Aidan Walsh

It was in the training camp.

And I opened the book and it was about mindfulness and meditation and being present.

And I'd never heard any of this before.

And I opened the book and it told a story about a rower who was rowing at the World Championships or one of the major competitions.

And she was on the boat rowing and she was having thoughts about, I want to get off this boat.

I don't want to be here.

I just want to give up and stuff.

but the book basically told you that's just your mind telling you that it doesn't actually mean it's true and for some reason it really related to me because all of a sudden I was like I'm getting them thoughts here at the Olympics I don't want to be here I want to go home I don't want to compete I'm nervous I'm afraid I'm going to lose so all of a sudden I read that book and I was like

These thoughts actually aren't true.

And I was still young at the time.

It was like 2021.

I was like, so these thoughts aren't true.

The ones that I'm having, I'm having the same thoughts as what this rower, world champion rower is having.

And she still went on to win the gold medal.

And straight away, I started to go, right, this is actually really interesting.

So I started to do a lot of work on mindfulness throughout the Olympics.

Like, how do you be present?

How do you just let thoughts come?

How do you let them go?

How do you just stay focused in the present moment?