EP83 Joseph Polossifakis - Olympian - Fencing

This is episode 83 of the Empowered Athlete podcast.

Hey everyone, en garde, because today we have one of the quickest, fastest athletes we've ever had on the Empowered Athlete podcast. It's Joseph Polisifakis, the fencer, specializing in saber. He's a lefty, he's born in Montreal and as you're gonna hear, he's a great guy, but he has a lot to tell us about and some struggles he's dealt with in his school, in his career, including a devastating concussion that rocked his training and his life for over a year. And he still hasn't shaken the effects of that. Incredible to learn of the process that he's gone through and the things he had to do to stay positive during those dark times. But really, you're going to love this tremendous athlete who's had success in Toronto at the Pan Am Games with silver medals. He competed in Rio at the Olympic Games, and if they ever get the Olympic Games going in Tokyo, well, he's got him for that as well. Hope you enjoy this conversation with Joseph Pelosi.

Bakis.

I don't know about you, but.

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Hosted by Kari Schneider, coach to top.

Performers in sport and life, and Paul Jordan, Former national and professional volleyball player.

Everybody, welcome to the Empowered Athlete podcast. As you know, Joseph Polisakis is joining us. And Joseph, thank you so much for making the time.

I know you're stuck in your apartment in Montreal, so you might have a little extra time. But I have a question for you before we get into the real conversation. You're a movie buff.

Yes.

When you watch Pirates of the Caribbean.

Yes.

Is sword fighting any good or do you hate watching it?

Well, I mean, I get that question. I've gotten it before of, you know, if would I be able to do that? It could be a side career. Do I like watching it? Well, it's actually very different from our sport, but, you know, it's something that at least you could say, oh, you know what, maybe a post career, I could learn that pretty quickly and apply that. But it's definitely those types of movies that got me into the sport in the first place. Right. I mean, as a kid, I loved Zorro. I love Star Wars. And when you get to actually do it in real life, holding a sword as a kid, there's no better feeling, actually, because you could hit people over the head and get applauded for it and encouraged instead of being put, you know, in your corner or timeout. So I was like, what's the downside to the sport as a kid? It was, it was very, very fun.

That's one of my favorite parts of Christmas growing up was when the wrapping paper rolls were finished and then, oh.

Of course, cardboard core cracking each other.

Until they're all bent.

I've broken many a cardboard. Cardboard rolls for Christmas.

He acts like this doesn't continue anymore.

Yeah, exactly. As a kid. As a kid. It was, yeah. Long time ago. A long time ago.

Like he saves them for the kids.

Yeah, of course, of course.

For our listeners. Explain your sport of fencing because now when so much coverage is focused on the big four and you know, it's usually only obscure European coverage, that really gives media attention to other sports. Tell our listeners more about fencing because in North America, as an audience, we just don't get to watch that unless it's got some very special Olympic coverage. So tell us more about fencing and some of the rules around it and dive into how you got into it.

And that's true. And actually, you know, this us actually made a big move of making your flagberry a fencer. I went at the Olympics, I believe in London it was Mario Zagunis. And that was a big moment. But, you know, every four years there's a spotlight and then you sort of forget about it. And even when there is a spotlight smaller compared to the other sports. So, yeah, fencing has been one of the original four sports of the modern Olympics. Pierre de Coubertin was a fencer. Our current IOC president is an Olympic gold medalist in fencing, Thomas Bak, who won a gold medal in Montreal in 1976. So this has been a sport that is part of the Olympic spirit and the Olympic fiber. So very old sport. And what not many people know is that within the sport there are three weapons which are completely different sports themselves. Like, I have never done the other two weapons. So mine is called the saber. There's an epee, and then there's the foil. So a saber is. You would, you know, it's more of a slashing type weapon where you hold it upwards and you slash versus the other two you might have seen is where they point just. And they could only touch with the tip, the tip of the blade with a point. But with the saber, you can hit with a whole part of the blade. You could slash in any direction. But the rules are different, the equipment's different, the competition. So everything is very different. And so, you know, it's. You say fencing, and then even within fencing, there are three different sports, and it's fragmented. So sometimes it's a little bit hard to explain to people all these subtle differences. And if you've never seen it on tv, well, then it becomes even harder to try and tell them how differences work. Right. So definitely in Europe, they showed a lot more, and it's a huge sport in Asia right now. Exploding big time in Asia. And Europe has always been bigger, but, you know, North America, you guys, especially the us, they have a lot of really good fences. It's one of a powerhouse, one of the powerhouses in the world. And a lot of fences have been doing really well. So hopefully that brings up the whole, you know, value of it. If, you know, we've won medals in the two. So I think it's. It's something that should be looked at a little bit more because it's a sport that combines everything, really. It requires so much technique, it requires so much discipline, requires so much mental focus, adaptation, preparation, you know, adapting to every opponent. It's always different. And you could be the best technician and practice technique all your life, but if you don't know how to apply it at the right time against the right opponents, at the right distance and speed, you won't be good. So it really combines everything, and it's a very complete sport.

Side note, when I was playing in Poitiers, France, where we went to work out to lift weights, there was a training facility there for fencing so I could watch the athletes practice. And then living in Europe for so long, you do get to see it more on tv. And you know, Italy and France, where.

I was going out over there in.

The mid-90s, early 2000s, there were the powerhouses then. And yeah, I love watching on the Olympics though, because the camera quality is so good and the replays is what?

Oh, yeah, you need, you need the slow mo.

I could not, and I've watched a few times, I could not tell who had struck. You have the light signals to give you clues, right. But it's so, so fast, it's blindingly fast that you need those like high def replays. And you see the most amazing nuances when you see it that way.

It's just.

Yeah.

And they have come out with a statistic or study or whatever that it, you know, the extension of the blade that goes forward like that velocity and that speed is the equivalent of like a bullet. So it's very, it's very hard to see on the naked eye, especially with, if your karmas are far out. So the best way to do fencing is with a commentator and slow mo replay so that every touch could sort of be reexamined and they could explain what happened and you could see really where the blade went to touch and who didn't touch, who touched at the same time. So that's really the best way to watch it, to understand. Because if not, you could lose a lot of people.

Yeah. Because they just can't follow. So it's hard to kind of get the anticipation of what's going to happen next and who's actually ahead. You need, I imagine, a talented commentator who really understands the sport in order to give it its real justice. And.

Yeah, and an extra challenge is, you know, I won't get into too many details, but sabre is the weapon that has a lot of subjective judging because it's not just when the two lights, when they touch, it's 1:1, it's whoever had the priority of attack. That's how you get the point. So if someone's going backwards and the other one's going forwards and they touch at the same time, it's the guy going forward who gets the point. So if you're on defense, your goal is to make him miss his attack priority, either block him or make him miss and then you get your turn in a way. But a lot of times in the middle, off the middle, sometimes to determine who had the attack. Sometimes it could be nobody's point. Sometimes it could be left or right, depending if they made a mistake or if their arm came out quicker or their legs were not coordinated. So it's a little bit complicated and the ref has a huge input in every point. He decides. Right. And a lot of times they get it right, but sometimes they'll make mistakes. So then if the commentators thinks it'll be something, but then the ref says something, and then they can't really justify it or don't know how it could be confusing. So it's very, very touchy when you're counting. It's a very tough job. So when you have a good one, though, he's able to explain the nuances and say why, you know, referee could have seen it a certain way. And that makes it really interesting.

Yeah. And that human aspect to it, the human. Human error and the human. Oh, yeah, subjectivity.

So that's an extra. That's an extra mental game. Part of the whole sport is like. It's like another opponent. You have yourself to control. You have your opponent and then you have the referee's decisions and how you deal with them. They could really get you off your game and lose the gate, the match for you if you don't know how to deal with it.

It's one thing to be able to let go of your own error.

Oh, yeah.

Well, other thing to have to let go of something maybe, you know, you did accurately or correct and let go of someone else's error.

Yeah. I mean, imagine, imagine. Imagine if you're running 100 meters and someone throws a banana peel and then like, you slip and then you try to keep going and you lose, but you're like, wait a minute, that wasn't my fault. It was a banana peel that just came out of nowhere. How do you get over that and keep going? You know, it's, it's. It's like an external force that keeps impacting you. So if you don't know how to deal with that, it could really crush you.

Yeah, it's a great thing for athletes to hear. I learned as a volleyball player, especially in rally point, when we switched the scoring system, that when every point, every rally counted for a point, that you just have to mentally allocate two points a set.

Yeah.

You're going to be missed because the game's so fast, referees even make a mistake. And if you don't do that, then you will lose your mind in those.

Oh, yeah.

When that thing doesn't go your way, you've got to be mentally ready for it and just be like, okay, this is just gonna be that much harder.

And yeah, and us. It's a 15 point match. And you know, if you tell yourself, listen, I have to make 18 points to win or, you know, or something like that, like you have to tell yourself that and really, and really believe it. Because sometimes you say, but you're like, oh, come on, like, I should get 15, it should be fair. But like, you have to really believe that and that's how you can overcome it. Really find ways to reset in between touches because you don't have that much time between touches and the touches don't last that much time either. So if you rush, it's against you. If you don't have control of what you want to do and your actions set out, you're going to get it against you. So it's so important.

That kind of mental and emotional mastery is the kind of thing that people in everyday life would do so well, would be served by having those kind of skills, that mental and emotional mastery. So that there's not the, you know, there's all kinds of outside circumstances that we can't control, like what we're dealing with with a pandemic right now. But how we master ourselves, our thoughts or our emotions is huge in being able to then have our best performance. Which is ultimately what you're talking about, competition wise.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, I think, yeah, it's important in those moments instead of, you know, sometimes when you'll get upset and you're just like, oh, I'll get the next point and just be like, I'll show them kind of thing, but without really having a plan. That's usually when you lose the point. Right. You get, you get aggressive, you have the energy to do something well. But if you don't put a plan in your head of what you want to do. Exactly, you'd just be a ball of energy that's uncontrolled. So. So if you could funnel that into specific actions that you give yourself, you're going to do that energy really goes a long way into being a positive force instead of, you know, using against.

Yourself and they end up having the advantage ultimately.

Oh yeah, they're in your head and you don't have to do anything. You just make yourself to the point. It's happened, it's happened often to me. I'm not saying I've mastered it either, but it's been an ongoing process over.

My whole career, you're in your head, you're dead.

Oh, yeah, I hadn't heard that one. That's a good one.

Yeah. So tell us how you got into the sport of fencing. Because when I think of our kids and I think of other athletes or athletes I've worked with or he's trained with, it's not the typical sport that parents are putting their kid into. So oftentimes it either takes a familial influence or maybe a proximity influence. So what got you into fencing in the beginning?

Yeah. So, you know, most sports, you know, you've either seen them on tv. So fencing, that wasn't really it. Someone in your family has done it? Nobody in my family had ever done it or your school offers it. And as a kid in elementary school, it was never offered. It wasn't a sport that was offered. But in high school that I went to in Montreal, it was one of it's most renowned saber fencing clubs in Canada. And that was. That's what happened. Right. It's like it was thrust upon me when I got to the school that everybody was applying to make the team. It was like a very hot thing to make the fencing team. It was like making the basketball team or the hockey team, which is very rare. And, you know, you don't see that in many schools, but this one was the school to be at if you wanted to do saber fencing. So I tried out for the team and we were around, you know, 50, 60 kids that tried out and they would only take 20. And the tryouts were, you know, because he had to cut so many people, he started. My coach started the first ever tryout by saying, everyone here is gonna have to run a mile. And whoever doesn't run a mile, you don't even get to start the tryouts for fencing team. Like, if you can't run a mile, it's over. And at the time, it was a little bit chubbier. That's the story. I usually say a little bit, you know, heavier at the time. And I was into soccer and martial arts. I was more like a sprinting type guy. But, you know, long distance mile, for me, that was like running like a marathon. At the time I was like, I've never really done a mile. And I was afraid I was going to humiliate myself and get cut in front of everyone. But what happened was my last class of the day, right before that trial, went like 15 minutes long. It was a math class and I hated math at the time, but it actually helped me in that Moment. So I got to the run late and the coach told me, okay, well, you're cut immediately. You missed the practice. And I said, no, listen, it was my math class, I'm really sorry. If you want me to run now, everybody was done. There were kids crying on the floor because some wouldn't finish it, were cut immediately. And I thought he was going to make me run in front of everyone just like, like solo. And I was going to collapse halfway through. But he ended up. He ended up saying, listen, okay, I don't have time to make you do now. Just come up into the training hall, we'll do the rest of practice and I'll make you run it sometime this week. Thankfully for me, he has a bad memory. And we started doing the trainings inside and then he never made me run it for the rest of the week. And I started, I started doing the other stuff pretty well because I had a good base of martial arts and I made the team. I made the team of 20 people at the end.

Oh my gosh, you stuck below the radar, of course.

And actually, that was actually fuel for the rest of my career because I told myself that it was totally a miracle that I made the team. And I said, this is some kind of sign. So I said, I'm never quitting until everyone that made the same team as me is done in the sport. Like I said, I'm gonna show them that I deserve this spot. And that was definitely the last guy standing. Fifteen years later.

And karma can't come back and get.

You because I said, listen, everyone else is gonna stop before I stop. There's no way it helped in moments of, you know, doubt of, do I continue this sport, you know, with injuries, with, you know, when you get to high school a little bit older in cjep, in Montreal we call it, you know, right before college, you know, you get distracted by so many other things. But I was like, I'm sorry, there's still people from that year competing. I gotta, I gotta keep going. And that's, that was, that's like a story that I always kept in the back of my mind and kept me going through hard times.

That's amazing.

I read your heavily influenced by someone in your club who you watched compete. Was it in Athens?

Yeah. So the first week of practice that we got there, one student who was the first student of my coach since he was, he was, he was. At the time the studio was 26, I was 12. But this was one of the first ever students my coach took on. And it was the club had existed for like 15 years at the time or something. And this is the first time anyone was very close to qualifying for an Olympic Games from this club. And he ended up qualifying for the Athens Olympics. So I was there while he was there training and I was like, wow. I mean, I never thought of Olympics or anything. When I started fencing, I was just like, this is fun. But to have someone in your club who you saw get to that point, you're like, okay, I'm at the right spot. And you know, this there it is possible. So it's such an important factor to have, you know, models or role models that have done something that is. Seems unattainable and they're right in the same training hall as you. It's pretty impressive. And it gives that motivation to keep going and saying that you're on the right track.

Yeah, it's so important. It's like no one could run the four minute mile until Bannister did it. And as soon as he does it.

Exactly right, it's really a mental shift. And to see anybody that achieved that, you automatically, it automatically becomes more of a possibility than it was before.

Just by seeing becomes a question of, well, why can't I then?

Yeah, and you start in the same and you sort of, you know, you start, you can't start by saying, we're gonna make the Olympics. Because then you start putting a lot of pressure yourself at like 12 years old. And you know, you try to do the small steps. You know, I want to be provincial champion, I want to get to that level. I want to get, I want to go travel to competition in the States. And it's small little goals that are always propelling you towards that bigger one. But you have to, you have to really focus on those small ones before aiming for that big one. But if you know someone who's done it, then you get more, you become more patient. And you know that he went through the same steps and that there's no real shortage because you know exactly what he went through, you're going through. So you kind of see the real story and you know it's possible and it's not just some kind of figment of your imagination.

So this is, you've been, you've been doing this since you were 12.

Yeah.

How old are you now?

48. No, I'm kidding. I'm 29. I'm 29. Yeah. Yeah, I'm 29. So it's, it's been, it's been around 16. 16 years. 16 years.

It feels like A long time. Right. Because when you, when you're going through quad cycles.

Yeah.

It marks your, it marks your life in certain ways where you kind of. Oh, yeah, it was that quad and it was that a little.

Yeah. Your life is based on quads. And you remember them so clearly, how they ended, how they started, the stuff that happened in the middle. And then it's like, it's like if you had a book, it's like a new chapter after every quad. In a way, it's very weird as an athlete how your life is based on that. Now this time it's a five year cycle. But this, it changes just the whole way you see your life and how you plan things based around these Olympics. It's unreal, actually.

Well, you made the national team in 09.

Yeah. First time.

You didn't even have a full four year run up to London Games.

No.

Yeah, obviously that must have been the goal at that point. What was that process like and not reaching the goal of getting to the Games?

Yeah, that changed a lot for me. But it was such an intense period because what happened was I turned 19 and I was still considered a junior in the, in the ranks like the 19 and under. Your junior. But I was, I was, I was good enough to make the senior team. And you know, the Olympics is a senior competition with, you know, it's very, very high level. So I started making the team at 19 and I had like two and a half years to grow into the senior role really quickly and usually takes a long, you know, fencing, you peak around 26, 27, even older because you have to mix all those elements mentioned before. Mental feet.

31, 30. 30.

Yeah, yeah, even. Even. Yeah, exactly. I'm still, I'm still uprising. I'm defying logic and physics. No, but even 31, 32, it's, it's. We have a lot of them who are still top, top notch in the world. But what happened was at that point we got significant funding from a program called Own the Podium in Canada and they targeted fencing as a potential, you know, a good, A good sport to target for the Olympics. And we got a coach who came from Russia who took just four of us on the national team full time. That's all. His mission was to train us and try to qualify us as a team for London 2012. So I was training Saber. Saber, yes. Four for the Saber. So just for saber. Yes. And we, we were training two times a day, six times a week. And I was going to school, I was going to university in between. So I'd go training school, training, training, school, training. It was such a. It was a really rough time and it was necessary to get the, you know, you had to get those hours in. It was. It took me to a whole other level, but it also created a lot of fatigue. It created a lot of mental strain just because we're traveling every two weeks, we're going to competitions, then we're doing training camps in Germany and Belarus and Ukraine for six weeks at a time. We were gone because he had all the contacts there. You wanted us to train against better guys, get better quicker. We were on a very tight timeline, so we had to accelerate it and we were seeing results. But life is like this, right? Sometimes you would be doing a lot of training and feeling great, but you'd have just. You'd be in a down phase because you're so tired and exhausted. And it was very hard to do. All that training condensed into that time and, you know, I ended up. We didn't, we didn't end up qualifying as a team. We lost to the usa. The USA qualified and as an individual, myself, I came up short as well because there was a team option as Team Canada. So we didn't make that. And then they would take one or they would take two people from all of the Americas. So the Western hemisphere, they were going to take two fencers who are not part of Team USA to go. So I didn't end up making that cut. And at the time I was 22. And it was a tough, very tough blow actually, which made me, you know, put shift priorities around. I went back to school full time. I finished and I was like, I'm gonna finish my degree. I still stayed active, but after that we lost all our funding from on the podium. And our Russian coach was, you know, let go right away. And we were sort of trying to make a new system come out of that. Right. So it was, it was a heck of an emotional and physical and every, every type of roller coaster you want to. You want to use.

Just hearing that, oh, I hate it. Because just about the funding.

Yeah.

We think you guys have a decent shot at a metal. So we're going to invest in you. You go through grueling training.

Yeah. And two and a half years. Yeah, I mean, two and a half years is never enough to put anything into place, really, you know.

Exactly. And so they put in that investment. You got the right things, you're pushed as athletes, there's ups and downs. I mean, you said yourself it's a roller coaster. Yeah, it's a roller coaster that's getting higher and higher.

Yeah, exactly.

And so put the money in, but you don't get the result right away. So let's pull that funding.

It's very. It's very black and white. It's like, yeah, it's like, will this get us a shiny medal at the Olympics or not? At this point in time? No. Well, then cut. And like, that's pretty much what the program at the time. I think some adjustments, though.

Canada does this over and over with different sports and it's so selective. And we've heard this recently with other sports that are, say, you know, bobsled, skeleton, all these sports where so much has been funded and then as soon as the cycle's done, everything gets reevaluated and certain programs just get slashed and burned. But then there's no hope for people to grow based on what was developed. It's this mentality of scrap everything maybe for a couple of years and, oh, we're going to throw some money at this again because it's from the Olympics, and maybe we'll try and accomplish something because there looks to be some talent in there. I'm going to throw a little money at it. And that's kind of this mentality that Canada goes from. Whereas the countries that do the best in the world doesn't matter what sport it is, whether it's a team sport, individual or more obscure sport, the ones that do the best in the world have legacies.

Oh, yeah.

Quad after quad after quad, they have depth in terms of younger, up and coming, always. And when the funding gets pulled all the time, there's never that legacy, that depth, that growth that can be built upon. And it's so frustrating. And this is where one of the, one of the many, I mean, obviously for this podcast, for us to get it out to other people, it's about overcoming the challenges. It's about going beyond and reaching further. But it's also about having a greater awareness around what's really going on in sport that the public just doesn't ever see because it's not covered on the media. No, think that any of our national level athletes have, you know, a decent living, but they're typically below poverty line. And, you know, some of that is exposing to the general population so they can understand, okay, like, this is what's really going on. This is why, when you watch the Olympics, how can you expect us as Canadians to do any better than we are at a major games? Because there's just the funding isn't There. The awareness isn't there. None of it. The depth isn't there. So Canada should be top in the world at any given sport, especially Summer Games, but we're not because it's never supported and nurtured over time. And how do you make that happen? Right?

Yeah. And I totally agree because every, you know, just for. I'll talk about just fencing, but the countries that are at the top are all the ones that have those. They have the exact same type of system. You have a really strong main corps with young guys who are always fighting for it. They have super, you know, everyone's sponsored in a way. They're sitting in a center together, they train together, they eat together. It's all. And they have a lot of these type of military sport programs or like, the military lets you be like a special status as an athlete. So they get paid from that and then they have their trips paid. And everyone has a similar system. It could be Italy, South Korea, Germany, Russia, all those top countries. There's nobody training, you know, with three guys in the gym with a coach who's paid like $10,000 a year and, you know, trying to make. That's, that's, that's what, that's what we're fighting against. So, you know, with these resources, we had to rebuild everything after 2012 and try to build something up again. So it's like always restarting in a way.

When were you able to get can fund support from Conrad and Jane?

The first time I got canva was in 2015. So it was. I heard about it maybe a year or two before that. I think I'd applied once or twice. And then I got, I think, on my second application. And then you get that call from Conrad. You're like, who is this guy? Like, super nice guy, super cool guy. And I really, you know, that it's getting that call, you know, right before an Olympics, too, when I was trying to qualify for Rio, that immediately, like, that money goes from my hands into a trip to a training camp, into the next competition because, you know, we have to pay all our trips. So it goes straight into that.

It's peace of. It's peace of mind, too, because it's. That it's draining on your, you know, your energy overall, when you're wondering when your next. Where your next month's money is going to come from, when you know what you have to pay for, what you need for your food, your accommodations or your travel or your. And it's draining when. That's what the worry is, when you know, that that's taken care of and you know, you've got the money that you need, then you can focus on what you need to do to get better versus, versus just trying to survive.

Yeah, that's. Then they've been doing this for years and helping so many athletes. So whatever they've done, they're, they're, they're saints. You know, they're, it's incredible. Jane's powerhouse. And as a couple, they're just like super superheroes. So hats off to them. I got to know very well over the past years and, you know, visited them in Toronto and their gallery at their house. So they're, they're super, super people.

That's amazing. So what would you say your greatest challenge has been that you've had to overcome?

Well, would you say? Well, I mean, there's, there's physical ones, there's, you know, the biggest for sure for me physically was a concussion I sustained. So I got back into it in 2014. I was making another run for the Olympics that I decided, you know, I was like, okay, I finished my schooling, I had stayed active, but then I was done school. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go all in and try to make the Rio 2016 Olympics. And two months after my graduation, I was getting ready for the World Championships of 2014. And what happened was I got, we were doing this cross, cross training activity, boxing. And it was very badly managed. He put like, the guy doing it gave us, you know, put two fence. We were fencing, we were fencers, right? So he put two of us in a ring with like these big gloves, like, oh, try it a little bit. And he put me with like another like 200 pound fencer who was just wailing and we were just, we didn't know what we were doing. Okay. I guess he's like, don't worry, it's. These are big gloves, they won't hurt you. So I got hit across the head pretty, pretty badly. And you know, I didn't fall or go unconscious, but I had this just persistent headache that wasn't going away. And that turned into the worst ordeal of my life. I mean, for six months I was seeing three specialists a week. I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn't train, I couldn't go to social situations because the sound was too much for me. I had a constant tinnitus in my ear. I was ringing insomnia. So I just had every symptom and it wasn't going away. And it was compounded by the Fact that, okay, well, I wasn't working. I didn't have school anymore. I was done. So those. I was just in this, like, black hole because I couldn't train anymore either. I couldn't travel. My competition at the Worlds, I wasn't going anymore. And because I go to that, I couldn't keep my ranking up for the year. And that's how you ensure a government funding, the carding. So I lost my top 32 in the world status, which I was at the time. So I lost the funding. And then I was just trying to rehab and just hope to maybe recover in time to have a chance to try and qualify. Like, that was my, my purpose at that time. It wasn't even, let's train a good six months before qualifications, like super hard, and then we'll be ready. I was like, I just want to get back to being healthy and being able to get back on the fencing strip. And that was the only thing I cared about anymore, even that pressure of qualifying anymore. It's sort of. It puts so much things into perspective about my life beyond that in a way that when I did come back from it, I was just so grateful to be able to do my sport again. I, like fell in love again with just being able to compete, being in the sport, being out there. And you sometimes forget about that as an athlete when you're just in it every day, forget that initial love you had. And I was just, I was so grateful and I told myself, you know, whatever happens, happens. And I pulled through right through some really key qualifying events, put some really good results right before the Olympics, and I qualified in 2015 for the 2016 Olympics. And that was part of the greatest, worst, worst time of my life. To the greatest time in my life within a one year span.

What you said, you know, the worst time of your life. But can you tell us what a worst day would be like, what you were really thinking and feeling and how you turn that around? I just know myself personally. If I was ever injured, it was the injury is one thing, but it's mentally that it was the worst that, yeah, honest.

I mean, you know, you wake up every day with that, with like, I'd say a headache, right? And you try to watch tv, it hurts your head. You try to take a walk, you get, you get dizzy outside, you can't, you can't talk to go see, talk to your friends. I couldn't talk on the phone too long because even that was too loud for me. So it's like I was literally on the bed and, like, looking at a ceiling, like, what am I going to do? And it's, it's not even at that point, like, oh, it's, you know, it's, it's. I know I had herniated discs. I've had torn ligaments. Even in that same training year. I had all these things at the same time at one point, but it's like, you know, you're going to get over it, but at this, it's like there's no timeline and everyone is different. Doctors don't all have the magic solutions. They can't give you a timeline. And that's the most frustrating part. That's what caused the anxiety. That's what caused the uncertainty. And also, like, will I ever be the same again after this? And I still do have symptoms that never went away. But, you know, it's that uncertainty of never getting out of this tunnel, never getting out of this hole. That. That's, that's what creates the suffering. And that anxiety is like not thinking. You'll never get over this. And that's the hardest, the really the hardest part that plays on your mind and makes it worse.

Did you pick up skills to deal with it? Did you have somebody supporting you who you could talk to briefly or what?

So I, I was referred to at the time, I didn't, I didn't go speak to a psychologist or something like that. I started playing board games with, like, I would invite, you know, one or two friends and my girlfriend there who was with me, supporting me the whole time, and we're trying to do some board games. I would put, like, headphones on in the house with, like, sunglasses to avoid the light, doing that. And that was pretty much the extent of what I could do, like, social interactions, because it was, it was just, it was just bad. So while I was doing my treatments, I was just doing my treatments, coming back home, trying to rest, trying to do some of the exercises. And eventually I started doing these special. I saw a kinesiologist who was making me work on exercise to get your. Your sympathetic and your parasympathetic system back, back in line because they were kind of out of whack. Your alarm system was just always on. So you had these small exercises of, like, breath your heart rate up and then trying to, like, get it down, because sometimes it would go up and it would just stay there. And it was just always, like, on. You know, that's why you couldn't sleep. That's why your insomnia kicked in. And a lot of interesting stuff. I did some special eye exercises and special machines by a. By a neuropsychologist who had developed something really, really cool at the center where I trained. So I was doing everything I could, and that's what I was focusing on. Just being able to be. Just to get back to being a normal person was my first goal. And then like, fencing almost was coming second at the time. Time. And to be able to come back from that and do fencing was just a miracle for me.

This might be an unusual question, but if you had some magic ability to be able to make that not have happened, would you take it away or would you now being able to look back, would you still have gone through it because of what you gained from it?

Yeah, I've asked myself many times, you know, that question because, you know, usually when you come out of it and then you look, you see what you learned from it, how you grew from it, and, you know, the lessons you learned about, you know, it's, you know, how you grow as a person on the way to a goal is so important. But I would, you know, I would still prefer not to have gotten this concussion because I still, I still have symptoms that remind me of it. So it made me a stronger person for sure. But, you know, I wonder what I would. I've been. How would I have been if I never had this? What I. Maybe I never would have even qualified for the Olympics, right? Maybe I would have not, you know, had some other injury that would have taken me out at the wrong time or maybe during that, I would have over trained. I don't know. You know, so I think I don't have any. I don't think I should. I should, you know, say it was, it was. It was useless because I learned a lot. But I do regret doing that activity in a dumb way and not, not in my head. I was like, this is stupid. Like, I shouldn't be doing this. Like, I should maybe not be punching each other in the head with no headgear, even though he's telling me it's fine. He's the coach, like, he's the boxing guy who knows what he's doing. But it's like your ego sort of gets in the way and you see other people doing it, oh, it'll be fine. And just like, no, I should have just said no, and just, I'm fine, I'm doing. But you kind of get into what the group's doing and you just, you know, put silence those voices. And that's maybe the biggest lesson I've Tried to learn is like, when you have that voice in your head, just listen to it and just forget the ego, forget the pride. Forget what other people are gonna think, because you could have some really bad consequences which are totally in your control to avoid when you could avoid it. You should avoid it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Wise words.

Yeah, definitely. And, you know, that was. You know, that was the tip of this. Because when I slow.

Because, like you said, you're in environments, you know, with the guys.

Yeah.

And.

Yeah. I mean, it's dumb. And looking back, you're like, how could I have done that? But when you're in the moment, it's a different feeling. And you don't want to be like, oh, you know, it's fine. It'll be fine. You know, you don't. Kind of like an athlete mentality. But. No, it's. Sometimes you just have to say no, and sometimes it's. It'll save you a lot of problems, like I learned.

So the Olympic process, you made it out of the concussion. Yeah. What was the Rio experience like for you?

Oh, it was incredible. I mean, what. I also realized that when I. When I got there, we were at the. My parents were selected to come to the Canada House and cut the ribbon with the Governor General to, like, the Canadian Olympic House. And that was such a huge, huge honor that I still remember to this day. So, like, we opened up the Canadian Olympic house to all the family and friends with the Governor General and my parents, like, they represented, like, the parents, you know, of all the Canadians that were gonna come. So that was a huge, huge moment, which almost didn't happen, by the way, because my parents. A lot of flights. I don't know if you remember, but for some reason, a lot of flights were getting canceled to Rio at the time. And my parents. Flight got canceled, but CBC managed to get them on a plane. One, one. One last seat. I don't know how they did it, but they got them over and they made it in time to do that, the ceremony. But that was a moment I'll never forget. And then just having. I had 10 people at the Olympics. I had my girlfriend, her family. I had friends. I had my parents, my family, and they were all at the opening ceremonies. And going in that stadium at that time was like getting shivers when you realize where you are. And not just that, but being around other Canadian athletes who are around you, who start crying around you, like guys, girls, whatever, everyone. So many people crying when you walked in because you realize they went through some crazy stuff to get there, too. And over the course of the two, three weeks, you get to know your teammates and hear their stories. You're like, wow. I mean, it's pretty much just pick any one of these people and they'll inspire you with something that they overcame. People almost dying, you know, having crazy. You know, I know track cyclists almost like, broke his neck before the Olympics. A diver who, like, a platform broke, and when he was doing this exhibition show and he fell into a ditch and had, like, six ribs broken. So things like that, that you just, like when they overco, you come into that, into all the shiny show, you're like, my God, it took so much crap to get here. And then you just really appreciate it way more than if someone just gives you a ticket to the Olympics and you showed up. You know, it's. It's very different. It's very different.

The value and the meaning is just so huge.

Yeah, yeah, it really is. And you, You. You try to, you know, be proud of what you did, and you try to take that with you in other areas of your life, you know, and that's what you have to always remind yourself of what it took to achieve a big goal and then try to recreate that and tell others about it. You know, are there any lessons or.

Takeaways you have from the experience that you would change looking forward to Tokyo 2021 now?

Yeah.

2021.

Yeah. Is there just in terms of the Olympic experience or.

I know a lot of athletes have talked about being there and striking a balance between allowing themselves to enjoy the experience and at the same time, performing their best.

Yeah, so that's a good point as well, because you get to. It's sensory overload. You get solicited here and there. You get invited to dinners with CEOs from Canada. You get invited to events with this person and this person, and then you go to. Every country has their own house that you go visit. So depending, you know, some people competing on the last day, which is pretty like, that's, that's always a hard balance. I was around five days in, which is actually good, because you could do the opening ceremony without feeling bad about it, that you're not competing the next day, but at the same time, you have some time to acclimatize. But even within. Yeah, but what I realized, like a normal day, there is like five normal days here. Just so much that goes on, and it does become mentally draining. Even though you try to stay, you know, physically, I'm not going out and running every day or, or doing, you know, crazy Things and doing some workouts and training. But doing this is so hard. Especially as a first time Olympics. Like when you came so much to get there, you're kind of like, wow, I want to, I want to experience it.

Yeah.

And just for the, just for the listeners, you kind of put your hands to your head like you're putting blinders on. You can't put blinders on, right?

No. Yeah, it's hard. It's very hard. You know, and, and I guess with Olympic experiences that what, that's what I think. If you go a second time, you learn that a lot better. And you're like, okay, I know this happened the first time. I get blinders until I'm done. And then. But you know, I try. It's not like I was doing crazy things before my competition. But you still, if you get there and you're kind of just, just always on. So you know, what happened is the day of my competition I was, I was feeling okay, but I was feeling a little bit, you know, just a little over stimulated. Yeah. And not being able to get back to just okay, let's stick. What's going on here? You're just kind of going on adrenaline and not, not thinking through, just sort of reacting, you know, instead of planning, acting, taking control. So that, and then referee mistakes at the Olympics are magnified times 10 of how they affect you. Because every point, you know, fencing at the Olympics is you go. Let's say they take 30 people in the world around, right? So we're around 220 high level fencers to do the World cup circus. You take around 30 and I was ranked 29th at the time in the world or something like that. And you just go, number one fence is number 30. Number two fence, number 29, direct elimination. There's no round robins, there's no warm up. 15 points if you lose your out. So I was against number, I don't know, like four or five in the world. You start, you know, you start, it's a tight match. Referee makes a couple of mistakes or that you think are mistakes, doesn't matter if they are or not. If you think they are and it gets to you, you get a little bit rattled. You see your family, you see it's hard. It's, it's a lot of things at the same time. So every point is so crucial to recenter yourself. And instead of doing that, I was getting more excited in a way, like aggressive. And it wasn't working. So that's, that's something I would definitely have to Change. So it's. It's literally.

And it's three, three minute periods.

Yes, but in sabre, we never. We never get there. It's too quick. It doesn't last that long. So theoretically, yes, but they never use the time. They never use the timing saber in foil. And epic. Yes, it's very important. For 33 minutes, they use them.

So your Olympic competition literally is, if you're out in the first round, under nine minutes.

Yeah, yeah. Around with some breaks in between touches. It's around nine to 12, maybe 15 minutes done. So if you attach your whole value of, you know, I'm being an Olympic medalist, or if you. If you don't make it a good result at the Olympics, you're worthless. And you. Based on 15 minutes, you know, if you don't learn anything on your way there, well, then it was. You're gonna be very crushed. And you have to find other ways to put that, you know, into perspective and just be. Be very grateful for what it took to get there, you know, and not define yourself by, you know, being an Olympic. Just being an Olympic champion or an Olympic medalist, you know, even just participating is so difficult. But even if I didn't make it to Rio, is what I'm telling myself is I had to learn to accept that I should have been proud of myself no matter what. Just being able to come back from it, right? Because I did. The different parallels between London and Rio, and in London, I was devastated. It crushed my identity, and I didn't know who I was after that. Typical feelings. When I didn't qualify, it was like, what was the point of doing all this all these years? It came to nothing. Finally, even though I had done medals at world championships, I made friends around the world. I traveled to 40 different countries. I had, you know, interacted with so many people, it enriched my life in so many ways. But you attach it just to achieving that goal of becoming an Olympian, Olympic medalist, and then if you don't achieve it, that's the best way to crush yourself, you know? So when I came back in Rio and I came back from the concussion, my perspective changed so much, where I was just so grateful to be back doing it and just enjoying the process. And I said, listen, even if I don't qualify, I just have to know I came back and I tried my best, and I just love what I'm doing, that you have to think of it that way, even though it's very hard because we're so goal oriented and saying, you either achieve your goal or you don't but it's so important that it's cheesy. But, like, the person that you become on the way to the goal is way more important than achieving that goal. Because when you achieve a goal, you always want to achieve another one, and you're sort of never happy. You have to enjoy that process.

It's huge. We talk on here a lot about the athlete identity, and we've talked about that with Paul as well, and how that is sometimes insidious. You don't even realize it's there until the big thing fails. And the feeling of everything slipping away or losing everything or just being so devastated or depressed. Now it seems that you have greater perspective, not only on yourself, but on life, and that, you know, this next Olympics is a part of your life, but isn't your whole life.

No.

Yes. And that's kind of a bigger. A bigger global view. On a micro focus. If you narrow down on your mental aspect of how do you reset? Do you have techniques or special ways that you reset in between every point or between every questioned point? Because that would be almost the complete opposite or the complete paradox to that global perspective. How do you focus in on that micro perspective?

Yeah, I mean, it's been something that, for a lot of years, was very hard to find something that was like, something that would work all the time. But what I found best work was always, always take your time. Never go back on the line quickly. First. First thing is that if there's something that really affects you, shocks you. The worst thing is, like, okay, I'm gonna go get the next point and go right on the line. And then, you know, not take that time to really set yourself back on without having a thought of what you want to do if you. If you go back on without an idea after being rattled by a point. Very rarely have I ever gotten the point. I've made some kind of irrational quick move that's easy to see, and my opponent sees it a mile away. And in the meantime, he's very calm, takes his time, and you're just there, ready. But it doesn't work. So I've always found ways to give myself certain words that'll be like, okay, like, two small steps on the next. On the next. Start with two very small steps, very specific small actions that'll force me to think and slow down the time a little bit or just, you know, instead of, you know, the ref will make a mistake. I'm gonna try and walk. Walk back to the edge of the strip. Gives me a couple, like, five more seconds by the time the rest is, hey, come back to the strip. But it gives you those extra seconds to think of, you know, okay, what happened? What am I gonna do? Give you that extra time. You need to buy yourself time, because every time you don't, or every time I don't, I've realized I very ever rarely get the point.

You also take a breath to reset some of your. Your biofeedback, your heart rate, that kind of thing.

Yeah, I take three big breaths like. Like slow it down. And sometimes, you know, not when, you know, you get mad by a referee call, but if you feel a little bit, you know, like, not energetic enough, you could do short breaths that'll give you a little. A little boost, right? A couple of short breaths to give you a little boost before a point. That's really important. You just want to be alert, and then you tell yourself an action. So it depends on what you're feeling. If you're feeling very riled up to try and get down, give yourself that extra step space that time. Give yourself specific action that you want to do. Very specific. So you don't get. Make your brain make something, just a crazy, irrational move.

Give it.

Give it a specific direction, and then take your time to get on that line, like, get yourself ready to go. It always happens when I'm not ready that I lose those points. And that's what happened at the Olympics, is that, you know, I would get a. I would get a point. You get a point and get a point. You get a point. Then there'll be two points that I thought were mine that went to him. So instead of being, you know, five, three for me, it's five, three for him. And then you're like, okay, well, I can't. I don't want to lose three in a row. Let's try and get this one quick. You're sitting down, six, three. Then you're upset at yourself. Then he makes, you know, he's sixth in the world. He's not just standing there like a scarecrow. He's coming at you as well. So he's very hard to stop as well. Oh, my God. You know, so it just. It starts bubbling up, and you don't even know what you're doing at one point. You're just. You're just there just acting, reacting, and he's in control. You've lost control.

So what's your plan or response to this postponement of the Olympics coming up for the pandemic that we're dealing with now? Yeah.

So for Me.

Qualifying process as well.

Just so sorry.

If you can also just share in your answer the qualifying process of the steps.

Yeah. So it's, it's, it's one year of competitions, 10 competitions around the world. And at the end of that, they take one team and one individual from the Western Hemisphere who's not on that team. So I'm fighting to be that one individual right now because once again, you know, Team Canada lost to Team usa. So Team USA is very likely qualified now. And they're very strong. They're very good. I mean, number two in the world and number eight in the world. They're like two. Some really strong fences. So hats off to the USA for that. They're good. But I'm fighting for the one spot in the Western Hemisphere now, so I'm in a tight battle. And we have one competition left.

When.

We don't know when it's going to happen. And now it's, you know, you just have to be. You can't really give yourself timelines right now. You know when the next Olympics are, but you don't know when the next qualifying event is. But from what I'm seeing, I mean, I don't think we'll be competing before September because every country has to come out of a lockdown in order to be able to. You have. You can't do an international competition if half the countries can't show up. It's not fair. So everyone has to be out of lockdown. Everyone has to be back and running and being able to let their athletes go. So I really don't, I don't know how that'll be done, you know, and then organize a competition? I don't see before September.

Even. That seems early the way you're describing it.

Yeah, I mean, every country has to be out of lockdown, and we're still in countries that are on the way up.

So with cases, you're in quarantine right now because you just got back in the country. So then are you. Are you gonna take a small break because you can't compete anyway and then get back at it in terms of getting as much training? But now, since Team Canada hasn't qualified, are you going to have the support and the coaching that you need just to get the reps, the practice, the opponents that you need?

Yeah, we have support, but our training center now is closed till mid May already. So we can't even train fencing at all right now. So you just have to. We're getting emails, we're gonna get online. We're gonna start getting online training programs, trying to do stuff at home. And I actually, I'm on day 16 that I'm back now, and I also got a test that was negative. So I'm. I'm officially out of quarantine. But, I mean, everyone's still quarantining even though they're not sick, right? That's. That's been the reason. It's like, stay home anyway. So it's like, you know, it's act as if you have it, even if you don't. So everybody is, like, in the same situation. What I'm going to start doing more of is going outside and getting some fresh air. Because usually they say when you come back in 14 days, don't even go outside. Don't go to. Don't do nothing, because you could infect people. So I was strictly abiding to that. But now I think the weather's getting better and get some fresh air and try to get that working again. But there's another side to this where I'm also. I'm working as well. I, I, you know, after. After Rio, I took a. Also I started. I stopped for a little bit of time fencing because I was. I started working at Bell Canada. I'd gotten a job with them. And two years. Two years later, I was training a little bit, doing a couple competitions, but very, very light. I was focused on my career. And two years later, I found another opportunity with Petro Canada. I don't know if you guys know them, right? They're. They're very big gas company here, that very big Olympic sponsor. And I told them my situation, said, listen, you know, it's. It's. We're about a year, two years out. I want to try and get back into it, but, you know, I have no more funding, and I'm not ready to get in debt, like, you know, 30, $40,000, try and make another Olympic run. And I'm gonna be older, and, you know, I need to think of plan B. So I found a way to do a job while also training and competing for the next Olympics. So it's been about an experiment I've been doing now for a year and 10 months, nine months now. And it's been a heck of a whole other. Whole other challenge I've never had in my life before, which has been very tough on paper. I managed to make it work with some flexible mornings off, nighttime trainings, working during the day, traveling, leaving, coming back, having someone covered for me, then catching up with everything and trying to still manage but, but it's been a heck of. There's a whole other challenge this time around. Very big challenge because I'm the only one in the world doing this in fencing at least. So I see why now.

This is the demand or the challenge for the Canadian athlete, Right? Because, okay, we want to do all the things and make the living, but we don't have the, we don't have the support or the funding to be.

Yeah. And you know, I was like, you know, if I go back all in and, you know, I have to pay out of my pocket, then I'm old, if I get injured and then I still, I've been out of, you know, out of, you know, touch with like, you know, the business community. I'm gonna be 29. You know, I'm getting older. Girlfriend has been supportive, but still, at some point, I have to convert to real life at some point. So I said, you know, if I could find a way to make these work, at the same time, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna do it. But I was. If I didn't, you know, find a job that was accommodating, I don't know if I would have even re. Embarked on this journey. Because I was, you know, after Rio, after everything that had taken that toll from, from London and what it took to get to Rio, I was like, okay, well, I'm pretty satisfied. But you know, something, you know, opportunity came up to try it again and I said, let's, let's try it. But I'm not like 120% full time in it. I had to find a way around it using more my experience. But it's been working out pretty well. I mean, I started when I, when I came back In, I was 400th in the world. And I got back into being in the top 32 in the world. So I found a way around using experience. That's what happens when you get older. You get better with experience, dealing with these situations, even if. Yeah, that's, that's what helps. Right? That's what helps. You know, at least in fencing. You know, I don't know if in track and field I would have been able to use experience to be fast in 100 meter. But it depends on the sports you're able to adjust to because you're still physically strong, but now you have the technique, you have the tactics, you have the experience of knowing how to calm yourself down, how to hype yourself up. And it's such a big part of being good at fencing is knowing how to Control the emotions, the game, the tactics, and your opponent.

That's huge.

Yeah.

Well, Joseph, we got to start winding up the conversation.

Yeah, we do.

We want to learn a little bit more about you, you know, away from the sport and what lights you up. And obviously we're all in lockdown scenario, so. So what movies are you watching? What books do you read?

Yeah.

Oh, my favorite movie ever is. Maybe it's a little embarrassing, but it's Dumb and Dumber. That's my. It's my favorite movie. It's like, I don't like. Usually I don't like watching movies like more than once, maybe twice. I've seen that. Yeah, I've seen that movie 15, 20 times. Like, at least in the past, like two years. Like, I watch it repeatedly. I don't know why it's. And Jim Carrey as a kid was like a really. I love Jim Carrey. I watched all his movies. But definitely Dumb and Dumber is my go to and books right now. I haven't been reading books. I listen to a lot of, you know, you know, podcasts. I listen, I read the news. I'm a super big news guy. News freak. I love stand up comedy too. I listen to a lot of stand up comedians, so stand up. Well, Louis CK Used to be my favorite. And, you know, he had a little bit of a falling out, but, you know, I liked his. I like the stuff. I like Bill Burr as well. I find him. Yeah, I find him pretty, pretty darn good. Listen to those guys a lot. And podcasts. No, obviously I tried. I started a podcast as well after the Olympic, actually like around a year and a half ago. And I found. I started interviewing other Olympians because what we're talking about is so true. And I thought it was important that, you know, between two Olympians have conversations about lessons they could learn from each other and things you could extract. So I started doing that and I have, you know, I have around six episodes released and a bunch of them in the editing room still. But it became very difficult with the working and traveling to do it all at the same time. So now I'm trying to give myself some time now to start pumping out the other ones I've had and start getting some more interviews out. Right. Because something I want to keep doing.

What's your podcast called?

It's called the Olympians Podium. It's on itunes, Spotify, all that stuff.

Awesome. And then do you have, do you have a favorite. Do you have a favorite food or dessert.

Food?

My favorite food. I'd Say is sorry.

Schwartz's Deli.

Yeah. I mean, smoked meat is very hard to beat. It's very hard to beat smoked meat. But I'm a very big sushi fan, too. I love sushi. I really like sushi. And dessert. I also have a very big sweet tooth as well. That's. That's. That's. That's. It's hard to stop. It's hard to stop it, but, you know, anything that has, you know, chocolate in it. I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan. It's hard to stop me from any of those things. Yeah.

And if you had a message to send out to young athletes, it could be fencers, but they could be any young athlete. What would you want to share from all the years that you've got?

Yeah, there's a couple of things I'd say. You know, one is a saying I heard, you know, about a year or a year and a half ago, and it was on Joe Rogan's podcast, I saw him mention someone brought it up, and it was a saying, how you do anything is how you do everything. And I found that really, really deep because I used to think it wasn't the case, like, growing up, I was like, you know, you have, like, put everything into boxes, and, you know, if you're. If you don't do something well here, but you could make up for it here. And, yes, people have strengths and weaknesses, but if you're not doing something right in one area, very likely you're not doing it right. It's just sort of how your personality. If you don't. If you don't invest yourself in whatever you're doing at that time, you're likely not gonna invest in anything else that you're doing. You know, it's not to say that, okay, so we don't like things more than, like, other things. But when you do like something and you put the time right into it, usually you'll be someone that likes to invest time and do well and everything. So if you do something well in some area, likely you'll be trying to do something well in another area. And in my head, I used to disassociate things. I'm like, oh, you know, I could. You know, doesn't matter if I don't do that. I could do that. I'll step up when it's important and do this better. But everything's important. Everything's important to do well if you want to do well in the bigger picture. So I think. Think that's very Important as growing up that how you do anything is really how you do everything. So be careful of what habits you develop, because it's much easier to develop a good habit than to try and break a bad habit. So I think it's. Yeah, I think it's really huge one.

I love that one. And I haven't heard it for a while. And it is, it's exactly what you're saying. It's along the lines of the things that are easy to do and also easy not to do and sometimes can be those small things. And it's the same vein of what you're speaking of, that those young athletes, if they get those small. Those concepts of the small things, those can be the details that really make a bigger difference down the road.

Yeah, so that's one. Another one I'd say is, you know, something I learned firsthand is really try to enjoy the journey versus, like, attaining that goal, just the goal. Because, you know, attaining the goal is great, but it lasts. You know, mine lasted 15 minutes. And if you, if that's all you have to say that if you were succeeded or not, you're gonna be very unhappy, you know, so, you know, get. Getting to a goal is very important, but it really is the person that you become, everything you've learned, the people you've met, the experiences you've had, that's really what life is about. It's all about that time in between goals. You know, time between attaining goal is really where you're living your life. The goal lasts a certain amount of time and it's over. But those moments that lead up to it is what defines the life, you know, So I think it's very important to enjoy those. And if you're not enjoying them, well, then ask yourself, am I doing the. Am I in the right thing? Is that's what I want to be doing. So another thing is like when, you know, when you hit walls or when you. When you're about to quit, always ask yourself, okay, why am I doing this? And if you still like the answer, well, then it's good to keep pushing through. But it's also good to sometimes, if you can't answer that why anymore? And you really don't like, or you don't like what you're doing, or you can't give yourself a good answer, it's okay to stop as well and pivot. You know, it's sometimes you. You think, you know, people say never give up, but you know, sometimes maybe it's important to, like, if you're not Doing something for the right reasons. You pivot into something else or pivot or change or make an adjustment. It doesn't always have to be like, never give up, no matter what. Sometimes you should maybe make a pivot, you know, but if you have that why answered in your head, keep going, don't give up. Go through with it, because you're gonna be happy at the end of it. You did. You're gonna become better for it, you know? So I always try to ask myself, why am I doing what I'm doing? What? And when it. When it starts to lower in quality of the answer and you're just trying to find reasons, you're kind of getting a hint that maybe it's time to switch it up, you know, or move on and do something different.

Yeah. And then. And then when you do, you know whether that was the right move or not.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

The answer, you know.

Exactly.

Hey, now I know. Yes, this is the direction I need to. Need to go. But you can never really know unless you try something a little bit different.

Exactly. So I think it's very important to always have that internal conversation with Jean and not just get bogged down in a routine. And I should be doing this. I should be doing this. Really ask yourself, why are you doing what you're doing? You know, and be happy with that answer. Yeah.

Well, it's fantastic advice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're so grateful to have that kind of. That kind of depth in the experience that you're offering. This way. Is there any. Anything else that you want to add before we wrap up?

Well, we did a good overview of my life. I'm gonna start writing a book after this podcast. I'm just gonna retranscribe it and write a book based on my stuff. No, I'm very happy. I think we had some good stuff. It was honest, right? Genuine. And thanks for having me. I don't have anything really to add. I'm all out of wisdom and fortune cookie advice, you know, little wise words. I'm out of it.

Well, then, Joseph, on behalf of Kari and I and all our listeners, thank you so much for taking the time for your honesty and sharing the good and the bad. And, of course, your advice at the end, there is just words we can all learn from and apply.

And that's the point. That's the point of this stuff. So thank you so much for having me on.

We just need one more dumb and dumber quote before we.

What's my favorite one? My favorite scene is with the gloves. The gloves is one of my favorite. When they've been freezing. I can't remember the exact line, how he says it, but he's like. He has his gloves on. He's like, so you've had two pairs of gloves this whole time? And he looks and he's like, yeah, we're in the Rockies. It's like he's hypothermia and he's had. And he hasn't told them just the way he looks at. Yeah, we're in the Rockies. It's just like. Then he just wants to kill him. It's just like that gets me every time.

There you go, everyone. Dumb and dumber tonight on Lower Lockdown.

Yeah, we're in the Rockies. It's good.

Okay, I'll stop.

Joseph, thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much, guys.

Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you're wanting connection with Kari and I for online training, public speaking events or more, simply send your request to infopowerconditioning.com and hey, we need your help to keep growing this show, so please share it with coaches, athletes, trainers, parents, anyone who you think might be interested. Get them to smash that subscribe button and follow the empowered athlete podcast. We can't do it without you. Thanks again for listening. Hey, everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you're wanting to connect with Kari and I for online training, public speaking events or more, simply send your request to info powerconditioning.com and hey, we need your help to keep growing this show. So please share it with coaches, athletes, trainers, parents, anyone who you think might be interested. Get them to smash that subscribe button and follow the empowered athlete podcast. We can't do it without you. Thanks again for listening.