This article is part of Third Factor’s Story Behind the Story series, where we unpack both iconic and under-the-radar Olympic and Paralympic moments. In this feature, Monique Kavelaars, Director of Assessments & Team Coaching, reflects on lessons from the 2020 Tokyo Games, held at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. — The plane to Tokyo was silent. Back home in Canada, the Olympics would look the way they always do on polished TV broadcasts: sweeping shots of stadiums, stunning skylines, and close-ups of athletes at their best. But inside the aircraft carrying Canadian athletes to the Games, the feeling was entirely different. There was no buzz. No joking. No shared anticipation. Just quiet. And with it, a growing awareness among everyone on board: These Olympics would not feel like the Games we had all imagined. Normally, the Games are saturated with energy. The host city transforms. Flags line the streets. The weight and pride of representing your country hits the moment you step off the plane. Tokyo was different. These were the Games of 2021, delayed by a year due to the pandemic. The virus was still sweeping the world, and strict health protocols shaped every aspect of the experience. Athletes could arrive only days before their event and had to leave within 48 hours of competing. Movement was restricted. Social spaces were controlled. Spectators were absent. The usual swirl of family, friends, fans, and media simply wasn’t there. What emerged instead was an intimacy that was both unexpected and unsettling. For some athletes, the lack of external stimulation helped. Fewer distractions. Less noise. A clearer path to focus. For others – especially those in individual or multi-day events – the absence of atmosphere created a quiet, persistent question: Is this really the Olympics? At night, the stillness would occasionally break. Teams gathered inside their country residences, setting up projectors to watch events they would normally attend in person. When Italy’s Marcell Jacobs won the men’s 100 metres, the Italian residence erupted. No cameras captured it. The sounds of the celebration instead echoed through the village. The next day, that energy spilled into shared spaces in a way that rarely happens during the usual chaos of the Games. Athletes had to deal with a lot of downtime. With fewer ways to decompress – no exploring the city, no meals with family, no spontaneous celebrations – athletes were left mostly with their thoughts. For those processing a performance, especially one that didn’t go as planned, that isolation could feel heavy. Normally, there is movement, distraction, and connection. In Tokyo, there was often just a quiet walk back to a room. Coaches and federations worked hard to create some sense of normal. In many cases, their support was remarkable. But the conditions were far from ideal. All this raises a deeper question that extends far beyond sport: What do you do when the conditions you prepared for no longer exist? The lessons from Tokyo go well beyond the athletes to offices and boardrooms.

Lesson #1: Perfect Conditions Are a Myth

One of the clearest lessons from Tokyo is that “perfect conditions” are largely an illusion. Athletes spend years preparing, yet competition is always uncertain. They never know exactly how their body will respond, how opponents will perform, or what the environment will deliver on the day that matters most. Tokyo made that impossible to ignore. There were no guarantees. No familiar routines. No comforting rituals. Daily COVID testing became part of life. Every morning meant spitting in a tube and waiting. Stories circulated of athletes testing positive and being sent to the “fever clinic.” Each time, the village would ripple with silent worry. And still, athletes showed up to compete. I remember one athlete in an individual event whose entire Olympic experience lasted nine minutes. One performance. First round. Done. This was not the Games she had imagined. Within 48 hours, she was on a plane home. When we spoke, she was heartbroken. Not just about the result, but about the experience she missed. She couldn’t explore Tokyo. She couldn’t soak up the atmosphere and carry it forward into the next four-year cycle. “I don’t want to go yet,” she said. “I still want to feel the Olympics.” That moment captured the emotional whiplash of Tokyo. Years of preparation compressed into minutes, followed by an abrupt exit from a city she barely saw. And yet, she stepped in knowing this might happen. That willingness to enter uncertainty is the essence of sport. It also mirrors leadership and business more than we wish to admit. At work, we try to control what we can: plans, timelines, strategies, forecasts. We design “ideal conditions” in our heads and on our slides. But at some point, courage becomes simpler than that. We need to ask: What is mine to control right now? Then commit to that fully, even when the picture is incomplete. The bar shifts from “I will only perform if conditions are perfect” to “I will perform under the conditions that actually exist.” Listen to Monique describe how perfect conditions are a myth:

Lesson #2: Self-Awareness Is a Performance Skill

When the external environment changes, self-awareness becomes non-negotiable. It becomes a performance skill. Many athletes rely on specific conditions to bring out their best. Some feed off the energy of a crowd. Others depend on routines and rituals. Others draw strength from the presence of family or familiar faces. In Tokyo, much of that disappeared. Athletes were forced to ask new questions: These weren’t theoretical questions. You could see them play out in ordinary moments, like the dining hall. One day, news spread that a Dutch rower had tested positive. Soon after, their delegation began eating in a cordoned-off section tucked into a corner, behind additional glass partitions. They were in the same room as everyone else, yet unmistakably separated. The signal wasn’t just “they have COVID.” It was the uncertainty of not knowing who might be next. Everyone shared the same building, the same air. Suddenly, the invisible risk became visible. For some athletes, it triggered anxiety. For others, it sharpened focus. Either way, it demanded awareness – and more questions: The same holds true for leaders. In times of disruption, copying what works for others rarely works for us. The best coaches in Tokyo understood this. They protected individual performance needs rather than imposing a single approach on everyone. Self-awareness isn’t introspection for its own sake. It’s knowing what you need to sustain performance when familiar supports disappear – and being honest enough to ask for, or build, those conditions. Listen to Monique describe how self-awareness is a performance skill:

Lesson #3: Presence Calms the System

In Tokyo, just arriving felt like an achievement. Between testing protocols, travel restrictions, health concerns, and constant logistical hurdles, getting to the Games was a maze. For many athletes, coaches, and staff, stepping into the village carried real emotional weight. Thinking too far ahead—to medals, expectations, outcomes – only amplified anxiety. Presence became more than a mindset. It became a stabilizer. Staying anchored to the next task, the next decision, the next controllable action helped athletes manage fear, disappointment, and even success. Because even success was disorienting. Celebrations were brief. Support systems were limited. Within two days of competing, many athletes were back home, sitting on a familiar couch, trying to process an experience that ended almost as quickly as it began. Uncertainty didn’t end with competition. It followed them home. The parallel to today’s work environment is hard to miss. Markets shift. Plans change. AI is reshaping roles and workflows in ways we can see but not yet fully understand. Conditions are moving faster than our slide decks. The leaders who navigate this best aren’t the ones who eliminate uncertainty. They’re the ones who stay present inside it. Presence doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. It means acknowledging what’s hard, then returning to a simple question: Given everything going on, what matters most right now? Listen to Monique describe how presence can help focus attention:

Beyond Tokyo: Adapting When the Script Changes

The Tokyo Games offered a powerful reminder: resilience isn’t about grinding endlessly. It’s about adapting intelligently when the script changes. It starts with acceptance. Some conditions are out of your control. The first step is to separate what you can’t influence from what you can – and invest your energy there. It also requires honest self-recognition: Finally, presence is a discipline. Returning attention to what matters now – not what you wish were different – creates space for better decisions and better performance. The dining hall in Tokyo captured this paradox perfectly. Athletes moved through masked, partitioned spaces. Delegations like the Dutch, seated behind glass after a positive case, were a constant reminder that uncertainty was everywhere. It was strange. At times chaotic. And undeniably real. Performance didn’t stop because conditions weren’t perfect. It adapted. And that may be the most enduring lesson of all.  

Build Resilience In Your Organization

Bring the skills that elite athletes use to build resilience and perform under pressure to your organization. Contact us to learn more about our resilience programs.

Bring skills that elite athletes use to build resilience to your organization. Contact us to learn more.

This article is part of Third Factor’s Story Behind the Story series, in which we unpack the stories behind both iconic and under-the-radar Olympic and Paralympic moments. In this feature, Olympian and Third Factor Associate Trainer Karyn Garossino discusses the importance of control and how it shaped her approach to competing at the Olympics. –

“In high-performance sport, and in fact much of all high performance, consistency is the holy grail.”

–Karyn Garossino

From the outside, Karyn and Rod Garossino’s ice dancing performance at the 1988 Calgary Olympics looked like a hometown dream. A brother and sister from rural Alberta. Competing for Canada. An Olympics on home ice. Five flawless performances on the biggest stage in sport. What people saw was excellence. What they did not see was how hard it was to stay steady enough to deliver it. For Karyn, the Olympics were shaped by two moments she could never have predicted. One came before the competition even began, while athletes waited to enter the opening ceremonies. The other came standing at centre ice, when a roaring hometown crowd would not stop cheering. Together, these moments revealed something essential about high performance: preparation matters, but so does an ability to adapt when things do not go as planned.

From Carstairs to the Olympic Stage

Karyn and her brother Rod grew up in Carstairs, Alberta, where skating was simply part of Prairie life. What started as a love of the sport became a serious pursuit, supported by strong coaching, family commitment, and years of disciplined training. In 1981, the pair won junior ice dance gold at the Canadian National Skating Championships, and throughout the decade, they competed at the highest level in Canadian, international and World Championships. Then Calgary won the bid to host the 1988 Olympic Games. Suddenly, the idea of competing at a hometown Games became real. As that moment got closer, so did the pressure. Like many athletes facing a once-in-a-lifetime moment, Karyn prepared not only physically but mentally for what it would feel like to perform under a global spotlight.

Different Fabric. Same Cloth.

One of Karyn’s most vivid Olympic memories came before the competition started. Athletes from around the world gathered in a staging area ahead of the opening ceremonies. Each team was dressed in its country’s colours. But as the wait stretched on, things got a little playful: jackets were briefly traded, hats and scarves were exchanged, and the differences between teams started to fade.

“We were wearing different fabric, but were cut from the same cloth.”

What Karyn felt in that moment was a deep sense of connection and the awe of belonging to the historic Olympic movement. These athletes represented different nations, but they shared similarities – years of sacrifice, discipline, routine, and the pursuit of excellence. In her words, “we were wearing different fabric, but were cut from the same cloth.” One by one the nations left to join the ceremonies saving the host country to march in last. Then Team Canada entered the stadium. The sound of 85,000 people thundered through the building. In that instant, she realized something else: This was not just her Olympics, or even just the athletes’ Olympics It was our Games. The moment belonged to everyone who had made it possible: athletes, coaches, families, volunteers, organizers, sponsors, and an entire country. What she expected to feel as an individual competitor became something much bigger: the incredible honour of wearing red and white and representing the extraordinary collective effort of a nation.

The Crowd Wouldn’t Stop Cheering

If the opening ceremonies created awe, the competition brought a different kind of pressure. When Karyn and Rod were announced onto centre ice, the crowd erupted. That part was expected. What was not was that the cheering didn’t stop. Normally, once skaters take their position, the arena quiets and the music begins. But this audience kept cheering, waving flags, and feeding even more energy into the building. The music could not start until the arena settled, so Karyn and Rod stood in position and waited. And waited. For a brief instant, they felt the weight of what was happening. They exchanged a smile and a shared realization: Oh my God, we’re at the Olympics. It was a deeply human moment. But it was also risky. Because even positive energy can get in the way of performance. The challenge was not only handling fear or adversity. It was managing excitement, emotion, and the significance of the moment. Karyn knew they had to get back to what they had trained for. They turned to breathwork, a skill they had practised for years to steady themselves under pressure. Within three exhales, they were back in form. Their activation level dropped. Their focus returned. Their physiology settled. The crowd eventually quieted, the music began, and they performed brilliantly. They achieved a 12th-place Olympic finish. The next year, they would win gold at the senior Canadian Championships. Looking back, what lessons did Karyn learn from her Olympic experience that are helpful to anyone facing high-performance situations? Here, she helps us understand three practical takeaways:

Lesson #1: Consistency Is Built Before the Moment

Karyn describes consistency as the holy grail of high performance: the ability to deliver what you are capable of in any condition, not just ideal ones. That consistency was built long before the moment arrived. Karyn and Rod prepared not only their skating but also their mindset. Through imagery and planning, they anticipated the noise, emotion, and pressure of the Games so they would not be overwhelmed. That is a critical lesson for any high achiever – whether in sports or business. The goal is not to hope everything goes perfectly. It is to be ready when it doesn’t. Consistency is not about controlling the environment. It is about training how to respond to it. Listen to Karyn describe how consistency is built before the moment:

Lesson #2: Control What You Can Control

One of Karyn’s clearest lessons from Calgary is simple: high performers must learn to distinguish between what they can control and what they cannot. She could not control the crowd. She could not make the audience quiet down. She could not change the scale of the moment. What she could control was her own internal state. That distinction matters because pressure grows when we fixate on things we cannot change. Recovery begins when we return to what we can manage: our breathing, our attention, our preparation, and our next move. In that moment on the ice, the solution for Karyn was not to fight the environment. It was to return to the training that brought her to the Games. Listen to Karyn distinguish what you can control and what you cannot:

Lesson #3: Breathwork Is a Performance Skill

Karyn is clear that the breathing exercise she used in Calgary was not improvised. She had practised it for years. Its purpose was to manage the body when the outside world became overwhelming. Slow, controlled breathing gave her a direct way to regulate her physiology and recover focus. Her method was simple: breathe low and breathe slow. Under pressure, breathing rises high into the chest and speeds up. But when breathing starts lower in the body, from the diaphragm, and the exhale lasts longer than the inhale, the body begins to relax. That matters because physiology drives performance. If your body is overstimulated, thinking narrows and execution suffers. When your physiology settles, your trained skill improves. In Calgary, three breaths were enough because Karyn and Rod’s skills were already there. That is what makes breathwork so powerful: it is not just a calming technique; it is a trained performance tool. Listen to Karyn provide insight into how breathwork is a performance skill:

Practical Tool: Return to Centre in Three Breaths

When pressure rises unexpectedly, use this simple reset: This is not about becoming calm for its own sake. It is about executing what you’re capable of and meeting the moment with excellence.  

Build Resilience In Your Organization

Bring the skills that elite athletes use to build resilience and perform under pressure to your organization. Contact us to learn more about our resilience programs.

This article is part of Third Factor’s Story Behind the Story series, in which we unpack the stories behind both iconic and under-the-radar Olympic and Paralympic moments. In this feature, Third Factor Principal Trainer & Sport Lead Garry Watanabe speaks with Canadian bobsledder and High Performance Director Jesse Lumsden about a key idea: top performers don’t hope pressure will go well. They train for it long before it arrives. — From the outside, Olympic bobsleigh looks like a pure power sport. Fans see explosive athletes sprint beside the sled, jump in cleanly, and race down the track at high speed. Races are decided by hundredths of a second. It seems like strength and speed decide everything. But power alone isn’t enough. It must be applied with precision. The smallest mistake can cost a medal. As High Performance Director of Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton, Jesse Lumsden is responsible for building an environment where athletes can use their power with precision. He prepared for this role through a wide range of experiences. Lumsden was once a standout running back in the CFL. He later switched to bobsleigh and became a world champion and three-time Olympian. After retiring from sport, he spent four years working at a fast-growing fintech company before returning to high-performance sport. Today, he applies lessons from football, Olympic sport, and business. For Lumsden, the biggest adjustment between football and bobsleigh was time. A football game lasts 60 minutes. A bobsleigh race can be won or lost in the first five seconds. Those first seconds happen under maximum pressure, maximum expectation, and maximum physical arousal. Success isn’t just about power. It’s about helping athletes access that power by making pressure feel familiar. Because pressure doesn’t break performance. Unfamiliar pressure does.

Behind the Scenes: When Effort Becomes the Problem

The start of a bobsleigh race creates a paradox. Athletes must be aggressive and explosive. But if they try to force the moment — if adrenaline turns into tension — they slow down. Timing slips. Co-ordination breaks down. The extra effort meant to improve performance actually hurts it. This became even clearer to Lumsden in Olympic sport. In professional football, games happen weekly. In the Olympics, pressure builds for four years toward one moment. That long buildup can either sharpen performance or overwhelm it. “If you’re not mentally prepared,” he explains, “if you haven’t done the work between the ears as much as you have in the gym, your mind is going to break before your body does.” The answer isn’t to remove pressure or hope it feels manageable. The answer is to make sure pressure never feels new.

Lesson #1: Pressure Shouldn’t Be Saved for Game Day

In Olympic bobsleigh, the start is critical. A bad start can cost the race. It also happens in the most intense environment athletes face all year. If that intensity appears for the first time on race day, the nervous system reacts as if it’s under threat. Muscles tighten. Timing speeds up. Focus shifts from execution to survival.

“We’ll throw metaphorical sticks in the spokes to see how people respond… Manufacturing some adversity in the training environment helps build that resilience.”

So teams train for it. “On the bobsleigh side, we manufacture adversity in our training environment,” Lumsden says. “We’ll throw metaphorical sticks in the spokes to see how people respond. We’ll put a hold on the track and turn the noise up really loud. Manufacturing some adversity in the training environment helps build that resilience.” Unexpected delays. Loud noise. Compressed timelines. Sudden changes. These are added on purpose. The goal isn’t to make practice harder just for the sake of it. The goal is to make high-pressure conditions feel normal. On competition day, the body recognizes the intensity. But instead of reacting to it, athletes focus on execution. So the real danger isn’t pressure. It’s surprise pressure. Listen to Jesse describe how pressure shouldn’t be saved for game day:

Lesson #2: Manufacturing Adversity Builds Confidence

When pressure rises, confidence doesn’t come from positive thinking or motivation. It comes from evidence. Athletes need proof they can perform when things aren’t perfect. In high-performance sport, problems are guaranteed. Equipment fails. Schedules change. Mistakes happen. If athletes only train under perfect conditions, any disruption feels like a threat. Manufacturing adversity changes that, Lumsden says. “You do it not because it’s going to happen, but if it does, you’re more prepared … it becomes not a panic moment, but a moment of ‘I’ve been here. Let’s go do our job.’” When athletes practice amid noise, fatigue, uncertainty, and disruption, competition feels manageable. Emotions stay steadier. Decisions stay clear. Execution stays sharp. That’s real confidence. Not the belief that everything will go well, but the knowledge that you can perform even if it doesn’t. Listen to Jesse describe how manufacturing adversity builds confidence:

Lesson #3: Optimal Performance Comes from Controlled Intensity

Under pressure, most people try to push harder. More effort. More urgency. More control. In bobsleigh, that backfires. The start of a race requires maximum power, but it also demands rhythm and coordination. When athletes tighten up or force the moment, their speed drops.

“If you’re not mentally prepared… your mind is going to break before your body does.”

The same thing happens in business and leadership. High-stakes moments often cause people to rush, over-control, or narrow their focus too much. They try to raise performance but end up lowering clarity instead. As Lumsden says: “If you’re not mentally prepared… your mind is going to break before your body does.” Elite performers learn to operate with high intensity and low tension. Aggressive but composed. Urgent but controlled. That ability doesn’t come from trying to relax in the moment. It comes from repeated exposure to pressure until the body learns how to stay loose at full speed. Listen to Jesse describe how optimal performance comes from contolled internsity:

Practical Tool: Manufacture Adversity

One of the most useful lessons from Jesse Lumsden’s experience is simple: Don’t wait for high pressure to show up. Introduce it on purpose. Manufacturing adversity means building controlled challenges into your preparation. Instead of always practicing in calm, predictable settings, recreate the stress you might face later. For example: The point isn’t to make things harder for no reason. It’s to build familiarity. If you’ve already performed under tougher conditions than you expect to face, the real moment feels manageable. Your focus stays on the task, not on your stress response. Over time, this creates a deeper kind of confidence. Not optimism. Not motivation. Evidence. You know you can perform because you’ve done it before — under pressure. That’s the advantage behind Lumsden’s approach: Pressure doesn’t break performance. Unfamiliar pressure does. This article is part of Third Factor’s Story Behind the Story series, in which we unpack the stories behind both iconic and under-the-radar Olympic and Paralympic moments. In this feature, Third Factor CEO Dane Jensen speaks with alpine skier and Canadian Paralympic Champion Josh Dueck about the mindset that let him peak at the right time to win gold and silver at the 2014 Sochi Paralympic Games. — Josh Dueck has always sought out challenges that most people avoid. A competitive freestyle skier, he was paralyzed in 2004 while attempting a Superman front flip while coaching a group of kids. Rather than quit skiing, he returned to the mountains and became the first person to ever land a backflip on a sit-ski. The feat helped redefine what was possible in adaptive sport and established him as one of its most innovative athletes. By the time he arrived at the Sochi Paralympics in 2014, he had already won a silver at the Vancouver Games in 2010 and was a sponsored athlete. But the season leading up to Sochi was difficult: He was inconsistent and barely qualified for the Paralympics. “I was slumping pretty hard. Emotionally, physically, technically, I was not there,” he says. Behind the scenes, however, his coaches had a plan. They structured his preparation so he would peak during the Games, not before. To nearly everyone’s surprise, including his own, Josh won silver in the men’s downhill, the first alpine event of the Games. It’s a race where competitors can reach speeds of up to 140 kilometres per hour.

“I should have been so fired up with winning a silver. But I was actually a little bit let down … and it dawned on me that I wanted more.”

The surprise silver stirred his competitive spirit: “I should have been so fired up with winning a silver. But I was actually a little bit let down … and it dawned on me that I wanted more.” The next chance for “more” came in the Super G race – Josh’s strength. “When I go fast on snow, everything is slow for me, and I’m actually quite relaxed.” He believed he had a good chance for a medal, and at one point during the race, he was tied for first. Then, near the finish, he lost control. “I did a 360 at 100 kilometres an hour,” he recalls. After that near-miss for a gold medal, Josh’s next opportunity came in the Men’s Combined, a two-part event that blended both the Slalom and Super G. At first glance, it wasn’t an obvious fit. The speed portion suited him. The technical slalom did not. “I’m a speed skier. I love going fast – and so downhill and Super G were really my best opportunities to be successful.” And yet, the morning of the race felt different. “I woke up with a head full of steam,” he says. “I was like, ‘You know what? Today’s my day.’” In speaking with Josh about that day, a day that ended with a gold medal, there were two lessons that stood out:

Lesson #1: Empty The Cup

Athletes are trained to process doubt – to learn from mistakes and let them go. What Josh discovered in Sochi is that managing the highs can be just as important as managing the lows. On the morning of the Combined, he was riding a wave of anticipation. Then he spoke with his sports psychologist. “He said, ‘How are you feeling?’ and I said to him, ‘You’ll never guess – all night I just kept waking up with the anthem in my head. I’m feeling it. I’m ready.” Instead of celebrating with him, his psychologist offered a reminder: “You know the exercise of letting go of failure and what isn’t in your control? It’s equally applicable to let go of this anticipation, these good feelings … you need to empty the cup out so you can go out with open eyes, open heart and a curious mind.”

“… you need to empty the cup out so you can go out with open eyes, open heart and a curious mind.”

But letting go of positive emotion proved harder than letting go of failure. “It’s not so hard to let go of failure when you do it all the time – that’s the nature of being an athlete,” Josh reflected, “but the positive moments, you want to ride that wave. It feels really good.” To reset, he turned to breathing work and mindfulness. “I had to really go inside and just let it go… I started to let my heart fill with appreciation for my friends and family back home who had sacrificed so much to allow me to do what I do.” He also thought about his mom and dad and what he learned from them. When Josh was young, his dad stressed to him the joy of effort, while his mom taught him to handle setbacks with grace and to see every step back as an opportunity to grow. That shift reframed the moment. “I’d already realized that I was winning by being there. It wasn’t about crossing the line faster; it was about being open to the day.” Emptying the cup didn’t diminish his intensity. It allowed him to stay present, adapt to conditions and execute. The result was Paralympic gold. Listen to Josh describe how he let go of both positive and negative attachment:

Lesson #2: Replace Confidence With Assurance

During our conversation, I suggested that what Josh was describing sounded like replacing bravado with confidence. He pushed back. “I’m not a confident person, and I never was as an athlete. My superpower was probably that I’m incredibly insecure.” Rather than trying to manufacture confidence, he focused on what he could control: effort. His approach was simple: outwork others, follow the plan, and measure readiness against preparation. He didn’t believe he was the most naturally talented athlete, but no one could take away his work ethic. Before each race, the question wasn’t whether he felt confident. It was whether he had done the work. If the answer was yes, the result could unfold as it would. “It wasn’t confidence. It was assurance,” he said. “I did my best, and if my best is good enough today, well, all right. And if it’s not, at least I did my best.” In Josh’s view, confidence can rise and fall with circumstances. Assurance – built through disciplined preparation – remains steady under pressure. So, when a big moment arrives, he explains, you don’t need to feel confident. You need to know you’ve done the work and that you’re ready for the challenge ahead. Listen to Josh talk about replacing confidence with assurance:

Putting It Together

From the outside, Josh’s Sochi performance looks like a story of momentum: a surprise silver followed by a gold medal finish. The story behind the story goes deeper. His performance was grounded in preparation that built assurance and in training to let go of both disappointment and success, so he could stay present when it mattered most. In business, high-stakes moments create similar emotional swings. When results falter, anxiety rises. When things go well, excitement and expectation can take over. Both can distort judgment. Josh’s recipe is simple and can be applied in any domain: — Beyond being an incredible athlete, Josh is also a very captivating speaker. If you’re interested in bringing him in to speak at an event, you can find him at Talent Bureau here.

Meet our expert: Peter Jensen, Founder

Peter Jensen Gold Medal
Peter Jensen is an expert in leadership and performance under pressure. A PhD in Sport Psychology, he has attended eleven Olympic Games with Team Canada and helped athletes achieve peak performance, including four consecutive Olympic medal-winning women’s hockey teams. He teaches with Queen’s Smith School of Business, works with Fortune 500 organizations globally, and helps leaders and teams apply the lessons of elite sport to drive sustained performance and growth.

“What Is The Olympic Experience Really Like Behind The Scenes?”

People often ask me what it’s like being at the Olympics, and I usually start with this: No one ever comes back saying, “That wasn’t very good.” The Games always live up to their billing. The Olympics are as big, as intense, and as meaningful as people imagine. Importantly, the experience doesn’t begin when the opening ceremonies start. It begins long before anyone arrives.

The Games begin before the Games

One of the biggest misconceptions is that pressure suddenly appears for athletes at the Olympics. It doesn’t. It accumulates long before. I used to tell athletes that the start of an Olympic year feels like walking around with an empty backpack. As the year progresses, they start putting things into it without realizing it. Expectations. Hopes. Comments from others such as “You’re the favourite” or “Don’t let us down.” None of it is meant to be harmful, but it all adds mental weight to the backpack. If athletes don’t learn how to empty that backpack, they won’t perform well when it matters. That’s why preparation must include simulation. Before major championships, we would recreate the full competition environment – crowds, judges, uniforms, even the order in which athletes compete – and then debrief it together. One of the most powerful moments for me was watching younger athletes realize that even world champions get nervous. Experience doesn’t remove pressure. It changes how you respond to it.

Arrival: awe, structure, and distraction

Arriving at the Olympic Village feels a lot like taking a child to university for the first time. You step off the bus, people help with your bags, you’re shown where you’ll stay, eat, and where everything else is. Then comes the flag-raising ceremony: your anthem, your team, the first moment you fully register that you are at the biggest sporting event on the planet: the Olympics. That moment matters. It grounds you. It also amplifies everything you’re carrying. The village itself is extraordinary. You eat meals with athletes from all over the world. In the Summer Games especially, the scale is overwhelming. It’s inspiring and distracting at the same time. Learning what to engage with, and what to tune out, is part of performing well.

Walking into the opening ceremonies

One of the most formative experiences I’ve had was walking into the opening ceremonies. I did it first in Calgary in 1988, and later again in Vancouver in 2010. Walking into the Games in your own country is unlike anything else. The roar of the crowd isn’t just loud – it’s personal. These are your people. The support is energizing, but it also adds another layer of expectation. My experience at the Olympics has caused me to change how I work with athletes. When I talk about the Games with them, I’m not describing something abstract. I know what it feels like in your body to be there: the adrenaline, the noise, the pride, and the responsibility, all at once. It has reinforced something I’ve believed for a long time: preparation isn’t just about skill. It’s about knowing how to respond when emotions are high and attention is pulled in every direction.

The reality of daily performance

Most days at the Olympics look nothing like television. They’re built around routines: meals, practices, travel, waiting, and adjusting to constant change. Schedules shift. Buses run late. Events are delayed. Ice gets damaged mid-competition and must be resurfaced. Competing at the Olympics is largely about learning how to manage time and how to return to your routine when that time is disrupted. When delays happen, the question I always ask athletes is simple: Where would you normally be in your preparation right now? Then we go back there, mentally and physically, and continue as planned. Consistency creates stability when conditions aren’t stable.

Moments you never forget

Some of the most powerful Olympic moments never make the broadcast. One that has stayed with me happened late at night in Calgary after Elizabeth Manley won her silver medal. Hours earlier, the crowd had been deafening. Now it was just the two of us walking through an underground residence tunnel. Two cleaners looked up, saw her medal, stepped aside, and quietly clapped as she passed. No cameras. No noise. Just recognition. That moment captured the Olympics better than any podium moment ever could.

What leaders can learn from the Games

Behind the scenes, the Olympics are not polished or predictable. They’re demanding, human, and full of disruption. The athletes who thrive aren’t the ones who wait for perfect conditions. They’re the ones who know their routines, understand themselves under pressure, and can return to what matters when things go sideways. That lesson applies far beyond sport. High-stakes moments rarely unfold as planned. Performance, whether on the ice or in an organization, comes down to preparation, adaptability, and the ability to stay grounded when the noise gets loud. That’s the part of the Olympics you won’t see on TV. This article is part of Third Factor’s Story Behind the Story series, in which we unpack the stories behind both iconic and under-the-radar Olympic and Paralympic moments. In this feature, Third Factor Partner Sandra Stark shares the mental performance work she and Peter Jensen did with Canadian figure skaters Brian Orser and Tracy Wilson ahead of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics to help them manage pressure and perform when the stakes were highest. — The 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary were one of the most pressure-filled environments Canadian athletes had ever faced. Canada had never won an Olympic gold medal on home soil, the expectations were immense, and national attention was relentless. Nowhere was the spotlight brighter than on figure skating. Brian Orser entered the Games as the reigning world champion and the central figure in what the media called the “Battle of the Brians,” a highly publicized rivalry with American Brian Boitano. He was Canada’s flag bearer and one of the country’s best hopes for gold. Everywhere he went, strangers reminded him what the country expected – “don’t let us down.” At the same time, ice dancers Tracy Wilson and Rob McCall were carrying a different kind of pressure. Canada had never won an Olympic medal in ice dance, and breaking the long-standing dominance of the Soviet teams was widely viewed as unlikely. What the public saw was composure under extraordinary pressure. Orser delivered a near-flawless performance to win silver by the narrowest of margins, and Wilson and McCall captured an unexpected bronze, part of a remarkable showing in which figure skaters won three of Canada’s five medals. What most people didn’t see was the internal challenge both athletes were managing.  Whenever something important is on the line and the outcome is uncertain, arousal – the body’s activation level – increases. The heart rate rises. Muscles tighten. Attention narrows. Up to a point, this activation improves performance. But when arousal climbs too high, execution suffers. Timing slips. Decision-making tightens. Small errors multiply. This is why elite performers don’t just train physically. They train to manage their activation level so they can perform at their best when the pressure is highest. The goal isn’t to eliminate nerves – that isn’t possible when something really matters – but instead to keep arousal within a functional range. In service of this, two years before the Games, the Canadian Figure Skating Association made mental preparation a priority. They brought in Peter and I to help athletes identify the moments that would elevate their arousal and develop specific plans for managing their arousal when those moments arrive. Here are two of the techniques that we used, as relayed in conversation with Brian and Tracy.

Lesson #1: Plan for Reality Instead of Avoiding It

After the World Championships in Geneva, where Brian was not happy with how he skated, Peter asked him how he was preparing mentally before skating. Brian explained that he “had all the showers turned on in the dressing room so he wouldn’t hear how the Russian skater [who went ahead of him] had done.”  Standing in the noise of the shower, Brian imagined the Russian had skated brilliantly. In reality, the Russian had fallen on both triple axels. In trying to avoid reality, Brian instead magnified his anxiety. “That was the turning point,” Peter explains. From then on, Brian’s training approach shifted: instead of trying to shut out uncertainty, Peter worked with Brian to plan for it. Together they laid out exactly what he would do after warm-up: walk through his program, rehearse key jumps, and – most importantly – rehearse the opening segment he was about to skate. In figure skating competitions, skating order matters – and skaters don’t learn their order to skate until the day before they skate the short program. If you skate late, you may have an agonizing half-hour wait after your warm-up to compete. If you skate early, you may not even leave the ice – which feels incredibly rushed. Brian hated skating first – but instead of hoping it wouldn’t happen, Peter helped him normalize it by creating a plan for each scenario:  “We developed a routine that worked for me,” Brian explains. “A skating-first routine, a skating-sixth routine. We were prepared for any scenario.” The plan removed the uncertainty and second guessing that could creep in. Once Brian had clarity on what he was going to pay attention to and practised it; he could maintain control over his arousal level. This wasn’t about calming down, it was about restoring control. In particular, they agreed that if Brian drew his dreaded skating-first slot, he would skate only part of the warm-up, step off the ice, and walk through the opening of his program – physically and mentally – with skate guards on. He would mentally rehearse through to his first major jump, then return to the ice once his warm-up ended.  At the Olympics, that exact scenario played out. Brian skated first in the short program – and won it convincingly. Anyone watching would never have known how uncomfortable that situation was for him. Listen to Brian talk about the steps that lead to a great performance:

Lesson #2: Train For High Arousal Instead of Trying to Eliminate It

Tracy Wilson knew exactly when her arousal would spike: the moment she stepped onto the ice and heard her name announced in a packed Calgary arena. “Nothing would get me more jazzed up than hearing ‘Tracy Wilson, Rob McCall, Canada,’” she recalls. Instead of trying to suppress that reaction and stay calm, she trained for it. Tracy used vivid mental imagery, rehearsed repeatedly in everyday moments: driving to the rink or lying in bed at night. “I hear the announcement and I observe how I feel,” she explains. Then she ran a specific attentional cue: “I hear the noise … I’m going to go under the noise. It’s there. It’s going to go over. It’s going to go behind my back and down.” This wasn’t intellectual visualization. It was sensory and physical. Because the body responds to imagery as if it’s real, repetition trained her nervous system to respond automatically.  Peter and I saw this pattern repeatedly: performers assume the goal is to eliminate nerves. But when something matters, high arousal is inevitable. The skill is learning to perform with it and keeping it within a functional range by directing attention to where it belongs. Tracy’s imagery did exactly that. It kept her focus on skating to centre ice, waiting for the music, and entering the opening movements, rather than drifting toward outcomes, judgments, or expectations. Listen to Tracy discuss training and preparation for emotional moments:

What This Means for You

The more important something is, and the more uncertainty it contains, the higher your activation will rise. The question isn’t whether you’ll feel pressure but rather how you will respond to it. And how you respond in the moment is a function of how you’ve trained and what you’ve practiced:  Orser used structure to manage waiting and uncertainty. Wilson used imagery to regulate the surge that came with public introduction. Different methods, same objective: directing attention toward controllable actions and away from the thoughts and feelings that lead to overwhelm. Whether you’re stepping onto Olympic ice or into a high-stakes meeting, the principle is the same: you don’t rise to the occasion, you default to what you’ve trained. Here are four ways to apply the principles of mental preparation to your reality:  

Build Resilience In Your Organization

Bring the skills that elite athletes use to build resilience and perform under pressure to your organization. Contact us to learn more about our resilience programs.

Bring skills that elite athletes use to build resilience to your organization. Contact us to learn more.

This article is part of Third Factor’s Story Behind the Story series, where we look at remarkable Olympic and Paralympic achievements and the athletes who made them happen. This time, we’re featuring Brian and Robin McKeever. Together, they’ve won 16 gold medals in Para Nordic skiing. — Brian McKeever is one of Canada’s most accomplished skiers, winning gold at every single winter Paralympics since Salt Lake 2002 (6 in a row), and is now part of the coaching team heading into Milan Cortina. Brian was 19 when he began losing his vision to Stargardt disease. He competed in Para Nordic skiing’s visually impaired category, where athletes ski at full speed but rely on a guide to navigate the course. That guide was his older brother, Robin. Robin wasn’t a helper on the sidelines – he was an elite skier in his own right. As Brian’s guide, Robin skied directly in front of him during races, setting the pace, choosing lines, calling terrain, and making split-second decisions that affected them both. If Robin made a mistake, Brian paid for it. If Robin wasn’t fast enough, they couldn’t win. To spectators, the McKeevers’ racing looked effortless: two skiers lined up and moving in sync, linked by trust and quiet communication. What wasn’t visible was how much work it took to build that easy relationship – or how important kindness was to sustaining it. Brian raced on the same courses and distances as Olympic cross-country skiers. The physical demands were the same. What differed was how results were calculated. In Para Nordic skiing, athletes are classified by disability type, and finishing times are adjusted using a percentage system, like a golf handicap. For Brian, that system created a unique challenge. Because he was in the least severe vision-loss class, his finishing time was counted at 100 per cent. Athletes with more vision loss had time removed, sometimes significantly. As a result, Brian and Robin often had to win races by minutes to win overall. Guiding made their reliance on each other unavoidable. In Brian’s category, Robin skied directly in front, choosing the line while Brian drafted behind him. The draft helped – but only if the guide was fast enough to lead. If Brian had to hold back because his guide was not skiing fast enough, there was no way he would win, which meant that Robin had to ski at a level that matched one of Canada’s top able-bodied skiers. As Brian puts it, “I’m not winning without a good guide.” This wasn’t an individual event with assistance. It was a shared performance.

Kindness Is the Mechanism That Lets Standards Hold

When choosing who to work with, one thing mattered most to the brothers. “Skills can be learned,” Brian says, “but the right compatibility is [most] important.” For Brian and Robin, compatibility meant being able to handle feedback without eroding trust. It wasn’t about being agreeable, it was about keeping standards high while delivering feedback with kindness. “There could be criticisms, there can be hard conversations,” Brian explains. But when feedback came with “kindness in their hearts and how it’s being presented,” it became “much easier to listen to it and to debrief, and figure out a better way forward.” That difference mattered for learning. With trust in place, someone could say, “Hey, I think if you do something this way, you’ll be faster,” and it would be heard as help. As Brian says, “we all get better together.” Robin noticed the same effect. Strong trust meant “less micromanaging.” Standards didn’t drop; roles were clear, intentions were trusted, and learning could continue under pressure. Here’s Brian sharing about the importance of kindness to their culture:

Kindness Can Raise the Bar

One of the most important moments in Brian’s Paralympic career happened because a competitor took the time to help him. Early in his Para Nordic career, Brian sometimes raced without a guide. In one event, he finished just “30 seconds behind the top guy in the world.” Afterward, the German athlete and his guide told him, “You need to have a guide, because today with a guide, you might have won.” Brian remembers thinking, “Why would another nation be helping me out on this?” The answer was simple: they were “just excited to have competition.” That advice changed Brian’s path. Because of that conversation, he asked Robin to guide him, beginning “10 years of pretty fun work racing together.” Sometimes kindness doesn’t make sport easier. It makes it better. On why others helped them out to raise the bar:

Trust Is Built in the First Failure, Not the First Success

Their first World Cup together took place at the Salt Lake City Olympic course in March 2001. It was unusually warm – about 15 Celsius, Robin recalls – and the snow was wet and unpredictable. On a fast downhill, something went wrong. Robin reached the bottom and realized, “Brian’s not there.” He waited, then started hiking back up the course. He heard Brian yelling. What he saw first wasn’t Brian, but “a ski sitting off the edge of the trail.” Brian had caught an edge in the “sloppy snow,” gone off course, and ended up “hanging off of a tree upside down.” Robin climbed down, removed the skis, and pulled him back up. From Brian’s side, he stepped outside the track to get a push and hit the “mashed potatoes” snow: “My ski stopped and I kept going.” The tree became “the only thing stopping me from sliding headfirst down a steep mud slope.” He held on and waited for Robin. “I figured he’d eventually figure out I wasn’t there,” Brian says. Robin later called it “a very big failure on day one.” What mattered was what followed. “We laughed about it.” No blame. No anger. That moment set the tone. Trust wasn’t automatic – even between brothers. It was built through shared experience and protected by how mistakes were handled. Kindness showed up early, not as softness, but as steadiness. Here’s Robin sharing their early guiding failures:

Autonomy in Preparation. Alignment in Execution.

The McKeevers succeeded because they didn’t pretend they were the same athlete. As Robin explains, “We have overlapping roles that work together … we have the same end goal, but we still need to arrive there in slightly different ways.” That showed up in training. “We have our own training programs,” he says. “It’s not exactly the same, but we still need to arrive at the same point where we can ski together, race together, and communicate in order to achieve a team victory.” Brian puts it plainly: “I can ski by myself. Robin can ski by himself, but he’s there to help me. And we are winning this together. We’re not doing this individually.” Giving each other space reduced friction. Coming together at the right moments kept them aligned. Trust and looking out for each other were the glue that made both possible.

What Leading With Kindness Looks Like in Practice

The McKeevers’ story reveals three practical behaviours that translate directly to leadership and teams:

01.

Reset without blame when something goes wrong.

02.

Deliver feedback as performance support, not personal judgment.

03.

Clarify ownership to reduce micromanagement and create alignment.

01. Reset without blame when something goes wrong

When Brian crashed off the course in Salt Lake City, the response wasn’t panic or finger-pointing. Robin described the day as a failure, but one they laughed about and moved on from. That response preserved trust in a moment where it could have fractured.

02. Deliver feedback as performance support, not personal judgment

Hard conversations were unavoidable, but when framed with respect, people stayed receptive. The feedback that mattered most was specific and performance-focused: if you do this differently, you’ll be faster.

03. Reduce micromanagement by clarifying ownership and alignment

Trust allowed Brian and Robin to prepare in their own way while still arriving at the same execution point. Different paths. Same outcome. This is kindness without lowering the bar: respect that keeps people engaged, paired with precision that drives improvement. In the McKeevers’ case, kindness turned trust into medals, and a partnership into a lasting competitive advantage. —- Brian will be coaching the Canadian para-Nordic team as they go for gold in Milan-Cortina starting on March 10 (see the team schedule here), while Robin will be supporting the Canadian Nordic team as a member of the coaching staff.  

Build Resilience In Your Organization

Bring the skills that elite athletes use to build resilience and perform under pressure to your organization. Contact us to learn more about our resilience programs.

Bring skills that elite athletes use to build resilience to your organization. Contact us to learn more.

This article is part of Third Factor’s Story Behind the Story series, in which we look at stories behind iconic and under-the-radar Olympic and Paralympic moments. For this feature, Third Factor founder Peter Jensen takes us onto the ice at the Sochi Olympics women’s hockey final, from his vantage point as Team Canada’s mental performance coach, and explains how the team came from behind to defeat the United States for gold. — For a moment it looked as if Canada’s reign as Olympic women’s hockey champions was about to end. It was the gold-medal game at Sochi 2014 and in the third period the U.S. was up 2-0. Time was running out. Then Canada scored to make it 2-1. With under a minute left, Marie-Philippe Poulin tied the game. In overtime, she scored again and Canada claimed gold. Today, that finish is remembered as one of the greatest comebacks in Olympic hockey history. But it didn’t happen by accident. Team Canada had anticipated this scenario and prepared for it. The weeks leading up to the Sochi Olympics were not easy for the national team. “We hadn’t done really well in our league play during the Olympic year,” recalls Third Factor founder Peter Jensen. The team also underwent a disruptive coaching change just prior to the Games. Momentum favoured the Americans, and confidence alone wasn’t going to be enough for Team Canada to clinch gold. They needed more. So Jensen focused on something tangible: preparing the team for adversity.
That preparation mattered in Sochi. When pressure mounted, the team didn’t fracture emotionally. They had already agreed on how they would behave.

You Perform How You Prepare

A persistent myth about high performance – whether in athletes or business leaders – is that resilience appears when it’s needed most. The reality is simpler: it shows up only to the extent that it has been rehearsed. Months before the Olympics, Jensen met with the team before a game against a strong AAA boys’ team from Brandon, Manitoba. The discussion wasn’t about winning that night. Instead, it focused on a specific scenario they could face: being down 2-0 in the third period.  The players began by talking through how they would manage the clock. “You think about it in 10-minute segments,” Jensen explains. “You break it in half … and break it down into achievable things.” He then narrowed the window. What if there were only five minutes left? Now it became two-and-a-half-minute sequences. Smaller problems. Clearer focus. The emphasis was not on emotion or outcome, but on behaviours the team could control under pressure. So when Team Canada found itself down two goals with around seven minutes left in the Sochi gold medal game, the players weren’t overwhelmed. The situation felt familiar. They had been there before and knew how to respond. 
Canada takes on the USA in women's gold medal hockey game at the 2014 Sochi Olympics
Canada takes on the USA in women’s gold medal hockey game on February 20, 2014 at the Shayba Arena during the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. Photo Credit: High Performance Photography, Dave Holland.

“Stay Positive” Is Not a Strategy

Another subtle but critical shift was Jensen’s refusal to let the team sidestep uncomfortable realities. When asked how they would respond individually late in a close game, players emphasized the importance of staying positive and supporting their teammates.  Jensen pushed back. “The coach shortens the bench. And so you’re irritated,” he told them, adding players who weren’t getting ice time would feel frustrated and lose focus. Pretending otherwise wouldn’t make that problem go away. So the team discussed what that “irritation” might feel like and how players could still support their teammates on the ice. By talking about those moments in advance, they normalized them. Falling behind stopped being a psychological threat and became a known condition with a known response. That preparation mattered in Sochi. When pressure mounted, the team didn’t fracture emotionally. They had already agreed on how they would behave.

Normalize Adversity Instead of Hoping It Won’t Appear

After the gold medal game, head coach Kevin Dineen summed up his team in a few words: They never gave up.  From Jensen’s perspective, there was more to that explanation. “They didn’t give up because that’s who they were,” he says. “We’d done a lot of work on team vision and culture. But we’d also simulated what they would need to do.” The team didn’t treat adversity as an anomaly. They treated it as an inevitability. By rehearsing the moments most likely to derail them – shortened benches, frustration, time pressure – they removed surprise from the equation. And when surprise disappears, performance improves. The Sochi gold medal didn’t come from belief summoned in the moment. It came from preparation that made the moment feel familiar.

Pre-Plan for Adversity

You don’t need an Olympic stage to apply these lessons. The same approach Team Canada used to win gold works in business, leadership and life. Here’s how to get started: Preparing for adversity doesn’t invite negativity. It builds confidence, so when things don’t go to plan, as they inevitably will, you’ll know exactly how to respond.   Watch the full conversation with Peter on the story behind gold in Sochi.
 

Key Insights:

  • Resilience is not a personality trait; it is a trained response to pressure.

  • Breaking high-stakes situations into smaller, controllable segments reduces cognitive overload and sharpens execution.

  • Avoiding negative scenarios creates fragility; rehearsing them creates confidence.

  • Teams perform better under pressure when they normalize adversity instead of treating it as failure.

  • Preparation replaces hope with clarity.

Build Resilience In Your Organization

Bring the skills that elite athletes use to build resilience and perform under pressure to your organization. Contact us to learn more about our resilience programs.

Bring skills that elite athletes use to build resilience to your organization. Contact us to learn more.