Believe I Could
Hi Friends.
I went to this terrific dinner thing at Stratton Mountain School here in southern Vermont last night. It was a send-off dinner for the elite team of nordic athletes who train here in the summer and fall, the SMS T-2 Team. The night was in several parts, including a Q + A with the skiers, before we headed to dinner and the fundraising portion of the event.
Part of me is deeply sad and disturbed that so many of our country’s great athletes and the organizations that support them have to beg for money on a very regular basis, having to resort to cheesy things like silent auctions and money calls. But that’s a different story for another time. It was a really terrific night with so many sweet moments, but the one I woke up thinking about today were the seven words über-athlete Jessie Diggins said during the Q + A.
She was talking about winning her second Olympic medal at the 2022 Games in Beijing. She had had food poisoning the day before the competition and so was unable to do any of the usual pre-race things she does to prepare. Jessie said of that time and the race that “everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong.”
And yet … Olympic silver.
Jessie talked about how her body was unprepared for the race, she talked about how she was skirting the usual racing tactics because the weather and course conditions were off. She talked about hitting that wall of … there is just no way … and of those around her, coaches, etc., telling her she couldn’t do what she was doing. And then she said seven of what I think are the most important words, not just in feats of tremendous athleticism, but in all of life: I made my brain believe I could.
I made my brain believe I could.
There is, of course, a vast gap between the life Jessie lives, training at the highest level, devoting her days to creating optimal situations that will allow her to perform at her very best on the international stage in a sport where Americans have traditionally been weak, and the lives you and I are living. (Sidebar: all four of the Olympic medals won by Americans in nordic skiing were in the room last night, literally. Bill Koch, who won silver in the 1972 Olympics brought his and Jessie brought her three). Jessie’s life is training and skiing and training and skiing. You and I (I’m guessing) are just regular folks, but I want you to understand something very important: I made my brain believe I could should be taught in every class at every level of education. It should be conveyed from parents to kids during their entire upbringing. It should be hammered into every human being from Day One.
You have within you the power of creation, the power to make whatever you want to have happen happen. This is not true only of Olympic athletes, it is true of everyone.
You are created of the substance of the very Creator. If you decide to make your brain believe you can, then you will.
Trust me, this is The Truth.
Jessie is truly a spectacular human and I have had the good fortune to get to know her over the past few years. She is humble and graceful and bubbly. She wears her Minnesota roots with pride. She works her bloody arse off and she has chosen in this life to continually push the limit of what’s possible with her body and mind. She’s an inspiration to girls and women and she is always talking about how skiing is a team sport, praising her T-2 teammates and all the support she receives, even though we all know that one person crosses the finish line at a time.
Most of us, of course, will never use our bodies at the level Jessie does, but she and so many others are a reminder of what’s possible, and not necessarily because they were born with something we don’t have. Many of the folks doing the kinds of things Jessie is doing have chosen to take the human condition and make it into an experiment of sorts, in mental and physical fortitude. Most likely those super athletes don’t think in terms of the spiritual aspects of what they’re doing, but make no mistake, to trust that you can reach deep inside and draw from the well of your source of creative power (with which you were endowed at birth) is a spiritual enterprise.
To say I made my brain believe I could is the very same thing as understanding that I am endowed with the powers of creation.
Which was described by a certain group of people at one point in time as and God created man in God’s image.
Which is roughly translated to mean that each of us, you and I, are created of the same forces, spiritual goo, that created us. We have all of that and all of the potential that comes with it, within.
All of us, each and every one.
Chew on that with your bagel this morning, folks. And be very, very well.
xomo