This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast more what You Hear
Weekday Afternoons on the Drive. With two Olympic gold medals, one silver medal,
and six World Championship victories World Cup thirty one World Cup victories as well
in a staggering fifty nine career World Cup podiums. Five time Olympic champion,
Lindsay jacob Ellis is joining us now to talk about her newest memoir, Unforgiving,
an honest account of one life altering misstep. But let's start, Lindsay
with how snowboarding began with you. At what point in your life did you
say, Ah, these skis is two of them is just too many?
I need to go to one. Well, it was actually a funny story
how it kind of came to be. My brother was a pioneer for the
family, and naturally anything that my brother was doing, I need to do,
you know, being a younger sibling, desperately trying to keep up and
not wanting to be left behind. So my brother was showing this great passion
for this trendy, fun, funky, fun new sport, and we'd always
be the weekend Warriors up at Stratton Mountain, and after we got really into
it, we suffered a tragedy and lost our house in a fire, and
that we talk about it and I talk about it in my book. But
thankfully no one was hurt in the fire. Nobody was there, so we
are very lucky in that aspect. But we did lose all of our ski
and snowboard equipment. And if you think about that, you know, you
put together everything that you would physically put on, and if you have to
replace everything from long underwear, socks, boots, jacket pants, and then
on top of that all of your equipment, the costs can become very expensive.
And this was in the middle of the season and before insurance was going
to kicking. You know, insurance always takes a while to give you that
money back. So my dad kind of looked at us and was like,
what do you want to do because right now we can't afford to replace everything,
and what is it going to be? Skier snowboards? And my brother
and I were like, we're going to go with snowboarding. And the local
community up at Stratton was so helpful. They gave us, you know,
fire sale deals, They helped outfit our entire family to get us back on
the mountain and it's it. It was such a memorable moment to see how
that community came up so fast to support us so we could finish out the
season and still have our winter experience like we've had so many years before.
Lindi jacob ellis Olympic snowboarder. Her memoir is called Unforgiving Lessons from the Fall
About how old were you at this point? I was twenty years old in
two thousand and six. I was going to say, you know, the
kids on the slopes with the snowboards always do better than the adults, So
were you relatively small when you're starting out? I was. I was pretty
young when I was skiing, and then when I transitioned into snowboarding, I
probably picked up like eight or nine years old. I had to make such
a huge time table to try to put all of this information down accurately,
and kept going back and forth to my mom. Was I this old?
Was I this old wood board? With the easiest way to decide how old
I was to was to look up the board that I got and remember what
year I got the board, and then I'm like, ah, that's how
old I was. So it was in the ninety four ninety five Burton Air
that was my board that, unfortunately we did lose in the fire. I've
never been able to replace that. So if there's anyone out there that has
one of those boards, I'd be willing to chat with you. So do
you like the old school better than some of the new innovations we've seen in
the last just in the last five years, I've seen a lot. Well.
With my sport, we have a very specific style snowboard that we are
racing on. But when I'm free riding, I definitely like those cruisers.
I like the traditional camber boards. I think that they give a lot of
stability, and I like flexing and working the board and making the board have
to work under my feet. But then there's also when you're riding powder,
you want something that's nice and light and floating keeps you up really high.
So it just really depends on the conditions that you're in what type of snowboard
that you will be choosing that day. And mind you, I'm not a
boarder. I am a skier, not an active skier. I ski maybe
twice a year up in Colorado, But I know what you mean. When
you're talking about equipment. I've taken a lifetime to build up the equipment that
I like and I find comfortable. I can't imagine it all being wiped out
and having to start all over. Oh well, so have you thanked us
snowboarders for giving the nice side cut that you skiers now have on your skis?
With nice you can't forget about that. But we brought to the snow
industry. I tried it. I went to it first before Lovely Wife did.
And when Lovely Wife went to it, it was about a season later
and she was like, where have you been all my life? Exactly?
It is a game changer. Yeah, unforgiven lessons from the fall and Olympian
snowboarder that Lindsey jacob ellis is with us. So let's talk about that event
that seems to have defined a lot of your career. Although I apologize for
wording the question that way. Oh it's okay. I'm pretty used to it
by now. Yeah. Back in two thousand and six, I was twenty
years old, my first Olympic experience and his first time snowboard cross is actually
in the Olympics. So I am America's favorite destined to win. There was
definitely a lot of pressure being placed on my shoulders at that time, and
I was ahead, and I fell do a grab off the second to last
jump, and it was not something that I planned. I had no idea
why decide to do it in that moment. It definitely came to me while
I was in that moment. It was I spent a lot of time trying
to understand what happened. But before I could even understand what happened, before
I even got down to the bottom of the hill, I already had a
new narrative from the media and how they were really going to be labeling me
for better part of the next sixteen years of my life. So this book
really looks into how I had to grow to get past that narrative and then
essentially how I owned my own narrative and was given this opportunity to share my
experiences. But ultimately I wanted to share how I was maturing and how it
was growing over those last sixteen years. That way, if I'm giving anyone
any help to get past those moments where they have struggled or had setbacks or
made mistakes, that would be a win for me. Just even right in
that moment. Oh, and we all have. And if you don't learn
anything from that, you don't grow. Absolutely, Unfortunately, failure can be
a better teacher. It is hard to see in the moment. I felt
like a little little Yoda right there. Well, you know when I always
say this, I've said this in job interviews when it comes to the point
where they ask, Okay, what is your biggest pet peeve or what is
the thing that you have to be able to do to function? And I
said, I have to be given the latitude to fail because I don't learn
anything if I don't make a mistake along the way. And sometimes that alarms
bosses and sometimes they understand, but I'm that type of person. I have
to get out there and see, all right, what does work? Hope
that didn't work, what did I learn from it? And don't do that
again. It's a constant juggling game and an adapt and pivot and you can
grow. But I definitely appreciate that you see that within yourself, and that
that's huge because so many people are afraid of failure and making that mistake because
they are not given that chance to see how they can move past or what
they can grow and learn from that situation, unforgiving lessons from the fall.
It's Olympian and World champion Lindsay Jacob Ellis who's with us and Lindsay When you're
in the heat of battle, going down the hill like you were, and
you have all of these competitors zooming around you, sometimes your ahead, sometimes
they are at the time, were you aware you were so far out in
front of everybody back in two thousand and six or in Beijing, Yeah,
no, two thousand and six. In two thousand and six, there was
a moment that I was able to look back to see if there were girls
really close to me, because up at the top of the rung run you
could hear all the boards landing around you, so you knew it was really
close, and you know, you don't know who it is, and you
can't tell exactly how close they are, so coming down to the bottom,
I wasn't hearing them anymore, and I did have the moment to look back
and maybe see the lead that I had. And in that moment heading to
the jump, you know I hadn't prepared for it. You can see my
body position isn't even right. And then I decided to just go for a
grab and you're like, what is going on? Why did I do that?
And it was so upsetting to me and is definitely not the type of
individual I am. So it was very hard to be branded as someone that
makes that kind of mistake and that I was just up for grabs for anyone
to tear me down. Well, honestly, those of us who are not
trained in this sport and watch it for the entertainment aspect probably would not have
noticed one way or another if the sportscasters hadn't been yelling about it at the
time. But Lindsey jacob Ellis is with us and the book is unforgiving.
Lessons from the Fall available everywhere you get books, very inspirational, as is
your story and we look forward to seeing you on the mountain. Thank you
so much. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast,
and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven
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