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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast more what You Hear

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Weekday Afternoons on the Drive. With
two Olympic gold medals, one silver medal,

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and six World Championship victories World Cup
thirty one World Cup victories as well

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in a staggering fifty nine career World
Cup podiums. Five time Olympic champion,

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Lindsay jacob Ellis is joining us now
to talk about her newest memoir, Unforgiving,

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an honest account of one life altering
misstep. But let's start, Lindsay

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with how snowboarding began with you.
At what point in your life did you

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say, Ah, these skis is
two of them is just too many?

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I need to go to one.
Well, it was actually a funny story

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how it kind of came to be. My brother was a pioneer for the

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family, and naturally anything that my
brother was doing, I need to do,

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you know, being a younger sibling, desperately trying to keep up and

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not wanting to be left behind.
So my brother was showing this great passion

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for this trendy, fun, funky, fun new sport, and we'd always

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be the weekend Warriors up at Stratton
Mountain, and after we got really into

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it, we suffered a tragedy and
lost our house in a fire, and

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that we talk about it and I
talk about it in my book. But

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thankfully no one was hurt in the
fire. Nobody was there, so we

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are very lucky in that aspect.
But we did lose all of our ski

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and snowboard equipment. And if you
think about that, you know, you

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put together everything that you would physically
put on, and if you have to

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replace everything from long underwear, socks, boots, jacket pants, and then

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on top of that all of your
equipment, the costs can become very expensive.

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And this was in the middle of
the season and before insurance was going

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to kicking. You know, insurance
always takes a while to give you that

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money back. So my dad kind
of looked at us and was like,

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what do you want to do because
right now we can't afford to replace everything,

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and what is it going to be? Skier snowboards? And my brother

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and I were like, we're going
to go with snowboarding. And the local

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community up at Stratton was so helpful. They gave us, you know,

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fire sale deals, They helped outfit
our entire family to get us back on

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the mountain and it's it. It
was such a memorable moment to see how

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that community came up so fast to
support us so we could finish out the

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season and still have our winter experience
like we've had so many years before.

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Lindi jacob ellis Olympic snowboarder. Her
memoir is called Unforgiving Lessons from the Fall

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About how old were you at this
point? I was twenty years old in

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two thousand and six. I was
going to say, you know, the

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kids on the slopes with the snowboards
always do better than the adults, So

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were you relatively small when you're starting
out? I was. I was pretty

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young when I was skiing, and
then when I transitioned into snowboarding, I

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probably picked up like eight or nine
years old. I had to make such

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a huge time table to try to
put all of this information down accurately,

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and kept going back and forth to
my mom. Was I this old?

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Was I this old wood board?
With the easiest way to decide how old

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I was to was to look up
the board that I got and remember what

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year I got the board, and
then I'm like, ah, that's how

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old I was. So it was
in the ninety four ninety five Burton Air

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that was my board that, unfortunately
we did lose in the fire. I've

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never been able to replace that.
So if there's anyone out there that has

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one of those boards, I'd be
willing to chat with you. So do

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you like the old school better than
some of the new innovations we've seen in

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the last just in the last five
years, I've seen a lot. Well.

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With my sport, we have a
very specific style snowboard that we are

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racing on. But when I'm free
riding, I definitely like those cruisers.

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I like the traditional camber boards.
I think that they give a lot of

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stability, and I like flexing and
working the board and making the board have

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to work under my feet. But
then there's also when you're riding powder,

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you want something that's nice and light
and floating keeps you up really high.

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So it just really depends on the
conditions that you're in what type of snowboard

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that you will be choosing that day. And mind you, I'm not a

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boarder. I am a skier,
not an active skier. I ski maybe

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twice a year up in Colorado,
But I know what you mean. When

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you're talking about equipment. I've taken
a lifetime to build up the equipment that

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I like and I find comfortable.
I can't imagine it all being wiped out

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and having to start all over.
Oh well, so have you thanked us

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snowboarders for giving the nice side cut
that you skiers now have on your skis?

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With nice you can't forget about that. But we brought to the snow

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industry. I tried it. I
went to it first before Lovely Wife did.

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And when Lovely Wife went to it, it was about a season later

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and she was like, where have
you been all my life? Exactly?

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It is a game changer. Yeah, unforgiven lessons from the fall and Olympian

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snowboarder that Lindsey jacob ellis is with
us. So let's talk about that event

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that seems to have defined a lot
of your career. Although I apologize for

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wording the question that way. Oh
it's okay. I'm pretty used to it

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by now. Yeah. Back in
two thousand and six, I was twenty

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years old, my first Olympic experience
and his first time snowboard cross is actually

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in the Olympics. So I am
America's favorite destined to win. There was

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definitely a lot of pressure being placed
on my shoulders at that time, and

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I was ahead, and I fell
do a grab off the second to last

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jump, and it was not something
that I planned. I had no idea

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why decide to do it in that
moment. It definitely came to me while

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I was in that moment. It
was I spent a lot of time trying

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to understand what happened. But before
I could even understand what happened, before

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I even got down to the bottom
of the hill, I already had a

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new narrative from the media and how
they were really going to be labeling me

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for better part of the next sixteen
years of my life. So this book

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really looks into how I had to
grow to get past that narrative and then

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essentially how I owned my own narrative
and was given this opportunity to share my

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experiences. But ultimately I wanted to
share how I was maturing and how it

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was growing over those last sixteen years. That way, if I'm giving anyone

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any help to get past those moments
where they have struggled or had setbacks or

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made mistakes, that would be a
win for me. Just even right in

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that moment. Oh, and we
all have. And if you don't learn

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anything from that, you don't grow. Absolutely, Unfortunately, failure can be

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a better teacher. It is hard
to see in the moment. I felt

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like a little little Yoda right there. Well, you know when I always

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say this, I've said this in
job interviews when it comes to the point

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where they ask, Okay, what
is your biggest pet peeve or what is

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the thing that you have to be
able to do to function? And I

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said, I have to be given
the latitude to fail because I don't learn

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anything if I don't make a mistake
along the way. And sometimes that alarms

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bosses and sometimes they understand, but
I'm that type of person. I have

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to get out there and see,
all right, what does work? Hope

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that didn't work, what did I
learn from it? And don't do that

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again. It's a constant juggling game
and an adapt and pivot and you can

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grow. But I definitely appreciate that
you see that within yourself, and that

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that's huge because so many people are
afraid of failure and making that mistake because

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they are not given that chance to
see how they can move past or what

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they can grow and learn from that
situation, unforgiving lessons from the fall.

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It's Olympian and World champion Lindsay Jacob
Ellis who's with us and Lindsay When you're

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in the heat of battle, going
down the hill like you were, and

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you have all of these competitors zooming
around you, sometimes your ahead, sometimes

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they are at the time, were
you aware you were so far out in

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front of everybody back in two thousand
and six or in Beijing, Yeah,

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no, two thousand and six.
In two thousand and six, there was

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a moment that I was able to
look back to see if there were girls

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really close to me, because up
at the top of the rung run you

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could hear all the boards landing around
you, so you knew it was really

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close, and you know, you
don't know who it is, and you

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can't tell exactly how close they are, so coming down to the bottom,

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I wasn't hearing them anymore, and
I did have the moment to look back

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and maybe see the lead that I
had. And in that moment heading to

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the jump, you know I hadn't
prepared for it. You can see my

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body position isn't even right. And
then I decided to just go for a

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grab and you're like, what is
going on? Why did I do that?

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And it was so upsetting to me
and is definitely not the type of

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individual I am. So it was
very hard to be branded as someone that

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makes that kind of mistake and that
I was just up for grabs for anyone

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to tear me down. Well,
honestly, those of us who are not

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trained in this sport and watch it
for the entertainment aspect probably would not have

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noticed one way or another if the
sportscasters hadn't been yelling about it at the

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time. But Lindsey jacob Ellis is
with us and the book is unforgiving.

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Lessons from the Fall available everywhere you
get books, very inspirational, as is

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your story and we look forward to
seeing you on the mountain. Thank you

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so much. Thanks for listening to
Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast,

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and remember to listen to The Drive
Live weekday afternoons from five to seven

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