The Olympics has been an opportunity for me to look back at old interviews I did with a wide variety of Olympic gold medalists - long before the days of Thirty Minute Mentors - and reflect on some of the best lessons learned.

I republished a few of those interviews this week on the leadership blog and will be republishing more next week. Here are a few excerpts and highly-applicable takeaways from this week's batch:

Mark Henderson: During my athletic career, I stuck with three important things that I felt separated me from a lot of my competition. First, when I had a bad event at a competition, I obsessed over figuring out what I did wrong so that I could do better on the next event vs. pouting, throwing a tantrum, and not talking to anyone. Second, I consistently worked hard and focused on a specific part of my race at every practice. A lot of people just come in to work out (or work) and do what’s asked and leave. My parents really pushed the old saying "If you’re going to do it, you might as well give 110%." Finally, I realized at a young age how important the people around me were to my success. I made it a point to be around people who were smarter than me, faster than me, and supported me through the ups and downs of sports. This gave me the confidence to try new things and fail without stressing or worrying about what others thought. My parents, my coach, my teammates, and my friends all deserve just as much credit as I do for my achievements.

Kerry Simmonds: Goal setting was a key lesson elite rowing taught me to practice and refine. The long-term and obvious goal was the Rio Olympics. It is daunting to think “2016 Olympics is my goal. Ok, go.” I had to break that big dream goal into smaller, more manageable short-term goals. Goals all the way down to details of how I could improve execution of both my training and my recovering (e.g. sleeping, eating, stretching, etc). Goal-setting required me to embrace the idea of staying patient with the process. Improvement in rowing is not an overnight thing. It takes time, patience, focus, and many rowing strokes.

Megan Jendrick: My perspective is that if you learn something from an event, even if it’s negative, there’s value in it. Some of the more notable for me were that my coach left right after the Sydney Olympics and I ended up in a less-than-ideal training environment for several years. Then I missed making the 2004 Olympic team by eleven one-hundredths of a second and temporarily retired, and after I came back, I broke my leg at National Team training camp right before the World Championships one year, so my sponsor dropped me. There are more, but I just prefer to look at it as there have been lots of “learning opportunities,” for sure!

Haley Skarupa: There is this saying our team frequently keeps in mind: “The Olympics is not every four years, it is every single day.” And it’s true. While people tune in every four years (or two including the Summer Olympics) to watch some of the most incredible athletes in the world compete, keep in mind that their entire lives have led to this moment. They have woken up every morning relentlessly preparing. That being said, we are also very normal people who love to go to the movies and hang out with friends in our spare time. It’s all about balance.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one-on-one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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