From the minute we started the conversation, it was evident that Corey Vaughn is a philosopher. He also calls himself the “hippie husband” of his wife Amelia. It was almost surreal to reconcile the deep thinking man I was speaking to with the fact that he’s one of the best in the extremely intense sport of water skiing. And he is a really, really good water skier. He’s one of only a handful of skiers to have run all 6 buoys in the most difficult (41 off) pass, and he’s been on the podium in countless tournaments from Nationals to Pro Tour events. He knows a thing or two about performance under pressure and after learning that you can get burned out even when working on a passion, he’s pretty darn good at balancing his life. In this episode, he shares his practices on dealing with pressure, working through self-doubt and what it takes to keep showing up.
Additional subjects and links for show notes
Key topics:
- What is the pandemic trying to teach us about nature and operating in the natural world
- The nature of control and what we can’t control
- The potential for synergy in the current situation
- The early questions that caused him to question his “indoctrination”
- Developing a sense of curiosity, questioning and skepticism
- The huge choice he made to follow his water skiing dreams instead of focusing on a traditional career
- Putting a “life jacket on his self doubt”
- His primary tool in overcoming fear of failure
- Learning to turn the volume knob on the sensations of survival mode
- Meditation and other ways of being still and challenging his mind
- His core life philosophies – including everything from Taoism to Stoicism to Buddhism and more
- Where he feels the most pressure
- Skiing with his granddad
- In skiing, “you can love the people more than the performance”
- The events that surrounded his running 41 off in a tournament
- The challenges of working through plateaus and the feeling of being stuck
- Even with that achievement, looking to test his limits on the ski
- Some of the thinking and comparing traps it is easy to fall into
- His awareness of his own mortality – at the age of 34
- Life as a dance
- Water skiing as a mirror to life
Corey's contact information:
Website: https://www.peaceloveandwaterskiing.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peaceloveandwaterskiing/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/corey.v.humburg
Other links mentioned in show: