, he showed me, he goes, if you actually watch your pattern of competition throughout your entire career, you have kind of like this really interesting up and down motion. It's always trajecting up, but there's always a fall and a rise, a fall and a rise. And I'm sure that's with everybody, but it's not smooth, like a normal kind of cadence would be. It was like this sharp rise and a sharp fall, a sharp rise and a sharp fall, sharp rise and a sharp fall. And so we saw this pattern that I would, that, by the way, it's a very dangerous way to race in the sport of short-track speed skating because you're just not going with the grain that would greatly give you the outcome you desire. Instead, you're essentially creating obstacles to make it even harder.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But also because I became There was this exhilarating flow state and feeling that I would be able to replicate of this absolute highest level of performance. And so I'd be in the heat box beforehand looking to see that I'm the only American in the race. All of the odds are stacked against me and it would somehow trigger”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right now, about why it is that certain athletes go into these dark places and what is the reasons why they become addicted to that process. And so one of the things that we understood last night that I was talking, which I've explained to you right now, is I would strategically race these races. So let's take a thousand meters, for example. The thousand meters is a nine-lap race. Strategy is very important. If you are jostling in position with five or six laps to go and you are in first or second place, the chances and likelihood of you winning drastically skyrocket. If you are in the back of the pack, if you're in fifth or fourth place, the chances of you winning diminishes with every single second that passes as that 5, 4, 3, 2 bell lap happens. I would place myself consistently at the back of the pack until the last possible moment, partially in terms of my strategy.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I think it goes at a deep level where. I somehow associated the impossible. So being in an impossible position and then coming up out of that impossible position to actually achieve the impossible against a series of three Canadians, three Chinese and three Koreans in the race who are all working together to beat me and I somehow still win. There was something very spectacular that seemed to associate with that, right? Your two strikes, your base is loaded. This is the last inning, the last pitch, and you somehow hit a grand slam. Like when everything seems to be on the line, and I think subconsciously over the course of my career, I would replicate these situations, both in terms of the strategy and terms of how I raced. And it's really, it's fascinating that you actually ask this because last night one of my confidants and closest friends, when you were discussing about a potential talk that I'm structuring.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then what you do after that point can greatly determine your path and trajectory moving forward. And you talked about self-sabotage. I've had my bouts with self-sabotage almost my entire career as an athlete. And even I think post-career as a human. And these are probably deeper psychological kind of traits and micro traumas that I think we all deal with on a day-to-day basis as we grow as humans. And the way that they expose themselves in my life as an Olympic athlete was I started to thrive and desire being at rock bottom and then coming back from that. And I don't know, you know, I have some beliefs and theology.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so everything I did, I was excelling at in the sport very early. And that was a really, really kind of big change. You know, seven years it would be before I could ever go drinking with the team. I mean, legally, right? I mean, I would be on the team for seven more years as the captain of the team before we could even go at the banquet, break bread, and share a beer or an adult beverage, so to speak. So it was psychologically that was, I always likened it to like a child actor who reaches a tremendous amount of success at an early age and doesn't really understand the path or process of why or how they're doing it because it seems so natural and almost easy.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which was very strange and awkward because I was beating grown men who were double my age and who had been in the sport for entire lives. And I was this young punk kid who didn't understand or know anything about really the sport or sacrifice or dedication. I was just going purely on raw talent that's being instigated by some structured training, which would give me these leaps and bounds. So that naivety of me kind of looking at the sport and looking at an athlete and thinking like, I don't really, you know, I know this. Everyone tells me this guy is really fast or he's a really high performer. I don't really see how that's possible because I don't think he's that good. So it's at that kind of young cockiness and also naivety that exists that is also really beautiful and strong because I didn't know what I didn't know. And I also never tasted pure failure and defeat after wanting something so badly for so many years and not receiving it.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's the crux of it all, right? At the age of 14, I had moved from Seattle to upstate New York. I was invited to be a part of this junior development Olympic training center program in Lake Placid, New York. And it was a hyper-concentrated environment in which they would take kind of the junior youth skaters and then propel them along the path towards making an actual Olympic team. I accelerated so fast in that first year that within, I think seven, a little over seven months, I went from essentially becoming unknown to anyone in the World Cup circuit, international circuit, or even the US circuit, to then going to the World Team trials, winning the competition.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Driving up north from Seattle to Vancouver, which was like a two and a half hour drive from my house. And I learned by just watching and competing against the Canadians.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And to Burnaby and to Calgary, which is, by the way, which is a very long drive. And that's really how I learned. I learned by watching and mimicking and copying what I saw and then applying that in a way that I felt like was natural to my body. And so when I first saw the Sport of Torture speed skating, I didn't know what it was like. I mean, it looked very cool and fun as a 12-year-old, 13, and 14-year-old on television. But until you see it live, that's when the real change happens because these athletes lean over on this clean glass sheet at these really impossible angles and they're just whipping around in this hawk gearing. And it looks impossible. It doesn't look real until you see it. And as a 12 year old, to me, they look like superhero figures wearing these like, you know, aerodynamic outfits just racing around. And they were wearing samurai swords. So that's how I learned how to speed skate was really.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was not big in Seattle. I saw the sport on television when I was 12 years old with my father watching the Olympic Games. My dad was looking for any outlet he possibly could that would give me a positive direction in which to channel my energy. He didn't care what sport it was as long as it wasn't like a football or a boxing, like where there was a risk for head trauma or injury. Everything else was pretty much free game.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fractions of a second of strategy changes or hesitation can dramatically go from first to last. And typically the races are skated around 111 meter oval, but there's a 500 meter, a 1,000 meter, and a 1500 meters. And then there's the relay, which looks very confusing to most people who are watching for the first time, four teams of four on the ice. And you're kind of racing around doing one and a half lap exchanges. So the sport itself is, I would say, you know, the common term people say is it's the American NASCAR on ice, right? They're kind of spinning around and racing around at these impossible angles, leaning over, doing these pivots on one foot and going 35 to 40 miles an hour on one leg and accelerating and passing. And it's a sport that I grew up in and loved, but it's a very obscure sport. And it's not.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure. Short track speed skating is ice speed skating. On an Olympic size hockey rink. They skate around these blocks in an oval pattern. Instead of traditional long track speed skating that is skated on a 400 meter oval and you're really racing against the clock, so imagine a traditional track and field but covered in ice and then you just race to see how fast you could go. This is a race in which there's several other competitors on the same start line. There's a lot of strategy, a lot of passing and jostling for position. And it is an equally exciting and volatile sport that is similar to that of like a car race. So you can run the same race several times over in short track and probably get several different winners just because of the different strategies and techniques associated. You probably will have the same type of individuals in the final, but you can run it several times.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm sure that there's some encoding of some DNA at some kind of hardwiring level that enables you or your previous experiences that you've inherited. I would bet on that. I also believe it can be trained. It's obviously much different, right? So if your natural, innate, instinctive response is to just grind and have that kind of growth mindset and really thrive and grit grit components and processes, I think that that's easier. But I think that it can be trained, right? Just like anything. But I do believe that it's a combination of both that seems to yield the greatest output.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's a business owner. My dad owns a hair salon in downtown Seattle still to this day. And he does it for all the reasons outside of what usually are extrinsically motivating. He does it because he loves connecting with the community and he does it because he likes to work. That's what drives him is going and having a place that he feels he can contribute to. And I didn't notice that at the time, but growing up, the constant theme was that my father pushed upon me this belief system that you are unlimited in your potential. I think over time you believe that”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The single, I don't know if that's one single thing, but the lessons that my father taught me, I think, stem from him being an immigrant from Japan, not having access to financial resources like many who come to this country, but really relied on the one thing that he had, which was his work ethic. And that work ethic and that consistency of work ethic remained a constant theme in my life. And then when you attach that with your father always and continuously communicating to you that you can be anything that you want, nothing can ever stop you from achieving anything, regardless of whether you win lose or fall short, your job is to continuously get back up and keep attacking and learn from those mistakes. And my dad is not an amazing businessman. He never was.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thank you. I'm a big fan of your process and the way that you interview the guests that you've brought on. It's actually been deeply valuable to not only my personal life, but I actually have suggested and recommended your work to a lot of friends who are looking for what I would consider to be high quality and produce content that is increasingly more important today than ever before. Thank you, man. Thank you for the dedication.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm good. I'm in Los Angeles. I've been quarantined since March, I think it's March 7th. So it's been an interesting process to say the least.”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was kind of around the same question why are you here? Why and what do you want to do? Is that even important to you? And I did not have an answer. There was no kind of clearing of the skies. There was no lightning bolt. And like all of a sudden it sunshine, oh, you should go and become Olympic athlete. None of that. It was really at its most principled. You have a decision Do you think that you could do something spectacular in the sport that you tried at? Do you like it? Are you making this decision because of your dad? Are you making this decision because of yourself?”
2020-08-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #90 Apolo Ohno: Process Versus Prize · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT