Episode 21: Vishnu Saravanan - From Zero to One (Part 2)

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. One of the things I was actually a little bit curious about after you were listening to some of the interviews we've done is that you mentioned that one of the things you learned over the course of your journey is how you start to love pressure in a way and how you kind of trained for that and wouldn't be all right if you could kind of elaborate

1:04more about how your relationship with pressure kind of has evolved over time because in my mind at least pressure is something that whilst it could be good but most of the time it's something that can kind of like mess up with the way you perform and from like being a young sailor and now like a two time Olympian, how do you really like to find pressure now? Well, there are like different forms of pressure, right? So there's of course the internal pressure which doesn't make any sense but it comes like it's normal and it's very normal to have because pressure comes when there's expectations and when the things are at stake you know and yeah like this is so many things that could go wrong this question you know like that's when you ask yourself if can go wrong but so this is internal and then there's of course external when

2:09people from everywhere will give you pressure like you have to do this you know if you don't then this will happen and whatever but it's the most important thing to remember is what I tell myself the medal is not given it's not given to anyone yet and it's not you know and it over to anyone yet or you know nothing's lost or nothing's won so everything is out there so you can take it so what like of course there's a lot of mental training towards it so I love doing those kind of things you know like where so also like in sailing we don't get many people to watch and there's not many things you know so when people do watch and I love like you know or people actually watching me race so I have to give my best so I won't be my best so I think that's the thing you know I like

3:12most because I do better when people start watching me what I'm doing because I try to set an example or I just give my best basically you know and in that way that pressure kind of helps me you know to do I'm also to sharpen my scales and you know like it just I'm in that moment I have to do the best you know so it's pretty good in that way but how do I manage the internal pressure that's different because internal pressure is harder than external because external can motivate you and you can avoid it but internal can be very dangerous sometimes because you can stop believing in yourself and you know that's the worst because in that you can get lost so it's important to remember you've done so many times it's not the first time you're going to do

4:14this so just do the best like and also to remind yourself see even if you lose or when today you're going to sail tomorrow so it doesn't really change the matter of fact doesn't really change so don't put so much pressure unnecessarily so and just to remind the little details like just focus on what you're doing right now say that's a bit more in detail like how to handle things you know yeah and speaking of like this internal pressure by that do mean like you know the self kind of like your own kind of anxiety or that may be kind of nervousness when like you said like the what if when you have the expectation but then at the same time you're you're kind of scared you're not going to be able to fulfill that yeah yeah it's the questions that come to your head basically nothing at just all the doubts and questions that come to you that's basically internal right yeah

5:19and I will you have to deal with that and so like I'm building a relationship with how you deal with pressure when you say it's like something you get used to over time or is it more something that you don't really get used to but more that you prepare for how to deal with it when it you do feel like under pressure yeah no pressure is always like weird because you can never get used to it like you have to always train yourself like how to deal with it it's like a cloud like it'll come and go you know so it's just like you have to just not be bothered by it you know so you just have to remember it's just going to come and go so just do your thing like you know so in that way you just have to remind yourself like see it's it's it's temporary so you know like you have to

6:19train your mind to focus on what is important what's at the present moment what is given to you right now and what I've done for the past how many of you know years or months training so it should be a waste yeah exactly nothing else and you know speaking about like this how you learn to deal with pressure you never really get used to it but at the same time you're like still growing and changing and improving your skill set all the time in terms of preparing for a race or in these maybe very high-pressure environments you know how do you really get yourself into that let's say like do you have a routine before a big race or a big event that's really important that really helps you ground yourself and you know block out maybe the noise or like the cloud yeah well yes I have a routine that I do each event like before each event and follow that

7:26routine till the end of because you have six days of racing that so follow that routine every day so like I wake up about six thirty seven-ish and then do like the yoga or just to warm up my body and then I meditate and then I shower a proper breakfast then I'm done like you know then I'm ready so after showering everything like my body is ready to go my mind's fit to deal with whatever is gonna happen then I think ahead okay what what to do if I did all the routine checks because there's so many documents right like from signing it yes there's notice both bad notice for whatever so we have to deal with that and then after that we focus on you know like I focus on what the conditions are so just to get in the zone of what is currently

8:27available rather than thinking about you know something the past or sailing in memory so yeah I sail here before so it must be like this no you have to with what you have right now as I'm going in memory and one of the things that I always like is let's say like if I've been to Hong Kong and I didn't have a good event and then when I come back next year I always push myself this is sometimes you know you get like oh I didn't really well in this place this must be a bad place for me what I do is I just like tell myself you know like oh I can prove myself like you know I can do so much better now because last time was not so good so you see like a bit of self-talk and a positive vision and visualizing like I sail like this you know this and that's so I see the water and then I before I launch I just kind of set up my brain in that way like okay

9:33today's condition is this so this kind of technique will work so I visualize like how I move in these conditions and then kind of comes automatic once you're on the water yeah wow that's about yeah so really like focusing you know on the present moment yeah just one thing I'm actually a bit curious about you know speaking of like the possible obstacle that could come up in like such a long journey is like if you don't mind sharing you know what do you think was the most difficult challenge you kind of had to overcome so far yes I wouldn't say it's a real struggle because I'm sure someone has adverse but coming from third world country it's quite difficult to prove myself in I say Europe and to get the respect and of course to perform you know it's difficult

10:37from India where nothing is actually given it's kind of hard to take it and so yeah I mean I'm very lucky because I have the support from my home club you know and I have the support from my parents and the sports ministry so I can deliver what I've learned and train in Europe for longer period and you know compete there so I've been lucky in in a way but I also work hard because I have to back up that you know that always follows the brave just you know yeah up here so yeah I mean like in that way I've been doing well but yeah I wouldn't really say struggles like of course there is politics involved and this and that yeah it's normal like everybody goes through it so yeah I mean it's just part of learning experience I would say yeah yeah for sure and I think that's a really great mindset and in a way it's not surprising given you know

11:40how far you've come that this is like kind of the way you approach things and just to kind of round it all off like beyond you know all these results and you know the medals and obviously the really incredible things that you've done like do you have like a legacy or kind of something that you wish to leave like was all your work that you've done in sailing and sport in general yes of course I want to bring the Indian sailing Indian water sports in general on the world stage and you know like to create more visionals and even like better versions of me you know like to have even more because we have so many kids who are motivated and who are able to do well if we give the platform to it to them so it's not like we lack any talent it's the approach and it's the fundamental like building of you know pathways towards the high performance because

12:48we can create a high performance career sort of you know sailing and so in the future like parents don't worry about oh my kids don't earn enough money so then let's say sailing can give the opportunity to make that possible then the parents are also happy you know to send the kids yeah so it's very important to keep the parents happy yeah yeah I mean that's the legacy I want to leave but I don't know what challenges I will face and I sense like of course it's a team that will lead it and I will try my best to just give results you know on sailing while and until sailing and that results will give the backup to whatever demands we can you know ask the government or the betterment of the sport yeah and that's that's really wonderful like you know message and

13:52I feel like a really like great and like honorable cause as well and if you had to give like one final piece of like advice to anybody like listening out there you know yeah what do you think many times what our human nature is basically we forget the good moments very quickly good moments in the self we forget how that feels and we hold on to the negative moments longer because they repair or they create damage more crucial so let's say if I won an Olympic medal or let's say I want a U21 bronze medal yes like but I celebrate okay one day two days and then I forget the feeling of how it was but let's say if I made a mistake and I didn't do really well this event some other event but that I will remember for longer period that's general it's going to be like that but

14:58it's important to remember the good moment to feel what you felt when you when I won the bronze medal and to feel how you did it so that's very important so for your friends or whoever's listening to this I would recommend like you know to follow like your positive thoughts like to visualize your positive images that you've done in the past not only to hold on to your negative thoughts and actions like for a longer period you it is good to you know learn with those negative thoughts but it's bad for your long-term improvement because it'll damage you in the longer run so try to hold on to the positive and feel that energy that you felt at that time and you know let it flow and keep that energy in the present and do what you're doing so that's my kind of advice okay yeah

16:05thank you so much for your time again you know never give up yeah I will like um thank you so much if you can do anything else let me know yeah for sure thank you thank you bye bye bye hi 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 thank 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