Siri Lindley | How a World Champion Overcame Fear and Failure
She is a two time world champion and she's the number one ranked triathlete in the world and she has been inducted into the USA triathlon Hall of Fame. Siri Lindley is a graduate of Brown University. Siri is also a key note speaker, a best-selling author, and a high performance coach. Siri has unbelievable grit and gladiator spirit, all fueled by a peaceful, warrior-loving soul that wants to make a genuine impact in the world by helping empower many to understand what really drives them from the inside out. In this episode, Siri will talk about some of the mindset tools and techniques that she's applied to her life that have catapulted her to where she is now.
1. The Gift of Life
When Siri was young, she was riddled with fear and had anxiety disorders. She was a mess and terrified in her own skin. It was at this time that animals became Siri's saviors. They made her feel safe, loved, and like she mattered at a time when she had convinced herself that she didn’t. Now, Siri and her wife run a course rescue where they rescue horses from slaughter. Siri has witnessed that when somebody believes in you, especially when you thought that a particular moment was the end, and decides to take a chance on you and believes in you and your future, you will want to be everything you can be for that person. Siri feels that horses are so grateful when they bring them in and they give them the medical care they need, and pair them with a forever home or equine therapy school. A majority of the horses they rescue come back and heal the humans that they come in contact with. Siri believes that it's kind of come full circle for her. Animals rescued her and now she's rescuing animals who are also rescuing humans. Life is what lights up Siri each and every single day.
2. Abundance Focused Life
Siri was 20 years old at Brown University when her life changed completely. She was a three sport athlete and she was getting a great education and on the outside it looked like she had things pretty figured out. However, on the inside Siri was slowly dying. She was terrified of her own skin and she didn’t really know who she was. She had this massive OCD which is how she was dealt with her anxiety and fear. While reading Tony Robbin's book, Unlimited Power, she learned that, what is real and what is possible is what she believes is real and what she believes is possible. She controlled her experiences of her life. What she believes, what she wants to feel and what she wants to create—that was up to her. She was the only one who had the power to change her experience of life.
What Siri realized was that she was focusing on what was missing, what she didn’t have, what she feared and what she had no control over. Siri decided to make a shift and began focusing on abundance instead of scarcity. She began focusing on what she had and what she wanted to create and what she loved instead of what she feared. She also began focusing on the fact that she had all the control in the world over her life and what she did with it.
3. Hunger, Desire and Resilience
A few years ago, a friend of Siri invited her to a party. They went to this really cool bar, but the bar had women only. She hung out there for a while and she enjoyed herself. This is when she realized that she was gay. A year later after finding out that she was gay, Siri received a call from her father. Her father wanted to confirm whether she really was gay. Siri admitted to him that she was gay. Her father hang up the phone and she didn’t hear from him for about three years. With this rejection Siri felt that everything she had accomplished to that point meant nothing now that she was gay because she was a complete failure and her own father was rejecting her.
Now, Siri realizes that the rejection was her greatest gift. When Siri's father rejected her, she got this intense and deep fire to get out there, find out what she's made of and what she can achieve in her life. She needed to prove to herself that, as a gay woman, she could still achieve things that she thought were special, inspire people, and make a difference in the world. Siri believes that she would not have had the drive and the desire to want to dig as deep as she had if her father had not rejected her.
Siri was just determined to prove everyone wrong that as a gay woman she can achieve, she can inspire, and she can make a difference. Everyday her goal became doing something that would take her one step closer to achieving a level of proficiency in the sport that she had fallen in love with. She therefore worked her ass off and accepted the fact that to achieve anything amazing, she was probably going to fail along the way and she was going to hit roadblocks and detours. She became comfortable with failure by accepting that it was a part of the path.
4. Getting Uncomfortable
Siri's biggest philosophy is we have to get uncomfortable. Each and every one of us has come to point where it's hard and we have to dig deep. However, many people don’t take it to the point where they ask themselves, "Oh my God, am I going to even survive this?" One thing that Siri's coach did that took her from being a middle of a packer to a world champion is every day he would give her a task that seemed absolutely impossible. One day Siri went to her coach sore all over and stiff. She told him that she couldn’t even move her legs or lift her arms and so she couldn’t do the exercise he had requested. Her coach looked at her and told her to find a way. Siri decided to go out there and do the best that he could to get the exercise done. What ended up happening is every day, her coach would give her something that seemed so impossible and she would succeed in getting it done. So everyday Siri was building up this honest confidence that came from the facts. Those that are willing to get that bit more uncomfortable are the ones that are truly going to get the gift of stepping in further but in order to do this you've got to have this deep reason why it matters to you.
5. Routines
Every day Siri wakes up is grateful. The first thing she’ll do in the morning is say thanks and then lays out intention. Siri is even grateful for the little things that might seem insignificant. She often wants to show her appreciation for the gift of life and the life that she leads. Siri believes that the best possible way to show her thanks to appreciate this is to acknowledge it and use everything she has inside of her to the fullest every day. So Siri wakes up and she thinks about three things that she's grateful for. Whenever Siri is not rushing to work, she will do Tony Robbin's priming exercise. The impact Siri hopes to have is loving the horses and making them feel safer and helping her athletes reach all new levels mentally, physically and emotionally. Siri will then get up and then she'll work out. She is not an intense trainer anymore but she loves running. She then goes about her day and ensures that she is always present. This is so important because in this present age it's so easy to be distracted. Siri is all about doing something while being fully present. Siri finally ends the day with gratitude by thinking about the great things that happened.
6. Fulfillment
Siri believes that at the end of the day or when you accomplish something, being able to appreciate and be grateful for what came from that achievement and what you gained from it and how it will touch the lives of the people around you is fulfillment. Always remember that everything we do has the potential to inspire or to move or give hope or free someone else. Fulfillment is knowing that what you've worked so hard to achieve will also inspire others to have that same courage and be brave and find their angel and reveal it to the world as well.
Resources
Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement - Tony Robbins
A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" - Marianne Williamson
Surfacing: From the Depths of Self-Doubt to Winning Big and Living Fearlessly – Siri Lindley
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