EILEEN GU: “The Ground Was Cracking Beneath Me.”

20:30And so I would say I think this is a hallmark of our age. like I think being in your early 20s mid 20s late 20s this is like a point in your life where it's really important to feel that way and I almost think of that as like activation energy I mean generally in chemistry it's like you can't perform a reaction without like a catalyst like you need some kind of energy either within the system or externally introduced to create it and so that dynamism and maybe we kind of create that and like feel it's like discomfort but the fact of the matter is it's energy that doesn't know where to go. And so that's a neutral thing.

21:06It's more about redirecting it instead of like sitting with this golf ball or butterfly or whatever you want to kind of think about it as like bouncing inside of you, feeling really uncomfortable. It's more about doing the self-work to know where that energy goes. But the fact that you have it as a hallmark of being young is so beautiful.

21:22Jay Shetty:Yeah. It's almost like you're saying that we fight that limerence and we almost want it to go away rather than what I'm hearing you say is actually, if you channel it, if you redirect it, if you put it forward, then actually that's going to propel you. That's going to make the difference. I think so. But knowing what direction to take is so much harder than people think. And my mom and I talk about this all the time, where I think hard work, super important, but overpraised. Direction, underrated. And so we think about this as like, who's working the hardest? Who's doing the most? But if you're punching a wall, who's punching the wall the hardest?

21:58That's not helpful. Like, who's getting to the destination? If you can walk around a column, maybe it's easier than punching the wall. So it's not necessarily about doing the most. What's more important is the direction. And so I think having that activation energy is super important. What's more important, though, at our age is taking the time to figure out the direction. And that's worth the time that it takes to explore. And I'm saying this as if I'm some kind of, like, sage entity. I'm like, oh, I've been through it. I crash out about this, like, every night. Every night. I'm like, oh my God, what am I going to do?

22:30Like, I'm so behind. I feel like I'm not living up to my potential. I have so many ideas and so many things to do and I'm not materializing any of them. I feel like I'm, you know, losing time by the day and like totally paralyzed. And I think that's just like a really relatable feeling. A lot of my friends are graduating, you know, my entire class with me. And I think that's a pretty shared sentiment for everybody.

22:51Jay Shetty:Yeah, you're so right. It is a generational thing and it's an AIDS thing where you're in that space where it's almost like up until 22, most of your life is mapped out for you. You know, you go from seventh grade to eighth grade, you go to college, you get a degree, and then all of a sudden, now you actually have to make choices that don't have a timeline. I think you're so right about that. And in school, success is, the heuristics are so clearly defined for you. Like the metrics of success are there. You have a rubric. You want to get to 100, you know? Getting an A plus is good and everybody wants to get there.

23:24Life is so much more complex. and you don't know what your success is. And success looks so different for so many different people. And there are a lot of people who are really wealthy and really unhappy. And there are a lot of people who in that position would feel super unsuccessful. And there are others who would feel extremely successful. And so it is so personal. And so doing the self-work to discover what success is, is a totally new thing once you leave school.

23:47Jay Shetty:You're spot on. The grading system is already decided when you're at school. And as soon as you leave, there is no grading system because now it's all up to you. Who's your athletic sponsor? When you're competing? Anta. Anta. Okay. Yeah. Cause I was just thinking what you just said, hard work, overpraised. Direction. Direction, underrated. That's world-class. I love that. That's an ad right there. I'm like, that's brilliant. And it's so true. It's so true because we get momentum from direction, not hard work. Momentum comes because you know the direction you're moving in and then it snowballs.

24:24Exactly. Yes.

24:26Jay Shetty:You can push a rock up a hill as hard as you want and you won't gather momentum because the direction's wrong. But maybe you can imagine him happy. Yes. Sisyphus reference. There you go. Yeah. Talk to me about how you look for direction at your age with the success you've had with the multiple opportunities. Now you're in a position where opportunities are flying towards you. You can go anywhere, do anything, be on any red carpet, interviewed anywhere. how do you choose? How do you find your direction when you have unlimited opportunities, unlimited ideas, but at the same time, you're this thoughtful, pensive, introspective human?

25:03A lot of people don't know this, but I'm very introverted. And so the older I've gotten, the more I've realized that it's actually really important for me to have a little bit of personal space and time, because there's kind of two categories here. One is my career, which is already somewhat developed. And so when I'm doing that, a lot of it is outward facing, which means I've already kind of like done the work to get here. And now it's like I am creating something out of it. Whereas the other thing is me being a 22 year old and I need to build. So what's important is I cannot stagnate in the energy kind of like dissipation phase, because otherwise I feel like I'm just going to freeze at the age that I became successful.

25:42and that's just going to stagnate forever. Whereas I also need to realize that I'm this independent entity who is 22, which means I need to take the time to learn. I need to take the time to fail. And I need to have these experiences that maybe you can't really justify with opportunity cost. But it's important to travel. It's important to try a new hobby. It's important to make a new friend. It's important to say yes to something that you didn't think you would have fun doing. I really do try to value that. So as far as like knowing what's important within work, that's very easy for me to decide.

26:16I have very clear boundaries. I only do things that I feel align with me, my values. What's great about my brand is that it's actually just my values and what I like to do and who I am. So there's no kind of like asymmetry there. But it's like I care about women in sports. I care about encouraging young people to do balanced sports and academics as well. I care about uplifting free skiing globally. And I care about cultural exchange. So like those are generally things that thematically will speak to me. I also think that I care a lot about masculine feminine balance. I care about artistry. I care about creativity.

26:52So that's kind of where the fashion side comes in. And generally, that's how I will choose events. Those values guide me and I feel they have not really led me astray. within the personal side it's so nebulous that's why i don't know like when you're asking me like what advice would i give pretty much all i can say is like yeah i'm also in the cloud i have no idea what i'm doing my only thing is like if you flip a coin a hundred times it'll land on heads more than if you flip it five times just by virtue of how many times you flip the coin and so the idea being just expose myself to as many things as possible and hopefully like trust the model on it's training data not to be like super silicon valley on this but um every experience you have is just informing you and like it's like training your gut feeling and i really do believe in that

27:39Jay Shetty:i love how your life really mirrors a belief that i have which is that life is more about collecting and connecting things than it is about doing or being anything i love that and i feel like when i hear you speak you're collecting things from silicon valley you're collecting things from fashion. You've collected experiences from academia. You've collected things from sport. And then you've just connected all of these things. And that's who you are, is you're a collection and connection of all these ideas, philosophies, beliefs, interests, values, as opposed to like, oh, I'm an athlete or I'm a, you know, whatever this box is.

28:16Jay Shetty:I just, I love that your generation has you to look up to, to go, oh, that's what I have to do. I can actually be all these different things at the same time. And I don't have to choose. And I don't have to have the tension of fighting between them. You talk about your thoughts creating your reality. When I first saw one of your clips that really resonated with me and I was like, who is this person at 22 talking about the power of thought? Talk to me about how that became a practice and developing that mindset became powerful for you at such a young age and how it's been what has allowed you to unlock everything that's come your way.

28:51Wow, you are really good. The way you talked about the pattern recognition is like, really sitting with me. I feel like I'm going to marinate on that further in my own time.

29:01Jay Shetty:And you're going to have to do that and then tell me what you come up with. Yeah, we'll chat. Well, I will preface this by saying I'm an only child. And I actually think that was pretty important because it meant that I, my mom was an immigrant. And so she talks about this all the time where she didn't go to high school in the US. So when I came home, you know, being bullied in high school, she didn't really know what to do because she didn't really have this like American high school situation. And that's totally new. She didn't go to undergrad in the US. And so when I was taking the SAT, she didn't really know what to do in that situation.

29:35And what's really amazing about my mom and I's relationship is that we're so honest with each other and we're so collaborative. And when one of us doesn't know, we don't pretend that we do. And there's this kind of like humble and almost like student mentality where it's like, I don't know, but I'll learn. And so I think I picked that up where I was like, okay, not everyone has all the answers. And I think as a young person, the sooner you learn that, the better. Where like, nobody really knows what they're doing. And the sooner you take your fate and agency of learning into your own hands, the better.

30:07And it's not about becoming an expert. It's about knowing that you have the power to learn. And that is your greatest superpower. There's a reason why kids learning languages at a young age is so different from adults learning the same language. Kids just learn so well. And so because I came to the understanding that learning was my superpower very early, I feel like I employed that with kind of like high agency over time. And that's where I was like, wait, I can just not like self-parent, but I did read like parenting manuals.

30:34Jay Shetty:You did? At what age? It's like 12, 13. For yourself? Yeah. Just to see what was going on. Like I was just curious because my mom had mentioned, because obviously I'm her only child. So she was like, oh, I raised you by the book. Like when you were born, I read all the like nutrition and like feeding everything. And I did everything to a T and you turned out pretty well, like health wise. Right. And she also has another saying where she said up until 13, it's me as like the parent contributing genetics is like the big thing. But then beyond that, just like, you know, health, safety, general like values, all of that until you're 13.

31:08But after you're 13, so much of it is like the people who you surround yourself with and your self-learning. And so for me, I was like, wow, you know, I'm 12, 13, so I should probably get on that, you know? So I was like, maybe I'll also read the parenting manual. She said it was pretty good. So like, I'll just take a look. They were like an easy read.

31:26Jay Shetty:What did you do? What did you learn? Tell us. Tell us how to parent ourselves. It was like, here's how to like parent your preteen, like when they're being, you know, combative and like when to leave them to have space and when to initiate a conversation, when to let them fail these kinds of things how to have the puberty talk I was reading that I was super locked in and then I feel like what was great about that is my mom and I's communication style that evolved because I could sit down and be like hey I think we should discuss this thing about my upbringing that's amazing kind of like a formalized setting and for that reason it's just been like the most amazing teamwork and collaboration and I admire her I idolize her She's totally my hero.

32:08In a lot of ways, we are both the same person and different sides of the same coin. We are inextricably connected. And we're both really invested in me. And there's something so special about that just like unbreakable trust to have. And I totally understand that not everybody has that relationship with their family. And I think my truly my greatest blessing is that I do.

32:29Jay Shetty:I love hearing that because I think there's such a power in allowing a 13-year-old to have the opportunity to even do that. So it's one thing that you even opened yourself up to that. Second of all, your mom was game to actually collaborate with you. I think she was just like, what? She immigrated from China. She's like, we don't, like, this is not something we've ever done. But it's cool because it also makes you realize your parent is a person. Yeah. And like, as a kid, you don't really think that. You're like, oh, this is mom. Like, the entity is mom. but no she's a person and she's a woman and she has friends and she has feelings and she's stressed because it's her first time raising a kid and so the sooner you realize that she's a person with her own thoughts and needs and imperfections and flaws and also points that are so admirable and worthy of this episode is brought to you by whole foods where your back to school eats are sorted first off they have amazing quality standards with 300 food ingredients band store-wide.

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35:21Jay Shetty:This episode is brought to you by Walden University. Balancing work, life and big goals isn't easy. That's why Walden University helps working professionals get the W with tempo learning. So you can earn your degree at your own pace while gaining practical skills through real life scenarios. You'll also learn from faculty with real world experience and have support start to finish. Walden University, set a course for change. Ready to start? Visit waldenu.edu today. certified to operate by chef tempo learning available in select programs copying um the better what are your thoughts now before you start skiing before you're competing like what what are the thoughts that you program into your mind contest mode oh my gosh i'm extremely psychological i i want to know everything i have a saying where i say i train like i've never won and I compete like I've never lost.

36:23Jay Shetty:Say that again. That is so good. I train like I've never won and I compete like I've never lost. And that's important because, A, I find it's difficult to win, but it's way harder to stay there. And for me, you know, now through two Olympic cycles and also so much happens between age 18 and 22, like staying in peak form during that period of your life, specifically as a woman, is very, very difficult. From my last Olympics to now, I went through all of college. Like I was a high school grad and now I'm a college grad and that's just two different people. So that's one. The second thing is it keeps you hungry and that's what allows you to perform over time.

37:00The third thing is in order to be a winner, you have to have this like insatiable, almost like obsessive, religious, just like all in mentality when you compete. But because it is so intense, you cannot sustain it always. Because that's what creates really dangerous egos. It's what creates the hubris and overconfidence and complacency that undermines good training. Because you have to be very critical of your own training. For me, I see only my mistakes when I'm training. I can never do anything right. Every single thing, I'm like, oh, I'm two degrees off on that. Oh, I was a second early. Oh, look at my upper body.

37:39I was like three degrees. Whatever. That's all I think. But when I'm competing, you need to make the switch. And I'm like, I am the best person who has ever stepped foot here. Nobody's even going to touch me. Everyone's competing for a second. Doesn't matter. That's it. But what's so important is to separate that. I would say it's like 95 % the former and 5 % the latter. And creating that really conscious distinction is what protects me from going absolutely insane. I'm also not that competitive in my daily life. I'm like a normal amount of competitive, right? But like, you can imagine like, oh, you're so competitive when you ski.

38:09Are you not like insufferable with lawn games or whatever? You know, like, no, I'm not. That would make me super annoying to be around. And I'm not. It's only when I compete, I'm like, okay, alter ego. Go time. How did you discover that balance?

38:26Jay Shetty:What you just spoke about feels like something an athlete figures out after 25 years of competing where they realize they've carried this aggressive competitive mentality and critical mentality far too much into every area of their life where their family feels it, their partner feels if they're married or dating or whatever. Whereas you've realized this early in your career, how did you discover that you need to train like you've never won and compete like you've never lost? How did you discover that? Well, for one, my mom just works. The way she instilled work ethic in me is just unparalleled.

39:04So I will never be afraid to work harder than other people if I know my direction is correct. And so much of the direction is then cerebral. Maybe because I've gone to school, I have a different perspective on psychology or I'm seeing the physics of a trick in a different way. So I think A, the underpinning is very academic. And I think that's definitely a differentiating factor for me.

39:25Jay Shetty:I agree. Yeah. B, I think then applying the work ethic layer on top of that totally supercharges the whole thing. That's like the direction, you know, momentum thing we were talking about. And then C, I think I just am so introspective. I just, man, I just sit and think. I just think about my brain all the time and I think about who I am and the direction I'm moving in. I'm self-assessing and I'm error correcting and I'm criticizing all the time. I am my own greatest project. There is no project in my life that I will ever build that is as time consuming as living in my body every single day. And so why am I not treating, why am I not the founder of my own self, right?

40:06Creating that obsessive mentality around it. The only way other people can beat you is if they are really good at doing themselves. And so for me, I just have to be the very best version of myself. So I picked all of the best qualities or things that I think make me unique and then just put them together in this like unique pattern matching type style.

40:27Jay Shetty:I believe you. And at the same time, I feel you hold yourself gracefully too. Like, talk to me about that. Is it, you are hypercritical, you are error correcting, you are fixing yourself, but I don't feel like it sounds like you beat yourself up. You know what I mean? And talk to me about that because I think that athletes, but even all of us, like non-athletes, I think we don't know the balance. I think a lot of people who are listening and watching right now struggle between trying to push themselves to be better and then pushing themselves so hard they break. Talk to me about how you hold those two things together in order to incrementally improve and become better every day and at the same time not burn yourself out or beat yourself up you are not your craft and i think that distinction is so important because i can beat my craft to death and i will never die and so the point that i'm trying to make there is like real resilience is being able to take constructive criticism without the emotions and so it's the sense of like how quickly can i actually implement usable material instead of spending that energy to metabolize something that made my ego bruise.

41:35You'll laugh at this. I have a practice that I do with my friends called the CCC. It's called the Constructive Criticism Circle. And I think the greatest act of love that you can give anybody is to give them constructive criticism if you love them and you know them well enough to give meaningful advice. Because anybody in the world can be like, Jay, I love your jacket. You're so smart. You're so interesting. That's not that difficult, right? Anybody can say that. What's more difficult is for me to know you well enough to know what your goals are, what your shortcomings are, and to then help guide you and kind of like match those points in a way that you yourself didn't even see or know or are not ready to hear.

42:14Like that is so much more meaningful and so much more powerful. It is like the deepest act of service I could possibly imagine. And so like you can imagine this was probably like not the most popular idea when I was like, hey guys, it's like Friday night. Let's all sit in a circle and like criticize each other. And they were like, what? This sounds like a terrible idea. And I was like, no, no. Obviously, the goal is not to insult another person. It's just like, hey, I know your goal is music. You're really passionate about this. You're really interested in it. But you keep saying you're going to put stuff out on TikTok.

42:47You're going to do whatever to reach people. But you're not very consistent with it. And you're not holding yourself to that standard. And I know that you could, you know, something like that. Or, hey, the other week when you said this thing to this other person, it wasn't even to me, I think the other person kind of like bristled a little and maybe you could have had a nicer tone of voice. You're like, huh, I didn't even know. There's so many things, big and small, that you genuinely don't even know. And that just cuts the work. It cuts the work if people can just tell you and you can be like, wow, okay, I'm just going to change it.

43:16And it's not about you. It's not like, oh, my ego is going to be hurt. When I'm talking about like correcting a trick, I'm not like, oh no, my double quirk is bad. I'm stupid. Right. I'm like, oh, no, my double quirk is bad. It's really bad. Like, that's it. That's the end of the sentence. There's no more extrapolation. There's no more like and this is what it says about me as a human. It's like I'm rushing the trick. This is what I'm doing wrong. I'm not committing at this point. I'm not truly believing. Maybe like it's not penetrating my subconscious layer. Whatever. That is not who I am. And so, again, this is another thing that I see in like really successful people or athletes where it's like really hard to distinguish those two things.

43:55So it's like, if your career is going really well, you feel like you're really great. If your career is not going well, you feel like a failure. And for me, those are pretty separate things. Like I am me and my career is me. And also that means when people say, oh, Aileen, you're so good at skiing. I don't translate that to like, oh, Aileen, you are so good. And so I don't really feel like I am all that, even if I think that my skiing is all that.

44:17Jay Shetty:I love that answer. And what's going to blow your mind is I didn't have a cool name like CCC for it, but I made my friends do exactly the same thing a few years back. But here was my version. So what I said to them was, we've got to say to everyone in the room, this is my closest group of friends. Of course, you can only do it with your closest. So it's my closest group of friends from London that I grew up with. I said, we have to say to each other's face the thing we all say behind each other's back. So if me and you were together and we're talking about our other friend and we'd be like, oh, he's really ambitious, but you know, we know he's not putting in enough work.

44:51Jay Shetty:We actually have to say that to him right now. And so that was what I made me and my friends do on a Friday night. And it was unbelievable. And I could see who was scared by it, who was nervous about it, who really owned it, who opened up and had the humility and put their ego aside on both ends, because you also have to have vulnerability to tell someone the truth and you've got to be humble enough to take it yourself. And then you start seeing the exchange make sense when everyone has permission it was so it's when you started to say that i was like i need to steal your name it's better but uh i didn't have that for it that's unbelievable but i just felt it i was like we actually can't go to the next level in our relationship if we don't do this right we all think we're close we all pretend like we're close but this is the test of actual intimacy vulnerability and friendship after 20 years that i've been friends with some of these guys so i'm totally aligned that is incredible well i mean you you came up with it but i've just never like that's insane i'm like wow but i agree with you it's the only way of showing real care and depth in a relationship i love the way you framed it too because also then there's like a group aspect to it i think it's harder if it's like one person like put them on the spot and then there's like kind of responsibility there this is just like truly fostering like group connections um and growth that's so special it's a much more sensitive way of doing that i might steal it Yours is better named.

46:13Jay Shetty:It's smart. I wanted to ask you, you've said before, evidence over affirmation. Explain that to me. I'm very realist. And I think I definitely get that from my mom. But it was the sense of like, you want to shoot for the moon? Okay, how do you get there? Who's going to build the rocket ship? How are you going to design it? Who's going to power it? How are you going to get there? And so the sense of like, I can't convince myself that I'm going to do a backflip. you have to really know how to do it even if it's just conceptually because what's important is like technically every time i learn a new trick i'm doing something that i've never done before so there is that kind of like final leap but most of the work the basis the bulk of it needs to be ready so that you have that five percent it's a lot of people talk about like you make your own luck and i think it's in the same vein where like you can only succeed insofar as you are prepared and you're kind of setting your own ceiling there with the base that you have accumulated.

47:10And so, yeah, I would say I ask 5%, the last 5%, but I feel good in the 95. And skiing, because it's just so visceral and literal, where it's like the difference between success and failure is like quite literally broken bones and like top of the podium, right? And so it is so clearly defined. And the difference in that is sometimes just this sense of like subconscious buy-in. Do I feel like I had the reps? Do I genuinely believe to my core? And so the top layer, I think, is the conscious thing. Anybody can convince themselves like, OK, I'm going to jump. That's easy. But like the subconscious thing of like buying in all the way down to actually commit the action, that is the true test of trust.

47:51And you can only build trust over repetition and over practice and true preparation.

47:55Jay Shetty:Yeah. You're saying that you can almost feel it. Yeah. That subconscious in your body, your mind, your heart, your soul, whether you've actually bought into it rather than just repeating something that may make you feel better in the moment before you go out there. But everything about your body knows it's false and is rejecting that idea. Exactly. And because it's so unnatural already and because it all happens so fast, like in skiing, the takeoff is like 0.1 seconds, but the angle of your body and the torque and the timing determines everything. And so if your timing is slightly off because you're nervous and you rush a trick, you can do the same thing, but you just rush it a little because literally just because you're nervous and it's game over.

48:37And so of course you're going to be nervous, but it's like controlling the degree. And so that's what I'm talking about with the buy-in. It literally happens so quickly that it's too fast for you to make the decision consciously. At the end of the day, the results will tell you what you really believe.

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49:34Jay Shetty:A lot can happen when an accident doesn't. Visit mazdausa.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Talk to me a bit more about the technicalities of free skiing because I feel I've been fortunate enough to sit down with Novak and talk about tennis and talk to Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc about F1 and hearing about how much drivers lose weight and like how much their weight impacts the movement of the car and how fast they can move. I've never interviewed someone who's a free skier before. Talk to me about that because as you started talking about the angle and the mechanics, I'm starting to think, wow, the room for error is tiny.

50:09Jay Shetty:And like you just said, if you go too early or too late, talk to me a bit more about that of something as a complete novice to this world I would be unaware of so that we can really appreciate what's happening out there. Because I think we watch you and I've watched tapes of you and I'm like, how does she just do that? That's incredible. But you almost undervalue, because we're uneducated, the physics behind it and the amount of analytics behind pulling something like that off. Totally. A couple of things. One, the biggest saying you will hear in free skiing is patient on the takeoff. And it's like the most frustrating thing to hear because it's so obvious and it's like a just do it sort of thing.

50:48But the reason why it's so frustrating is that because it's not conscious and it happens so quickly, a lot of it is like you're at the top and you're like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And at the very last second, it's like, oh no, I bailed. Like I didn't do it. And there's this almost sense of betrayal that happens in that moment because you're like, I swear, like why is my body betraying me? And so, so much of it is identifying the kinds of fear that you have. For me, I can like logic my way into things because I can understand like what different kinds of fear feel like in my body.

51:17And so discerning that often is the difference between injury and success. As far as mechanics go, this is kind of interesting because if you think about gymnastics, the body type is very different than my body type. And so if you think about like the physics of rotation, when you're moving that quickly and your center of gravity is much longer and higher and your limbs are a lot more dispersed, it means that the timing is even more precise and it's even harder to kind of grasp. It's just like there's so much of you in the air. On top of that, it's an outdoor sport. So like wind impacts you more and like weather and like just all of these little things.

51:57And so for me, I felt like because I'm so much taller than most of my competitors, I had to kind of be so hyper aware of these factors that were initially working against me. But then if you think about physics, And you think about like a whip. The longer the whip is, the more force is generated at the very tip. So if I can get the timing right, technically I can generate more force. It's just harder to do it. So I just have to be so precise. And I was very aware about that from the beginning.

52:28Jay Shetty:And how are you keeping time? Is it something you're counting in your mind? Is it a feeling in your body? Like where's time? Because you can't see anything. I visualize a lot. And when I visualize, I visualize in four angles or like dimensions. I will do follow cam. I will do deck angle. I will do my POV and then top angle. Then I will do fast motion and slow motion. And get this, I will do all black proprioception. So it's like I will visualize what the G forces feel on my body pulling apart at certain points in the air. And that will help with my timing and grounding. Because the first time you do a trick, you can't see anything just visually.

53:05Right. So you really have to trust. That's another thing you have to trust. When you can't see anything, you're totally blind. You have to trust in this. Your body's going to do something, but it hasn't even done it before also. So like, how can you trust that? Right. So there's something kind of counterintuitive about that. And so the faster you can reconcile that, that's what makes a trick safe. So I do so much visualization. I just I just think.

53:25Jay Shetty:And that visualization is based on you watching footage of yourself. Watching footage of myself. To know what the different angles and cams look like, those four that you experienced. Yes. And what's interesting also is sometimes I'm the first woman to ever do a trick. And so that adds complexity also, because then I'm watching videos of men. And of course, there's going to be differences in those mechanics too. And so I have to be noticing what points I can kind of take and what I have to innovate almost on my own, just given my own, you know, phenotypes there. So there's kind of like intricacy there.

54:00I would say also we do have like foam pits, we have airbags. So like that helps a lot, but really doing something on snow for the first time, there's something, I mean, yeah, like when is the last time you felt like genuine fear? And I think a lot of people would struggle to think of the last time, but in skiing, it's like every day, literally every day.

54:19Jay Shetty:I'm so glad to ask that question. And thank you for taking us into your mind. And I want to take you back to the moment you won your gold medal at the Milan Olympics. And that was such an incredible moment. Walk me through the euphoria you felt. You're just talking about the fear you feel, the trust you have to have, the looking at it from four angles, the surrender in that moment. Talk to me about how that felt. I think it's really important to contextualize that moment, actually. So in free skiing, there are three disciplines, halfpipe, slopestyle, and big air. I'm the only woman who competes in all three.

54:49what's particular about that is no other woman who competes in half pipe at this olympics competed in any other event so it's like one event versus three events and if each event is a week long you're skiing every day the accumulated fatigue the just emotional adrenaline you're literally having like the highest highs and the lowest lows of your life every day for two weeks and then sometimes it's at night sometimes it's in the morning you're in italy like everything is kind of just different and foreign and you're managing so much load. The last part is the Olympics actually scheduled my trainings overlapping because they thought that it wasn't possible essentially to do all three events.

55:28And so I tried to petition it. Obviously it didn't work. So since I made finals and actually ended up meddling in Big Air, which was the event before, I actually missed out on a training in half pipe and there's only three. And then very lastly, it supposedly never snows in this valley but of course if you want it to snow schedule the olympics right so it was scheduled for night originally and so you can imagine your adrenaline super high all day you're like okay this is like the culmination i'm gathering all of my strength all of my energy i've competed five times already qualities and finals for the other two events and the qualifiers last minute like an hour before training starts for the contest they say okay we're canceling it like it's moving to another day and what's even crazier is they said if we can't do it.

56:12We're just going to take qualifier results. And I had fallen in qualifiers. I got fifth. I was qualifying in fifth place. I've never done that before. I almost always qualify in the top one or two. And so I was just losing my mind because I was already so tired that I was like, just make finals, just make finals, land something and make finals. And I did, but I was in fifth. And so I was just, you can imagine, crashing out all night. And then the next morning, thank goodness it went ahead. So I'm going into this contest very frazzled. I am not in peak form. I am just really holding on by a thread.

56:43And this has never happened before in other contests, but for some reason at the Olympics, I fell on my first run in every single contest. I don't know what the reason was. I genuinely have this theory that I needed to wake up, and there's something so otherworldly and surreal about being at the Olympics that I needed something so harsh that my body to be like, you're actually here, wake up, lock in, to be like, okay, I'm here, and like jolt me into reality. I have no idea what that situation was. That's what I've kind of decided was the case. So needless to say, I fall on my first run. And now I'm in last.

57:19And this is supposed to be like my, you know, best event. I haven't lost a final in this event in seven years. So there's four events. There's men's and women's ski and snowboard. So four events total. The favorites for the other three, none of them won. And so of course I'm going into the last event. I'm like, okay, great. This is not boating well for me. and so there was just so much doubt and just even if I was so prepared I've never felt dealt like that before and I just remember at the top being like please please like just get the feeling get the feeling because I talked about like having that switch and I just wasn't getting it I was like I don't know where I am like where she is like the competitor like I don't know where she went like it's I'm maybe I'm too tired maybe like something's going on I'm like burnt out from five other events I don't know I like couldn't find her and before my first run I actually knew I was going to fall.

58:06Like I knew I was not going to land it because I was just not in my competitive headspace. And I remember going up to the front. I was like, OK, there it is. Like there's a moment. Hold on to it. Hold on to it. Like I found it. I found it. I get to the front and like commercial break. Eight minutes.

58:18Jay Shetty:Oh, my God. And I'm just like, are you kidding me? So there's video of me like fake punching a wall. I'm like running alone, like staring at a corner, just doing absurd things to try and just get myself into this like headspace. And it's very narrow and it's fleeting. and I was there and now I'm not and I'm just losing it. And then it just clicks and I'm like, hold it for 30 seconds. And I do. And as soon as I land, I'm like, okay, I won. You knew it. I knew it. And then I went back up and did a better run and then got the two highest scores of the contest and ended up winning. But what was really important, I think, about that contest is it was not about my skill.

58:54It was totally me versus me. It was like, I could have just not landed a run and it would have been me betraying myself. And so much of it came down to, trust and willfulness of just like, how consciously can you enter flow state, which is totally counterintuitive and you just can't do that. And so this is like the next best thing. And all I can say was extremely difficult. And when I fell to the ground and started crying, it was because I was totally spent. It was just like nothing I've ever done before. Yeah.

59:25Jay Shetty:It was really difficult. That is unbelievable. Thank you for walking us through play by play because you just don't get that insight. I mean, there needs to be a documentary on this. I hope you're working on it. You need to be able to see that, just that kind of stop, start, stop, start, stop, start that what it does to an athlete's mind. Even when you're so clear, even when you're so focused and driven and trained and prepared, there's so much to it. Moments later from winning, your whole day changes. Yes. You get some big news. I remember watching that press conference. We see you breaking the tears.

59:59Jay Shetty:Talk to me about that moment and experiencing both that incredible high after so much sacrifice, training, prep, all the ups and downs you just walked through and then experiencing such a low pretty much in the next same day. This is like my first time really speaking about this publicly since. And it's just been so hard for me to metabolize after all this time because like you said, it's the highest high and the lowest low separated by a matter of minutes. My grandma had been sick for a long time and we knew that there was a chance that it was our last time saying goodbye to her when I left for the Olympics.

1:00:33And so I said all the things that I wanted to say to her. I told her I'd be brave for her and made her a bunch of promises essentially. But my mom and I had actually spoken about it and we'd agreed that if something had happened to my grandma during the Olympics, I didn't want to know during the contest because it has happened and mourning prematurely and just like ruining this experience that I've trained for four years, like it's not going to help. I just cannot believe that my mom knew the whole time during my other events and did not break a sweat or a tear or anything. And she was so strong the entire time.

1:01:11That is unbelievable to me. Like it's her mother. That is just absurd. Like I genuinely cannot wrap my head around that. I actually get her emails. And so I checked my phone right after I had won. We hadn't done the podium ceremony yet. And so I saw an email from the funeral home and I just knew. And it was just like my ground was like cracking out from underneath me. And it's like, you think your reality is what it is until something just comes along and makes you feel like you were living in like a little fishbowl. I thought the Olympics was the most important single event that I could possibly imagine.

1:01:46I couldn't think of something that would be more gripping and compelling than that. And all of a sudden I was like, this doesn't matter. And all of a sudden, the thing that I held to be like the epitome of all of life just like fell away underneath me. And so that was very disorienting and like extremely earth shattering. Also, I had to do the press conference. I couldn't skip this press conference. And so I like took a moment to mourn with my mom and then we just went to this press conference. And so I actually think that that those like viral interviews where I have the gold bow in my hair, because that was I had that in my pocket as like a lucky thing.

1:02:20And like I was like, oh, in case I win. I'm going to put it in my hair to represent femininity on the world stage in this male-dominated sport. All of those gold bow interviews, I actually knew already. And so when I'm smiling and talking about neuroplasticity, and when I'm smiling and talking about, oh, I'm going to continue competing. This is what I love to do. That was all so compartmentalized. And then at the very end, I wanted to honor her and say, hey, by the way, one of the most important people in my life just passed away. I promised her I'd be super brave I wanted to uphold the promises that I made to her and it's like this is my moment of closure I broke down during that but like I had to just turn something off in my brain to get through that press conference and then you can imagine afterwards it was just devastating um and then it was just horrible like there were people online who were like why is she at you know this event when she's like skipping her grandma's funeral And like horrible, horrible things where I was like, I will take just about any kind of hate.

1:03:20But like you are not going to put my grandmother's name in your mouth in this situation. Like that is just like a line I will not cross. So I did Keyboard Warrior a little bit on that. But yeah, I planned my grandma's funeral. I found the choir for it. I selected the Bible verses for it. I picked the flowers. I did the ceremony. I did all the invites. It's my mom's mom. It's my grandma. It was really difficult, but I could not ask my mom to do that. And so I think my act of service to my family and to the honor to honor my grandma was in service of that. And so, yeah, I had to do a bunch of things after the Olympics for a week or two.

1:03:55But immediately after, when we went back for the funeral, I had planned everything and we'd metabolized it. And that was just so, so challenging for the days after the Olympics.

1:04:06Jay Shetty:I would say that you showing both those sides of yourself when you're answering the questions about neuroplasticity and your mindset, are you as your superhuman self? And then you being honest about the loss of one of the most important women in your life was the most human thing you could have done. And to me, seeing those both on center stage as a gold Olympic winner, to me, there's nothing more powerful that could set a better standard for young athletes and young people all over the world. I mean, to be superhuman and human in the same breath. That's my grandma just channeling her. Going to end on a final five.

1:04:45Jay Shetty:These questions I've to be answered in one sentence maximum. Hit me. So Aileen Gu, these are your final five. Question number one. What is the best advice you've ever heard or received? It will never be embarrassing to try. Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received? Waking up at four in the morning makes you more productive. That's a good one. Question number three, your advice for young women today? Define your own category. Meaning for women, there's a lot of boxes that feel more rigid as far as career, what being a mother means, what being a girl. It can feel very rigid.

1:05:20And so I think it's like define your own categories. You can be N of one.

1:05:24Jay Shetty:Question four, when you have a crash out or a bad day, what does Aileen Gu do? Cry. Oh my God, I cry. I cry so much. And I think it's great. I think it's the most efficient way that you can release emotion and return to like a logical state. The sooner you can get the irrational out, the better. Also, I run a lot. So both of those, sometimes at the same time. Running and crying? Wow, all right. When it's really bad, yeah. Fifth and final question. and we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? Maybe some kind of like independent study program early.

1:05:59Like at age seven or eight, you have to like pick a project and stick with it for a year. And it's not in like a career, you know, it's not like every seven-year-old needs an internship, but some kind of like self-guided high agency exploration that values curiosity.

1:06:16Jay Shetty:Alingu, I know you're extremely busy. I'm so grateful for your time, your presence, your energy. I hope this is the start of a great friendship. And I wish you all the best. I'm rooting for you. I'm in your corner and here whenever you need. So congrats on everything. Thank you so much. Thank you. I really, really am so grateful for our conversation today. I feel like I learned. I didn't like what you said, Odin pauses, about the future. This is the love story of real hinge couple Odin and Edward, written and read by me, Curtis Garner. Listen to the free audio book now. Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today.

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