What happened yesterday

Sunday morning, Druskininkai, Lithuania.

8am weigh-in for the European Equipped Bench Press Championships, where I'm competing in the 63kg weight class.

10am. Bar is loaded. Lifting has started.

But I could hear “no lift” from the stage. Again and again.

The bench pad was firmer than everyone was used to. Refs were quick with the red lights.

Opened with a 145kg bench press. It went up feeling like 500kg. No lift. Overturned by jury: good lift.

10-minute wait

Second lift 150kg. Felt better. Good lift - two white lights to one red.

But replay showed glutes losing contact with bench. 7mm in it. Refs overturned by jury: no lift.

10-minute wait

152.5kg is on the bar and lifting it means gold, for now. Others already failed it.

My turn.

In that moment, I couldn’t get any stronger. No technical cue would make a difference. It’s all about the mental game.

My self-talk is part realness, part inviting the unknown.

I go back to one question:

What do I know for sure?

I’m here to win
This is why I train
People are counting on me
I have lifted this many times

Sure Jodie, but that’s the same for everyone. We can’t all win. There’s more to this than logic and reason.

So then I surrender control to… I’m not sure who or what.

I’m not religious. But the place beyond me knows things I don’t.

So I talk to it.

I say I don’t need to know everything for sure. I trust that:

Everything is always working out for me.
This will unfold exactly as it’s meant to.
What’s meant for me will find me.

Then my friends’ words flashed through my mind:

Jupiter just entered Leo.
It’s the year of the fire horse.
The lions gate portal is open.

The power of the universe is within you.

Don’t know what that means. But sounds good. Count me in.

Commentator calls my name. 152.5kg.

I stomp out there on a mission to lift the weight I’d lifted 20+ times in the gym.

Good lift.

All 3 refs agree. 3-person jury can’t overturn.

Now we wait.

Denmark want gold too. Danish athlete now has to lift 155kg.

She stomps out there on a mission.

At the last second of the lift, she misses.

Cook - Great Britain, gold.

Tears. Cheers. Pictures.

Relief I learned the words to the national anthem.

Then the GB women’s team won gold too.

C’MAAAAANNNNN.

Here's what I really know for sure.

Trying to control everything will send you crazy and make you miserable.

Business and life are 10X more enjoyable and richer in every way when you learn to love the unknown.

Life is a game. Business is a game. Only one way to win:

PLAY

Today my new book is out. The Game of Business and How to Play it.

Adapted from the 1925 book, The Game of Life and How to Play it.

Get it here on Kindle, paperback or hardback.