Join the conversation as Ryan chats with the extraordinary Chandra Crawford, Olympic gold medalist turned inspiring life trailblazer. Chandra's journey from the snow-clad peaks of Canmore to the uncharted terrains of life beyond the podium is nothing short of awe-inspiring. As we navigate her story, you’ll be privy to an intimate discussion on the transformative power of persistence, the joy of discovering new passions, and the courage to redefine identity when life calls for a new chapter. This is not simply a tale of athletic prowess, but a testament to the undying quest for personal growth and the profound impact one can have on the next generation, affirming that true success is not always measured in medals, but in the milestones of life's relentless race.
Tune in to learn more about:
Are you looking for Career Clarity for your next step, for more information, or to book a consultancy, make sure you check out www.2ndwind.io
Links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chandracrawford?
Join the conversation as Ryan chats with the extraordinary Chandra Crawford, Olympic gold medalist turned inspiring life trailblazer. Chandra's journey from the snow-clad peaks of Canmore to the uncharted terrains of life beyond the podium is nothing short of awe-inspiring. As we navigate her story, you’ll be privy to an intimate discussion on the transformative power of persistence, the joy of discovering new passions, and the courage to redefine identity when life calls for a new chapter. This is not simply a tale of athletic prowess, but a testament to the undying quest for personal growth and the profound impact one can have on the next generation, affirming that true success is not always measured in medals, but in the milestones of life's relentless race.
Tune in to learn more about:
Are you looking for Career Clarity for your next step, for more information, or to book a consultancy, make sure you check out www.2ndwind.io
Links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chandracrawford?
To what extent did you get from it what you wanted? Not what you had to do, but what you wanted. Talk to me about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got a lot out of those 2014 games because when I decided, okay, am I going to quit or not quit, do I want to watch the games on TV? And no, I didn't even try and, just like you know, flamed out in this burnout and quit, that wasn't really the ending I was looking for, and so I decided that I would try to go to the games so that I could watch it on TV, knowing I at least tried my best and that it would be my personal journey from where I was to health.
Speaker 1:Hi, I'm Ryan Gonsalves and welcome to a Second Wind Academy podcast, a show all about career transition through the lens of elite athletes. Each week, I invite a guest to the show who shares their unique sporting story. Please join me to delve into the thoughts and actions of athletes through a series of conversations. Don't worry, there's plenty to learn from those of you that aren't particularly sporty. Elite athletes are still people after all. Let's be inspired by the stories of others. You just come across really interesting, super interesting across. I know there's a theme, but it is really nice how you're able to I don't know just delve into different conversations Must be so cool to do that.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's really nice you to say. You know my dad is a video producer, so I grew up like really on camera, being interviewed, standing in as an extra on lots of things and really developed a lot of comfort, yeah, recording things.
Speaker 1:So that's probably why I feel really at home yeah, well, it comes across well, I dare say so. It does come across super nice and natural and it's as if all of them are just chats, and I quite like that. And yeah, you know, today I think the focus for me and you know we were chatting about just a little bit before is around that career transition and what is that like for elite athletes. And I found the best way to do that is simply to talk to more athletes who have gone through it the ups and the downs, and I think your story, even as an athlete actually the ups and downs, but your story is one that I think there's a lot of lessons that can be learned from.
Speaker 2:Oh, I hope so. I really share, with a lot of humility, what I've gone through and folks can glean something or not, but I mean I've sure gotten a lot out of like bringing out these experiences and getting the chance to delve into them, like mining them for these insights, is a real treat for me as well.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, great. Well, look, for those who might not know who you are, tell me a little bit about yourself and what's happening in your world.
Speaker 2:I'm Chandra Crawford. I'm from Canmore, alberta, in the Rocky Mountains in Western Canada, and I have a mission to share my high vibe energy to help myself and others turn our challenges into opportunities. I'm like 110% extroverted and I love people and I love psychology. I love music, I love plants. I love kids. I think kids are one of my core values. If they can be a core value, they for sure are one of my core values. I'm a mom of four. I have a seven-year-old, six-year-old, four-year-old and two-year-old, and so that's just like a whole pile of growth personal growth, sign me up and I also love reading and learning, and my partner, jared, and I really like to goal set and challenge each other and grow, so we're just super annoying.
Speaker 1:To summarize, that is a beautiful introduction, probably one of the best introductions I've had.
Speaker 2:Well, because you're not defined by your accolades, right, like I have letters and things that are accomplishments, but like I am an energy fundamentally.
Speaker 1:Yes, that I think, goes without saying and that to me comes across so many of the conversations you've had and the imagery that comes with you as well. I think it's great from being an an athlete, and I guess as athlete we're somewhat at times subdued because you're sort of focused and you're sort of on this mission and it's as if for you you've almost come alive since stopping being an well, I shouldn't say stopping being an athlete, but since that hasn't been the primary focus of your day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that resonates. I don't know if in football you have the 24 hour athlete concept. Have you heard of that? I haven't Tell me more. That's in the Nordic skiing world or it was in style. In my career, which ended 10 years ago, we had the 24 hour athlete, which meant every minute of every hour of every day I could be doing something to enhance my career recovery, visualization, not thinking about skiing technique like it's endless, and so that was really the goal was to have every minute of my life filled towards not losing a medal by a tenth of a second, and then looking back and regretting like, oh, why did I go to that dinner party? And then I got a sore throat and then I missed a week of training. It was really intense, so I could see how retiring is really healthy.
Speaker 1:Also, it's beautiful wow, that concept of a 24-hour athlete, that that I haven't heard, and you're right, it does. If, certainly if taken the wrong way, it can almost fill you with a life. Well, nothing, not fill your life. You just be super focused on, like you say, that 100th of a second, especially in sports where there's such a fine margin which means you wouldn't do anything. You must, I guess, for you, when you think about your career with that type of mindset, to what extent do you think you had to miss out on things?
Speaker 2:it's also the culture of the group that I was in, because, being in the group of the best skiers in the country, we had a pretty great thing going. We really felt that it was. You know, to make a sacrifice is to make something sacred and it's a choice and it's a privilege. And, uh, we had a great sports psychologist, one that would say, uh, want to always be, it's have to. So if you start saying I have to go to training camp, like do you have to go on a plane and go to New Zealand and ski, oh, that sounds like you know.
Speaker 2:But it can start to feel like that the coaches are making me do things like and similarly in MBA school we would complain constantly. And then one of my classmates, Francisco Castillo, he's like guys, we paid them tons of money to do this, it's our choice, Did you remember? Like it's a perspective, right. So really enjoyed it at the time and felt like I was living life to the fullest by really focusing all my energy and like pruning, like a wine vine or what might be an analogy of like you really trim off some stuff, but man, it gets really concentrated, and just was curious about how much power I would have if I put all my power in one laser beam direction and found that pretty rewarding as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, beautiful. So much to go through on that, but before we get too carried away, we should go backwards a little bit and talk about you as an athlete, just to give us that perspective on. I'll say where you're coming from. So let's jump in. And I suppose the question I'd ask is at what point was skiing or cross-country skiing something where you thought, hey, I'm good at this, this is where this is my liftoff point.
Speaker 2:My athletic career built on a really nice development curve but I started off as a toddler in the mountains in Canmore with really fun, loving parents, like 70s hippie parents who like to canoe and hike and eat granola and so on, and they're really really chill and nice and they love nature. And I have had a younger brother and younger sister, so we were just out loving life outside. But then I grew up in this hometown, canmore, alberta, which is the site of the 1988 Winter Olympics. We're in Calgary and the Nordic venue was in Canmore and then it was the National Training Center and then subsequent big giant races came through. So I grew up my life like scaling up and down these mountains and swimming in the river and mountain biking on really extreme terrain and also doing like normal kid stuff and like playing piano and singing in the choir and playing saxophone, like pretty well-rounded life and outdoorsy. But then the chance to see the best athletes just totally altered the course of my life. If I grew up somewhere else I'd for sure be doing something else. I was really had a lot of exposure to the role models. The national team was based there. I was really had a lot of exposure to the role models. The national team was based there and then, sort of like in the Malcolm Gladwell outliers book, like I really had a lot of stars lined up because I grew up as the national team Women of Canada went on a tear and they went from what they were calling the upside down podium like the bottom of the list in the Nagano 1998 Olympics to in 2002, becky Scott won the first ever gold for Canada in cross country skiing and Salt Lake games and I was 17 on that day in February when she stood on the podium and I had been to world juniors and I've had a top 15.
Speaker 2:So these things all just swirled around me and I was totally committed to Nordic skiing through my age 14, 15. I did want to see what my potential would be, but I was in biathlon and I could not hit the broad side of a barn and I had a kind of lower quality rifle. My parents got me a $500 Russian rifle instead of a $2,500 German rifle, which worked out great because I missed so many targets and I skied so many penalty laps and I got in awesome shape. A lot of like the little things that have to add up to a gold medal day and the little quirks and quirks of my life that made me specialize to that course on that day, february 22, 2006 in Italy. Like all, this biathlon really added up to it as well. So I got committed around my teens and I would say like, oh, I'll take a year off school to pursue skiing and then I'll go to university. And I said that for a few years and then I stopped saying that and it was like I'm going to try for the Olympics now.
Speaker 1:I love the way the punishment or the penalty, should I say it was a punishment in some respects that penalty, seeing the beauty in that penalty lap, giving you that fitness. Were you thinking that at the time?
Speaker 2:No, it was very frustrating. Yeah, it's such a strange sport, right by Aslon, I mean, someone can be way fitter, but they make this like micro mistake with their like pulling their trigger. Boom, you're now mid pack. It's just such a wild sport to watch the leads change so much. And, yeah, I think it's perspective really to say, like all these negatives, like who's to say it's a negative, who's to say success is a good thing, like we really attach these valences. But in my life a lot of the and my negatives have been still like of the utmost privilege, like knee injury, eating disorders, stuff that I got through but still with a lot of a leg up and was able to use it as fuel in my athletic journey.
Speaker 1:That's a great perspective, a perspective that you had depends how intentional it was, but it doesn't matter. Your reaction to those situations, especially as a youngster up and coming, I'm sure, as we'll touch on, it's kind of stuck with you as you've moved forward. But it's that a wonderful optimism towards the events that have happened around you that are not in your control. You've been able to take those and actually fuel your success, fuel that power from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, have you ever had that experience where you're like thank goodness that terrible thing happened, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Depends I'm often accused of being an optimist. It's like oh, my goodness me, why do you think that's great? Because this and this happened, and it is to me. Optimism is a trait that helps people. Helps one certainly helped me to overcome many misgivings, many times where I may have been passed up on certain things and I see that as oh, that means I just need to do these things now and then I'd make it. Oh, then I'll go and do that.
Speaker 1:So it really is that the way of just thinking or seeing the world around you.
Speaker 2:So helpful in your athlete transition. Hey, because that thing is harder than the athletic career.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it is because of that basis the basis changes. But I mean for you, because I don't want to get lost To me. You've had a wonderful athletic career with peaks and troughs in there. Can you just talk to us about your first highs, super highs, and I'm talking gold medal highs here, and then what came through?
Speaker 2:Sure, it was a really steady athlete development progression like junior team, three times at World Juniors and then under 23 championships and the development tour, racing around Europe getting a feel for trying to get top 10 and still getting creamed in world caps. But the 2005-2006 season I had been demoted to the B team in the spring of 05 and had made a lot of mistakes in the winter and I was furious and I used that as fuel and had this amazing training summer. I got in a phenomenal shape that I would not have gotten if I was on the A team because I would have been busy like trying on the Olympic clothes and flying around the globe and feeling so special. But I was on the B team. We had no money we can more barely to do our training camps, but what was within my control was the quality and the grit and the recovery and I had a great year. And then in 05, I qualified for the Olympic team in the last second in these trials races which were in Canada, world Cups, and a German ski racer, claudia Kunzel, pushed me in a ski race and that was so bizarre because I'm Canadian, we're so nice and also cross-country skiing is not roller derby. If you and I went for a ski and I hit your pole, I'd say sorry and you'd say sorry. Well, many Canadians around us would also echo sorry, we'd ski so nicely. So that was really a shock. And she was like 10 years older than me and a super champ. But I didn't ski race against her again for a few months on the World Cup. I imagined her in my visualization like I imagined racing 10 Claudias, but I didn't see her again till the Olympic final in 06. I made it to the games. My event was a sprint race.
Speaker 2:In 02, they started trying to make a format that's more interesting. I don't know why Our sport is super exciting because you go out in the woods and come back a while later and no one knows who won. I don't see what's the problem. They tried to make it more exciting with a sprint format. So it'd be a kilometer, one qualification round against the clock and then we'd be put into heat, quarterfinal, semifinal and finally, if you make it to the final, the women are way better. It's for the medals. I'm way more tired, but I made it to the Olympic final, which was my second ever final that I'd made it to.
Speaker 2:I was like peaking on time and I was such an underdog that no one would have even thought to notice me and I had deployed some tactics of leading the race because I had more fast twitch muscle fibers. These super strong distance women could just crush my sprint fibers right so quickly. So I had to lead and make the pace slow so that I could accelerate fast and use my sprint, and I would only have one chance at that, obviously. So I led and then I had to hang back and draft on a downhill and Claudia passed me and once again I was in a tuck and once again I had to pass her in the same way she'd push me, but I passed her super wide and awkwardly wide.
Speaker 2:If you were there you'd be like why are you over there now? And crazy fast. And I had so much adrenaline passing like not my nemesis, but you know, someone I was pretty scared of and I got the sound in my head was like a kettle boiling and I just went cooking into the finish and I saw the red line in the snow and I realized I was going to cross it first. I didn't want to look left in case they pass me on the right or look right in case they pass me on the left. But I could tell in my periphery there was no one there and I put my hands up and then I thought are you kidding me? My mouth was so wide open in the photographs, like my jaw had not been more open. It's so surprising because I always thought there's Olympic people and I'm going to dream big because they tell me to, but on that day I just yeah, it was surreal. Really, it's still not always easy to to explain how like flabbergasted I was, which was awesome and really fun.
Speaker 1:It's a wonderful story. It really is. It has everything. So just tell me, has someone bought the movie rights? Yet? That's kind of you, you know, passing a nemesis, having to go through it, that manifestation, going through all of those things. And I love the little bit at the end where you talk about all these other Olympians in the race and not seeing yourself as an Olympian. You know, albeit you're in the final, you're racing and you don't see yourself as an Olympian. What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was so green and I just wanted to learn and grow and kind of a funny moment, Like it's so busy getting ready for a race, but they had like blue porta potties and in a porta potty there's that weird warped mirror and so you have to go pee like 20 times before a race and I'm in there and I'm like this is just practice for 2010. And then I looked at myself in this super weird mirror. I was like this is all you got. You're here, You're healthy, Like who knows how many chances we get. One of my teammates had passed away in a training accident. We were teenagers and I thought like who's to say how many days I get? This is an amazing day, Lived February 22nd 2006 with full passion for skiing, Got out of that port-a-potty and showed him who's boss.
Speaker 1:That's the quote we're going to use, so beautiful. Well, actually, I suppose, port-a-potties aside, when you're thinking Olympians and you then cross the line, I'm interested to think what did that make you at that moment? What did you become?
Speaker 2:Very surprised. Yeah, it was cool because it was in Italy and I had been trying to learn Italian such an exciting, cool language and everything. And they were like La Campionessa Olimpico de la Canada, chandra Grover. It was like just amazing, and I didn't have the podium outfit. At the Olympics there's all the different outfits. I didn't bring the podium outfit. That would have been pretty ludicrous. So someone my teammate, sarah Renner, who's one of my heroes dressed me in hers and then I stood behind the podium and they had dressed me. So I was like did they do up my fly? Am I going to stand on the podium with my fly? And it is so embarrassing. This is all the things you want to know what's going on when you win the Olympics.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go back and watch that ceremony now, just to check, just to check what's going on with the apparel and I always thought I'd be someone who would cry on the podium. You know, when I was out training twice a day, multiple hours a day, six days a week, 11 months a year and just doing my absolute best at all times, I just thought I would ball if I got on the podium because I worked so hard. But when I just went on the podium it was such a surprise that I felt so like exuberant and I sang the anthem at the top of my lungs and I did air guitar and I jumped around and it was like it was a real show. I was really going for it and that really, yeah, it really ignited like, okay, dream big. I mean, if I can do this, a feeling of anyone can do anything, a feeling of like why not just go for it?
Speaker 2:This is very surprising. I was really happy with the journey. It's not the destination, it's the journey, and I managed to get the destination as well. So now we really got to dream big and that's something having someone around you in your life, have a lot of athlete friends it's just optimism exponential because I have achieved these things, and they're like why don't we just go for it?
Speaker 1:so for you in that journey. You talk about this steady climb, albeit then has this, you know, through your career uh, achieving worlds, getting on the tour, dropping off into the b team, still elite, you know it's still at the top, but it's in the beats, and but you managed to break through and get it and and you know, you said you loved that journey You've reached that destination, which is crossing that red line first and having that medal. What was next for you in the journey?
Speaker 2:The home games were coming the 2010 home games in Vancouver and it felt very strange to me to pursuing the thing that I had just won. I was immediately worried that winning it would damage my chances in 2010, because that was the real goal. But uh, yeah, kind of a circular reference error in some ways of pursuing it. And uh, I had seen some research that that talked about repeat top performance being incredibly hard and, at the same time, up for challenges. There was a lot of tough things after winning the Olympics. Just that I'm ready for it.
Speaker 2:Just overwhelmed by all the requests and I would be someone who would typically reply to everyone at that time and to not even be able to reply to all these worthy causes, let alone do their events, was quite a strain. At the same time, a bit of a feeling of like we need to capitalize on this. This is an important. There's got to be some kind of monetary pursuit here. And at one point after the olympics was jogging at a world cup between my races in sweden. I remember looking at all the cars and being like I can have any car I want. Like, no, no one's calling you with a car, no one's calling with a sponsorship. It's still a hustle to have sponsorship in Nordic skiing in Canada and so on. So a lot of different experiences. Yeah, I think it took a while to digest it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So how did you manage that hustle? So, for you, during that period, you're an Olympic champion. You're the best in the world. You're an Olympic champion. You'd achieved the dream. In fact, you'd achieved it early For you. Did you expect then, or to what extent did you expect that, hey, full-time money rolls in. This is awesome. Versus what was your reality?
Speaker 2:the reality was, yeah, there were not very many major partnerships. I had just really through my network. It was like my dad had met someone and they happened to be an executive in toronto and they happened to care and they happened to like put together a group, so not to like super by design and so, yeah, managing more obligations. I can't imagine these athletes now having to like keep their social media going. Hey, do they have that in your? Yeah, yeah okay.
Speaker 1:So when did you retire? Though I came out. Do we ever really retire? Never, I still try and convince myself at playing in over 45s. I'm, I'm still playing, I'm still playing.
Speaker 1:That's amazing now look, for me the game coming out of the game really is in the early 2000s, so by 2000s. That for me was was pretty much it and then it moves into masters and sort of overage tournament still competing, but it's very different. Then it feels very different, not just athletically but in terms of what you're doing off the field. The life that starts to be created around that time is quite impressive.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, that's yeah. It just keeps unfolding, Digesting, winning the Olympics and thinking that I would succeed, that I would succeed again, but I didn't win a World Cup for two more years, so already I had a lot of monkey on my back feeling around that and then finally won a World Cup and I did make it to the podium I think 13 times in my career and those were all just so special and amazing. I really cherish those times that I did get to stand on the podium and the 2010 games were crazy hard, but then the worst was yet to come, because the 2014 games I was like hanging by a thread, heading into that.
Speaker 1:Before you stepping into that bit going through this period, so from Olympic champion, having this dip, not winning for what seemed like an age, afterwards getting back to the top again as world champion, and we're skipping this 2014. During that period, what thoughts did you have that this is it. I'm not going to make another Olympic cycle.
Speaker 2:I don't know that I really thought of throwing in the towel because home games was very enticing and a very specific thing about my beautiful sport is that the distances stay the same but the techniques flip. So if I won in backstroke 100 meters, four years later it's going to be butterfly. This classic skiing and skate skiing are that different? Different skis, boots and poles it was. It did feel not the best that the home games were not the skate sprint I was good at. I need a short race and it has to be skate technique. I can't classic and I can't do long. I am a total specialist.
Speaker 1:Tell me then. So I think that the bit I probably missed was that the race was different in the next Olympics.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, the race was different in 2010.
Speaker 1:And that's the game.
Speaker 2:It's not a game change. And I still had these quads, so I'm here to skate ski. But our sport didn't really want that much differentiation either. They created the sprint race and then there started to be specialists like myself and they didn't want to be like alpine skiing with technical and speed, and so then they kind of like thought we've created a monster and tried to rein it back in with this slogan called like all in the family or something I think the international ski federation called it, where where we try to keep okay, but that just means that the distance people can also win the sprints. They made the sprints longer again.
Speaker 1:It's not really a sprint.
Speaker 2:It was a shorter long distance it's like a 1500 meter four times in three hours, like well, fine, in Nordic skiing that's a sprint. But so it didn't feel like I had a good crack at it in 2010. And I often just kind of gloss over, like that was a fun Olympics and uh, but then 2014 it would be hard to leave it on the table. That's my thing. Like I've waited eight years to do my thing again and that, yeah, I did cross my mind to to retire right before those games the year before because I was in such an unhealthy state, but I always, you know, wanted to be there doing my thing.
Speaker 1:And so when that thought about throwing in the towel came in, what did that look like? What did that sound like in your head?
Speaker 2:The main thing I experienced when I was trying to decide whether or not to quit ski racing in 2012, 2013 was is it worth it to keep cratering my health for what? You know? I have had success. I have had beautiful trips all over the world and awesome experiences Like is there any real upside to continuing with this thing that is causing me a lot of pain? Now it was really unwell. I had an eating disorder and I kind of lost my identity, place in the team and within myself and just epic struggle I had been. I can explain because now your audience is like well, and I had let's get to the well.
Speaker 2:I had been dating my teammate for 10 years and then we broke up quite publicly on the world cup ski circuit, which is just a tiny you know, a bunch of small groups from each country traveling the world together, and he fell in love with a Norwegian girl. And so I felt like I lost my place in the relationship in the ski team and also the role I had played in our breakup felt very like shameful and embarrassing to me as I looked back over the role I had played and lost my sense of self-worth as a good person. Holy cats. I had a really tough time and actually from when we broke up for one year later, I was actually worse like 12 months of just beating myself up and really feeling awful, trying to outrun my emotions and not sit and deal with them. Okay, this is, I'm in no state to qualify for the Olympics.
Speaker 2:Eventually I started skiing really slowly, because that's what happens in the eating disorder, which I knew would happen. Still, these things are so powerful and it's like a train, like once I, you know, wanted to get off. It was already impossible. So that was how my should I quit skiing or not quit decision came in because I was just a mess how did you get to an answer?
Speaker 2:I had to stop skiing for a minute and luckily you, you know, still had the resources and ability to just soul search. No dependence, like I'm a mom now it's like what would that even look like if you had to soul search? That would be tough, so I was able to just like, calm down. I went on antidepressants, had good clinical psychology there. I read amazing books. There was one book that actually, you know, found me like I stayed in an Airbnb and it was there, and it was this Eckhart Tolle book, the Power of Now, which helps us to have some distance from our thoughts, some objectivity, and just recognize that our minds are going bananas all the time and yeah, that's huge right. Like and identity as well. So, have you read, read? Yeah, some of these books have helped you yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love both well, either the reading of it or through apps like audible. So listening to it whilst I'm moving around and then reading the book as well, trying to mix the two, really, for me at least, cements that in my mind and the way that I want to operate. It's fascinating that you found that book, or indeed, the book found you whilst you were staying somewhere else and it happened to be there and you picked it up. I mean, that is, you know, I love everything about chaos and all of these things happen for a reason, and that book was placed there for you to pick it up and, I guess, help bring you back into or find what you said you were excellent at. That's why you have those thighs. That's why you were made for this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really fortuitous and maybe if I'd read it in a different state of mind I'd been like that's a weird book.
Speaker 2:But it really hit me at the right time and helped me out of that spot and I met my now husband and fell in love and my psychologist advised me like, focus on the good things in your life, and what you focus on expands.
Speaker 2:And that was so true that I was able to like get some more, you know, gratitude and momentum, and having the antidepressants take the kind of the bottom out of the layer of pain that I was in so I could do the work was really helpful, taking a break and I found a new identity beyond all those other things, which is like a real strong attachment to my hometown. I was like walking at night in the winter in January, having stopped ski racing, and like the snow was crunching under my feet and there were tons of stars overhead and I just lay down on that icy snow and like could see my breath puffing up in the stars and I was like this is me, I'm home and not any of those other things that have been so painful for me and that was wonderful for my I know it's an athlete transition podcast. That was so key. I lost my whole identity before the transition. It was perfect well do you know?
Speaker 1:what you've spoken about is quite wonderful because it does highlight the transitions we have during our athletic period. It does really talk to that because as an athlete we go through these different phases, from when you were in the junior team or indeed when you know, when you had someone senior bump you in the race and suddenly like, oh well, my role, I got to stay away and for that you moved all the way through from being a junior to a senior and here you had this other sort of transition moment, identity moment as an athlete, and it sounds like what got you back on back into competitive skiing was actually finding a new identity. It was probably your identity all along, but at least recognizing that identity in yourself yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:yeah, something else kind of more expansive and totally new way of existing. And then I was able to ski, race and quit the team and hired my own coach at great financial disadvantage to myself, but do it my own way and made it to those games, which was crazy hard. It was really really challenging from how, how fried I had gotten and out of shape as well as burnt out, so it was so super hard, which is why I really cherish those games and and my result there and the experience I had, more than my Olympic gold medal, because that inner peace I get to keep that forever and I really wish that for everyone.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Yeah, that is so good to hear you came back. So when you think about that Olympics you kind of answered it there. It sounds like it to what extent was did you get from it what you wanted or what you? Not what you had to do, but what you wanted? Talk to me about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got a lot out of those 2014 games because when I decided, okay, am I going to quit or not? Quit, do I want to do? I want to watch the games on TV? And no, I didn't even try and, just like you know, flamed out in this burnout and quit, that wasn't really the ending I was looking for, and so I decided that I would try to go to the games so that I could watch it on TV, knowing I at least tried my best and that it would be my personal journey from where I was to health. To be top performer, I have to have that health, so I thought that would be a really cool way to pursue it and do it my own way. Really cool way to pursue it and do it my own way.
Speaker 2:And when I made, I qualified and got to go to the Olympics in 2014 and race that skate sprint race the one I was good at and it was like this super blinding white snow cap mountains and the venue up above Sochi, russia, and you had to take a gondola to get up there and it was also really, by my standards Canadian standards hot, slushy snow. And as my baskets would hit the snow, there was snow flying everywhere, this like wet, granular snow, and my ponytail was just going. That's what I was skiing and I was winning the gold and my coach was cheering. Okay, I came 42nd place but I crossed the line, clicked out of my skis. I knew it would be my last ski race ever. I'd planned to retire 1.1 kilometers from now. I am super done. I'm like going on fumes in a lot of ways and I just felt so proud of myself. You're not going to believe who was there and who also placed in the forties Claudia Kunzel.
Speaker 2:And by then we had become friends because life is beautiful and it's been eight years and she's a great human and she said we had our day.
Speaker 2:And I got to ride down from that venue in a gondola all to myself, down to the village, which was kind of rare to have it to myself and I just put my arms out and I sat on the back bench of the Scandala and it went down through like cloud banks and cliffs. I just felt like I'd won a thousand gold medals. I felt like my whole chest was just like glowing with what I had done to come through that really hard time to be, you know, so well and healthy and happy and on the ski team and giving everyone high fives. And you know all the drama I had been through in my personal relationship and see everyone again. And you know the friends I'd made along the way too, because for a while the American team took me in and I made some really lifelong friendships. So I just left with like a thousand gold medals deep inner peace, identity, hell of a last race really a beautiful experience.
Speaker 1:So many people don't get to finish their game, their career, the way they want to. Listening to you is wonderful. It's wonderful you were able to do that, and what I actually find really fascinating is you did that with what your definition of success was and finishing the race being at peace, being healthy, being there where you wanted to and with a friend in a sport you love rather than it being defined by being on that podium again and saying, yep, I came back and I won. I think that is that's a really nice way, a really good way of you know defining that moment for yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hopefully it's relatable that we can all set something and go after it. And it's up to us to define it, cause it can be a pretty sweet story to go with a medal again. But that was not going to be possible. But yeah, it didn't even occur to me, cause I just take take it like just such a special jewel in memory and like foundational to who I am and who I've been able to be in my retirement. And, yeah, my own terms, I really do feel grateful for that, being able to say like this is what I want to do and do it. And you know, if I hadn't made it to those games and we had some other you know alternate story here we're like, and then I didn't make it to the games and I skied in the mountains and fell in love and moved on, like you know, that'd be fine too. It's like really health and being okay is the priority.
Speaker 1:That's right it is. It is so getting out of the gondola, finishing retiring the competitive skis what was next for you.
Speaker 2:A real leg up I had in this transition was that I had always worked running a charity called Fast and Female. I founded it in 2005 with the first event before my first Olympics, before the gold. I put together an event for girls age 8 to 18 to inspire and be inspired by the women athlete role models and then, three months later I, surprised, won the Olympics. So I was able to use that attention. The budget went from $250 to 35,000. It was awesome. We were flying girls across the country to be part of this big camp, kind of franchised out into the States. We even had an event in Australia, I want to say in Lake Falls Creek. Yeah, where were you? You missed it.
Speaker 1:I'm not faster than female.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that was it, yeah we brought it in, everyone could join um. So I always had this big purpose, bigger than ski racing, and I needed that. Like I don't know if you've seen athletes that some athletes like if they don't also do school, they just fry out on over analyzing sport, like if you got a big brain up in there, you got to go to school. And for me it was like I needed a bit more purpose and a bit more context to ski fast and a lot of years. It was like for the girls you know, for the charity if I win a medal I get to be in the newspaper and continue advancing my charity that I was running as a volunteer for the first nine years.
Speaker 2:But it had some good impact on my image and marketability because I was kind of waving that flag in years when I did not succeed on the skis and I always had a big yeah, a bigger picture of like well, what would I say to the young girls at my events about this race today? I'd say I did my best, I had fun, like what. You know, what more do I expect from myself? It really helped me a lot, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's interesting hearing it, because what it did all the way through your career by having that charitable focus, a focus on something that you really cared about it sounds like it grounded you at the end of every event. It gave you a reason at least to think about it positively, because you were a role model very early on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure it's really grounding, it's really healthy and I'm not immune to getting caught up in like I am my results and I would like sulk around the lunch table if I did poorly and I would like dance around the lunch table. Well, like it's not immune to those highs and lows and being a little bit self worth tied to to the results. But it really helped. Yeah, I really countered a lot of that to have a bigger picture. And then it was awesome because I had a job. That moment I retired I threw a retirement party, charged everyone to come to my retirement party it was a fundraiser and got all the food and beverage and things for free and raised. Yeah, I think we raised $18,000 for the charity and kicked off my job working for it.
Speaker 1:And what title did you give yourself?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm not that detail oriented, I'm like I need a operations person. So I think I was. I did try to be the executive director and realized that was not ideal for myself. So I think we ended up having like president or some other title that would help in fund development but also reflect like I'm not the one actually organizing everything and it's great to know your strengths and weaknesses, and it's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is. It is great. It's vital to know that and it's good you gave it a shot, giving it a shot being the one who's doing that organizing but recognizing soon enough where your skills really are and developing that. We've just spent the past 30, 40 minutes talking about you waiting for the sprint race to come in. So it makes sense that when you step into the not-for-profit world, or at least into the day-to-dayday working world, you should try something new and figure out where you would land. So when you went into then the charity fast and female, when you went into that full-time, how did you find it? How did you find that shift in rhythm?
Speaker 2:the early days of my retirement were good. I also had a couple holidays. I was busy organizing that fundraiser and I was trying to get into MBA school without an undergrad and that you know about these executive programs, but it was so cool. So I was also studying for the GMAT and living it up and going on trips. So I found the transition like really busy, with having fun and trying to do some algebra in the morning.
Speaker 1:What was your personal statement to get you into MBA school without an undergrad or business experience? How did you write that?
Speaker 2:It was my husband that knew about it that the executive MBA at the University of Calgary has a third criteria, which is if you don't have an undergrad but you have 10 years work experience and you get, I think, 540 or something on the GMAT, Because in this part of Alberta there could be some essentially high level employees who might have come up through like working in oil and gas, Right, and yeah, they're big leaders and they're going to get a chance at a business education without an undergrad. So I don't know, I guess it's all over the world the executive program it is.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious about how you, I'm just curious about how you yeah, how you wrote that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So they really did consider fast and female work experience, because every single day I was fundraising, running the board, taking care of the staff and keeping the thing alive, and learn a lot of leadership skills under duress, and business development and fundraising are the same thing. I was able to join the program and, like you know, I speak french and I'm a team player. I don't know if that counts, but I was really happy to be part of it and it was, but it was awful and hard also yeah, you were saying, at times it felt like punishing, but but you did pay for it.
Speaker 1:You did ask them.
Speaker 2:You begged them to let you in this. Why are you saying all these tests?
Speaker 1:That's great. And so, look, when you introduced yourself, it was this wonderful description of life, and you well, actually so many other people as part of your life. So, as you continue through that transition the charity, the MBA, building the family, your own family what has been the hardest thing for you as you've gone through that process?
Speaker 2:The hardest thing of the process is, I think, two parts just the discomfort of uncertainty, not knowing what I'm doing, having to vocalize that and and then, tied to that, like feeling stupid or feeling an ego pain of being so uncomfortable, and that continues to this day. I was telling someone last week we were talking about well, I was trying to launch like another business, and then I was like athlete transition forever. They're like I feel, ya, and at the same time kind of you know, that's a human experience, though I'm not just that that special, Like everyone's trying to figure out what should I do in this decade. And now I have this family situation, Like talk to someone who is, like you know, in their sixties, seventies or eighties retiring. They're trying to find themselves, so like trying to really broaden that. It's a human experience. But so the ego pain was rough and the uncertainty continues to be rough. It's not all yeah, not all figured out and just getting a little bit as we go through those different stages in life.
Speaker 1:I think what's fascinating and hence why, as we're talking, is, with athletes, there's always a cliff. It's always there. You're doing a sport where you know I'm going to have to stop doing this at some point, whether we accept it or not, and the way we come through that and you've've spoken about the lessons, or at least your traits, capabilities that you've brought from being an athlete to where you are today, and that, for me, always makes it a wonderful story. It's a fascinating journey, which you have certainly taken us on so far, which is which is great. I have a couple more questions for you, then, really just to round this out, and it's a well as you look back at what you have achieved as an athlete and what would you still ending up in the same seats, ending up where you are today, what you have done differently or what would you have appreciated differently about the way you transitioned or setting you up for the life you have today.
Speaker 2:I had a really good one, I really did.
Speaker 1:What made it so good?
Speaker 2:I think some of the structural advantages of having for sure one I acknowledge like that was amazing to have won the gold medal and any day I did retire I would always get to enjoy that and that is meaningful and having such a big sense of belonging and purpose was really helpful. Getting to stop on my own terms, get into school right away and get into starting a family right away were all great. So I give athlete transition four and a half stars.
Speaker 1:Well, that's good Now. I think you did the work early. You did a lot of that early right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I died of many ego deaths in the year before, so when it came time to transition, I was so far gone from sport and, yeah, it was really, really would have been much harder if I hadn't already totally lost my attachment to my place as a skier and my self-worth as a skier that's wonderful if there's 18 year old someone who's following your charity, who is following you and thinking I want to be like that, chandra.
Speaker 1:I want to get to the Olympics, I want to win worlds, but I also want to transition. Well, if you had to pick one, I may let you have two, but if you had to pick one thing that you'd suggest that they did to help them live their life to the fullest, what would that be?
Speaker 2:I would love to say to all athletes at all stages to and could be brought into all people and parenthood transitions, but to keep cultivating parts of our identities that are joyful to us. Like you can't beat it. I think what's tough for me to see in athlete transitions is when I really wouldn't do anything that I cared about beyond sport. That would be unhealthy and impact my performance negatively, and so I think there's like two negatives to not having a bit of identity beyond the sport. It can impact in the moment and also at the end.
Speaker 2:So if we could just normalize talking about our interests beyond sport having like one day on the junior team our fun coach made us do a presentation on any topic for 15 minutes and it was a riot. One guy from BC talked about rock formations. It was just hilarious, and so I would love to get you know, if I could just like text, a message to every single human in every sports team. The value of having joy and interest beyond sport doesn't have to be even tons, but it's really worthwhile. Every minute we spend on a guitar or a book or a course or an interest, it's totally worth it.
Speaker 1:Chandra, that's great, listen. One last thing. If people are going to be listening to this and they're going to be thinking I want to know more Chandra, I want to follow her more. Where's the best place to find you?
Speaker 2:I'm most active on Instagram and LinkedIn at Chandra Crawford. Love to hear from you anyone. I'm just extremely extroverted and chatty, so tell me what's on your mind and we'll go from there.
Speaker 1:Chandra, thank you so much for sharing your journey so far with us today. Absolutely loved our conversation, thank you.
Speaker 2:It's a real pleasure. Thank you, ryan, and for the work you're doing. You know it is really meaningful and it is helping people, so just hats off to you. I'm a subscriber and I'm following the newsletter, and I would like to come to the meetup in Sydney. I'm a little far away, but keep up the great work yourself, because it's making people's lives better.
Speaker 1:Beauty. Thanks a lot, Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Second Wind podcast. We hope you enjoyed hearing insights from today's athlete on transitioning out of competitive careers. If you're looking for career clarity for your next step, make sure you check out secondwinio for more information or to book a consultation with me. I'd like to thank Claire from Betty Book Design, Nancy from Savvy Podcast Solutions and Cerise from Copying Content by Lola for their help in putting this podcast together. That's all from me. Take it easy Until next time.