Inspiration can come from anywhere and anyone at anytime. Meet Angela Ruggerio. She's a four-time Olympic medalist in ice hockey for Team USA. She competed for the fourth time at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, where she won a Silver medal. For the record, she's got the other colors too: Gold (1998), Bronze (2006), and an another Silver (2002). Currently, she holds the highly regarded position as a member of the International Olympic Committee’s Athletes’ Commission.
Many moons ago, I met Angela on her recruiting trip to Harvard. At the time, she had a Gold medal. At the time, she thought she knew where she wanted to go to college (some school in Hanover, NH). Being a good sport, she came and looked at Harvard anyway and the rest is, as they say, history. Something to do with myself and the rest of the women's ice hockey team rolling out the Crimson carpet. She and I have been friends ever since.
It's hard keeping track of her; she's everywhere. Last month, she was in South Africa and Monaco for the Royal Wedding. A Royal Wedding you say? Look where ice hockey can take you! Seriously.
I asked Angela a simple question: What made a difference for her along the way? Here's what she had to say:
"The best thing(s) I did:
1- practice when everyone else is not (like the off-season, or when the competition typically takes long breaks)
2- pretend there is a scout in the stands every day. This will enable you to never cave under pressure (since you've always then "played" while people are watching) and also you get 10x more out of each skate.
3- enjoy what you are doing (you get a hell of a lot more out of it when you do)
Hope this helps!"
Thanks, Visa for taking such an awesome pic of Angela!
What is Tenacity?
The quality or fact of being very determined; determination
Tenacity is also a series of short blog posts about my favorite players, musicians, athletes, artists, songwriters, entrepreneurs, writers, excellent people, etc. The (short, sweet and practical) posts will explore how they got to be so damn good at what they do, what made a difference for them along the way.
Find Angela on Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube