YouSaid · the spoken record

Travis Stevens

lines on the record: 248
first: 2021-09-21
most recent: 2021-09-21
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

“One of my golden rules when I'm training and I get really tired, one of the mantras I would always tell myself is I'm going to put my back on your chest and then I'm going to put my back on the floor. Because then you'll be underneath me”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's screwed. Yes, that's the kicker is the way mine works is in order for him to play an effective defense, he needs to have his feet firmly planted on the ground with friction. Otherwise, he can't press into me to stop it. So when I get him to sprawl back, when I split his legs, he effectively loses that contact with the floor, even though his feet are on the floor, they're not in a position where he can drive from them. Therefore, when I flip, he flips”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Might do that split, that four foot split. And then when I get my feet back together, it doesn't matter that I'm under his center gravity or not. That's why my chest is right around his sternum height for me”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You back it up a little bit. Keep going. Keep going right there. This is like an important distinction between mine and everybody else's is because I split his hip, I actually, once I'm able to split, I no longer need his center of gravity below mine.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, what I'm doing right now is his head is like in my chest. I'm pressing him to get his head to lift with my chest. So I'm pressing his hand down so I can use my chest to pinch my scaps and roll his head up so that he wants to pick it up.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of times the ones that we do see, and the part that a lot of people don't Experience is a lot of those times right through people with that throw, it was in training camps. So by the time I got to the competition with these guys, they were playing 100% defense to never let me do that.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, this one was relatively easy. This is going all the way back to 2008. So this is the summer before the games. This probably happened in I would say”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I anticipated this is happening. I can see this coming down the path because I'm anticipating that the games is happening and I'm going to win. It's not a goal. It's an anticipation. And there's a distinct distinction there between the two.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Correct. But at some point, right, when When I went into London, I actually went into London going with, I'm going to prove I'm the best in the world because I believe I'm the best in the world. And I believe it from like the bottom of my soul that I'm winning this. And then you're almost like trying to tell the universe, I'm accomplishing this thing because it's a goal. But when I went into Rio, I just accepted the fact that I was winning. Not a goal. Like, this is happening.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a distinction when you're talking about your athletic career or really any endeavor, right? The problem with goal setting is nobody teaches the athletes or the people how to transition from the goal to reality. When you look at my career as a whole, like when I was getting ready for 2008, I actually forgot to train for it. I was so happy at such a young age that I became an Olympian, that that in and of itself was a goal that I thought had to be admired, had to be celebrated, that the games are right around the corner. I didn't really come down off that high.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Same thing with the prestige around certain metals over others because athletes start chasing fame instead of development.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of way. And then genetically, it just as they keep doing that, they're just going to get better and better every generation. Just going to keep improving because they just keep building into that system of turning them out.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. And when you're, I don't want to say bred into it, but when you've done it, For I want to say like 90% of your life by the time Kabid probably has, right from the time he could crawl, he's probably been grappling in some fashion thereof, right? You know, when you, as grapplers, like you can look at a wrestler. Having never seen this person before and go, You wrestled. Why is that? It's because he's probably wrestled since he was like six. So the way he carries himself, the way his body is built, the way he grew into it was framed around wrestling. So, the people in that culture are framed around fighting and grappling.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Judo on like a global scale is probably that only one. It's like physicality and the hardships that you have to go through to reach that upper level.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Still a combat sport to them. They're still in that same, like, Realm of their taking young kids. And that's what they do.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People just gave a certain level of respect to my skill set. Whether I had a bad wake cut or didn't have a bad way cut or not trained for the last three months, which never happened, I'm just saying they were going to fight the persona. It's an important distinction when you're looking at the top five because everybody coming up, they're training against the persona, not who you are. Even I did that at a younger age. That's why I would always go to people's hometowns. Because I don't care about the persona. I want to know what you do day in and day out. I couldn't beat a Russian. I told Jimmy send me to Russia. I need to understand and see it with my own eyes what they do, outperform so that I can believe that I can beat them.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the rest of the world believing it. Can have all the confidence in the world, but if the rest of the room doesn't buy it, it's nothing”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that told me that, well, if I can take fifth and I'm this bad at judo right now. Wait until I'm healthy and I'm back in shape, then they're not going to know what hit them.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The world should have treated me like I was washed up. Like this guy hasn't been training. He hasn't been doing anything. But I took fifth in Japan. How does a guy that hasn't trained all year take fifth at one of the hardest tournaments in the world on two weeks of training? Because they were fighting the guy I used to be. Not the guy I was at the tournament, which means they were competing under the idea of like, what is he really capable of? Not what have I brought to the table today”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was relatively unique for Kayla, I, and Jimmy up until 2016. Now since twenty sixteen, you can see a lot of what we used to do throughout most of Europe and even Asia. Like you're starting to see some of those techniques that you didn't see before starting to get implemented. Because when I was gearing up for 2015, I had such a slew of injuries that entire calendar year that I never should have made it to Rio. I should have called it quits at the end of 2015 because I suffered that major concussion in February. I stepped on a mat in May for the first time. I lost five straight tournaments. I left the national team, went to Japan. won Pan Am Games, got a bacterial infection at the world, almost had my leg cut off, tore my SI joint later on that year, and then took fifth in Japan. And when you look at the calendar year as a whole,”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Believe it or not, I didn't really think I was there until. 2013, I thought I was recognized as one of the best because I was able to fight for Oppenzburg, which was the professional Bundeslig team for Germany, which is one of the top clubs in all of Europe. When they asked me to, I felt like Europe had accepted me as like, oh, I'm a top-level judo player. But I don't necessarily think that when I signed on to compete for them, that the division or the world of judo saw me as a top-level judo player. There's a mental shift that happens along that point. And for me, my mental shift really came into play in December of 2015. That was like When I lost in Japan, that's when I realized the world respects my abilities and they compete against them. Don't compete against me as a person. They compete against the idea or”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's kind of like when people look at survival in the wilderness, it's like, oh, it's not that hard. You'd probably be dying a couple days. Same thing with Judo and martial arts. Like, yeah, it's really not that hard, but you don't know what to do yet. And so when you find out that first time that you don't know what to do, it's devastating to a lot of people. But those that like stick through it and start to learn, it's a very empowering feeling that now you can take care of yourself.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You don't even know where it originates from because you're like, how does one person's hand do this where I can't use my whole arm? Or, like, I can't pick up my right foot because he's holding onto my right sleeve.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A thing in judo, right? Where you know, imagine you as just an adult, right? And I hope people can conceptualize this when they hear this. But imagine you're a full grown adult, even male, female, it doesn't matter, but there's a little kid in front of you, like, call him five or six years old and he's acting out. Like, do you think you have the physical capability of with one hand grabbing that person or that kid and making sure that they freeze? Like they feel like they're nervous and like they can't do anything. You fight a good judo player when they grab you, that's what it feels like as an adult. Even I've felt that from certain players in Japan when they get a grip, I'm like, I've now lost the function of this lens.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, I can let you take a grip. Can let you think that there's opportunity, but what you don't understand is by the position and angle that I'm in, it's actually false hope. As long as you don't know that it is, then now I'm free to operate and do what I want.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do because I know what it's like to train with somebody under the mentality of I'm going to do everything I want to do. You're going to do nothing you want to do and you're going to accept that.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hard to put a percentage to it because I've never in all of my jujitsu ever gone 100%. Like, I had a conversation with Salo one time where we were talking about jiu-jitsu and training. And I was like, well, if I got his arm, I would just break it. He was like But what if he tapped? I go, that's not my responsibility. He taps and the ref doesn't say anything, you just break it, you just keep going. He goes, but the tap means it's over. And I said, no, the ref tells me when it's over. I go, I never give you the opportunity to tap because if you have the opportunity to tap, that means you had the opportunity to think about how to get out, make a decision that you can't, then tap. I clearly operated too slowly. So there's a, it's either broken or I don't have it.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I would necessarily say I've beaten them as much as I've trained with them. And they understand whoever it is that through training with me, that like I'm not just a judo guy. Like I know how to do jujitsu. And if any one of them were to come to me and like say, hey, you know, I want to feel what it feels like to do judo with me They would quickly understand that the way I approach one is very different than the way I approach the other. We probably wouldn't be friends if they did judo with me versus if they did jujitsu with me”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, because the mentality of how I approached Judo versus Jiu Jitsu, Jiu Jitsu to me is like, Game that we would play If you wanted to grab a basketball and like go play a game of one on one, that's like Jiu Jitsu to me. Like I can't take the sport in in its entirety seriously because I feel like the community of jiu-jitsu doesn't take it seriously.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've never had one in jiu-jitsu. I mean, I might have torn a fingernail or gotten Geeburn, but I've never been like. Seriously injured. I know when Ponza straight ankle locked me at Copapodio. That hurt, but I wasn't injured. Like, it felt sore. But, like, if I had to run, like, I could run.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My early teens, I actually got out of sports from 11 to 15 years old, 16 years old because a kid shot a double leg through my kneecap and I partially tore all the ligaments in my knee, cartilage, meniscus, the whole nine yards. And I had to learn how to walk again. I spent two years in a leg brace, crutches, you know, hobbling around the schoolyard. That one was a challenge to come back from. I've broken most of my ribs. I won nationals with nine broken ribs. I was actually getting Novocane shots into my chest to avoid feeling the pain and then wrapping them to try to make sure I didn't pop along. I've broken my collarbone. I have five hernated disc in my neck. I fractured my back twice. I've broken my tailbone. I tore my SI joints. I've torn my right hamstring twice, my left one once.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was stressed from my mind thinking, even though it's not. Top of mind, there's probably a portion of me that like the Olympics is coming around and it could be my last. Like my body just reacted to something chemically. So I was breaking out in hives. I actually bought like a 600 euro Hugo boss suit because when I was in the Netherlands training at the time, I thought I had bed bugs because I was getting bit every Then I thought there was something in the detergent at the local thing. So I threw away all more clothes. Like I was paying for showers because I was trying to get the detergent off my body and buying new clothes at the airport. Trying to figure it out.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because when I, around 2012, when I was talking with the USOC Nutritionist, I actually got my weight down so much that I didn't really need to cut weight. The problem is I wasn't cutting weight. I didn't feel like I was competing. You have to go through that mental process. And I never really reworked that. It was easier to just cut the weight and be ready to go. When I entered into the 90 kilo division, I was rushed to the hospital the night after because my body broke out in hives, like full body. They said it was stress induced. So, a month before the games, I was hospitalized and hungry Filled with steroids to get the hives to drop, and every couple days, my body, when I got back home, I would end up in the hospital because my whole body would break out again.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I entered one tournament at 90 kilos. And that was because before Rio from the end of 2014 all the way up until Rio's, every time I fought, I got hurt. Was no time where I made weight and got injured because my body weight was so high, my body fat was so low that by the time I dehydrated enough to get down there and you take the physicality of judo and throw that into the mix, something broke everything. It was like nature of the beast. So, the plan was before Rio. We made an agreement with USA Judo that Travis, you're going to fight 90 kilos, but you're not going to weigh in at 90 kilos like, hey, there's no like, you get to be 94 kilos and cut to 90s. There's like a, you're going to step on the scale at 84 kilos. Like a little bit of a weight cut, but not a full one, just so that you feel like you get into the tournament.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I was like, I'm just going to bag it. I'm going to accept the fact that I may not make a junior world team. I may not make this team, but I'll grow into the division so when I'm a senior player, like I'm ready to go and I'll naturally be stronger. There's an understanding of like a growth process when you move up a weight class. Most people can't just, oh, I'm going to fight 90s and I'm going to win because I wanted 81. The style of judo is different, how you move is different, how they do things is different. There's like a learning curve that goes into it. And because the weight cut didn't really happen until I was getting ready for Rio, I wasn't about to have my last Olympic Games be at a different weight class that I may or may not be able to grow into.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know when I was a kid, like, I always wanted to be like the middleweight Olympic champion, like the 81 kilo Olympic champion. When I was in high school, I made a decision when I was trying to make weight for 73. I was like, dude, I was cutting weight for 73. Like I was cutting weight at the end of my career.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everybody has their own way of doing it. Some people don't cut that much. Some people can't wait cut at all, right? They would rather have been like 83 kilos fighting 90 than be 83 kilos fighting 81.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm on the other level too, where I've been in Belgium, right? Belgium, there used to be a B level tournament. And the tournament used to go on. And because I was always on the heavier side, like 81s fights on the second day, which is the heavyweight day. Weigh ins were always at like, let's say 2 p.m. the day before for that tournament. Well, there was a sauna at the tournament. I remember like being in the sauna and like, oh. I'm 80.9 kilos. Weigh in aren't for three hours. Fuck it, I'm gonna have lunch. I mentally understand that what I eat right now is going to fuel me for tomorrow. I don't want to skip it. I have the time to put it into my system and still lose it.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I am astounded when I hear like. UFC plighters like misweight. When Jaden Cox missed weight at the Olympic trials, I was like At least his was understandable because he missed the actual weigh-ins. He wasn't like not on weight. When UFC fighters miss weight, I'm like, How did that happen? You clearly gave up a long time ago. Were times where I was like, well, I can't do this. There have been times where I've been in a sauna suit wrestling with a training partner who's probably 60 kilos, who fought earlier that day. Lose 0.3.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I was weighing myself every time because I only get breaks when I was hitting weight allotments. So, if I could lose 0.3 in 10 minutes, I'd give myself a break. But I had to hit certain numbers because I only have the sauna for a certain amount of time. And I remember one time I went downstairs to get my key to the sauna and the Japanese team had reserved it and took it from me. The guy didn't put my name on the list when I called down to get the sauna, so I lost an entire session that I had to get made up towards the later part of the day because I still have no running shoes And then sure enough, my bags show up 30 minutes after weigh-ins.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's nothing worse than sitting in that kind of heat for 10, 15 minutes. And then you walk out and you're not even sweating. There's nothing worse than”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then the thing is because you have to reserve the sauna, I can't even take like a 30 minute break because the sauna is not going to be mine in an hour, which means you have to use the sauna in the heat for that a lot of time period. And I hate saunas. That is always my last resort. I will use a bath. I will train. I will run. I will jump rope. Sauna is like, oh, let me do that for 10 minutes after all of my gym workouts just to keep the sweat going while I stretch and cool down. That's never like the, hey, I'm going to do five, 10 minute sessions because I need to lose two kilos. That is never the plan.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you're not doing anything. Like if there had been a bike or like the sauna was big enough to use a jump rope or you could do some sort of activity, but you just sit and you stew and you're there mentally. At one point during the weight cut, I actually had my mouth on the bottom part of the door where there was a little gap and my legs up on the benches. And Khalida holding the door so that it didn't open so I couldn't open it. So that I could lean against that thing and have fresh air. Because I was like, I was struggling.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I go, that's not going to fly. So sure enough, the clothes are now ruined. They didn't help me lose any extra weight. So I go back to the hotel and I start reserving the sauna. How hard it is to lose that much weight in a sauna by yourself?”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Way and Like, holy crap, I throw on all my layers, and there's one other person with me there, Kalita, who's my girlfriend at the time. Now my wife, we start doing judo because I'm like, this will be the easiest way to knock off like three or four kilos. Well, it's cold. I have no ghee. And I'm working out with a female. I can't get like overly physical to like really get my muscles going to really break that sweat because she has to compete in a day or two. She's not a training partner. You can't just use this person. I stepped on the scale. I was 91 kilos. I went, I was a nice dent, but like”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would need a lot of layers just to cut the amount of weight I'm about to tell you I have to cut because after I bought that stuff that next morning and mind you it's a Friday it's a Friday morning I go to the venue where we have the mats open to train and I step on the scale and then Sagambatar Mongolia goes oh pretty good you're almost there and I go”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In sandals. Get this. I get to the hotel Check in. I don't even know about the sauna yet. I go, I need to find a clothing store. I'm in the middle of Russia. I open up Google Maps and I'm like sports store. Find an Adidas sports store in the middle of Sochi Russia, right Spend like $500 on average sweats, no plastics, no nothing, and no running shoes because they don't have any.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just accept reality. Don't even hinder on the things you can't change. Because the second you get frustrated, the second you think you can change it, you'll harp on it. And that breaks most men. That like little thing in the back of their mind thinking, all like, what if? There's no what if. Like, there's only right here right now. Doesn't work, it doesn't work. Let's just quickly come up with a solution to fix the problem.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very low Sure enough, it's gone. I get all the way to Sochi. I check into the hotel. There's one sauna. Guess what? You have to reserve it. And you're only allowed to reserve it for an X period of time.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hardest way cut I ever had. Hardest one. I fought Pan Am Games in 2015 in Edmonton, Canada on a Wednesday. I won. So I've made wait on Tuesday. I've fought on Wednesday where I had to win 5% of my weight class, so 84 kilos. On Wednesday, I was 84 kilos. I got on a plane. That Wednesday night and landed Friday morning in Sochi. So I've traveled now. I got on the scale, all my bags got lost. Everything. So somehow I flew from there to here, no bags. And I threw all of my stuff in my bag. I wore sandals, one pair of pants and a t-shirt on the plane because I was like, I'm just tired. I just fought. Like, I don't even want to carry it. I don't care. What are the odds that I get there? My bags are gone.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source