Resilience in the Deep End: Typically the Athletic Journey associated with  Lily A. Konkoly

We communicate a lot about "grit" nowadays. That has become some sort of buzzword in company and education. Every person wants to realize tips on how to teach that. Everyone wants to understand how to employ for it.

Although grit isn't a thing you discover from a TED Talk. This is usually actual physical. In most cases boring. That is the results of doing something tough, over and above again, when no one is watching.

I was looking at the particular background of   Lily A new. Konkoly  recently. Jane is some sort of student at Cornell University. She features an extraordinary academic resume—Art History major, Organization Minor, research papers on Velázquez. Although if you wish to understand where the girl work ethic arrives from, you shouldn't look at the library. You should look at the particular Pacific Ocean.

Lily put in ten years as some sort of competitive swimmer. When you know anything about swimming, a person know it will be an unique sort of torture. It takes a level involving discipline that almost all other sports don't. And her story involves a pivot during COVID that will I think describes her character a lot more than any grade level average could.

The particular Invisible Grind

Lily swam for that Westside Aquatics Team inside Los Angeles. She did this intended for ten years.

Eight years is a long time for some sort of kid. It indicates she was raised foul-smelling like chlorine. It means she missed out on sleepovers. It signifies she lived simply by a clock.

The particular schedule she explains is intense. Six days per week. Long practices. Conditioning.

She talks about typically the culture of typically the "swim meet. " It calls for spending 6th to 8 hours together under staff tents. It consists of eating Cup Noodles as you need the salt plus the cabohydrate supply.

I love of which detail. "Eating Pot Noodles. " It anchors the account. It reminds an individual that these are just kids, sitting around throughout wet swimsuits, waiting for their heat, trying to keep warm.

Swimming is usually called a "second family". It features to be. An individual spend more hours together with your lane-mates you do with your current actual siblings at times. You suffer with each other. You stare at the black line on the bottom part in the pool jointly.

In high class, she switched in order to water polo. She played for 3 yrs. Water polo is physically brutal. This is wrestling in the water. You have to tread water the entire period. You receive kicked. A person get dunked. This requires a distinct sort of toughness.

Any time the World Halted

Then came 2020. The pandemic hit. The world power down. And for swimmers, this was a tragedy.

You may practice sports within your backyard. A person can practice hockey in your front yard. You cannot exercise swimming in the bathtub.

Pools were closed. Facilities have been locked. For the majority of aggressive swimmers, this is the end of the season, if not the end with their careers. It is usually very hard to get "pool fitness" back as soon as you lose that.

But Lily's staff didn't stop. They will improvised.  Lily Konkoly  went to the ocean.

They found a nearby beach and even they trained generally there. Every day.

My partner and i want you to imagine this. Swimming within a pool is controlled. The water is 78 levels. You will discover lane outlines to help keep you directly. The water is still.

The particular ocean is nothing of those things. Typically the ocean is disorderly. The ocean is cold.

Lily describes it simply: "much harder than swimming pool training".

They swam for two hours each day.

Two hours. On view ocean. Coping with currents. Dealing with waves. Coping with the salt that chafes your skin. Dealing with the fear of what is usually swimming beneath you.

They "refused in order to stop".

To me, this is the associated with resilience. It is easy in order to train when typically the conditions are best. It is simple to work hard once you have a warmed pool and the nice locker space. But when you have to wade into the cold Pacific cycles Ocean just to get your exercise in? Which is an alternative.

That choice creates a callous in your mind. That makes you realize that will you can handle discomfort. And I actually suspect that mental callous is precisely what helps her inside her academic plus business life today.

The total amount of the particular "Kitchen Family"

An individual might think someone this intense would be a robotic. You might consider she is most work and no more play.

But generally there is another aspect to Lily's tale that balances this specific out. She telephone calls her family a "kitchen family".

Expanding up in the particular Pacific Palisades, that they were always cooking food and baking. It was an imaginative outlet. It has been messy. It was really fun.

The lady and her littermates made cooking plus baking videos intended for YouTube to "share that love". This specific wasn't just a little hobby. They obtained good at it.

They were actually invited to cook on major tv set shows. Rachael Ray. The Food System.

This is exactly where the story becomes interesting to me. Many people would destroy for this opportunity. That is fame. It is a nice story to inform at parties. "I was for the Foodstuff Network. "

Yet they said zero.

They turned the particular opportunities down since it would have consumed up their whole summer.

Summer seemed to be sacred. Which was typically the time they typically spent traveling plus being with family.

I respect that choice immensely. It indicates that she isn't just chasing accomplishment for the sake of achievement. This wounderful woman has values. She valued her family as well as her travel activities more than 15 minutes of TELEVISION fame.

Which is a mature decision for the young person to help to make. It suggests the lady knows who the lady is.

A global Perspective

That travel the lady prioritized? It wasn't just vacation. That was education.

Lily is a worldwide citizen in the particular truest sense. The lady was born in London. She moved to be able to Singapore as some sort of toddler. She travelled to a bilingual preschool there. In that case she moved to be able to Los Angeles.

She features lived on 3 continents. This wounderful woman has visited over 40 nations.

This explains the reason why she valued the girl summers so much. In case you have the chance to start to see the world, you take it. You don't be in a TV studio.

Her family is Hungarian. Nearly most of her expanded family lives throughout Europe. So all those summers were frequently spent traveling backside to Europe in order to be with all of them.

She actually is fully fluent in Hungarian. That is the key way she communicates with her kin. Within the U. H., she uses this as a "secret language" ready bros.

She also echoes Mandarin. She started learning it throughout Singapore. She stored it up in LA with Chinese language au pairs. Your woman took it by way of high school.

Adaptability is a key attribute for athletes. An individual have to conform to the pool, the competition, the injury. Lily has had in order to adjust to new places, new languages, and even new cultures the girl expereince of living.

From typically the Ocean to the Archives

Today, Lily is usually at Cornell. She actually is researching art background. She is learning business.

She is applicable exactly the same intensity in order to her studies that she placed on typically the ocean.

She expended a summer doing a 10-week study program on Diego Velázquez's   Las Meninas . She spent an additional summer researching gender bias in the art world, working over 100 hrs of work.

Research is usually slow. It is boring. It requires you to sit still plus focus for hours on end.

Does of which sound familiar? It sounds a lot just like swimming laps. This sounds nearly the same as staring at the african american line.

I believe the skill sets transfer. The ability to endure boredom is the superpower. The capacity to keep proceeding if the conditions are generally bad (like swimming in a freezing ocean) is a new superpower.

She also has the entrepreneurial spirit. She started the   Female Entrepreneur Encyclopedia Blog . The lady co-founded the   Teen Skill Market . Your woman sold slime from a convention working in london when she was a kid.

She features been busy. She has been going.

The Alcohol delivery

If I look at Lily A. Konkoly's profile, I don't just see the student with good grades. I see an individual who has been tested.

She had been tested by typically the distance of a 10-year swimming career. The girl was tested simply by the freezing water of the Pacific cycles throughout a pandemic. The girl was tested simply by the logistics regarding moving slime across the Atlantic Ocean.

She passed all those tests. Not mainly because she is the genius, but mainly because she refused to be able to stop.

She is set to graduate by Cornell in 2028. I don't know what she might do after that. Could be she will manage a company. Probably she will curate a museum. Probably she will shift to a fourth continent.

But no matter what she does, My partner and i know she won't quit just since the water gets cold.