002 Grace Prendergast| winning is hard

NOTE

This episode is longer than usual, we call them ‘Top of The Game (in) Overtime’. These shows are released occasionally and are longer-form conversations than our usual ~15 min run times.

GRACE’S BIO

Grace is an olympic gold medalist with a heart of gold, the pride of her beloved New Zealand and truly a world champion at the very pinnacle of her game and a fierce competitor. She talks to us about the insane amount of preparation and extreme levels of hard work it takes to compete and win on the world stage. The lessons here, there are many, apply to anyone, in any field, anytime.

She is a 15-time national champion in the premier rowing category, gold medalist in the Tokyo Olympics, a five-time world champion and the current world champion in the coxless pair. An off-the-charts competitor and terrific human being who is gracious and self-aware with an intense drive to compete and win. What struck me about this conversation was the introspection and reflection with which she views her outsized accomplishments, and hence, life.

Many of the things she said were timeless, enduring and insightful principles for us all. We usually include one quote from the show in all the show notes, for this one, we included a few:

“The more you put in, the more you get out.”

“Support networks bring out the best in me… no one gets to the top by themselves, there’s a limit to how far you can go alone”

“Thousands and thousands of hours of practice and training culminating in a race that lasts minutes… it is such an interesting range of emotions, super highs and super lows.”

“Mindset is the key to dealing with pressure.”

“At the top of the game the improvements we make are tiny for the huge amount of work required, little incremental changes over time… it’s hard and it’s worth it”

“We designed to fail on purpose and competed against faster boats…it built confidence and made us better for the pinnacle event, we were ready.”

EPISODE OUTLINE

(0:00) - Intro

(0:38) - Background

(1:05) - The early years

(2:45) - Taking the volume to 11; blazing her path

(5:27) - Nurturing a super-talent; practice, practice, practice

(8:01) - many tiny improvements add up to world class; no other way

(9:25) - Taking the world stage; years and years prep for one race

(13:17) - Mindset needed to win and pressure; failures lead to ultimate success

(16:57) - Attaining goals, exceeding expectations; what winning feels like

(21:07) - Support networks; no one achieves greatness alone

(23:43) - The cool part; the pride of New Zealand

(24:44) - Outro

GRACE RELATED LINKS

Grace’s Wikipedia

Race Results - World Rowing

Olympics Profile

Life at Cambridge

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