My guest today is four-time Olympian, author and speaker Ruben Gonzalez. He has a unique and fun backstory that’s led him to the career that he has today. In this episode, Ruben and I talk about his path, why he isn’t considered a natural athlete and his determination in competing in the Olympics.
We also talk about his career as a keynote speaker motivating people to overcome loneliness and isolation and tap into their inner resilience. For over 20 years, Ruben has spoken to audiences, including Fortune 500 companies, to give people the hope and encouragement they need to face their fears.
Tune in to hear Ruben’s story and how you can be inspired by his journey.
Punk Rock HR is proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is a B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
Gaining Inspiration From Athletes
Born in Argentina, Ruben moved to the U.S. for a couple of years before moving to Venezuela and then back to the U.S.
After watching the Olympics for the first time at 10 years old, he instantly knew that he wanted to be a part of it. But there was one big problem. “It was a pipe dream, though, because I’m not a great athlete. I’m a very unlikely Olympian. Always the last kid picked for PE,” he says.
Ruben was also inspired by the Olympic spirit epitomized by the athletes. “I was drawn to the athletes, and right away, I realized, wow, this is a group of people that have a dream they’re willing to train for years and years, no guarantees of success. And then some of them make it,” he explains. “I thought, you got to be so strong to put yourself through that. And they became my heroes, and I just wanted to be one of them.”
Ruben’s father suggested that he read up on these athletes, and he quickly learned about the power of resilience. These Olympians weren’t stopped by obstacles. For Ruben, his obstacle of not being a natural athlete transformed into something he could overcome.
Pursuing His Olympic Dream
Most Olympic athletes start training when they’re young. Ruben was 21 when he decided to pursue Olympics stardom after seeing Scott Hamilton win a gold medal in figure skating.
Ruben had the belief and self-confidence needed to make the Olympics, but he needed a sport. “I go to the library, I get this book about the Olympics. I’m looking for sports,” he says. “I got four years. I got a goal. I’m either in or out in four years. So urgency, no time to waste.”
Eventually, Ruben narrowed his choices to the Winter Olympics based on what he saw as his strengths. He might not be the best athlete, but he had tenacity, which led him to choose luge. He reached out to a training facility in Lake Placid, N.Y., and told them that he wanted to train.
“I just keep talking to him, and finally, he just gets fed up. He says, ‘We got a camp coming up in a few weeks, be there,’” Ruben says. “Actually, he said, ‘Before you come, you need to know two things: You want to do it at your age; you want to do it in just four years. It’s brutal. Nine out of 10 people quit.’ When he said that, I started just smiling.”
Going From Sled to Stage
Being an Olympic athlete is a lot of work, but it’s often not the only job they have. Ruben waited tables and was a delivery driver, among many jobs. But all that changed in 2002. As Ruben prepared for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, he agreed to visit a local school for “show and tell,” believing it would be a quick, easy visit.
That show and tell turned into a 45-minute presentation at a school assembly with 200 children, catching Ruben off his guard. Despite his nervousness, Ruben knew that there was only one thing he could do: Tell a story. That was his first keynote, and he left a great impression. The school asked him to stay longer to talk to more kids. It was then that he thought about a second career as a keynote speaker.
“Walking back to the car with the principal, the principal’s going nuts, ‘Man, you got a gift. You’re better than the people we pay. You need to do this for a living.’”
Ruben quit a job selling copiers and threw himself into public speaking, starting with schools and gradually building up to different and bigger audiences, as well as becoming an author. D
“My goal with any audience is I want them walking out thinking, ‘If that guy can go to the Olympics even one time, we can do anything,” Ruben says. “If they’re thinking that, I did my job.”
[bctt tweet=”‘When I was 10, I saw the Olympics on TV, and I knew right away that’s what I wanted to do.’ ~ @TheLugeMan, Olympian, author and speaker. Tune in to the latest episode of #PunkRockHR!” via=”no”]
People in This Episode
- Ruben Gonzalez: LinkedIn, Ruben’s website, Twitter
Full Transcript
Laurie Ruettimann:
This episode of Punk Rock HR is sponsored by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Hey everybody, I’m Laurie Ruettimann. Welcome back to Punk Rock HR. My guest this week is Olympic motivational speaker Ruben Gonzalez. Ruben has a fun, interesting backstory that led him to competing in the Olympic Games four times. And on today’s show, we talk about that backstory, how he’s not necessarily what you would call a natural athlete, and his determined position to get to the Olympics by taking up a sport late in life, the luge. I love this conversation with Ruben because it’s inspiring. And we talk a little bit about his work as a keynote speaker and how he travels all around the world, motivating people to overcome issues around loneliness, isolation and to lean into their inner resilience. So if you’re looking for a little pep talk, you want to meet someone new, someone you wouldn’t come across in your ordinary career in corporate America, well, sit tight, and listen to this bulldog of a human being, Ruben Gonzalez, on this week’s Punk Rock HR.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Hey Ruben, welcome to the podcast.
Ruben Gonzalez:
It’s good to be here. Finally, get to do this.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah, I’m so pleased you’re here. Listen, before we get started, why don’t you tell everybody who you are and what you’re all about?
Ruben Gonzalez:
Sure. I’m a four time Olympian. I did the luge in the Winter Olympics. I’m an author, I’ve written, I forget, six or seven books, just came out with a new one called “The Shortcut.” I’ve been speaking professionally for 20 years, 20 years in March. Spoken for about a hundred of the Fortune 500 companies. Used to sell copiers, so lots of sales kickoffs. And my goal is always for people to walk out with hope, ready to face their fears.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, you’re a guy who certainly knows how to overcome obstacles. So you’ve got an interesting story. How far do you want to go back? What do you like people to know about the way you were born and raised and how you take on the world?
Ruben Gonzalez:
I was born in Argentina. My dad was a chemical engineer with Exxon, and when I was 6, we moved to the United States. We were in Queens, New York, for a couple years. Then Houston, Venezuela, back to Houston. And I could never get used to the heat. Moved to Colorado Springs 12 years ago, and I’m staying here. If I’d have stayed in Argentina, I never would’ve caught the Olympic bug. All they care about there is soccer. I am a soccer fanatic, but I wouldn’t have caught that. And when I was 10, I saw the Olympics on TV, and I knew right away that’s what I want to do. And it was a pipe dream though, because I’m not a great athlete. I’m a very unlikely Olympian. Always the last kid picked for PE. A lot of heart, no body, kind of like Rudy.
Laurie Ruettimann:
So you’re not a natural athlete, but you caught this Olympic bug. And how did you tackle that?
Ruben Gonzalez:
I was fascinated. What drew me to them wasn’t their athleticism, believe it or not. It was their spirit. I was drawn to the athletes and right away I realized, “Wow, this is a group of people that have a dream they’re willing to train for years and years, no guarantees of success. And then some of them make it.” I thought, you got to be so strong to put yourself through that. And they became my heroes, and I just wanted to be one of them. So for years I just talked about it, and after a couple years, my dad got tired of me talking the talk, not walking the walk. And he knew I liked to read books. And so he said, “Read biographies. If you study the lives of great people, you’ll figure out what works and what doesn’t work in life, because success leaves clues.” And I started reading them, and I liked adventure stories.
And right away I realized these are just true life adventures. And then I saw, every biography, the same story. That somebody had a dream, then they went through a struggle, and they had a victory. And so then I started looking for what do all these people have in common? What’s something I can work on? And what I kept seeing over and over again was perseverance. They were just a bunch of hardheads. They refused to quit. They stayed in the game long enough to learn some skills, and then they used those skills to reach the dream. My mom always called me a hardhead. So I thought maybe that’s what it takes.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well wait, I’m really fascinated by this because Olympic athletes, sure, have the right spirit and they can persevere. And they’re committed and they’re part of a team, the ones that are part of a team unit. But I’m really fascinated that you brought no athleticism. Do you not need athleticism to go to the Olympics? Tell me more about that.
Ruben Gonzalez:
Apparently not. I have athleticism but not great. I was the slowpoke, I can’t run fast. I can’t jump high. I’m like your neighbor. And so I like to win. I hate to lose. And so I’m willing to practice and figure things out till I can figure it out and do better. But I was always the last kid picked for PE. I was on the bench for kickball. It was terrible. And so played soccer all my life. Little Argentine boy, that’s all we think about. But my high school didn’t have a soccer team. So I played in clubs with my friends in the street in Houston. But my dad, he always said, “The books you read, the people you hang around with.” He always encouraged me to hang around winners, people that were doing things. And I did, and over a period of time I started to grow inside and take more chances and more risks.
And it’s funny, these successful people, they asked different questions. They asked questions like, “Why not me? Why not now, why not?” It gets your mind, your subconscious, looking. And so by high school, I’m starting to think a little bit like that. I picked up some of their habits and I found out that Houston Baptist University had an NCAA Division I soccer team. And I thought, “Why not me?” And I found out there’s a day you could try out. I tried out for the team, made the team, got a scholarship. Overnight jock, I couldn’t believe it. And I was on the traveling squad for three years. And around that time, I’m 21, I’m watching the Olympics. I still have that dream, but it’s way back, I still really don’t believe. And so I’m watching the Olympics on TV, I see Scott Hamilton win the gold medal in figure skating.
Ruben Gonzalez:
He’s about 5-foot-1, well he is 110 pounds soaking wet. And when I saw him, everything changed. I said to myself, “If that little guy can win, I can at least play. I’m going to be in the next ones, no matter what. It’s a done deal. I just got to find a sport.” And so, for the first time in my life, I believed. I always had the desire, but now I have the belief. My first book, it’s called “The Courage to Succeed.” And so I believe you got to have two types of courage to reach your goals. You have the courage to get started, and everything’s hard at the beginning because you don’t have those skills. So you have to stay in the game. You have to endure. So the courage to get started comes from believing it’s possible. If you believe, if something’s possible, “Hey I’ll give it a shot.”
The courage to not quit comes from desire. You want something badly enough, ain’t nothing going to make you quit. So finally I’ve got the belief. So I go to the library, I get this book about the Olympics. I’m looking for sports. I got four years, I got a goal. I’m either in or out in four years. So urgency, no time to waste. I look at the summer sports. Took me five minutes to realize, “Man, you got to be Superman to do any of these things. There’s no way, no way.” I was not John Register, who you had on your show before. And then I start looking at the list of the winter sports, and the analytical side of my brain must have woken up because I thought, I’m about to put together a plan for the next four years. I need to base this plan on my strengths.
My strength’s not athleticism, I’m just an OK athlete. My strength’s perseverance. I’m a bulldog. I had a picture of a guy on a luge where I thought, “That looks tough. That’s the one for me.” I didn’t even know what the track was. So I wrote Sports Illustrated a letter, and I asked them, “Where do you going learn how to luge?” They said, “Lake Placid, New York.” I call Lake Placid, “I’m an athlete here in Houston. I want to learn how to luge so I’ll be in the Olympics in four years. Well you help me?” The guy says, “How old are you?” I said, “21.” And he starts laughing.
Ruben Gonzalez:
He says, “Forget it man. You’re too old. We start them off when they’re 8, 9, 10 years old. By now, you should have 10 years’ experience. There’s no way. No way.” And I didn’t know what to do. Only thing I knew was hanging up. That’s not an option. That had been the end of the dream. And so I just keep talking to him and finally, he just gets fed up. He says, “We got a camp coming up in a few weeks, be there.” Actually, he said, “Before you come, you need to know two things. You want to do it at your age, you want to do it in just four years. It’s brutal. Nine out of 10 people quit.” When he said that, I started just smiling at that.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Ruben, I think it’s really interesting that you have honed in on finding a sport where there are a lot of quitters. Did you do any research to understand why people quit? Other than, it’s brutal. What makes the luge so brutal?
Ruben Gonzalez:
Well, you’re going 80, 90 miles an hour pulling six Gs on some of those curves. And it’s scary, it’s like a race car, where you’re wearing a spandex suit. So I thought, there’s got to be quitters.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, and it turns out that quit rate is high, so it’s right up your alley. You go to Lake Placid, and you clearly don’t quit. You begin to train. Tell us about that.
Ruben Gonzalez:
First time I went was a couple of months after I saw Scott Hamilton. We’re training on wheels. It’s the springtime, and 50, 55 miles an hour on a concrete track. All we’re wearing is tennis shoes, shorts and a T-shirt. And a helmet, but that’s just for decoration. And if you crash on the concrete, straight to the hospital. So weeding-out process. It was tough. 15 people in my class, they all quit by the end of the first year. I couldn’t believe it.
Laurie Ruettimann:
So you get a year closer to the Olympics. So what’s year two and three like?
Ruben Gonzalez:
Right after the Winter Olympics, when we trained on wheels. Then that winter, we go on ice. And the difference between wheels and ice is just like walking or skating. There’s no traction. The sled’s going all over the place. And most tracks have 15, 16 curves. They might put you on curve 12 to start. You go only 20, 30 miles an hour, and you’re just hitting walls. That’s all you’re doing. Terrible, no control. And then finally you figure it out. Coach moves you up a couple of curves and I’m going 40, “Oh my gosh, 40 miles an hour.” Crash, crash, crash, moves you up.
You literally crash your way to the top. Takes about a hundred runs. First two years, I broke my foot twice. My knee, my elbow, my hand, my thumb, couple of ribs. I just kept coming back. And life is tough, I’ve told that to my kids ever since they were little. And it’s going to knock you down and you’re going to have bloody knees. But guess what? You’re going to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, get back in the game because that’s what champions do. Bulldogs around here, no chihuahua.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well it’s definitely a great analogy for just about everything that’s worth doing in this world. I mean, fail 99 times, try a hundred times. And that one time is going to differentiate you between being a winner and being a loser. And it sounds like that was the path that you were on. How do you actually get onto an Olympic team for luge, though, because that’s got to be weirdly competitive and maybe slightly political, like everything else in this world?
Ruben Gonzalez:
There’s a World Cup circuit just like ski, just like Formula One, like NASCAR. There’s a circuit of races around the world. And I started so late, he said, “You’re going to get hurt a lot because we’re going to have to compress 10 years into just two years. You’re going to be cramming.” That’s all right, I’ve been cramming for tests all my life. I can figure it out.
But the next two years, you have to be on the World Cup circuit, and you get points. A hundred points for the winner, 95 for the second place, and so on. And about three months before the Olympics, they tally up the last two seasons, top 50 get to go. This is back then. Now it’s down to top 35. Top 50 get to go, 51 watches it on TV. Three per country max. And so Germany, they’ve won 80% of the medals in this sport in the last 50 years. They totally dominate. If it was top 50 really get to go, probably the top 30 spots would be Germans. But it wouldn’t be the Olympics, it would just be the Germany championship. And so that’s what you do.
Laurie Ruettimann:
So you get the news that you qualify. And it’s not like the internet is up and running and the way it is today. So how do you get this news? Do you get it through a letter? Do you just know where you’re standing? Does somebody call you and say, “You’re going to the Olympics.”
Ruben Gonzalez:
I got a call, and by then, I’m starting to get nervous. It’s almost Christmas. The Olympics are in February, and we’ve already done all the qualification races, and I still haven’t heard anything. And then I get this call right before Christmas, and the guy says, “What’s your shoe size? What’s your shirt size? What’s your pants size?” And I thought, “Oh my God, who are you? And they’re with the Olympic people?”
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah, right. Wow.
Ruben Gonzalez:
And I thought, “Oh my gosh, I just got my best Christmas present ever.”
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well you found out by default. I love that, you found out through an administrative process of sizing you up. That’s cool. So you go to the Olympics. And tell me how you did in the Olympics for all of us who haven’t read your books.
Ruben Gonzalez:
I was always near the bottom. I got to play with the big boys four times. Calgary, 1988, Albertville, ‘92, Salt Lake City, 2002, then Vancouver. In Vancouver — gosh, in Salt Lake. Salt Lake was 10 years after my last Olympics because I had taken a long break. I just got tired. And walk into the opening ceremonies, actually the Olympic Village, I felt like a dad visiting his kids in college because I was 39 and everybody’s in their 20s. And everybody would ask me the same thing, “What are you coaching?” I’d tell them, “No, I’m an athlete.” And they look at me up and down and say, “Come on, what are you coaching?” I thought, “Great.” And then Vancouver, I was 47. By then, they thought I was the coach’s dad. Then all the other coaches, they’re on my side. They’re saying, “Do it for the old guys.”
Laurie Ruettimann:
Wait a second, I’m 47 right now. But I get it. You’re not the typical profile of an Olympic athlete. Do I understand correctly that you were able to carry the torch at the Olympics? Is that something that was part of your experience?
Ruben Gonzalez:
Yeah. At the time I lived in Houston. Few months before the Salt Lake City Olympics, they called me up and they said, “You’ve been selected to carry the Olympic torch.” And I thought, “Man, only 200 athletes are going to get to carry it.” 10,000 people of all walks of life, it’s something to try to get people pumped up about the Olympics. But only 200 athletes. I said, “How’d you select me? I’ve never even been close to a medal.” And they said, “Our motto is light the fire within. It’s about inspiring people to reach their dreams and we love your story and so that’s why we’ve selected you.” I said, “Great. When’s it coming through Houston?”
And they said, “December 5.” I said, “Oh, I’m in Innsbruck, Austria, at a World Cup race. I’m still trying to qualify for the Olympics. I’ll run it in January. I’ll go anywhere. I’ll go to Alaska, I’ll walk to Alaska, just let me carry that touch.” And the lady goes, “Okay, hang on, let me check.” She comes back and she goes, “Okay, Kansas City, January 9?” I said, “Done.” So I got to carry it in Kansas City. So I got a special place in my heart, no, it was amazing. If you go for about a quarter mile, and I could run a quarter mile, close to a minute. But I was so excited. I looked like a little old man. I took my time. I took 10 minutes.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Heck yeah, you got to appreciate that. Well, I love the story, and I love how it’s the bedrock of your books, of your work, of your speeches. But I think a lot of people don’t understand that Olympic athletes also have other jobs. That surprises people, especially here in America. And you worked during this time period. So what’d you do while you were an Olympic athlete?
Ruben Gonzalez:
I did all kinds of things. I had all these odd jobs. I waited tables, I worked at a lab. I was a delivery guy. I sold copiers in downtown Houston for a couple of years. And about a month before the Olympics — actually before the Salt Lake City Olympics — this little kid in my neighborhood, little fifth grader, he says, “Hey Ruben, when you come back from the Olympics, will you be my show and tell project in school?” I said, “Sure, why not?” And I pictured show-and-tell day. Everybody has to show something off. So I thought, five minutes, I’m going to win. I’m going to kill. I took the slip, the helmet, the Olympic torch. I thought, no prisoners. I’m finally going to get my medal. Principal takes me to this big room. It was actually the cafeteria, they moved all the furniture out of the way. There’s 200 kids sitting on the floor and he says, “You got 45 minutes. Have at it.” They turn it into an assembly, except they didn’t tell me.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh my God, it was your first keynote.
Ruben Gonzalez:
I thought I was going to die. The door looks so good, Mr. Courage To Succeed almost ran out the door because he was scared of a bunch of fifth-graders. And I said a prayer. I said, “God, what do I do now?” And what I felt I needed to do was, “just tell them your story and give them some pointers how they can reach their dreams.” And I did. And I didn’t die or anything. And then the teachers, they surround me and they said, “What do we have to do to get you to stick around another hour? We’ll pull the fourth-graders out of class. They got to hear this.” I said, “Hey, bring them on. That was actually kind of fun.”
Second time around was a little better. Then walking back to the car with the principal, the principal’s going nuts, “Man, you got a gift. You’re better than people we pay. You need to do this for a living.”
I said, “What? You get paid for show and tell?” And he says, “No, it’s a speaking profession, don’t you know anything?” And he was so on my face about it, I thought for the next three days, I thought that that was actually fun. Sure beats selling copiers. Maybe I can inspire some people to really go for it in life. And so I quit my job three days later. I thought if I can sell a copier, I can sell a Ruben, too. I don’t recommend it, but somehow made it work. First year and a half was mostly schools, then the word got out. Because of my sales background, I started doing lots of sales kickoffs. And gosh, since then, that was March of 2002. So it’s been a little bit over 20 years. I’ve spoken for over a hundred of the Fortune 500 companies. And the books have sold over 300,000 copies and translated to 10 languages. That kid changed my life, it’s amazing. Total God thing.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, I’d like to think that 20 years later, that kid is inspired by you in doing something really amazing and really successful with his life. Do you know anything about where he is right now?
Ruben Gonzalez:
I haven’t heard for the last probably five years, but he was getting T-shirts from all over the place.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Good for you.
Ruben Gonzalez:
He married this girl from Argentina, and that’s the last I heard.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, that’s great. That’s great that you were able to at least stay in touch with him for a bit. That’s wonderful. Well, I like the idea that you have just this really eclectic career, and one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on is to talk a little bit about the inspirational work that you do. Because right now, the world is kind of crazy, and there are a lot of reasons people are feeling sad and down. Whether it’s the pandemic, lockdown — deaths due to despair are up. The world is sad right now. And I think there’s a real need for people like you and the work that you do to get out there. So when you think about the average worker who listens to my podcast, what do you think they need to hear to feel good about work and to feel good about life right now?
Ruben Gonzalez:
You know how everything changed when I saw Scott Hamilton, that’s when I believed. And so my goal with any audience is, I want them walking out thinking, “If that guy can go to the Olympics even one time, we can do anything.” If they’re thinking that I did my job. If they’re thinking, “What a great guy, four-time Olympian,” then that was all about me. That’s no good. I failed miserably. And so the funny thing is, COVID was really tough for the speaking business, but I weathered it. And this last year, it’s really picked up again because everybody’s wanting to get together. And so weathered it, and now we’re rocking and rolling. But I assumed until last week, that was the reality for most people, right? “Hey, we’re over this thing. Let’s keep on keeping on. And it didn’t kill us, made us stronger. Let’s keep fighting.”
And so about four days ago, I spoke close to Aspen to some government people. And I always asked them beforehand, number one, “What’s your goal? We do want your people doing and thinking right afterwards.” And number two, “What’s your challenge? What’s holding them back?” Because if I know what their challenge is and the goal, then I can work it into the stories, and I can tailor it for you. And the lady, the executive director of this group, she said, “People are really, they don’t have any resilience left. They’re just at zero, on fumes. And it doesn’t take anything to just make them go over the edge.”
And she explained it to me, it kind of shocked me. And so then, throughout that talk, I talked about how you overcome, how do you develop mental toughness? How do you strengthen that resilience? Which part of it is getting rest and eating right. And hanging around positive people and not watching the news because it’s so negative.
The ratings go up two ways: If they make you mad or if they scare you, neither of which is good for life. I was giving them some tips on how to do that and how resilience is your reserves. If you’re rested and strong, and you’ve been eating well and you’re fit, then it’s going to take more to knock you down. But if you’re tired, and your baby kept you up all night and you haven’t been eating well, and then you’re not going to be able to produce. And so afterwards, a few of them came and they say, “Wow, no one explained it so simply.” I said, “Well, I [inaudible 00:20:19].”
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, as we start to wrap up the conversation, you have these beautiful themes throughout your work around resilience, around the ability to not only overcome failure, but to stop necessarily being afraid to create community. If you wanted someone to just know one thing about who you are and what you’re all about, what is that?
Ruben Gonzalez:
That bulldog tenacity that helped me get through the first couple of years in the luge where most everybody else was quitting. I thank God for it, but it also made me a hardhead in the sense that I would always approach a coach or mentor — my dad always said, “If you have to cross a mind field, find somebody that’s crossed it, follow in their footsteps” — I would approach them, but then part of me, when they told me, when they gave me feedback or what I needed to do to be better, part of me resisted. It was that bulldog resistance. And I learned everything the hard way. And one of my first luge coaches says — he laughs — he says, “Ruben, you’re not Bulldog. You’re a half-bulldog, half-mule. OK, you are so stubborn. If you had just listened to me, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt nearly as much.”
And so it wasn’t until right before the fourth Olympics, when it was going to just be the top 40 in the world. And I was always ranked about 45, when you do all that math. And I realized, I felt my back to the wall. I better do something I’ve never done. And I made a decision. I told myself, “OK, whatever he says, I’m going to do right away and follow the leader.” And that made all the difference. And that seven years after my fourth Olympics, I went back at 55. I had a personal best, became the oldest person to compete internationally in the sport of luge because I was following the leader. That ended up being a TED Talk in March, my first TED Talk after 20 years of being a speaker. That’s called, “Follow the Leader,” [TED.com], that’s where you can watch it.
But it’s telling that story. And then I started getting — that was in March. It’s almost got a million views already. That got me thinking, “Wow, maybe this is an idea whose time has come. Maybe I’m not the only mule out there.”
“The Shortcut” is just a parable book about a young exec who’s got all these MBAs. He’s sharp as a tack, but he thinks he’s God’s gift to business. And he won’t listen to anybody, he’s about to lose his job and his boss sends him out to this cafe where all these mentors hanging around. He learns and turns everything around. So it’s funny how things work. So your worst weakness, you can always turn it into a strength if you can use it to help somebody.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, Ruben, well, I love this idea of “Follow the Leader.” I’m so excited to encourage everyone to go watch your TED Talk, read your books, visit your website and book you as a speaker at their corporate event. So thanks again for being a guest today on the podcast.
Ruben Gonzalez:
Thanks for having me.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Hey everybody, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Punk Rock HR. We are proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com. Punk Rock HR is produced and edited by Rep Cap with special help from Michael Thibodeaux and Devon McGrath. For more information, show notes, links and resources, head on over to punkrockhr.com. Now, that’s all for today, and I hope you enjoyed it. We’ll see you next time on Punk Rock HR.