Good morning and welcome to the Increase Your Impact podcast. I'm Justin Sua, episode 1,984. I'm going to read to you a story that came in the 6 at 6 by Billy Oppenheimer newsletter. It says this. In the 200-meter backstroke at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, American swimmer Aaron Pearsall touched the wall first with the time of

one minute and 54.95 seconds. This was an Olympic record. Pearsall looked up at the scoreboard and instead

of seeing OR or Olympic record, it said DSQ, which means disqualified.

Piersel has been disqualified for an alleged illegal turn during the race.

The U.S. team filed a protest against the decision.

They argued that Pearsol didn't make an illegal turn.

Over the next several hours, officials from the sports governing body, Fina, reviewed the footage of the race.

They consulted the judge in Pearsall's lane and debated whether or not to reinstate Pierceell's gold medal and Olympic record.

Pierceville was asked about what he was thinking and feeling during the hours of deliberation.

He said this,

it just reinforced something I already knew, but now had no choice but to face up to, which was,

I'd be here anyway, you know, medal or no medal. I'd be here anyway. I'd be satisfied with all I did

to get here anyway. The Olympics, I was lucky to be in three

Olympics, or an amazing pinnacle of the sport, and it's fun to be on that stage. But the other 9.9%

of the time, you're not on that stage. And so it has to be about something more than that.

If all you really cared about was that 0.01% of what your career entailed,

you'd be missing out on your entire life.

If you define yourself or your career by that 0.1%, that's really unfortunate.

Shortly after Pearsall realized he and his career weren't going to be defined by a 0.01

moment, the Fina jury came to an agreement. Pearsall had made a legal turn. The disqualification was

overturned and Pearsall's gold medal and Olympic record were reinstated.

Close quote.

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