The Mastery of Skills with Olympian Kenny Selmon

Subscribe to the podcast!

 

Every day, we talk to people about practice. And we explain that to become effective at communication, you have to work at becoming good at it. And we define mastery of a skill as those who become so good at a skill that you can count on their performance and outcome consistently.

And once you begin to talk about performance and outcomes, it’s easy to draw a parallel between mastery of a skill like communication and mastery of sports like the Olympics. And that’s what we’re going to do for you on this podcast:  connect the concepts of practice, mastery and outcomes. And accentuate the value of practice and the ultimate results of effort.

Because that’s what today’s guest has achieved.

Tune in to see what Kenny Selmon shares with guest host Hurst Williamson about the Mastery of Skills.

More about Kenny Selmon

Recently back from the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, Kenny Selmon represented the U.S. in the 400-meter hurdles. He began his track and field career just down the road at Pace Academy in Atlanta (where my claim to fame is that I overlapped in high school with him for one year!) and where he won the National Championship in the 400-meteres in 2014. Then he continued on to run hurdles at UNC, where he places 2nd in the NCCAA Division 1 National Championships in 2018 and set UNC’s record for the 400-metres.

After graduating from UNC, he won the 2018 USAF Outdoor Championships and the Athletics World Cup in London. And in 2021, he qualified for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team.

Show Notes

• Mastery of a skill is an individual that becomes so good at a skill that you can count on their performance and outcome consistently. The podcast today will cover the practice, mastery, and outcome. Accentuate the value of practice and the ultimate results of the effort.
• Kenny Selmon, Olympic Athlete, USA
• What were some of the most difficult hurdles to overcome on the journey of being an Olympic Athlete?
  • Covid Impact
    • Lost sponsorship
    • No access to tracks to train
    • Unknow future of the Olympics
• What is the difference between intention and repetition behind the practice? How do you keep that intention when training?
  • Know your ‘why”, understanding why you are doing it. Your “why” gives you the full vision and picture
    • Know what you want even if you are struggling to find your “why”
    • When you understand what you want it makes the steps to get there easier and will lead you to your “why”
• What is it like to consistently practice even when you’ve mastered the sport? How do you keep going?
  • Every day you must perform at the highest level, even in practice.
  • You don’t know if it’s going to work, all you have is faith and knowledge that your work will pay off.
  • Have a coach that knows how to get you there
  • Prepare for disrupters (rain, heat)
  • Must always be ready to perform, there are no second chances
• What role does resilience play for the brand of an athlete?
• The importance of personal brand
  • Book referenced at 14:56, Disrupted! How to Reset Your Brand & Your Career
  • Genuine care to supporters – responding to text messages, listening, and understanding they are on the journey with you.
  • Everybody is competing with the brand and the personality next to you, how to stand out?
    • Understand that athletes are all people that have been given a gift. Always be a person first. It’s not about standing out, it’s understanding who the person is and being genuine. Be yourself.
• Is there a brand that stands out to you? (Kenny)
  • “Brand” is connected to success
  • Allyson Felix for her brand to work so must continue to do well, compete, and win.
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allyson_Felix
• Companies look for candidates that can show discipline and focus behind their experience. What are the parallels for an Olympic athlete?
  • Faith- What you can not see
  • Knowledge – You know knows what it will take, they’ve been through it
  • Delayed gratitude – Bad/hard days will be stacked up for one day of celebration
  • All of those experiences connect
• Stoke – a free platform where people connect to chat about Live TV
  • www.stokeapp.live
  • Mission: Our mission is to virtually connect the existing communities that watch Live Sports, TV Shows, and more. We strive to create a fun and active social communication channel for Live TV that streamlines all the different conversations surrounding it.
• Viewers pulled into the stories of Olympic Athletes. How has working alongside other Olympic athletes changed your perspective of storytelling and personal narratives?
  • They are all people and they have problems and lives, but their work is at a very high level. Understand they are all people at the end of the day.
• Favorite story from the Olympics
  • Watching his coach live his dream
  • Knowing all structures were built specifically for that event
  • Organization and technological aspects of the event

Like what you hear? Hear more episodes like this on the What’s Your Story podcast page!