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OK, I have a question for all of us.

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You ready?

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Is all winning success?

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(Murmurs)

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Oh.

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(Laughter)

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Whoa. OK.

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I am the recently retired head coach

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of the UCLA Women's Gymnastics Team,

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a position that I held for 29 years.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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And during my tenure,

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I experienced a lot of winning.

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I led our team to seven
National Championships,

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I was inducted into
the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame

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and I was even voted
the Coach of the Century

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by the Pac-12 Conference.

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(Applause)

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Winning is really, really,

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like, really, really fun.

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(Laughter)

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But I am here to share my insight:

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winning does not always equal success.

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All across America and around the world,

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we have a crisis

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in the win-at-all-cost cultures

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that we have created.

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In our schools,

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in our businesses, in politics,

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winning at all cost
has become acceptable.

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As a society,

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we honor the people
at the top of the pyramid.

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We effusively applaud those people who win
championships and elections and awards.

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But sadly, quite often,

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those same people
are leaving their institutions

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as damaged human beings.

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Sadly, with straight A's,

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kids are leaving school damaged.

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With awards and medals,

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athletes often leave their teams damaged,

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emotionally, mentally,
not just physically.

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And with huge profits, employees
often leave their companies damaged.

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We have become so hyperfocused
on that end result,

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and when the end result is a win,

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the human component of how we got there

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often gets swept under the proverbial rug,

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and so does the damage.

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So I'm calling for a time-out.

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Time-out.

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We need to redefine success.

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Real success is developing
champions in life for our world,

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win or lose.

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(Applause)

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Real success is developing
champions in life,

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not for your team,

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not for your business

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and, I'm sad to tell you, not even
for your Christmas card bragging rights.

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Sorry.

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So how do we do this?

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First of all, you may be able
to dictate your way to a win,

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but you can't dictate your way to success.

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Let me take you back to 1990,
when I was first appointed the head coach

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of the UCLA Women's Gymnastics Team.

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And I would like to share with you
that I've never done gymnastics.

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I grew up in the world of ballet.

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I have never done a cartwheel,

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and I couldn't teach you
how to do a proper cartwheel.

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(Laughter)

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It's sadly true.

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And I knew nothing about
how to develop a team culture.

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The best I could do was mimic
other coaches who had won.

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And so I became tough-talking,

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tough-minded, relentless,

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unsympathetic,

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bullish, unempathetic

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and oftentimes downright mean.

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I acted like a head coach

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whose only thought
was to figure out how to win.

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My first few seasons as a head coach

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were abysmal,

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and after putting up with
my brash coaching style for a few years,

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our team asked me for a team meeting.

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Well, I love team meetings,

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so I said, "Yay!
Let's have a team meeting."

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And for two solid hours,

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they gave me examples of how my arrogance
was hurtful and demeaning.

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Yeah, not yay.

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They explained to me

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that they wanted to be supported,

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not belittled.

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They wanted to be
coached up, not torn down.

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They wanted to be motivated,

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not pressured or bullied.

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That was my time-out,

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and I chose to change.

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Being a dogmatic dictator

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may produce compliant,
good little soldiers,

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but it doesn't develop champions in life.

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It is so much easier, in any walk of life,

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to dictate and give orders

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than to actually figure out
how to motivate someone

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to want to be better.

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And the reason is -- we all know this --

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motivation takes a really long time

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to take root.

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But when it does,

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it is character-building

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and life-altering.

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I realized that I needed
to fortify our student-athletes

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as whole human beings,

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not just athletes who won.

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So success for me shifted

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from only focusing on winning

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to developing my coaching philosophy,

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which is developing champions
in life through sport.

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And I knew if I did this well enough,

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that champion mentality would translate
to the competition floor.

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And it did.

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The key ingredient was to develop trust

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through patience,

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respectful honesty

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and accountability --

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all of the ingredients
that go into tough love.

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Speaking of tough love,

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Katelyn Ohashi is
a perfect example of this.

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You may have all seen her floor routine.

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It has had over 150 million views.

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And the consensus is,
her performance is pure joy.

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However, when Katelyn came to UCLA,
she was broken in body, mind and spirit.

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She had grown up in a stereotypical,
very high-level athletic world,

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and she was damaged.

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So when Katelyn came
to UCLA her freshman year,

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she found her inner rebel quite well,

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to the point where she was
no longer able to do gymnastics

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at the level at which she was recruited.

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And I will never forget

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a team meeting we had
halfway through her freshman season.

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We were in there with the team,
the coaching staff, the support staff,

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sports psychologist,

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and Katelyn very clearly
and unapologetically said,

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"I just don't want to be great again."

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I felt like I got sucker punched.

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My first thought was,

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"Then why the heck am I
going to honor your scholarship?"

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It was a really snarky thought,
and thankfully I didn't say it out loud,

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because then I had clarity.

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Katelyn didn't hate gymnastics.

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Katelyn hated everything
associated with being great.

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Katelyn didn't want to be a winner,

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because winning at all cost
had cost her her joy.

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My job was to figure out
how to motivate her

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to want to be great again,

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by helping her redefine success.

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My enthusiasm for that challenge
turned into determination

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when one day Katelyn
looked me in the eye and said,

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"Ms. Val, I just want you to know,

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everything you tell me to do,
I do the exact opposite."

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(Laughter)

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Yeah, it was like, yeah, Katelyn,
challenge accepted. OK.

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(Laughter)

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And further proof that dictating
was not going to win.

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So I embarked on
the painfully slow process

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of building trust

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and proving to her that first and foremost

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I cared about her as a whole human being.

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Part of my strategy was to only talk
to Katelyn about gymnastics in the gym.

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Outside of the gym,
we talked about everything else:

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school, boys, families,
friends, hobbies.

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I encouraged her to find things
outside of her sport that brought her joy.

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And it was so cool

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to see the process of Katelyn Ohashi
literally blossom before our eyes.

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And through that process,

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she rediscovered her self-love

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and self-worth.

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And slowly, she was able to bring that joy

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back to her gymnastics.

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She went on to earn
the NCAA title on floor,

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and she helped our team win
our seventh NCAA championship in 2018.

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So --

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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So let's think about
the Katelyn Ohashis in your life.

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Let's think about those people
under your care and your guidance.

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What are you telling your kids
on the car ride home?

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That car ride home

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has much more impact than you know.

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Are you focusing on the end result,

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or are you excited to use that time

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to help your child
develop into a champion?

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It's very simple:

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you will know you're focusing
on the end result

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if you ask questions about the end result.

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"Did you win?"

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"How many points did you score?"

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"Did you get an A?"

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If you truly are motivated about helping
your child develop into a champion,

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you will ask questions
about the experience

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and the process,

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like, "What did you learn today?"

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"Did you help a teammate?"

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And, my favorite question,

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"Did you figure out how to have fun
at working really, really hard?"

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And then the key is to be very still

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and listen to their response.

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I believe that one of the greatest gifts
we can give another human being

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is to silence our minds

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from the need to be right

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or the need to formulate
the appropriate response

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and truly listen

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when someone else is talking.

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And in silencing our minds,

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we actually hear our own fears
and inadequacies,

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which can help us formulate our response

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with more clarity and empathy.

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Kyla Ross, another one of our gymnasts,

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is one of the greatest gymnasts
in the history of the sport.

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She's the only athlete
to have earned the trifecta:

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she's a national champion,

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a world champion

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and an Olympic champion.

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She's also not one for small talk,

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so I was a bit surprised one day
when she came to my office,

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sat on the couch

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and just started talking --

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first about her major,

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then about graduate school

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and then about everything else
that seemed to pop into her mind.

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My inner voice whispered to me

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that something was on her mind,

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and if I was still

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and gave her enough time,

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it would come out.

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And it did.

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It was the first time that Kyla
had shared with anyone

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that she had been
sexually abused by Larry Nassar,

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the former USA Gymnastics team doctor,

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who was later convicted
of being a serial child molester.

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Kyla came forward

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and joined the army

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of Nassar survivors

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who shared their stories

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and used their voices

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to invoke positive change for our world.

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I felt it was extremely
important at that time

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to provide a safe space
for Kyla and our team.

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And so I chose to talk about this
in a few team meetings.

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Later that year, we won
the national championship,

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and after we did, Kyla came up to me
and shared with me the fact

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that she felt one reason that we'd won

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was because we had addressed
the elephant in the room,

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the tragedy that had
not only rocked the world

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but that had liberated the truths
and the memories in herself

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and in so many of her friends

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and her peers.

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As Kyla said,

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"Ms. Val, I literally felt myself
walk taller as the season went on,

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and when I walked onto that
championship floor, I felt invincible."

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Simply --

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(Applause)

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Simply because she had been heard.

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As parents, as coaches,

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as leaders,

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we can no longer lead from a place

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where winning is
our only metric of success,

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where our ego sits center stage,

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because it has been proven

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that that process produces
broken human beings.

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And I emphatically know

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that it is absolutely possible

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to produce and train champions in life

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in every single walk of life

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without compromising the human spirit.

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(Applause)

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It starts with defining success

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for yourself and those under your care

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and then consistently

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self-examining whether your actions
are in alignment with your goals.

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We are all coaches in some capacity.

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We all have a collective responsibility

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to develop champions
in life for our world.

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That is what real success looks like,

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and in the world of athletics,

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that is what we call a win-win.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)