Lucid Fitzpatrick

This is my testimony--these words. I can make no other argument nor plea nor appeal. It is a work for the few with hopeful eyes that long to experience a world without contempt. It is a work for the few who cannot help but find beauty in every encounter. It is a work for the few who know failure can be more valuable than success—that complacency is life’s greatest risk. It is for We the Rare It is for We the Uncommon It is for We the Exceptional

@stevemagness And 18th in medal count for the 2024 summer games. 2026 performance has more to do with the cooler climate, cultural tendency toward niche winter sports, and access Scandinavian mountains.

Norway is once again dominating the winter Olympics. And this is their youth sports program: Participation trophies for all kids. No keeping score until 13. No national travel competitions in youth sports. No posting youth results online. Motto: “Joy of Sport for All.” They let kids be kids. And it works. But…it’s the winter Olympics,right? Recently, they have had tremendous success in summer sports. Karsten Warholm demolished the 400 meter hurdles world record. Kristian Blummenfelt broke the Ironman triathlon record and won Olympic gold. His training partner, Gustav Ivan, won the 2022 Ironman World Championship. Casper Ruud reached world number two in tennis. Viktor Hovland is a top ten golfer in the world. Erling Haaland set the record for the most goals in a season in the Premier League. Beach volleyball champs, a surge of elite runners. By any metric, Norway’s elite athletes are achieving on a global stage. Yet, if we turn to their youth sports, their programs are the opposite of the US. Norway doesn’t allow for official scorekeeping until the age of thirteen. They dissuade early national travel teams in favor of local leagues. You can’t even post the results of youth games online without being fined. And almost sacrilegious in certain American circles, Norway doesn’t allow trophies unless everyone gets one. As Tore Ovrebo, Norway’s director of elite sport, told USA Today writer Dan Wolken, “We think the biggest motivation for the kids to do sports is that they do it with their friends and they have fun while they’re doing it and we want to keep that feeling throughout their whole career.” Their youth sporting model can be summed up with their chosen slogan, “Joy of Sport for All.” But not keeping score, giving out trophies, not being “win at all costs”...that’s anti-American! How can they be competitive? Research backs their approach up. 1. The fire has to come from within If you look at ​research​ on prodigies who eventually become standout adult performers, a deep intrinsic drive is paramount. Researchers found that intrinsically motivated football players were 3.5x more likely to make it to the next level, and athletes in general 2x more likely. The problem is that early success often pulls young people away from this inner drive. Kids start playing soccer (or violin or chess—this isn’t just about sports) because it is exciting and fun. As they improve, they gain accolades and praise from their parents, coaches, and teachers. They start winning trophies or seeing their names in online commentary. Without even realizing it, their intrinsic drive gets replaced by external validation and a need to please and impress others. The quickest way to kill that internal motivation? Hype achievements and be a crazy controlling parent or coach. The best way to create and maintain intrinsic motivation is to let kids dabble, explore, and find something with which their interests and talents align. Then, let them enjoy it without an undue emphasis on success. Praise effort, character, and teamwork, not results. This is easy to talk about but hard to do. Find ways to reward and incentivize the values you want to instill. That means not taking the easy road and talking about who set a new mile best or scored the most points, but instead highlighting who hustled during the fourth quarter, rallied after it seemed like the match was over, or displayed exemplary sportsmanship. 2. Go Broad over Specialization Even if the entire point of youth sports was to create future champions (which it’s not), we’d still adopt something similar to the Norwegian model. An ​analysis​ of over 6,000 athletes explored what separates athletes who reached world class and those who came up short. Those who reached world-class had during their youth: -More multi-sport than specialized practice -Started their primary sport later -Accumulated less overall formal practice -Initially progressed slower than national class peers Those who performed well when young, but didn’t progress: -Started their primary sport earlier -Specialized, engaging in more practice in one sport -Made quicker initial progress Norway doesn’t have 300 plus million people and an NCAA system to funnel talent. They have to develop theirs. And they realize the best way to do that is keep as many people in the system as possible. Why? Because you can’t predict talent development very well! Just go look at the age group record books. It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking early performance equals talent and potential. The kid running a 6-minute mile at 10 looks way better than the one running 6:45. But if the faster one is at track practice 5 days a week and the slower one rolls out of gym class in jeans and runs it off “fitness” from just playing, well I’m betting on the slower one! When we assess performance early on, we’re not measuring talent, we’re looking at training age and opportunity. And we’re crowning winners based on who started grinding first. America gets away with the insane achievement model because we can burn out 9 kids to get 1 survivor. Norway can’t afford to do that. They take the longer, more sustainable model. Rethinking Youth Sports: The whole point of youth sports should be for kids to learn, develop, have fun, and want to come back and play again next season! The best chance of developing a D1 scholarship athlete is essentially to do the exact opposite of what our current youth sports fiasco promotes. Even the poster child for early specialization, Tiger Woods, ​acknowledged​ it’s not a good thing for parents to push their kids too hard: “Don’t force your kids into sports,” he says. “I never was. To this day, my dad has never asked me to go play golf. I ask him. It’s the child’s desire to play that matters, not the parent’s desire to have the child play. Keep it fun.” While youth sports in America aren’t going to adopt the Norwegian model anytime soon, we can rebalance the equation. As I outlined in my book, it’s not getting rid of competitiveness, it’s rebalancing the equation to make sure that crazy mom, dad, or coach don’t extinguish the fire that makes great competitors (and sport fun!). In research on performance orientation and grades in school, a teaching environment that supported and emphasized mastery[PA1] , where students focused on the process of learning and comprehension instead of a comparison to others, was also linked to better grades. But it wasn’t the direct relationship that an outcome orientation had. Instead, in one study on college students, a mastery approach was linked to challenge-seeking, which in turn predicted end-of-the-year grades. In another study, mastery goals predicted higher levels of interest and enjoyment. Mastery works on our approach system without activating avoidance. It frees us up to take on a challenge and pursue our interests without getting bogged down by the pressure or judgment that often comes with an obsession with outcomes. The same findings hold true when looking at sport or the workplace. In a large meta-analysis that analyzed the impact of goal setting in sports, process-orientated goals had a large effect on performance. Outcome goals had little to no effect. These two paths represent a fast versus slow road to success. Both a mastery or outcome focus can lead to better performance, but the latter is akin to taking a shortcut. Obsession over outcomes is the most direct path to improvement, but it comes with some downsides that shift us toward avoidance. The slow path takes a longer, indirect route. It helps improve our performance not by focusing on the results themselves but by supporting the foundation that ultimately leads to better performance. It stokes the fire of enjoyment and interest to sustain our curiosity and work ethic over the long haul. It pushes us toward challenge-seeking so that when we inevitably hit a roadblock, we’ll take it on instead of trying to protect our ego. Both approaches work. One is more sustainable, providing success with less angst. Society has thrown us so far out of balance that we can’t even see the slow route right in front of us. We can either instill a love of sport in our youth, or we can turn sport into a burden where kids are exhausted, stressed, and scared. We’ve seen this go both ways, and the results couldn’t be more different. One leads to happy, healthy, and better young athletes. The other leads to burnout, family tension, mental health challenges, and quitting. As parents, volunteers, coaches, and community members, let’s all do what we can to minimize the latter and champion the former. -Steve

@TeamUSA @lindseyvonn @usskiteam Cheers, @lindseyvonn !

Forever a legend. 🇺🇸 Thank you, @lindseyvonn, for always choosing bravery and for inspiring generations to chase big dreams.

Cheers to you, @lindseyvonn. Wishing you a speedy recovery and all the dreams, loves, leaps, and risks that life offers.

@TheChiefNerd For everyone who argues she should not have skied, you showed your hand.

🚨 BREAKING: Lindsey Vonn shares a health update, says she sustained a “complex tibia fracture” that will require multiple surgeries to fix properly

@Schwarzenegger It was her risk to take. 99.99% do not understand why she would take it. They also do not understand what it took to create the opportunity she had in front of her.

I love the Olympics. Winter, summer, every single games, I tune in. I love it because we see how sports bring us together. I love it because we are reminded that sports are the ultimate equalizer. Look at weightlifting in the summer Olympics or downhill skiing now. The weights and the mountain don’t care what country you come from, how much money you have, or what religion you are. The weights and the mountain are the same for every single competitor. I love it, most of all, because the Olympics remind us of a core life lesson: greatness and heartbreak live right next door to each other. You can’t find greatness without a few meetings with heartbreak and failure. We saw this very clearly over the weekend. Like many of you, I’ve been following my friend Lindsey Vonn’s inspirational comeback. She’s 41, one knee is completely rebuilt, and now she went into the Olympics with a freshly-torn ACL. As storylines go, you can’t get any better. It is gutsy. It is brave. It is a little bit crazy. And it brings out all of the losers to do their naysaying. “Why would she do this?”  ”She must be missing something in her life.” “It’s irresponsible.” What these people don’t understand, because they’ve never tried anything great, because they’ve never pushed themselves to the absolute edges of their limits, because they’ll never know their real potential, is that there is no such thing as risk-free greatness. Yesterday, when her Olympic dreams ended in that horrible crash that left all of us praying for her in front of our televisions, the haters were out in full force. I don’t need to repeat it. Twitter has given losers enough of a platform; I won’t be amplifying them in this newsletter. (1/x)

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here other than, "it's never been done before." (Literally from my book and relates to the point I am making). Regardless of it being hubris/narcissism (which I doubt), heroism, or just the raw urge to embrace the rare opportunity to compete in the olympics, it's her choice to make.

@Lucididy Show me someone who competed with a torn ACL and was in the top third percentile of the racers that day. Within 2 weeks of the injury? I don't even know how they got the swelling down so she could stand on skis. Unless it was already previously torn, and a cadaver replacement.

Lindsey Vonn skied on a compromised knee with a torn ACL and crashed on her Olympic run yesterday. She broke her leg and needed an emergency medical evacuation off the mountain, airlifted from the slope via helicopter. Many questioned her decision to take that risk. Nearly just as many argue that she should not have participated in the composition. Her decision to compete is exactly what I explored in my novel, The Fall Line.

Psyche. No one has a clue what’s coming next.

Gold is collapsing Silver is collapsing Bitcoin is collapsing Altcoins are collapsing Stocks are collapsing The US dollar is collapsing Everyone knows what’s coming next.

@PeteSampson_ Let's hope that translates to better execution in August/September.

Nerdy stat that interests me... Notre Dame's defense returned 11,832 career snaps entering last season. Notre Dame's defense returns 16,579 career snaps entering next season. That's a 40% jump in actual defensive snaps played.

Lucid is trending. Hello, everyone! What’s good? What’s on your reading list?

@sungleeiq Done

@TheRealGoof_A10 @stoolpresidente The old system was terrible. The new one is a big upgrade. 12 team auto bid would be its best version.

@Lucididy @stoolpresidente They tried "Best Teams get in". Hence ND wasting at least 3 deserving teams under the old system.

The ND clause is arguably the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. Let them play their own tournament vs themselves. They aren’t even the best team in their own state.

This is exhausting. I am not arguing about last year. I’m over it. You should do the same. This is about ND’s automatic bid if they make the top 12—it should be the blanket rule for all teams going forward. The best teams get in. No special rules for conferences or independents.

@Lucididy @stoolpresidente Where does it say that?Why do you think ND met the criteria based on current rules?I can't stand Alabama.BUT-if they aren't required to play 13th game (on the road basically) against a team they had already beaten..they finish w/same record as ND w/better "ranking". Not hard.

@TheRealGoof_A10 @stoolpresidente Yes. In a field that did not feature the top 12 teams competing.

@Lucididy @stoolpresidente Not to mention it did sort out on the field this year.

@NdMuse You mean THE football state.

Notre Dame wins it all next year Notre Dame and Indiana fanbases unite Indiana becomes a football state

@SaemusRiley Unless you dress it up like Android (Linux) or iOS (Darwin/BSD). Lesson: Delivery in art & culture is the key.

I think being a rational egoist in ethics is a lot like being unto Linux. You're more right about everything than everyone else, but in a technical way that sysadmins mostly find unnecessary and impossible to push to end users.

@TheRealGoof_A10 @stoolpresidente I am literally advocating for all teams to be treated exactly the same--no special treatment. Be in a conference or don't be. Just get the best teams in the bracket and let it all sort out on the field.

@Lucididy @stoolpresidente When based on a "Ranking" versus playing a regular conference schedule. One team and only one elects to be a "Brand" on their own island. Don't whine when you demand special treatment and rules.

Baby, it's cold outside🥶 While you're inside this Friday morning, avoiding the frigid ice storm, cozy up with a good book. Mine, preferably--