January 13, 2018.
Snowmass, Colorado.
It’s the third Olympic qualifier of the year for the half-pipe snowboarding with the winter Olympic games just around the corner.
Shaun White is the Olympic favorite and was already plastered across posters and marketing campaigns as the leader of Team USA. Except there was one problem.
He hadn’t qualified for the Olympics yet.
He had just three runs remaining in the competition to make the cut and live up to the enormous expectations.
Dropping into the half-pipe for his first run, his legs gave out on the first jump. He was too amped up. Crash and burn.
On the second run, every hit was going perfect. Then, for some reason, on the final jump he changed his technique on a spur of the moment decision and fell.
His glory moment was turning into a nightmare.
With the weather turning bad and the pressure increasing, it was a long chairlift ride back to the top. Fatigue was setting in. His legs felt like they were going to give out. Visions of failure and letdown began to creep through his head.
Back at the top of the half-pipe for his third and final run, he and his coach were collaborating on game plan when they were interrupted by the public address announcer shouting his name. With no warning the event director gave him a tap on the back urging him to begin his run. “Go! Go! Drop in!”
White turned to his coach. “What do we do?”
His coach responded, “Just try to win it! Go crazy on the first hit.”
White said that first hit woke him up and he nailed every subsequent jump.
Except none of it was prepared.
They didn’t have a plan for the final jump.
“What am I going to do?” he asked himself.
Then the answer came: “Be the guy you know you are.”
Surrendered to the brilliance of his instincts, White nailed the final jump and scored a perfect 100 on the run. It was only the second time they had ever handed out a perfect score on the half-pipe.
Afterward, White reflected on what it took to perform on the biggest stage under the brightest lights in an all-or-nothing moment.
You are “completely focused on what you have to do, but have a slight bit of ‘I don’t care what happens’. You need that thing to take the pressure off, to put it into perspective.”
The people who perform well under pressure don’t feel the pressure.
Not because they don’t care about the results.
They do care.
But they know the results do not define them.
They have learned how to separate who they are from their performance.
And they have learned how to quiet the analytical mind and surrender their skills to instincts.
When it matters most, they aren’t micromanaging technique.
They are relaxed in “the person you know you are” with a boldness and courage that says, “I don’t care what happens.”
They find Relaxed Intensity.
*Story retold from Shaun White’s episode of The Greatness Code on Apple TV+