The Pep Talk of a Lifetime

Moments before an important competition, a young swimmer turns to her coach in a moment of doubt. "As most athletes know, when you have time to sit and think about what you need to do, you start to get nervous. That is exactly what I was beginning to do; only it wasn’t the good kind of nerves that get you psyched up—it was the bad kind that made you want to sit in a corner and hide. Knowing that this wasn’t the ideal situation to be in, I got the attention of my coach and asked for a pep talk. I expected him to lecture me about how far I’d come and how hard I worked to get there, but the speech that I got from him was better than I could have imagined."

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