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:

Rehearse with background noise or interruptions to strengthen focus
Shorten preparation time to simulate urgency
Ask a colleague to introduce unexpected questions or changes
Practice recovering from mistakes instead of stopping

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. Bob Safian, former editor of Fast Company, once described the evolution of organizational change in a visceral way that has stayed with me. He said change used to feel like crossing a river. You stepped off solid ground, navigated the current, and eventually reached stable ground on the other side. Today, it feels more like crossing an ocean. The waves come from every direction. Just as you get past one, another wallops you. Then another. Forget about the shoreline. There’s none in sight. That image captures what leaders are experiencing now. We are not managing one big disruption, then going back to normal. We are operating inside a permanent state of flux. We’re managing today’s business while trying to build tomorrow’s amid unprecedented economic, technological and societal changes. Over three decades of working in high-performance environments, I have learned that while we cannot control the waves, we can control how we respond to them. Three practices can make a meaningful difference.

01.

Start With Mindset. Then Respond.

02.

Prevent Isolation.

03.

Create A Culture Of Feedback.

01. Start With Mindset. Then Respond.

Nobel-prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman observed something deeply human about surprise. When unexpected events occur, people tend to believe the lesson is that they now know what to do in similar circumstances in the future. We assume the mistake was a lack of information or insight. But this is the wrong conclusion. The real lesson is that the future is inherently surprising. No matter how prepared we are, some events will catch us off guard. That realization changes everything. When leaders shift from asking, “How did we miss this?” to saying, “Of course something unexpected happened,” they build resilience in their teams. They create space for response instead of reaction.

“Over three decades of working in high-performance environments, I have learned that while we cannot control the waves, we can control how we respond to them.”

Jocko Willink, a former U.S. Navy SEAL commander, trains his teams to respond to setbacks with a single word: “Good.” If a mission is delayed, good — there is more time to prepare. If resources are reduced, good — it forces simplification. “Good” is not meant to dismiss difficulty. It is meant to redirect energy toward action. Serial entrepreneur Brad Jacobs learned a similar lesson in his twenties. When he once presented his mentor, Ludwig Jesselson, with a long list of business problems, Jesselson responded bluntly: “If you want to succeed in business, you must get used to problems. That is what business is all about: solving problems.” Jacobs would later say that this advice shaped every leadership team he built. Still, mindset alone is not enough. Letting go of an outcome people were deeply invested in is not a purely intellectual act. It is emotional. Frustration, disappointment and fear surface quickly when plans unravel. That is why elite performers rely on ritual. Defensive backs in the NFL sometimes use a mental “20-second clock” to feel the impact of a play and then release it. NHL star Connor McDavid, after a difficult shift, removes his helmet, runs his fingers through his hair once, and resets. Performance psychologist Jim Loehr found that elite tennis players use the 25 seconds between points to perform deliberate physical and mental routines that lower their heart rates and restore focus. In business, the ritual will look different. But leaders who help their teams develop a deliberate reset — a clear transition from what just happened to what happens next — build resilience into their culture.

02. Prevent Isolation

When people struggle with change, they rarely announce it. More often, they withdraw. They stop asking questions. They avoid drawing attention to what they do not yet understand. They tell themselves they will figure it out before asking for help. How to prevent isolation

Competent adults do not like feeling incompetent. When change triggers that feeling, the instinct is to work harder in private rather than admit their struggles in public. Yet isolation slows learning. People move up learning curves faster when they receive feedback, hear about best practices and learn what to avoid. Progress accelerates when difficulties are shared. A leader’s role, then, is not to rescue but to interrupt the silence. When someone says, “I haven’t really started yet — there’s so much to learn,” the instinct may be to give them a pep talk. A better move is to ask, “Where could you start?” That question helps identify a small, manageable step the individual could take. By breaking the overwhelming into bite-sized bits, something important will start to happen. Progress will become visible, and confidence will follow. And confidence changes how people experience change itself.

03. Create A Culture Of Feedback

In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle depicts one of the most remarkable examples of rapid team problem solving under pressure. On July 19, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232 suffered a catastrophic loss of hydraulic control over Iowa. The odds of that failure were estimated at one in a billion. There was no checklist for it. No training scenario had prepared the crew. The plane’s pilot, Captain Al Haynes, did something critical in that moment. He did not attempt to solve the problem on his own. First, he accepted help from an off-duty flight instructor who was a passenger. Then he asked his crew, “Does anyone have any ideas?” What followed was a real-time exchange of up to 60 pieces of information a minute among the crew – what was working, what was not, what they needed next – solving problem after problem to fly their dying aircraft to an airfield where they had a chance. Together, they crash-landed the aircraft in Sioux City. Of the plane’s 285 passengers, 185 survived. The accident could have been far worse if not for the crew’s actions. Later, experienced test pilots attempted to replicate the landing in simulators. None succeeded. The difference in the landing was not skill alone. It was communication. The crew members who survived weren’t more skilled than the test pilots. They had better information because they asked for it, shared it quickly with one another and integrated it into their operations.

“The challenges organizations face are too complex and too fast-moving for any one person to solve alone.”

For leaders today, the lesson is clear. The familiar phrase, “Do not bring me problems; bring me solutions,” is largely obsolete. The challenges organizations face are too complex and too fast-moving for any one person to solve alone. The capability you need is already inside your team, your colleagues, your organization. As a leader, it’s your job to unlock it. Build a team where giving and receiving feedback is simply part of how work gets done – where people are comfortable bringing problems forward, knowing the group will help solve them.

There’s only one certainty

We can be certain of one thing: the waves are not stopping. The shore will not always be close. Sometime over the next several months, something none of us anticipated will test our well-laid plans again. The question is not whether uncertainty will appear. It is whether we treat it as a temporary interruption or as the environment itself. Leadership in this era isn’t about having a better crystal ball. It’s about building habits that hold when predictions fail – the habit of coaching your team to reset quickly; helping your people to reach out instead of retreating; and building a culture where feedback and open idea exchange are the norm, not the exception. These practices do not eliminate uncertainty. But they change how we move through it. And sometimes that’s enough to keep us moving forward in turbulent seas.

Key Takeaways:

Expect the unexpected. The lesson of surprise isn’t that we missed something. It’s that the future will always contain surprises. Build teams that respond quickly instead of searching for blame.
Shift to response mode. When plans break down, redirect attention to the next action. Progress starts the moment the team moves from reaction to response.
Reset quickly. Elite performers use small rituals to move on from mistakes. Leaders can help teams create deliberate resets that refocus attention on what happens next.
Interrupt isolation. Change often causes people to withdraw. Leaders accelerate learning by encouraging small starting points and open conversation.
Make feedback normal. Complex challenges require shared intelligence. Teams perform best when problems and ideas move quickly between people.

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:

Do the work: Preparation is the foundation of assurance. When you’ve done the work, you don’t need to manufacture confidence – you can rely on what you’ve built.
Let go of both negative and positive attachment: Don’t cling to mistakes, but don’t get caught up in hype either. Managing success can be just as important as managing failure.
Enter the moment with an empty cup: Clear out expectation and ego so you can respond to what’s actually happening. Remember: open eyes, open heart and a curious mind.

— 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. 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:

Know your optimal arousal level When you need to perform – where do you want your energy level to be? A 6 out of 10? An 8 out of 10? In order to manage arousal, you need to have a goal.
Identify your triggers What moment will increase your arousal? For Brian it was the wait, for Tracy it was the introduction. Once you identify where you are likely to get thrown off, now you can plan.
Create a strategy You can use routine like Brian, a mental image like Tracy that directs your focus, or a tool that works best for you to anchor your attention where it will serve you.
Practice it repeatedly When the moment arrives, your attention will go where it has been trained to go.

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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.

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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:

Identify two to three scenarios that are most likely to derail your team.
Break each scenario into smaller, controllable steps to solve, rather than treating it as one overwhelming problem.
Decide in advance what you will think, say, and do when those moments show up.
Choose simple imagery or verbal cues that help ground focus and regulate emotion under pressure.

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.

As in many sports, when navigating uncertainty it helps to “look where you want to go.” In his latest article for HBR, Third Factor CEO, Dane Jensen, outlines a process for imagining a plausible, positive version of the future and taking steps to actually get there. Read the article at HBR.org. What happens to people who get really good at time management? They get more work! In his latest piece for Harvard Business Review, Third Factor CEO, Dane Jensen, explores why time management is a trap – and what you can do instead to be more efficient without becoming overwhelmed. Read the article at HBR.org.