Quick Cut: S2E319 Unleash Your Inner Olympian - an Interview with Apolo Ohno

It's a Good Life

Brian Buffini

Business, Unknown, Entrepreneurship, Life, Good, Entrepreneur, Coaching

4.4 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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What does it take to have the mindset of an Olympian? In this episode, Brian interviews speed skater Apolo Ohno to find out how we can unlock our inner potential and be inspired to achieve at the highest level, even in challenging and uncertain circumstances. Apolo describes how he developed his talent over time, how he managed his drive so that it didn’t consume him and how he learned to pivot and reinvent himself when he retired.

YOU WILL LEARN:

Why consistency and hard work trump talent.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

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INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“Don’t allow one or two negative thoughts to detract away from the way that you communicate and interact with your family, with your loved ones, with your work and with the goals that you set forth on January 1.” – Apolo Ohno

“If you’ve been derailed, that’s OK. But you have within your control to get back on the wagon, to reassess the situation and to go on the attack that’s going to best suit what you’re seeking. And unless you do that, and take control, you’re just going to be a passenger in the speeding train versus being the conductor.” – Apolo Ohno

“I had the raw talent, but talent alone, unfortunately, is just not enough in the last 5 percent. It is merely just the starting line.” – Apolo Ohno

“There’s a competitive inner drive and a fire in all of us. I call it that high-performance mindset. So, when that’s switched on, you are very sharp, you’re very hungry and it’s time to get work done.” – Apolo Ohno

“Always continue to learn, and always stay hungry no matter what. We as human beings have the capacity to always grow. And we can change our neural chemistry through that system. We’re understanding how that works now. So, the mindset, to me was always the single greatest tool.” – Apolo Ohno

“Hopefully I can help people unlock their own inner potential in a way that they become more confident, more resilient, better relationships with their family, and they’re getting what they believe they both deserve and what they seek.” – Apolo Ohno

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to It's a Good Life with Brian Bafini, founder of America's largest business coaching company.
0:10.4	Here's a short classic cut from one of our all-time favorite episodes.
0:16.1	Today's program is called Unleash Your Inner Olympian and be harder to find somebody better than our guest
0:22.6	today. He is the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian of all time and it's Apollo Ono. I love what
0:29.9	makes people tick, mindset, motivation, methodology, and why people are successful. And I'm a student
0:36.3	of success. You know, that's what I've been my whole
0:38.4	life. And so let's just kind of switch gears for a second. I want you to go back to the very start
0:42.8	and where did it all begin for you and how did you end up becoming who you are. So a little bit of
0:48.5	where you grew up and how you ended up getting into speed skating in the first place.
0:52.1	Sure. I grew up in the Seattle region. My father came to the United States as a Japanese immigrant
0:57.7	when he was 17 years old. Like many who come to this country, they had dreams and aspirations
1:02.6	of just the Americana culture and the life here. And my father didn't speak a word of English,
1:08.7	didn't have any money, tried every single job that he could
1:12.6	just to survive in this environment. And he always jokes and tells me that, you know, when I was born,
1:18.7	he had no idea what the hell to do with me. He just did not know what to do. And so it changed
1:24.7	his life drastically. The one thing that he saw, I think, within me as his son was I just had this tremendous amount of energy. And it was very difficult for me to contain. So my father sought sport to be that catalyst, to be that channel to direct where that energy was going. And I had tried the traditional American stick and ball sports. We had seen the
1:45.6	Winter Olympic Games in 1992 and then again in 1994. And that's when I first saw short track speed skating.
1:52.6	And when I saw this sport, it looked like nothing I'd ever seen before. These athletes wearing these
1:59.0	outfits that look like superhero capes, they're racing around this
2:03.4	ice hockey rink going 35 to 40 miles an hour on a one inch piece of metal. It looked impossible.
2:09.8	It didn't look real. And then my father, because I grew up in Seattle, he drove me to Vancouver,
2:14.4	B.C. to see a competition live. That was when I really fell in love
	...

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