Lessons I’ve carried over after my professional skating career and why time well spent is never time wasted.

This story was also published through Stryker

The 2019 US Figure Skating Championships just concluded this past weekend, and this time of the year always makes me reminisce about my competitive days. This championship in particular was special because it was in my hometown of Detroit, Michigan where my skating journey began. It was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and training mates and to reflect on the large influence skating has had on my life. Today, I rarely frequent the ice and my professional career is completely detached from the world of figure skating. But the over 10,000 hours of training weren’t all for nothing. I want this post to echo the life-long lessons I’ve learned and why it will always be worth it to excel in something (athletics or otherwise) when you’re young. I hope this encourages both families and athletes to always strive for the best because time well spent is never time wasted.

Discipline and Time Management

I trained 6 days a week all year long. My daily schedule looked something like this: 30 min warm up off ice, 3 hours on ice, 1 hour off ice, 30 min of stretching. Then throw in some ballroom dance, modern dance, conditioning, and ballet. All this while juggling school and coaching during the latter years. Skating made me realize it is possible to do it all; it just takes planning and focus. Don’t just take my word for it! Nathan Chen is arguably the world’s strongest mens skater, all while attending Yale. There is so much value in a goal-oriented, measurable approach and the feeling of accomplishment is so exhilarating. To this day, one of my greatest highs is my finish after the 2012 US Figure Skating Championships.

Healthy Living

Garbage in, garbage out. That was the lesson we lived by when it came to nutrition and sleep. This is the foundational lifestyle for success. Through simply eating and sleeping properly I maximized my energy and capabilities, and lowered the chance of injury. Even throughout college I maintained 8 hours of sleep and never pulled an all-nighter. The importance of sleep and proper diet are two things I will never take for granted.

Skating has taught me a lot about failing gracefully and picking myself back up with a smile (sometimes all too literally).

Resilience

Over 10,000 hours of training and it all comes down to two 4-minute performances to show the judges what you’ve got. In few other sports is there ever so little opportunity to recover from a mishap. In school, if I worked hard, I did well. I generally believed work ethic to be the sole determiner of success until I started skating. That’s when I realized there’s an element that is out of your control: luck. Who will the technical caller be? How is the ice quality by the time I skate? Will I trip on a rhinestone on the ice? Will my costume malfunction? It’s crushing when your performance or results that day don’t reflect your skills and effort. Skating has taught me a lot about failing gracefully and picking myself back up with a smile (sometimes all too literally). It has taught me the right mentality and humility to approach challenges with. Even today, when I am asked to think of a time I had to overcome failure and disappointment, missing nationals by less than a tenth of a point but then coming back the very next year to win Sectionals (the qualifier for Nationals) comes to the top.

There’s a strength people don’t talk about in skating: mental

Mind Over Body

When you see skaters at Nationals or the Olympics “bomb” their performance, most of the time it’s not because they physically can’t do it or they haven’t been disciplined in their training. It’s because they mentally can’t get their body to repeat at competition what they’ve done in practice countless times; we call it a mental block and it happens a lot. Skating has taught me about how I think, how I react in pressure situations, and how I can overcome or leverage my body’s natural reaction to adrenaline. Thanks to competing, I have a certain mental fortitude. This transfers to all walks of life, most of which are significantly easier compared to the pressure on the ice. Take college for example, freshman year is a terrifying time but I wasn’t nervous going into my first exam because it was nothing compared to being examined by a whole stadium of people.

When you meet someone, your first impression is your entrance into the room.

Body Over Mind

The influence your posture has on your mood is amazing. The mind and body are a closed loop. If you act confident, you actually start to feel more confident. I’ll admit that as a kid, I was a bit of a nerd and a bit timid. Skating taught me to come out of my shell. It taught me about body awareness, proper posture, the art of expression, and how to project confidence. All of these are important because how you enter a room and act has an impact on how people see you.

I realize many of these aren’t skating specific and, in fact, that’s the point. Anyone who trains intensively and competes will likely gain similar skills. When you spend time to excel in a sport (or any passion), there is tremendous transferrable value.

Pivot

Most of us who put in the time and effort will not become the world’s best and that is far from failure. The skills I’ve learned above and the mental models I’ve developed have set me up for success in all areas of my life. Following the 2012 Championships, I officially retired from competing and went on to study biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University and am now working on medical technology at Stryker. And this isn’t just me. All of my colleagues and peers from the rink who haven’t gone off to the olympics are earning gold medals in their own professions. The people I knew on the ice are now going on to become doctors, financial advisors… and, of course, coaches inspiring the next generation of athletes.