Mental Strength from Tough Childhoods - Gold Medalist Oksana Masters Explains

do you think you have a different capacity for pain like either physical or mental like obviously like we can discuss this more we're talking about obviously your Olympic achievements but I'm curious if obviously I mean I know this has been spoken about with like sports psychologists that like traumatic childhoods often lead to really great athletes and people that are able to achieve things in a lot of different fields I'm curious if you're I mean the desire to sleep on the floor shows like a propensity and a threshold for what you're able to endure physically and mentally I'm curious like if you're in the middle of a workout you're in the middle of a you know you're rowing or skiing or something if you get to the end and you're like oh my threshold for what I'm able to endure the depth of your pain cave is so much deeper than you know a kid that grew up in Manhattan that slept in a you know silk sheets his whole life I don't know sh silk sheets can sometimes have their own downside too so I I mean of course but like this is it's a weird thing I've heard this quote before where the worst thing that can happen to a human there's the two worst things that can happen to a human is either you don't get anything that you want or you get everything you ever wish for MH and I'm just curious now that you're no longer in like these you know tragic traumatic conditions if you think about those times and you're like wow I'm I have an advantage mentally to endure things it just seems I don't know just coming home and sleeping on the floor just it's it's it's an indication was nice like I was like oh this is home this is this is and then it took a while but I think it's like I I don't know like I have this mixed feeling about people who say they their pain cave and their tolerance and their thresholds higher I think it's a mindset I don't think it's like a physical thing it's a mindset and the way I looked at pain I dis because like so I've really learned how to dissect every part of pain on my body and really pay attention to it because and I also on top of that you got beat up if you showed any form of emotion if it was happiness or if it was sadness you if you were in pain and you wanted to cry don't cry cuz it's just going to get bad oh wow so I internalized a lot and really learned what what this pain is what's going to come next and it became normal and my perspective of that now as an athlete is it makes me feel alive the difference as an athlete is I am pushing my body here and I feel so alive I'm doing this to me I'm in control and I'm familiar with this kind of pain and so it's totally a mindset and that I don't I never think of like oh I have a bigger pain tolerance than you cuz I don't I don't right but the fact that there are so many things outside of your control I can't control you know my legs and I can't control that I didn't have I wasn't born with legs or I can't control you know the joints of my fingers but I can control how hard I go in this workout or I can control how quickly I'm rowing or whatever it really does give you a sense of autonomy like yeah I'm in control of these muscles that I wonder do you feel like you have more physical awareness yes like in terms of it's an interesting thing I've been thinking about this a lot like trying like I've like meditating more now and like trying to have like more presence like that yeah mindfulness exactly but I'm becoming aware of my body in a way that I was never aware of before I think at least in the west or maybe in you know more modernized countries people just kind of lose touch with their bodies I think in a way yeah but because of you know the way that you were born I wonder if there's a you have a greater sense of your body and you're much more in tune and able to listen to it yeah I think that I I definitely do and um because I think it's not just me I think it's anyone born with like any physical difference too because you're we're more aware of how you move your body your body is where it is in space and um earlier I was going to I got I like totally distracted because you're saying like well how did you teach yourself how to walk and all this stuff but then it's like if you think about if you ever so now you're becoming more mindful of small things you never knew and then if you think about if you break a leg or break your arm if you just take your like mind away from it your body will adapt on the fly if you want to get this coffee you'll find a way to drink this coffee somehow it's just the mind and that's totally like this is what I mean though with when I it comes to like mental fortitude I don't know I mean I don't want to like ascribe things to you but I do think that you might have a greater capacity for mental fortuitousness because like because I'm half a person so I have to that's what I'm saying but like you've just been like again I don't know like you hear these stories of people that like you know the guy that got his arm stuck in the Rock and cut it all if I could do that but he put his brain but I think the fact that you taught yourself how to walk or you overcame these things it's kind of proof to me that if you put specific humans in specific situations their brains can over come and just force and will themselves to survive yeah I think it's not just Pacific humans I think we're all capable of it people don't realize it we're all resilient we're all capable of it it's the only limiting factor is how much we want to feed into our thoughts and which way you want to feed those thoughts yeah of course did you start going to school the second you got to the US or like what was that transition process well I was a dummy and I decided to do that because because in Ukraine my school wasn't really school I didn't know that so I'm like I'm ready to go to school my mom was took was going to take like this leave for not pregnancy but Child leave of course and she was going to do that for a Years cuz I didn't to make sure I could speak English and just know what a family is and bond to her and make that connection but I was ready to go to school cuz I thought it was going to be like that I missed being around people until I realized wow school in America is very different it's like for 30 hours it felt like it's really like eight or whatever but what grade are you put into so I was technically graduated from like third grade or in third grade in Ukraine but because I didn't speak any English I went to first grade and so I was like that older one so I was that older one when I had the car and my friends didn't that was cool that's kind of nice but not when you're but then like I I had a translator and I was really really mad because she spoke Russian she didn't speak Ukrainian at all and they promised that and it's weird I this is the one thing I don't know and I'm kind of curious the part that I lived like like why as a child would I was I so mad and aware that she was speaking Russian and not Ukrainian and that was because I was on the western central western that it was considered the Gateway from the West to the east of Ukraine right and there Parts where I mean they just don't speak that language but yeah I so I was really excited to go to school was there any idea or notion of like Russia Ukraine in terms of geopolitics or like National relationship or was it just the fact that she wasn't speaking the exact language and dialect that I know I think it was just simple as that right and how different are the languages Ukrainian and Russian they're like there so there's like nit and KN like so that's like no like one way is Russian style and then there's like KN like Ukrainian style and um but it's just not the thing used to simar it's like the Southern and you go to California and like SoCal and it's like oh oh my God and then you go to like here you're not going to hear so it's like dialect like that but it still frustrated you as a kid you're like w it did I don't know why I was very Territorial and possessive I guess I don't know