The Tao of Sport with Olympic Gold Medalist Duff Gibson

The Sonya Looney Show

Imagine rocketing head and face-first down a frozen track around 80 miles per hour with the rapidly moving ground just inches from your face. Well, that sport is called Skeleton and Duff Gibson won a gold medal in the 2006 Winter Olympics for being the best. Not only that, but he is the oldest gold medalist in history in the Winter Olympics, winning gold at age 39 after decades finding his niche in sport. Duff didn't start in Skeleton and spent a lot of time finding high degrees of success in winter sports, but it wasn't enough to help him realize his Olympic dream he had since childhood. Duff knew when to walk away and try new sports to help him achieve his ultimate goal- Olympic Gold.

As an athlete, Duff was a provincial champion speed skater, a national champion and national team member in bobsleigh, and then a world and Olympic gold medallist in the sport of skeleton. As a coach, he led six different athletes to podium finishes at a world level. Competing against, working with, and learning from numerous world-leading athletes and coaches has provided Duff a breadth and depth of experience few others have had.

Duff is passionate about the mental side of sport. He wrote the book the Tao of Sport chronicling his story along with many other high-achieving athletes and Olympians with the mental side of sport interweaved into the narrative. He regularly works with younger multi-sport athletes and is based in Calgary.

"Number 1 is doing it forth the love of it. The mindset is give me the chance, give the chance and I'll show you my best as opposed to I hope I don't screw this up. So that's a mindset thing."

-Duff Gibson

Key Takeaways

• How did he know when to switch sports
• Using positivity in sports
• What is skeleton?
• Managing fear in his sport
• How to deal with pressure
• How to use visualization in sport
• How to be confident if you don’t know the path

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Links

• Go to Tao of Sport
• My podcast episode mentioned: David Epstein and his book, Range
• My podcast episode mentioned: Youth Mental Training with Jennifer Etnier
• Check out my Substack about high-performance mindset
• Sign up for my weekly newsletter!

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