What makes Alysa Liu so resilient? #alysaliu #olympics #leadershipskills

What makes Alyssa Liu so resilient? I wanted to know, so let's break it down. It's what made her the first American woman to win Olympic singles gold and figure skating in 24 years. One, her genuine detachment from outcomes. When Alyssa first competed in the Olympics, she was externally motivated. She overidentified with the sport. Her sense of self was contingent on outside outcomes. This is called contingent self-worth, where control over one's identity is handed over to external factors, which led her to burnout and retire at 16. After she retired, she tracked Mount Everest went to Nepal and went to college basically building an identity fully outside of skating, which psychologists call self-complexity. A robust sense of self that's not dependent on one pursuit. And a robust sense of self make us resilient. To her reframe on pressure and nerves, if you pay close attention, commentators were saying how relaxed she looked on the ice, which worked in her favor. She was making bigger jumps and landing more gracefully because of it. She isn't such a complete flow state. Basically a state of complete absorption in the activity where your self-consciousness drops in your performance peaks. It's where challenge meets genuine interest. Her goal wasn't the metal, it was the stage. And finally her untouchable energy, most athletes feed off of a good crowd. Alyssa did the opposite. She led the audience judges and everyone who was watching her to witness her agency and sense of joy well figure skating. That is peak vulnerability. You just can't manufacture that. So it's safe to say that you can be resilient and a high performer at the same time. It just requires a strong sense of agency and joy. And that, my friends, is someone I would follow and listen to.