The Exchanges

Q Yeah, man. How did you get into this? Like, you were in the Pacific Northwest, right? So like, how, like, I can imagine it being big in Vancouver almost, but like, in Seattle?

A Yeah, it was not big in Seattle. Uh, 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. And I saw this sport and my dad said, sure, I'll, I'll allow you to, to kind of jump in. I actually learned how to speed skate from my father driving me from Seattle to Vancouver and to Burnaby and to Calgary. Which is a, by the way, which is a very long drive. Um, and that, that's, 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 I didn't, when I first saw the sport of short track speed skating, I didn't know what it was like. I mean, I 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, these athletes lean over on this clean glass sheet at these really impossible angles, and they're just whipping around in this hockey gear. And it looks impossible. It doesn't look real until you, you see it. And, you know, as a twelve-year-old…

AI assessment note: “I saw the sport on television when I was 12 years old with my father”

Q You didn't even want to go to Lake Placid, right? Like you didn't get on the plane when your dad dropped you off at the airport.

A Yeah. The first time that my father told me at the age of 14 that I was, I had the chance to go and be a part of this, you know, 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, you know, 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, 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 and 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. An…

AI assessment note: “Yeah... I had other plans. I didn't want to be there.”

Q And, and so what happens after that, between that and not making the 98 Olympic team?

A So I come home after the experience at that world championships, kind of deer in the headlights and And now we are, the U S team is headed into the Olympic season and the Olympic season, meaning 1990, um, sorry, it's, it's really 1997 summer going into, um, you know, the remainder of that year. So 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, you know, the off season 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.

AI assessment note: “now we are, the U S team is headed into the Olympic season”

Q You started short track, uh, speed skating at 12, I think. And then you went on to become the most decorated American athlete at the Winter Olympics. Um, can you sort of describe the event for people unfamiliar with short track speed skating?

A Sure. Short track speed skating is, uh, is ice speed skating. On a Olympic size hockey rink. They skate around these blocks, um, 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 a 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 and Even the fractions of a second of strategy changes or hesitation can, can dramatically go from first to last. And typically the races are, um, skated in around a 111 meter oval, but there's a 500 meter, a 1000 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, th…

AI assessment note: “Short track speed skating is, uh, is ice speed skating. On a Olympic size hockey rink.”

Q And was that where the, like, so what have you is cause the, the strategy was different. Is that what was happening with the other teams like the Canadians and the Koreans and the, was it just a better strategy? Was it better training? Was it like, what was going on that made them?

A It was everything. It was better strategy, better training, better technique, better equipment, better experience. Uh, 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 shot signs of emotion, not laughing or joking around. It was, 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, it was almost, uh, it was both inspiring and is also very intimidating at the same time.

AI assessment note: “It was everything. It was better strategy, better training, better technique”

Q Was it scary at all too? Like, this is my future. If I keep going down this path, you're 14.

A 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, you know, when you skate around this oval rank 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, 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 U S is much more just like a, just a typical oval. So we're, we never, 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. It's, this is the weirdest experience.

AI assessment note: “I don't even know if I was thinking about my future.”

Q And were you just oblivious to the fact that they were doing that? Or were you like, that's not for me. I need to be a teenager. Like, did you know that was happening and you weren't doing it or were you?

A It was, I mean, it was both. It was, I, I, 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 like, with literally this like spare tire around my waist. Uh, I'd been going through puberty. I've 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 would have, 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 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…

AI assessment note: “It was, I mean, it was both. It was, I, I, I both understood”

Q He did that in a really unique way. Are you comfortable sharing that?

A Yeah. So my father saw this, you know, 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 were 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. So, 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. And he also saw this pattern of self-sabotage that potentially would be, uh, uh, 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.

AI assessment note: “Yeah. So my father saw this, you know, saw his son”

Q And so you, you not only trained harder than everybody else, but that's when you sort of like clued into the value of mindset and training your mind too. And is that when you started working with a sports psychologist?

A Yeah. So when I was 15, uh, 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 and dear friend now. Um, 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, the, this was the key to truly unlocking my own potential. At the time, this guy didn't seem like he was an athlete. He, you know, 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. Eventually he broke me down and I'll, 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, um, 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 racket sports. So he was pretty much manhandling me throughout this process. And I hated losing to this guy because I fel…

AI assessment note: “Yeah. So when I was 15, uh, at the Olympic training center”

Q You know, that's really generous of you. Let's just dive in, man. Like you grew up with a single parent. What was the biggest thing you would say you learned from your father?

A Uh, 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, uh, 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 in 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. He's a, you know, 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 that Uh, 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, 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.

AI assessment note: “my father pushed upon me this belief system that you are unlimited in your potential.”

Q One of the things that you said there that was really interesting is that you didn't hang out with the same people. How important do you think that was to reorienting yourself? Like, how hard is it to get out of your environment with people?

A I mean, I look, I don't think there's enough that is talked about. I think your environment is Is not a guarantee of who you are and your outcome, but I think is a great indicator that, you know, 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, um, 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, uh, 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, I, we wouldn't even be having this conversation today, because I don't believe I would even have made that team.

AI assessment note: “Had I not done that, I, we wouldn't even be having this conversation today”

Q Uh, how is the source of what drives you sort of like changed as you transitioned from athletics into business?

A Well, I think that the source of what drives me has changed dramatically. So When I first retired from the world of short track speed skating, I always joke and say it was the first, it was my first great divorce, right? So the one sole identity that I had had, um, 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. And it was a, it is extremely challenging transition for athletes to make. Especially for Olympic athletes. There's no salary associated with what we're doing. And I had, by the way, I had tremendous opportunities and I'm very blessed for those opportunities, um, that I had received. Uh, but still it's only a fraction of what was available to most professional athletes. And, um, it was, 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 that 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…

AI assessment note: “concentrate on something that will give me the greatest possible outcome, not in terms of success”

Q Do you, do you think the work ethic thing is like learned or is it sort of like inherited, like genetically somehow?

A I'm sure that there's some, there's some encoding of some DNA, uh, at some kind of a hard wiring level that enables you or your previous experiences that you've inherited. I would, I would bet on that. Uh, 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, you know, really, you know, thrive and grit, grit components and, and, and processes, I think that that's easier, but. Uh, I, I think that it can be trained, right? Just like anything. But I, I do believe that it's a combination of both that seems to yield the greatest output.

AI assessment note: “I do believe that it's a combination of both”

Q and hiccups between there and the Olympics. Can you walk me through some of that? Because it seemed like, You had all this natural ability and you were just innately really good at, at this thing, right? Like you took to it naturally. You went from not having done it to sort of like U S national champion. You're 14 years old and you hadn't really put in the work.

A Yeah. That, and that's the, I think that's the crux of, of, of it all, right. Is 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, little over seven months, I went from Essentially becoming unknown to anyone in the world cup circuit, international circuit, or even the U S circuit to then going to the world team trials, winning the competition, 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 just like 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, he's a really high performer. I don't really see how that's possible because I don't think he's …

AI assessment note: “I went from Essentially becoming unknown... to then going to the world team trials, winning”

Q Like, you were able to turn that anger into promises for yourself, but it was, it, was it seething, like, watching that competition from the stands going, like, I should be out there? Like, is that the moment things started to really click for you?

A Absolutely. I think I experienced all of the emotions, right? I experienced the, uh, the pain of hearing the other parents basically kind of talk about you in a way that you're just a fallen statistic. Oh, 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 also, 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 this, 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, these things. And while sitting in the stands, while doing that kind of solitary training, and I mean, I, I became a real, when I say I became a real student, I started studying 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.

AI assessment note: “Absolutely. I think I experienced all of the emotions, right?”

Q Like where does that come from? Like that you want to get so close to failure or even fail and then work your way out of it. Like that's the challenge. Is that the appeal?

A Yeah. So I, I think it's, 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? You're, you're two, but you're, you're two strikes, you know, you 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, in terms of how I raced. And it's really, it's fascinating that you actually asked us because last night, one of my confidants and closest friends We were discussing about a potential talk that I, that I'm structuring 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, 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, a thousand meters is a nine laps, nine lap race strategy is very imp…

AI assessment note: “I somehow associated the impossible. So being in an impossible position and then coming up”