Champion's Journey - Introduction
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Christoffer Endresen: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to the first episode of The Champion's Journey. My name is Christoffer Endresen. I'll be your host, and I wanted to kick off this first episode by talking about the purpose and the motivation behind creating this podcast because I don't think that the world needs a new podcast. What I think people, especially in the agility community needs to hear are the stories of the people that are putting in the effort that has gone through a journey to become a champion.
Whether that is getting on the national team, if it's actually becoming a champion at the AWC or the European Open or the WAO. I think that learning about their struggles, learning about the challenges they have had in order to get there, [00:01:00] is an important insight that everyone needs to hear in order to help and build their growth mindset.
That is really the purpose of this podcast, and it's inspired by a woman called Carol Dweck, who wrote a book called Mindset. Carol Dweck talks about that you have two types of mindset. One is fixed and the other one is growth. The first one, fixed mindset, is keeping you where you are with your current circumstances, not pushing outside of your comfort.
The growth mindset is really where you learn to embrace this challenge, that you learn to enjoy the process of stepping outside what is comfortable in order to accomplish growth. And one of the things that I heard Carol Dweck do, she is a professor at Stanford University and at the start [00:02:00] of her semester or the semester of students, she would ask her students to do an assignment.
And the assignment was about finding a person that you look up to that could be in business, it could be athletes, it could be in any category that you wanted. Then instead of just viewing that person from the top of the podium at their peak in their career or in their athletic performances, they had to go back in time to study that person when they weren't known that they weren't famous.
They might, it might even be that they weren't even good in their sports or profession to map out what challenges did they face. What type of obstacles did they have to overcome and what was the effort that they needed to put in? And since I've been in the agility [00:03:00] community now for the last eight years and have had the pleasure to, I'm partner with Eli Beate SƦther, who has been on national team since 2016, and.
Participating at these big events and getting to know the people that are participating there, and I know that every one of them is putting in an enormous amount of effort and sacrifice. And what I wanted was to give them an arena where they could tell their story, the effort that they put in, what was required of them in order to get to that level and then bring it to you.
I think that by doing that, you'll understand first of all what it takes. That's one thing, but also that you can relate to it and that you can maybe find that this person, their [00:04:00] story is relatable to me and I'm at this stage in my journey, and if I continue to put in the effort, if I continue to work.
Over, around and through the obstacles, then I will be able maybe to get to the same position that I want to get to. There's no guarantees and it's always easy to look back at those who have become champions and really get to high level of performance, but there are patterns that are required in order to get to that level.
And by relating yourself to the previous version, then that will motivate you in order to continue your journey and put in the effort, and hopefully you will get to the goals that you set. One of the things that I think is important to mention is that when it comes to success, [00:05:00] you are the one who defines success for you.
If. You think that the only thing that is defined as success is winning a gold medal in either a WC European Open or at the world agility open, then yeah, that could be success for you, but it doesn't have to be success for everyone. There are so many ways that you can measure success and. You are the one who defines success for you and your dog, and this is very important for you to know.
But it's also important to study people who've mastered this, people that you look up to. And I really hope, and I really do believe that this podcast will become a tool, an asset for you, where you can dig into these stories, use these stories in order to. [00:06:00] Refill your motivational bank or to get you through hard times or to relate to so that you can improve and get better in your game.
And it's, I really love how honest and truthfulness handlers and athletes are about their journey. The years it took, how many dogs it took before they could get on the national team and. Understanding that will just empower you. And the other part that I think is important is to fall in love with the struggle.
Fall in love with the process of putting in the effort, because once you fall in love with the input part, then eventually with some adjustments, the output part will match the goals that you set. The purpose of a goal and a vision is not necessarily [00:07:00] to reach it, but to put you in a situation where you're putting in the effort in order to grow and develop. And it's important to note that if you are not expanding your comfort zone, it will shrink.
And this is a principle that applies to every category of your life. And including agility. So by pushing yourself and learning how to love the process of going outside of your comfort zone, it doesn't have to be far. It could be just one step outside of your comfort zone and learning how to deal with those emotions, deal with that stress that comes with doing that, then you will learn that you will be able to expand it.
And then you will gain momentum, and that momentum is what is facilitating growth for so many people. It's the same [00:08:00] thing that we have to apply when we're training our dogs. One of the things that I really love when it comes to the agility community is that you all have skills in order to shape behavior because you learn how to shape behavior of your dog.
If you are able to take the same knowledge, the same principles, and apply it to yourself, you are in power. And by helping and supporting yourself that facilitates the right action and rewarding the right behavior, you'll be able to shape that mindset, those behaviors, and then eventually that will give you the results that you want.
At the same time, it is not the result that is rewarding, but the person you become along the journey. And I really want to [00:09:00] invite you. To come along on these podcasts where we go back in time with different types of athletes and champions, listen to their story and take the lessons that they've gained and hopefully implement that to ourselves. So I would like to invite you, the listener, to follow along on this journey where I interview champions and get their story. And learn about the challenges they had to face, the obstacles they have had to overcome and in order to get to this level. And then hopefully this will be a source of inspiration and motivation that will give you the energy and the stories that you need in order to push through those obstacles and continue to put in the effort.
So that you can reach your goals.[00:10:00]
The first thing you can do is to subscribe to this podcast by subscribing to this podcast on your favorite podcast app. You'll be able to get notifications every time a new episode comes out. That could be on Spotify, Apple Podcast, YouTube, whatever floats your boat. The next thing you can do is that you can also sign up to the Daily Champion Newsletter: Where you get affirmations in your email, every single day.
It also cotains with a quote and a challenge that prompts you to take action. By doing those two measures, you're setting yourself up to start your journey in order to learn mental training, and also having a source, on a weekly basis, that is building you up and giving you extra energy to push through the next session and to show up on the next session as well.
[00:11:00] Thank you so much for listening to this first episode, to this introduction. And with that, I would like to introduce the first guest. The first guest that is going to be on the next episode, is Diane Patterson.
Diane is from the United States of America. She's been on national team several times, and I got to meet her at European Open in Denmark back in 2023. After that, we met again at the AWC and listening to her story. How she had to change her mindset in order to get to where she is today and the amount of years that it actually took her to get there.
That is a really inspiring story and I really recommend that you listen to that,
and on the list. Just to give you a hint of who I will interview, I've. I interviewed Renan Campos from Brazil. [00:12:00] I've also interviewed Chris Kerton from Great Britain, and also the newest European champion in large Max Sprinz, and there are more people to come. So I will see you in the next episode. My name is Christoffer Endresen.
This is The Champion's Journey.
Thank you and have a good day.
