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Iron Springs Resort. Copalis Beach, Washington. December 1997.
My father drove me three and a half hours from Seattle, pulled up to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and said: "You're going to stay here until you figure out what you want to do with your life. Whether it's speed skating or something else. But you are not going to throw away this gift."
Then he got back in the car and drove away.
I was fifteen years old. Six weeks earlier, I'd finished dead last at Olympic Trials. Sixteenth out of sixteen. The absolute bottom. Nine months before that, I'd been ranked number one in the country.
This wasn't a slump. This was destruction.
The cabin had no TV. No phone. No video games. No car. Just me, a journal, and a Pacific Northwest December that got dark by 4pm every afternoon.
So I ran. Every single day. Miles on the rocky beach. Miles on the highway. I ran until I had holes in my socks and blisters on my feet.
And when I couldn't run anymore, I sat with the question:
Do you actually want this?
Not the medals. Not the recognition. Not the Wheaties box. The process itself. The 4am ice sessions when nobody's watching. The sacrifice of normal teenage life. The grinding while everyone else is at parties.
This story of the cabin is one I share frequently in motivational talks on purpose and commitment. When I deliver keynote speeches to audiences navigating their own crossroads, I take them back to that fifteen-year-old standing in a thunderstorm, asking questions he couldn't answer. The silence was the point. The discomfort was the teacher.
I've advised founders and executives through their own cabin moments. The periods of forced reflection that feel unbearable but end up being transformative. The difference between the ones who emerge stronger and the ones who emerge lost is usually this: Did they sit with the real questions, or did they fill the silence with distraction?
Here's what I discovered:
Lots of people want to win. That's cheap. Costs nothing. You can want to win from your couch.
I wanted to become someone capable of winning. Someone forged through the process, not just born with gifts.
In workshops on finding purpose, I help people understand: The silence isn't the problem. The silence is where real answers live. Most of us run from silence because we're terrified of what we'll hear. But the questions you avoid in the noise? They're waiting for you in the quiet.
When I work with leadership teams on strategic clarity, I often recommend structured periods of disconnection. Not vacations—intentional silence. The answers they're looking for rarely come from more analysis. They come from creating the conditions where insight can emerge.
Day nine, a thunderstorm rolled in. I was running and just stopped. Stood there getting drenched, lightning somewhere in the distance, and realized: if I keep going the direction I've been going, I know exactly where that ends.
I called my dad the next day. "I'm ready."
That cabin changed everything.
For anyone in forced silence right now—between jobs, between chapters, between identities—the pause you're resisting might be exactly what's needed.
About Apolo Ohno: Apolo Ohno is a sought-after keynote speaker and leadership advisor known for translating elite performance principles into practical leadership behaviors. His work focuses on authentic leadership, executive presence, and the Gold Medal Mindset - helping executives and teams perform with clarity under pressure, communicate with conviction, and lead with credibility when the stakes are high. In his keynotes and workshops, Apolo helps leaders identify the unseen patterns, narratives, and habits that quietly limit performance, then replace them with a repeatable system for focus, resilience, and decisive action.