In August of 1995, Terry Brands was on top of the world, literally.
The former Iowa Hawkeye wrestler claimed his second world title at the 1995 world championships. At 5’4'' 125 pounds, he was the baddest man on the planet. Powerful, strong, and most importantly, tough. He and his twin brother Tom embodied the toughness, strength, endurance, and resilience often associated with wrestlers and other high level athletes.
In the 1990’s, the Brands twins from Sheldon, Iowa were household names in the sport, not just locally in the wrestling hotbed of Iowa, but as their careers flourished they became known around the country and eventually, around the world. In high school, Tom Brands sported a 109-12 record, Terry went 110-10. After amazing careers in high school they went to wrestle for the legendary coach, Dan Gable for the Iowa Hawkeyes.
In college, the brothers continued to dominate. Tom won three NCAA titles, and was an all-american four times with a 158-7 career record. Terry was a two-time NCAA champion, three time all-american and ended with a 137-7 career record. Their impressive records and resumes hardly do their careers justice. It’s not just that they were skilled, the Brands brothers were feared. How they wrestled was what made them special, not just their accolades. Nobody wanted to wrestle against Terry and Tom Brands. An opponent of a Brands brother would be on the receiving end of unrelenting attacks, constant pressure, a pace that would make your body physically sick - all with nowhere to escape, and no one else to stand between Terry Brands and you, or Tom Brands and you.
After successful careers at Iowa both Terry and Tom Brands jumped on the international scene with great success. They made multiple United States national teams, and each collected world dominance just as they had at the national, state, and local level. In 1993, they each won world championships at the world games in Toronto. And, in 1995 Terry won his second title in Atlanta putting him on top of the world, but with just a few short days of rest as a celebration.
What lay ahead was what he had trained his whole life for, along with his brother Tom. The 1996 Olympic games were just around the corner and both Brands brothers were destined to add the final piece to their illustrious careers. Like all Olympic athletes, their lives get arranged in four-year “quads” in preparation for the Olympic games. In 1996 the quad was coming to a close and Terry Brands was determined to dominate like he had always done.
In June of 1996, the Olympic trials would take place in Spokane, Washington. The rules of engagement were direct as always. Win your bracket and you make the team and head to the Olympics. As the defending world champion, Terry Brands was poised to make the team and then set his sights on the Olympic games.
Each Brands brother worked their way through the bracket and made the best two-of-three finals. Tom won two matches in a row, cementing his place on the national team. With the 1996 Olympic games held in Atlanta, this would be a monumental moment for the careers of Tom and Terry Brands.
Terry would face a familiar rival in the finals of the trials with Kendall Cross from Oklahoma State University, an athlete who while he was very talented, was unable to get the best of Terry Brands in their many matchups together.
In the first match of the best of three finals, Terry won in dominant fashion 7-2. He was now one win away from heading to the Olympic games. Everything was going as planned, the sport was fully cooperating with the will of Terry Brands. The decades-long formula was working. Until it wasn’t.
In the second match in the best-of-3 finals, Kendall Cross got the best of Terry, in a chaotic, wild, tightly contested 7-6 match. The series was now tied. The third and final match would decide who represented the United States at the Olympics. Match three came down to one series of events in which both wrestlers landed on their sides in a 50/50 position. Both trying to impose their will to see who would end up on top, both fighting inside-and-out to defeat the man in front of them after a lifetime of working to be in this position. Ultimately, it was Kendall Cross who won the position, pitting Terry on his back, and holding him there for nearly a minute resulting in a lot of points scored (kind of like hitting a grand slam in baseball). Terry was unable to come back from the deficit. As the clock hit zero, it would be Kendall Cross who would represent the United States alongside Tom Brands, not the twin brother Terry.
It’s hard to fully comprehend the pain that Terry Brands felt in this moment. You work for a lifetime in a singular pursuit of one goal, and in a moment it’s gone. Your training partner, friend, roommate, and womb-mate, the guy you’ve trained your whole life with is going to the Olympics, and you’re not.
Terry Brands literally crawled off the mat in tears in Spokane. He ran out of the arena and outside the building heading for the mountains of upstate Washington before being stopped by his brother Tom, and his coach Dan Gable. It is the rare experience of the fully committed who falls short. The percentage of the world’s population that feels this type of pain is small because so few of us devote that extreme level of commitment to our pursuits. The pain sent Terry into a spiral.
Drifting in the Wild
When asked by a coach a few weeks after the trials, “How are you doing?”
His response was short and full of tears.
“I’m hurting.”
What do you do when the thing you want is gone?
Terry unfortunately had to keep engaged with the sport, one to help his brother prepare for the Olympic games and two, because he was technically an alternate on the team. If Kendall Cross withdrew or dropped out due to injury or illness, Terry would be in. So he had to stay ready, even though the prize was all but gone. It would be like attending the wedding of a spouse who left you. It’s right in front of you, and proceeding without you.
Terry entered a state of drifting. He got off the grid. Didn’t leave his house. Entered into a state of depression. Didn’t really talk to friends and family much. Those around him felt like it was kind of like a death in the family.
He attended the Atlanta Olympic games, in the same arena he won a world-title in the year before. He watched his weight class, the weight class he was the defending world champion in go on without him. He watched his brother, Tom win Olympic gold. And, he watched Kendall Cross win Olympic Gold. Wearing the gold medal around his neck for winning HIS weight class.
After the Olympic games he contemplated disappearing into the wilderness of Alaska. He told his girlfriend Michelle he was leaving. Heading up to the wilderness and staying there forever. He booked the ticket and touched down in Alaska. A drifting, former champion now alone.
Drifting is an unspoken human experience. It’s not talked about as much as it should be.
To drift is to move aimlessly at the control of external circumstances. It’s to live a prolonged period of time aimlessly wandering. Drifting is the forfeiture of our agency. Relinquishing responsibility for our role in our life and our experiences. Even the most elite can fall into drifting, living aimlessly, not sure how to reorganize things in our life. We encounter endless experiences in our lives that can trigger us into a state of prolonged drifting. For Terry Brands, the experience that sent him drifting was the pain, hurt, and disappointment of not making the Olympic team when he had invested so much into succeeding in this pursuit.
It is dangerous to drift through life. Drifting can turn into sulking and languishing. Living purposeless, losing meaning in life, unsure of why we’re doing anything, unsure of why anything we’re doing daily matters at all. Unsure of what to do next.
Ultimately drifting is such a problem because it negatively affects your well-being.
Your well-being is at stake.
It’s in the wild of the Alaskan frontier that Terry Brands had to confront his drifting internal life. No matter how justified he felt to drift after the painful experience he realized some things, he missed some things. It’s not just that he missed making the Olympic team, he missed the way of life that he was engaged in in his pursuit of making the Olympic team.
After 10 days in the Alaskan wild, he realized he missed his girlfriend, Michelle and he was going to propose to her when he returned home.
“I started to miss the things that I’m about.”
He began to ask the most powerful question anyone can ask after drifting.
“Where do we go from here?”
Training vs Trying
After returning from Alaska the first thing Terry did was propose to his girlfriend. The next thing he did was join his brother again. After winning the Olympic games, Tom Brands retired, fully entering the coaching profession with hopes of succeeding Dan Gable as the leader of the Iowa Hawkeyes, a role he would eventually assume and still serves in now. Terry re-engaged with the Iowa program and helped train the college athletes but he wasn’t fully committed to competing again himself.
The entire next quad (four year period in between Olympic games) there was speculation on whether or not Terry would compete. Was he in or was he out? Was he going to wrestle, or was he going to retire? Everyone in the wrestling world was unsure, and even those in proximity in the Iowa wrestling room were unsure as well. He was still around the sport, serving, coaching and teaching, but in a way still drifting through life. He lacked the intentionality needed to be fully engaged. The same question emerged for Terry:
“Where do we go from here? This sport just ripped my guts out, and now I’m back in the practice room.”
Things continued like this for a period of time. This is a telltale sign of the latter stages of drifting. A form of functional drifting that occurs when we ultimately haven’t made definitive decisions that lock us into a defined pursuit. We function on the outskirts, in close proximity to the thing without making the main thing the main thing. For Terry Brands this was such a short timeframe but for a lot of people they spend their whole lives in this place. When we’re drifting in this place, we’re engaged in what I call a “Trying mindset.”
People with a trying mindset often know they need to make some changes in their life but the changes aren’t coming. They drift along, looking in the direction of what they want to change without fully committing to it. Maybe you can think of a time where you’ve been in this place, or maybe worse you can think of people in life who possess a trying mindset all the time.
They’re always “trying to lose weight” But never lose it
“Trying to work out” But the weights never get moved and the treadmill never gets turned on
“Trying to save money” but never save it
“Trying to start that side business” but never get it going
“Trying to live up to the level of their values” but often live as their own worst enemy.
It’s a miserable place to be in, because you fully recognize something needs to change, but fail to make the changes needed.
One day Terry and Tom Brands were in the Iowa wrestling room working with some athletes. This was a common occurrence in the late 1990’s. Tom was on one side of the room drilling with an athlete, Terry was on the other side of the room drilling with another athlete. Tom looked across the room and saw something visibly different. Something he hadn’t seen since the leadup to the 1996 Olympic Trials.
He saw Terry fully engaged. Things looked different. The look in his eyes. He’s training a little bit harder than normal.
“I saw Terry and he’s drilling. He’s drilling really hard. He’s not drilling for the athlete, he’s training like a competitor.”
Tom walked over and asked Terry, “You’re training again aren’t you?”
“Yeah I am. And you’re not talking me out of it.” Terry replied.
There was no formal announcement. There was no press release, no tweet or fanfare communicating to the world that he was training for the 2000 Olympic trials. The behavior of Terry Brands said it all.
Our lives look different when we’re training vs trying. Trying vs training is the difference between drifting and living on purpose.
Training is the full commitment of our will to actively participate in life. Training for something organizes our life in a way that makes drifting very hard. It’s the process of intention and attention being fully aligned. Time spent on a task. Time spent on THE task. Full engagement with the process of becoming. Willing participation in the work required to become. This is what makes up what I call the “training mindset.”
While we fully understand a training mindset in sports, too many times we fail to engage in life with a training mindset. People with a training mindset look different. They act differently. They think differently. They fully understand that the process of living well doesn’t happen by accident, it happens as a result of training. A training mindset is the only way to fully live on purpose. Maybe you know what this feels like, or you can think of someone who possesses a training mindset
They’re often pursuing what they want MOST instead of just what they want right now. They live with a level of peace, contentment and joy instead of the angst, stress, and frustration that comes with a trying mindset. People who live with a training mindset choose to suffer instead of living life that avoids pain. They live for meaning, instead of pleasure. They do work in the dark, instead of hungering for likes, favorites or retweets. They do the work when the plan says to do the work, instead of putting in the time when they “feel” like it. They are consumed with the present instead of living in the past or the future.
Unlike people with a trying mindset, those with a training mindset do what they say they’re going to do.
They “train to lose weight” The weight comes off.
They “train to work out” The weights get moved and the treadmill gets turned on.
They “train to save money” The budget gets made and adhered to, the savings account grows.
They “train to start that side business” The business grows over a decade into full-time employment.
They “train to live up to the level of their values” They become who they say they are.
The higher you aspire to go - the more a training mindset is going to be needed. You can get by with a trying mindset at lower levels, but as you level up, and life presents you with more opportunities, the mindset will not sustain you.
Why You Should Build a Training Mindset
Ultimately, what benefit is there to training instead of trying? Why would anyone want to do the rewiring it takes to build a training mindset when it feels so unnatural? Ultimately it’s because a training mindset provides you with a list of internal benefits that enhance our well-being. Here are just a few:
Living with a training mindset enables you to live with purpose in your days. You’re actively participating in life instead of watching everyone else do great things.
A training mindset organizes your calendar. It ensures what matters to you most, gets accomplished.
A training mindset allows you to take ownership of the things within your control.
A training mindset gives you the peace of mind that comes with knowing you truly did everything you could.
A training mindset guarantees you honesty. You become who you say you are.
A training mindset helps you break free from blaming things outside of your control for your internal well-being.
Most importantly, a training mindset cements the past in the past.
Some people spend their whole lives looking backward. Looking back at the thing that didn’t pan out, the thing that didn’t work out, the thing that was so painful they drifted to the wilderness to escape. Actively engaging in a training mindset creates a clear line, separating past and present. We were created to train for something.
What makes the story of Terry Brands so special is not that he eventually became an Olympian, it’s that he began to train again. He looked inward to deal with the pain of what happened. He decided to move on, and ultimately made the decision to fully commit to the 2000 Olympic trials.
He would compete in the trials one final time, at the age of 32 years old, married, with kids. As he descended on the arena in Dallas, Texas his wife Michelle was at home, pregnant and expecting any day, unable to travel. She listened to the matches via phone from one of Terry’s coaches in the arena.
The Olympic Trials in 2000 would be just as grueling as any other year. The country’s best and brightest in one arena. The rules of engagement were the same, win the tournament and you go to the Olympics. But this experience would be different for Terry, he was able to exorcise some demons. He would go on to win the Olympic Trials with a broken elbow. Nothing was going to stop Terry Brands from winning this tournament. Terry Brands became an Olympian after winning the trials in Dallas, Texas.
In the 2000 Sydney Olympics Terry would earn a Bronze medal, joining his brother as an Olympic medalist alongside being a multiple time world champion.
The four year stint in between the 1996 and 2000 Olympic games ultimately defined Terry Brands’ wrestling career. He didn’t need another achievement, but the experience he learned in that gap likely makes him the transformational coach he is today.
“You’re not gonna let things from the outside come in and impact you in a negative way.” - Terry Brands
That is a mentality that is trained, not inherited.
Are you training or trying?