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jasondorland5441

Dad to a butterfly child & 2 rescues. Husband to an inspiration. Author. Olympian. High performance coach. Keynote presenter. Workshop facilitator.

"… they're playing for each other. They love eac

"... they're playing for each other. They love each other. This is a team!"

That's it! I've now heard every kind of major professional sports team in North America—football, basketball, hockey, and, now, baseball—describe their team culture using the word LOVE!

I came across this video last week. It’s a keeper, for sure! Simply click on it to watch, and you might agree…

To give you some context, the Texas Rangers were in town playing the Toronto Blue Jays, and the colour commentator for the Rangers, Mike Bacsik, went off with an extended description of the current culture in Toronto. He was telling David Murphy, the play-by-play analyst, that every time the Jays scored five runs in a game, they were 52 and 3—unheard of in Major League Baseball! And these weren’t platitudes. His comments were genuine and heartfelt. He was reflecting on teams that he’d played on during his career, and that what the Jays had captured was pure magic!

I remember back to a coaching conference in Ontario in 2012, where I was presenting. It was the first time I used the term LOVE. I tried to convince those in the room that building a high-performing team culture required a foundation where the players truly loved one another. Oh my—you’d think I had just shared an off-colour joke!

To say that my comment was received with a few raised eyebrows would be an understatement. In fact, during the lunch break, an attendee came up to me and said, “That’s sure some interesting stuff—especially your perspective on love. No offence, but I think you may be a little ahead of your time on that one!”

Continued in my Substack—link in bio! Enjoy...

The Forgotten Power of Breath: practical exercises

The Forgotten Power of Breath: practical exercises to improve health and focus.

Yeah, yeah, whatever ... Jason's writing about breath work—what is the world coming to, right? Well, even an old dawg like myself can still learn a new trick or two!

No surprise, I don’t have many stories relating to breathwork. It’s not something I’ve dedicated much, if any, time to over the years. However, there was this one time …

Robyn and I were attending a retreat on Cortes Island, one of the Gulf Islands off the West Coast of British Columbia. It was late August of 2000, and Robyn had recently withdrawn from the Canadian Olympic Trials due to a back injury suffered during a training session. Therefore, what would’ve been her third and final Olympics never materialized.

Predictably, we each resorted to our own hard-wired responses: Robyn was accepting, reflective, and sad. I, on the other hand, was angry—actually, pissed wouldn’t be a stretch. I figured her fate was undeserved. As a clean athlete who embodied the truest values of the Olympic Games, I believed she, more than her EPO doping competitors, had earned the right to finish her career at the peak of her readiness.

However, as you and I both know, life isn’t always interested in what we consider fair.

Continued in my Substack—link in bio! Enjoy...

GRIT is good, but I would argue that FLOW is bette

GRIT is good, but I would argue that FLOW is better.

And, it's not just my opinion, it's what researchers tell us...

Believe me, almost 40 years ago, when the race featured in the photograph took place, I would have never, EVER, shared that a race was easy, even if it turns out it was! Goodness, just writing that, even today, feels like a betrayal to the rowing Gods! And for good reason, I wouldn’t have wanted my teammates to think I hadn’t given my all. The idea of admitting that a race was “easy” was absolutely taboo.

All these years later, mind you, when I’ve asked my crewmates what their recollection of that race is, they all say the same thing, “Stangely effortless, as races go!”

Exactly my sentiment as well. From the first stroke, we lead the race. And every subsequent stroke only lengthened our lead. No matter what each crew threw at us, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, and others, we just kept moving away.

Continued in Substack—link in bio. Enjoy...

"The point of the journey is not to arrive." This

"The point of the journey is not to arrive."

This is my last week of taking a break from writing. It’s been filled with visiting and, well, my Honey-do list! Lots of painting and the like—it’s all good. It gives me time to get caught up on some enlightening podcasts and breathe new life into tired parts of our home… I’ll take it!

This week’s dive into the archives highlights one of my favourites, for many reasons. Enjoy!

Today is Neil Peart’s birthday—he’d be 72-years-old.

Those of you who know me appreciate that I’m a huge fan of the Canadian rock trio, RUSH. I have been for decades. And Neil was, for the majority of those years, the drummer for the band. And not just any drummer, but one who could create mystic rhythms and pulsing beats with the precision of a surgeon. In fact, he would affectionately come to be known as The Professor. For what it’s worth, he reached a level of acclaim where many in the music industry considered him the best drummer in the world. And of course, those who knew Neil would know he hated those sorts of accolades. What does that even mean? And, more to his thinking, what does it matter? It’s not why Neil Peart played the drums—it’s not what drove him.

Of the many online interviews that exist regarding RUSH, one of my favourites describes the first time that Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee, the two other members of the band, first witnessed Neil play the drums. It was at a “try-out”—their previous drummer, John Rutsey, had retired from playing for health reasons, leaving them without an integral part of what all good rock bands had … a solid drummer.

Continued in my Substack—link in bio. Enjoy!

The Rabbits are Out in Front! Indeed they were—

The Rabbits are Out in Front!

Indeed they were—and on that hot summer morning in 1984, that's where they remained...

Note: We’ve had family visiting this week, and therefore, I’ve taken a break from my weekly writing. This week I’m sharing one from the archives, exactly one year ago—my favourite rowing races ever! Enjoy…

Undoubtedly, one of the most exciting Men’s Eight finals in Olympic rowing history and the first-ever Olympic gold medal for Canada in this event—it was quite a day!

I was 19 years old and working for the summer. I was also part of a throw-together mishmash crew of current and ex-Ridley rowers—it was a fun boat. We trained hard and had some decent racing.

However, the highlight, if I’m honest, wasn’t any of our races. Instead, it was watching that Olympic final on August 5th, 1984. It was a typical Sunday morning in southern Ontario—sunny, hot, and humid. However, it was three hours earlier on the West Coast and only slowly warming as the sun rose in the blue California sky. Lake Casitas, the rowing venue for the Olympics that year, had a reputation for afternoon winds. Therefore, regatta organizers scheduled racing early in the day to avoid rough water and unfair conditions.

Thomas Keller, the head of FISA, the international rowing governing body, decided to allow for an extra 7th lane in the men’s final after France claimed their equipment had been tampered with in the earlier heats. No matter; we were only interested in the contenders—our Canadian boys, along with the crews from the United States, New Zealand, and Australia.

Continued in my Substack—link in bio. Enjoy!

I lost a friend last week. Still seems surreal to

I lost a friend last week.

Still seems surreal to even write that out. And, yes, it involves every pertinent cliché—too young, too soon, incredibly sad, tragic, all of it!

Warning: Some individuals may find the following article triggering or upsetting. Written with permission from the family.

My friend, we’ll call him John to give him a name, was home alone when he fell, hit his head and died from a brain bleed. Horrible right? Yeah, big time—what an unimaginable way to go. But it happens, people fall, and sometimes those falls can be deadly.

But, like other friends that I’ve lost in recent years, for me, it’s hard to grasp the sense of it. I mean, why in a world where we need more people like John, do we lose one instead?

John was different—special, even. We met in 1977 when he and several other trepidatious young kids began our seven-year journey at Ridley College in St. Catharines, Ontario. Back then, Ridley was all boys in the Lower School, which made it extra welcoming—not! That place was a living hell for many. If you were different, and there were some who no doubt were, you had to remain vigilant; bullying was simply an accepted part of life back then.

Continued in my Substack... link in bio. Enjoy!

Sure, Imposter Syndrome is a thing, but it doesn't

Sure, Imposter Syndrome is a thing, but it doesn't have to own you.

Like so many of the "interferences" we unconsciously create that undermine our capacity to show up as our best selves, this one's particularly frustrating.

It’s hard to believe that the term “Imposter Syndrome” has only been around since the 1970s—what the heck! How is it that this phenomenon didn’t exist before that? What changed? Was it us or our circumstances? Regardless, it can be a prickly one to acknowledge. And, I get it—I mean, who wants to tell the world that they believe they’re not worthy.

Yikes, when I think of my relationship to this bizarre, self-constructed game we play, I can’t help but zero in on my coaching as the guilty culprit. When I first began having success in the early 2000s, especially with a group of athletes I worked with in 2004, it’s true, I was caught off guard by their success—“I helped do this?”

Sure, there was a little luck involved—one could argue there always is. However, I did play a role in the success of that crew, and I eventually came to appreciate that. But my response at the time was to downplay it. On the surface, I regarded my reaction as the proper one, humble. But the deeper truth was that with the majority of the crew returning the following year, I wondered if I could pull it off again. When the 2005 crew won the National Championships one more time, I remember feeling a response I hadn’t had the previous year—relief! True, I was thrilled for them, but I distinctly recall feeling an overwhelming sense of, Phew, I didn’t screw it up!

Continued in my Substack—link in bio! Enjoy...

There's patience, and then there's kiwi vines! Sh

There's patience, and then there's kiwi vines!

She did it again, my good buddy Mother Nature has thrown me another lesson—this time, it's patience. Who knew growing fruit would require more than a shovel and a pile of dirt?

As many of you know, at the beginning of COVID, I was inspired by the documentary “The Biggest Little Farm.” If you still haven’t seen it, I highly recommend setting aside an evening to do so—it’s absolutely beautiful, both in terms of the story and cinematography, and well worth your time.

It is the story of John and Molly, and their seven-year adventure of trading in their big-city lives for a lifelong dream of transforming an old, deserted, and dried-up farm in Northern California into an oasis of organic produce and livestock that inspired me to do the same with our backyard—sans the livestock! I followed their lead in using traditional regenerative farming practices where, as the keepers of the land, one works in harmony with Mother Nature, not against her. Certainly sounds nice, but whoooweeee, as I found out, it’s more challenging than one might think.

Mother Nature doesn’t take kindly to being hurried—everything happens on her schedule. To use a dancing metaphor, she always leads. At no point, no matter how clever you think you may be, does anything, and I mean anything, move at a pace other than that which is determined by her. It’s actually one of the things that I’ve grown to appreciate about spending time in the garden with her; there’s no such thing as fast gardening. I’ve learned to slow down and move purposefully, making my time amongst the trees and plants more efficient and thorough.

Continued in my Substack—link in bio! Enjoy....

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