The Three Questions Summer Sanders Asked Herself Before Winning Gold

Just before Summer Sanders’ last Olympic race – and her last opportunity to win an individual gold medal – she was laughing with her teammates. Her coach told her, “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.” 

“I dove in, I warmed up with anger, and I did my sprints with anger,” the Stanford alum, sports commentator, and entrepreneur recalled. “Even though I was 19, I was like, I know one thing:
I am not going to win a gold medal with anger.”

Sanders recounted this story in a talk with the Stanford Initiative for Entrepreneurs’ Resilience & Well-Being (SIER) about her career and all the pressure that came with it, in conversation with Ash Wallington, executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, which leads SIER along with the Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign. Sanders shared her process and how thinking like a high-performance athlete is not all that different from thinking like an entrepreneur. 

In that high-stakes moment at the 1992 Barcelona Games, Sanders found a quiet place and asked herself three questions to focus her mind on what really matters: 

Why do you do it? 

“I asked myself this question over and over again, because swimming is so hard. So I often had to remind myself that I really do love it. So I answered, out loud: I do it because I love it.” 

Who do you do it for? 

“This was a selfish question. I could have said my country, my school, my hometown, my parents, who would get up so early with me. But I kept it simple: I am here right now because I want this. I am doing this for me.”

Who loves you?

“What really matters in the end, with all this pressure on the mind is, who is going to be there at the end of your lane, or after the game, or outside your testing center, who will hug you, even if you fall on your face. And those five people were outside, ready to cheer me up: my mom, my dad, my brother, my best girlfriend, and my Aunt Nancy. As soon as I said their names out loud, I just felt this backpack of weight – it was like a giant piano, bricks – off my back.”

What came next for Sanders was excellence achieved literally on the fly:

“I went out there and stood behind the blocks. I thought to myself, ‘this your last time in this pool, you better give it everything you have.’ And I proceeded to swim the most imperfect 200 butterfly of my life.” 

Sanders, accustomed to finding herself a full body length ahead of her competitors when she hit the first wall, started out in fifth place. But by the second wall, she was in third. Eventually, she hit the final wall first, earning the coveted individual gold. In hindsight, that imperfect start might’ve been more of a feature than a bug.

“It was so uncomfortable, and I think that's a connection that speaks to entrepreneurs or to people who are trying to develop new things, think differently, or disrupt something: it's never comfortable…but I never gave up,” Sanders recalled. 

She also described how her rigorous training prepared her to flourish at the critical inflection point. “I went back to what was mechanically natural. I didn't try to force things, I just relaxed. Sometimes when we get pressure filled, we try too hard. Just go back to your normal stroke, but that should be strong.”

Wallington asked Sanders about the grind and when to ease off. “How do you know when to push harder versus when to give yourself a break?” 

“You have to know yourself,” Sanders said. “Your body and your gut are usually telling you when they've reached their max with pressure or the intensity. And breaks are phenomenal. They should be a part of your greatness journey.” 

Breaks aren’t just a pause, nor do they mean you are static in your progress. They can help you build, said Sanders. 

“It’s a healthy reset. Tell your brain that you're not missing out and you're not falling behind, that this is good for you. Maybe you need to say those words out loud. But breaks are essential. Recovery workouts are essential. You cannot be at a high-level pace 24/7 and expect to perform at your best. It just won't work.”