Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Sarah Wells on her Olympic path, going from a non-athletic person to an Olympian, self belief, life after sport, pursuing excellence, keynote speaking professional sports, overcoming injuries
143 Plays10 months ago
Part of what makes this show a success is your involvement, dedication and recommendations. When you like something about the show you let me know but when you have suggestions you let me know too and for that I’m grateful. It helps me learn, develop and grow as a creator that I hope will translate into an even better listening experience.
On this episode of Just In Stride I had an uplifting conversation with Olympic hurdler, Silver Medalist and Keynote Speaker, Sarah Wells.
She wasn’t a natural athlete in high school by any means but her track coach saw potential in her that she didn’t see in herself and was he ever right.
Sarah harnessed that talent and became one of the best 400m hurdlers in Canada, ultimately landing her on the 2012 Olympic team in London. That achievement certainly didn’t come without its challenges and adversity along the way. She shares the power of belief in oneself and how to pursue excellence in our own race, in what was an incredibly inspiring conversation.
-------
Offer from Xact Nutrition: This episode is presented by our friends at Xact Nutrition and they are offering you 15% OFF your order when you use the code JUSTINSTRIDE. So head to xactnutrition.com and fuel your goals today! Now shipping in Canada and the U.S.
Thanks for tuning in to the Just In Stride Podcast. I truly appreciate you taking the time to listen and I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Please take a minute after this to rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts. With your feedback we’ll be able to make the show even better and it’ll help us reach new listeners too. You can also find us on Instagram @justinstridepod and YouTube @justinstridepod for all the latest episodes and updates. Glad you came along for the ride with Just In Stride!
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Justin's Drive Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Puleze. If you love endurance sports, you've definitely come to the right place. On this show, we'll talk to athletes, coaches, and professionals who can help us reach our true potential. Being a student of distance running for over 10 years and interviewing people in the sport for the last five, I've learned a ton, but there's always more to discover.
00:00:29
Speaker
Everyone has a story, and I know you'll resonate with each of our guests as we embark on this new journey together. Join us at home, on the road, or while you run. Together we'll have some fun.
Social Media and Sponsorship
00:00:41
Speaker
So follow along on Instagram at justinstridepod and your favorite podcast platform and prepare to be inspired. Come along for the ride with Justin Stride.
00:00:53
Speaker
This episode is presented by our friends at Exact Nutrition, a tasty and healthy way for you to fuel your body before, during, and after a solid training session. I can't leave the house without a few fruit bars in my pocket and they never make it back home. Exact is offering you 50% off your order when you use the code justinstride. So head to exactnutrition.com and fuel your goals today.
00:01:17
Speaker
Part of what makes this show a success is your involvement, dedication, and recommendations. When you like something about the show, you let me know. And when you have suggestions, you let me know too. And for that, I'm grateful. It helps me learn, develop, and grow as a creator that I can hopefully translate into an even better listening experience.
Introducing Sarah Wells
00:01:36
Speaker
On this episode of Justin Strad I had an uplifting conversation with Olympic hurdler, silver medalist and keynote speaker Sarah Wells. She wasn't a natural athlete in high school by any means but her track coach saw potential in her that she didn't even see herself and was he ever right?
00:01:53
Speaker
Sarah harnessed that talent and became one of the best 400-meter hurdlers in Canada, ultimately landing her a spot on the 2012 Olympic team in London. That achievement certainly didn't come without its challenges and adversity along the way. She shares the power of belief in oneself and how to pursue excellence in your own race in what was an incredibly inspiring conversation. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the Just In Strive podcast. Hello. Thank you so much for having me.
00:02:22
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, this was a total recommendation from my Kevin Rumpel, a guest we've had on a few shows ago. And he just said, like, I have someone great to be on your show. And I think you guys should chat. And here we
Athlete Community and Friendships
00:02:37
Speaker
are. I know. Kevin's the best. Like, his energy is, like, infectious. Like, you can't ignore. Kevin's in a room, and you're like, oh my god, this is the best day ever. Yeah. And how are you guys connected?
00:02:50
Speaker
through sport largely. So Kevin was a Paralympic hockey player and our sledge hockey player and I threw my involvement in Olympic track and field. We were in the same circles often attending different events that would maybe feature Paralympic or Olympic athletes or we were sponsored by the same big Canadian bank named Royal Bank of Canada. Shout out to them.
00:03:15
Speaker
no longer sponsored. But yeah, Kevin and I shared some sponsors, did a bunch of events together. And then we were just like kindred spirits on like our ability or our ability, our desire to want to make an impact and share our stories and see how we could help other people. And so we eventually just like became besties.
00:03:33
Speaker
And would you say like that's common in the like Olympic world like through, you know, you guys play different sports and I'm always curious to know, you know, amongst runners, let's say, or amongst competitors or teammates how that goes. But, you know, you guys are kind of cross sports and you think that's common amongst fellow Canadian Olympians?
Olympic Village Experience
00:03:56
Speaker
I think that every
00:03:59
Speaker
professional organization or like even every industry is small, right? It's like people always talk about like if you're, I don't know, involved in HVAC as your business. You're like, well, the HVAC business is small, you know everyone. And like, then you're an Olympic athlete. You're like, well, the Olympic circles are small, so you know everyone. And so it's like your networking communities can feel small when you like kind of live in those silos and bubbles. And so I would say that there's a good amount of kind of
00:04:29
Speaker
cross-pollination, but not a ton because you're often with your team and you might get your training camps for your specific sport and then only at like major games or maybe, yeah, like how Kevin and I met was through some events. Do you ever actually start to meet athletes of other sports? And so that was one of the coolest things about the Olympics was they have these buildings that are essentially like
00:04:54
Speaker
condo buildings, and there's one building for each country. And in each country houses every sport of, um, and so there would be kind of a common room that you'd go down to and you could watch the sports if you weren't competing that day. And so then you'd have like the field hockey players, the beach volleyball players, you know, some of the track athletes and you'd meet these people and just be like, Oh my gosh, like lovely to meet you. I've seen, you know, Olympics, Canada share
00:05:21
Speaker
a story about your team and now suddenly I'm like, I'm putting faces to names or I'm meeting the human behind that. And so it's like, yes, circles are small, but no, you don't actually get as much interaction with the other teams as you might think.
00:05:34
Speaker
And are you guys sharing Olympic stories or origin stories? How do you connect? This is the pinnacle of a lot of people's careers. Not everyone gets to go to the Olympics period or gets to return. Some are multi-time Olympians. Sometimes it's a first time, one and done.
Emotional Journey of Olympics
00:05:56
Speaker
I would say like at the Olympics for sure you're kind of sharing your how did you get here moment and you know what was your run-up like and what adversity did you face and how did you overcome that and so at the Olympics for sure it's a lot of that and then I think outside of that like connecting with with Kevin or with other people that we've come across in our sporting careers like it's like you're connecting on
00:06:20
Speaker
maybe your shared pursuit of excellence or maybe you're both going through an injury and you're sharing what chiropractor and physiotherapist you're going to see and things like that. So yeah, you would connect on all kinds of things, but certainly in the Olympic village, yeah, you're kind of sharing your, how was it for you getting here in this moment? And was it like everything that you expected becoming Olympian and being at the Olympics?
00:06:50
Speaker
Yes and no. Of course, you have this big goal and this big vision of what it's going to be like to become an Olympic athlete. Oh my gosh. People are probably, forever I'm going to be a shining star and the Olympics is a really big deal and the village is spectacular and everything's at your fingertips. There's a hair salon and a
00:07:17
Speaker
at the Olympic Village, you can get food everywhere. There's tiny little cafes. There's the whole Olympic Village cafeteria that has every food you can imagine. There are people giving you gear and kits and all this different stuff through the Olympics. Be like, wear this. Beats headphones. We're giving Olympic athletes away. Here, wear our headphones. Wear our headphones. Do all this stuff. You became this glamorous celebrity for two weeks.
00:07:43
Speaker
That is what I expected. It was the wow factor. It was the things I read about in other Olympic years of how fun and cool the Olympics were.
00:07:53
Speaker
But then it's like, I went home at the end of that two weeks and it's like, my apartment is still my small apartment and I still take out my own garbage and have to go back to training. Like it's not like I just ride into the sunset. And so I think a lot of athletes deal with this kind of like crash and burn on the other side where you, you reach this pinnacle of your sport and then on the other side, you're kind of like, oh,
00:08:21
Speaker
it doesn't last forever or like i'm not gonna i'm not gonna get to live this glamorous lifestyle forever and and i think it that's that's the case for for every area of interest for every pursuit of excellence you know you might be pushing towards a promotion or pushing towards a title or finalizing like a big project and you assume that like once you get that and and maybe you get the recognition maybe you get the
00:08:50
Speaker
the sense of pride that that's going to sustain you. Suddenly you realize that, okay, there's a next chapter now. We finish exactly where we started and we got to keep the train moving. That can be exhausting and tiring and deflating because you're suddenly
00:09:10
Speaker
Oh, all of that run up, all of that effort, it can just come to an end. And I think that there's this really important mindset piece that'll often feel very strongly about sharing with other people that I talk about, what I call them as silver medal moments, where if you're in pursuit of something and whether it goes perfectly to plan and yeah, you make the Olympics and it's highlighted and it's exciting, or
00:09:36
Speaker
you are running for that big promotion or salary band that you're hoping to get to and you fall short of that goal. If we keep our mindset so fixed on the outcome and we forget about there is a next chapter, then often we can find ourselves falling off the edge of the cliff as soon as the finish line of that pursuit ends. We have to think about this as more of a continuous journey of
00:10:05
Speaker
Well, who am I coming through this process?
Mindset of Continuous Improvement
00:10:07
Speaker
And how am I evolving as a person, as a friend, as a partner, as a colleague, as an employee, as a person, like all of these different ways? Because that's what's ultimately going to sustain us. It's not going to be the outcome. It's going to be the actions, the person we become through that process.
00:10:27
Speaker
you think a lot of people think about the plan B, or does the thought of what to do next only come once that thing is done?
00:10:36
Speaker
Well, I think the distinction here is thinking about things as a plan A and a plan B. And instead it's ultimately like, I'm setting a goal. It's not plan A. What it is, is it's an inspiration point. It's a thing to help get me started. It's a thing to help motivate me. And it's not that if I don't get this, well, I'm resorting to plan B. I'm going to the backup or I'm finishing less than. And instead it's kind of like,
00:11:06
Speaker
whether the goal was goal A or goal B, how does the challenge of those goals, either one, help you evolve and develop as a person, as, like I said, a colleague, a friend, whatever that is, that
00:11:25
Speaker
if we think about it in the mindset of, okay, here's plan A, and that's the only definition of success. And if not, I guess I'll go for plan B, which is this less than definition of success. Well, now we set ourselves up to fall off the edge of the cliff versus
00:11:44
Speaker
looking at it as like goal setting is ultimately just a spark of inspiration, a tailwind to help us develop skills, relationships, lessons, and all of that. Yeah, I think that's, I mean, it's so important. I think it's maybe easier said than done at times, like, because I think even if you think about what you what will come next, or what you'll do next,
00:12:08
Speaker
you don't always necessarily handle things the way you think you will or ideally would like to also. So that becomes a challenge also.
00:12:23
Speaker
how what you say you're going to feel and what you actually feel is different. Yeah. Well, I think you could become so fixated on outcome of like, unless I achieve this definition of success, I have failed. And when I think about my pursuit to the Olympics, it's like,
00:12:38
Speaker
I would get so focused on, yes, I need to make it there. I want to be in the final, my second Olympics. I wanted to win a medal when I was in my pursuit of my second Olympics. And I would put all of this pressure and all of this stress on myself, even on the workouts leading up to it, because I was so fixated on outcome of this workout needs to be this fast, this race I need to win. I need to make it to the Olympics. And outcome is important. But instead, if I could have emphasized
00:13:07
Speaker
Okay, I'm going to show up to this workout and I'm going to make sure that I am fighting in the moments where fighting to rise above that voice of self-doubt in the moments where it's starting to overcome me. And I exercise that.
00:13:22
Speaker
Well, that's a skill I'm developing that I'm going to be able to use and translate across my whole life. And if I would have had that as the goal and the objective, as the action I'm going to choose to take, not the outcome of the workout of this fast, but instead what is the mindset principle I'm going to sharpen? What's the skill I'm going to develop through this process? Then if I would have had that, maybe the workouts wouldn't have taken on so much pressure, so much stress.
00:13:46
Speaker
that if the worker went well, I was happy. And if it didn't go well, I was sad. And instead, I could have found so much more joy in that pursuit. And so I think as we all pursue different goals, it's like, how can we focus on actions over outcomes? Because maybe now we'll start to realize that it's more about the goals we set becoming the inspiration to challenge us to become a certain kind of person in that process, rather than being defined by the outcome itself.
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah, because there's so much in terms of like development that we can gain from all these experiences. It sounds like you've learned so much. Looking back, would you have done it differently?
Finding Track and Field
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah, like I think, I think that I would have, like I said, I had just so much, I have to call it like,
00:14:40
Speaker
I put all this pressure on myself that I was wrapped up and defined by being an Olympic athlete and by being good at track and field and being successful. And instead of kind of treating track and field like my job, which eventually it became, had I have been able to treat it instead like this thing that's part of my life, but I am more than just my sport, then I think I could have
00:15:07
Speaker
probably avoided a lot more injuries because I wouldn't have pushed myself beyond that red line where I was I was gonna do the workout regardless if it was going to if I was gonna get hurt if if I was exhausted if I knew it was a bad idea there was something in the back of my mind that would say to me like
00:15:28
Speaker
You might tear your hamstring today or, hey, your femur is stress fractured. You probably shouldn't keep pushing. And so I think I would do things differently knowing what I know now because I probably
00:15:44
Speaker
Would remove some of the pressure of you have to do this because it's your job and there's there's no backing down from this and instead recognizing that this is a part of your life if you don't have things go perfectly to plan.
00:16:01
Speaker
there are so many other facets of you to make this day successful. And so I think I would have adopted a different mindset that would have allowed me to make training and Olympic level sport a part of my life, not my whole life. And that's a big part of it too. Like what, what do you associate with? What makes you who you are? And a lot of times we link ourselves to a specific sport and
00:16:27
Speaker
There's a lot that goes into that because it requires such dedication and then we don't know who we are without it. And I think like movement and everything is super important in one's life.
00:16:40
Speaker
But there's so much more behind the person than just the sport. But unfortunately, what we see, we see an Olympian, let's say. Absolutely. Those are the things that end up defining us, maybe to other people. But it's important if we have something else, like we're a parent, or we're a sibling, or a son or daughter. And so yeah, it helps us find our purpose later on.
00:17:08
Speaker
And I think it's like, I'm grateful to have learned this lesson in sport of, okay, when you make it your whole world and you make it your job, when you define yourself by the outcome, you make a living, you don't make a life. And instead now, like with what I'm doing with my career and running leadership programs and doing keynotes and working with organizations and their high performers,
00:17:32
Speaker
that like, if I'm like, okay, I need to get on that big stage, or I need this client to like me, or I want this to go so well that all the feedback is positive. If I wrap myself up in that definition of success, then again, I'm making a living. I'm not making a life of like,
00:17:49
Speaker
Well, the program probably is still going to continue to evolve. And I am going to consistently learn things along the way. And now my speeches and the programs I run, it's not the only version of who I am. And I can now start to realize that
00:18:07
Speaker
I want this to be sustainable. And in order for that to be sustainable, I can't push myself over that red line like I did in sport, which ultimately led me to being injured all the time. And so you have to find this balance where
00:18:22
Speaker
you start to incorporate all the things you're passionate about, which absolutely be inspired by outcome. Let that push you beyond what you would do if you just kind of like, I don't know, I'll just see what happens. But don't define yourself by that outcome because ultimately, then you're not making this life, you're not incorporating, it's not going to be sustainable. Right.
00:18:46
Speaker
Let's, before we get too far into the Olympics and after, let's kind of rewind a little bit and get to know you. Just to kind of what got you to this point, where did you grow up? How did you grow up? Were you athletic as a kid? Always things that I like to ask the guests that I have on, because I know how I started. Certainly, you know, movement was always a part of it, moving around, playing hockey and stuff, but how I got to endurance sports, I have no idea.
00:19:13
Speaker
No, similarly, I guess getting into track and field was not something I was like, oh, one day I want to be an Olympic athlete. That was not something that ever came out of my mouth.
00:19:25
Speaker
I genuinely didn't think I was athletic because in high school I got cut from every single sports team in the ninth grade. I tried out for basketball, volleyball, soccer, field hockey, badminton. You name it, I tried out. Got cut from all the teams. My high school teacher saw me in gym class and was like, oh, I just saw you run up to that soccer ball.
00:19:48
Speaker
you can accelerate, like you should come up for the track team. And I was like, you probably don't want me on the team. Like I already got that from every team at this school. And he's like, no, no, no, I think you could be good. And that high school teacher and I ended up starting to train together and he believed in me before I ever believed in myself and fostered kind of my foundational skill sets. And eventually that coach and I, my high school teacher, we stayed as coach and athlete for the next nine years until we made the Olympics together.
00:20:18
Speaker
And so I wasn't athletic. I didn't even know trying to go to the Olympic Games was something I would ever have as a
Specialization vs. Diverse Skills
00:20:26
Speaker
goal. And I really think my activity like you was just foundational movement. I kind of did.
00:20:33
Speaker
gymnastics a little bit. I did softball. I did soccer. I played hockey for a year. And I just, I think there's a lot of pressure these days on young athletes to specialize early and get in. And, and for certain sports that is required because you peak in swimming at like 16 or 17. But, um, and gymnastics of course as well, you peak super young, but for many sports,
00:21:01
Speaker
If you didn't get started at five, you're probably still okay. And there's such an urgency to specialize when there's so much value in actually diversifying our skill sets. And that can come through sport of what that looks like to have relative strength and overall body awareness in all these different sports.
00:21:20
Speaker
That can also be true of our careers where we can be so focused on specializing early. You're at 17 years old, students are selecting their majors and being like, okay, here's my path for life now. And we have this urgency to specialize and make sure we define ourselves in a category. But it's like, why not sprinkle a little bit of everything in
00:21:45
Speaker
let that lay an amazing foundation and then start to follow the path down one direction. And yeah, like I said, that can be true of sport and certainly in our careers. And I think for me, I didn't even start track and field until high school.
00:22:00
Speaker
So people are like, I often will tell young athletes that come up to me. I'm like, look, I didn't find track and field till I was 15 years old. You're seven. I promise you you're okay.
Mentorship and Inspiration
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's nuts. I similarly, I started playing hockey and soccer at like 12. Um, just cause I always liked playing sports, but I never wanted to play in the league or anything. And my dad always said, I didn't want to push you. And, but when you ask me, I was ready, you know, to.
00:22:31
Speaker
to put you in a sport. Yeah. It's a little late. It was a little late in my opinion, but that's okay. You know, he kind of figured it out. And I think that's, I like what you said there, because especially in kids development that we, you know, what if you play sports and you don't, and your kid doesn't want to play sports? What if they want to learn music or like by
00:22:53
Speaker
pushing something on a kid or putting them in this box, you limit their potential and like your coach saw that you had an interest and you had some ability. And that was, I always ask people, did you see potential in yourself or was it somebody that's saw it in you first? And sometimes kids, I guess have this God-given gift and they find it themselves, but if not, it's got to be a mentor like the one you had.
00:23:23
Speaker
Yeah, no, you're so right. Like, I am so grateful for that high school teacher and, you know, eventually my very long time coach. Because like I said, he really believed in me before I ever believed in myself. And I think
00:23:35
Speaker
mentorship and having someone in your life to show you what's possible is so important. And you don't even have to know that person, you know, like there's, we have access to so much information now through the internet, like, you can be inspired by someone who's a YouTuber, you're like, wow, look what they're doing, look, look what they're out there.
00:23:55
Speaker
creating or impacting or whatever, but to just have someone to show you what's possible. And I'll often share a story about a teammate of mine who I was training with leading into the London Olympics, where his name was Massimo and he was a decathlete, which is the
00:24:13
Speaker
track and field event where you have to do 10 different events and add up all the score, and then the highest score wins the decathlon. It's a regruling event and it's wildly athletic. And so Massimo in 2008, before the Beijing Olympics, we were training both of us at the University of Toronto, which is where I did my collegiate and post-collegiate training. And Massimo
00:24:40
Speaker
I knew was trying to pursue the Beijing 2008 Olympics. And in my head, I was like, well, anyone who makes the Olympics is perfect, you know, like they have a perfect season, they don't get injured, they miss no training days, they win every race they're in, you know, has to be the perfect flawless season in order to make this impossible dream come true. And in the run up leading into the Beijing Olympics,
00:25:05
Speaker
Massimo spent some time on the sidelines. He got injured. I saw him kind of conk out in some workouts. He had some amazing workouts as well, but he also had some bad days. And in the end, at the 2008 Olympic trials, Massimo makes the Olympics. And it just like blew my mind. Like, oh, so you don't have to be perfect to make the Olympics? And witnessing that pursuit
00:25:34
Speaker
just immediately showed me what was possible. And so for the London Olympics,
00:25:39
Speaker
I had had an injury leading into that and I was sidelined and everyone said, you know, you might not make it, but I had this kind of hope through Massimo that like, it doesn't have to go perfectly to plan. Like this is all still possible. And so mentorship, having that source of inspiration, someone to show you what's possible is like integral in helping you achieve what's possible for you. And this coach that you had, so he followed you all the way through, he or she, I'm not sure.
Hurdling Techniques
00:26:10
Speaker
Um, did you have a background in Olympic training or you just, were you like the horse and you were the meal ticket and now you have an Olympic team or that he was training and you found, you found hurtling as your, as your, your, your sport that you liked. So how did you come about that?
00:26:32
Speaker
Yeah, my high school teacher was also the varsity coach at the University of Toronto. He wasn't just this like, you know, walk off the street and was like, I don't know, I'll train this girl to the Olympics, I guess, you know, with this clipboard. Yeah. I think I got a whistle back there somewhere. Hang on a sec. Yeah. So no, he did have credibility and skill and
00:26:58
Speaker
but he had never coached someone all the way to the Olympics yet. So I was his first athlete that he had coached all the way to the Olympics. And yeah, he helped me find, he loved hurdles. He was a hurdles coach. And so when I had this ability, when he saw me kind of like raptors talk about dead stop,
00:27:19
Speaker
do nothing with the soccer ball and then accelerate away again. He was like, Oh, you can like run dead stop run. And so he's like, I want to teach you a hurdle. Okay. And so that's how I found hurtling and
00:27:32
Speaker
He was brilliant at what he does and it is brilliant. One thing that he did that was such a differentiator was when I first got into the sport, everyone has a favorite leg. Like a leg you like to jump over the hurdle with that is more powerful, feels more smooth and natural to you. The same way that you have a favorite leg to kick a soccer ball, I have a favorite leg to jump over the hurdle with. And when I first started training, of course, you know, you use your favorite leg. And then
00:28:02
Speaker
When I started to get into, um, there's the sprint hurdles where there's a hundred meters and there's 10 hurdles lined up, like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, all the way down the straightaway. I started to specialize in the 400 meter hurdles, which is one big lap around that outdoor track. And there's still 10 hurdles, but they're spaced out 30 meters apart. Okay. Uh, 35 meters. Wow. That's embarrassing. I know that 35 meters apart. And with that.
00:28:31
Speaker
you have to actually start to learn how to hurdle with both legs because at the start of a race, you're more elastic, your muscles, you have more fluidity. As you start to finish a race, you're more tense, you're exhausted, you've just run 55 or more seconds at your almost max capacity, so your body starts shutting down, which means your stride length gets a bit shorter because your muscles are less elastic, which changes the rhythm of your hurtling.
00:28:57
Speaker
And so you can no longer always just hurdle with your good leg. Sometimes the way that your stride works out is you get to the next hurdle and your very next step is going to be with your not favorite leg. Yeah. And so I call it, you know, some people call it your bad leg. And so my coach one year after getting into the sport made me hurdle an entire season only using my bad leg. He's like, we're going to make your brain
00:29:27
Speaker
not be able to tell the difference. You're not going to have a favorite leg. You're going to be able to hurdle with both legs. And I genuinely feel like that was part of the secret sauce to my
00:29:39
Speaker
development and getting to the place that I did, because the sprint hurdles, that hundred meter hurdle that I talked about, like 10, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. That one you always go. Same leg, same leg, same leg. You go one, two, three hurdle, one, two, three hurdle. And it's always the same. Like I had to run as fast as I could. Hundred meter hurdles, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, with my bad leg. Imagine how much that forced me
00:30:02
Speaker
to have to learn how to be efficient and effective with that wrong leg. And then I could translate that over in the 400 meter hurdles where eventually I would run over the hurdles in the 400 meter hurdles and finish the race and go, did I get my good leg or my bad leg at hurdle seven? Like I couldn't even tell the difference. And so, you know, I'm so grateful for him to challenge me to be like, no, I know it's uncomfortable. I know that it'll feel less efficient and effective at first.
00:30:30
Speaker
But as you get better at this, this is going to be a game changer. So your strong leg would be, for me in my mind, I would think that I would push off my dominant legs, which is my right, I kick with my right. I feel like I would push and then my front foot would be my left leg, which would be my weak side. That's kind of how I
00:30:53
Speaker
Correct. So if your favorite leg was, if you kick a soccer ball with your right leg, likely what you would do is you would plant the same with you would before a kick, before the hurdle, you would plant with your left leg. And then you would lead with your right leg because you would use the power of your left leg in order to plant and then hurdle. The same way that when you're about to kick a soccer ball, you plant with your left and then go to kick with your right.
00:31:21
Speaker
And so you would source your power from the plant of the left leg. But yes, it is Carol Dweck that does the mindset book. And why it was important to me to remember her name is because my coach said, yes, hurtling with your left leg and your bad leg, the leg feels less efficient, less effective. At the beginning, when you're learning how to be better with that hurdle leg,
00:31:49
Speaker
It's going to be uncomfortable at first, but you're going to develop an ability to now be almost like ambidextrous hurdler. And so he gave me this growth mindset around, yes, it's going to be uncomfortable. You're going to be slower with your bad leg than your good leg. And at first, that's going to feel backwards. Like, why are we doing this? Why are we using my bad leg to run races if I'm only getting worse and losing more? And ultimately, as I developed that skill,
00:32:16
Speaker
when I was able to now go back and use both my good leg and the leg I had been working on to hurdle, now suddenly I was even better. And so I think we all, as we enter different pursuits and goals and trying to learn different stuff, it's like if we can adopt that mindset of this might feel like a step backwards at first that I'm learning something new or I'm maybe taking a
00:32:45
Speaker
a role in a different industry that's at a lower level than what I was over
Challenging Oneself
00:32:50
Speaker
here. But I know that the fast track to a higher level in this new industry is going to accelerate me beyond what I could do in my previous job. That step backwards is worth it. And we just have to be comfortable with taking a step backwards for a moment in time to kind of be able to receive that acceleration on the other side.
00:33:10
Speaker
right? Yeah, you have to, you know, you got to suck at things to be better than you ever have. No, it's true, right? It's true. We like to do it's comfortable. Yeah. You know, because we think that's what works. But in order to do it better, we'll
00:33:25
Speaker
you know you got to get out to the driving range and hit pitch shots or sand shots or you know like for golfers or there's tons of analogies for this uh in terms of what we like to do or and it doesn't have to be sports it could be just about anything you got to do things you don't like to do so you can
00:33:44
Speaker
you can get better at it. I suck at video editing, but now I used to. Now I'm getting much better, but the more you do it, the better it is, the easier it gets. What was the progression? Because you were talented, and then were you winning races? How do you get to the Olympics? What's in this sport?
00:34:08
Speaker
It can be so competitive. Were you competitive? Were you winning? There's standards and all this stuff. Was it like the perfect storm for you?
Injury Struggles and Rest
00:34:18
Speaker
It was a roller coaster ride. Every person's, I think, run up to what they're trying to accomplish and achieve.
00:34:29
Speaker
walk in the park and lollipops and rainbows the whole time. I did have some early success training under that coach that showed me that I had potential. And I won some races to kind of start that kind of helped spark some of my motivation of like, oh, OK, I could be good at this. Like, oh, maybe this is possible. And then as I started to get better and I made my very first national team, I made the World Youth Championships,
00:34:55
Speaker
about just almost exactly a year later. And so I was like, Oh, okay. And I went to Marrakesh, Morocco to compete on behalf of my country. And suddenly I see all these people from all over the world and I'm getting to travel to this place. I would never have been like would have traveled to. And so I'm like, Oh, this is a way to see the world. Like this isn't just about the competition, but like, this is really cool. And so it really lit the fire in me of like, what else can we do? And from that point,
00:35:24
Speaker
you know, now it was becoming more of my definition of self. It was more of like where my life would align around my training and my recovery. And I in high school wasn't necessarily doing all the things that everyone else was doing where I had Saturday morning practices. So Friday nights, I was going to bed early and waking up early to get to training. And I,
00:35:47
Speaker
after a really hard workout on a Saturday, probably I'm exhausted and don't really want to go out or party or do things like that, even in university and college, because I want to actually go to sleep and absorb all the hard work I put in that day. And if you don't go to sleep, you don't reap the benefit of that training. And so suddenly, I was really putting in the necessary ingredients in order to achieve success.
00:36:14
Speaker
But I also, as this success came, was putting all this pressure on myself and started to suddenly feel like I had to win. And if I didn't, I was going to let people down. I was a failure. And so I forgot about this other important aspect of rest and recovery and the importance of having moments where it's OK to not show up every single day
00:36:38
Speaker
and win the workout. And so I started to now get injured because I would be over training. I would
00:36:45
Speaker
my coach would, if my workout wasn't hard enough, I didn't go home feeling devastatingly exhausted. I'd be like, today was like barely a workout. What are we doing tomorrow? Like, when are we going to do something harder? And it was so hard for me to get out of that mindset. And I honestly don't think I, I ever really did leave that mindset when I was in sport. It's only something reflecting back. I can look back at and see how much I was hurting myself by constantly feeling more is more.
00:37:14
Speaker
more is better, more is going to make me successful. And it's like, not always. Sometimes we do need to take rest. Sometimes you do need to take something off of your plate in order to actually create space and get more out of the other thing that you've done. And so for
00:37:32
Speaker
My training, I got super injured. By the time I was a few years into the sport, I got a stress fracture in my femur. That came back multiple times. I tore my hamstring multiple times. I had micro tears in ligaments and different things like that. And I was constantly battling injuries, which many athletes do. But I think it's because of this mindset of more is more and pushing ourselves so hard.
00:37:54
Speaker
And so my run up to the Olympics was some success, then a roller coaster of injury, fight back, injury, fight back, injury, fight back. And then finally, after one of my biggest injuries, which was a stress fracture in my femur, femur's biggest bone in your body, I
00:38:12
Speaker
come back the year before the Olympics. I had been sitting out for nine months. I only had six months left to qualify. I'd never touched the Olympic standard before, so I had no reason to believe I could make it. But on my first day back to training, I got the word believe tattooed on my wrist. And I said, when I make the Olympics, I'm going to put the rings underneath here.
00:38:31
Speaker
And six months later, I blow my own mind. I make the Olympic games and I'm like, holy moly, believing in yourself works. And I ended up going to the London Olympics and finishing as an Olympic semifinalist. And so, yeah, no lollipops and rainbows journey and a roller coaster ride. I think the biggest thing I take away from that is A, the importance of rest and recovery, and B, the power of believing in yourself, like holy moly.
00:38:59
Speaker
And needless to say, you weren't listening to your body at that stage. You're just pushing through and just trying to get there any way that you thought you knew how or just to become the best version of yourself or so you thought, right? I think it's such a valuable lesson because whether you're a world-class athlete or
00:39:23
Speaker
an amateur getting into the sport. It's always important. It's never not important.
Transition to Speaker
00:39:28
Speaker
It's, we all have our own progression and where we're at in sport and we all need, you know, it's stress and rest, stress and rest, stress and rest. And that's, that's how we adapt. That's how we improve, but you made it. So was that like a, maybe a not so positive aspect of, you know, getting yourself to the Olympics, like in terms of your relationship with sport?
00:39:53
Speaker
Yeah, like I think I would say it was an aspect of my sport that I think I would go back and tell myself now to like change the way I perceived it for sure. That I saw sport again as just the definition of who I am. And if I was successful in sport, I was worthy and successful as a person.
00:40:20
Speaker
And I think had I have been able to realize that the goals that I had were exciting and they were inspiring and they created momentum for me. But the thing that I should have been focusing on is like what it was pushing me to become, not necessarily that I am only worthy if I achieve this goal. And so absolutely, I think my relationship to sport
00:40:46
Speaker
could have looked differently and been healthier that I can only see now looking back. And after the Olympics, you know, how long did you see your career going? You know, you reach this pinnacle, like how, what's the lifespan of, like, did you see something after? Did you see a beginning and end to this in terms of what you did with your life?
00:41:12
Speaker
I think when you're in the moment, I was so fixated on achieve the goal, make it to the Olympics that I didn't even see beyond my life after sport. Certainly in the run up to the London Olympics, which I ultimately ended up qualifying for. It was only once I made the Olympics that everyone was like, hey, so you should think about what you're going to do after.
00:41:35
Speaker
And then it was like, oh, right, there's something, the life goes on. And I was still training and pursuing, you know, my goal was to make the next Olympics, the Rio Olympics. And I had, we had the Pan-American games that were hosted the year before the Rio Olympics, which were being hosted in my home city, which I wanted to win a medal at. Ultimately, I did end up winning a silver medal and only losing to the number one ranked girl in the world, which was super exciting.
00:42:02
Speaker
But through that, fortunately, I had these amazing mentors in my life who had said to me, like, you know, what do you want to do with this platform? Now you're an Olympic athlete. Now you have these stories and lessons you've learned. What do you want to do with that? And originally, I was being invited to speak at my parents' friends' kids' schools. They were like, hey, you made the Olympics. You believe in yourself. Like, I want my kid to believe in themselves. Like, can you come tell them that? And so I'm like, sure.
00:42:30
Speaker
And I showed up to a gym and was like, so I was injured and then I believed in myself and then I made the Olympics like you should try it. And then, you know, of course, I did hopefully a better job than that, but that principle then
00:42:46
Speaker
recommended me to another school and so I did another school and then I got to do a leadership conference and then suddenly you know one referral leads to the next referral and then my corporate sponsors were asking me to get on stages and share my story and I started looking around being like oh this is an industry and people do this
00:43:06
Speaker
And I was realizing how much I loved it. Like, I loved it. And I was like, this is amazing. Like, I can use this story to inspire others. And ultimately, because in my second run-up pursuit of the Rio Olympics, I end up tearing my hamstring right before not qualifying, that I went from being Sarah Wells the Olympian to Sarah Wells the Olympian who doesn't make the next Olympics.
00:43:33
Speaker
I was devastated and hit absolute rock bottom, but I found through sharing the story and finding the lessons and choosing to find the significance in the obstacles that I faced, suddenly that story had meaning. And I now was grateful for having endured something that felt very hard and terrible in the moment.
00:43:57
Speaker
but fortunately have now found a way to have that as part of the key lessons and the messages that I feel so passionate about sharing. And so my life after sports, suddenly I get to carry this legacy of who I was as an athlete and all of the lessons I've learned through that process and use them for good for other people in their own pursuits and what they're achieving, what struggles they're trying to overcome right now.
00:44:23
Speaker
And so I'm now so forever grateful that some of those mentors back after I made the Olympics kind of encouraged me to be like, you know, what do you want to do with this with these lessons you've learned? Like, how do you want to use them? And then through getting on stages and having the opportunity to speak, like finding what that was for me. You had a story to tell. You had a story to share. And I think everyone does. You know, everyone's got some kind of story to share.
00:44:49
Speaker
You were then given the platform to be able to do that and the ears to listen. And that's, that's special. You know, that's kind of the goal with this podcast is like sharing these stories of success ups and downs and challenges that we face in life.
Lessons from Sports
00:45:04
Speaker
And what would you say that sport, the biggest lessons at sport have taught you? Gosh, so many, um, probably leans into some of the keynote speaking that you do, but.
00:45:17
Speaker
Yeah, like I think there's so many. I think one is about, gosh, like trying to make these answers, not just like a mishmash of a million things, but it's like, one, you are not your outcome. You are so much more than whatever result you come up with. Two, sometimes rest is the most productive activity you can do. And we need to
00:45:47
Speaker
We need to be okay with sometimes taking something off of our plate to create more space and capacity to allow us to show up as our best selves in other areas of our life. Three, your highest level of success is not your new baseline.
00:46:00
Speaker
Like you, because you've achieved a certain level of success, it's okay to have an off day. It's okay to not hit the mark on the next project. It's okay to be the person who needs to ask for help in some other moments, even though you were the strong one in a different moment. And so your highest level of success is not your new baseline. I also think we need to recognize when sometimes the very thing that has made us successful in the past is going to be the exact thing holding us back from our future success.
00:46:29
Speaker
And for me, I think being the person to get on the track and do the hard work and fight for it, even on the days I didn't want to, made me successful. It's also my biggest demise and why I got injured and why I missed qualifying for my second Olympics and why I had a hard time in certain moments of my training.
00:46:49
Speaker
I also think sport taught me about the power of mentorship, of how important it is to have someone to show you what's possible and suddenly realize what you might actually be capable of. And maybe if you don't believe it in the moment, asking yourself the question of like, what if this is possible? And how can I take a step towards that right now until we start to create that momentum? And now suddenly it's like, oh,
00:47:13
Speaker
Okay, I'm now starting to see maybe why this could be possible. And you start to foster that sense of self-belief. Gosh, what other things has, sport has taught me everything. Sport has made me who I am. And I'm forever grateful for sport and the coaches and my teammates who have helped ultimately mold me because I don't think I would have been this person without my time in sport.
00:47:43
Speaker
I'm sure when you look back, you know, what were the greatest, like what were your greatest challenges? You know, life challenges through sport, through just through life. I mean, I think some of them kind of, we touched upon of like accepting rest and my greatest challenges in sport were being willing to take my foot off the gas and recognize that there was value
00:48:13
Speaker
in having those moments of rest and actually recovering and letting my body absorb the hard work I was doing and not needing to be so exhausted for it to be worth it, you know, for it to have done something. And I think that was my greatest challenge. And I think I would have had a longer career. I think I would have had a more consistent career as well had I have been willing to accept rest and recovery as part of the journey.
00:48:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's more sustainable over time, right? Yeah. Maybe the reason, you know, maybe the reason you made the Olympics is going so hard, you know? I mean, it's a double-edged sword there, you know? And I always believe in doing things when you can do them also to a certain extent. Yeah. So like you went all in that year and then it ended up happening and who knows, you know, some athletes.
00:49:07
Speaker
When it comes to standards, it could just be that year where it was your off year and you still hit the standard, but three people were better than you or however many depends what the sport is, however many people get to go. It's so hard to say, but then you mentioned the challenges, but then what are your greatest accomplishments in life?
Overcoming Challenges
00:49:30
Speaker
Making the Olympics is one of them.
00:49:33
Speaker
I know I just recently did like a purpose vision and goals thing for work. And this was one of the questions that I found it so fascinating that like, when I look back, even at the last year, the biggest challenges I had in my life ended up being the greatest accomplishments that I had this year. So yeah, I just love that. And I don't think we always realize that or acknowledge that. Yeah, no, you're so right. Like, I think, I think,
00:50:02
Speaker
We do hear this often where it's like, we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. And we can consciously say, yeah, that seems true. I can logically reason that. I'm like, yeah, I'll learn more from my failures than I will from my successes. But we don't actually
00:50:21
Speaker
want it or like that's not the path we hope for of course or we don't when we get to the moment of failure we forget that it's like there's still a lot to learn here and there's actually there's potentially a springboard that's going to
00:50:34
Speaker
pushed me well beyond what I thought was possible before because it's now offered me new perspective. With every new challenge, you can adopt a new perspective of, well, how would I do that differently next time? Or what were some of the actions or things in the lead up that led to this result? And how do I change that going forward? With every new setback, ultimately, it becomes new determination, new desire for more.
00:51:02
Speaker
I think if we can bring ourselves back to that mindset, we might actually be able to, in those moments of feeling deflated, actually bolster up the courage and the energy we need to take that next step. And also, it's a reminder that we can work through difficult times and come out
00:51:24
Speaker
on the other side. It's so funny when we look back and say like, oh, that was such a difficult time in my life. But you're here today to talk about it. And you're like, I didn't know in the moment how I was going to get through that. But somehow I did, you know? Yeah. That's such like a nice thing to look back on. But just to remember those times can mean so much later on. What do you hope that your messaging helps people with the most?
00:51:52
Speaker
Like what do you hope that they walk away with when they hear you speak about your story?
Inspiring Self-Belief
00:51:58
Speaker
I think one of the biggest lessons I hope people take away when I run my leadership programs or I'm on a stage doing keynotes is ultimately this, the power and capacity we have to write our own story and choose our own destiny and create our own path. And it's going to look different for each person, but if we genuinely
00:52:20
Speaker
feel like if anyone can do this, it's me. That there's so much power in that if you have a clear vision and a clear goal of kind of like, this is the direction I'm headed, that
00:52:32
Speaker
you can get so much closer than you ever thought possible. And I think sharing my story of overcoming my setbacks and getting the word believe tattooed on my wrist and then making the Olympics can show people the power of that self-belief. And again, just kind of encouraging them that even if they don't have that sense of self-belief right now, asking themselves, well, what if this is possible? And how can I take that first step forward so that they start to create some momentum?
00:52:59
Speaker
And I think if people can take that message away, I can get them into momentum and I can get them into action, which would be such a gift to be able to offer that and put some people in the position to start to pursue their goal. But I think the second thing that I want them to take away is to not just say, OK, now I'm in motion of the goal and the goal is the goal, but instead help them recognize that this pursuit of excellence
00:53:28
Speaker
is the goal and that who they are going to get to become through the process of setting really challenging goals, of things that push them outside of their comfort zone, that things that help them uncover skills and abilities that they didn't even know that they had, that that is going to be such an amazing revolution for people to walk away with and hopefully
00:53:51
Speaker
have with them on their own evolution through success. And so I hope people take away the power of self-belief and that the pursuit of excellence is the goal.
Applying Sports Lessons to Life
00:54:03
Speaker
And I truly believe what you're saying. It's just easier said than done. And I think action is always the most difficult thing. It's not the idea of going and running. It's putting on my shoes and all my clothes to get out the door and actually going. And it's funny, just kind of before I came on here,
00:54:25
Speaker
I just checked your Instagram fast and I saw your story about the pushups and you hated doing pushups. And that's actually a challenge that I gave myself this year because I don't do enough strength work in my opinion. Right. And I run a lot, but I don't, you know, training for marathons, triathlons, whatever, but I don't do strength. So my goal was like, I can make time one minute a day to do 20 pushups.
00:54:54
Speaker
And my goal became to do 20 pushups a day, every single day, starting, you know, these new year's resolutions, but I don't know, it sparked something in me, you know? And through that process, you know, then you start to think about that with other things. Like if I can do 20 pushups and that was difficult at the beginning, like you were describing in your post. Yeah.
00:55:17
Speaker
You know, then, then 20 becomes easy and then I can do 25 and then 25 becomes easier and I can do 30 in one sitting. And that's all it is really. That's all it is. But now I'm starting to think about it in terms of like language and, and skills and other things, you know, because what I do well is run. I run every day and I train and whatever, but.
00:55:39
Speaker
a plot, taking those lessons and applications and putting it into something else isn't, it makes sense, but it's not super obvious, you know? Right. And so immediately I related to something that you didn't like to do back in the day. And I thought about that in my own kind of growth, you know? Yeah, no. And I can share the story a little bit so everyone kind of knows
Building Mental Skills
00:55:59
Speaker
what we're talking about. But, um,
00:56:01
Speaker
my coach used to make me do 55 seconds worth of push-ups and I hated freaking push-ups. After 10 push-ups, I was like, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. This is over. This is terrible. I sucked at push-ups and I hated them. To do 10 push-ups, like you said,
00:56:20
Speaker
20 seconds. And so what my coach had me do as we approached kind of the competition season is pushups were something I could do every single day. And it wouldn't really affect the other elements of my training of sprinting and hurtling. And so what we were doing is we were practicing the mindset of wanting to give up, despising the discomfort, but having to rise above that and keep pushing.
00:56:43
Speaker
And so my coach would have me do 55 seconds, which just so happens to be the exact length of time to run a 400 meter hurdle race.
00:56:52
Speaker
where halfway through I'm already like, oh my God, I'm so tired, I'm not gonna make it. Oh my gosh, there's no way I'm gonna be able to keep going. And then I'd hit 35 seconds and be like, oh my God, my arms are giving out, I can't keep going, like my body is shutting down. Like these were almost like in parallel the thoughts I would think as I'm getting to different points and checkpoints around the 400 meter hurdle track. And so it allowed me in a safe way to practice
00:57:17
Speaker
disciplining my mindset, my body to rise above that voice of self-doubt and keep going when I needed to. It allowed me to practice that voice and overcome that voice of self-doubt in a safe environment that would then translate onto the track. And so that I could, when I get into a moment in a race and I'm at the second last hurdle and I'm thinking I can't keep going,
00:57:39
Speaker
I know how to rise above that voice because I've practiced it in the pushups. And so it's, as you said, now your experience has been, you have your own pushup goal, and now you're thinking about, well, if I can do that with pushups, can I learn a new language? Can I chip away at that? Can I do this? And so every opportunity we have to exercise discipline or to exercise
00:58:03
Speaker
a skill like overcoming the voice of self-doubt, every time you commit to that goal allows you an opportunity to now refine and strengthen that muscle that you can then translate to other areas of your life. And so for me, it was pushups into a form to hurdle race. For you, it's now pushups maybe into learning a new language. For others, it might be pushups into maybe being able to
00:58:27
Speaker
start working out every day. Or, you know, I'm thinking of something not athletic, but like, they could be reading. Yeah, it could be reading 100%. Like I wanted to read books in a year. Yeah. And so if I can do if I can make time for 10 pushups a day, I can read 10 pages of a book a day. And so exactly.
00:58:46
Speaker
I actually heard that on a podcast not too, like recently about, um, and at the end of life, something people say is that they regret not doing X and it was like simple things. It was like picking up an instrument or learning this skill or, you know, and I thought it was, I thought it was really interesting cause like time, we think we don't have time and then life passes us by and then we don't end up doing certain things that we always want to do. We're just.
00:59:16
Speaker
didn't know how or, and this is kind of falling in that thing. It's like, if you want to learn something, you just got to chip away. Or if you want to become an Olympian, you know, you took steps to get yourself there. If you want to be a musician or if you want to read a book, it's one page. It's two pages, you know? I love that I'm having this conversation with you because it's like really in the mindset that I'm in. And I'm, you know, I try talking to people about it, but it's, you know, it makes sense, but it's like,
00:59:45
Speaker
It's life's hard, you know? Yeah, yeah. I don't know. It definitely is something, I often will say, I'm very fortunate to have been put in positions that have challenged me in ways that show me how important the application of some of these skills are, where some people are like, oh, well, they don't know how to push themselves. I'm like, no, they've never been given the opportunity to push themselves. Because if they had, or they were put in the position, or supported, or challenged in a certain way,
01:00:15
Speaker
and shown that they could do that, I think that they would know because they could transfer that skill. So like you said, like, you can you can talk about pushing yourself, you can talk about chipping away, but unless you've you've kind of been encouraged or supported through a journey that that kind of forces you to chip away at something, you don't even realize the power in it. And so I feel so lucky to have gone through an experience and my time in sport and otherwise to be given the opportunity to push myself as far as I did, because
01:00:43
Speaker
I think now I know. If you're doing this public speaking now, but what did you study? Did you have a thought for what you wanted to do after sport?
Career Beyond Kinesiology
01:00:57
Speaker
because of my Aryan interest in sport, I took kinesiology and studied like human kinetics and physiology and anatomy. And I was like, I don't know, like maybe I'll do something in this direction. But I really hadn't thought about like, what would be the career path? Like, would I be nurse? Would I be physiotherapist? Would I be, you know, who knew athletic trainer?
01:01:15
Speaker
But yeah, I'm doing nothing with that now. Everything is leadership development, and it's nothing to do with kinesiology at all. So where can people find out more about you, about what you do? So people can find me on the internet. I'm sure that if you Google Sarah Wells Hurdler or Sarah Wells Olympian, you'll find me. But my website is sarahwells.ca, Sarah with an H, Wells, W-E-L-L-S.
01:01:43
Speaker
And my Instagram and TikTok is sarahwells400mh, like 400 meter hurdles. Big regret on the social handle, so long. It's so long. But yeah, you can check out all the leadership programs on sarahwells.ca. See the keynote speaking that I do and would love to hear from people who are looking to invest in their mindset. And certainly if you lead a team and run any type of conference,
01:02:08
Speaker
that's something that i do quite regularly and like i said earlier is a massive passion of mine like i am so so lucky to get to do what i do so i'd love to hear from the audience listening and do you do it like on a one-on-one level as well i don't so um i largely work with teams of different organizations and companies um and we'll do their
01:02:29
Speaker
like I said, kind of conferences that they might run, bring together a big part of the team, or for leadership development programs, often they'll work, I'll work with like a group of 30 to 50 high performers. And we do a kind of six month long group coaching program that consists of not just prerecorded videos, like it's like actual leadership trainings and applications that we're doing live, which is super fun.
01:02:53
Speaker
So cool. And I got to navigate that website too. It's amazing. It shares your story and everything you do and some really nice short videos too that I enjoyed. Well, thank you. And just as much as I've enjoyed this chat with you, Kevin was spot on. I love connecting with you and having this conversation, Sarah. And I wish you all the best and look forward to see what you do next. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. This has been a blast. Amazing. Thanks so much. Thank you. Bye.
01:03:22
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Justin Stryde Podcast. I truly appreciate you taking the time to listen and I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Please take a minute after this to rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts. With your feedback, we'll be able to make the show even better and it'll help us reach new listeners too. You can also find us on Instagram at JustinStrydePod for all the latest episodes and updates.
01:03:47
Speaker
Of course, this show wouldn't be possible without a solid team behind me. With logo and design by Vanessa Pugliese, as well as audio, music, and editing by Forest McKay, a huge thank you goes out to both of them. Guest outreach, social media, writing, and advertising are handled by me, your host, Justin Pugliese. Finally, we'd like to thank you, our listeners, for coming along for the ride with Justin Strad.