Make your relationships more important than your accomplishments .
You can’t let your current circumstances dictate what kind of choices you make.
I feel like there is great purpose in a lot of my endeavors. I've seen God in the middle of them. I've seen Him be faithful in those things.
You’ve got to fight for that connection with God all the time no matter what you're going through in life. I'm growing up. I'm maturing. But I definitely think that the backbone of this is the freedom and creativity I have without the fear of failing. If I fail, what's going to happen? Nothing. I'm not looking for my self-worth in the sport.
Snowboarding was everything that I knew. That's what I did and I poured everything I had into it. I thought that being successful and achieving my goals would go hand-in-hand with being happy.
It's definitely got to be a daily thing. There's no formula to walking with God. There's no formula to having success as an athlete. It's about relationships and it's a daily thing. You've got to revisit things and you've got to be willing to work on things all the time.
When I was 20, I was contemplating quitting. I was at the first event of the season and I overhead a conversation between two girls. One told the other, "God still loves you," and that caught my attention. Later that day, I caught up with the girl and asked her what she meant. Before then, I'd never really thought about God. But there was an undeniable stirring in me and I couldn't ignore it.
I'm willing to explore what that's supposed to look like. I want to be intentional. I want it to show up in my life every day. I really try to live out my values and be consistent. Another things that has helped has been staying connected to a community of believers. It's important to be around others that share your beliefs and share your values and people that can encourage you.
Yeah, one of my approaches with my community, my friends, the companies I represent, has been to take the attitude of what I bring instead of what I can get. What can I give?
Hug me and you will see the moon. Love me and I will bring the moon to you!
These have been the most successful years I've ever had. I've been placing well in the contests but more importantly I've been enjoying them. I think those two things go hand-in-hand.
We're not meant to do it on our own. We're meant to do life with God and with each other. I've been fortunate to have friends that are willing to invest in me even on the days when I'm not able to invest back into them. I'm thankful for people that have that selfless attitude and have helped me become a successful person and a successful athlete.
I'm more comfortable with my beliefs and with who I am. I honestly don't think about it that much. I just try to live my life and I try to love people. I try to love God well and I try to love people well. Those are my main objectives.
Instead of thinking about building up my image or building up my brand or building up my career, I've turned it and taken the approach of focusing on what I can give instead of what I can get. It's been a very enjoyable process for me. That's more of a heart position that I've taken. It's been one of the greatest things I've ever done.
I thought being a Christian was about following rules and going to church and being good all the time, but this girl helped me understand that it's about having a relationship with God. That was where things shifted for me.
I was having a conversation with one of my teammates and she asked me, "Aren't you so glad it's over? We don't have to compete anymore." I thought that was a strange comment but in that moment I realized that I was doing it for the right reasons. I wasn't looking at the Olympics to define me. I wasn't to arrive somewhere by performing well in a contest.
I strongly believe in that saying, "People don't care what you know until they know that you care." That's been my goal and objective - to love people well. That's something I can bring to this community.
If there ever is a need or if anyone's hurting, I'm the person they come to because they know what they're going to get. They know I'll pray for them. They know I'll encourage them. It's amazing that I get to be there for people. I'm sure I'll hear later on how God was working in it all, but for me, it's really about loving people well.
I never planned to be at the height of my career when I was 30 years old and going to my fourth Olympics. I watched the 1998 Olympics when I was 14 years old. That's what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I might have a shot at three Olympics max. This is way beyond the parameters of what I set out to do.
People ask a lot about how I can be a believer in a culture that perhaps is counter cultural to what you believe in. I've come to the conclusion that I'm able to be in this culture and in this industry and fruitful because I don't look to my circumstances to determine what I believe to be true about God.
I think I've done a pretty good job of not compartmentalizing my life. I take my core values and I live them out at home like I would in my snowboarding like I would at church with my friends.
By the time I was 18 years old, I had achieved everything that was in my heart to do and at the same time I wasn't finding the fulfillment I was expecting to get from it. All of the experiences were incredible and I wouldn't trade them for the world, but it wasn't fulfilling me. I went through the motions for a few more years, but I was looking for something more.
So after those Games, I continued to compete that season and the year after that. I really had the goal of being intentional. I didn't want to do big tricks because it was an X Games final or an Olympics final. I wanted to call my own shots. I started to do that and I started to have more fun than I ever knew I could have.
As I've been open with my faith, there's a consistency that almost disarms people. They know what they're going to get when they see me. They know what they're going to get when they talk to me.
Everybody calls me fat all the time, so I can’t wait to have a reason, instead of everybody just being a jerk! I’ve never been Gisele Bündchen, so ain’t nobody expectin’ that! I like to set a [low] standard so people don’t expect a lot.
