Insight
Apolo Ohno: Extreme success is impossible to achieve with a balanced life
“From my personal view, I don't think it's possible.”
Insight
Ohno: Obsession is the common denominator across all top performers
“I think in terms of sheer performance when it comes to sport or other tasks, Everyone has the same common trait, which is obsession.”
Insight
Ohno: Olympic athletes fail Navy SEAL training due to strict psychological limits
“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't, 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…”
What-if
Ohno: A smarter, predictable racing strategy could have doubled my career results
“Your actual results could have been two X of what they ever were. Had you been a smarter, more predictable athlete?”
What-if
Ohno: Cutting off unproductive peers was necessary to make the Olympic team
“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.”
Insight
Ohno: Conditioned internal self-talk triggers physical and biochemical responses in athletes
“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 …”
Insight
Ohno: Trying too hard and fighting the ice actually decreases top speed
“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 and fighting against the other athletes and fighting against yours…”
Opinion
Ohno: Usain Bolt joked before races to prime a hyper-reactive physical state
“Usain 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 cam…”
Insight
Ohno: Disregard past mistakes unless they provide actionable racing lessons
“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. It's completely out.”
Insight
Ohno: Clutch athletes demand final plays because they believe they dictate outcomes
“And I think that that's the belief and confidence in alpha that comes with, if there's anyone going to be responsible for the outcome of this, I believe I can dictate that outcome.”
Disclosure
Ohno: I intentionally trained to exhaustion to dominate teammates while physically weakened
“Even in my own team, I would, you know, 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…”
Insight
Ohno: Combining innate predisposition and training yields the greatest work ethic
“I'm sure that there's some encoding of some DNA at some kind of a hard wiring 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 nat…”
Insight
Ohno: Short track skating's volatility yields different winners each 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 s…”
Assertion Supported
Ohno: I won the US world team trials after seven months' training
“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 strang…”
Disclosure
Ohno: Subconsciously Thrived on Hitting Rock Bottom to Make Comebacks
“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 …”
Assertion Supported
Ohno: I went from first place to dead last within one year
“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 …”
Assertion Supported
Ohno: My father isolated me in a remote cabin to decide my future
“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, you know, when I was very young and we spent our holidays there and we used to rent this at the …”
Disclosure
Ohno: Embracing Sports Psychology and Mindfulness Transformed My Career and Life
“That began my process into the world of meditation, visualization, and self-talk, and the world of sports psychology, and it was from that moment that not only my career changed, but I would say that my life had really changed.”
Apolo Ohno