What 9 Days in Total Isolation Did to a Future Olympian

In any high-stakes pursuit, success isn’t just built on talent—it’s forged in moments of silence, solitude, and struggle.

Apolo Ohno is America’s most decorated Winter Olympian. But before the medals, before the podium, there was a remote cabin in the Pacific Northwest—and a father’s decision to leave his teenage son there alone, with nothing but food, rain, and the pressure to figure out who he wanted to become.

In this raw, revealing conversation, Apolo joins me to share the pivotal moment that transformed his life. It wasn’t on the ice. It was deep in the woods—with no phone, no coach, and no direction but inward.

You’ll hear the story behind the solitude, the painful lesson in commitment, and how Apolo turned fear and failure into Olympic fuel.

Connect with Apolo:
📸 Instagram: @apoloohno
🌐 Website: https://apoloohno.com
📘 Book: Hard Pivot

Follow Paddy for more:
🌐 Website: www.toughness.com
📸 Instagram: @paddysgram
💼 LinkedIn: Paddy Steinfort
✖️ X (Twitter): @paddysx

 

 

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Apolo Ohno: I found that I had a natural ability to perform well under pressure. You create this mindset that allows you to truly maximize your performance in every possible way. I had basically created a self defeatist mentality of saying, I'm not going to make the team. I'm not good enough to make the team.

There's many skill sets that I didn't have naturally, that I learned the hard way. I think the difference today is 

[00:00:28] Paddy Steinfort: Welcome to the Toughness Podcast. My name's Paddy Steinfort, your host, and today we have a very special guest, the most decorated American ever at the Winter Olympics. Eight Olympic medals including two golds, speaking of eight medals, also eight World Championship gold medals, along with a bunch of others.

21 overall and last year was inducted into the US Olympic Hall of Fame. Uh, welcome to the show, Apolo Ohno. Yeah, thanks for having me. Speed skating is an incredibly intense, um, short burst kind of a, an experience, right? But it happens a lot. And you do kinda like dangerous stuff. Like as an Australian, for any of the, uh, the Australian listeners who are gonna be tuning in go, one that stands out is Steven Bradbury who won accidentally 'cause everyone else got knocked over.

And, but that's kind of like, I've heard it referred to as kinda like NASCAR on ice, right? It's a pretty dangerous, full on thing. And to have excelled in that. Um, there's a, there's a whole journey we're gonna dig into, but at first there's a, a great backstory for you because you were obviously incredibly talented, but there was a lot that went into your journey before you became an Olympic medalist, right?

And you credit your dad's fair bit of that. Are, are you, are you okay to talk about Yeah. I guess your early days in skating, how you came to be in it, and then how you know that journey from. A junior to a, an Olympic champion. 

[00:01:58] Apolo Ohno: Sure. So the, the path, uh, of kind of Olympic podium was not one that I had my eyes set on when I was very young.

I played the traditional American stick and ball sports, things like football, things like basketball, things like baseball, track and field. I didn't even know what short track speed skating was, probably until about, uh, 1992 when I was about 12 years old. And that was the first time that I had seen short track speed skating on television during the winter Olympics.

Watched them again in 94 with my father, and it was at that time where I said, that looks really cool. I want to try it. Originally, Paddy, I wanted to play American football. I. And I wanted to either be a boxer. My dad said no to both of those. Mm-hmm. Uh, they weren't gonna happen. So I, you know, he had like thrown me in the water essentially and said, why don't you try swimming?

You know, water's pretty soft. It's in a controlled environment. Like, I don't want my son to get hurt. My dad was very, very tigerish in terms of pushing me towards academics early on. Mm-hmm. But he also saw that I had a natural propensity for sport. And so my, my innate, um, ability to kind of recreate what I saw from someone else.

So if I saw someone, you know, playing with a hockey stick and a hockey puck, I could copy that really fast. If I saw someone running in a certain style, I would, I had this ability to assimilate that information and then use that in my own way, and then replicate that. 

[00:03:20] Paddy Steinfort: Wow. That's really interesting.

There's a, there was a baseball player I worked with who, when I asked him one time, how would you identify. You know who you want to draft, right? And he said there's, there's two things. One, they eat, sleep, and live the game. And secondly, they're able to mimic their three favorite players. Like say, who's your favorite player?

Show us his batting stance and they can do it. There's this innate like physical, almost mirroring effect that you've just described perfectly there. Now that suggests some level of talent, but as we're gonna find out throughout the rest of your story, it's not all about talent, right? There was a lot more that went into your journey.

[00:03:56] Apolo Ohno: Yeah, I think, I think talent gets you, it's table stakes, right? So it gets you to the starting line. And, and you know, at the age of 14, you know, I had received skates from my father. I was skating in these local ice hockey rinks in and around the Pacific Northwest where I'm from Seattle, Washington. And at the time, you know, I didn't know how to speed skate.

I had gone to the local roller skating rink and you know, that was like my experience in terms of skating fast. But I didn't, I knew nothing about ice speed skating. And so throughout this natural progression of me just learning how to skate by my father driving us from Seattle all the way to Vancouver, bc, which is about two and a half hours North Drive, I would watch the Canadian skaters skate in these local competitions.

And at the time, the Canadians were very strong, and we would see this incredible display of athletic artistry that I had never experienced before living in Seattle because there was no one who was an Olympic athlete there. And so, by watching and seeing that accelerated my ability to process this information in a way that, you know, I, I.

Looking back, it was actually remarkable. Without that, I think first touch of inspiration and seeing those Canadian athletes, I probably would've never continued on this path, but because I saw what was possible, both in terms of speed, power, the way they leaned over at these impossible angles, like on this piece of metal that is 1.1 millimeters thick, it was, it didn't look real and it was mind boggling in so many, in so many ways.

And throughout that process, I found that I had a natural ability to perform well under pressure. But it was inconsistent, right? I mean, I was, I was 14 years old. So what kind of pressure do you have? And then. Throughout some of these local competitions that I was competing at, a junior development coach from Lake Placid, New York, which is on the other side of the country, it's in upstate New York, came to my father during one of these local American skating competitions, said, we think that your son has an amazing potential here to grow and go beyond what is just happening.

And him just messing about on the on the ice. We think in a structured training environment, he could potentially go and make the Olympic team and my dad's like, amazing. We're in, they had to pull some strings because were you, were you like that? At that age, I didn't even know what that meant. I mean, I was at Olympic Training Center like that.

That is, those things don't even mean anything to me at that stage. At 14, you, I mean, I, I knew what the Olympics were, you know, we had watched it, but I didn't, I didn't know what was going to go into that process. And so my father had bigger, grander visions and dreams of me doing something spectacular in my life.

Um, and he had always pushed me in some capacity in some area, whether it was academics, whether it was in sport. He was just, he was on me and he pushed me. And I think that it, you know, partially because of that, growing up in a single parent household, you know, I was the only child. My father, you know, we didn't grow up with a lot of money.

So every penny that he had was spent putting food on the table, a shirt on my back, or giving me some opportunity to participate in the swim club practice or the local skating rink practice. Like that was our life. And when he gets this invite from this coach who tells him, Hey, you know your son who's 14 years old right now, he's actually legally not allowed to join the training program because.

You have to be 15 as a minimum age requirement. They pull some strings, they talk to some people there and say, we think, you know, this was in 1996 and 1997, mind you, long time ago. But, um, this was in preparation for the 1998 Olympic team trials, which were gonna be held, uh, the get, the games gonna be held in Na of Japan.

So give you additional context. My family, my, my heritage is my father's Japanese, I'm half Japanese. My father grandparents or his parents live in Nano Japan. So the fact that the Olympic games were gonna be held in Nagano, it, it, it was like this story picture, you know, in situation where my, my dad had been connecting these dots and be like, okay, we've got some green lights here.

None of this means anything to me, by the way, right? Like, I've got no idea. I'm just like messing around on the ice and beating athletes. So I get this invite, my father explains to me, Hey, I've seen the type of kids and the environment that you've been hanging out with here in, you know, south of Seattle.

I don't like it. I don't think it's productive. I don't think it's positive. We have an opportunity here, Apolo, for you to go live and train in the Olympic training center and do something amazing. He didn't know if I was gonna make the Olympic team, he hoped, but he thought this was a great chance and that one chance that he shouldn't and, and was not going to throw away.

And so my father then essentially tells me I'm going to go to this training camp and this training program. And I of course say, no, I'm not. It's the summer in Seattle. I've got no interest in going all the way on the other side of the country. I don't know anybody there. I've got no friends and like, like what?

Like where's Lake Placid? I actually had to look on a map. I had no idea. So he, he drives me to the airport. This was like two months later, um, drops me off, tells me if I don't, um, enjoy myself for the first month, I can come back home. It's almost like I was going to boarding school in a sense, right? Yeah.

Like I was gonna be basically being shipped off. And I, I think looking back, my father was in a point where he was like, look, like I see potentially directionally where this kid's energy could be going in a negative perspective, or he can interrupt that potential process and put me over here, which he knows that direction.

He knows the fundamental skill sets that I would be acquiring and learning through throughout that realm. So I went into the, the airport area and then my dad drives off. I then immediately go to the payphone back when we had payphones and I call Fred and I say, Hey, I'm supposed to go to New York today, however I'm not going to go.

And yeah, this was, this was pretty bold of me. Uh, the age of 14. And then, so for the next 10 days, I bounce around from house to house all while my dad believes I'm so upset at him for pushing me and push and sending me over there that I just don't call him. Meanwhile, I'm, I'm literally just sleeping over at my friend's houses and I've got this whole year planned out thinking like, well, I've got two days here, one day here to three days here at this front.

I'm pretty good for the year. I You are gonna go a year without telling dad. I, I basically, I was just running away. Right? It, it is unbelievably stupid. So yeah, unbelievably stupid. I wasn't gonna say that, but you can say it. Yeah. In my head, it somehow made sense. And so my dad gets this call from the junior development coach, uh, the, the guy who actually invited me, the coach who invited me, and he tells my father, uh, you know, we haven't heard from you.

Obviously no one came on that flight that you had sent us information about. Are you still planning on sending your son out here? The offer and invitations wide open. Please don't throw this opportunity away. We, we, we really want the chance to work with your son. And my dad's very confused. He's like, what?

What the hell are you talking about? You guys must have lost my son and. You know, and my dad's very thick, Japanese accent broken English. And finally he finds out somehow whose house I was at, my father drives there, uh, picks me up. And then for the next seven days, we're fighting back and forth about this incredible opportunity that he's trying to tell me about.

And I just don't want to hear it. And finally he packs my bags and we go back to the airport again and he parks the car, walks into the airport with me, goes to the gate, gets on the plane with me. And you know, obviously then he, I, I understood that he was gonna deliver me properly to the coach. And then we arrived in, into Alban in New York and we made the drive to Lake Placid and.

From that point on, you know, he, he walked right up. He was like, maybe it was like seven or eight at night, uh, in the Olympic training center. And he walks right up to the guy and he's like, good luck. And he turns around, he goes, he goes. Um, and then that was my entrance into the sport. Needless to say, I had a great coach who's very good at coaching, younger athletes, and at certain, you know, I, I wasn't in great shape.

I, I had, I had natural, raw ability and talent that I was gifted with, I think, but it wasn't like I understood the level of complexity that the sport had or the potential that was there above and beyond just those table stakes of walking to the start line and racing against other 12, 13, 14-year-old athletes.

[00:12:06] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. But you get on the, you get on a fast track here, like, excuse the pun, but you, you all of a sudden go from just entering this Olympic training program to becoming national champion, like within that year, or we were like very quickly, right. 

[00:12:18] Apolo Ohno: Yeah, it was, it was, it was absurd actually how fast we accelerated.

So what this coach was really good at with me was identifying the areas that he knew that I needed to grow upon. Now I'm a growing young kid who is just strong and with a little bit of weight training, like you see astronomical gains in performance. Like it's unbelievable. And, you know, with some technical training, with consistency, with just education around lifestyle, around sleep and around food and around recovery, uh, we saw quantum leap levels of performance.

And also it was this combination of me just being so playful on the ice it at, you know, at the age of 14. It was, it was really fun. It was fun to skate. It was just fun. I just remember being like, just having fun every single day, being there and, you know, seven months into this training program. Which is, by the way, it's like 24 7, right?

You're all, you're, you're living in a dorm atmosphere with other Olympic athletes and Olympic hopefuls, and you are going to the eyes, you're doing training early in the morning, going to school throughout the run of the day, and then doing your afternoon training in the afternoon. Uh, that was the life.

It was, it was very simple, very regimented, and it taught me a lot of structure. Uh, it wasn't like that in the beginning, but, you know, eventually I found my way by living there and seeing my competitive edge and, and hunger to wanna win. And that was also pretty apparent. Mm-hmm. And then when I showed up the, at the 1997 World Team Trials, so this is basically the national championships, so all of the senior, junior, essentially anyone who wants to have a spot on the world team, they only give five spots on the world team for men and women each, uh, you go and compete in these trials.

I ended up actually winning the trials and doing so in such convincing fashion. I internally was thinking in my head like. Is this, it? Like, is this all that we have? Very, very cocky, very naive, but also just very confused. 'cause I was like, I don't understand how that guy who's 35, who's been skating for 20 years, why he can't beat me.

Like that just seemed awkward and weird to me. And, and you know, looking back now and seeing how I skated and seeing the technical aspects of the sport and, and it was just, it was fascinating to see how that, how that grew. And that was my entrance into the world of short track is when I made that first team.

I then started traveling on world championship teams competing in Nagano, Japan for the World Championships, going to China, going to Italy. And that began this like almost 15 year career of being on the team. 

[00:14:48] Paddy Steinfort: Amazing journey. And like you said, it's like a storybook almost in terms of how it unfolds. But here is where the story gets really interesting.

Like I, I know some of it, I, I hope you're gonna be able to fill in the gaps, but at that point, particularly with the, with the reference to Nagano Japan and your family and your dad's expectations and hopes. A little, little twist in the tail comes along and you don't make the Olympic team for a kid who is the wonder kid and blowing up.

You fail there. And then what happens next is, is hugely interesting to me. And I think to a lot of the listeners, particularly around dealing with failure and dealing with setbacks, like can you share that story a little bit? 

[00:15:26] Apolo Ohno: Absolutely. So a, after my experience of making that first team in, in 1997, which was incredible in so many ways.

We, I come back home to the off season, during the off season. Now this is the 1997 to 19 and 98 season, so this is technically called an Olympic year. So this is the most important year training cycle that you can possibly imagine. The trials were gonna be held in December of 1997. The Olympic Games would be February, 1998, so this was March of 1997.

I am back home in Seattle. Everyone goes to their hometowns and begins their off-season training cycle, and their off-season training cycle is essentially building up this incredible aerobic and anaerobic base of strength so that their body can peak by the time the Olympic trials are happening in December.

[00:16:16] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, because, because off off season technically means like you're not competing, but you're still working. Right? You're an Olympic year. Yeah. 

[00:16:23] Apolo Ohno: Yeah. The off season actually is the most important part. Of an entire training season. I did not know that. Off season to me was a light switch. It meant the off season.

Yeah. I went home. Yeah. I'm 14. Going through puberty, smashing Taco Bell and fast food, like on a daily basis, not doing any training at all. And I'll always remember this. So three and a half months into the offseason training, the head coach then, his name was Jaro Otter, who's he's now coaching the, the, um, the Netherlands.

But at the time, I would have to be training in Colorado Springs at the National Olympic Training Center, not the Junior Development Training Center. Mm-hmm. Plad, that coach was then moved to be an assistant coach under the National Team Training Center in Colorado Springs. And I'll always remember the day, the first day that I showed up and reported for our official training camp, we went in, I.

And I, you know, my, my buddies will always tell me, they were like, you took your shirt off, uh, to do the body composite test. And we were all like, well, that's one guy who's not gonna make the team. 

Wow. 

Because I had gained so much weight and I hadn't done anything. And I, and by the way, I didn't know this, like I was so, like, I was just not even, I wasn't dialed in in any capacity.

And so I arrive also unwillingly. I didn't want to go to Colorado Springs. I wanted to go back to Lake Placid and train with my old coach under that environment. Now I'm training with the big boys. Like there's, you know, these guys are training with pain, self-doubt, insecurity, they're training with real emotions that you develop as you get older.

I'm still 15, 14 years old. I don't know anything other than this is just fun and I'm just kind of messing around. And so I arrive and, and essentially for the whole year, Paddy, I just go through the motions. Not committed. Not determined, no assertion, no ion thinking that it's just 

[00:18:19] Paddy Steinfort: gonna happen because of what's happened so 

[00:18:20] Apolo Ohno: far.

No, like almo, I would say almost self-sabotage in a way. Not entirely, uh, aware of that, but almost thinking in a way like, how close to the fire can I play without getting burned? Right. In a sense. And also, I, I genuinely did not wanna be there. Uh, and that was mainly in part by my own attitude of not being able to commit myself and not dealing with at the, when I was at that age, I had this fear of putting myself out there and then failing.

And it was very easy for me psychologically to say, well, if I only give 80%, at least internally, I can say, well, if I had given a hundred percent, maybe I would've won. 

[00:18:59] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. It wouldn't reflect badly on you if you like. I didn't succeed because I did 80% as opposed to I gave it everything and I failed, so I must be whatever.

[00:19:08] Apolo Ohno: Yeah. It is a very dangerous cop out psychological method of dealing with, um, goals. Hmm. And I didn't know it at the time. Right. I'm, the only reason why I'm able to articulate this today is because I've done so much deep work on myself, is to be able to understand why I did what I did, those things. So I'm in this training program, I'm in Colorado Springs, I'm training with the national team, and, uh, I, you know, I still, I'm very talented and I still have spurts of that kind of like greatness.

Like I'd have a training session or a local competition where they'd be like, oh shit, this kid is, this kid is so good. But then it would kind of fizzle out and I would go back to the same kind of going through the motions routine. I'm a, I'm a big believer in intentionality. Like, when you're doing something, where's your intention?

Where's your energy placed on that? Where's your intensity of that? Right, right. Really honing in. Right. Um, and when I would do that, I had these incredible experiences. When I wouldn't do that, it was just like I was wasting my time. I arrived into the Olympic, the Olympic trials. In 97, and I had already in my head, told myself I was not gonna make the team.

I had basically created a self defeatist mentality of saying, I'm not going to make the team. I'm not good enough to make the team. And so I go through that Olympic trials and you know, a year prior I was number one in the US in this competition. I finished dead last, absolutely dead, lasts bad, which was like really bad.

Bad. That's a bad year. A very, that's a like a knife in there. I probably could have gotten like 10th, maybe like 11th. But I wanted to go, like, I, I think subconsciously I wanted to really, really fail, really hit rock bottom. And so, you know, I felt extremely defeated. I heard the chatter in and around the ice rink from the other parents who had seen me a year prior from the coaches, and it was very negative.

It was like, oh, that kid, you know, it's, you know, that kid's got no focus. He's, it, it was emotionally painful, right? To, to, to know what I thought what I was gonna do was, ah, just, I won't try that hard and, and maybe I can make the team, but if I don't, then I at least I can have that excuse to lean on. But it was the complete opposite.

Instead it was, holy shit, I've got this deep, resounding feeling of like, almost embarrassment, like really feeling embarrassed that I didn't put it all out there. Like I just didn't, I didn't even give a fraction of what I could have given. So my father. Saw this and he saw this pattern that he didn't want to become a habit.

And so he was obviously really upset that I didn't make the team, but more so he was really upset about the, the mentality that was brewing there that he didn't like. Now my father came to the US with no money. Japanese immigrant didn't speak a single word of English and began his life really the hard way.

Blood, sweat, and tears, trying every single job you can possibly manage. Imagine just trying to survive, forget about thriving. Like he was just trying to survive and not have 15 roommates, right? Like situation. And then he saw me, a kid who's born in the US who's got this amazing opportunity and gift and essentially and effectively was throwing that away.

[00:22:18] Paddy Steinfort: Right. 

[00:22:19] Apolo Ohno: And he was pissed. He was really pissed. 

[00:22:21] Paddy Steinfort: Did that lead to your, like you said, the knife in the side and your, the emotion that you were feeling of embarrassment, was it, did that lead to a, a feeling of like guilt towards your dad or anger towards yourself? Like was there extra layers on top of just feeling a bit embarrassed?

[00:22:36] Apolo Ohno: Absolutely. I mean, there, there's multiple layers of disappointment in myself, uh, disappointment from my father, right? Growing with a senior parent household, as you could imagine. You, you, I probably only ever wanted the approval from my dad, and I was not getting that in any capacity that entire year because of the attitude that I was putting forth.

And it was emotionally, I was also very confused and very unsure of what I was doing, why I was doing it. I had never tasted defeat, I guess, in that realm yet, because I had been pretty naturally talented. So what you do in the face of defeat, I always say is, is very defining, 

[00:23:16] Paddy Steinfort: and this is a real defining moment in your, if we're talking about that storybook and this little twist in the tail, like when I read this part of your story and it really conjures to mind to me, a, a picture like a, a scene in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker goes off by himself to be on a planet by himself with Theodor maybe, or just by like real introspection and vulnerability and like you said, some deep work on what am I really doing here?

Can you share that? The, the, I think your dad actually led you there straight after this. You've fallen flat on your face for the first time and had failure and embarrassment and all of these emotions as a young. Teenagers still, it's a lot to digest. But you went out and, and you did something fairly exceptional that really was a turning point for you.

[00:24:01] Apolo Ohno: Yeah. So, and this was a hundred percent credit to my father, where, you know, he had seen that pattern and he, he, my father at the time, you know, he tells me that he, now he tells me that he didn't feel like he had any other options. And I'll explain what that means. So, you know, you have this son, he has this son who, who's exceptionally talented and gifted, who's throwing away this incredible opportunity, who self-sabotaged, who just went through an entire training program and didn't make a team, not in fact, didn't make the team, but got dead last at the trials.

He felt it was in dire need for some dire, um, it was a dire situation that he had to have some extreme consequences to try to shake things up, so to speak. And so there's this cabin, we fly back to Seattle after the trials, my dad tells me. On the way home that he was going to take me to the cabin that we used to spend a lot of our, uh, holidays on.

Mm-hmm. And this is a cabin that is, it's not our cabin, we just rent the cabin. Uh, at the time it was called the Iron Springs Resort and it's, it's now been taken over by a family and it's renovated and it's beautiful at the time. It was old, 9t was not beautiful. I mean, it, it's a beautiful set.

I mean, it's what you would imagine a cabin in the woods to look like, Uhhuh, like if you just like went out hiking one day and you saw an old cabin that was, you know, functional, but there's just not much that, that's what like one of these set. Yep. And so when I say the reward resort, and I say this in all due respect, it was nothing close to being a resort.

There's no resort amenities in any sense. 

[00:25:39] Paddy Steinfort: It was a last resort for your dad. 

[00:25:41] Apolo Ohno: Yeah, it was a last resort. And exactly. And this is also a place of, an area of the country where there's really not much development and economic, um, activity there. Like it used to be an old lumber town, like, you know, 40 miles south.

And so anyone who lives on the outskirts, you gotta be wondering like, why are these people living here? There's no way to make a living. So that effectively showed in the environment. There just wasn't a lot of people there. And I remember being there in the wintertime, it rains almost all day, every day.

It gets dark at like four 30, 5:00 PM and it was just a time where my dad said to me, you're gonna stay here at this cabin. You, I have food and I have clothes. I had been there so many times. I knew my way around. You know this area, it's right on the Pacific Ocean. It's three and a half hours southwest of downtown Seattle.

And he tells me, you're gonna stay here for as long as it possibly takes, for you to recognize and understand which path and which direction you're gonna go in life and how you are going to go in that direction, more importantly. And what he was really saying to me was, you just threw an opportunity away because of your lack of effort and commitment and dedication towards something.

I don't care that you didn't make the team, it's the way that you didn't make the team. That's what I care about. And I don't want you to go throughout your life in other areas, whether it's academics, whether it's in business, whether it's in school, with this type of defeatist attitude and also this type of an attitude of where my dad didn't want me to be okay.

Losing, right? Like he, he wanted it to affect me. He wanted it to fire me up. He wanted it to change psychologically, that switch that goes on, that you are now a man on fire. He didn't see that in me. And for someone who struggled in this country for so many years, uh, that was important to have, right? This, this, this survival mechanism.

And so my father literally drops me off at this place. I'm 15 years old at the time. There's no one leaves, leaves you alone. It's just, oh, he leaves me, he drives back to Seattle. Three and a half hours drives back to Seattle. I've got no cell phone. I've got no video games, there's no internet, there's none of that stuff exists.

It's just literally me and nature, which. I fully love that now. Like I look forward to those moments now. But no, like you have no friends. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, why I'm there. I also am very uncomfortable talking to myself, right? Because you're, when you're placed in that type of environment, you're now trying to figure out and understand like, why did my dad put me here?

Does he hate me? Why did I not win? By the way, the depth of this texture and layers, these conversations are, they're not as deep as I'm able to articulate now, but back then, emotionally, it was more just like, what the hell do you wanna do? Like, you know, why did you do this? And that began this like seven day mindlessly just kind of going through the motions of training, going for long runs.

I had like a small stationary bike that I had set up in the living room, which was the bedroom. And I just, I didn't talk to a single person for like nine days except for myself. 

[00:28:44] Paddy Steinfort: And would you, do you feel like you had a process there? Sorry, as the sirens go off in the background, but do you feel like there, there was a process there that you not, that you knowingly stepped through and maybe knowing now more than you knew then, like that you, you know, that I did this and day one and day two and day three, or was it really just like your dad left you there by yourself hoping that you, not hoping, asking you to say, to choose something, but to actually commit to something, right?

That's right. And it, and it just, it was an organic thing for you. Like how did that. Process. You were there for about a week, you say, right? Nine days, whatever. Talk us through what happened there. 

[00:29:16] Apolo Ohno: Yeah, so when I was at the cabin, uh, you know, the first couple of days, just emotionally still distraught from the experience of the Olympic trials.

So I was still feeling that pain and then also the pain around like, why is my dad forcing me to be here? So like a deep, I wouldn't say hate, but a, a deep dislike for my dad started to brew because I wanted to point the finger at him, it's your fault that I'm here. You're, you know, you don't love me enough and you put me here at this cabin not knowing that it was like real tough love.

And my dad felt like there was no options because I wasn't listening to anything that anyone was telling me about the potential that I had. So he felt that I had to find the answer myself, and each day I kind of was just mindlessly going for these runs. I had like, you know, it was raining every single day.

So I. Huge blisters, like in my shoe, in my, my feet, and it was just, I was just in pain, man. I was just in physical pain, mental pain. I started journaling, kind of writing down my process and what I wanted to do. I think at the core level my, I knew that my father wanted me to be pursuant of the Olympic path and journey.

I think I felt that, but I deeply also felt that I wanted to make my own decision. Right. And there was a couple of times where I was like, do, do I really wanna do this? Like, do I even really enjoy it? Uh, and then finally on the final day that I was there, and I say the final day, because this is the day that I kinda came to this epiphany, and essentially it wasn't like there was a huge parting of the clouds and like there's a lightning strike.

And like the answer was there. It was just a day that I just decided on this long run where I was completely miserable that. What am I gonna do and what's that light switch and commitment level going to be? And I decided that like, I am going to make a decision. And I run back to the, the cabin. I go to the payphone and I call my dad, which by the way, the payphone was like a mile away from the cabin.

Um, it was hilarious. Like I had to like, yeah. And so I, I go to the payphone, uh, I call my dad. I tell him I've made a decision. My father doesn't ask me what the decision is. Instead he says, great. I'll be there in like four or five hours or something. Drives, comes, picks me up. On the way home, I tell him and explain to him that I'm gonna give this Olympic chance another shot.

Mm-hmm. And you know, this, this Olympic vision and dream. One more, one more try. And then he starts to ask me kind of deeper questions. So my dad, who's a very philosophical person, how are you going to do that? Right? Tell me about what is going to be different this time around? And I've got no answers, you know, but, but I think what he was doing is he's planting these seeds of, Hey, that's great.

You got this goal. Amazing. That's a great metric and tool for you, but what's the process of what is going to change? Tell me how you are going to deliberately enact true transformation in pursuant of that goal. And I then was shipped back off to Lake Placid, which, which I was willingly open to do. And we were, I believe this was the end of January.

No. So this is the end of January. That I am there and there were several other athletes who also did not make the Olympic team. Were also training there and we are watching the Olympics while we are training, so that's really painful. That's sting. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's stung, but also it, it was a really good sting.

It was this like, like just grit your teeth. And I remember being next to a friend of mine who was training his name's Mike Corman. He went on to be a, a coach for US speed skating and such. And we were on these old, I wanna say they're these German or they're these Dutch bikes. And we were doing these crazy bike intervals.

Uh, pure anaerobic threshold and, and pain. A lot of pain, physical pain, lot of pain. And, and the, the workout was, was, I don't remember the workout exactly, but it was like some ridiculous workout. And I remember looking over at Mike and we were watching the Olympics, by the way, at while we're doing it, watching the Olympics while being on the bike.

And I remember looking at Mike and him looking at me, and it was just like this word or this sentence that was not said verbally, but like, we just knew. It was like this nod of today's the day that we are gonna crush ourselves on this training session. We are gonna punish ourselves for all of that time that we didn't do what we should have done.

And I mean, an hour into it, Mike is throwing up, just vomiting all the place. I, I didn't, I didn't throw up very easily, so I didn't, but it was the dumbest of workouts you could possibly imagine. It's like, how, like why don't we do like, you know, 50 times, three minutes anaerobic threshold, you know, and, 

[00:34:00] Paddy Steinfort: and do like for the, for those who don't train at a, at a, at that sort of level, very often that's like.

Just pure, think about your lungs burning pretty much for the entire session, right? Like that's gonna, your lungs, your legs, everything is gonna burn for the whole fall. 

[00:34:15] Apolo Ohno: Yeah, I mean, it made no sense in terms of sports science or, but this was, this was purely, uh, just a mental exercise. And on that day it was very clear to me that I was willing to truly commit.

I had told my father that I was willing to commit, but I was there. But it was on that training session, Paddy, that I remember with great detail, the feeling and the look that I had. Mike was to my left looking at him, him looking at me and just being like, yep, it's real. This is real. And, and yeah. And we deserve to be here right now.

Not there. We don't deserve to be there. We deserve to be here. And because we deserve to be here, we are going to make sure that we maximize every training session by the time we got to the world trials. So just to give you some, some backstory, the team was training at the Olympics. Two months later they would come home and they would have another world team trials.

Um, the format doesn't work like this anymore. There's basically the Olympic team is now the world team. But back then there was another chance for us to make the world team. And it's kind of pretty unfair because most of the guys who had peaked at the Olympics, they don't wanna race again in two months.

They're like talk. That's the real off season is after every four years they take a break. Mm-hmm. And so I had been training my ass off. I had been watching and setting tapes like crazy, and I had made the last spot on that world team, which means I was an alternate, which means I wasn't gonna be racing when we went overseas.

And I was essentially an effectively just carrying all of my teammates bags. And I made a promise to myself while watching everybody in that competition in the stands, uh, writing down in my little journal. And I made a promise to myself and I had said to myself, I am not gonna call anyone when I get home.

I am going to truly become obsessed about this sport, and I'm gonna commit myself to a level that I have never known in prior 

[00:36:13] Paddy Steinfort: years. That's so interesting that, that you, like you've mentioned along this slide, it's a fascinating journey and I hope the listeners are enjoying following along with this point.

There's been a number of things that have come up though, and given that you've been at the top level for so long, you've been around people at that level as well and observed a lot. And you've gone in and studied it afterwards as well. The what stands out to you as the one or two things you're like, that's what, for someone to be the best or like, that's one of the most important characteristics of reaching this level and of staying here.

Like you said, you made a choice that, that it was your choice. It wasn't dad making you do it. You, you said you committed, uh, you said you were accepting of the fact that like, yeah, I deserve to, like, I'm not gonna avoid the pain. You actually moved in the pain. Like there's so much, there, such a rich tapestry of like, these are some characteristics that people talk about often.

What do you see as their number one or two? Like these are the things that people have to have mentally to be an Olympian, 

[00:37:09] Apolo Ohno: I think to be an Olympic athlete. There's, there's, there's obviously the physical talents associated, however, I'm just a huge fundamental believer in your mindset and what that is, what that essence can be.

There was many athletes throughout my career who. Had weeks or weekends that they were superior to me. Maybe genetically they were superior as well. They just didn't put in the time and the consistency and the effort and the work. And I just believe that's where the real sweet spot is. Now, obviously there's a genetic component here that can't be dismissed like, but I'm assuming that you have some level of genetic ability for this sport, and you create this mindset that allows you to truly maximize your performance.

In every possible way. The way that you look at training, the way that you enjoy the training, I felt something that was quite early on was like, most of my teammates hated training. They actually didn't like it. I just thought that was really weird because I started to really enjoy the training. I loved it.

[00:38:18] Paddy Steinfort: You enjoyed the, the pain or the knowing that like I'm doing, this is getting me closer to where I want to go. A little bit of everything. 

[00:38:25] Apolo Ohno: I, I, I like the fact that we were about to do a training session that was so hard that half of the team would just quit. I, I liked it and that to me was like, okay, now we're getting into, now peeling back the layers to see the, who really wants it?

[00:38:39] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. Who wants it here? See, it's interesting. I, I know, I mean, my sporting career was nothing like yours, but I remember as a teenager particularly, and even once I was in the pros being. Like it would rain, it would hail sometimes. And that was when I liked going for a run. That was when I liked training.

'cause I knew other people weren't doing that, or I knew that they'd like kind of cut the corner. Yeah. So you're, you're saying it's that like ability to do what others won't is one of the biggest elements of being great in their level. 

[00:39:08] Apolo Ohno: So I look at all of the great athletes who I've studied. Everyone has this, this darkness.

Or this, or you call it this pain, that they're willing to keep touching instead of hiding it away. Huh? And not touching the pain. They're actually willing to touch it and they use it as a lever. And that comes in the form of whether you look at Michael Jordan, whether you look at Michael Phelps, whether whoever that person is, I believe there's some deep, deep trauma there, microtrauma, whatever it is that is the driving force, and it can be.

As simple as so insecure, they have to assert dominance over everyone else to have that level playing field of, I feel good enough, right? It could be as simple as that. I've just seen a pattern in every athlete that I've ever known have some semblance of that, right? And for me it was, I had a deep fear of failure, partially because of what happened prior to me not making that Olympic team, but then also not making that Olympic team, that pain, psychologically at the age of 15 was deeply ingrained in my soul.

I never wanted to feel that pain ever again. 'cause it was almost as if I couldn't handle it. And so when I look at an athlete, I wanna know what happens when, you know, I, I don't wanna, I don't care what they look like when they're fresh and they're peaked. I wanna know, show me what you look like on your worst day under the worst conditions.

Under the worst environment, and I wanna see how they show up. It may not be natural, but over time I believe you can train that. And some people are naturally, they go towards the fire, uhhuh, some people retreat from the fire. And I think with the training, you can equal that playing field to some degree, where some people are willing to go towards a fire and stand in the fire 

[00:41:01] Paddy Steinfort: for long periods of time.

And you are saying training as in like, I'm, I'm picturing it's effectively what I do as a mental coach, but I'm picturing habituation to a degree where it's like, there's kind of two questions coming up. One is, do you just like practice touching that pain, like you said is one thing. Is that what you're talking about when you say training and two, if that is what you're talking about, doesn't it like wear off?

Does it go away? If I keep tapping into that, eventually I drain my fuel of I'm not scared anymore. I don't have that fear. Or does it your, your fear never goes away. 

[00:41:37] Apolo Ohno: My fear has never gone away. Okay. I can, I can speak from experience. My fear is still there. I've just, my relationship with that fear has drastically changed where it hasn't become so all consuming that it can potentially be toxic.

So, you know, the business of sport cares about nothing else except for your performance on paper. In its essence, I'm talking about the training of the consistency of what happens. So they always say, you know, a fighter is when you push them or you punch them, what they, what do they naturally do if they back way off?

Most likely, this is this, by the way, I have no idea if this is true. This is a friend of mine who's a boxer told me this. And if they back away, then maybe that person wasn't meant to be a fighter. If they actually go towards you, that's the person you wanna start training. And so I just believe that.

Maybe sport and short track speeds getting, by the way, which is not like a, you know, this is a new sport. It's not like it's huge like soccer or track and field. But I still, I still think the mental side of the sport is still the most important. And 'cause I've just seen what happens when you're dialed in mentally, the performance increases are so, they're so big, they can't be disregarded.

I mean, I, I felt them in my own life when I wasn't dialed in in sport with all the tools. I wouldn't perform well when I would be, and not have all the tools and I'd be sick and I would be tired and I wouldn't be peaked. And I had equipment problems, but I was in the zone. I was still able to win. You can't deny that.

I mean, I'm, I'm operating at 50% capacity. I can still win. So there's something here in this between our ears that we're starting to get and understand and measure the power. I think we're just scratching the surface, right? I feel that we are just, I, I feel like there's, so we are at the tip of the iceberg and there's so much depth there of power and strength that can be derived.

That's what's exciting moving forward. Like the athletes in 50 years are gonna be pretty spectacular. 

[00:43:36] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned there, uh, a couple times you said the business of sports and the fact that your own approach and development to this part of your game, of, of your performance, you credit a lot of your success to it.

Right. But just taking it away from sports. 'cause a lot of listeners may not be athletes, right? There are gonna be. Plenty of people who use their body to do their work, but maybe not at the level of a, of a short track speed skater. Right. If you were in a boardroom or you know, you do your work as a consultant to businesses, and if you're talking to a surgeon, you're talking to a musician, talking to someone in the military, like have you applied the same approach to your business decisions?

cause you're an investor as well, you're a New York Times bestselling author, like you've done some stuff other than being a badass feed skater. Has that carried over? Does it apply just as well off the rink for you off the ice? 

[00:44:29] Apolo Ohno: I believe some of the attributes are transferrable across any career path.

There's many skill sets that I didn't have naturally when I retired as an athlete, that I learned the hard way and I've had some great wins and I've had some really, really bad losses. I think the difference today is I. My ability to manage those losses are totally different. I just, I look at it from a different perspective.

I, I enjoy the process of pursuing a new venture, a new opportunity. So when I talk to a, and I'm in a boardroom talking to someone most of the time. You know, they're dealing with all these ancillary stresses in their life that detract away from their ability to become truly present and maximize their real ability to be at their best.

And that's true, right? So we have short, kind of small snippets of this experiences throughout our lives. But we aren't able to replicate them because of many different variables. Family life, money, stresses, I call them taxes in your life that always are kind of grabbing away at your whole, your whole pie.

Mm-hmm. And the, the one way that I have felt that has been very powerful was just training my mind and being intentional in a way that has a routine. That I've created a new form of habits and new form of human behavioral patterns. And that can be, I know what I need to do as Apolo Ono, even though I'm 10 years retired, I know what I need to do in terms of lifestyle.

Mm-hmm. That helps me be my best in the boardroom, presenting to that surgeon, to that executive, standing on stage, talking to a group. There's certain things that I know that I hold very, very sacred to me. Routine in the morning, routine in the evening. And that overall mindset, having gut checks to ensure, are you doing the things necessary to give you maximum performance there?

And then also. Is it fun? Right, and, and, and this is something that I've kind of reintroduced into my life again, was it's very easier to kind of squint your, your, your brow and get very laser focused in, at some point you have to enjoy elements of that process. And if you don't, that's when I think you start to get burned out and the intensity starts to flicker, which is what you don't want.

You want the intensity to, to kind of go like this in these waves, but those who are constantly pressing on the button of pain. Reminding themselves that they aren't good enough or they have to show up or whatever that is, that that's driving them p that makes 'em so obsessed. It can get tiresome and wear out.

And that's why I think that this, you know, like anything else, the mind and the body are elements where they need to have rest and recovery. Short sprints, long endurance races. It's just like any other element that you're training you, it, it, it can't just be pedal to the metal full gas 24 7. I mean, you will just lose the intensity.

It, it's, it, I call it the magic, right? Like when, when something happens to you in your life and you're either so pissed off or you're so disrupted and sad, it forces and enacts real transformation and change. Well, shit man. Why did you have to have that pain to do that back then? Because. You can't keep repeating that feeling, that failure or that loss, or that pissed off feeling.

[We know people in all of our lives who are just angry and they've been angry for a long time, but it's not like it's consistently progressing them towards a different era. Right. So I just believe that there's nothing wrong with having that emotional state in those times, but like anything, it is a tool 

[00:48:09] Paddy Steinfort: being selective and deliberate about when you access that.

[00:48:12] Apolo Ohno: Yeah. And then being open about it, like knowing and recognizing, hey, this is my pain, this is why I am the way I am. I don't have to be that way. I can consistently change. I'm intentionally, deliberately enacting certain processes and frameworks in my life so that I can be at my best. Yeah. Because I'm at my best.

I feel better. My family's good, my friends are good. And that's the life I think that we all want in the end. 

It's really, really, really fascinating insight there of a lot of people. We, you talked before about the fear being your thing that you touch and go towards. A lot of people talk, you know. Uh, try and avoid fear, or they try and avoid pain or being angry or whatever.

The ability to access those things. Is a crucial skill, but it's not often one that we are naturally born with. We usually develop it. Now you have described an incredible journey of introspection, of failure, of growth. That sounds like it continues on the daily these days, but along the way was there, it sounds like Dad helped you early on.

Were there other people who helped you become more aware and better at that, understanding your mindset and getting okay with it and, and turning it into a tool rather than something that just spontaneously combusted sometimes 

[00:49:26] Apolo Ohno: to continue that story, Paddy and, and Yes. Uh, when I was 15, after I'd made that world team, I went back home.

I trained very hard. Essentially I showed up in great shape. Now I was living back in Colorado Springs and uh, we had hired an assistant coach who also was a sports psychologist. He was a studying student sports psychologist, so he was getting his PhD from, or he was studying at the Colorado College. Uh, sports psychology.

And this guy, he was like, wasn't many years older than I, uh, or sorry, older than the oldest guy on the team. And he had this like deep fascination with Eastern philosophy and meditation and mindfulness. And by the way, back then, in 1998, we were like, what the hell is this guy talking about? Like, this sounds woo, completely bogus.

It's woo woo, magic stuff, very woowoo. This guy David Creswell comes into our group and essentially says, who here is writing in a daily journal? And we're like, eh, a couple of us throw our hands up. And then he's like, who here practices, uh, visualization and meditation? I didn't even know what that was.

Literally, I'd heard that word like five times in my life, right? Maybe. And, uh, you know, for weeks on end, he was just hammering the team to try to get people to come do these practiced and seated meditations and mindfulness exercises with him. 'cause he believed that it was the real unlocking of that inner power and potential.

Finally, I kind of gave in and said, I, I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna see what this guy's all about. And throughout that process I. It was incredible. What happened next? I mean, I, it was, it was a combination of me being great shape, me being, you know, assertive and intentional and also actually actively training my mind.

Yeah. Which my mind was very busy, very A-D-D-H-D had a hard time constraining on one single task at a time. I was all over the place. I was like a fly just buzzing around the room and he was able to help me calm down, calm that mind, and focus inward in a way that created a pattern so that I could literally lower my heart rate when I was in the heat box before a race, which would then give me more capacity to grow because I wasn't being affected by the nerves and the fear I was being extremely present.

That was my first entrance into the world of sports, psych, meditation, mindfulness, all of those things. And I, it's not like I ever became a master of it, but just the simple training and that progress over perfection mindset was fascinating. And then I had another sports psychologist later on in my career two years later, his name was Doug Ddy.

And this was the guy who, who actually created real training programs for me mentally. 

[00:52:11] Paddy Steinfort: Right. And at the time, what did they look like as it just outta curiosity, so, so the listeners who aren't Yeah. Familiar with it. 

[00:52:17] Apolo Ohno: So this was so cool. So essentially I walked into Doug's office and I told him. I wanna be a machine a hundred plus percent of the time.

I want to be a machine every single day. I want to be able to manage pain. I want my legs to be like pistons. I wanna be indestructible. That's what I, I told him, he's got like, oh, right. I, I, I got, I got a good one here. This is good. I like it. Um, and he also tells a story that I actually, when I came into his office, I sat in his, his chair and he was like, because like, he was like, guys, I see it.

I was like, no, no, no. I'm gonna sit here. You are the boss. I'm the boss. Yeah. One of the things that he did was, at the time, this is the year 2000, 1999, in 2000, uh, he had a biofeedback device, which essentially was reading all the electrical patterns and waves and energy that is coming in your mind. And it was displaying this on a computer screen.

It was this back then, this was really cool, like 20 years ago. This was like. Mind boggling. And it was like this, this head device that had all these, these sensors that went all around my forehead and all over my whole head. And I remember looking at the computer screen and he's saying, you know, it's this little line, it looks almost like a heartbeat, right?

Like when you look at one of those, one of those screens in the hospital, and it said this was, this was reading like the electrical patterns. Uh, that was happening in, in, in my mind when I would blink, it would kind of go crazy. So, you know, you wanted okay to maintain this very calm and cool and collected focus.

And when I first started it was just this buzzy, just like that fly, just up and down, up and down, up and down, rapid motion. And I didn't really know what I, he, what I was trying to do. And he says, well, you wanna make the line go almost flat line, like you wanna have no vibrational activity. That's when you know you're truly in the flow state.

And I was just like, man, I cannot do this at all. And then so he puts it on and he demonstrates for me, within 20 seconds this thing is going like this. He goes and just stays static. And I was like, oh my God, this guy, this guy's like a, he's like a monk, right? This amazing because I, I, I literally, I couldn't do it for like a week straight.

I nothing. There was no change. And then eventually I started to break that habit and. He also gave me a portable device. I, I forgot the name of this device, but essentially you, you put your, it looked like a mouse. You put your two fingers on it and it had, uh, a cord that ran into your ear. So an earpiece.

And it started with this sound. The sound was depending on the vibration and the electrical excitement, I believe that came through your fingers, in your heartbeat. The sound was very high pitched, almost like a e and for the first three weeks, I thought the sound just went e like that's, so the, the more focused and relaxed you became lower, the lower the, the wave and the tone would be, and then a month and a half in.

I thought it would just went up and down. Just say E And you know, the lower it went, the more focus I was. When I started to really practice this thing by the tutelage of, of this sports psychologist, it actually dropped so low. It becomes like a metronome, like a tick, tick, tick. And that was like, you know, it's like, it was like a video game to me.

At that point it was, I was gamification at the highest level because then I was really addicted. 'cause that's what I wanted every single time I put it on. And so I used to, I became obsessed, man. I mean, I, he talked about visualization. What does it feel like when you close your eyes and you look down?

Can you see your laces and your skates? When you rerun a race of 1500 meters and you close your eyes, do you start to sweat? Can you elevate your heart rate and can you lower your heart rate? And that visualization was so powerful to me. I feel that that all of those mindset techniques and trainings and [00:56:00] tactics and tools, that was the difference for me.

And in that year, 1999 and 2000, I won almost every single race there was to win. I was so dominant, and it was incredible. It was like a light switch, man. It was like I would walk into the, I would walk into the training environment. I wouldn't talk to my teammates by the way, because I was just so in the zone of what this was.

And I started, that's when I started to seek out some really extreme training because I'd be ha, I created this hunger and this desire to see how far can I push myself? How close to that crack, you know, we call it when you, when you crack, basically, when you just, your body just essentially just gives out, how close can I get to that?

And then back a little bit off, and how can I continuously do that over and over again? And it was a light switch. I could turn it on and I could turn it off. Uh, and, and just the feeling of being in the zone. I always describe to people as when you watch the original Matrix movies and Neo finds out that he's the one, he can now read the matrix code and you know, agent Smith is firing the bullets at him and he just starts dodging the bullets and slow motion.

That's what it feels like when you're in the zone. To me it was like the speed and time slows down. My brain is processing the information so quickly it becomes instinctual pass here, go on the outside, you know, draft here, and it also becomes very automatic and, and easy 

[00:57:26] Paddy Steinfort: to see. Yeah. You're not like thinking, right.

You're just present and you're, you're doing what you do. It's, 

[00:57:29] Apolo Ohno: it's a beautiful, it's the most addictive thing, I think, on the planet. And what I didn't realize then was that to get to that stage was years and years and years of work. 

[00:57:41] Paddy Steinfort: Right. 

[00:57:42] Apolo Ohno: I've being able to flip it on and off they 

[00:57:43] Paddy Steinfort: light switch. Yeah. And, and I mean it.

I've described at the start of the show your incredible resume from a term, from the point of view of how many medals you won. And it sounds like, well, I've painted the picture, or you've painted the picture of this journey of like, young kid phenom, fall on your face, make a decision, commit, and all of a sudden you become a superstar and you're a superstar forever.

Right? That once you won your first medal, it wasn't, it wasn't like, okay, I'm sorted now. Like there was constant work and constant failure. And can you describe a, a moment where you were, where these lessons and skills and tools that you picked up actually you were like, okay, I actually use them here.

Like I sometimes refer as, as a sweaty palms moment where it's, Lindsay Vaughn spoke about being in the blocks ahead of her for her actual Olympic gold medal, where she was like, okay, this is different. I know. I'm like, I'm now able to do these things that I haven't been able to do before and here, and she was described it in very specific detail.

Is there a moment like that for you where. It's a high pressure thing. There's no going back and, but you have to be completely in the moment. And you put those, these tools to use. This is later in your career. Does one spring to mind? 

[00:58:54] Apolo Ohno: Well, I think the first one that sprung to mind was my first Olympic games, my first race at an Olympic games.

So I had been preparing visually and mentally for what the crowd would sound and feel like. There's no replacement. 

[00:59:08] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, 

[00:59:09] Apolo Ohno: I used to play, we had a CD player back then. I used to play the crowd from other Olympic events in my ears. It's like, you know, when you're a speed skater, you don't see that crowd of what that was like.

And also having the crowd be home soil. So I remember my first race stepping out. It was the men's 1000 meters. It was a preliminary round, which means there was actually only three people in the race. Only one I had to beat the this German skater. The other was my rival. It was Korean skater. So I just had to be top two position.

But I could beat this as long I didn't fall down. I feel like I could beat this guy. But I remember stepping on the ice, and this is in Salt Lake City, several months after the September 11th, nine 11 attacks and Americans were all tuned in to the Olympics. I. Everyone was watching and in the arena people started chanting USA and chanting my name and I had never had that feeling before.

I'm getting goosebumps. It was, it was, it was incredible. And you know, I'm 19 years old. I had raced this race a thousand times. I had raced against these guys many, many times and my heart rate skyrocketed. I mean, it went from probably, it should have been like 80, it was like at 1 70, 180. And I was like thinking in my head and I felt it instantly, my, my suit was soak soaking wet and I was thinking almost like loss of breath.

I'm like, holy shit. You know, this is a minute and a half long race. You can't start the race being in this state. Mm-hmm. Like, this is like starting the race. Like you end it, like you, that's a bad situation to be in. You. You'll make a mistake fall down or maybe just not even make it past this next round.

And I remember the only thing that I could do was I just crouched down. Like basically like into the squat position. And I just looked at my feet and the ice and I just started breathing. And that was the training that I had been doing. And that breathing helped lower. Now the heart rate didn't come down as much as I would wanted to, but it was, it cut down to like one 40.

It came, it came down. Some came down significantly enough to where, okay, I'm here now, breathe and relax. I've done this before. Don't worry about what could happen. What are you doing right here, right now? And I had a great race. And so that was the first time that I had felt that and used that, those tactics.

And I used them through the illustrative Olympics. And then the real time where I used this was the men's 1000 meters final. Uh, it was me, five skaters total. I was a favorite to win the race. I was in the first position with about a quarter of a lap remaining. Which means that's like two and a half seconds remaining of a minute and a half long race, and I could see the finish line and I get taken down by another athlete who falls into the back of me and all of us fall down.

This is the Steven Bradbury race and position two, three, and four all fall down. Steven Bradbury, who's a half a lap behind, crosses the finish line first, as I scramble, get to my feet, throw my skates across the line, I win silver. I'm very confused at this point of what just happened. Adrenaline is pumping.

I'm trying to remember what just happened in every capacity. I, I, I get off the ice. I, so I, I, I sprint off the ice because I felt like I had cut myself. I wasn't entirely sure. I remember getting in the locker room, ripping my skin suit down and looking at my leg, and there was a hole in my leg, right? And it was from my blade where I'd fallen into the pads, my right leg, like a knife, just came in and basically stabbed my left leg.

And it just missed an, an, an artery, actually. Um, and it was a hole. And it, it was, it was, you know, it was bleeding. And I was like, that's why my leg felt itchy. I mean, that's, that was weird, right? It felt itchy. I just remember that feeling. It was actually itchy. And then they call, uh, our trainer into the locker room.

And Brent Hamula and Brent comes in and he's got this huge smile on his face. He's like, dude, that was the craziest race I have ever seen in my life. And here I am thinking like, man, I, you know, I didn't win gold. I didn't win gold. I didn't win gold. I, I was supposed to win gold. And he was at that moment, and I said, I.

Wow. He's right. Like that was, I didn't lose gold. I won the silver. And, and a reporter later on had asked me that, what does it feel like to lose gold medal? To lose gold medal? Lose a gold medal? And I said, I, I didn't lose, I, I, I won the silver. And so, you know, it's a, look, it's a play on words. However, the training that I had been doing for so long with Doug and Dave coed with the fact that short track speed skating is perhaps one of the most volatile sports in the Olympics, you could run the same race four different times and get four different winners.

It trained us to be able to control what we can control and try our best to disregard what we cannot control. Almost like a very stoic philosophy. Prepare as best you can, derive and gain confidence from that preparation. Go out there, create the best possible chance of having success in that race, and then however the fall of the cards fall, live with them.

Accept them as they are, and maybe that's a bigger message of deeper meaning here. But that was what that training allowed me to do, was I became so hyper-focused on controlling every single millimeter of my performance. But at the end of the day, I. It was much more about the process versus the prize that I was really after.

[01:04:37] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. 

[01:04:38] Apolo Ohno: Yeah. The prize was important. We need it. We need the target. You know, you, you, you can't hit the bullseye if you can't see what you're looking at, so you need to have that target. To me, the target was the gold medal. Now with a, I got that target and whether I hit the gold, I. Seemingly is not entirely within my control.

I can maximize the chance of that, but at the end of the day, there's some unknown circumstances that can and come into play in thousands of variables of change that will change that trajectory in the slightest of degrees. And that's what the training helped me deal with was dealing with that failure, dealing with that, not winning, and then turning it and using it as an advantage to say, Hey, yes, absolutely, I wanted and felt like I was deserving of that gold, but I didn't get it.

And that's okay. And I have to move on and I have to appreciate what happened here. 

[01:05:25] Paddy Steinfort: That's hard to do. It's really, and it, it was hard to do later on in my career too. It's, it's, it's hard to even imagine being able to do that in that moment with your, your leg bleeding and having a hole in it, A gold medal ripped out of your hands to be able to flip it that quickly is I.

A, an incredible feat in itself, but also it's a great example of the, I mean, the title of your book that I mentioned earlier of No Regrets, um, being able to make Tomorrow better than Today or being Better tomorrow than today. Your, your Word Better than Me is really just that, that summed up that entire philosophy right there.

And, and one of the questions I ask every guest we try to get to is, what's your definition of toughness? It's in a stoic nature as being mentioned a few times. You brought it up there. Is that part of your, how you would define toughness in terms of your arena and your life, or is it much more about being able to say, look, I accept whatever happens, happens, I put my best stuff out there and I have no regrets.

That's very tough to do, and that's a, a fairly impressive way to do it, is to be able to take anything that happens, even when it's shit and still be like, all right, it is what it is. How do I go out there on my next race and be as good as possible? 

[01:06:34] Apolo Ohno: So my definition of toughness, uh, I think, you know, the zero regrets mentality.

You know, when I wrote that book, when I tell you I don't have zero regrets, that's not a true statement. I've got many regrets in my life. But the way that I want to live my life is I want to live a life in pursuant of zero regrets. And why that is so powerful and important is you will live your life differently and you will approach challenges and problems and turn them into opportunities.

When you have that in your life and your preparation, your intensity, your drive, your love, your happiness, all these elements of what make you a human, you will live them with greater levels of appreciation, gratitude, empathy. All of those above. Hmm. When you approach it in that way, the one common thing that I've noticed whenever I ask someone who's old is, you know, what would you have changed?

And they're like, I just, I, I wouldn't have worried as much. I would not have stressed about certain things. I would've instead focused on what I could have controlled and not worried about the things that I could not control. And so the idea of toughness to me is someone who is able to adapt to the climate that they're in.

That can be financially, that can be, um, socially and relationship wise, that can be situation. I mean, whatever it is, your ability to adapt to that environment and change the way that you want that trajectory to be. And that only comes with being able at times, to go towards the flame. There's no doubt that we will have many failures in our life, that's for certain.

1. And there're gonna be pain. There's going to be loss in your life that is absolutely for certain. And so the only way for you to be able to respond in a way, uh, versus react is being able to truly articulate what it is of what's important to you. I think Viktor Frankl said it the best. You know, people who have purpose in their life can walk through any flame, they can cross any chasm, any treacherous time.

The human condition is so powerful beyond our wildest imaginations. But you have to tap into that. You have to recognize that. And people who I consider to be incredibly tough are willing to do that. And we all know people who are tough and, and most of the time those people have had some real pain and real failure in their life.

So. For those people who are listening. If you've had, if you have, and when you have real pain and failure in your life, it is all good. Like you need to embrace that. Obviously study it so you don't replicate that situation and pain. Learn from it, but use that as a tool man. This is nitrous for your car to catapult you in a way that you maybe have never been on fire.

Maybe that is the pain that finally says to you, Hey, the reason why I can't stick to my January 1st New Year's resolutions is because X, Y, and Z, and you gotta have that conversation with yourself in the mirror. You have to be openly transparent and say, you are not perfect. You are vulnerable. You are weak, and that's okay because you can change, you can progress, you can continuously improve.

But you gotta write this stuff down. You gotta look in the mirror. You gotta have the hard talk, and you also need to be accepting of the fact that you can't win every single race. Nothing wrong with being driven and being obsessed to wanna have that perfectionism, but I believe that we seek progress always over perfectionism because perfectionism can become toxic over time.

It's a great attribute to have, but if not managed appropriately and effectively, it's a sharp tool. Like anything else, you can cut yourself and that's not the goal here. Your goal is to craft something that is beautiful, not to destroy the creator. 

[01:10:27] Paddy Steinfort: So cool, so cool. The way you described that there, it's a great way to bring it, the, the interview to an end.

Unfortunately, everything has to end and we will do that by asking you the question that I normally close with for everyone else. You've kind of touched on it a little bit. I, I have a bit of an idea of where it might go, but what, what's your hope with everything that you've learned from your journey, so much wisdom that you've shared on this episode and, and in your own work, what is your hope now that you've done that deep work on yourself, both for your own, you know, here's my projects that I.

Working on and buried in. You mentioned a couple at the start of the show, but also with your ability to be so eloquent and share that wisdom, why is that important to you and what are you trying to achieve? 

[01:11:06] Apolo Ohno: I'm glad you asked that. So my new life mission, I guess my, my purpose is I noticed very early on in my life that I had natural talent and ability and that once I was able to touch my strength and power for my own personal performance, it was unlimited.

And there was so many others around me that I felt also had that potential. But they didn't believe it. They didn't see it. They didn't know that they was there. So my per my, my, my passion and purpose in life is to help unlock that inner potential that's within people. And sometimes they need insights, sometimes they need guidance, sometimes they need direction.

Sometimes they just need you to give them a book. And you know, I develop something called the Five Golden Principles, which number one is gratitude. Number two is giving. Giving to others, but also giving yourself a chance. So self-sabotage is a big part of that is, is giving yourself a chance. So don't obstruct your direction because you're afraid of what's gonna happen.

Like mm-hmm. Be complicit in your own actions and then wonder why you are in this situation. Right? So you've got gratitude, you've got giving, you've got grit. That's the toughness element. It's a true requirement and it can be trained consistently. Number four is gearing up your personal expectations. So whatever was fundamentally the standard before, the only way you're gonna progress is to, to level up.

You gotta level up, man. And number five is to get into action, to go get after it. And I think those principles to me, I, I hopefully will give to people who are struggling right now, who've been furloughed, who've been laid off, who are having financial difficulty, who are having difficulty in general, who are in pain mentally.

And I. Don't have to do it alone. They can. They can reach out. There's tons of resources out there, whether they are an athlete suffering from mental health and depression or whatever those issues are, whether it's someone who is [01:13:00] having a severe loss of identity and a crisis around, I was so good for 20 years at something, this is what I felt like I was put on earth for now moving forward.

I need to go this direction. I had that as an Olympic athlete, right? 10 years ago I retired and I would say just in the past three years, I finally was like, ah, ah, I get it. I get it. This is the direction I'm going in now. This is a new chapter, so my purpose, man, is I want to give people their own pen and pad and begin really writing their own story, and you may not get every single thing that you put on that piece of paper, but I just believe that if you really, really want something.

And you really commit to something, the path there is so powerful that maybe the real fruits were not the metric or the bullseye that you had. Maybe the real fruits were the path and the process of you committing and going through that for the next few years. 

[01:13:50] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. 

[01:13:51] Apolo Ohno: And that's, that's what I would love to do and that's what I'm doing now.

That's awesome, man. That's awesome. That, that last, uh, little thing there about the fruits that you might want maybe not being the thing that it's all about. Uh, um, RIP Chadwick Bozeman who passed away, he's a great example of that. Who, who started out by going to directing school. He didn't want to act, I.

Someone saw in him something that he didn't know he had, and the rest is history is one of the greatest actors of our time and, and inspired millions. Um, you are doing the same with your own, uh, your own little twist there. And that's an incredible purpose, obviously living it every day. And that's fantastic.

Um, really appreciate you sharing your stuff with us, with the audience. There are many people who are gonna learn stuff from this episode, but if they do want to track you down and find you, where is the best place to go and do that? 

[01:14:37] Apolo Ohno: Yeah. But thanks for having me on. Uh, you can find me at Apolo Ono on Instagram at @ApoloOno.

I have another, uh, Facebook page official at Apolo Ono and my website, Apolo owner.com. 

[01:14:49] Paddy Steinfort: All right. Thanks very much Apolo. I appreciate you being with us. 

[01:14:51] Apolo Ohno: Yeah, thanks for having me.