Video Transcript
Hi, my name is Steve Emt. I’m a two-time Paralympic wheelchair curler, eight-time national champion, and TrueSport Athlete Ambassador. Today, I want to talk with you about perseverance, and there are three things I’d like you to know.
First, it’s O.K. to fail. If you’re not failing, you’re not learning. Second, how you recover from setbacks reveals your true character. And third, anything worth having requires hard work. Perseverance is defined as a quality that allows a person to continue trying to do something even though it’s difficult. Perseverance is complemented by resilience, or the ability to recover quickly from setbacks.
When I went to my first Paralympic Games in 2018 in PyeongChang, South Korea, I was going over there to win a medal. I needed to win a medal. But unfortunately, it didn’t work out for me, it didn’t work out for our team. In fact, we came in dead last in the tournament, with a two and nine record, 12th place in the world. And for the days following the Games, I allowed myself to beat myself up about that. And I thought to myself, listen Steve, in life there is winning and there is learning, there is no losing. And we did a lot of learning in PyeongChang.
So, for the years following those Games in PyeongChang, myself, my teammates, we worked harder, we increased our effort, we worked our tails off to get to a better place in Beijing. In Beijing we placed 5th place, one game out of medal contention. With what we learned in Beijing as a team, continuing forward for the next four years preparing for Italy in 2026, we’re in a great place right now. Because that’s what sports do, sports are an excellent platform for practicing perseverance. Because, as athletes, we get to learn how to constantly push ourselves beyond our expected abilities and to successfully compete. Also, as athletes, we are given the opportunity to find lessons in our setbacks and to persevere through a task even when it might be seemingly unrewarding.
We often aren’t alone in our efforts to persevere, either. Our teammates, coaches, families, and friends are all a massive network of believers in our ability to overcome challenge, and they support us as we experience, reflect on, and reapproach the challenges we face. With that said, persevering through challenges is not easy. No one can expect you to brush the dust off after experiencing failure and get back up right away without fear, hesitation, or a dislike for the thing that challenged you.
Inevitably, you will fall and you will fail. We all do. But what you learn about yourself in the process, that’s what defines success and that’s what makes the journey all worth it.
