Episode 2: Lily Xu - A Sailor's Heartbeat

0:00Hello and welcome to Unstoppable, I'm Zian and this is where we take a deep dive into the journeys of Olympians and the true stories of some of the world's most extraordinary individuals who have faced incredible challenges on their path to triumph on the world stage. Join us as we explore moments that define the resilience, the dreams that propelled their passion and the tools they use to achieve success at historical heights. From overcoming setbacks, time and time again, to embracing the never ending grind, get ready to be inspired, motivated and discovery secrets to what it takes to be truly unstoppable. As Asia's only ever dingy sailing gold medalist at the Olympic Games, China's golden girl Shulida, or as many of us may better know her, Lily Xu, is nothing short of an

1:00icon, legend and inspiration. As the 2012 Rolex female world sailor of the year, multi-time world champion and flag bear for China at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games, her legacy and her story as a pioneer is one that is not short of its own many challenges and setbacks that we may not know of. Yet from the tender age of ten, Lily embarked on an Odyssey that would define her life and career, navigating the waters of separation from her parents, enrolling in the grueling Chinese national training program as a national talent to international superstar and shouldering the weight of the world on her shoulders as she sailed in front of a roaring home crowd at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, taking home a bronze medal in the process. Nevertheless, even in the face of debilitating injury, physical disability and unbelievable pressure, it is clear that despite it all, Lily has made the impossible possible, risen

2:01high above all that was against her, with mental and emotional strength like no other, and truly carved her place into what is not simply the history of sailing, but of sport itself. Join us in this episode as we set sail into her incredible journey and find out what truly lies behind the heart and mind of Olympic champion and international sensation, Shulidya. Yeah, welcome to Anstalfurone. Thank you so much for joining us today. So, I was just doing some research and some homework to figure out what kind of questions I wanted to ask you today, and I actually stumbled across this article online that was an interview you did with the Olympic media after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. And I know like a lot of our listeners probably know you as one of the most successful acoustics, if not like most successful female sailors like ever. So, you know, from all like the world titles you have in like the

3:06Optimus class, you know, and the laser class, and you know Olympic gold as well. And just back in that interview, you said that your favorite thing about sailing was, and you know, I quote as well, the feeling of freedom and romance. And I just thought that was like such a beautiful statement, and you know, in my mind is kind of difficult because especially when you're competing at such a high level, there's so much pressure and there's a lot of, let's say there could be a lot of negative impacts of that as well. And I just really wanted to know more about like what, you know, that feeling of freedom and romance and sailing like really means for you. Yeah, because you know that I have hearing deficiency and when I live on shore, I always feel having this limitation here and there. So even if like despite all those huge pressure or performing well and the winning competitions, like for me, I most wanted it just to enjoy my time on water and then I enjoyed the

4:11freedom as you put it, a few so romantic on the water. And I just leave the pressure behind because I know, so long as I enjoy it, I will perform my best, whereas if I think about the result, and then if I think about the pressure, then I will be distracted. Then my performance will be reduced or not as good as if I'm enjoying and in the zone. So yeah, it is true. That people expect me to win events, competition, but I know like Solana's, I follow my heart, follow my inner voice, and I perform my best, whatever the end result, I can always accept it. Even if I lose, I feel I learn so much. Though I feel a little bit guilty and not giving something back to those supporters like our parents, our teachers, coaches or the support team, because they put in so much effort and time in helping us, but still you need to put that behind

5:14your mind, behind your head, because yeah, the moment you think about those, then you are less likely to perform well. So just enjoy what you do and then be 100% in the zone, then you leave no regrets. Yeah, that's actually, that's pretty, that's pretty inspiring, so listen to and I also saw like, because you started sailing at the age of 10 and being part of like a really difficult kind of training system, and from such a young age, you said that you were separated from your parents a lot and it was training a lot like almost every day all the time, and you said like in the beginning, at least in the optimist, even when you won like two world championships, you didn't have like a particular like enjoyment for sailing, like you said it was kind of in the middle for you, and you know, I know it's obviously been like a very long time

6:15since you were like quite young and doing the optimist, but throughout like the course of your journey and like your career and your experiences, how did you eventually like, you know, fall in love with sailing like you have today and how do you keep yourself like loving it so much like to be able to say such things like you said earlier. When I first started sailing, I find it quite fun and much more interesting than swimming, right? That's the reason I switched from being a swimmer to a sailor, but then it is quite brutal training the team six days a week and then not able to see my family put the majority of the year and then yeah, the system or full-time training and the state funding system though my parents don't need to pay a penny and that no need to worry about anything economically but financially, but we sort of like in an army life and no freedom

7:20and that's what I don't enjoy so much, but at the same time sailing itself, I have no problem with it, I couldn't have enjoyed it more, it's just the training part, the team routine part that I found it difficult even nowadays, if you let me go back, I probably wouldn't want to, and I'm much prefer the Western system, like you train your spare time, you do normal study and then just and maybe racing on weekends or summer winter holidays, et cetera, and then once you finish your study in uni, you can become choose to become a full-time sailor or not or just take it as a hobby and it was when I had my first operation because of a tumor in my leg that I couldn't sail for a whole year that I realized actually despite all the difficulties from the teams, I already find love with

8:21sailing, the sailing is already part of my body, in my blood and I couldn't live without it, I feel my life's lack of color without sailing, so it's a saying that part of what we said and like we human are only waiting till we lose something before we realize that actually we cherish something or we like something or something is important, so it was in 2002 after the operation that couldn't sail, then it actually helps me like more determined that I want to keep sailing and then that's part of my life, I want to sail as much as I can as for the rest of my life, so yeah, though at that time having the operation and then and then losing the opportunity of doing a qualification for having scams, but on the other hand it helps me realize how much I love sailing, so until after that

9:27I started to to cherish more and then yeah every training session I take it more like with full of my heart instead of just take it as a normal training session, so there are pros and cons on behind everything, every single thing, and in terms of how do I keep motivated, I don't need to keep, I just couldn't help myself like because I enjoyed time on the water, I couldn't help thinking about how to improve, how to become a better sailor, and it's just a very automatic thing, so that's why it's so important to find something you like and enjoy, then you don't need anything to push you because automatically you want to do it, so quite often we say hope is the best teacher, yeah, yeah, they do say like there's this very famous book by Angela Duckworth called Grit and in that she also says and also in the words of like other very successful people

10:29that like you know finding your passions the best way to kind of be successful because it motivates you automatically, yeah, yeah, you need to find out your inner voice, what you like, enjoy doing the most, then it will always be hard work, but then you are more likely to overcome it and then carry on instead of giving up, yeah, okay, so now for for the standard question, what do you think it takes to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games and you know essentially make history? I think the answer if you ask any audience will be very similar, you do need to take a lot of sacrifices in your family time, friends time and as well as study and you need to have a good time management and a good balancing life because like full-time Olympian that you need to put in six to

11:30eight hours training every day from in the gym and on a bike or running or whatever sport you're doing so yeah it's like I do find it quite hard work to training is hard very very hard, but now looking back I think the earlier the younger you are the harder you work and then the more you can get for your future life and then you can enjoy life better for longer as well because if for example at 30s or 40s like you regret or you're not working hard enough when you were young then even if you start working harder it wouldn't be as effective or get that much return if you start working hard when you were young so yeah everything I feel it's all worthwhile but I do admit it's very hard very

12:32painful process and yeah after lead some normal people's life and then when I go back to the team I do find it how can I bear that I'm just training that I don't believe that I used to train that much and and then my teammates just choke me oh you you train the hardest though I say you don't know how you you manage to train it is very hard so that's why it's even more important to find something you like and enjoy but it's still a very long path that you need to put a lot of things and sacrifice a lot of things but so long as you get some sense of achievement and enjoying it like even if you don't become an Olympian or Olympic medalist you still then take the best out of yourself then that's fine then you're successful it doesn't have to be

13:36a medalist or an Olympian so long as you get the best out of yourself I think you need a meaningful life a successful life wow and what would you say are like you know the skills that you needed and you needed to develop or how did you develop you know like this perseverance and this like determination in order to push through like even though when you thought it was really brutal when you thought it was like really painful to know like keep up just just the love of this sport and obviously apart from the love love itself is not enough to be on top of anything you do but at the same time if you put in like say to people putting the same amount of time in the effort but if you do it more scientifically and with more knowledge then you are more likely to to train more effective and recover better so that's why I would say I benefit a lot by reading

14:43birds and start self-study and then utilizing my own training diet and mental preparation everything so I sort of feel that the knowledge is such a powerful weapon to help help me to reach my goal quicker or more effective so it's not just train hard you need to train smart like how to eat properly to recover well how to train without getting too many injuries and it's not just about the time on the water it's the quality of your training session so yeah do do train smart and recover well it's also equally important because nowadays many people say I could train hard but are you training like are you is your session 100% good quality or you're sort of not 100%

15:44focused and then just counting the time that that would have worked so you have to be 100% focused to get every second out of your your effort so yeah that's why you like knowledge is I would say knowledge is a very powerful weapon that you need to use it on your side okay um just in terms of like the more you know menthol kind of side to this like um one of the techniques you spoke about using to combat like you know psychological um challenges or high pressure environments in events and you also said you took this into that really iconic metal race in the London 2012 games was um thinking of yourself as an actress and giving a performance when you're racing and in a more like practical context how did you do this and how did it really help you in the race

16:50so I often my first Olympics in Beijing I found myself that when I'm on the pressure uh I I don't know how to settle even if I trained for a decade or two that I suddenly become oh I become a new sailor so you can see how much like the mental side affect your performance and then after Beijing I started to invest more time reading books about sports psychology and then realized that apart from putting time to train to get fitter in the gym and then more skillful on the water we also need to put in time to do our mental exercise mental training so yeah for that actress it's just because one of the reason that very unusual about the games is that oh in a sudden you have so many cameras shooting at you and then you start to feel nervous

17:50and your heart rate increases then I think how I tackle this scenario um maybe I just think of myself as an actress because when when you're acting you um um doubtfully you get a lot of cameras abing at you and then you you need to keep the best out of yourself and then be an elegant actress so I think oh I I just meditate that for my Olympic sailing especially on the matter-based day when there's so many cameras and I would like to give my best performance to the whole world so that's how I meditate myself and I use that for the actual matter-based day and I find it works because by that time I've been meditating so many times and when I see the camera I no longer feel nervous I feel it's my showtime I would like to give the best I set off wasting it on feeling nervous stressful why not just oh give me the best to the camera to the world

18:53yeah wow and like did you also you know in your first Olympic um yeah in the Beijing 2008 Olympics like did you ever feel to have like pressure to succeed especially back then it was in front of a home crowd and also now like going into new to sailing classes and different book classes do you ever feel like a pressure to to win every single time because you have such like an amazing track record well personally for me the reason I sell is very simple because I enjoy the sport but at the same time because I get so many help with support from so many people so the pressure is more comes from my my those people behind me yeah so I sort of feel like for me myself if I don't get results that's fine because I already get all those time that I could enjoy being on a water even if I don't get medals but I'm already benefited from sailing on a water

19:58that adjoys on a water but then you sort of feel pressure by you need to give some results even back to those people who helped me so that the pressure mainly from from that so it's like when you study but it's a more the pro the whole process of the study you are actually getting more and more knowledgeable more accumulating more wisdom and get more knowledge etc you already become a better person but then you still need to pull yourself through exams right like for me it's very similar like it's just feel like the exams or the competition is something to give to to our parents or teacher to our coach thanks for their effort in helping us whereas even if we don't have this result like we already become better we already benefited we already growing getting better and more mature so the end result for ourselves it isn't that important it's

21:01more like oh you don't you want to give something back to your loved ones yeah unbelievably yes I do feel stressed for some time I feel guilty not really medals for those who put in time because they put in all the efforts and time on us they don't get anything else apart from the end results like to prove that their work is good and excellent etc so yeah two different pictures thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Unstoppable if you enjoyed today's episode please don't forget to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform by subscribing you'll never miss an episode where we uncover the true stories behind the resilience and success of our world's most extraordinary individuals join us on this journey of empowerment and growth and commit to our community to transform passion into triumph and energy into success

22:05thank you so much again for your time and I hope you all have a wonderful day until next time I'm Zian and this is Unstoppable