As most of you know, we have a very exciting athlete development project on the go with Basketball New Brunswick at the moment. We were thrilled to have 3x Olympic Gold Medalist Jennifer Botterill as our first guest speaker.

Here are a few lessons I took away from her keynote:

1. Why not you?

Jennifer told a great story about her coming up in the ranks of hockey, and in a time of uncertainty about what she wanted to do or if she could make it to the highest level, she sat with her dad, and he asked “why not you?”

At 13 years old Jennifer was starting to get more involved in hockey, and by 15 she was defining it as her pursuit. By 18 she not only qualified for the Canadian national team but won an Olympic silver medal. Talk about an incredibly quick path to success.

The lesson for me is that at the end of the day someone is going to go to the Olympics, and someone has to be on the podium. If you’re willing to do the work and follow the process, really “why not you?”

2. Ideal Performance Zone

Jennifer describes her ideal performance zone as “playing with a free mind and an unburdened heart.” I love this statement. Anyone who has been a professional or semi professional athlete knows how as your sport becomes your job it is easy to lose sight of your passion. I think this statement beautifully sums up the childlike attitude we should all approach performance- after all at the end of the day it is just a game.

I really took this statement to heart this weekend. Someone did something to me which really aggravated me. Instead of putting eneregy into it I tried to just move with an “unburdened heart.” I felt much more at ease with myself and I got all the work done that I needed to get done.

3. Mindset is everything

I spoke with Basketball New Brunswick after the call just checking in on what we thought about the presentation. Their comment was that Jennifer just has a “winner’s mindset.” Without knowing her it comes through so clearly, even on a 20 minute zoom call.

The lesson for me again is that everything comes down to mindset. Once you cultivate that mindset it can translate to all areas of life (sport, family, business, relationships, zoom calls, etc..) The key then is to recognize the importance of that mindset and to always be cultivating it to be stronger.