Life Lessons From The Winter Olympics Part 2

In my last piece I discussed the 2026 Winter Olympics and a couple of takeaways up to that point that I believed taught some valuable life lessons.  Being a skier and snowboarder as a kid is what gave me confidence.  And that confidence helped me feel better about myself, it helped me improve myself academically, and helped me build better social skills.  Winter sports have always drawn me in, and I look forward to following the Winter Olympics every four years.  The 2026 edition of the Winter Olympics has now come to a close, and a lot has happened since the last piece I wrote.  And with all that activity came a couple more takeaways and life lessons.

Let me start off by saying congratulations to the women's and men's USA hockey teams for winning the gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina.  It's an incredible accomplishment and an excellent thing for American Olympic sports.  But those gold medals didn't come without controversy.  Since the men's team achieved their victory in overtime against Canada last weekend, there has been criticism from the public over the fact that Donald Trump mocked the women's team, despite their achievement, and the way the men's team responded to the incident.  I wasn't pleased with Trump's joke, nor was I happy about how the men's team responded to it.  Since then, some of the members of the men's team have publicly expressed regret over their behavior.  They reiterated their support for the women's team, and referred to their reaction to Trump's distasteful joke as a lapse in judgment, which made me feel a little better.

The life lesson here is everyone should be acknowledged, celebrated, and recognized for their achievements regardless of their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.  An accomplishment such as winning an Olympic gold medal should be lauded by our leaders.  They shouldn't diminish these achievements by making jokes at a certain group of people's expense.  The USA women's hockey team should have gotten the same level of recognition for their accomplishment as the men's team.  Unfortunately that didn't happen.  Hopefully the next presidential administration sets a better example for this principle.

Now let's talk about Eileen Gu.  I didn't know much about her until this year's Olympics, but I'm glad I learned more about her.  For those who don't know, she's a twenty-two year old skier born raised in San Francisco.  He father is an American guy who has never been publicly identified, and her mother is a Chinese immigrant, former collegiate speed skater, and former ski instructor at Northstar in Lake Tahoe.  Eileen discovered her skiing talent at an early age, and after winning two silver medals and one gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, she now has a total of six Olympic medals on her resume.  And that's only one of the hats she wears.  She also attends Stanford University, and has a pretty thriving modeling career.  Despite her success, I've come to understand that Eileen is a pretty polarizing figure in the United States due to her decision to represent China at the Olympics instead of the United States.  To me, it seems like the people who criticize her for this decision are getting the wrong message, or they're twisting it into what they want it to be.  Eileen has said many times that she hopes to inspire young kids in China and create unity through competitive skiing.  Since the conclusion of the Olympics, she has given more interviews on her psychological approach to daily life.  She has talked about "rewiring her brain" on a daily basis and how people can control what they think, how they think, and who they are.  She was quoted saying "I spend a lot of time in my own head.  Yes, I think a lot".    

The life lesson here is being in your own head and thinking a lot is a good thing.  I feel like I think a lot and spend a lot of time in my own head too.  I'm not sure if there's a scientific term for a person who is half introvert half extrovert, but that describes me perfectly.  Having alone time to think and reflect on things represents the more introverted side.  A lot of people don't like thinking a lot or spending time in their own heads.  They don't like silence or being alone.  Silence, solitude, and being in one's own head are sometimes associated with anti-social behavior and loneliness.  They're viewed as negative things.  But they're really not.  It's good to spend time alone.  It's good to spend time in silence.  And it's good to spend time in our own heads reflecting on things and breaking down our thought processes.  It's a good reset button for going about our daily lives and it makes us into more successful people.  Maybe if more people shared this sentiment, the world would be a better place.

I love Alyssa Liu's story as well.  Shout out to her for winning the gold medal for the United States and representing California!  Overall, it was a really cool Winter Olympics.  I've never written about the Olympics before, but I felt like I should this year because I probably learned more from this year's Winter Olympics than any sporting event I've followed in the past.  We'll see what it brings in 2030. 

Life Lessons From The Winter Olympics

Winter sports have drawn me in ever since I was a little kid growing up in Michigan.  I've been a hockey fan all my life, and skiing and snowboarding were my sports throughout my childhood.  When I got into snow sports as a young teenager, life got better for me.  I had finally discovered sports that I enjoyed and in which I excelled.  My self confidence improved, I started doing better in school, and I became better at connecting with people.  The Winter Olympics have always been cool to watch.  I'm not a religious watcher because I'm not much of a TV person in general.  Plus I'd rather be participating in the sports than watching other people do them on TV, but nevertheless, I enjoy watching the athletes tear it up.  

The world has produced some exceptionally talented winter sport athletes over the decades, and so far, the 2026 Winter Olympics have been eventful.  I'd like to discuss two takeaways from the Winter Olympics so far that hit close to home with me, and I believe showcase some valuable life lessons.  First of all, I love the story about Chloe Kim and Choi Ga-on.  For those who don't know who they are, Chloe Kim is a 25-year-old professional snowboarder from Southern California.  She spent her early years snowboarding at Mountain High, Big Bear, and in the Swiss Alps before returning to California and training at Mammoth Mountain.  She has won two Olympic gold medals and several other awards.  Despite dislocating her shoulder during training season, she was heavily favored to win a third consecutive gold medal at this year's Winter Olympics in Cortina.  Now, let's bring Choi Ga-on into the picture.  Choi is a 17-year-old professional snowboarder from South Korea.  She arrived in Cortina for the Olympics with a Winter X Games gold medal and a couple of wins in halfpipe World Cup events on her resume.  In the end, Chloe Kim ended up taking home the silver medal and Choi Ga-on clinched the gold medal for women's halfpipe snowboarding.  Some media outlets spun the story into Chloe Kim getting 'beaten' by Choi Ga-on and 'settling for a silver medal'.  But Chloe and Choi set the record straight pretty quickly.  After Choi won, videos and pictures surfaced of the two of them hugging each other and taking photos together with their medals.  It turned out Choi regarded Chloe as her idol and Chloe had mentored Choi for many years.  Despite the only 8-year age gap, Chloe said she felt like a proud mom.

To me, the Chloe Kim and Choi Ga-on story was the feelgood story of the whole Olympics, and quite possibly the whole year so far.  It was really cool to see the mutual love and respect they had for each other.  In a world where people are constantly tearing each other down and trying to one-up each other, this story was a big breath of fresh air.  The life lesson here is it is generally a good thing when your mentees out-do you.  If you mentor someone and they compete against you and win, that should be the best possible outcome.  As a dad of a toddler, I feel like this also applies to parents and their kids.  Why wouldn't parents want their kids to be better than them?  I've heard too many stories about mentors talking shit about their mentees and saying they were never worth a damn when they become their competition and too many parents becoming resentful towards their kids if they do better than them.  It's hard for me to understand.  I love seeing people I've mentored succeed, and I hope that my son, Aidan, out-does me in every way possible.  

                        Chloe Kim and Choi Ga-on sharing a hug after Choi won the gold medal

My second takeaway so far for me from the Winter Olympics is the story of Ilia Malinin.  For those who don't know who he is, Ilia is an American professional figure skater from Virginia.  Both of his parents are former professional figure skaters from Russia who completed for Uzbekistan.  Ilia holds several records in the world of professional figure skating, and at only 21-years-old, he is the only skater to successfully land a quadruple axel on numerous occasions.  That's really freaking hard.  These achievements have earned him the nick name 'The Quad God' in some circles.  Ilia participated in this year's winter Olympics, and was heavily favored to win the gold medal for the men's free skate competition.  Unfortunately, he had several mishaps during his performance, including two falls while attempting various quadruple stunts.  He fell in the ranks to 8th place, and didn't end up taking home a medal as an individual athlete.  This sent a wave of shock through his fan base.  No one faulted him for what happened, but it was a major upset.  Ilia would state after the event that he felt like he crumbled under the pressure of being placed so high on a pedestal as the favored gold medal winner.  He stated that the pressure was overwhelming and his mistakes on the ice were caused by psychological factors as opposed to not having enough training.  To quote him, he further drove his point home by saying "it's not like any other competition.  It's the Olympics".  

As Ilia continues to process what happened to him on the ice, I have some thoughts of my own.  The life lesson here is one bad performance doesn't define who you are as an athlete.  And this even goes beyond sports.  You can be a professional violinist in an orchestra and give a flawed performance.  It doesn't mean your still not a talented violinist.  Or you could be a professional chef and have a rough night in the kitchen.  It doesn't mean you still aren't a great chef.  Good parents make mistakes with their kids sometimes.  It doesn't mean they aren't good parents.  Sometimes the constant pressure of being the best can create a lot of negative psychological thoughts of potential failure that can send people into a tailspin.  No matter what their craft is, professionals have off days, just like the rest of us.  I don't always have my best performance when I run races.  In fact, just about all the times that I've DNF'ed an ultramarathon or had bad races were the end result of not only having an off day, but also the negative thoughts taking over my mind because I was having an off day.  We can't always be at our best.  And clearly, Ilia wasn't at his best at this year's Winter Olympics.  It doesn't mean that a bad skating performance makes him a bad skater.  

That being said, I'm excited for what the final week of the 2026 Winter Olympics has in store for us.  I'm hoping for more feelgood stories because we need more of those in the media these days.  And when this is all over, I'm pretty sure that Chloe, Choi, and Ilia will be back in 2030 to kick some more ass.

Ilia Malinin tearing it up at the Olympics