Message to LearnStormers from Paralympic ski racer Josh Sundquist

Learn, Stromer's! My name is Josh Sundquist. I am a YouTuber, best-selling author, and a Paralympic ski racer. I first started ski racing when I was a teenager. I went to my first race thinking I was like the best skier of all time, and it was gonna be amazing. I was like super excited about it, and I'm sure that's kind of how you feel when you start anything in life, right? Like maybe even when you started this class.

I went through the course, and I actually fell on like the third turn in the course. That was really disappointing. I was like, I expected I was gonna ski really well, and I fell. I think that is an inevitable part of anything, including this course, right? You're really excited at first, and then like something happens, a problem, right? You fall, you get discouraged.

It's in that moment I think you have a choice about whether you want to quit. Do you want to just be like, "That's not for me" because I fell? Or do you want to say, "No, falling is just part of the process. It's just something that happens on the way." If you want to cross the finish line at the end of the race course, if you want to finish the class, you have to get back up.

So I got back up, and I fell down again. I got the guy before I actually fell in five times in this race course. It was not very good, as it turns out, but I kept getting back up. For that reason, I eventually crossed the finish line.

So what I want to say to you is that when you fall, when something doesn't work out quite the way that you wanted, when you get discouraged, that's not a reason to quit. That's just part of the process. It's in those moments that you have to look at the finish line that you're trying to reach and say, "Alright, I'm gonna get back up, and I'm gonna keep getting back up as many times as it takes until I cross that finish line."

So keep up the good work, keep getting back up, and good luck in the rest of your class.