Olympian Mindset for Success

Speaker 1: [Music] triples are what guys normally compete and doubles are traditionally what most of the girls compete but over the last several years there's been a couple girls who have started to push the bounds a little bit and do triples that's open my eyes to the possibilities and I always think back to when I started this sport even 10 years ago I'm like man if someone would have set the expectation that from the bat I would be doing triples it would make it way less daunting then oh you're a girl you're just going to do doubles for your whole career and now I'm at the point where I am attempting to do triples hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the sheb built it experience with Melanie join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in thank you for joining us winter you are a 2022 Olympian US national champion World Cup champion and Global Ambassador for wellness brand juice plus you ran your first 5k when you were 5 years old your first 10K when you were 8 years old and a 10-mile at age 10 what got you into running at a young age and why are you so passionate about it I was an avid athlete growing up since I was basically 5 years old my three brothers and I grew up in a very active household we grew up on 200 acres in northern Michigan connected to my grandparents 2,000 acres so we always were out exploring in the woods enjoying nature doing active things so Sports naturally came into that my dad was not much of an athlete growing up he was a musician my mom was an athlete and did high school sports and my grandpa was ski instructor for over 60 years I got my skiing from him and then my running and then eventually triathon more from my mom because my mom and Uncle did a lot of races on weekends when I was growing up so as a family we would go in our RV my dad my three brothers and I and watch my mom compete and eventually I started getting a little bit interested in what she was doing and I remember one time seeing her going for some runs around our house and was like hey can I join so I started doing some runs with her and then at One race up in Canada that she was doing there was a kids race with it and this was a traon not just a running race and so I put on my water wings headed to the start line realized no other kids had water wings on so of course immediately ripped mine off and then did my first trath on ever and I think I just loved being able to be competitive having three brothers we were always trying to one up each other and so that competitive Drive I was able to channel into something with the sports and for those young years I just purely did it because I enjoyed it I loved being out there pushing myself and racing against the other kids and even then adults because there weren't many kids races in northern Michigan I love that and I'm sure it's so good for a discipline and endorphins are such a great thing and for you to be doing that at such a young age it had to be so helpful to you in every other aspect of your life absolutely naturally set me up for being very active and as a young adult but then also it really helped me establish things like gritting it out and doing things you don't always want to do training on days you don't always feel like training and having that commitment to something and that drive to push yourself to be better to sometimes beat other people but mostly to beat your own times that definitely translated and I think it helped having parents who naturally grew up around that and then that's what they did and we did it too it wasn't like they were like okay you should go do this no I was just watching my mom and seeing what she was doing and then following along and so I think that really shows the power of not just telling someone something but showing them by example and it was super helpful having that growing up I have 9-year-old Twins and they're very competitive and competitive against each other and my daughter is very athletic she'd play sports every day of the week but I think it helped having a brother and especially a twin because they've been wrestling since birth it makes you more competitive when you have brothers and older brothers and having to have that Competitive Edge at times absolutely I loved having Brothers as the only girl it really taught me that there isn't really barriers with a lot of these things my mom dad didn't say oh nope you have to stay inside and do this because you're a girl you can't do that we were all doing the same activities my brothers and I actually joke now because if one of us wanted to do something all of us had to try it at least and so I love TR on and running so my brother's all tried it for a while and then one of my brothers wanted to do karate so guess what all of us ended up doing karate for a little bit just to try it especially when you're younger to see what you may like because you never know what you're going to be good at and it's it's good to try new things even if you don't end up liking doing it it's still good to put yourself out there and get out of your comfort zone you went on to become the Iron Kids National Champion for 2010 and 2011 and spent three years as the official ambassador of the sport what drives you to compete and what do you think are the key ingredients to encouraging greater diversity in sports I think Sports has given me so much and we already talked about some of the amazing stuff that it teaches you like that determination and perseverance and even now having been in sports for I guess like almost 20 years at this point I've had a lot of ups and downs I've gone through many different sports gone through injuries and there's so much that it has taught me but also so many experiences that it has given me like I've been able to travel the entire world to all seven continents through my Athletics and so I think that has created some memories and amazing experiences that I never would have been able to experience and so giving other people the opportunity to experience that is really important and I'm from a small town in northern Michigan Gaylord had only a couple thousand people as I said before I didn't even have access to a lot of kids races so I end up doing the races when I was younger 6 years old seven years old running against the adults but thankfully my mom and dad were able to help me travel so we started going to different races in our RV and then as I got older I ended up flying by myself but not everybody has those opportunities and so number one is getting access whether it is having more things locally in your community even if it's like a 5k Fun Run or an after school program for softball whatever it may be it's so important because even if you're not going to be competing competitively to try to get to the Olympics like there's so much Sports can teach you and for girls especially it just helps boost your confidence and teach you to be more independent but also learn about all the amazing things that your body can do a lot of times we're so focused and like I've even fallen in this trap where we get so worried about our appearance and if you're not fit enough and then you get to the other side and then you're like worried oh am I too muscular for a girl and all these different things at the end of the day it doesn't matter because the most important thing is feeling good and being able to do all these different things and so I always view my body as the vehicle that's going to take me to wherever I want to go and so I want to fuel it right and I want to do all these different activities and sports because I enjoy them and my body's just going to help me get there teaching young girls that is super important getting that greater diversity in sports by getting more access and getting more opportunities to people super important I got really involved in sport also because of my dad started out in trons and running because I enjoyed it and I loved doing these different sports and being competitive but it soon became a way for me to raise awareness for a cause that was dear to me my dad was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of prostate cancer on his 4th birthday I was only 9 years old and I decided I wanted to do something to help him because there was no awareness for prostate cancer at the time it affected one in six men there was tons of awareness for breast cancer pink ribbons everywhere everybody knows about it and I would go into stores with my brothers we'd see the pink ribbon across all the different products but we could never find a blue ribbon which is the color of prostate cancer and prostate cancer was more common and so I didn't understand why that was but I decided as a 9-year-old girl I was going to talk about it for the men if they didn't want to talk about it themselves so I formed a foundation Team Winter for prostate cancer research and awareness and started spreading my message through my sports so that's how I got to be the Iron Kids Ambassador because I was going to these different races and spreading my message about Team Winter especially with Team winter clothing and getting people to donate to the cause but also just raising awareness by speaking about it and iron kids saw what I was doing and they loved that a kid was out there using their platform to raise awareness for something that was near and dear to them so for several years I was Iron Kids Ambassador I would race the races but at every single event I would have my team winter booth and go around encouraging kids to lead an active healthy and positive lifestyle but also to not only race for themselves but for a cause it's so great that you did something so wonderful for your dad and that you saw at N9 years old that there was no awareness for it not as much anyway yeah that was a huge thing and and I grew up in a town of a thousand people too and there's a little bit with a mom who has a company called she built it there's a little bit of girls empowerment in our house for my daughter and my son and I worked for the Los Angeles Dodgers and not a lot of women so I love how your mom became that role model for you in order to go farther in sports and do things that girls aren't necessarily thinking of cuz I know my daughter is looking at me and knows that I worked in sports and I can see that translating into her Sports and how competitive she is absolutely and I think it even pushes the bounds of what I view today as being possible as a female in sports so traditionally in my sport of aerial skiing now there's a pretty big gap between the tricks the guys are doing and the girls are doing which that's pretty common across different sports in almost all sports the guys are going to be faster stronger whatever it may be but in some of these Sports we're able to narrow the Gap a little bit so triples are what guys normally compete and doubles are traditionally what most of the girls compete but over the last several years there's been a couple girls who have started to push the bounds a little bit and do triples that's opened my eyes to the possibilities and I always think back to when I started this sport even 10 years ago and I'm like man if someone would have set the expectation that from the bat I would be doing triples it would make it way less daunting than oh you're a girl you're just going to do doubles for your whole career and now I'm at the point where I'm am attempting to do triples done them on water and looking to progressing them to doing on them on snow and I'll be one of the only handful of American girls who've ever done that but it's been this interesting point I did them last year for the first time on water and they went really well and so it's opened my eyes doing them and I was like what do you mean this is possible but it seemed like everyone from the time I started this sport was like oh nope like you're just going to do doubles and that's fine and so that transition was a lot more intimidating and still is cu I haven't done them on snow yet then I think it would have been because it's not that intimidating for guys I don't think because from the time they start this sport that expectations they're going to do triples changing some of these expectations and not putting limits from the start will make it naturally easier for girls to get into some of these Sports and also Excel to even way higher levels and that's so interesting from a psychological perspective too what is your approach to well-rounded nutrition and products for performance when you're training and competing balance is everything no matter what I'm doing in life whether it's with all my training my nutrition School Family Life whatever it may be you need to have a balance and so especially with my nutrition I've never been super strict about anything it's not oh I can't eat this I only eat this I'm not tracking anything I just try to eat a whole balanced diet of course I've learned over the years what makes my body feel better I don't eat or drink like a lot of dairy and eating a lot of sugary food just doesn't make me feel good and so it's not because it's sugary food that I don't eat it it's just because honestly most of the time I crave fresh fruits and vegetables but also having a good Baseline I've worked with juice plus for years in the middle of doing trions and then took my juice plus around the world with me for my Marathon tour for prostate cancer awareness and now as an Olympic aerial skier I'm able to keep that Baseline nutrition at least at a certain level because there is going to be a lot of fluctuation in what foods I have access to but just like my gear I don't want to try to change everything when I go to different competitions so Juice Plus is my nutritional seat belt with that I have their performance shakes which I can take with me and just mix up on the road and I have their omegas which are all plant-based and than the fruits and vegetables in a capsule because like I said some places we go there is not much fruits and vegetables we were traveling to Russia and bellarus and we would have chicken nuggets and baked beans for breakfast so not exactly World Cup caliber food right before competitions and then while I am home it's still just keeping that consistency across the board and then if I'm having a piece of cake or some mac and cheese every once in a while it's okay like I'm out burning tons of energy and for the most part I'm feeling my body for Success based on what makes me feel good and with juice plus you sometimes you can't eat a large meal and then go out and be as athletic or run like you want to so I started to drink a lot of smoothies when you're running and training absolutely and I think the especially for me sometimes it's hard to eat right after but that's the time immediately after your workout within that like first 30 minutes you want to get a lot of protein and refuel to be able to fuel your body after that strenuous workout or or competition and you might not always feel like eating so a smoothie for me is really easy just to be able to get down I think almost every day after workouts I have a smoothie because I'm tired I don't feel like cooking a whole big meal I just put it in the blender 5 seconds later slurp it down with my straw and call it good you were first named in the US ski team in 2016 after winning the North American tour you are now going on your seventh year on the US ski team and you've achieved results such as the gold medal at the 2021 Moscow World Cup cup and after Beijing 2022 you were named the first winter to compete in the Winter Olympics tell us about your skiing what you do and why you love it I started out as a ski racer I grew up skiing since the time I could walk cuz my grandpa was a ski instructor at BO Mountain here in Michigan and then I moved to Oregon for about two years after my dad passed away and ski raced for mbf up there and then I had the opportunity to try aerial skiing which at the time I had no idea what this sport was for those of you don't who don't know is basically hucking yourselves off a jump doing a bunch of flips and twists and trying to land on your feet I first tried this sport back in 2012 I was actually in New York City for the women's sports Foundation annuel gala and met Emily cook who was an Olympic aerial skier and she saw a little clip of me skiing and running and so she invited me to come out to Park City to try this sport into the pool for the first time so I went out to Park City I tried it I fell in love with it I absolutely loved the challenge of it because I had no acrobatic experience I barely knew how to do a front flip or a back flip with my mom holding the back of my shirt on our backyard trampoline but I wasn't a gymnast I had no trampoline experience before the camp I went to a onewe trampoline Camp I had to just learn everything from scratch but I found it really fun just such an exciting challenge that I stuck with it and i' loved the feeling of flying through the air so for the last decade I've been doing this Sport and have been able to travel around the world made it to the noram cup tour first which is across the US and Canada then progressed to World Cup tour which is all around the world then have even made it to the Olympic level I've been enjoying pushing myself to see how far I can possibly go just enjoy the feeling of flying through the air and sticking that jump to my feet you have accomplished so much and there's something so much fun about flipping and flying through the air and it's so incredible that you were able to make it into a career it's been fun it's been challenging and a lot of ups and downs for sure I can't imagine the first time scary that's what everyone always says when they hear about this sport they're like oh you must be Fearless like you must have no fear whatsoever you're so brave at some point The Bravery and stuff comes in but we have fear like it's not like we are fearless it's about learning to overcome that fear so when I'm standing at the top of the jump whether it's a new trick whether it's a new sight the whether the weather is going crazy whatever it may be there's times where it's always scary and that never changes but I think I've gotten better and everyone in our sport gets better with dealing with some of this stuff and you find techniques whether it's visualization or deep breathing breathing to be able to manage this because we have to find ways to calm ourselves at the top of the hill and be focused and very present on what we're doing because it is a very highrisk sport so it's not like we're at the top of the jump and all right like we're good to go no it's scary we are scared a lot of the time but we're able to overcome that fear to still perform when it counts my favorite quote is Feel the fear and do it anyway yep I love that you are the author of the book Winter's rise what inspired you to write it I always wanted to share my story that first came from going through the loss of my dad to cancer at a young age and going on to raise money and awareness for that cause even though he passed away just 10 months after being diagnosed I was able to go on and help raise over a half a million dollars to this date and spread awareness for this disease that some people maybe didn't know about and was able to take it across the world so I think experiencing that and sharing my message with that made me want to share even more about it to more people than I could possibly talk to so that initially sparked that and then when I went on a World Marathon tour for prostate cancer awareness and set the world record for the youngest person to run a marathon on all seven continents there was so many experiences I learned on that Journey Beyond Racing for a cause that I really wanted to share with people and originally I was looking at doing this book several years ago but I was reached out to a couple different companies and Publishers and they're like oh we want to wait till you are an Olympian already and already have all those titles and I was like I already have part of this story and my story is going to continue on and so at some point about a year and a half ago I said we're just gonna start writing it and so I ended up writing this book and then finishing it just after the Olympics but I had planned on coming out with it whether I made that Olympic team or not because I had such a bigger story to tell than getting to the Olympics and my book is basically three parts it's dealing with the loss of my dad to cancer at a young age traveling the world as a World Marathon tour and then getting to the Olympic stage but it's all in Parts my story continues on and so that's why I just wanted to get this out there to be able to share my experiences with the world and hopes of empowering the next generation of kids to chase after their dreams whatever they may be and so getting this out there was super exciting and still being able to share this part of my story but also hoping that people continue to follow along you had already accomplished so much I'm so glad you didn't wait and it's great that you took all of that energy and channeled it into sports I'm sure it had to be such a healthy way to process a lot of things it was definitely a really good outlet for me and it allowed me to put that sometimes anger or sadness or frustration into something and I was able to feel like at least if I couldn't save my dad maybe I could prevent one other family from going through what my family had to go through and so in that sense that was comforting knowing that I was still making a difference and then able to just physically exert myself I think for myself mentally was really important for when you're having those tough days to be able to just go out there and just run like focus on nothing else just go run now I can go out and jump even if I'm stressed about something else I'm able to work on other things and then go out there and push my body so that I can have some sort of Outlet to keep that balance as I said it really is a form of meditation absolutely and I do a lot of some deep breathing and meditation too but that all plays in what does success and being a successful woman mean to you I think a lot of people are afraid of setting these big goals because all right success is only if you make it to this point and anything else is failure that's not true at all success is continuing to push myself and chase after those goals whether I completely reach them or not I'm always going to keep pushing myself to be better every single day that's a success in itself whether I reach those goals or not sometimes those goals may change and that doesn't mean that it's not a success anymore and it keeps us inspired and alive for our lives if you had one goal and check okay that's it it's not very fun and that's not going to keep pushing you to do something else I've always found having those goals even outside of just one specific thing is really important so I have my goals in sport but then I have my goals in my education and career because I think one problem a lot of people have especially in sport is it can be overwhelming to have everything riding on your sports career and that's where it's so stressful and a lot of people have issues with depression and anxiety within the sport but also when they retire is because we're not making money in the sport yes you're basketball and football players and things like that maybe but in aerial skiing I make some money off of sponsorships but not everyone is able to get sponsorships a lot of us have to have part-time jobs on the side and then a lot of us are still going to school so you got to pay for school you have your normal expenses that everyone else has and then we're competing and training every single day and some people in the back of their head may be thinking I could be out working and doing something a little bit more productive that they may seem like will contribute more in a way to society it's this tough internal dialogue that I think a lot of athletes have but by having these other sources where you're able to do school while you're in your career is really important so that you don't feel like it's one or the other I can't do both and that way okay I for example have gone through an injury where I tore my ACL right before the 2018 Winter Olympics and that was devastating and horrible but I did still have my school and I had my Foundation I was able to still Channel some energy into those things I didn't feel like my entire world had come crashing down because there's a lot of things in sports that we can't control and there's going to be injuries there's going to be times where you have to sit out and so having those other things that you're able to put that energy towards is really important yeah it's so good that you have that balance and also realizing how inspiring you are and the other athletes are to yourself and to other people some people may think of like sports as being just this like kind of side thing it's not like a career but so many people in society look at these especially more popular sports like your football players and they see all those cool things and they see them on TV but even your smaller sports like aerial skiing or like your Bobs that are curling like things like that there's still people that look up to us and are like they're chasing after their dream they're not doing it for the moneyy they're doing it for the pure love of trying to better themselves and get to that level that maybe no one else has ever been and that's inspiring to them to then chase after their dreams whatever that may be so maybe they're trying to go cure cancer or something and having that inspiration is really important you never know who's looking up to you and everyone has an impact on this world no matter if you're Olympic Athlete or working on some Farm somewhere there's going to be people that look up to you and even if they don't want to do what you're doing it could spark something inside them to chase after whatever they want to do magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one way that you make sure to find and live your joy I try to be present so it's really important for me to take a moment and just enjoy where I'm at it's really easy to get stressed out about things that are going to happen or that you have to do or things that have happened in the past and be stressed out and worried that that's going to happen again or that you didn't do something right so just taking a moment to be present in the moment say I'm here this is what I'm focused on this is what I'm doing is really key for me I also think that plays into literally just taking the views around me so if I'm at the top of the hill and I'm feeling stressed I will literally just take a look out at the view and see the mountains in the distance if it's in the summer look at the flowers look at the leaves whatever it may be just to stop for a second literally smell the roses sometimes because there's so many Beauties in every single day and seeing my dad pass away at a young age really taught me to not wait until tomorrow to do things I'm capable of doing today finding the joy in everyday things and even if you're having a horrible day there's always something you can find to be grateful for and to find the little joy in so if I'm having a super tough day I'm exhausted beat whatever I'll say okay what's one good thing that I have I have my teammates here even though we're all dealing with this like horrible weather let's say we at least have the company of each other and we will be able to enjoy that and I'm able to FaceTime my family which I always enjoy and as I said I'm so close with my mom and three brothers that we'll sometimes just sit on FaceTime not even talking just having the FaceTime in the room to stay connected because I moved away at 13 years old and so I didn't have a lot of that time with my family in person they were able to come out and visit me quite a bit in Park City but we pretty much lived through FaceTime and through just enjoying each other's company and being really present when we were together such good advice you have accomplished so much you are a force in the world and so happy to be able to talk to you today please share with us how and where we can find you and how we can find your book you can follow me mainly on Instagram at winter Vani you can follow my journey on winter.com which is where you can find my book also Winters rise.com thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheil it on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave