Strategies for Winning, and Losing

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Hi everyone, I'm Steve Sandusky for Barron's Advisor, and welcome to Actionable Intelligence. My guest today is Lauren Williams. Lauren is an American track and field sprinter and bobsled athlete who competed in 4 Olympic Games. She is one of only 6 athletes who have won a medal in both the Summer and Winter Olympics. She won 3 Olympic medals, including gold, and is a 4-time world champion. And after her amazing athletic career, she became a certified financial planner and opened her own registered investment advisor firm called Worth Winning. In today's conversation, Lauren and I discuss her journey to the pinnacle of the athletic world, the highs and the lows, and the lessons she learned along the way, and how she's applying what made her so successful in the athletic world to building a thriving advisory practice. So let's get started with Lauren Williams. Let's go back a few years. And when you were younger, what happened to make you realize that you actually had some talent for running?

So there's two stories out there. My mother will tell you that I got home faster than the family German Shepherd one day. And she was like, I've got to get my child into a track program. My dad, on the other hand, tells a story me being at the Carnegie Science Center. And there was a Flo-Jo hologram. So I raced that hologram all day long, didn't see anything else. I actually did beat it. So it must not have been set at world record pace because I was only like 9 or 10 at the time. And he said he knew that was when he needed to get me into a program.

And which of those stories do you believe?

I have some semblance of both of those things being true. But how I actually got into it, I think I was just an active kid that loved to be outdoors, loved to run, loved to race. I do remember there being a track and field team in Detroit when I was living with my mother that I went and I tried and I didn't really like. And so I ran around the neighborhood a little bit more, and then she tried to get me back into organized sports again, and it went better the second time around.

And so as you got into some organized sports, was it pretty immediate that you realized, okay, I've got some serious talent here, I'm pretty good, I'm beating everybody else, and I've hardly been exercising? Was it something like that?

It was kind of like that. You know, I was beating girls that were my age, then I started to beat boys that were my age, and then I started to beat boys that older than me, and that's when I knew I was on to something.

And that actually leads to an interesting question, at least from my point of view, which is, it's one thing to have talent, but it can be a very different thing to actually put that talent to work. So, there's a lot of people out there who were super talented that went nowhere. So, where do you think your motivation came from to actually take the raw talent that you had and actually do the hard work that's necessary to capitalize on that and ultimately become a world-class athlete?

I would say it was a series of very fortunate events. So my parents always instilled in me the importance of education. It was at the top of their list of things that needed to be taken care of. It was not a, a thing that you could debate on or go back and forth. It was not open for discussion at all. And so simply wanting to get my education and that having blossomed inside of me and realizing that I come from a family, 5 sisters, 2 brothers, not a lot of household income, that I was gonna have to find some sort of scholarship of money I was focusing on academic scholarships until the point I started to show promise in track and field. And so for me, it was very much, oh my goodness, I can't believe someone believes in my track and field abilities enough that they would actually pay for my whole education because that was the thing that I really wanted. And so the least I could do to repay my coach for the opportunity to get that free education was to work my butt off on the track. And that is what beget my success. And that's how the journey began. And then the passion started to grow from there.

Now, when you were in college, how did you balance trying to be a good student, but also be a world-class athlete? That's got to be super difficult.

Yeah, the time management aspect of things is something you definitely have to get your mind around. But you learn to juggle, like I said, based on, one, what your priorities are, and two, what is demanded of you as an athlete. So you don't have a lot of extra time to not make good use of, if you will. So I didn't have the option to hang out as much or spend all weekend on South Beach drinking and partying, because I knew I wanted to be good at sport. And so I was fortunate that, you know, I didn't do everything perfectly as a kid. I was pretty mature in that realm of, I don't want to be tired. I don't want to be hungover. I'd much rather go to practice and be able to beat everybody. And I know that I'm building something toward my career. And like I said, a big part of that was also wanting to repay my coach. So I didn't want to show up and half do it when she was giving me something that I wanted so badly. And so that really prompted me to say, okay, I don't have infinite time. My studies are important. And also, So the track and field career that I'm building is important because I want to repay her for that. And so how do I work these two things in? And then everything else has to go around that.

So what was one of your highlights in college in terms of your track career?

I would say winning the national championship my junior year was a really big highlight. And the reason is not just because I won, but I just remember what it took to get there. So my freshman year, I made it to the national championships and I think I got last place. Actually, I know I got last place. My sophomore year is where it's a little fuzzy. I was somewhere in the middle of the pack though, around 4th or 5th place. And so my junior year, lots of people who finished in front of me previously, I'd beaten all throughout the season. And I was like, I know that I can beat these young ladies. How do I get to the finish line first? And so I was kind of on this, what do I need to do to get there? And very focused on what do I need to do to succeed and to really make the most of this opportunity? And so it wasn't just that I won, But it was about looking at all the different things that I had gone through to get there to win and all the people that I had to get through, if you will. And it was really a big confidence thing for me as well. Like some of those girls that were bigger, faster, stronger, had larger reputations, they look grumpier when, when they were on the line. It's an intimidation factor to just say, hey, you know what? I practiced and did everything I needed to do just like they did. And I am just as good as they are. So may the best lady get to the finish line first and start to have that confidence. I think was really a game changer for me.

Did you turn pro at some point in here?

I became a professional athlete my junior year of college. So I won that national championship that I just mentioned, and it actually was also the second fastest time in the world so far for that year. And that year also just happened to be 2004. So I mentioned earlier, it was a series of very fortunate events. Like I said, it wasn't a goal or aspiration of mine to make the Olympic team or to represent Team USA. It was to be the best I could in college. And he said, at one point the goal became to win the national championship because I hadn't, but it was mostly to repay my coach. And so immediately I had to shift my focus. She sat me down and had a conversation and said, as much as I'd like for you to continue on at the University of Miami, and it is my job as the coach to try to convince you to do so, you'd be giving up a really good financial opportunity if you didn't go pro right now. Because we don't know what's gonna happen next year. And even if you're running well next year, it won't be an Olympic year. So this is a great opportunity for you to have great earning potential. And I think your best bet is to leave school right now, which is not very popular in, you know, it's becoming more popular now in track and field, but you hear about NBA and NFL and things like that where, you know, people leave college early, but it was not as popular at the time I did it in track and field.

Tell me about your relationship with your coach. What are some of the most important things that you think you learned from her reflecting back?

That unbiased information. I really love how she put my best interest first, stopped and took time to talk to me when I didn't understand something, tried to understand my point of view. The coach is generally kind of an authoritative figure over the athlete, especially when you're young and you're coming to college and you think you're a grown-up. But now that we're older, we realize that at 18 we were nowhere near being a grown-up. And for her to really just have that understanding of me trying to figure myself out, me trying to put myself on a path that felt right and felt authentic to me, but also trying to guide me. She did a really good job of creating that balance and leading me, but also encouraging me to lead myself versus, like I said, just leading with a steel fist. You got to do what I say. That wouldn't have gone well with me and my particular personality anyway, but she definitely had that flavor for understanding and instilling wisdom in me so that I can make decisions and head on the right path on my own.

Yeah, and one of the things I find with coaches is the best coaches are not the ones that get you to work hard. They're the ones who make you want to work hard. You want to please them. You want to get their respect. And you have great respect for them that I want to perform. They take an interest in me, and I want to show them. I want to repay them by just how good I can be.

I could not have said it better. That is exactly how she made me feel.

Excellent. All right. So now it's 2004 and you're at the Olympics in Athens. Was there a high at the Olympics and was there a low at the Olympics that year?

So many things happened at those Olympic Games. So I would say the high was winning the silver medal and the low also being winning the silver medal. And for me, it wasn't so much that it was because I got second place. It was the controversy around the second place. So that time there was a lot of talk about people using performance-enhancing substances, and particularly the young lady who finished in front of me. No one had seen or heard from her prior to the Olympic year, and she competed for only one year after, and then we did not hear from her anymore. And so with all that had been going on in the world of doping and anti-doping as it pertains to sports, there was a lot of media coverage around that. There was a lot of just questioning people not really focusing on the excitement of me getting the silver medal, but a lot of the media was focused on, "Hey, do you think you're the gold medalist?" and trying to get me to play into that information. And so it made it really tough to be excited about the moment, to revel in that moment. In the moment, it is important, I think, for us to celebrate our wins despite what other circumstances might be going on around us, because the joy in and of itself of that moment could be something that I could celebrate forever if it hadn't been overshadowed by what others were inserting into the environment that I was in.

So then let's move forward. What was happening over the next few years in your track and field career?

Yeah. So the next few years I had the pressure of being a full-time professional athlete. Um, that December in 2004, I graduated college. So I graduated in 3 and a half years, got that done, taken care of and out of the way. Cause that was like I said, a very important part of it. So even though I left school early, I wanted to make sure that I got my education.

And what did you get your degree in?

I was a finance major. So I spent the next few years just focusing on being a professional athlete, maximizing the opportunities in front of me, and trying to maximize my full— reach my full potential. 2008 rolled around, and I was the favorite because, as I mentioned, the previous gold medalist was no longer competing. So I was the quote unquote reigning champion, if you will, and the big hopeful heading into that Games, which created a better earning opportunity, but also put a lot of stress on me. People were just like, you have to win, you're going to win, you know, all the media surrounding it and the commercials and things you shoot as a lead-up to because everybody's expecting you to win. And not to kill the story, but I didn't win. I actually didn't even get a medal in 2008. I got 4th place. It's kind of a buzzkill there.

What do you think happened?

A series of unfortunate events.

Unfortunate, okay.

In 2004, my dad was there and He definitely was an encouraging force in my life. So having him around, I think, was a security blanket. So he wasn't like the best at pep talks, or he didn't know a lot about track and field, but simply having him around created like this peace and tranquility. And he wasn't there in 2008. And actually he was sick. So I didn't know at the time, but he had come out of— his cancer had come out of remission and he was hospitalized while I was at the Olympic Games. So that was one thing that I think set things off. China was not the best place to compete. It wasn't the best environment from a team staffing standpoint or team chemistry standpoint. So you felt alone and out there. And, you know, it was just a weird Games in addition to the pressure that I felt. In the actual race, there was some sort of like someone kind of rocked back and everybody— it was almost a false start, but it wasn't a false start. And so everybody agreed across the board that they weren't quite ready. And so that caused people to get out of the blocks late. And the race was what it was. They didn't call it back. And so we had to deal with the results as they were. Like I said, a series of unfortunate events, if you will, that caused it to unfold like that.

Now, you did the 100 meters, but you also did the 4x100-meter relay. So tell me about your experience in the 4x100 relay. Mm-hmm.

It was not the most pleasant one. 2004, I was part of a botched handoff with Marion Jones. So she was handing the baton to me and it was not received. And then in 2008, same thing happened in a preliminary round with Tori Edwards. She was handing the baton to me and it was not received. The big difference between '04 and '08 was that I went back in 2008 to pick up the baton and ran to the finish line. So that became a storyline in and of itself because I didn't quit. And I was just hoping that they were going to be able to reinstate us in some sort of form or fashion and that if, you know, we could just make it through the qualifying rounds, we'd be okay. No such luck. In 2012, however, I was a member of the Olympic team as only a relay member. So I was no longer competing in the 100 meters because I didn't finish in the top 3 at the Olympic trials. However, I had that experience and expertise, or the negative experience as well, to lead the rest of the team. So a lot of the girls that were participating in 2012 were new. Hadn't participated in Olympic Games at all, were like a deer in headlights. And I ended up being the mother hen to say, hey, here's what went wrong in '04. Here's what went wrong in '08. We can't let those things happen because we know we are the fastest team in the world. We are always going to have the fastest 4 girls if we put them on the track and we get the baton around. And we also frequently have world record potential. So we just need to get our chemistry straight, understand what we need to do to get that baton around the track. And I kind of played that role instead of the role of the star athlete in this regard.

And then what happened in 2012?

We won! You won! I ran the preliminary round. I did not run the finals, but in the finals, they broke the world record. In the preliminaries, we broke the Olympic record.

So what happened? You ran the preliminary, but not in the final. What was the decision there?

Yeah, the top 3 girls that had previously— that were competing in the 100 meters had great performances. And because, like I said, I think I got 6th at that Olympic trials, I was 6th on the totem pole as it pertains to speed. Even though, like I said, chemistry is a big part of it, they chose to go with the 3 girls that had competed in the 100 meters. We basically were resting them in the first round because they'd already competed in the 100 meters, and then we switched the girls that competed in the first round out for those 3 girls.

Was that sort of pre-arranged, so you knew that in the qualifying that if you won you weren't going to go into the finals, or Was that a game time decision there?

Yeah, that was prearranged. It could have obviously changed pending injury or some positive result or negative result or something like that. But yeah, that was prearranged. And I think that's one of the things that made it so much better is that people weren't guessing. Nobody was sold a dream. And I was also okay with not going on. You know, I knew where I'd run so far for that year. I knew I was at the end of my career. Things were different. So I humbly stepped to the side because I wanted the team to be able to put their, the best 4 people out there. Not the easiest thing to do with athletes and egos. And I kind of, you know, look back on that moment now, and I'm really proud of that. I'm proud of myself in that moment because, like I said, it's not traditionally what we experience. And I think it's one of the things that holds us back quite a bit.

I want to talk about the 2 relay races, '04 and '08, with the disappointment there. How did you deal with that?

In '04, I didn't know how to deal with it. I was 20. I was on TV. There was a stadium full of people, and it was the almighty Marion Jones, who was the star of our sport at the time, that I botched the handoff with. So it was just one of those things when you felt like you went from doing really well and winning that silver medal to feeling like a failure overnight because America was counting on us. And the relay is such a cool thing. And it wasn't just me, it was 3 other young ladies that were participating that also didn't get their chance at a medal. So It was a really sad moment. And it was never really clear on what happened. Although I have some ideas about what went wrong. And then in 2008, to see it happen all over again and to hear the negative news that was reported, because that was the common thread in 2004 and 2008. And mind you, you know, we were in relays all the time, all through college, all through age group. I have never dropped a baton in my life, in my whole career. The two times that I've dropped a baton or been a part of a— I didn't necessarily, I did not drop it. Let me just clarify. I just want to clarify, the two times that I was a part of a botched baton handoff were at an Olympic Games ever. So not fun.

Yeah. So looking back, it's been a number of years now since then. Have you learned anything from those two situations in terms of how you've handled any future disappointments since then?

Yeah, I would say my ability to keep things in perspective has definitely evolved. Because in the moment something goes wrong and you're just like, the world is ending. How am I ever going to get past this? And I think that's kind of how I handled things as they came. It was like, oh my goodness, what, whatever am I going to do? How am I ever going to get around this? Life will never be the same. But you start to realize, oh, there's tomorrow. You'll wake up, you'll put your pants on, you take a shower, you'll get dressed, whatever. Life will in fact go on. And how you decide to react to those things is a really important part of who you become as a person. So one of the things that I did was implement what I call the 24-hour pity party. And so when something goes terribly wrong and you're having a bad day, you get 24 hours to pout and say swear words or, you know, whatever it is, your way of dealing with it, eating too much ice cream. But after 24 hours, you have to set about the business of moving forward and thinking about how you can learn from that particular situation and then do some action item to be able to actually move forward.

Now, you're interesting from the standpoint that you were both an individual runner, you would do the 100 meters, which is all based on your personal performance. And then you were also part of a relay team where you've got 3 other teammates, and you're functioning as a team. How do you think about that? Because I think about the business world, we've got people who we have to perform our job, but then we're also part of the organization. Have you given any thought to maybe the interplay between individual performance versus team performance and maybe how you thought about that as an athlete.

Yeah, track is incredibly individual, and I think that's one of the things that gets in our way as it pertains to the relays. Like, we have to work together as a team, but we've not been together as a team all year long. We come together as a team for a brief moment in time and have to figure out how to work together despite being very different and also despite being competitors. Because you put 400-meter runners together, it's a 100-meter race, there's 4 people in that race that could be buying for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. So that creates an interesting dynamic. But what I think I did learn was, one, how to work on my own, how to, you know, motivate myself and take responsibility for my own actions. However, that relay in 2012, I think, was a really good instance of teaching me how to work for a team, work with a team, and realizing that you play a role as a part of a team. And that when you play your role— there we go— the team actually can be in a better position to win.. And so instead of, like I said, acting as an individual, thinking about yourself, operating in a silo and everything falling apart, it was a grand example, the two things that didn't go well. And then a really grand example of me actually implementing like, hey, what is it like if I play the mother role? What is it like if I, you know, talk through things with people and make sure everyone's communicating so that there is no tension. And I got to see what it was like to really put the team ahead of myself and the results and the fruits that come from that. And then it got carried over when I started bobsledding because it is very much a team sport there. And so now as I'm in business, I am able to work both in a team and as an individual. And I think I have a good balance of the two.

Yeah, you mentioned the bobsleds. So let's jump into that. So I think this is fascinating as well. So you're starting— you end the track and field career. What are you thinking will happen next when you realize that your track career is coming to an end?

Well, I was kind of like at odds. I didn't know what I was going to do, who I was going to be, where I was going to go. No earthly idea. I was dating a guy. So I was like, maybe I'll just go be married and have kids and be normal. I wasn't really clear on what was going to unfold for me next. The way I ran into bobsled was actually in my last year of track and field. Knowing that was done and that I was not going to try to compete the following year. So I was going on a farewell tour, if you will. I ran into a girl who had tried bobsled before. And like I said, when I talked about that series of fortunate events, I'd read an article about her having tried bobsled. Otherwise the conversation might've never come up. And so I was just like, oh, it was really cool. I saw you tried a different sport. How did you even hear about it? And she was like, Lauren, you'd be perfect for this. You need to be a powerful athlete and you need to have speed. You are definitely power and speed. They'll teach you everything else you need to know. And it's the Olympic year. And I was like, the Olympic year. And I was just thinking of something to do kind of life after sport recreationally that might be interesting. And she's like, no, you should totally give it a try. And so that was in June. The trials were in July, beginning of July. It was actually the last opportunity to try out. It was basically like showing up at the USA Championships and only having one chance, one shot. And I managed to get third there. The rest is history. The next 6 months was a whirlwind though.

So now you're preparing for the bobsled and you go to the Olympic trials and you Finished third. Is that where you finished third?

Yeah. So they do what they— like individual trials, and then they go on to a team trial. So in the individual trials, I got third and turned some heads like, wait a minute.

Where'd she come from?

Where'd she come from? And then we went on to the team trials where you basically date a driver. They're like, hey, do you want to push with me? And then, you know, it's kind of like may the best driver win based on whatever brakeman they picked. I pushed for a young lady who actually didn't end up making the team as part of the Olympic team. So there were 4 different drivers trying out, and only 3 could make it. But it was a really great experience because a lot of people agreed that she was the most talented driver. She had just had some injuries that weren't allowing her to physically be able to get the sled going in a way that was going to get us to the finish line first.

So you pushed for someone else though?

Yeah, so it's a really weird process with bobsleds. So first you do an individual thing, then you do this team thing. And then they put you on the world team. So the World Cup is 8 different races, and we go around there and we try to get rankings for Team USA overall. So there's 3 different sleds that are competing, but we just need to have enough points overall to qualify the sleds to go to the games. So it doesn't matter who's getting what place or with what brakeman or driver at that point. It's just a matter of making sure that we're finishing high enough that all of our sleds qualify for the Olympic Games.

Okay, so you qualify and you go to— where were the Olympics, the Winter Olympics that year? Sochi, Russia.

Russia.

So you go from Summer Olympics in China to Winter Olympics in Russia.

Yeah, very interesting.

Yeah, so what happened there?

So that is where we had 3 drivers and they chose 3 brakemen, but they still didn't know which driver and which brakeman they wanted to pair together. So this is the kind of behind-the-scenes stuff that a lot of people don't see. They see us all buddy, ready to go, but I think it was 10 days before the games they let us know which driver we would be with. And you didn't make the team until 30 days before the Olympic Games. So you weren't official, you were doing all this World Cup stuff in hopes of being one of the brakemen chosen for the Olympic Games. So I could have 30 days before not been on the team at all. And then once I was on the team, I still didn't know which of these people I would be competing with. I ended up in what we call the USA 1 sled. So they rank those 3 sleds. So I told you there's 3 drivers, they rank those sleds in order, you know, priority and who they think is going to be the winner. And so I ended up pushing USA 1, and we did finish highest of all the 3 American sleds, and we got the silver medal. I think it was like by 0.01 or 0.1, so very close race. We led for 3 rounds, so there's 4 rounds in bobsled. We led for 3, and we just had to finish strong, and we actually had a little bump that slowed us down quite a bit, and it ended up bringing us home in 2nd place.

So 1/10 of a second is the difference between gold and silver, and you're on the silver end. So how did you deal with coming so close to the gold medal there?

This one was a lot more painful than that previous silver medal. I was genuinely excited in 2004. This time I felt like I let my teammate down. And that's the thing is, like you said, when you think about individualism versus working together as a team, someone else was counting on me for this opportunity. We both did put our best foot forward, so I didn't hold any grudge or anything like that. But you really wanted to be able to make that happen for someone else. And when it didn't happen, it was just like, oh man. And especially because we led for 3 rounds. To see it so close, to be able to taste it and just have to execute one more time, and then it goes so terribly wrong that we lost the lead that we had, evened out with the person, and then ended up behind them. It was quite a bit that had to go wrong there.

And I want to get into your business career because you ultimately became a financial advisor. So, you've got this world-class track and field record, and then you go into the business world and become a financial advisor. So, a lot of things I want to ask you there. But before we get to that, I want to ask about what is a day in the life of a world-class track and field athlete? So, you're operating at the highest level of athletic performance. You're a pro, you're getting paid for this. What does a day in the life of Lauren Williams look like at your prime?

So I'm an early riser, always have been. So I'm up usually around 5:30, 6:00, no alarm. Some days we lifted weights at 6:00 AM and I preferred that actually. So then you would definitely be up around 5:00 so that you can get into the weight room, get warmed up and all that. So weights from, let's say, 6 to 7, come home, grab some breakfast, hang out for a little while, maybe prep your lunch and your dinner food. And then you had to practice around 10 or 11. And from probably, let's call it 11 to 3, you'd be at the track. So there's the warmup process. There's a pre-warmup where you're getting like stretching and massages and things like that. If anything's wrong, making sure that your body is like working appropriately. And then there's the actual warm-up process. Then there's the workout. And so then once you're done with the workout, you also go back inside and do any additional stretching, ice tub, and things like that. So it's a very, very long— you know, people are like, gosh, you run for 4 hours straight? And I'm like, no, there's just a lot that goes into it. In fact, as a sprinter, you— the furthest I ever had to run was about 250 meters. So, um, as intervals I'm not a long-distance runner, so miles, you know, how many miles do you run? I'm like, I don't do the mile thing. Yeah, so you finish up there at the track, and then you may have to go to yet another physiotherapist or massage therapist depending on what kind of aches and pains you have, or you may just head home. And like I said, nutrition is a really important part of the process. So if you haven't prepped your lunch or your dinner previously, you do that, make sure that you're preparing the right foods because you got to fuel your body. You can't just grab Burger King and McDonald's on the way and call it a day. So that's a day in the life of.

So beyond the natural talent that you had, what do you think are the traits or characteristics of you that were really necessary to be present that enabled you to be so successful?

The characteristics of me— I'm competitive. I love to compete. I don't know that so much that I'm like— I'm not a sore loser. Which I will say one of the things sports taught me was how to be a good loser. That's a life skill that a lot of people don't think exists, but it is a very important one because some days you win, some days you lose. And no one likes a sore loser or a grumpy loser or someone that can't lose gracefully. But also what is the lesson that you learn from losing? And I evolved over time to be able to really just say, okay, what was meant to come of this? What can I do? You know, what do I need to go back to the drawing board? But if I had to think of other things that were, you know, Specific to me and my ability to go to the highest level, I would probably say that I just don't see obstacles. So one of my favorite sayings is, you know, focus on the opportunities, not the obstacles. And I just don't have a lot of fear around trying my hardest, doing my best, you know, putting it all out there, seeing how hard I can push my body. Lent was a big thing for me. Always growing up, I went to Catholic school. And so Lent was a really big time of the year where everybody had to give up something. And it was so easy for me to just say, "Okay, not doing this for 40 days," and to just cut it off in my brain. And I think that kind of spirit, it gives me like the chutzpah, if you will, to be able to do other aspects of sports and things like that at a high level.

Now, you were around other super talented people, and I'm sure that you were around people who failed. As you look at some of these other people who may have had the natural talent but never made it to the level that you did, What do you think were some of the things that got in their way that we can avoid?

Yeah, work ethic, I would say, is number one thing. So just because you have talent doesn't mean that you are well put to be able to maximize that talent because you have to put work with whatever skills you have. Whether your numbers come really easy to you or communication comes really easy to you, there's still some level of skill and work ethic that you're going to need to be able to hone those skills and be able to make the most of them. So work ethic is thing number one. And the second thing I would say that caused a lot of people to stumble is fear and doubt. Fear that they wouldn't be able to do what they wanted to do, or the doubt in themselves definitely gets in our way. Mindset is such a big part of being able to accomplish each and everything. You know, even as a financial planner, I talk a lot to my clients about mindset. How are you thinking about money? If you're always operating from a position of scarcity or YOLO, or you've got to spend everything because you got to keep up with these status symbols, all of these things are things that are in your mind. And you first have to deal with what you're thinking about and get rid of those feelings of fear or doubt, or, you know, comparing yourself to others or whatever those things are so that you can allow yourself to see success on the other end.

Who or what shaped your mindset over time?

I would say many experiences, life experiences shaped my mindset. So experiencing things and seeing them go poorly, experiencing things and seeing them go well. I would say my parents really taught me a lot about just leading with love. And so when something, when I had an experience and it didn't feel right, I had a good gut or intuition to be like, this is not right. You know, you shouldn't pick on other people or you shouldn't do this thing because it's wrong. I, I had a nice moral compass because my parents really instilled in me this idea of like leading with love. Like, is this a loving thing to do? Is this a loving kind of way to talk to people? Is this a loving gesture that you're doing or not? And you can feel right or wrong, and you can steer yourself in a different direction.

So your track and field career ends, your bobsled career ends, and then you decide to become a financial advisor. So how did that happen?

So I had two financial advisors in my life that didn't do the best job of helping me organize my finances. So I want to be clear, I'm not one of those athletes where I YOLO'd and bought a Ferrari and did all these, you know, terrible money things, or, you know, someone took advantage of me and stole my money. That's not the situation. But I did not get the help that I needed either. And so I did not know at the time the difference between financial planning and investment advice, which I think about 70% of our industry is made up of people who really focus in on investments and don't really look at your full financial picture. And I ended up in the hands of two gentlemen that were focused in that area when I desperately needed, at age 20 with very little financial literacy, someone to help me set goals, to really create a plan, to understand that I couldn't run track forever, that this income wouldn't look like this, to talk to me about what I wanted to do life after sport. And that's the kind of stuff that I did not get with the two gentlemen I worked with, which caused me to stumble sometimes financially and not make the most of a really good financial situation. So that is what caused me to want to get into financial planning. And as I learned more and started to investigate the financial industry overall and start to ask my friends questions, I realized that they didn't know anything about money either. You know, some of them had advisors. They didn't know what their advisor was doing for them. Some of them had no one and were spending everything. So today is the day and I'm going to spend what I have and tomorrow more money will come. And they got to the end of a career with no skills. Some of them had no college degree or education and also no money. And so now they're starting from scratch at maybe 25, 28, sometimes even 30-something years old with no work experience. And we're far behind our peers. And they're used to a certain lifestyle, maybe based on a couple hundred thousand dollars of income. And the kinds of jobs that they're eligible for are $20,000 or $30,000 of income. So big differences in the earning potential, in the experience, very few resources and skills available, and it costs quite a bit of stress and strain and strife for the people around me. And I was fortunate to be able to pick up the pieces. Like I said, I didn't end up in a broke situation, but I definitely could have been in a better financial situation. I also didn't know what I wanted to do, but I was lucky because I did have my degree. I had a great network of people to bounce ideas off of and figure out what I wanted to do and what was plausible. And I ended up having good earning potential life after sport, whereas, like I said, Lots of people don't know what they want to do, don't have any earning potential, or, and it's quite a struggle. So the transition is hard, I think, for every single athlete, and it's exacerbated by not being properly prepared financially or resource-wise.

So what skills from being an athlete did you try and carry over to becoming a financial advisor?

I would say the biggest ones, I would— perseverance and discipline. So from a perseverance standpoint, it is for me about being able to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep going. And in sport, you have to do that all the time. You have a bad practice, uh, you get to practice and you're super sore, uh, you don't feel really good that day, you have to show up the next day because the series of those practices are building a foundation for you to have good competitions. You go to those competitions and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But you keep showing up. You don't say, I lost this competition and I retire. Like, it doesn't work like that. You want to continue on because you know, once again, that you're building a foundation and that those competitions, win, lose, or draw, are going to be opportunities for you to get to the championship. In finance, sometimes somebody is not going to want to be your client. Sometimes the client's not going to do what you say. You're going to come up against this series of things that are not fun. Sometimes you're not going to know what to do for the client and you're going to need to reach out to someone for help, and it's not going to be a concept that you understand easily. Today I had someone that was like looking into campaign money. I'm like, I don't know anything about where you store campaign dollars and what you do with them. Or so now I got to go out and I got to do hours and hours of research. Not the most fun thing on the planet, but I really want to do a good job for this client. And so this idea of perseverance and showing up each and every day, even when it's not fun, knowing that you're building a foundation, I'm going to be a better planner because of it. I'm going to be able to help more people. I'm going to be able to build a bigger and better business. I'm going to be able to bring on maybe employees that I can help society because there's somebody that I can help bring an income to their household. So there's all these different things that are building, and that's why you got to keep showing up even when it's not fun.

So as you were starting your financial advisor practice, were you thinking that you wanted to become the advisor equivalent of a world champion athlete, or did your aspirations change in the business world over time?

That is a really good question. And so I think there was a little bit of like, how do I get to the top of this thing? Because everything is a challenge and everything is, you know, accomplishment-oriented as an athlete. But I actually ended up naming the company Worth Winning specifically because I wanted people to focus on what it is that is worth pursuing in life. So for me, the company name is about, yes, you can make it to the top of the podium. Yes, you can win the medal, but those are all moments in time. And then you walk away from that moment and you're like, ugh, What do I do next? So instead of being in pursuit of an achievement, accomplishment, a milestone, et cetera, to be in the pursuit of all things that are your life and that are your journey, because those are the things that are really worth winning. So it's not just the pinnacle moment, it's the pursuit of the pinnacle moment that is really what you're in the midst of. So did I want to be the biggest, best financial planner? There was a, there's a yes to that, but there's also, I didn't know what that meant in the moment. And so now I am trying to develop a name for myself in the financial industry, but it's not in the form of building a huge financial planning practice where there's thousands of clients and I take over the world, if you will.

So, I love the name of your business, Worth Winning. So, I want to ask you, for you, Loren, what is worth winning for you? And then also, as it relates to your clients, what have you found that they've discovered is worth winning for them, and how do you guide them through that process in realizing that?

Yeah. So for me, it is like you said, the helping people organize their finances. That is what I'm in pursuit of. That's the thing that is worth winning. So like I said, it's not a certain number of clients. It's not a certain amount of assets under management. It's not a certain salary. It is people feeling really excited about the fact that they have some clarity around what they're doing, that they've simplified their finances and that money is not this big scary thing. So that is what is worth winning for me. Some of the cool things that my clients have brought up are there's one client that is going to turn 50 the same time that their daughter turns 16, and they want to have a huge event around that. The daughter is like 4 years old right now. So we are a ways off from this. Few years down the road. Exactly. But for them, something that's worth winning is planning ahead for that moment in time. So that it can be a really cool family opportunity instead of one person going off and having their birthday and the other one going off and having exactly what they want. So, you know, people make up all sorts of things that are important to them. Very seldom— I ask my clients, like, is there a number that's important to you? Any numbers that you have in mind? Very seldom do I hear a client say something like, I want to be a millionaire. I want to have the ultimate wealth. You know, 1 in every 20 says something like that. People in general are, I want to I want to, you know, have my family healthy. I want to have my family safe. I want to make sure I can protect them. And so they're in pursuit of health and wealth, but not wealth in the sense of dollars collected, wealth in the sense of happiness, because they can use money as a tool to live the life that they want.

And with your athletic background, has your business focused on working with athletes?

I am a little bit all over the place right now. So I would say that my niche market is young professionals. Professionals. We are currently 30% athletes, 30% lawyers, and then 40% young professionals from various walks of life, various professions, etc. Oldest client is 45 years old and youngest client is 20, maybe 21 now. So yeah, it's quite a broad range there of, like I said, who I'm serving. But I would say that the emphasis is on young professionals, people trying to get started, understand how to accumulate funds, getting organized, which, you know, how do we marry our money if we just got married or we're thinking about getting married? How do we save up for that? We're buying our first home. Uh, we got this 6-figure student loan debt. So those are the kinds of things that I'm sorting through. Very few of my clients are worried about retirement right now. While I am getting them on track and saving for that, that's not the big conversations that we're having. It's, you know, what school should my kids go to? How much do I need to put in their 529 plan? Can I quit my job and become an entrepreneur? How many trips can I take? Because I don't want to wait until I'm 62 to start taking trips. Those are the kind of conversations I'm having with my clients.

Well, Lauren, I think we'll go ahead and wrap it up. What's the best way, Lauren, for people to reach out to you if they want to connect with you?

Yeah, I'm pretty easy to find, um, on all the social media platforms. So my name is Lauren, L-A-U-R-Y-N, So that's a little bit different there. And then Williams, my company is Worth Winning. And so if you search that on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, you should find a platform for both myself and for the company on all those places. And the websites as well. There's lauren-williams.com and worth-winning.com.

I think you do some professional speaking too, don't you?

I do some professional speaking. I actually picked up quite a bit last year in light of the pandemic. I think a lot of people were looking for speakers. I actually did 22 speaking engagements last year.

Very nice. Excellent. Well, Lauren, thank you. Appreciate it. Wonderful story. Congratulations on all the great success you had in your track and field career and all the wonderful things that you're doing here as a financial advisor.

Steve, thanks so much for having me on the show.

My key takeaway from my conversation with Lauren is it's really nice to have talent, but talent will only take you so far. Lauren was blessed with innate talent for speed and power, but it's everything else she did around that talent that enabled her to become a world champion. It was the discipline, the competitiveness, a solid moral compass, and an ability to bounce back from defeat that kept her at the top of the athletic world for more than a decade. So whether you've got innate talent or not, it doesn't matter. It's what you do with what you have that determines how far you go in business and in life. All right, that's all for today. Make sure you like and share this podcast through your favorite social platform. And for more great podcasts, visit us at barons.com/podcast. Take care and be safe.

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