Five years ago, I was asked to interview former Olympian, Shannon Bahrke. On a ski lift. While she was hosting an impressive group of executives at Deer Valley Resort.
If you’re curious, you can watch our video, in which I’m trying to figure out which event in the Olympics Shannon won (the organizers didn’t tell me) and complete a four-minute interview in the four and a half minutes it takes to get up that particular chairlift. That’s former Deloitte CEO, Jim Quigley, in the foreground; he’s representative of the type of top-notch executives Shannon attracts to Deer Valley.
This is Shannon today, in an image I swiped from her Instagram feed:
(Yes, I couldn’t resist adding the “Seek Awe”.)
Why am I telling you this?
Today Shannon is a popular speaker, and I just watched a quick little excerpt from one of her speeches.
“If you don’t believe in yourself 100%,” she suggests, “No one else is likely to believe in you either. So if you’re waiting for a pat on the back, or like ‘OMG this is amazing, this is the best BBQ sauce…’ nobody is going to do that but you. You have to convince people that your product, your service, that you are the best possible. Once you do that, I promise you people will jump onboard. But it starts with you.”
Shannon has great energy. She has a proven ability to beat the odds. No matter what you want in life—whether it’s to enjoy a series of life-affirming experiences or to truly change the world for the better—the first step is to believe in yourself so deeply that you convince others to do the same. It’s worth listening to her advice, because it’s both simple and true.
It's up to YOU to believe in yourself first
Such a great message! I’ve been struggling to maintain this lately. Each day can pull me into a different headspace and it’s so easy to forget that consistency and determination and even luck play such a huge role in our success. Thanks for sharing!! 🙏 🙌