Nicole DeBoom is a lifelong athlete. If there was a sport she played it but nothing captured her heart like swimming. The pool became her home and for years she relentlessly followed the black line. At the age of 16, she qualified for the Olympic Trials and soon became a highly recruited college athlete. Nicole swam for Yale University and when she graduated she said goodbye to her swimming career and began the next chapter of her life. Nicole discovered a new love for sport when she was introduced to triathlon. She turned professional in 1999 and supported her husband Tim through both of his Ironman World Championship wins in 2001 and 2001. Nicole opens up about the sacrifice of singular focus as she watched her husband give up almost everything for his championships. She realized she was not ready to give that to her sport. She knew that there was something beyond triathlon for her but it had not yet been fully revealed. On a training run in 2003, she passed by a storefront window and caught her reflection staring back. What she saw was unflattering and uninspiring. She was so tired of looking like a boy in her ill-fitting triathlon attire and felt a pull from inside to be the change she wanted to see. Nicole cut that run short and went home to scribble the first notes of what would become the global community of Skirt Sports. She knew she was onto something good and in the fall of 2004, she won Ironman Wisconsin in a prototype design of the first-ever running skirt. Today we see running skirts covering the pages of popular magazines and websites but Nicole was the first to bring this vision to life. We talk about how it felt when larger companies quickly began to copy her idea and how she let go to grow more. We talk about the importance of finding balance through being flexible, being willing to redefine our roles in life and to practice sitting in the hub of our perspective. This podcast is not just an interview, it's a two for one. Nicole had the brilliant idea of having two podcasts in one, so she does a fair amount of the interviewing in today's show. This same episode with Nicole's touches will also be aired through her podcast Run this World. This is one of my favorites convos and we think you're going to enjoy it too. Let us know what you think and thank you so very much for your support. We could not do what we do without this strong community fueling us every single day.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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