Hi, this is Ogonna Nnamani Silva. I grew up in Normal, Illinois. It is a town two hour south of Chicago.

I never thought I would be an athlete, which is quite interesting. I lived with asthma. I was first diagnosed with asthma at two. My childhood was often defined by ER visits and hospitalizations. It was a tough time, but I was really fortunate to have incredible doctors that took great care of me, their treatment, and their support. And they just gave me hope to keep trying to get better. And I’m really fortunate for their care. So it was the doctors that inspired me to one day try to do the same thing for others. I was so appreciative of all that they did for me and my entire family. And I said, “You know what, I want to do that one day.”

I had a hard time with physical activity, especially with the asthma, so I never thought of myself as an athlete. And a lot of things in life are mental. And of course, you can’t prevent asthma attacks all the time. And you can’t just will yourself mentally to get over things at times. I know that. But when you are feeling well, you still have that dark cloud of the asthma haunting you. I certainly did growing up. And so for me, I could never shake that barrier until I watched the Olympic games with Jackie Joyner-Kersee competing in 1992, which I will never forget. She was the best athlete of all time, I would say. And I really love her for so many reasons, but I love that she grew up in Illinois. She’s from East St. Louis. She played basketball, volleyball, and track, so she was a phenomenal athlete. She was a legend both in Illinois and throughout the country, so to see her compete and win a gold medal in the heptathlon was and still is the best display of athleticism that I’ve ever seen. She’s outstanding. She won the gold and I was blown away by her performance. But then part of me was like, “You know what, I don’t think I’d ever compete at that level one day.” And luckily, I stuck around for the commercials. She had a commercial talking about her asthma. I couldn’t believe that she had asthma. And she was reaching all these athletic achievements. So that moment was the most important moment of my life, I would say, because she told me that, “I have a difficulty, and I’m able to overcome it.” So she was the mental model for me as an athlete that told me that I can compete too. And so I still had a long way to go before I was able to run and jump. But having that mental model for me was so important.

[This sound byte is from an interview with Ogonna for the Longitude.site Olympian Mindset project. To see more insights on the project, stay tuned for upcoming announcements.]

Dr. Nnamani Silva’s story is a great example of how our barriers to success are so often mental. Even if she was feeling healthy, the fear of having an asthma attack kept her from testing her limits. However, seeing athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee compete at the Olympic level despite also having asthma broke down that mental barrier for her and inspired her to continue participating in sports, eventually leading her to an Olympic career in volleyball.  Inspired by the doctors who treated her asthma during childhood, she later decided to pursue a career in medicine as well.

Seeking out role models and community can be a great way to find this inspiration in your own life, in whatever you want to do, no matter how challenging it may seem. It is so easy to get stuck in a rut of identifying reasons why you can’t succeed instead of looking for reasons why you can. Finding others who have faced the same challenges as you and overcome them can shake you out of that mindset and motivate you achieve goals that you might not have thought possible at first.