The coach laughed and told him to forget it. Nine out of ten people quit this brutal sport. He'd need ten years of experience, and kids in Europe start at five years old. But when Ruben Gonzalez heard those statistics, he started smiling. This was exactly what he'd been looking for. Olympic Athlete Ruben Gonzalez was the ultimate underdog who turned his biggest weakness into his competitive advantage, deliberately choosing the hardest path because he knew others would give up.
From a Houston soccer benchwarmer to competing in four Winter Olympics across four decades, Ruben's story shatters every assumption about what it takes to achieve the extraordinary. His revelation about why Scott Hamilton changed everything, the visualization technique he uses before every race, and the contingency planning method that saved his Olympic dreams will challenge how you think about pursuing your most ambitious goals. This isn't just about sports, it's about the mindset that transforms impossible into inevitable.
Want to grow your podcast, land more guest appearances, and save hours every week? The Podcast Growth Partner helps podcasters, guests, and podcast teams create stronger content, prepare smarter, and grow strategically.
Start your free 3-day trial: PodcastGrowthPartner.com
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Connect with Olivia Atkin & Achieving Success:
Website: Achieving-Success.com
Facebook Community: The Podcaster’s Powerhouse Community For Business Owners
Facebook: Olivia Atkin | Achieving Success
LinkedIn: Olivia Atkin | Achieving Success
Instagram: @_achievingsuccess
Connect with Ruben Gonzalez:
Website: ruben-gonzalez.com
Email: Ruben@TheLugeMan.com
Phone: 832-689-8282
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/achieving-success-with-olivia-atkin--5743662/support.
From a Houston soccer benchwarmer to competing in four Winter Olympics across four decades, Ruben's story shatters every assumption about what it takes to achieve the extraordinary. His revelation about why Scott Hamilton changed everything, the visualization technique he uses before every race, and the contingency planning method that saved his Olympic dreams will challenge how you think about pursuing your most ambitious goals. This isn't just about sports, it's about the mindset that transforms impossible into inevitable.
Want to grow your podcast, land more guest appearances, and save hours every week? The Podcast Growth Partner helps podcasters, guests, and podcast teams create stronger content, prepare smarter, and grow strategically.
Start your free 3-day trial: PodcastGrowthPartner.com
Want personalized podcast strategy support? Book a free clarity call: MeetwithOlivia.me
Connect with Olivia Atkin & Achieving Success:
Website: Achieving-Success.com
Facebook Community: The Podcaster’s Powerhouse Community For Business Owners
Facebook: Olivia Atkin | Achieving Success
LinkedIn: Olivia Atkin | Achieving Success
Instagram: @_achievingsuccess
Connect with Ruben Gonzalez:
Website: ruben-gonzalez.com
Email: Ruben@TheLugeMan.com
Phone: 832-689-8282
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/achieving-success-with-olivia-atkin--5743662/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello, everyone, Welcome to Achieving Success with Olivia Akin.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm your host, Olivia Akin.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Each week we will discuss the romp of achieving your
personal and professional success. We give you real life stories
on growing personally and professionally to achieve your life and
career goals with the help books on top notch. Yes,
today we are speaking with Rubin Gonzales. Rubin is a
four time Olympian who has defied every odd and expectation
(00:35):
to chase an ice speed dream.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
At twenty one years.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Old, Rubin picked up the sport of lug with zero
prior experience and with us. Within just four years and
a few broken bones, he made his Olympic debut. He
went on to compete in four Winter Olympics across four decades,
racing against athletes half his age at forty seven. Rubin
is also the best selling author of the book The
(01:02):
Courage to Succeed, now translated into ten languages, and the
voice behind the powerful TEDx talk The Power of Following
the Leader.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
A world renowned.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Keynote speaker, Ruben is here to share how courage, commitment
and vision can can propel you towards the extraordinary. You
can find Ruben by going to his website Ruben dash
Gonzales dot com, or by emailing him at Ruben at
the luje Man dot com or at phone at his
(01:35):
phone number at eight three two six eight nine eight
two eight two.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Hello, Ruben. It's fantastic having you on the show.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
It's great to finally do this. Gosh, it seems like
we changed dates a couple of times, but now we
made it happen. We made it happen, and.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I'm excited for it because every time we've talked, we've
had awesome conversations and it's been really impactful. So I'm
excited to dive deep with you today and to start
off the show. Can you tell me what success means?
It looks like to Rubing in Dallas.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Success is really simple.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Actually, it's you have a goal and it's your own goals,
not your parents' goal, your boss.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
It's your goal and you achieved it. And so if
your goal is to.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Lose ten pounds and you go out with your friends
to eat pizza, then if you eat even one slice,
you're not going towards your goal. If your goal is
to eat the whole thing, I mean, that's your goal.
Has nothing to do and you eat the whole thing. Hey,
you hit your goal. So either what it has to
do with your personal thing has nothing to do with
it what car you drive or how big your house
(02:44):
is or anything like that unless that's your goal.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
And I love that too, because I actually it's very interesting.
We have talked and I was actually on the mountain
this weekend and four days in a row.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Be really proud of me.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I skied four days in a row for like, yeah,
hours on.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
End, and I was like, wow, pushing the limits and.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Doing real, you know, really awesome things, and very proud
of myself. But sometimes I have those moments of clarity
on the mountain where you're you're just one with the mountain.
You know you're going, you're going at speeds. Obviously you lose,
so you know you're really going at different speeds than
I'm going on skis. But I had a moment of
(03:33):
clarity as well because I had.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I heard an interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Quick video of a consultant talking about how so many
people on social media right now are talking about I
can make you seven eight figure entrepreneur and this and that,
and he's like, the real stat is like twenty to
thirty percent of coaches or consultants actually get to that
seven or eight figure point. And I thought it so interesting,
(04:01):
and then I started diving deeper into it, and actually
the percentage is way lower, Like for coaches in the US,
the average consult the percentage of consultants that make a
million dollars a year is it was like zero point
one to zero point two percent, and the percentage of
(04:23):
consultants because they're classifying them a little differently, was zero
point one zero point five percent in the US, And
I was like wow, part of the reason, like I
had this mentality to get to a million dollars in
the business was X, Y Z and like all you know,
(04:44):
all these different things I was hearing in information and
then I was like, wait, does that really align with
how I want.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The business to set up?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And it was like this moment where I was like,
I don't you know. When I did recent it was like, oh,
you have to have.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
A team under you.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
You know, the people that are bringing a million dollars
so they're not actually pocketing a million dollars and this
and that, and I was like.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I don't want to have a team under me.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
And I was like, Okay, we might need to pivot
now on what the year goal is for the business
and what I want sustain the ability wise for the business.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
So when you brought that up, I was like, click, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
And when you and when.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
You have to factor in your lifestyle that you want
to create, right, that's I think that's more important. So
you know, Okay, great, you want to make a million,
that's fine. If that's your goal, go for it, right.
But maybe in my case, for example, I was just
telling you a friend the other day, I'm highly unemployable, okay,
because I am so entrepreneurial and independent that if you
(05:53):
offered me a million bucks a year tax free, but
I have to go to the office and have a boss,
no thanks, because my freedom is that important. And here's
another factor. Maybe you're a coach and you live in
South America or somewhere where where you can have an
incredible lifestyle for one hundred thousand a year, right, and
then you go play. So there's so many factors, but
(06:16):
people just tend to like all those zeros.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
And it's one of those things too that as I
was telling that story, I wanted to also ask you
do you have for yourself those moments of clarity when
you're racing and you're practicing, where whether it's something you've
already been thinking of, work related non work related, in
the different things you do, there's like those moments of peace,
(06:42):
quiet and like the light bulb goes off for you.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yes, but it's you know, getting into the zone is
something that happens, okay, as soon as you start thinking
you're not even to get in the zone, you have
to be unconscious.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Right, and that comes from a lot of practice.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
One of my coaches likes to say, don't practice that
you get it right, practice that you can't get it wrong. Okay,
now we're getting someplace and consistency, because the Olympics is
four runs, so you could have you break the track
record the first three runs and.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Then blow it on the last one.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Right, It's like blowing a great golf round of golf
on the eighteenth hole because the pressure got to you
or whatever. So, uh, yeah, I've had those moments. I
wish I had more. But everything we do from the
mental side, mental training is designed to increase the probability
of that happening.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And that being said, you know the same thing you
just made as well as like don't just practice until
you get right, practice until you can't get it wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Made me think about, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
The Winter Olympics are happening right now as we speak,
and what happened and the U I think it was
the US team if I'm remembering off the very top
on my head, not out this moment, but they started
racing in one of the rounds and almost no one.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Made it into like it.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Was only the first guy that ended up running the race.
And it was crazy to watch because I I watched
the video of like all the guys trying to jump in,
and you see like the first guy he's in, and
then the second guy the second he tries to jumping in,
he misses.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, you know exactly what.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
You said.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
That's my bad, that's okay, that's okay, Bob.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
But yeah, and they jumped in and it was in bob'sleg.
You were right, I'm like trying to take the winters,
but like, and he missed and it was a domino effect.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And then it was like one of these moments of
you're doing this race and in Bob slang, it's with
a team of four, and then your whole team is gone.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And you know, the commentators are talking through like he's
building speed, like he could get really injured, because you know,
everyone plays a role in the training and the execution,
and that is something no one. I don't think I
could be wrong transfer moments like that, and he was
apparently like the new guy, and he like when he
(09:27):
realized no one else was there, he had to figure
how to get to from the very front of the
bobs lab all the way back to be able to
break and he did it and everyone was like, yeah,
he's going down in the history books to be able
to handle that.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
But that was a moment where my head I was
like are you talking about it?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I was like, that's where you need to be practicing
and locked in and also practice for anything to happen,
and even whether that is in sports or business, because
one thing I have said for a long time too
is like keep asking the question why I might like
sit down with someone I might be working.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
With, and I'm pushing it. I'm pushing to.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
See where the holes are because if there's holes in gaps,
whether it's in knowledge or like how you would solve
a problem, you want to be able to then practice
and implement the solution to that not come in a
moment like the Body Slood Team, where now you're you know,
on this macked massive TV screen from the world.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
And you're like, oh my god, what's happening.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, So in the loge, about ten minutes before it's
your turn to go, we start visualizing. Okay, so we'll
take a handful of runs in our mind, and you
know when somebody's doing it because they're sitting there with
their eyes closed and their whole bodies is going through
because we use our whole body and we exaggerated what
we're visualizing just to get the feel right. And so
(10:56):
if somebody next to you is doing that, you respectfully
stop talking.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
And so you'll do a few of those to get
that perfect run. Then when you're up at.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
The top at the start, you're sitting down, the person
in front of you is sliding. You got a couple
of minutes to go because when they finish their run,
hopefully they finish. If they crash, everything goes, you know,
out the window. The whole game plan goes out the window.
You're gonna be freezing your your face shield is probably
gonna gonna fog up because it only has about five
minutes worth of anti fog, and you know you're gonna
be blowing the whole time to make a little hole
(11:26):
so you can see through that right as you're going
to eighty ninety. But anyways, you got two minutes, and
so that gives you a chance to do one last
run and then you know a couple of deep breasts
and then you go. At the hotel, we also practice
contingency plans and so.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Are you still there? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I'm still here, all right?
Speaker 4 (11:49):
So continue I said it at the perfect time. Somebody
try to call. Remember we switched off the.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Ringer and we still got this interrupting with a call,
but to interrupt you. So I just learned something. See
that's that's good. You learn from your from from your experience.
Am I gonna freak out next time? So anyways, at
the hotel, we also practice contingency planning. Okay, what am
I gonna do? And we call it escape routes? Okay,
(12:18):
what are we gonna? What am I gonna do if
I'm a little late in the curve one? What if
I'm a little early into one? What if I hit
the left wall before one or the right wall? How
am I gonna fix it, and you do that for
every section of the curve, and that actually gives you
confidence because you get to the point where you know
it no matter what happens, you can handle it.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
My son he did.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
He wrestles, And when they visualize, I taught them, look, visualize, yeah,
the perfect thing, but also visualize, you know, when you're
at home, not not during the meat Okay, visualize what
are you gonna do if you're three points down and
it's the third period and you got thirty seconds to go,
what are you gonna do?
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Right? So you because you have to have escape routes
that prepares you.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, And I've seen it in high school. I was
a wrestling manager for my high school team. And you
can see it when you don't have those contingency plans,
when you don't have that in your mindset. It's like
I'm picturing it back from back in the day. I
was like, you can kind of see it on the
(13:25):
guy's face. They're looking at coach. They have no idea what.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
To do next.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, it's one of those moments. So to me, you know,
I want back up a little bit and.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Give you another example real quick.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yes, when I was teaching my kids how to drive,
I would I would tell them ahead of time.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Look, most a lot of reps happen, especially in.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Tall cars, when you lose attention and you go off
and then you try to fix it too quick and
it rolls.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Okay, So you never want to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
So if you lose control or something looks bad, just
take your foot off. Don't or pressing the brakes too hard.
That'll make it roll too. Just take your foot off
the off the pedal. And then when we practice, I
would tell Gabby Gabrielle, I'd be sitting on this side
holding the I said, okay, I'm gonna tell you at
a certain point to close your eyes.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Okay, don't worry.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I'll be closed, I'll be holding the steering wheel and
I would slowly. And we talked about this before, right,
but she had talking to it. Talking about it at
home and doing it in the car is totally different.
Don't worry, I got I'm control, okay. But I told
her if you're if two wheels go off into the gravel,
into the side, don't freak out.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Just take your foot.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Off the pedal and slowly ease it in. Otherwise you
will roll and so I would actually do that. I
pull her, you know, and she could feel and I.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Let go open up your eyes and she had to
fix it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
And we do it at thirty and then at forty
and then at fifty and so that's contingency planning and
she's probably not going to roll the car.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Well.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I mean, it even reminds me what my dad's famous
sayings and then I promise will go on, is like,
it's not how fast you can go, it's how fast
you can stop. Because my parents being physicians, and my
dad has.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Run many trauma one ers and hospitals.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
He's like, there's so many accidents that happen because you're
you're not aware of your surroundings, right, So you and
you're going fast and then something happens and you don't
know how to control the vehicle, so you don't you
can't stop in time, or you don't realize that this
(15:37):
person might be kind of on your blind spot and how.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
To maneuver the car one way or the other.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
So his big thing when he was teaching us, and
he'll say it to this day, he'll be like, it's
not how fast you could go, it's how fast you
could stop. Meaning you know, it's not just about like
slamming on the brakes and stopping right where you are,
and like, sometimes yes, that is the answer. You have
to know your reaction time. But it's also the fact
(16:04):
that you need to be able to be aware that
if you're driving on the highway and a tractor trailer
is speeding behind you and coming up next to you
all of a sudden and they start to drift, do
you have the room to get over? Do you need
to speed up? Do you need to slow down? Like
all those reaction points.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Yeah, bank ahead, bank ahead, And.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
So tell me, I'm gonna go back a little bit.
You chose one of the most extreme sports to be
in at twenty one, where you know, now being in
my early thirties, I'll look back on like sports I
participated in, especially diving off a three meter board, and
I was like, I don't know how I was doing
(16:48):
that as a teenager, you know, like what was I thinking?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
But like you did it.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
You made that decision at twenty one, and you have
not looked back, have a background in it. Was there
a part of you that said, on doing this, and
like what really encouraged you to move forward? When most
people would have said, and probably did say to you,
that's impossible.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Don't don't start down this path.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Sure, you have to know yourselves, right.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I think Aristotle said know thyself and he's a pretty
smart guy. So pay attention from now on what people
compliment you on. Okay, because whatever the different people compliment
you on, that's something about you sticks out like a
sore thumb. That's for superpower, but you don't know because
it's you, right, and so just say thank you and
(17:42):
make a note.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
And so once you know what your superpower is.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Now you know that'll help you in planning towards your
next goals because you know how to use it.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
So my superpower is perseverance.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
My nickname in high school was Bulldog, very tenacious.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
I'm a lot like Rudy if you ever seen the
movie Rudy. I'm not a great athlete, okay, but I
got a lot of heart.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Got a lot of heart and nobody and so I
have this Olympic dream ever since I'm ten years old,
and I've been fascinated about it ever since. I mean,
I know all the stories, I know, you know, I've
just you know, I'm into it. But I didn't believe
it was possible because I was always the last kid
picked for pe right. I was on the bench for
pick kickball. I mean, I ain't really had a bench
and kickball it was that bad. But I had this
(18:26):
dream and I wouldn't let go. And my dad got
me to read biographies and he says, study the lives
of great people.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
You'll figure out what works.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
With doesn't work in life because success leaves clues. And
I kept seeing perseverance. I saw the hardheads. They're the
ones that make it, you know. And my mom calls
me a hardhead all the time, so that's good. And
so I made a decision at twelve years old. From
today on, Reuben didn't quit anything. And it's as success
is a decision, okay. Sooner or later, you get sick
and tired of being sick and tired, and you start
(18:56):
being willing to do what you weren't willing to do before,
and then things change. So I didn't realize it. But
I'm growing, as you know, and he said, hang around winners.
He's given me all these tips and I'm doing them.
And I didn't realize that I was growing on the inside,
that was becoming more more confident in myself and taking
boulder action, and I started getting, you know, more interesting.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
The Olympic.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Now, when I'm twenty one years old, I'm a benchwarmer,
and my college soccer team, I was a walk on.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Coach said you only get to play.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
We're winning by two goals because you're a threat to
our own team. He just kept me around because he
could always point to me and says, look, if you
guys work half as hard as Ruben, who has no talent,
you know we might win some championship. So I was
on this, even on the traveling squad. But I didn't
play hardly at all. But I was on a team
that was important to me. Twenty one years old, I
watched the Olympics again. Right, it's the Saraevo Olympics, nineteen
(19:48):
eighty four. I see Scott Hamilton, the figure skater. He's
as he does commentary. Now he wins the gold medal. Right,
he's five foot one, one hundred and ten pounds, soaking wet.
Everything changing my head. I thought you had to look
like Arnold Schwarzenegger to win an Olympic medal. Here, this
little tiny guy, and he gave me hope. I thought,
if that little guy can win, I can at least play.
(20:09):
I'm gonna be in the next ones. It's a done deal.
You got to find a sport. And I know it
sounds ridiculous, but for the first time in my life.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
I knew that. I knew that, I knew that I
could do it.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
So first, I always had the desire. I didn't have
the belief. Belief gets you going, Desire keeps you going
when the going gets tough.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
And so I always had the desire.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
But now I got the belief because I I Scott Hamilton,
and so I went to the library, got a big
book about the Olympics.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
I looked at the summer sports.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
It took me five minutes to realize you got to
be superman to do any of these things in no way.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
And so that belief took a hit. Okay, and then
I started looking at.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
The winter sports, and I started thinking, wait a minute,
I'm about to put together.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
A plan for the next four years. I need to
base the plan on my strengths.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
My strengths down athleticism, my strengths for some here, I'm bulldog.
So I thought, I gotta find a sport that's so
tough sports, got so many broken bones, and there'd be
lots of quitters, right, and that I'll just outlast everybody.
I'll ride the attrition rate all the way to the top.
There's my whole plan. I'll last people. So it's okay,
ski jump, Bob's Laid, and louge. Those I had it
(21:18):
down to those three. I'd ever ski before. I lived
in Houston, Texas in all places, and so ski jump,
I mean that would have been suicide.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
We wouldn't be having this talking. Bob's laid. Where are
you gonna find three other nuts in Houston?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Right? You got to go to Jamaica for that. So
that left the loge. I've never seen it on TV.
If i'd seen it on TV, you know, no way,
all right. I just had a little picture of a
guanal'd lose. I thought, you can do that by yourself.
That looks really tough.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
That's one for me.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
I didn't even know where the track was, so I
reverse engineered it. I didn't know who that met back then, right,
but I reverse engineered it and I found something that
fit me. And I didn't know where the track was.
I wrote Sports illustrated a letter. I figured they out.
You know, they actually wrote back. They said Lake Placid,
New York.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
I called them up.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
At first, it wouldn't the guy's laughing. He says, twenty one.
Forget it, man, you had ten years experience. You start
them off with their little kids. In Europe they start
them a little when they're five years old. And I
wouldn't hang up. I mean, I figured, if I hang
up the.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Phone, it's all over, right, that's so, that's not an option.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I just kept talking, talking, talking, talking, and finally he
gets fed up. I guess, and he says, well, you
got a camp coming up, and in a couple of
weeks be there. But before you come, you need to
know two things, no more than one. You want to
do it at your age. You want to do it
just four years brutal. Nine out of ten people quit.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Okay. I started smiling. I thought, wow, this of course
running to my plans. Awesome, you're god. I said, what's
the second thing? He said, expect to break some bones.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
And I said great, and he got really quiet and
by shaking his head because back he goes, what's wrong
with you? Man? I just told you go to break
some bones, and I'm make you happy, I said, look,
I hope it's ten times harder what you tell me.
I hope it's a hundred times harder. That's the harder
it is, the easier it is for me, because I'm
not a quitter.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
I'm bulled on.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I was praying that the Germans would quit. Okay, didn't
pray hard enough. They show up, they win their medals,
and they go home. They ain't get excited. They got
so many medals.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
So I went and actually, when I hung up, the
reality hit.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Okay, I thought, wait a minute, this guy didn't say
I might break some bones. He said I will break them.
How am I going to handle it? Contingency planning? Even
back then, I didn't know what that meant. Okay, but
that's just how I guess. My dad was a lot
like your dad. He's always teaching us to be prepared, right,
and how want to handle it when I break a bone?
(23:37):
I've broken bones before. You know, you wear a cast
for for six weeks. To take it off, it's healed
up and stronger than before, so it's really a temporary inconvenience, right,
So I reframed it in my mind.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
I ain't know what that meant, right, but I had
a plan.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
If I break something, I'm coming back, baby, Okay, that's.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Not going to stop.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I went, I was there a couple of weeks, a
couple of a few weeks later. Yeah, and it's a
time now. I saw the Olympics just a couple of
months ago. I saw them on TV, and I'm there.
You got to take action when you're excited. I gotta
let that passion be your after burner. If you wait,
you know, this is not the time to color coordinate
your closet.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
No, you gotta jump and the net will appear.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Because if it's in your heart, if it's something you
really want to do, if it's you know, if you're.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Passionate about it, then you got what it takes.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
It's gonna take everything you got, probably gonna be the
hardest thing you ever did. But afterwards would be so happy,
you know. And but an if you don't go for it,
that regrets gonna kill you. So I went, and Yeah.
The first two years, I broke my foot twice, my knee,
my elbow, my hand, my thumb, a.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
Couple of ribs.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Neck is a chiropractice drink because we're pulling six g's
on some of those curves and your head's like.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
A Morocca hanging off the back of that sleet.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
But but I just kept coming back and and then
one day I was crashing three out of five, you know,
because at first I was crashing four out of five
times I.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Have no control, and then three out of five, so
I thank god, it was a great day.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
By the end of the second year, I'm crashing.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
One out of one hundred, and I finally figured out
how to drive a darn slid.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
And then they throw me to the wolves.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Now I got to go to the race internationally all
over the world against the best in the world to
try to be one of the top fifty.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Back then, who'd get to go to the Olympics. And
I got to play with the big boys four times.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Back then, the top fifty made it the first three
Olympics was like that, and then Vancouver twenty ten they
made it.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
To the top forty. Now it's the top twenty five.
I mean, it's ridiculous now because.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
They keep adding sports, but they cap it at three
thousand athletes in the winter and ten thousand in the summer.
So but hey, I got to play with the big
boys four times. And so now when I speak anywhere,
my goal is I want to do for my audience
what Scott Hamilton did for me, take the excuses away.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
I want tom walk it out of my talk, thinking, man, if.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
That guy can make it to the Olympics, even one time,
I didn't do anything right. And now they got belief,
they're ready to face those fears, fear of the unknown,
fear of failure that are holding them BAP. And what
happens when you face your fear nine times out of
ten you realize, oh my god, I wouldn't anything, you know,
it's just my head.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Well guess what, that's not a fear anymore. So you
just grew all right. So that's that's basically what I like.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
To do for you as well.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
You know, as you we've mentioned quite a few times
so far, you've competed in four Olympics across four decades.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
What changes mentally and emotionally when you're.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Chasing that same dream you had at twenty one you're
just doing it, and across different decades where you've grown personally, professionally,
your mindset has grown, your you know, patterns of.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Behavior might have changed different.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Things like that, And there's an age gap between like
not for anything, between the people that you're competing against
two So what's the question, So, like, what has that
been like for you?
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Oh? Okay?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
So the motivation was different for each one. The first
one was I want to be I want to be
one of those guys, right, I just want to be Neil.
It's never about the medals for me. I just want
to be one of those guys. And then the second one,
I wanted to get the respect of the Germans, right
because they're the best of the best.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
And I just want to earn it. And I did.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
And then the third one, I was able to talk
my brother into it and we became the first two
brothers to compete internationally in the Olympics and the louse.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Okay, and that was in Salt Lake.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And the fourth one, I wanted to be the first
one to do four Winter Olympics in four different decades.
I thought, hey, this might be good for business, right,
it looked good on my website, build up that resume.
I mean, I was thinking about that. I'm always thinking
about business. It's part part of my life. And so
I'm still sliding. I've taken three seven year breaks along
this whole forty year journey, forty five year journey. And
(28:00):
so my coach, he says, you know what, you look
a really old car that's been in the garage a lot.
You don't have all these miles on you because your
body's not broken down. But like you said, mentally, I'm
stronger because I've kept growing right and now I know
how to take care of my body. I know so
much more, and I'm cooler. I'm finally I'm not afraid anymore.
(28:22):
Now it's become a challenge instead of trying to survive thing.
And so I'm actually, well, you got to keep your
dream in front of you. So this is where I'm
moving later this year. This is Midway, Utah. It's thirty
minutes from the track in Park City, Utah, and forty
five minutes from the Salt Lake City Airport. Because I've
got to fly places to go speak and I see
(28:45):
it every day, so it gets.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Me talking about it. How about that? It worked? Huh?
How about that?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
And so why do all they want to move over
there when I'm sixty three years old?
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Because I want to be able to practice more.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Because I am hoping that the IOC National Olympic committee
will see the light and say, hey, let's bump it
up to four thousand athletes.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Let's get it back to forty.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Guys for the Olympics, and then I could make another
Olympics top twenty five. That's tough, Okay, coach said it's possible. Okay,
he says it's possible. It's a long shot, but it's possible.
And now having four more years, it's more possible. So
that's the reason that I got such a cool cup.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You're seeing it every day, you're putting it into motion
mint and I think a big piece of anything we
do is the mindset around it. Well, like you've mentioned,
I'll tell this a quick story. My parents do not
know yet, but this same past weekend that we did
(29:51):
four days in a row skiing was the first time
I had wrote in pure powder before on the mountain,
and also like what started doing jumps for the first
time on skis, and like riding in between trees that
were close together. It's also the first time I learned
(30:13):
what a tree well was. Because I'm one of the johns,
Like I'm five foot a weigh like ninety five pounds,
so can wet, and so I did a jump and
like the skis hit the ground and my knees buckled
a little bit, and the speed I had as I turned,
like I went into in between two trees. My speed
(30:37):
was so quick. And then my boyfriend saw it happen.
He rode before me, and luckily there was a ski
instructor also behind me. Yeah, they both somehow caught it,
and they're like, you hit that bump and your knees
buckled when it like when it happened, and they were like,
the speed you had in it too. The second you turned,
(30:58):
we saw you just go like sideways and down into
the tree. Well, and I got and like I got
buried off into like my arm got completely buried and
half my body and they like come running and help
me out and all that, and you know a lot
of people be like I'm dumb for the day, this
(31:19):
that and the next and like freaking out and the
whole time I'm collected, I'm like it's okay. You know,
they're like are you okay, Like are you physically okay?
Speaker 2 (31:31):
You know all this.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I'm like I'm fine, and I get off and my
parents still don't know about this yet, so they do
listen this podcast, so they'll probably.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Be finding out about this right now. But I held
it so they wanted work during ski.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Season and so but I got out and they were like,
oh my god, like kind of still freaking out, making
sure I'm okay, and I'm like I'm good, Like I
didn't cure powdered day, so you're falling into powdered snow
you're not and like into a tree. Well, but they're like,
oh my god, that was crazy. And I look at
my boyfriend and I'm like, yeah, but I was doing
(32:06):
jumps and that's the closest like yeah, yeah, I'm like
and I'm riding in between trees at speed like that's awesome,
like I accomplished something. And he's like, I'm so glad
you have that mentality and not be like we gotta
leave what I and it's and it's mindset around it.
(32:27):
Like I told people the next two days when I
was riding, I was like, yeah, I fell into a tree.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Well I look.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
And I'm like those people don't get it.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
They think you're nuts, but no, you're just you know,
somebody that achieved success that should have a podcast called
let Me Think achieving success, that'd be perfect.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Thank you. What a great ideas. But you know, my
question for you too is like, how as you're getting
these different.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Goals and you've grown in speaking in the speaking engagements
you do your book, what is the mentality you face
in deciding what is worth your time doing and what
is that right next path?
Speaker 3 (33:16):
That's a great question. You know, if it's not fun.
I like to have fun, you probably figure it out.
Right if I if I start realizing that, you know,
I'm getting into a rut and stops being fun, something's
got to change otherwise, right, And I told coach you
know this is so we both agree that says, hey,
(33:39):
let's take the next four years one year at a time, okay,
for two reasons.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
Got to see if my body holds up.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
And number two, if I lose the desire, then I'm
just fooling myself because I won't do the work.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
And so if I, for.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Whatever reason, I catch another dream and I stop having
that desire for number five, let's just stop.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
And at least we went for it and we had fun.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
And that's just you know, because otherwise it would be
a waste of time the next two years. And I
probably would get hurt because I wouldn't have the right mindset,
you know, focusing on what I need to focus on.
I fell into the speaking business. I never took a
speech class in my life. I'm an introvert, believe it
or not. I get me talking about the Olympics or
(34:22):
personal development and Clark Kent, who's the real Ruben?
Speaker 4 (34:25):
He turns to the superman for a little bit, but
then I'm Clark Kent. And so.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
The little kid asked me to be his Show and
Tel project right before the Salt Lake City Olympics.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Says, hey, when you get back from the Olympics, be
my show. That's sure? Or why not?
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And I thought show and Tell when I was a kid,
twenty kids in the classroom. You know that's about five
minutes each because they each guy to show something and
talk about it, and so great. You know I can
handle that. I want to win Show and Tell. I mean,
I'm competitive. I don't care as a much of little kids.
I'm winning the gold medal, all right, I win this medal.
I brought this led the helmet, the Olympic torch because
(35:02):
I was a torch bearer.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
No prisoners.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
The principal he walks me over to this big room.
It was actually a cafeteria. They moved all the tables
out of the way and there's two hundred kids on
the floor.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
He says, you know, sitting on the floor.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
He hands me in the microphone he got forty five
minutes have at him. I almost had a heart attack. Okay,
I the door looked so inviting. I was petrified, and
I said a prayer and said, God, what do I
do now?
Speaker 4 (35:26):
You know, desperation prayer?
Speaker 3 (35:28):
And when I felt that he was just telling me
your story, getting some pointers how they can make their
dream come true.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
And I did.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
I didn't die or anything. I was so excited about
that part. And afterwards, on the way to the car,
the Principal's going nuts.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
You gotta gift. You're in by people we pay. You
need to do this for a living and got my
attention real quick.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
But you can pay for show and tell, and he says, no,
it's a speaking professional man.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Don't you know anything.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Well, I used to sell copiers at that time, copiers
in downtown Houston, knocking on doors. I thought, you know this,
this would be a whole lot more fun. Maybe I
can inspire some people to go for it in life.
I quit my job three days later. I don't recommend it, okay,
but I figured if I can sell a copy, or
I can sell a Reuben too, And I just started
hitting the phone and that's how I started. I wouldn't
(36:09):
be a speaker if that kid, you know. And I've
been all over the world. One hundred fortune five hundred
companies have brought me into speak, you know, because I
don't want to use a power point. I'm actually fun,
you know, And so it's like Robin Williams, you know, went.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
To the Olympics or something. But it works, it's real,
it's genuine.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
The speakers they use power points. I'm like, come on now, I.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I I when I speak and people ask me like,
what's your style?
Speaker 2 (36:38):
What's your phone?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I'm like interactive, And if you decide not to be interactive,
I'm like my teacher days come out and I start
picking on picking people out.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And I've done it, like I recently did a.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Talk because I do a lot of talks at universities
and stuff, and we did it virtually, and I tell
them like, okay, this is kind of what we're gonna
talk about based on I'm like, what I'm here.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I'm gonna make it interactive.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
And when we get to that point, no one wants
to jump up and raise their virtual hand, I will
call on you.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
I was a professor at one point and they laugh.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
And then you know, that point comes when you start
getting interactive and people don't raise their hand and I
start calling, and then all of a sudden, the like
oh wait, okay, this is a comfortable space and this
will be fun opens up. But like you go back
and I always say, you think about when you have
to be on the other side, what you wish that
(37:33):
speaker had done differently. But it's always making fun and engaging.
And I'm like, as long as you do that, you know,
and people feel connected, it can change the whole atmosphere.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Oh for sure. For sure.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I don't know that with my personality I could pull
off the you know, calling on people. I'd be afraid
they would attack me or something. But but you know
how I do it. If I'm gonna do a it's
funny when I'm walking up introduce me, you know, uh,
fourth time Olympia, Reuben Nozalez and I'm walking up to
the stage. I always I have a pre game, right
I'm walking up saying, well, we're gonna have a good time.
(38:08):
We're gonna have a good we're gonna have fun. Right,
but actually I'm gonna have fun. I can't control them.
They are a bunch of thumbsuckers. That's they're probable. I'm
gonna have fun no matter what. Right, and if it's
if it's, uh, let's say sixty minutes and then thirty
minutes of.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
Q and A.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Then I actually some little trick that works for me.
I seed the first question to make it easy. And
so I'll say, like when I made fun of the
of the Jamaican boss letters earlier, right, well, actually I'm
friends with one of those guys, all right, and so
I say, oh, man, you know we're gonna do some Well,
he's a speaker too, he makes fun of my of
me on his talk. So I got to seeing him
(38:44):
at least one time. Hey, and you know what, guys,
we're gonna have some Q and A after this. Uh,
somebody asked me about the Jamaican boss letters. I got
a great story about them. And it's always the first question.
And then they realize I don't bite, you know, and
it's and it gets rolling that awkward.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
I love that tip.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
And one thing you had mentioned a few minutes ago
as well is that you love fun like that is
one thing that drives you is experience and adventures and fun.
And to name some of those fun things you've done
is you've written with the Bulls, You've climbed Kilimanjaro, which
my sister has also recently done, floam planes. What is
(39:24):
your personal definite risk? And how do you know when
it's worth it verus not worth it?
Speaker 4 (39:32):
You have such great question. I love this. I love it.
You know. I was just talking to somebody.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Somebody called me on the phone yesterday and she said, hey,
I want you to interview you. You know, she actually
doesn't have a podcast, but she wants to do this
interview like kind of like a podcast.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
And it's fine.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
I'm want to send you some questions that don't send
me your questions and I won't read them, Okay.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
I would rather you hit me with a question that's
so good that I'm.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Like, wow, No, ask me that that gets the audience
to really find out, right, this is gonna be really good.
This is where he's gonna crash and burn, right, So
it makes for good TV. So I always want to
run with the bulls in Spain. I read Hemingway when
I was a little kid, and he put all these ideas.
You know, he put kill Him and Jarrow in my
(40:17):
head too, because there's the snows of Killiman Jarrow was
one of his stories, and I always thought about that.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
And so when I finally decided to do the.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Running with the bulls, I read three books about Pamplona.
Speaker 4 (40:32):
Pamplona is the name of the town in Spain. I
read three.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Books about Pamplona, and I called one of the authors
who had run it for about twenty years, and I, hey,
I need some coaching. Okay, I want the Pamplona experience,
but I don't want to extra hold on my body.
And in ten minutes he gave me a handful of
little So if you're ever gonna do it, you know,
just call me because I'll save your life. Right well,
(40:56):
I'll improve the probability that you walk out of there.
But do you He gave me a handful of super
simple things I never would have thought of, and you
know that potentially saved my life. And we ran twice.
And then a few years later I went with another
friend and I thought, doesn't feel right today, and I
(41:16):
didn't do it. I just sat on the side of
shop pictures. You got to listen to your inner voice.
You got to listen to you because that's that's a
subconscious mind. When you get a hunch, when you women,
you get intuition.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
We don't have intuition, we're.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
We're hopeless, okay, but we get a hunch okay, or
a gut feeling.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
That's what guys get.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Well, you got to listen to it because that's like
your subconscious mind.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
It's it.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
It sees everything, okay, it sees everything, and it sees
everything that's happened in your life, and it tells you, okay,
this is a great opportunity, go for it. Doesn't matter
that you're you feel unsure, jump and the net will appear.
Or am I telling you don't run with the bulls today?
Okay you'll wind up in the hospital. And its I
just listened to it, and I didn't feel like I
(42:02):
was a coward or anything at all. I just told,
you know, Carlos, my friendly it I went with. I said, uh,
we're gonna go watch it today. And he didn't want
to run anyway, right, He was actually relieved. So so
you gotta listen to yourself, but you gotta do what
youever you can to prepare yourself to kill him and
jar I lived in Houston. Okay, I'd never even climbed
a hill before that, and I didn't train for it either.
(42:24):
It was terrible. I'm still tired. And that was back
in twenty ten. But we hired a guy that had
climbed it over one hundred times. He's climbed six of
the seventh summits since then. We're really good friends. And
so if you want to do killy, I'll hook you
up with the right guy, right because.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
He's the man.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
And so you have to if you have to cross
a minefield, my dad always said, you gotta find somebody
that's crossed it. You follow somebody's crossed it. Preferably somebody
is still walking. Right, So it's somebody that has fruit
on the trees. They have experience, and they had that success,
right a theorists that wrote twelve books on it but
never actually did it. That person is useless. That's the
(43:05):
one that puts the PowerPoint with little tiny stuff because
he's trying to complicate things, make think, make himself look
so smart where I you and I we try to
simplify things because at Einstein too that interesting, you know,
at Einstein like to simplify things.
Speaker 4 (43:21):
So we're right up with with Einstein. How about that.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I'll take it. I will take it.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
I'm gonna tell everyone I'm right up there with Einstein.
There you go, so Rubin, I can't believe we are
at the end. I feel like we can keep going
on stories and insights.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
But this has been really enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
And can you How can people get in touch with
you if they want to connect with you?
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Easiest one to remember, I think is olympicmotivation dot com.
People can spell that, hopefully Olympicmotivation dot com. There's tons
of videos there most speakers, but like one five minute
video of their of their highlights to anybody can be
good for five minutes.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
I got a I got a page, especially.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Now with the Olympics and everything of the kids being
excited about it. I got my video page has about
twenty different videos. You can pop some popcorn around at
the family, make an Olympic night. They're already g and
and you know who knows you kids might get excited
and start making straight a's okay, so so uh yeah,
it'd be fun. So anyways, Olympicmotivation dot com. And if
(44:28):
you want to do some coaching, uh do a zoom coaching.
Uh let's go to Ruben are U b e N
You like University of the Lousy Student, But I got
my own university.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
How about that? Ruben you dot com and you know,
and check that out too. Awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Thank you Ruben for all of your insights today.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
Thanks for having me. Let's do this again. I mean
I think we could probably do this ten times. Seriously, Yeah, nothing,
we'll get off.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
We will probably have ten completely different conversations.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
Absolutely, I know we would. No, No, I'm serious, so
let me know well.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
And a few of our key takeaways from today's conversation include,
don't practice until you can't get it wrong, practice until
you can't until you just consistently.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Get it right.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
And that mentality is something Ruben talked about in the
beginning and really throughout this conversation. It is it's always practicing,
not only for the times when it's right, but the
contingency plans and okay, what to do and that motivation
walking up you know. He also mentioned the visualization he
(45:38):
does before his races and even before speaking. Like you
mentioned earlier, it's it's that practice until no matter what
you do, there's not gonna be a wrong path of
an outcome. As well as as I just mentioned, practice
that contingency plan, so like I'm a big believer of this.
(45:58):
Ruben spoke about it as well, is like, look at everything,
ask the hard questions, what could go wrong here? What
do we do if this ends up being the scenario
so that you're comfortable in it, Get comfortable with being uncomfortable,
and then it'll no longer be uncomfortable. Really simple, and
Rebn had mentioned that in some of his stories too,
(46:20):
is like, you know, just keep practicing, just keep doing it.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
The reframe of.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
The mind when you feel that fear stepping in is
Raymond also mentioned in one of his stories, and you
push to overcome it. Then you realize a lot of
it was in your head and that you can really
do it and pay attention to what people are complimenting
you on.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
I love how Rubend brought this up because it is
so true.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
A lot of times we don't know what our superpower
is until it keeps screaming in our face and people
are telling us and we're like, wait, it's not that
easy for you, And then it becomes a light bulb
moment of like, how can I use this? How can
I average this to help others, to help myself? And
my last takeaway that I love and I'm gonna start
(47:08):
using it myself is success leaves clues. So what are
the clues that are being left behind right now for you?
This was a great episode with our top notch.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Guest Rubina and Zalez. Thank you for listening and have
a successful list
Hello, everyone, Welcome to Achieving Success with Olivia Akin.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm your host, Olivia Akin.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Each week we will discuss the romp of achieving your
personal and professional success. We give you real life stories
on growing personally and professionally to achieve your life and
career goals with the help books on top notch. Yes,
today we are speaking with Rubin Gonzales. Rubin is a
four time Olympian who has defied every odd and expectation
(00:35):
to chase an ice speed dream.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
At twenty one years.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Old, Rubin picked up the sport of lug with zero
prior experience and with us. Within just four years and
a few broken bones, he made his Olympic debut. He
went on to compete in four Winter Olympics across four decades,
racing against athletes half his age at forty seven. Rubin
is also the best selling author of the book The
(01:02):
Courage to Succeed, now translated into ten languages, and the
voice behind the powerful TEDx talk The Power of Following
the Leader.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
A world renowned.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Keynote speaker, Ruben is here to share how courage, commitment
and vision can can propel you towards the extraordinary. You
can find Ruben by going to his website Ruben dash
Gonzales dot com, or by emailing him at Ruben at
the luje Man dot com or at phone at his
(01:35):
phone number at eight three two six eight nine eight
two eight two.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Hello, Ruben. It's fantastic having you on the show.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
It's great to finally do this. Gosh, it seems like
we changed dates a couple of times, but now we
made it happen. We made it happen, and.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I'm excited for it because every time we've talked, we've
had awesome conversations and it's been really impactful. So I'm
excited to dive deep with you today and to start
off the show. Can you tell me what success means?
It looks like to Rubing in Dallas.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Success is really simple.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Actually, it's you have a goal and it's your own goals,
not your parents' goal, your boss.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
It's your goal and you achieved it. And so if
your goal is to.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Lose ten pounds and you go out with your friends
to eat pizza, then if you eat even one slice,
you're not going towards your goal. If your goal is
to eat the whole thing, I mean, that's your goal.
Has nothing to do and you eat the whole thing. Hey,
you hit your goal. So either what it has to
do with your personal thing has nothing to do with
it what car you drive or how big your house
(02:44):
is or anything like that unless that's your goal.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
And I love that too, because I actually it's very interesting.
We have talked and I was actually on the mountain
this weekend and four days in a row.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Be really proud of me.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I skied four days in a row for like, yeah,
hours on.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
End, and I was like, wow, pushing the limits and.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Doing real, you know, really awesome things, and very proud
of myself. But sometimes I have those moments of clarity
on the mountain where you're you're just one with the mountain.
You know you're going, you're going at speeds. Obviously you lose,
so you know you're really going at different speeds than
I'm going on skis. But I had a moment of
(03:33):
clarity as well because I had.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I heard an interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Quick video of a consultant talking about how so many
people on social media right now are talking about I
can make you seven eight figure entrepreneur and this and that,
and he's like, the real stat is like twenty to
thirty percent of coaches or consultants actually get to that
seven or eight figure point. And I thought it so interesting,
(04:01):
and then I started diving deeper into it, and actually
the percentage is way lower, Like for coaches in the US,
the average consult the percentage of consultants that make a
million dollars a year is it was like zero point
one to zero point two percent, and the percentage of
(04:23):
consultants because they're classifying them a little differently, was zero
point one zero point five percent in the US, And
I was like wow, part of the reason, like I
had this mentality to get to a million dollars in
the business was X, Y Z and like all you know,
(04:44):
all these different things I was hearing in information and
then I was like, wait, does that really align with
how I want.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The business to set up?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And it was like this moment where I was like,
I don't you know. When I did recent it was like, oh,
you have to have.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
A team under you.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
You know, the people that are bringing a million dollars
so they're not actually pocketing a million dollars and this
and that, and I was like.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I don't want to have a team under me.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
And I was like, Okay, we might need to pivot
now on what the year goal is for the business
and what I want sustain the ability wise for the business.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
So when you brought that up, I was like, click, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
And when you and when.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
You have to factor in your lifestyle that you want
to create, right, that's I think that's more important. So
you know, Okay, great, you want to make a million,
that's fine. If that's your goal, go for it, right.
But maybe in my case, for example, I was just
telling you a friend the other day, I'm highly unemployable, okay,
because I am so entrepreneurial and independent that if you
(05:53):
offered me a million bucks a year tax free, but
I have to go to the office and have a boss,
no thanks, because my freedom is that important. And here's
another factor. Maybe you're a coach and you live in
South America or somewhere where where you can have an
incredible lifestyle for one hundred thousand a year, right, and
then you go play. So there's so many factors, but
(06:16):
people just tend to like all those zeros.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
And it's one of those things too that as I
was telling that story, I wanted to also ask you
do you have for yourself those moments of clarity when
you're racing and you're practicing, where whether it's something you've
already been thinking of, work related non work related, in
the different things you do, there's like those moments of peace,
(06:42):
quiet and like the light bulb goes off for you.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yes, but it's you know, getting into the zone is
something that happens, okay, as soon as you start thinking
you're not even to get in the zone, you have
to be unconscious.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Right, and that comes from a lot of practice.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
One of my coaches likes to say, don't practice that
you get it right, practice that you can't get it wrong. Okay,
now we're getting someplace and consistency, because the Olympics is
four runs, so you could have you break the track
record the first three runs and.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Then blow it on the last one.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Right, It's like blowing a great golf round of golf
on the eighteenth hole because the pressure got to you
or whatever. So, uh, yeah, I've had those moments. I
wish I had more. But everything we do from the
mental side, mental training is designed to increase the probability
of that happening.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And that being said, you know the same thing you
just made as well as like don't just practice until
you get right, practice until you can't get it wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Made me think about, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
The Winter Olympics are happening right now as we speak,
and what happened and the U I think it was
the US team if I'm remembering off the very top
on my head, not out this moment, but they started
racing in one of the rounds and almost no one.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Made it into like it.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Was only the first guy that ended up running the race.
And it was crazy to watch because I I watched
the video of like all the guys trying to jump in,
and you see like the first guy he's in, and
then the second guy the second he tries to jumping in,
he misses.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, you know exactly what.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
You said.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
That's my bad, that's okay, that's okay, Bob.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
But yeah, and they jumped in and it was in bob'sleg.
You were right, I'm like trying to take the winters,
but like, and he missed and it was a domino effect.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And then it was like one of these moments of
you're doing this race and in Bob slang, it's with
a team of four, and then your whole team is gone.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And you know, the commentators are talking through like he's
building speed, like he could get really injured, because you know,
everyone plays a role in the training and the execution,
and that is something no one. I don't think I
could be wrong transfer moments like that, and he was
apparently like the new guy, and he like when he
(09:27):
realized no one else was there, he had to figure
how to get to from the very front of the
bobs lab all the way back to be able to
break and he did it and everyone was like, yeah,
he's going down in the history books to be able
to handle that.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
But that was a moment where my head I was
like are you talking about it?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I was like, that's where you need to be practicing
and locked in and also practice for anything to happen,
and even whether that is in sports or business, because
one thing I have said for a long time too
is like keep asking the question why I might like
sit down with someone I might be working.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
With, and I'm pushing it. I'm pushing to.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
See where the holes are because if there's holes in gaps,
whether it's in knowledge or like how you would solve
a problem, you want to be able to then practice
and implement the solution to that not come in a
moment like the Body Slood Team, where now you're you know,
on this macked massive TV screen from the world.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
And you're like, oh my god, what's happening.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, So in the loge, about ten minutes before it's
your turn to go, we start visualizing. Okay, so we'll
take a handful of runs in our mind, and you
know when somebody's doing it because they're sitting there with
their eyes closed and their whole bodies is going through
because we use our whole body and we exaggerated what
we're visualizing just to get the feel right. And so
(10:56):
if somebody next to you is doing that, you respectfully
stop talking.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
And so you'll do a few of those to get
that perfect run. Then when you're up at.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
The top at the start, you're sitting down, the person
in front of you is sliding. You got a couple
of minutes to go because when they finish their run,
hopefully they finish. If they crash, everything goes, you know,
out the window. The whole game plan goes out the window.
You're gonna be freezing your your face shield is probably
gonna gonna fog up because it only has about five
minutes worth of anti fog, and you know you're gonna
be blowing the whole time to make a little hole
(11:26):
so you can see through that right as you're going
to eighty ninety. But anyways, you got two minutes, and
so that gives you a chance to do one last
run and then you know a couple of deep breasts
and then you go. At the hotel, we also practice
contingency plans and so.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Are you still there? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I'm still here, all right?
Speaker 4 (11:49):
So continue I said it at the perfect time. Somebody
try to call. Remember we switched off the.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Ringer and we still got this interrupting with a call,
but to interrupt you. So I just learned something. See
that's that's good. You learn from your from from your experience.
Am I gonna freak out next time? So anyways, at
the hotel, we also practice contingency planning. Okay, what am
I gonna do? And we call it escape routes? Okay,
(12:18):
what are we gonna? What am I gonna do if
I'm a little late in the curve one? What if
I'm a little early into one? What if I hit
the left wall before one or the right wall? How
am I gonna fix it, and you do that for
every section of the curve, and that actually gives you
confidence because you get to the point where you know
it no matter what happens, you can handle it.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
My son he did.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
He wrestles, And when they visualize, I taught them, look, visualize, yeah,
the perfect thing, but also visualize, you know, when you're
at home, not not during the meat Okay, visualize what
are you gonna do if you're three points down and
it's the third period and you got thirty seconds to go,
what are you gonna do?
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Right? So you because you have to have escape routes
that prepares you.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, And I've seen it in high school. I was
a wrestling manager for my high school team. And you
can see it when you don't have those contingency plans,
when you don't have that in your mindset. It's like
I'm picturing it back from back in the day. I
was like, you can kind of see it on the
(13:25):
guy's face. They're looking at coach. They have no idea what.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
To do next.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, it's one of those moments. So to me, you know,
I want back up a little bit and.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Give you another example real quick.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yes, when I was teaching my kids how to drive,
I would I would tell them ahead of time.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Look, most a lot of reps happen, especially in.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Tall cars, when you lose attention and you go off
and then you try to fix it too quick and
it rolls.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Okay, So you never want to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
So if you lose control or something looks bad, just
take your foot off. Don't or pressing the brakes too hard.
That'll make it roll too. Just take your foot off
the off the pedal. And then when we practice, I
would tell Gabby Gabrielle, I'd be sitting on this side
holding the I said, okay, I'm gonna tell you at
a certain point to close your eyes.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Okay, don't worry.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I'll be closed, I'll be holding the steering wheel and
I would slowly. And we talked about this before, right,
but she had talking to it. Talking about it at
home and doing it in the car is totally different.
Don't worry, I got I'm control, okay. But I told
her if you're if two wheels go off into the gravel,
into the side, don't freak out.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Just take your foot.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Off the pedal and slowly ease it in. Otherwise you
will roll and so I would actually do that. I
pull her, you know, and she could feel and I.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Let go open up your eyes and she had to
fix it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
And we do it at thirty and then at forty
and then at fifty and so that's contingency planning and
she's probably not going to roll the car.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Well.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I mean, it even reminds me what my dad's famous
sayings and then I promise will go on, is like,
it's not how fast you can go, it's how fast
you can stop. Because my parents being physicians, and my
dad has.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Run many trauma one ers and hospitals.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
He's like, there's so many accidents that happen because you're
you're not aware of your surroundings, right, So you and
you're going fast and then something happens and you don't
know how to control the vehicle, so you don't you
can't stop in time, or you don't realize that this
(15:37):
person might be kind of on your blind spot and how.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
To maneuver the car one way or the other.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
So his big thing when he was teaching us, and
he'll say it to this day, he'll be like, it's
not how fast you could go, it's how fast you
could stop. Meaning you know, it's not just about like
slamming on the brakes and stopping right where you are,
and like, sometimes yes, that is the answer. You have
to know your reaction time. But it's also the fact
(16:04):
that you need to be able to be aware that
if you're driving on the highway and a tractor trailer
is speeding behind you and coming up next to you
all of a sudden and they start to drift, do
you have the room to get over? Do you need
to speed up? Do you need to slow down? Like
all those reaction points.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Yeah, bank ahead, bank ahead, And.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
So tell me, I'm gonna go back a little bit.
You chose one of the most extreme sports to be
in at twenty one, where you know, now being in
my early thirties, I'll look back on like sports I
participated in, especially diving off a three meter board, and
I was like, I don't know how I was doing
(16:48):
that as a teenager, you know, like what was I thinking?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
But like you did it.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
You made that decision at twenty one, and you have
not looked back, have a background in it. Was there
a part of you that said, on doing this, and
like what really encouraged you to move forward? When most
people would have said, and probably did say to you,
that's impossible.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Don't don't start down this path.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Sure, you have to know yourselves, right.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I think Aristotle said know thyself and he's a pretty
smart guy. So pay attention from now on what people
compliment you on. Okay, because whatever the different people compliment
you on, that's something about you sticks out like a
sore thumb. That's for superpower, but you don't know because
it's you, right, and so just say thank you and
(17:42):
make a note.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
And so once you know what your superpower is.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Now you know that'll help you in planning towards your
next goals because you know how to use it.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
So my superpower is perseverance.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
My nickname in high school was Bulldog, very tenacious.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
I'm a lot like Rudy if you ever seen the
movie Rudy. I'm not a great athlete, okay, but I
got a lot of heart.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Got a lot of heart and nobody and so I
have this Olympic dream ever since I'm ten years old,
and I've been fascinated about it ever since. I mean,
I know all the stories, I know, you know, I've
just you know, I'm into it. But I didn't believe
it was possible because I was always the last kid
picked for pe right. I was on the bench for
pick kickball. I mean, I ain't really had a bench
and kickball it was that bad. But I had this
(18:26):
dream and I wouldn't let go. And my dad got
me to read biographies and he says, study the lives
of great people.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
You'll figure out what works.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
With doesn't work in life because success leaves clues. And
I kept seeing perseverance. I saw the hardheads. They're the
ones that make it, you know. And my mom calls
me a hardhead all the time, so that's good. And
so I made a decision at twelve years old. From
today on, Reuben didn't quit anything. And it's as success
is a decision, okay. Sooner or later, you get sick
and tired of being sick and tired, and you start
(18:56):
being willing to do what you weren't willing to do before,
and then things change. So I didn't realize it. But
I'm growing, as you know, and he said, hang around winners.
He's given me all these tips and I'm doing them.
And I didn't realize that I was growing on the inside,
that was becoming more more confident in myself and taking
boulder action, and I started getting, you know, more interesting.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
The Olympic.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Now, when I'm twenty one years old, I'm a benchwarmer,
and my college soccer team, I was a walk on.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Coach said you only get to play.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
We're winning by two goals because you're a threat to
our own team. He just kept me around because he
could always point to me and says, look, if you
guys work half as hard as Ruben, who has no talent,
you know we might win some championship. So I was
on this, even on the traveling squad. But I didn't
play hardly at all. But I was on a team
that was important to me. Twenty one years old, I
watched the Olympics again. Right, it's the Saraevo Olympics, nineteen
(19:48):
eighty four. I see Scott Hamilton, the figure skater. He's
as he does commentary. Now he wins the gold medal. Right,
he's five foot one, one hundred and ten pounds, soaking wet.
Everything changing my head. I thought you had to look
like Arnold Schwarzenegger to win an Olympic medal. Here, this
little tiny guy, and he gave me hope. I thought,
if that little guy can win, I can at least play.
(20:09):
I'm gonna be in the next ones. It's a done deal.
You got to find a sport. And I know it
sounds ridiculous, but for the first time in my life.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
I knew that. I knew that, I knew that I
could do it.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
So first, I always had the desire. I didn't have
the belief. Belief gets you going, Desire keeps you going
when the going gets tough.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
And so I always had the desire.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
But now I got the belief because I I Scott Hamilton,
and so I went to the library, got a big
book about the Olympics.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
I looked at the summer sports.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
It took me five minutes to realize you got to
be superman to do any of these things in no way.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
And so that belief took a hit. Okay, and then
I started looking at.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
The winter sports, and I started thinking, wait a minute,
I'm about to put together.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
A plan for the next four years. I need to
base the plan on my strengths.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
My strengths down athleticism, my strengths for some here, I'm bulldog.
So I thought, I gotta find a sport that's so
tough sports, got so many broken bones, and there'd be
lots of quitters, right, and that I'll just outlast everybody.
I'll ride the attrition rate all the way to the top.
There's my whole plan. I'll last people. So it's okay,
ski jump, Bob's Laid, and louge. Those I had it
(21:18):
down to those three. I'd ever ski before. I lived
in Houston, Texas in all places, and so ski jump,
I mean that would have been suicide.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
We wouldn't be having this talking. Bob's laid. Where are
you gonna find three other nuts in Houston?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Right? You got to go to Jamaica for that. So
that left the loge. I've never seen it on TV.
If i'd seen it on TV, you know, no way,
all right. I just had a little picture of a
guanal'd lose. I thought, you can do that by yourself.
That looks really tough.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
That's one for me.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
I didn't even know where the track was, so I
reverse engineered it. I didn't know who that met back then, right,
but I reverse engineered it and I found something that
fit me. And I didn't know where the track was.
I wrote Sports illustrated a letter. I figured they out.
You know, they actually wrote back. They said Lake Placid,
New York.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
I called them up.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
At first, it wouldn't the guy's laughing. He says, twenty one.
Forget it, man, you had ten years experience. You start
them off with their little kids. In Europe they start
them a little when they're five years old. And I
wouldn't hang up. I mean, I figured, if I hang
up the.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Phone, it's all over, right, that's so, that's not an option.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I just kept talking, talking, talking, talking, and finally he
gets fed up. I guess, and he says, well, you
got a camp coming up, and in a couple of
weeks be there. But before you come, you need to
know two things, no more than one. You want to
do it at your age. You want to do it
just four years brutal. Nine out of ten people quit.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Okay. I started smiling. I thought, wow, this of course
running to my plans. Awesome, you're god. I said, what's
the second thing? He said, expect to break some bones.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
And I said great, and he got really quiet and
by shaking his head because back he goes, what's wrong
with you? Man? I just told you go to break
some bones, and I'm make you happy, I said, look,
I hope it's ten times harder what you tell me.
I hope it's a hundred times harder. That's the harder
it is, the easier it is for me, because I'm
not a quitter.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
I'm bulled on.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I was praying that the Germans would quit. Okay, didn't
pray hard enough. They show up, they win their medals,
and they go home. They ain't get excited. They got
so many medals.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
So I went and actually, when I hung up, the
reality hit.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Okay, I thought, wait a minute, this guy didn't say
I might break some bones. He said I will break them.
How am I going to handle it? Contingency planning? Even
back then, I didn't know what that meant. Okay, but
that's just how I guess. My dad was a lot
like your dad. He's always teaching us to be prepared, right,
and how want to handle it when I break a bone?
(23:37):
I've broken bones before. You know, you wear a cast
for for six weeks. To take it off, it's healed
up and stronger than before, so it's really a temporary inconvenience, right,
So I reframed it in my mind.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
I ain't know what that meant, right, but I had
a plan.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
If I break something, I'm coming back, baby, Okay, that's.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Not going to stop.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I went, I was there a couple of weeks, a
couple of a few weeks later. Yeah, and it's a
time now. I saw the Olympics just a couple of
months ago. I saw them on TV, and I'm there.
You got to take action when you're excited. I gotta
let that passion be your after burner. If you wait,
you know, this is not the time to color coordinate
your closet.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
No, you gotta jump and the net will appear.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Because if it's in your heart, if it's something you
really want to do, if it's you know, if you're.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Passionate about it, then you got what it takes.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
It's gonna take everything you got, probably gonna be the
hardest thing you ever did. But afterwards would be so happy,
you know. And but an if you don't go for it,
that regrets gonna kill you. So I went, and Yeah.
The first two years, I broke my foot twice, my knee,
my elbow, my hand, my thumb, a.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
Couple of ribs.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Neck is a chiropractice drink because we're pulling six g's
on some of those curves and your head's like.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
A Morocca hanging off the back of that sleet.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
But but I just kept coming back and and then
one day I was crashing three out of five, you know,
because at first I was crashing four out of five
times I.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Have no control, and then three out of five, so
I thank god, it was a great day.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
By the end of the second year, I'm crashing.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
One out of one hundred, and I finally figured out
how to drive a darn slid.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
And then they throw me to the wolves.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Now I got to go to the race internationally all
over the world against the best in the world to
try to be one of the top fifty.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Back then, who'd get to go to the Olympics. And
I got to play with the big boys four times.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Back then, the top fifty made it the first three
Olympics was like that, and then Vancouver twenty ten they
made it.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
To the top forty. Now it's the top twenty five.
I mean, it's ridiculous now because.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
They keep adding sports, but they cap it at three
thousand athletes in the winter and ten thousand in the summer.
So but hey, I got to play with the big
boys four times. And so now when I speak anywhere,
my goal is I want to do for my audience
what Scott Hamilton did for me, take the excuses away.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
I want tom walk it out of my talk, thinking, man, if.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
That guy can make it to the Olympics, even one time,
I didn't do anything right. And now they got belief,
they're ready to face those fears, fear of the unknown,
fear of failure that are holding them BAP. And what
happens when you face your fear nine times out of
ten you realize, oh my god, I wouldn't anything, you know,
it's just my head.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Well guess what, that's not a fear anymore. So you
just grew all right. So that's that's basically what I like.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
To do for you as well.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
You know, as you we've mentioned quite a few times
so far, you've competed in four Olympics across four decades.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
What changes mentally and emotionally when you're.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Chasing that same dream you had at twenty one you're
just doing it, and across different decades where you've grown personally, professionally,
your mindset has grown, your you know, patterns of.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Behavior might have changed different.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Things like that, And there's an age gap between like
not for anything, between the people that you're competing against
two So what's the question, So, like, what has that
been like for you?
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Oh? Okay?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
So the motivation was different for each one. The first
one was I want to be I want to be
one of those guys, right, I just want to be Neil.
It's never about the medals for me. I just want
to be one of those guys. And then the second one,
I wanted to get the respect of the Germans, right
because they're the best of the best.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
And I just want to earn it. And I did.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
And then the third one, I was able to talk
my brother into it and we became the first two
brothers to compete internationally in the Olympics and the louse.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Okay, and that was in Salt Lake.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And the fourth one, I wanted to be the first
one to do four Winter Olympics in four different decades.
I thought, hey, this might be good for business, right,
it looked good on my website, build up that resume.
I mean, I was thinking about that. I'm always thinking
about business. It's part part of my life. And so
I'm still sliding. I've taken three seven year breaks along
this whole forty year journey, forty five year journey. And
(28:00):
so my coach, he says, you know what, you look
a really old car that's been in the garage a lot.
You don't have all these miles on you because your
body's not broken down. But like you said, mentally, I'm
stronger because I've kept growing right and now I know
how to take care of my body. I know so
much more, and I'm cooler. I'm finally I'm not afraid anymore.
(28:22):
Now it's become a challenge instead of trying to survive thing.
And so I'm actually, well, you got to keep your
dream in front of you. So this is where I'm
moving later this year. This is Midway, Utah. It's thirty
minutes from the track in Park City, Utah, and forty
five minutes from the Salt Lake City Airport. Because I've
got to fly places to go speak and I see
(28:45):
it every day, so it gets.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Me talking about it. How about that? It worked? Huh?
How about that?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
And so why do all they want to move over
there when I'm sixty three years old?
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Because I want to be able to practice more.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Because I am hoping that the IOC National Olympic committee
will see the light and say, hey, let's bump it
up to four thousand athletes.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Let's get it back to forty.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Guys for the Olympics, and then I could make another
Olympics top twenty five. That's tough, Okay, coach said it's possible. Okay,
he says it's possible. It's a long shot, but it's possible.
And now having four more years, it's more possible. So
that's the reason that I got such a cool cup.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You're seeing it every day, you're putting it into motion
mint and I think a big piece of anything we
do is the mindset around it. Well, like you've mentioned,
I'll tell this a quick story. My parents do not
know yet, but this same past weekend that we did
(29:51):
four days in a row skiing was the first time
I had wrote in pure powder before on the mountain,
and also like what started doing jumps for the first
time on skis, and like riding in between trees that
were close together. It's also the first time I learned
(30:13):
what a tree well was. Because I'm one of the johns,
Like I'm five foot a weigh like ninety five pounds,
so can wet, and so I did a jump and
like the skis hit the ground and my knees buckled
a little bit, and the speed I had as I turned,
like I went into in between two trees. My speed
(30:37):
was so quick. And then my boyfriend saw it happen.
He rode before me, and luckily there was a ski
instructor also behind me. Yeah, they both somehow caught it,
and they're like, you hit that bump and your knees
buckled when it like when it happened, and they were like,
the speed you had in it too. The second you turned,
(30:58):
we saw you just go like sideways and down into
the tree. Well, and I got and like I got
buried off into like my arm got completely buried and
half my body and they like come running and help
me out and all that, and you know a lot
of people be like I'm dumb for the day, this
(31:19):
that and the next and like freaking out and the
whole time I'm collected, I'm like it's okay. You know,
they're like are you okay, Like are you physically okay?
Speaker 2 (31:31):
You know all this.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I'm like I'm fine, and I get off and my
parents still don't know about this yet, so they do
listen this podcast, so they'll probably.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Be finding out about this right now. But I held
it so they wanted work during ski.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Season and so but I got out and they were like,
oh my god, like kind of still freaking out, making
sure I'm okay, and I'm like I'm good, Like I
didn't cure powdered day, so you're falling into powdered snow
you're not and like into a tree. Well, but they're like,
oh my god, that was crazy. And I look at
my boyfriend and I'm like, yeah, but I was doing
(32:06):
jumps and that's the closest like yeah, yeah, I'm like
and I'm riding in between trees at speed like that's awesome,
like I accomplished something. And he's like, I'm so glad
you have that mentality and not be like we gotta
leave what I and it's and it's mindset around it.
(32:27):
Like I told people the next two days when I
was riding, I was like, yeah, I fell into a tree.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Well I look.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
And I'm like those people don't get it.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
They think you're nuts, but no, you're just you know,
somebody that achieved success that should have a podcast called
let Me Think achieving success, that'd be perfect.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Thank you. What a great ideas. But you know, my
question for you too is like, how as you're getting
these different.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Goals and you've grown in speaking in the speaking engagements
you do your book, what is the mentality you face
in deciding what is worth your time doing and what
is that right next path?
Speaker 3 (33:16):
That's a great question. You know, if it's not fun.
I like to have fun, you probably figure it out.
Right if I if I start realizing that, you know,
I'm getting into a rut and stops being fun, something's
got to change otherwise, right, And I told coach you
know this is so we both agree that says, hey,
(33:39):
let's take the next four years one year at a time, okay,
for two reasons.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
Got to see if my body holds up.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
And number two, if I lose the desire, then I'm
just fooling myself because I won't do the work.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
And so if I, for.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Whatever reason, I catch another dream and I stop having
that desire for number five, let's just stop.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
And at least we went for it and we had fun.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
And that's just you know, because otherwise it would be
a waste of time the next two years. And I
probably would get hurt because I wouldn't have the right mindset,
you know, focusing on what I need to focus on.
I fell into the speaking business. I never took a
speech class in my life. I'm an introvert, believe it
or not. I get me talking about the Olympics or
(34:22):
personal development and Clark Kent, who's the real Ruben?
Speaker 4 (34:25):
He turns to the superman for a little bit, but
then I'm Clark Kent. And so.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
The little kid asked me to be his Show and
Tel project right before the Salt Lake City Olympics.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Says, hey, when you get back from the Olympics, be
my show. That's sure? Or why not?
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And I thought show and Tell when I was a kid,
twenty kids in the classroom. You know that's about five
minutes each because they each guy to show something and
talk about it, and so great. You know I can
handle that. I want to win Show and Tell. I mean,
I'm competitive. I don't care as a much of little kids.
I'm winning the gold medal, all right, I win this medal.
I brought this led the helmet, the Olympic torch because
(35:02):
I was a torch bearer.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
No prisoners.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
The principal he walks me over to this big room.
It was actually a cafeteria. They moved all the tables
out of the way and there's two hundred kids on
the floor.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
He says, you know, sitting on the floor.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
He hands me in the microphone he got forty five
minutes have at him. I almost had a heart attack. Okay,
I the door looked so inviting. I was petrified, and
I said a prayer and said, God, what do I
do now?
Speaker 4 (35:26):
You know, desperation prayer?
Speaker 3 (35:28):
And when I felt that he was just telling me
your story, getting some pointers how they can make their
dream come true.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
And I did.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
I didn't die or anything. I was so excited about
that part. And afterwards, on the way to the car,
the Principal's going nuts.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
You gotta gift. You're in by people we pay. You
need to do this for a living and got my
attention real quick.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
But you can pay for show and tell, and he says, no,
it's a speaking professional man.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Don't you know anything.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Well, I used to sell copiers at that time, copiers
in downtown Houston, knocking on doors. I thought, you know this,
this would be a whole lot more fun. Maybe I
can inspire some people to go for it in life.
I quit my job three days later. I don't recommend it, okay,
but I figured if I can sell a copy, or
I can sell a Reuben too, And I just started
hitting the phone and that's how I started. I wouldn't
(36:09):
be a speaker if that kid, you know. And I've
been all over the world. One hundred fortune five hundred
companies have brought me into speak, you know, because I
don't want to use a power point. I'm actually fun,
you know, And so it's like Robin Williams, you know, went.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
To the Olympics or something. But it works, it's real,
it's genuine.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
The speakers they use power points. I'm like, come on now, I.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I I when I speak and people ask me like,
what's your style?
Speaker 2 (36:38):
What's your phone?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I'm like interactive, And if you decide not to be interactive,
I'm like my teacher days come out and I start
picking on picking people out.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And I've done it, like I recently did a.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Talk because I do a lot of talks at universities
and stuff, and we did it virtually, and I tell
them like, okay, this is kind of what we're gonna
talk about based on I'm like, what I'm here.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I'm gonna make it interactive.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
And when we get to that point, no one wants
to jump up and raise their virtual hand, I will
call on you.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
I was a professor at one point and they laugh.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
And then you know, that point comes when you start
getting interactive and people don't raise their hand and I
start calling, and then all of a sudden, the like
oh wait, okay, this is a comfortable space and this
will be fun opens up. But like you go back
and I always say, you think about when you have
to be on the other side, what you wish that
(37:33):
speaker had done differently. But it's always making fun and engaging.
And I'm like, as long as you do that, you know,
and people feel connected, it can change the whole atmosphere.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Oh for sure. For sure.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I don't know that with my personality I could pull
off the you know, calling on people. I'd be afraid
they would attack me or something. But but you know
how I do it. If I'm gonna do a it's
funny when I'm walking up introduce me, you know, uh,
fourth time Olympia, Reuben Nozalez and I'm walking up to
the stage. I always I have a pre game, right
I'm walking up saying, well, we're gonna have a good time.
(38:08):
We're gonna have a good we're gonna have fun. Right,
but actually I'm gonna have fun. I can't control them.
They are a bunch of thumbsuckers. That's they're probable. I'm
gonna have fun no matter what. Right, and if it's
if it's, uh, let's say sixty minutes and then thirty
minutes of.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
Q and A.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Then I actually some little trick that works for me.
I seed the first question to make it easy. And
so I'll say, like when I made fun of the
of the Jamaican boss letters earlier, right, well, actually I'm
friends with one of those guys, all right, and so
I say, oh, man, you know we're gonna do some Well,
he's a speaker too, he makes fun of my of
me on his talk. So I got to seeing him
(38:44):
at least one time. Hey, and you know what, guys,
we're gonna have some Q and A after this. Uh,
somebody asked me about the Jamaican boss letters. I got
a great story about them. And it's always the first question.
And then they realize I don't bite, you know, and
it's and it gets rolling that awkward.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
I love that tip.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
And one thing you had mentioned a few minutes ago
as well is that you love fun like that is
one thing that drives you is experience and adventures and fun.
And to name some of those fun things you've done
is you've written with the Bulls, You've climbed Kilimanjaro, which
my sister has also recently done, floam planes. What is
(39:24):
your personal definite risk? And how do you know when
it's worth it verus not worth it?
Speaker 4 (39:32):
You have such great question. I love this. I love it.
You know. I was just talking to somebody.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Somebody called me on the phone yesterday and she said, hey,
I want you to interview you. You know, she actually
doesn't have a podcast, but she wants to do this
interview like kind of like a podcast.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
And it's fine.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
I'm want to send you some questions that don't send
me your questions and I won't read them, Okay.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
I would rather you hit me with a question that's
so good that I'm.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Like, wow, No, ask me that that gets the audience
to really find out, right, this is gonna be really good.
This is where he's gonna crash and burn, right, So
it makes for good TV. So I always want to
run with the bulls in Spain. I read Hemingway when
I was a little kid, and he put all these ideas.
You know, he put kill Him and Jarrow in my
(40:17):
head too, because there's the snows of Killiman Jarrow was
one of his stories, and I always thought about that.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
And so when I finally decided to do the.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Running with the bulls, I read three books about Pamplona.
Speaker 4 (40:32):
Pamplona is the name of the town in Spain. I
read three.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Books about Pamplona, and I called one of the authors
who had run it for about twenty years, and I, hey,
I need some coaching. Okay, I want the Pamplona experience,
but I don't want to extra hold on my body.
And in ten minutes he gave me a handful of
little So if you're ever gonna do it, you know,
just call me because I'll save your life. Right well,
(40:56):
I'll improve the probability that you walk out of there.
But do you He gave me a handful of super
simple things I never would have thought of, and you
know that potentially saved my life. And we ran twice.
And then a few years later I went with another
friend and I thought, doesn't feel right today, and I
(41:16):
didn't do it. I just sat on the side of
shop pictures. You got to listen to your inner voice.
You got to listen to you because that's that's a
subconscious mind. When you get a hunch, when you women,
you get intuition.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
We don't have intuition, we're.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
We're hopeless, okay, but we get a hunch okay, or
a gut feeling.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
That's what guys get.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Well, you got to listen to it because that's like
your subconscious mind.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
It's it.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
It sees everything, okay, it sees everything, and it sees
everything that's happened in your life, and it tells you, okay,
this is a great opportunity, go for it. Doesn't matter
that you're you feel unsure, jump and the net will appear.
Or am I telling you don't run with the bulls today?
Okay you'll wind up in the hospital. And its I
just listened to it, and I didn't feel like I
(42:02):
was a coward or anything at all. I just told,
you know, Carlos, my friendly it I went with. I said, uh,
we're gonna go watch it today. And he didn't want
to run anyway, right, He was actually relieved. So so
you gotta listen to yourself, but you gotta do what
youever you can to prepare yourself to kill him and
jar I lived in Houston. Okay, I'd never even climbed
a hill before that, and I didn't train for it either.
(42:24):
It was terrible. I'm still tired. And that was back
in twenty ten. But we hired a guy that had
climbed it over one hundred times. He's climbed six of
the seventh summits since then. We're really good friends. And
so if you want to do killy, I'll hook you
up with the right guy, right because.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
He's the man.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
And so you have to if you have to cross
a minefield, my dad always said, you gotta find somebody
that's crossed it. You follow somebody's crossed it. Preferably somebody
is still walking. Right, So it's somebody that has fruit
on the trees. They have experience, and they had that success,
right a theorists that wrote twelve books on it but
never actually did it. That person is useless. That's the
(43:05):
one that puts the PowerPoint with little tiny stuff because
he's trying to complicate things, make think, make himself look
so smart where I you and I we try to
simplify things because at Einstein too that interesting, you know,
at Einstein like to simplify things.
Speaker 4 (43:21):
So we're right up with with Einstein. How about that.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I'll take it. I will take it.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
I'm gonna tell everyone I'm right up there with Einstein.
There you go, so Rubin, I can't believe we are
at the end. I feel like we can keep going
on stories and insights.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
But this has been really enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
And can you How can people get in touch with
you if they want to connect with you?
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Easiest one to remember, I think is olympicmotivation dot com.
People can spell that, hopefully Olympicmotivation dot com. There's tons
of videos there most speakers, but like one five minute
video of their of their highlights to anybody can be
good for five minutes.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
I got a I got a page, especially.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Now with the Olympics and everything of the kids being
excited about it. I got my video page has about
twenty different videos. You can pop some popcorn around at
the family, make an Olympic night. They're already g and
and you know who knows you kids might get excited
and start making straight a's okay, so so uh yeah,
it'd be fun. So anyways, Olympicmotivation dot com. And if
(44:28):
you want to do some coaching, uh do a zoom coaching.
Uh let's go to Ruben are U b e N
You like University of the Lousy Student, But I got
my own university.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
How about that? Ruben you dot com and you know,
and check that out too. Awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Thank you Ruben for all of your insights today.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
Thanks for having me. Let's do this again. I mean
I think we could probably do this ten times. Seriously, Yeah, nothing,
we'll get off.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
We will probably have ten completely different conversations.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
Absolutely, I know we would. No, No, I'm serious, so
let me know well.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
And a few of our key takeaways from today's conversation include,
don't practice until you can't get it wrong, practice until
you can't until you just consistently.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Get it right.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
And that mentality is something Ruben talked about in the
beginning and really throughout this conversation. It is it's always practicing,
not only for the times when it's right, but the
contingency plans and okay, what to do and that motivation
walking up you know. He also mentioned the visualization he
(45:38):
does before his races and even before speaking. Like you
mentioned earlier, it's it's that practice until no matter what
you do, there's not gonna be a wrong path of
an outcome. As well as as I just mentioned, practice
that contingency plan, so like I'm a big believer of this.
(45:58):
Ruben spoke about it as well, is like, look at everything,
ask the hard questions, what could go wrong here? What
do we do if this ends up being the scenario
so that you're comfortable in it, Get comfortable with being uncomfortable,
and then it'll no longer be uncomfortable. Really simple, and
Rebn had mentioned that in some of his stories too,
(46:20):
is like, you know, just keep practicing, just keep doing it.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
The reframe of.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
The mind when you feel that fear stepping in is
Raymond also mentioned in one of his stories, and you
push to overcome it. Then you realize a lot of
it was in your head and that you can really
do it and pay attention to what people are complimenting
you on.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
I love how Rubend brought this up because it is
so true.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
A lot of times we don't know what our superpower
is until it keeps screaming in our face and people
are telling us and we're like, wait, it's not that
easy for you, And then it becomes a light bulb
moment of like, how can I use this? How can
I average this to help others, to help myself? And
my last takeaway that I love and I'm gonna start
(47:08):
using it myself is success leaves clues. So what are
the clues that are being left behind right now for you?
This was a great episode with our top notch.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Guest Rubina and Zalez. Thank you for listening and have
a successful list
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