Category Archives: Mentor Messages

Hidden Impact of Mentoring

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Soon I will go to Sochi to continue my work as a mentor to the Canadian Olympic Team. It will be the ninth Olympic Games that I’ve attended, my fourth as a mentor. I’ve been working with some of the Canadian winter athletes since before the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics and I’ve watched them mature from wide-eyed Olympic rookies to Sr. veterans, multi-medalists and Olympic Champions. They have become fabulous athletes and community citizens: there are so many incredible career champions among them. They now, are the role-models and mentors and I am so proud to have had the chance to work with them.

While in Sochi there is no plan for me to be on TV; I’m not there to be a spokesperson or an analyst. My role is to continue to be part of the Canadian Team’s preparation. Much of what I do is subtle and behind the scenes. All the athletes have access to professional mental performance consultants (often sport psychologists) that help them with specific field of play issues. They have coaches and team mates who are with them and support them daily. The mentoring I do is done in broad strokes; I pop in and out of camps and meetings, I send emails, or we exchange txts. I know I don’t connect with everyone on the team but that’s okay, everyone wants and needs different support and guidance. Often I explain my role like this- I offer to take the horses to water; if they drink, or how much they drink, is up to them. Throughout the year I am one of their many resources.  

When I first started going to the Olympics in this role it was a huge shift for me. To be frank –

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Prep’ing for battle with the Big Bad Wolf

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wolf     As the year 2014 begins – to many it is the first day of 365, but to the group of athletes that I work with it means that there are just 37 days until they begin the biggest test of their lives. As spectators, we see a collage of personal interest stories, a concern for social and security issues and we can’t wait to see the Olympic drama unfold. The sincerity, genuine emotions, and consequence of Olympic sport is hard to match. The athletes who will be competing there – they FEEL the Games approaching; their hearts beat faster with anticipation, their eyes gleam at the thought of what could be and they catch their breath knowing that there will be no second chances.

      I want nothing more than for our Canadian Team to know that they are ready when they get to Sochi. Even though each Olympic experience is one-of-a-kind, I believe that sharing with them the experiences of athletes who have walked their path before them is the best tool for them to make their own choices and live up to their potential. For that reason – I chose a story that is all about learning, improving and beating the “big bad wolf”.  

     In all of our lives we have a “big bad wolf”. That challenge that ‘huffs and puffs’ – pushing and challenging us. In a perfect world we’d never receive a scratch, but on most goal achieving paths we’d have to admit that the wolf might blow down a few of our houses. That’s okay, as long as we take each ‘battle’, learn from it and come back stronger. That’s how, in the end we ‘win the war’ and achieve our goals.

Happy New Year, Marnie

 

Happy New Year!  ( La version française suite )

Four years ago I had Brian Stemmle, 4x Alpine Olympian speak to the Figure Skating team. He was a huge hit. His story had incredible impact on them and I’d like to recount it for you.I love Brian’s career story – it has all the key bits of an intense drama; podium finishes, a torso-ripping-pelvis-snapping-near-death fall and an incredible comeback. Respectfully, I can’t help but think that my friend’s Olympic prep story closely resembles the fable of the Three Little Pigs, which is really is about learning from set-backs and challenges and getting better and stronger with each successive try. Continue reading →

Who keeps a done list? We all should. – A Year in Review

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done listDecember always brings with it an onslaught of “Looking Back”, “Year in Review” or “Best of 20??” lists.

It never fails to amaze me how much that we can ‘forget’ happened in a particular year. When there is so much that we still want to get done remembering all the day-in and day-out work that we have accomplished is difficult. We often get so fixated on the work that is in our ‘to-do’ pile that we forget (and disregard) the work that is in our ‘done’ pile.

I’m not suggesting that anyone stop actively pursuing his or her to-do pile.  To come full stop, throw a “look-how-much-I’ve done” party and dwell exclusively on one’s own ‘done’ pile can lead dangerously toward entitlement. I believe entitlement is the antithesis of hard work and thus performance.

The challenge is to keep looking and moving forward and to stay connected with all that you’ve accomplished in the past. (hmmm. There’s that “Jammed Cat” again! See the video.)

Staying connected to the volume of work that we’ve already done and the tasks that we have accomplished helps us manage the stress that we put on ourselves as we push forward. Each of the tasks in our ‘done’ pile accumulates like a ‘grain of rice filling a cup’. They all contribute to our confidence as we continue to push forward and through our increasingly busy and challenging ‘to-do’ list; so why would we ever forget a single one?

Since January of this year, I’ve been writing a monthly mentor message that is directed at athletes and their support team who have been training for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. Their preparations began well before this series started but my goal was to become another resource for them to know that they are part of a bigger team, that they are not alone in their highly ambitious efforts and (I can’t stress this one enough -) that it is normal people like them who accomplish incredible things. The goal is for them to be absolutely comfortable with all of their ambitions.

With that in mind – I’ve jumped to the front of the “Year in Review line. Possibly the first of the year, (I still like being first 😉 )  Have a great December,

Marnie

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Be the one who steps up – Expectation is a weapon.

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The whole point of my mentor messages is to help normalize what everyone who has ever been to an Olympics knows – the Olympics are different. We say the difference is more than just Citius, Altius, Fortius because families, sponsors, media and nations treat the Games differently, but who’s kidding who? – an athlete’s desire to go/be Faster, Higher, Stronger than anyone else is a massive part of why this year feels harder, unique, special, etc. etc to them. This month I really wanted to be sure that no one at the Olympics takes them by surprise.

When I was training for my first Games, the veteran on our team, Lesley Thompson-Willie, repeatedly told / warned us; “You have to watch out, people step-up in an Olympic year.” In an Olympic year there would always be at least one ‘dark-horse’ threat. Someone who wasn’t much to worry about in the previous year, she told us, would go home with a medal. As World Champions, she wanted to be sure that we didn’t get caught simply training for another year and then get passed by a dark horse, by those who were hungry – if not desperate – to succeed at the Olympics.

Have you ever been 4th in a really important race/competition? I was twice. My heart ached and I was consumed with a fire to do better next time. I became so hungry to win and, almost more so, desperate to not be broken hearted again.

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