I just had the privilege of hearing Marnie McBean, three-time Canadian Olympic gold medal winner, speak tonight at the Electricity Sector Council conference. As you might imagine her speech was very inspirational. She described herself as a T.V. watching, beer drinking, KFC eating girl who got interested in rowing from a commercial for a chocolate bar and watching a movie, and then went on to win three gold medals for Canada in rowing. Imagine such humble beginnings to winning three Olympic gold medals. So how did she get there?

Her message was very simple but very powerful - choose to try, choose to try hard, believe you can do it and do it all one step at a time.

She explained that everyone should have at least one ‘hard’ goal, because on the days when everything is coming together the hard goals will be achievable. She told us that accepting change wasn’t good enough, that we should anticipate change and know the secret - “fear and doubt are normal.”

So how do we take Marnie’s message and use that in our everyday life? I think we have to reflect on her simple message. Have you set at least one ‘hard’ goal? Ask yourself if you are choosing to try to achieve it? If yes, are you choosing to try hard to achieve that goal? If yes, do you believe you can do it? If you answered yes to all these questions then anticipate change along the way, don’t become paralysed by fear and doubt and go about achieving your ‘hard’ goal, one step at a time.

This simple formula may not score you a gold medal but it may just help you achieve the hardest goal on a good day when everything comes together.

Marnie McBean, earned her three gold medals in double sculls in 1996, and pairs and eights in 1992. In fact she has won Olympic and world championship medals in six different boats.