Quotes from Scott Hamilton

I learned that once you take advantage of the opportunity to learn and experience and open yourself to a new way of living, you can't wait to do it again and do it better and find new ways of feeling that again and again and again.

Not only should we expect lots and lots of failure, but we should also be grateful when it shows up because it means we are on the right track. Failure is a mile marker on the pathway to finishing first.

Failure makes things interesting. Before failure, the path to victory seems so clear. So simple. Maybe not easy, but simple. After failure, we get creative. Failure makes us more aware of our weaknesses. It clarifies our obstacles. It reminds us to keep our heads in the game to the very end because success is never a guarantee—no matter how close it seems. And it reminds us how serious we're going to have to be if we're going to finish first.

I don't know of any skater in the history of skating who fell down and just stayed there.

Instead of being smothered by your failures, debilitated by them, defeated by them, if you can learn from them, you have a superpower. True winners have a healthy appetite for failure. Because without failure, success means nothing.

Failure is not something to be feared but something to be cherished because it is always teaching us.

What will it take for you to forgive yourself for the mistakes you have made? Nobody sets out to fail. And yet we all do it. When we forgive ourselves for our mistakes, we give ourselves permission to be successful again. When we give ourselves permission to not be perfect, we stop dragging around the dead weight of guilt and fear and self-hatred. Then everything can shift. Then the whole world opens up to us. We can begin being the champions we've been all along.

From that day on, I looked at what I believed to be "curses" as blessings, and I now realize that the ability to do so makes one a champion more than landing a perfect triple lutz does.

We give our critics so much power, when the truth is that all the power is inside of us. Who cares what a critic says or doesn't say? You have the power to say, "Not true," or "I will prove you wrong," or "No thank you, delete.

It's not about where you are today; it's about where you're going to be. We have to remind ourselves: This is where I am, but it is not where I'm always going to be.

We do not get to choose all of the opportunities that come our way. We do not get to choose our entire path. But we do get to choose what to do with setbacks and opportunities that come our way. We do get to choose how we behave as we wait to know what is coming next. We do get to decide that no matter what happens, we will be ready. Are you willing to have a good attitude even when things aren't going your way? This is the attitude of a winner.

Victories build on each other. Have you stopped to ask yourself what would make today a win for you? You don't need to hit all of your goals today. You may only need to accomplish one small goal—and that can be the victory you stand on tomorrow to accomplish your next small goal. Small victories empower us for bigger victories.

When your goal is bigger than you and you realize, in fact, so little of what you do is about you, that no one is paying much attention to you anyway, suddenly you can get out of your own way. If you're struggling with getting out of your own way, ask yourself who needs this that is not you. Do it for that person.

You will move the direction in which you're pointed. If you are always looking back to the past, reliving your failures or even your successes, no wonder you're not moving forward very quickly. You can either spend time sitting around, thinking about the "glory days," or you can get about the business of finishing first in your life right now. The idea is to stay pointed forward, to focus your attention on the direction you'd like to go.

God has always promised to do more than we would ever ask or imagine. It's just that so few of us take Him up on His offer.

Anything that will keep you from your own ability to be successful is sabotage—procrastinating, drinking too much, not eating healthfully, showing up late, phoning it in, even just ignoring the instruction of your coach (or boss or teacher). This is all self-sabotage. When will you stop making decisions that are bad for you? When you decide you're ready to win.

That's what makes the Ryder Cup in golf so much better than the Masters or the U.S. Open. To be a part of something that is not about personal achievement, but about representing everyone and sharing it with the whole country, it's wonderful.

I was nine-years-old when I first put on skates.

And the fact that I liked to show off and be the center of attention really lends itself to figure skating very well.

Half of figure skating is opinion, convincing judges.

But I never really thought that I would be extraordinarily successful at skating, it's just something that happened, you know.

What was really funny is that as I got older all those guys who called me a sissy in junior high school wanted me to be their best friend because they wanted to meet all the girls that I knew in figure skating.

Without strength and courage it's really hard to perform at the highest levels of international figure skating, because you're alone on the ice and you only have seven minutes over two nights to prove yourself.

So as an amateur Olympic competitor I loved criticism, because it made me better. But now as a professional I don't really know how to channel it or where to take it, so I don't take it quite as well.