Navigating Transitions with Joe Jacobi

The Soloist Life

None of us are immune to transitions—it’s just that they seem start piling up at “mid-life”. Olympic gold medalist and performance coach Joe Jacobi shares his story and how you too can navigate resistance and uncertainty to pursue purpose, performance and impact:

What working as part of a two-person boat teaches you about collaboration (and it’s probably not what you think).

Why sometimes winning comes down to making fewer mistakes than your peers—and correcting them more quickly.

How focusing on the unique ways your experiences and expertise can help others will magnify your impact.

Learning to appreciate where you are “in the river” and navigate toward what you value most.

When seeking alliances as a Soloist can provide more opportunities for fruitful collaboration.

LINKS

Joe Jacobi Linktr.ee

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BIO

Joe Jacobi is an Olympic Gold Medalist, Performance Coach, Transition Expert and Author who collaborates with high performance leaders to unlock purpose, achieve peak performance, and create a lasting impact.

Joe practices and refines these core principles and strategies in his own life and pursuits at his Pyrenees mountains home beside the 1992 Olympic Canoeing venue in La Seu d’Urgell in the Spanish state of Catalunya - the same canoeing venue where he and his canoeing partner, Scott Strausbaugh, won America’s first-ever Olympic Gold Medal in the sport of Whitewater Canoe Slalom at the 1992 Olympic Games.

In 2022, Joe published his first book, Slalom: 6 River Classes About How To Confront Obstacles, Advance Amid Uncertainty, & Bring Focus To What Matters Most - Joe's reflections, experiences, relationships, and strategies from more than 40 years on the river transferred to navigating your river of the life.

Today, he writes and publishes Thinking In Waves, short and focused weekly essays that transfer his experiences and lessons from surfing off-shore ocean waves on a surfski kayak to an innovative model for clear thinking, better choices, and increased value alignment.

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00 - 00:31

Joe Jacobi: Energy can travel in different directions and the more you become aware of it and you put yourself to manage Not just the expenditure of it, but the replenishment of it as well You change the game and you really start to think less about time and how you really set yourself up to have the capacity to do what you want to do when you want to do it. And don't feel pressure rushed to spend energy that you don't intend to spend or don't want to spend.

00:36 - 01:21

Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton. And today I'm here with my pal, Olympic gold medalist, performance coach, transition expert, author, and all around good guy, Joe Jacoby. High performance leaders seek his collaboration in navigating resistance and uncertainty in their pursuit of purpose, performance, and impact. Joe practices and refines these core principles and strategies in his own life and pursuits at his Pirine Mountains home besides the 1992 Olympic canoeing venue in the Spanish state of Catalonia, the same canoeing venue where he

01:21 - 02:07

Rochelle Moulton: and his canoeing partner Scott Strasbaugh won America's first ever Olympic gold medal in whitewater canoe slalom at the 1992 Olympic Games. In 2022, Joe published his first book, Slalom, 6 River Classes, about how to confront obstacles, advance amid uncertainty, and bring focus to what matters most. Today, he writes and publishes, Thinking in Waves, short, focused weekly essays that transfer his lessons from surfing offshore ocean waves on a surf ski kayak to an innovative model for clear thinking, better choices, and increased value alignment. Joe, welcome.

02:08 - 02:13

Joe Jacobi: Bon dia, Rochelle. It's great to be here talking with you, my friend.

02:13 - 02:43

Rochelle Moulton: Well, Joe, I have so enjoyed watching your journey in coaching and especially how you've embraced life as an American in Spain. It's like whenever we talk or even just watching 1 of your videos, I can feel your happiness, your contentment. It's infectious in a very warm, kind way. I mean, I just have no doubt that that's 1 of your personal keys to success. And there's so much we can talk about today, so let's just get right to it, okay?

02:43 - 02:50

Joe Jacobi: See, yes, yes, see. See, see. You listen to me. I have to make the... We're speaking English today, not Catalan.

02:50 - 03:12

Rochelle Moulton: We can speak whatever we like today. So I feel like we need to start with your Olympic story for those that haven't heard it. So you won your gold medal in a two-man canoe doing slalom through white water, right? Yes. So talk about that experience and what that whole process taught you about focus and overcoming obstacles.

03:13 - 03:44

Joe Jacobi: You know, Rochelle, I think what the first thing that comes up for me about the sport experience is just how lucky I am to have I got hooked into a sport that truly is like a sport for life. This is still a sport I get to do today and I enjoy doing today, not in the same way, the same level. But I've met so many Olympians that when they finish their sport, they are just so done with it, they're over it, they just wanna get away from it. And I feel very lucky to be in a

03:44 - 04:21

Joe Jacobi: sport that is out in nature that involves aligning with the water. I guess you could just say it just changed my perspective on the way that I see building relationships with nature. The sport itself, I was really lucky. I grew up in the Washington DC area on the Potomac River. I don't think there are many Americans that would say it's lucky to be raised in the Washington DC these days. But it is lucky if you're an outdoor enthusiast. As far as the best Whitewater rivers in the United States tend to be in rural mountainous areas, but

04:21 - 04:57

Joe Jacobi: Washington DC is an exception. There's world-class whitewater just outside of the inner city and it's a beautiful place to paddle. When you're on the Potomac River you feel a million miles away from a big city and it was the perfect place to grow up and I was lucky to grow up with a lot of world champions world medalists and the legendary sport of the coach that they welcomed me into their community when I was 12 years old and by age 14, these amazing world-class paddlers, they were just like regular normal people that I was going to

04:57 - 04:59

Joe Jacobi: paddle with every day. Wow,

05:00 - 05:19

Rochelle Moulton: That's a very different experience than people like me who are not Olympians think of as the Olympic experience. You just think of it as this total immersion, work, work, work, work, work, and then when you hit the gold medal, that's it, you're done. Like gymnastics would be maybe an example of something like that.

05:19 - 06:01

Joe Jacobi: Yeah, I went to high school in Potomac, Maryland, and I had a fellow classmate, my graduating class who was Olympic gold medalist in the 200 meter breaststroke, Mike Bererman. And I talked with Mike just after the 1992 Olympics and the next Olympic games were in the United States in Atlanta in 1996. I just figured what gold medalist at 22 years old in the sport of swimming wouldn't go for it again. And he just kind of told me this story about up and down the black line, and there was no way he was doing that for 4

06:01 - 06:38

Joe Jacobi: more years. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I think finding that joy in the process is really important. For sure, there are people in gymnastics and swimming who find joy in the process, but I think there are also sports that I see today. I mean, it just hits me so quickly. Like when I see skiing or snowboarding or skateboarding or canoeing as an Olympic sport, I'm like, oh yeah, of course these people are going to continue. These are really fun sports that they feel great. You embrace your sense of your relationship with gravity and friction. And I think that's

06:38 - 07:03

Joe Jacobi: exciting. I think that it brings a lot of inner challenge. I do think that's special about canoeing, Rochelle, is that the sport has a person versus person effect, of course, like any sport, but there's also like person against nature and person against themselves. And I think when you combine those 3 levels of competition, you know, against 1 another, against yourself and with nature, it's

07:03 - 07:14

Rochelle Moulton: an awesome combination. Well, and if you're in a team sport, I don't know if you add that as another dimension, but I feel like it certainly adds a level of complexity to it.

07:14 - 07:53

Joe Jacobi: It's a great point and definitely worth digging into because I think in a canoe or a kayak, I think a lot of people imagine kind of strapping themselves into a boat and the boat is like an extension of yourself and it's like you and the water and you're trying to find this alignment and when you're with another person that throws in some very special dynamics of person to person communication as specifically nonverbal communication. So in the doubles canoe, the way Scott and I would work together, we would talk about a plan for navigating the river. But

07:53 - 08:28

Joe Jacobi: once it was time to paddle, I was in the back of the boat, Scott was in the front of the boat. So if you see 2 people in Whitewater Devil's Canoe speaking to each other, it's only because they've made mistakes and they're just trying to come up with a last-ditch effort to fix them. What really happens when things are going well is my partner Scott, he's reading the water and I in the back of the boat, I'm reading Scott. Like all these things that Scott is doing with his back, his shoulders, the way he's twisting his

08:28 - 09:02

Joe Jacobi: hand position on the paddle, all of it is sending signals to me about what he's trying to do with the boat. So I'm reading those signals that he's doing with the paddling, and then we work together based on that to paddle the best we can together. It wasn't really that we, I always tell people that we paddled so well together, it wasn't like we were the biggest, fastest, strongest. What we did better on the day of the Olympic Games was that we corrected mistakes better than the rest of the field, and we anticipated mistakes before they

09:02 - 09:35

Joe Jacobi: happened better than the rest of the field. It's like an unsexy way to tell you that's how we won the Olympics, but it changed my opinion about how two-person collaborations can achieve excellence in the world, that it's not by doing everything perfect. You can spend a lot of time on reducing mistakes, reducing resistance, reducing the jump that gets in the way. And not only can you have a good day, but you might have a day that lands you on the top step of the Olympic podium.

09:36 - 10:06

Rochelle Moulton: Wow. I mean, I've never thought about it that way, probably because I'm not a canoeist, but I'm picturing you sitting behind Scott and you're hyper focused on his body movements, right? And you're reacting to that. Okay, so I'm just curious. So if you popped Scott out and you put somebody else who was a world-class athlete as well in this sport, how would that change? I mean, you're still watching their body movement, but what of the partnership changes when the person changes?

10:06 - 10:41

Joe Jacobi: Well, it's a good question. You know, before we do that, I want to say something about my relationship with Scott before we pop someone else in the boat, which I think is important. I love to tell people this story that Scott and I were really different, especially at the time we started piling together. I mean, Scott was 24 and I was 17. He had graduated college. I hadn't graduated high school. He was introverted, analytical. I was extroverted and like super positive. Like we were really different. I like to tell people not 180 degrees difference, but 179.

10:41 - 11:22

Joe Jacobi: And I truly believe this, Rochelle, if we had been 175 degrees different, I don't think we would have won the Olympic Games. I think it's that diversity, those differences, and the ability to work through friction and differences and bring that together to create something special. It wasn't easy. It was actually very difficult at times, but I think that was an important part of it. And so that influenced my thoughts about leadership, my thoughts about teams. So when you talk about taking Scott out of the boat and putting someone else in, really what I'm thinking about is

11:23 - 12:03

Joe Jacobi: what can I do to compliment that other person in the boat that it's like in basketball, I'm throwing an alley-oop pass and just slam dunks are like the easiest baskets in the world? And I would want to give my doubles canoe partner like lots of slam dunks basically. And so there's, it's just a lot of setting themselves up, but it's a team philosophy and embracing what my roles and responsibilities are in the back of the boat to really make the job of the person in front of me shine through and really leverage their strengths and their

12:03 - 12:08

Joe Jacobi: best skills and perspectives to bring excellence towards what we're trying to do together.

12:08 - 12:28

Rochelle Moulton: I love that. I could feel the synergy in that as you were describing it. Now, Joe, do I remember correctly, did you tell me a story about when you came back from the gold medal, when you first came back to the US? I think you were gonna do some motivational speaking and you got some advice on this.

12:29 - 13:03

Joe Jacobi: Yeah, So this is cool. I mean, it's actually the, it's also the last story in the book of Solemn, but I think it is so helpful to soloists and thinking about how we present ourselves. So we were on the bus going to the closing ceremonies in Barcelona. And I mean, obviously, it felt good. We went to the Olympics, couldn't ask for any more than what we did. We won a gold medal. And the head coach of the Olympic team, Bill Endicott, turned to me and he said, So you're going back to the United States the day

13:03 - 13:32

Joe Jacobi: after tomorrow as a gold medalist. What are you going to do? What do you got planned? And I said, well, I'd love to do some motivational speaking. I've got a couple of things lined up already, and it would be a privilege and an honor to tell the story of our sport. And Bill said, that would be great. He goes, would you like some advice? As I coached Norm Bellingham to a gold medal 4 years earlier, I'll tell you what I told Norm. And I said, that would be great. And Bill said, listen, when you get back,

13:32 - 14:04

Joe Jacobi: you can stand on a stage with your Team USA uniform with a gold medal around your neck, and you could be a terrible speaker. You could just say blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And for a few weeks, people will go, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. You won the Olympic games. But he says it's human nature after that where people are going to say, Joe, that's great that you won a gold medal in the Olympic games, but how does that help me? Like how does your success help me? And Bill paused and he said, if you

14:04 - 14:39

Joe Jacobi: can answer that question, you'll tell the story as long as you want. And so Rochelle, I still tell this, I'm still telling the story today, not because like I love telling the story or I like talking about myself. But for literally 32 years now, I've been thinking of just the most creative ways to get people to care, why rivers and canoes and paddles and waves and currents, why you should care about them and how they will make your life better if you do care about them. And I've gotten pretty good at that after doing it for

14:39 - 14:59

Joe Jacobi: that long. And it's not so much that I'm doing the motivational speaking so much, but in my coaching and in podcast guesting like this or in my writing, it's such a great opportunity just to help people think about how they think in a very visual and a very feeling kind of way.

14:59 - 15:12

Rochelle Moulton: Hear, hear. It's mission status really. What we're talking about is a sense of mission about the river. And I actually got goosebumps when I heard you describe how you think about the river. So it's working.

15:13 - 15:47

Joe Jacobi: We're all navigating. That's the thing, Isley. I mean, that's even the idea behind Solem and thinking in waves is that it puts people in a sense of I think what's helpful about the river metaphor is that it really brings to mind very quickly what are you in control of, What are you not in control of? And how are we gonna manage the gap in between that? And that's it. And by the way, you're not gonna change the river. The river is going to do what the river is going to do. And whether you stop or take

15:47 - 16:25

Joe Jacobi: a break or get out or portage a rapid, the river doesn't care. The river is going to keep moving. But the river represents a tremendous amount of energy. And when you figure out how to harness that energy and to really create a narrative around it that works for you, you really start to see the path through these complicated rapids so much more clearly. And that's where something, a very unique story, a very unique adventure unfolds. It's in the middle