Lindsey Jacobellis, UNFORGIVING: Lessons from the Fall
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[1:03]Lindsey Jackabellis is the author of Unforgiving Lessons from the Fall, Five Time Olympian.
[1:09]Lindsey Jackabellis is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a one-time Olympic silver
[1:14]medalist, a six-time world champion and a ten-time ex-games gold medalist.
[1:19]Her most recent World Cup win marked 31 victories, making her the most decorated snowboard
[1:25]cross athlete in history.
[1:27]She is a member of the US snowboard cross team and a mentor for Supergirl Snowpro.
[1:31]Lindsey continues to compete professionally and lives in Southern California with not
[1:35]on tour.
[1:36]Welcome, Lindsey.
[1:37]Thank you so much for coming.
[1:38]On mom's don't have time to read books to discuss your book, Unforgiving Lessons from
[1:42]the Fall.
[1:43]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:44]Really excited.
[1:45]Oh, I found your story to be absolutely fascinating.
[1:49]And I must admit, I did not know about the fall part of your story.
[1:53]I just didn't know.
[1:54]I didn't follow that.
[1:55]I just missed that whole thing.
[1:57]And so reading it coming into it fresh was so interesting to me.
[2:00]and I only, after I finished reading it, watched the footage of what had happened then.
[2:05]Because that's only a small part of your overall story, especially as you read it in
[2:11]the book.
[2:12]So I don't know.
[2:13]Maybe you should kick this off by talking about why you decided to write this book now and
[2:18]how this book has really impacted your life so far.
[2:24]It's quite interesting because for the last, I want to say four or five years, I kept
[2:30]hearing people say, you should write a book, you should write a book like write a book.
[2:36]I haven't, I haven't finished my story in that aspect.
[2:44]So it was really hard to wrap my mind around the concept like you should write a book.
[2:50]So I also just really didn't know what I needed to say, you know, I was still trying
[2:55]to figure myself out and grow so much as the person is and as an athlete.
[3:00]And it was also very intimidating thought because I just, you know, wrote the kids book.
[3:07]And that was just taking that on myself.
[3:10]It was a fun project to do during COVID because we were all shut in and it made sense
[3:15]to throw myself into something.
[3:17]But to take it to the next level and write a memoir that very much, very much intimidated
[3:25]me.
[3:26]So the reason why I kept it kind of to the side and decided, you know, maybe this is something
[3:34]that I could do.
[3:35]And then my co-lab writer approached me after the Olympics and said, you know, we need
[3:41]to bring your story to life and at first I was like, okay, let's do this and then still
[3:50]trying to figure out what I really wanted to say and what the, what my overall message
[3:54]of my book was really going to be.
[3:56]And it is about growing up in a sport while you're young and then developing as an individual
[4:02]and as athlete because a lot of people see these athletes on TV and then they just assume
[4:09]that they have these perfect lives and that they don't have any other personal struggles
[4:16]that they expect them to be 100% at the time and mistakes and that just can't happen
[4:23]all the time.
[4:24]You want everything to come together for you but it just doesn't always do that.
[4:27]And people have to understand the ins and outs and what athletes face on a daily basis
[4:34]and what their struggles are long term.
[4:37]So when this opportunity came about and HarperCollins wanted to publish my book, I really
[4:44]thought this was a great opportunity to have my side of the story shared and really share
[4:52]my whole perspective on what I experienced and how I grew up and that it was okay to
[4:58]be taking these steps in growth and personal development to reach my best self athletically
[5:08]and professionally as an individual on this stage.
[5:13]So I was really, really fortunate to be a part of this process and learning so much about
[5:19]this process.
[5:20]So it was quite special, it was very overwhelming at times, but I kind of took it as
[5:27]a new challenge every step and learning about every new step was a pretty special.
[5:33]Oh, it's sort of funny because most, almost anyone in any other field can come in and
[5:41]write a book, but all of the people who write books can't just like pop in and win gold
[5:46]medals in all of that so you know, it's just, it's another amazing accomplishment.
[5:54]So one of, and just to get this fall out of the way to then talk about everything else.
[5:59]You had what I on the video was like maybe two seconds of not even a big whiteback.
[6:07]You literally just like looks like from the outside and I read all the details in the book,
[6:11]but you basically like caught an edge as if you were skiing or something and then just
[6:16]fell a little bit, got right back up and won the silver medal in the Olympics.
[6:20]And yet that has been portrayed as this colossal mistake failure, like glitch, whatever,
[6:28]the media has been all over it.
[6:30]It was a tiny stumble and you came in second instead of first, but it's not like you were
[6:34]laying there.
[6:35]I mean, you wrote about your brother, Beni's fall and that was one of the most harrowing
[6:38]parts of the whole book was watching him when he didn't get up.
[6:41]So I expected from the book to see a video where you were like in a pile, right?
[6:47]And it was more just like a little stumble.
[6:49]And it speaks more to I think the media and everybody else than it speaks to what happened
[6:56]to you.
[6:57]We all make mistakes.
[6:58]We all stumble.
[6:59]Right.
[7:00]Like this was just a stumble on a very public stage, which then essentially had to haunt
[7:04]you forever because nobody would let it go.
[7:06]You poor thing.
[7:07]I'm kind of like, I can't even believe how much attention I got.
[7:11]It did.
[7:12]And I think it was just very unfortunate and it.
[7:16]I think it got so much attention because around the Olympics, athletes are expected to perform
[7:23]a certain way.
[7:24]You have the execution.
[7:25]You follow through and when situations like that happen, it's just a way for the media
[7:33]and commentators to dissect every square inch of that and why that happened or why did
[7:41]they do this?
[7:42]And I spent so much time reflecting and trying to understand ultimately why I did it.
[7:50]And I couldn't really come to a conclusion that it was my immaturity, me being a young athlete
[7:58]or me just all of a sudden forgetting that I was trying to compete for a golden.
[8:03]I was having fun as an athlete, as a young kid, snowboarding, doing what I loved.
[8:09]You know, we put so much pressure on athletes and still to this day when I watch football
[8:17]or it's just any other sport and there's that winning moment and it's the complete
[8:23]pass or the touchdown or the goal.
[8:26]And I have those moments of like, yes, but then I'm like, I immediately feel for the
[8:33]other team or the other individual because I've been on that receiving end.
[8:40]They don't necessarily get torn apart the way I do, but you understand that loss in
[8:46]that and that feeling immediately and I can relate and very empathetic to athletes that
[8:54]just come up short because I know what they're going through and I know that they're frustrated
[9:00]with themselves, their fierce competitors and they want that next time to have that opportunity
[9:06]again.
[9:07]However, it doesn't come around that fast.
[9:10]Sometimes you have to just wait a long time to have that moment again and sometimes
[9:16]it doesn't come around.
[9:17]So just having that and again, you said that this was such a small part of the book yet
[9:24]it was a key factor in shaping me as an individual for a very, very long time in not only
[9:34]as an athlete, but in a social way too and how I approached everything.
[9:39]And then I noticed that my approach wasn't working as I'd go from one Olympics to the
[9:45]next to the next, but when athletes are preparing for the Olympics, it's not just, oh,
[9:52]I'm this athlete.
[9:53]This is all I have on my plate.
[9:55]There are other factors that play that individuals are always dealing with and so their
[10:00]trying to perform at that perfect 1% all the time while balancing every day
[10:06]life as well. And to have that moment of maybe five minutes that you have to
[10:12]actually be absolutely perfect and everything focused. Like that's a very,
[10:17]very precise execution timeframe to be to be on your game. And that can be hard.
[10:27]And so all I would love for readers to understand the growth and of what I was
[10:38]trying to accomplish as I was getting older, but also being forgiving to
[10:44]individuals that they're watching up on the TV and knowing that, you know, maybe it's just
[10:48]not their day. Maybe some things happening in their lives that they're just a little off
[10:54]because obviously they deserve to be at this level. Let's get them the benefit of the doubt
[11:00]and and and you know, really support them in their endeavors because they obviously have
[11:07]been doing something correct to be on this platform. Right. Amazing. I mean, yeah, the microscope
[11:16]under which athletes are evaluated picked apart. I mean, it's it's really mind blowing, especially
[11:24]you know, the book really speaks to your personal resilience. You could have taken something like
[11:29]that and quit. I mean, there are lots of other stories, other books that end in a very different way.
[11:35]And I feel like the book sort of drives with what I saw you do sort of after you came to a stop
[11:41]after the fall when you got to the end and you were like, you know, you kind of shrugged and
[11:45]took off your boots and on to the next, like, you know, you could you were clearly disappointed
[11:50]then you're just like, okay, and that attitude is probably what has enabled you to keep going
[11:56]and keep winning and becoming the oldest woman to ever win an Olympics. It's amazing gold medal.
[12:02]I mean, anyway, you've also gone through so much physical pain. I mean, that's like
[12:09]that that was a public little blip. But like, let's like shift the camera over so to speak on
[12:14]like all the stuff you put your body through and all the injuries you talked about and
[12:19]your collarbone being popped back into place and your knees drained and your ACL popping
[12:26]and like reading the book, you're just like in it with each one and you're like, no, now this
[12:31]has happened. Tell me what it takes to get through all of that and then just keep coming back.
[12:38]I mean, there were there were several times after an Olympic cycle or after an injury
[12:46]where you ask yourself, is it time to be finished with this? And, you know, myself growing up,
[12:57]you fall off the horse, you make a mistake. You get up and you try it again. You don't want to be
[13:03]defeated in that way. So my mindset always was, you know, get back to the level that you are competing
[13:13]and feel that that drive. And if you are not happy with that feeling and you don't, you don't feel
[13:25]like you have that competitive energy and that grit anymore, then I'm allowing myself to step away
[13:32]and it would be okay to step away. But I, my knee injury definitely took me out for almost two
[13:39]seasons because I had to get, have it get it fixed twice and I had a problem with it. And there
[13:46]was times that I thought I was never going to get back up to speed, that I wouldn't be afraid to
[13:51]feel how I was in the gate and have that same energy and and that aggression. I was essentially
[14:00]afraid of losing a part of me that has that has really dictated the individual I am. So it's
[14:07]who are you? You always have those fears. It's it's not just about, oh, you're a competitor,
[14:12]you're an athlete. It is a big part of your core of how you move through day, like every day,
[14:19]how you how you're strategically finding a parking space, how how are you moving through the
[14:24]grocery store efficiently. Everyone always tells me, you're just like always moving so efficient.
[14:29]That's part of my job. So that fear to potentially lose who you are, then you're then you're starting
[14:38]from scratch and that's that's really scary. So I told myself, you know, let's not look at the
[14:44]competition's scope to be like, I need to get back competing. I need to get back to the level that I
[14:51]was to be fearless and if I'm still not in love with it at the same capacity, then I can walk away.
[14:58]So it would take some time to climb back up to that level and then once I felt it,
[15:05]I'd come back around and I'd have this big smile on my face and go up to my coaches and be like,
[15:13]I felt it like I got hungry again and they're like, oh yeah, we saw it.
[15:18]So in those moments are just as important as as winning. It's having those like many victories
[15:29]in between when you are growing, when you are healing from an injury is just as important to give
[15:36]yourself that acknowledgement that there is something to celebrate. Well, I feel like that tone of
[15:42]celebration and joy was also really pervasive in the book. How much you love what you do? And I
[15:50]feel like sometimes because I really do love reading like athlete stories and you know, overcoming like
[15:56]I get so inspired by stories like this. But sometimes a lot of athletes, the joy is completely ripped
[16:03]away. Like there are so many people who you know, I played tennis in college and then I hated it
[16:08]or I swam and I'll never get in the pool again or you know, but there's something about your story
[16:13]where you can feel the enjoyment of like just doing the thing. How do you preserve that?
[16:19]I would say really focusing on finding the balance because we go
[16:25]switch such high intensity into sport and it can go from weekend to weekend to weekend where
[16:33]we almost have no time off in the winter. But if you actively try to focus on getting out with your
[16:43]friends and family and not be in a competitive field and go out and free ride, that's one beauty
[16:50]about snowboarding. But yes, I'm a competitive snowboarder, but I can still go out and free ride with
[16:56]friends and family and it is nothing like in a competition setting where that's not always the case
[17:09]with every sport and you can't always enjoy it with friends and family at the same capacity.
[17:15]So it does make it really special that you can go outside, get fresh air and reflect on those
[17:23]that I learned to snowboard with my dad and that was something we did together that you know
[17:31]and we can now see where we are in life and then come back to those moments and go up the gondola
[17:38]at Stratton and reflect those times that like up. We've come so far that we still like coming back to
[17:45]these similar places and remembering where it all started. Well, your family plays a big role in
[17:55]the book and obviously in your life and I referenced earlier the moment where you are about to
[18:00]be in and race yourself, the semi-finals or something you were doing and your brother was with his
[18:07]his heat or his team or whatever and he had this horrible fall from which he did not get up
[18:12]and you could see it all live-streamed your parents you realized had the video sort of cut off
[18:16]at the base of the mountains they didn't know what was going on they were terrified you were terrified
[18:22]and time just seemed to go on forever luckily he got up but tell me more about that moment and how
[18:30]it brought your family together and and even how you sort of put one foot in front of the other
[18:36]and like how you then went down and won that race and all of it you know how do you
[18:40]how do you carry I mean I guess we all have the fear that at any moment something bad can happen
[18:44]I guess that's part of the life itself right we could I could walk out the door and get by a bus you
[18:49]know it's it is what it is but you are putting yourself in a more likely position to have something
[18:53]go wrong talk about all that I guess that fear always is present in your mind but the way that
[19:01]you can kind of quiet that background noise is really just try to prepare yourself and control
[19:08]what you can control and in that moment I was at the top of the course and I'm sitting there
[19:14]helpless I'm supposed to be strapped in the gate going and we have a course hold and then realize
[19:19]I'm like oh my gosh my brother was in that heat what what's the course hold about and then they're
[19:24]like it's Benny and you know anything can happen and we're across I don't know the severity I
[19:30]didn't know how it happened I'm just now seeing the footage and you know I have people telling me
[19:37]you know trying to comfort me they're doing everything we've got we've got top medical people
[19:40]here they're they're trained for this like it's the extreme gains like we're in the best hands
[19:47]in the best scenario and so you have to try to keep telling yourself that but I had to kind of
[19:53]almost just go numb and let the information come to me because me trying to border
[20:00]lost my way into multiple scenarios to figure out a solution would render me just even
[20:07]more helpless and just kind of sitting there numb and frozen and trying to just understand
[20:15]what was happening was really, really hard to do. And it was really upsetting. But, you
[20:22]know, I had really close teammates and Leslie was there and she was, you know, supporting
[20:27]me and she was doing, you know, going through nursing school, she was telling me, oh, these are
[20:32]these are good signs like, and then all of a sudden they're like racers in the gate and I'm like,
[20:37]oh my gosh, I'm, I'm, I'm racing next and almost wanting to, you know, pull out and, and find my family
[20:49]and I knew if I did that my brother been like, you stopped racing because I went away, what was that
[20:56]going to do you sit in the hospital room with me? Like, he would have never let me let that down. And
[21:03]even my coaches and teammates are like, no, you're going to get in the gate, you're going to get down
[21:07]there faster and get to your brother faster than if you were to gather up all your stuff and try to
[21:14]get down to him. So there's moments that happen so fast. So you can't really respond, you're trying
[21:20]to do your best and you're trying to look for the people around you that give you support to
[21:24]then help guide you on how to react because sometimes you are just frozen in place.
[21:33]Tell me about life now post book, like where you are today, post book. I'm still actively
[21:42]training to be competing this year. Obviously, I'm getting ready for the book tour. So I will not
[21:49]be joining my teammates down in South America to get on the snow, but that'll just give me a little
[21:55]bit more recovery time. If I've learned anything about the longevity in my sport is to really allow
[22:02]myself to have recovery time. So I'm kind of taking things as they come right now. I might not
[22:09]commit to the entire World Cup season. I've been trying to plan a snowboarding trip with my brother
[22:15]somewhere fun because it's harder for us to get together in snowboard because he has young kids.
[22:22]So if we put something on the schedule or planning on going someplace to get maybe some back
[22:28]country and that's going to be our snowboard trip together. So I might skip out on a competition
[22:36]or two and just really go back to enjoying the sport and making sure that I'm tapping on those
[22:43]moments that help me going so for such a long time. If you could go back and sort of start your
[22:50]career and racing and all that back, would you do it all over again?
[22:55]Well, I would tell myself probably to go for that grab. But it's hard to try to do everything
[23:05]over again exactly with the knowledge that I have now that would almost be cheating.
[23:14]Of course, be doing something different. But I really do enjoy the opportunities that I had
[23:20]and that my parents were able to come up with this like far-fetched idea. You're going to go to school
[23:26]and and snowboard hard part of the day and then take care of your studies. And it was such a
[23:33]weird outlandish approach to going to school. But then how I was able to travel and experience the
[23:43]world in different cultures is something I'm so thankful for. It's really open my mind and how
[23:52]educate me in ways that, you know, I still see to this day and how comfortable I am when
[24:00]I take off on a plane somewhere and can go there by myself and then eventually link up with somebody
[24:06]and then I also have friends all over the world. It's a really unique experience.
[24:16]You wrote in the beginning of the book, you had separation anxiety essentially with your
[24:20]medals as they went through the metal detector at the White House and then they fell and one of them
[24:24]got chipped. Did you end up fixing the metal? It is not thick. No, I haven't braced it but that
[24:31]was a very traumatic moment because I was so protective of these medals and and and then when
[24:40]that happened all I could think about was how am I going to fix it? This moment finally came
[24:47]together and was so perfect. And now my medal's not even perfect. And of course it was the individual
[24:53]one. I was like, how is this race marked in such a way? And then now reflecting back on it,
[25:02]it's like it makes it even more personal to me. It makes it even that it's not going to look
[25:10]like everyone else is that my gold medal has a little something different that makes it even
[25:17]mine even more. But it took a little bit to get there. It was the panic like how do I fix it? What
[25:26]happened? And yeah, it got my head for a few minutes and when you're just overly tired when you're
[25:31]just going and going, it that seems to completely consume you and that's all you can think about
[25:38]what's been to tease you more. Lindsay, I have so much respect for you. I am so impressed at your
[25:46]just tenacity and ability to pick yourself up and keep going and keep training and pursue what
[25:53]you're good at and what you love no matter what. It's really amazing all that you've put your body
[25:57]through and your family and your life and and you do it with a smile on your face. It's really it's
[26:02]just really awesome. So congratulations, congratulations on another sort of feather in your cap with
[26:09]having a book out which I was riveted by your story. So congratulations and I will be rooting for
[26:16]you. I really appreciate that. I'm so happy you enjoyed the story. Thank you. All right,
[26:22]let's take care. Thanks Lindsay. Okay, bye bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't
[26:28]Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't
[26:33]Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual
[26:38]book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan
[26:43]at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing
[26:47]this fantastic intro and outro music.