When the Negative Thoughts Come Flooding In

He is known as the "Quad God." Ilia Malinin is a two-time World Champion in figure skating, the first athlete ever to land a quadruple Axel in competition, and the first to complete seven quads in a single program. He also garnered enormous attention coming into these Games for his backflip — a move banned from Olympic competition for nearly 50 years because it was deemed too dangerous, and only legalized again in 2024. Skaters earn no technical points for it. Malinin does it anyway, purely for the crowd. And the crowd goes wild every time.

By any measure, he was the heavy favorite to win gold for America in Milan.

But something happened before he ever set foot on the ice for his final program. The magnitude of the moment — the Olympics, the expectations, the weight of everything he had worked toward — began to press in. Somewhere in that space between preparation and performance, his mind turned on him. The moves he had executed thousands of times suddenly felt uncertain. And then, in front of the world, Malinin fell. More than once. The program that was supposed to be his coronation became something he could barely complete.

Malinin finished eighth. Not on the podium. Not even close. Afterwards, he spoke with remarkable honesty about what happened: "I just felt like all the traumatic moments of my life really just started flooding my head. And there's just so many negative thoughts that just flooded in there and I just did not handle them."

I admire his candor. It takes real humility to be that vulnerable on a world stage — to say, essentially, my thoughts beat me. The Quad God got ambushed by his own mind.

Leaders and Self-Leadership

Here's my leadership question for you: When was the last time your thoughts got the better of you in a high-stakes moment?

In my book Lead Like You Were Meant To, I write about what happens to a leader running on autopilot: "The leader's brain on autopilot is like an airport with no security checkpoint. With no checkpoint, anyone is allowed to get on the airplane, including bad guys." Malinin described exactly this — a flood of uninvited thoughts that he couldn't stop and didn't know how to redirect.

The metaphor I share with leaders is to picture your thoughts as packages moving along a conveyor belt. If you are on autopilot, you accept every thought – whether it is helpful or not. But if you turn off autopilot, and notice your thoughts as distinct from yourself, you can practice self-leadership with them.

You realize you don't have to pick up and hold on to every “thought package” that comes by. You get to choose. Thoughts labeled "harmful," "negative," or "false" — let them keep going past you. But the ones labeled "useful," "true," and "helpful" – pick those up and hold on to them. You have thoughts; your thoughts don't have to have you.

Even leaders who practice this regularly can get surprised. In the military, they call it an ambush: the sudden attack you didn't see coming. The Army doesn't pretend ambushes won't happen and just hope for the best. They train for them. Every tactical unit has rehearsed go-to moves, drilled so deeply that when the surprise comes, the response is almost automatic, increasing the odds of overcoming the ambush.

Smart leaders do the same. They anticipate when an ambush might come. What are the triggering thoughts or emotions most likely to show up in your next high-pressure moment? What is your go-to plan for staying centered when they do?

Your big leadership moment may not be center ice at the Olympics. But the pressure will feel real. The negative thoughts will come. The question is whether you've trained for them — or whether, like Malinin, you'll only realize what happened after the program ends.

Be intentional. Manage your thoughts before they manage you.

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For more on managing your intellectual and emotional dimensions, see Chapters Four and Five in my book Lead Like You Were Meant To: Make the Switch from Autopilot to Intentional.

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And, if you or your people spend more than a couple of hours at a screen every day and are NOT one of the 84,000,000+ who have already read this post - "Something Big is Happening" -- from Matt Shumer, you should.