#332 | Bad Bunny, Sam Darnold, and Lindsey Vonn: What They Teach Us - Whole Again: Mindfulness and Resilience Through Kintsugi Wisdom

What do a halftime show, a Super Bowl comeback, and a crash on Olympic slopes have in common? More than you think.

Whether or not you're into sports, these three real-life stories reveal powerful truths about love, perseverance, and the courage to make your own choices—even when the world is watching. In a divided and fast-paced world, these moments remind us how shared humanity and personal agency can bring us back to what matters most.

Discover why Bad Bunny’s halftime show and U2’s tribute decades earlier both speak the language of love
Hear how Sam Darnold’s journey to Super Bowl champion reveals what most leaders miss about resilience
Explore why Lindsey Vonn’s choice to race through injury uncovers deep societal biases—and why honoring agency matters more than ever

Press play to reflect on how music, sport, and struggle can remind us of what connects us—and how to keep showing up with courage and compassion.

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Hey there, it's Michael. Welcome to Whole again, the show that can help you navigate today's uncertainty with a bit more mindfulness, resilience, and grace. And today I have a special episode for you, three reflections from this past weekend that was all about sports. Now, if you're not a sports fan, stay with me because these reflections really speak to our shared humanity.

So trust me on this one, this will be good. So here's the first reflection, bad bunny, the Super Bowl's halftime show. What a performance. Now I'm a Gen X kid, and I've long thought that U2 in 2002 had the best halftime show ever. It was a moving tribute to the victims of nine 11. It was held down in New Orleans.

That's where the Super Bowl was played that year. All the people that came to our country's aid, if there's one word, at least for me, that sums up that performance, it was love. Actually, U2 has a song called Pride In the Name of Love. I believe music is medicine. I love music and I love the NFL Super Bowl Halftime show.

I believe music is medicine. I love music and I love the NFL Super Bowl Halftime show. There have been a ton of performers who have performed that I just adore. I loved what they did, but U2 has always been my favorite. It still is, but I know the younger generation, mainly like Gen Z, I think Bad Bunny might be their favorite.

In fact, my youngest daughter said this was her favorite performance in her lifetime. And if I had to use one word to describe it. It would be love. He actually said, the only thing stronger than hate is love. Amen. To that, it was a performance of love. It was also a performance of having pride of one's heritage.

There's actually a meditation on my pause. Breathe, reflect up where you can express gratitude for your heritage. Now, I'm not a Spanish speaker, so I didn't know the meaning. Of really any of his songs, but I could feel it. I could feel it in his performance. I could feel it in the dancers. I loved what he said, that we're all Americans, we're united, we're connected, we're one, especially in today's age where we feel so divided and most of us are appalled at what ICE is doing.

To our fellow Americans. So that was my first reflection. Two great performances, both driven by the power of love, which by the way is a Huey Lewis and the new song, which is a band that's good, but not in the realm of Bad Bunny or you two. So that's number one. Number two deals with Sam Darn. He is the quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks that won the Super Bowl.

You'll see on social media many people cheering Sam's story of resilience and he has a great one, and we love a great resilient story here on whole. Again, who doesn't? Uh, at least that's my question. Who doesn't love resilience? So he certainly has it. He also has a really healthy conversation and belief in himself.

Seattle is his fifth team. Allow me to share a brief background of Sam's history in the NFL. He came in as a top prospect into the New York Jets, but didn't farewell. He didn't play very well, and all the pundits, all the experts said, this guy's nothing. Get rid of him. He's no good. So the Jets did that off to Carolina.

He went another franchise, like the Jets that don't really have a history of success, of creating great environments or developing good systems. And he didn't do so hot there either. The Jets felt validated. See, it's not us, it's him. He stinks. So the pundits piled on and said, yeah, this Sam Darnell guy, he's no good.

Then he went to San Francisco, not as a starter as he was in Carolina and the Jets, but now as a backup and was largely considered his time in San Francisco, a reset year, but they had a star quarterback, so he moved on to the Vikings and into a better system for him, a better environment. He won 14 games that year.

It was amazing. The last two, he struggled. So the pundits came back again and said, uh, this guy doesn't have what it takes to win the big game. Maybe he's rebounded. Maybe it's a fluke. The 14 wins, but he doesn't have what it takes to win the big game to win the Super Bowl. So the Vikings went with their bright hot prospect from the University of Michigan, and Sam decided to go the free agency route and went to Seattle.

This year they won 14 games making him the only other quarterback besides Tom Brady. You know that guy, the goat, to win 14 games in a season, back to back. Pretty incredible. And now he's a Super Bowl champion. So Sam's story is, yes, one of resilience. A lot of people, a lot of leaders will get up there and be like, you gotta be like Sam, darn.

You gotta be resilient. I also think there's something that companies can really leverage and pause, breathe, and reflect on when it comes to Sam's story, and I say this as a leadership coach 'cause I don't see it happening too often, many times, probably more times than we really know about. You have a good employee, but the environment or system you've set up doesn't allow you to utilize.

Your employees talents. So they might have game. Sam had game when he got drafted by the Jets, and he is worked on his craft, no doubt, trying to take steps towards mastery. So he was working on himself. I think every employee should do that as well. In his early years with the Jets and the Carolina Panthers, they didn't have systems that set Sam up for success.

Now I doubt. New York and Carolina are doing any naval gazing and thinking about, well, maybe it's us. Maybe it wasn't Sam. Well, maybe today they are after he just won the Super Bowl, but I think every company should assess their team members to see where their team members are at. What strengths did they bring into the company?

What could help them become even stronger employees?

But I also think that companies would serve themselves well when they think about employees, especially those employees that are struggling. Maybe it's not about the employee, maybe it's about us. Maybe we don't have them in the right environment or in the right system to utilize their strengths to really tap into their potential.

James Clear, who wrote Atomic Habits, has a quote that's often used in the self-help or personal development space. He shares that you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level or the health of your systems. So every NFL team out there has a goal of winning the Super Bowl, but not all of them have the right system or right environment.

This part of Sam's story is one that I think more companies could benefit from to change how their company works together so they can feel whole again. And from that place, that's when you really tap into. The collective potential of a great team. Alright, they say three is the magic number. So let's get to reflection number three, and this one is from the Winter Olympics and involves an athlete that has inspired me more than any other athlete over the last 25 years.

Her name Lindsay Vaughn. I'm a huge fan. Lindsay and I share the fact that we've put our bodies through the ringer. We both have knee replacements and share other injuries as well as countless surgeries, but that's when the comparison tends to drift away a bit. That said, she is inspired me, her grit and resilience through many low moments in my own recovery.

Like millions of other people here in the States. I woke up early Sunday morning to watch her race the downhill in Cortina, even though a few days earlier she crashed during a training run and tore her ACL, the ACL. For those that don't know, you need that. In sports. You definitely need that if you're about to throw yourself down a mountain at 80 miles per hour.

But she decided to give it a go. She was like, Hey, I'm gonna send it. It's only 90 seconds. I can do this. I've come back from worse, which she has. So I love that about her. I was like, yes, you go Lindsay. Make it happen. So I tuned in, hoping for a great Olympic moment, but I knew it was going to be challenging based on what my body has gone through.

And within 13 seconds, her day was over. She crashed hard and you could hear her cries of pain and I was like, oh my God, I can so relate. I've been there. I was hurting along with everyone else. I was hurting with her. People were. Obviously concerned. The crowd in Corina went silent. There was great worry.

Thoughts were all about love and compassion, hoping that Lindsay was going to be okay. Of course, hoping for an easy recovery and hopefully she could feel whole again. That's what most people wanted, and that's what came out in social media. What also came out in social media, and I didn't really realize this until I read a post on LinkedIn by Amy Cuddy.

I wasn't surprised, although I was disappointed to read that a whole bunch of people were criticizing her decision to race, and I get it. That's what people do on social media now. I do realize it's more about them and their feeling of insecurity. So they love to throw shade on other people as a way to lift themselves up.

I get all that, but it's still disappointing to read when you see that part of our humanity come out. They were critical of her decision to race. They were critical about her age, her body critical of the Olympic organizers for allowing her to ski. The US ski team for allowing her to ski all of it. There was a whole bunch of shade.

Again, I wasn't surprised, although I was disappointed, but it was very odd because these same people who were throwing shade at Lindsay were not people who have skied down a mountain at 80 miles an hour, and they were probably getting ready to watch the Super Bowl where men play hurt, injured concussed.

And they're celebrated for that. We call it toughness. We call it heart. We call it warrior ethos. We make a big deal about it. We make montage video clips, we celebrate it, we beat our chest. But when a woman chooses risk, like Lindsay did on her own terms, suddenly everyone. A concerned expert, but here's the thing, it's her body.

It's her choice. It's her assessment of the risk for Lindsay and actually for any athlete, they get to make the call as to whether or not they're gonna go into competi. You can say this about life, but let's take sports because that's what we're on right now. Sports, like skiing and football and my sport like cycling, we've always had to dance between courage and consequences.

I know that every time I go out for a bike ride, it can be my very last bike ride, and I know this because I've come as close to the wine of dire consequences. As I possibly can get, so I know I take on risk every time I ride my bike. I do it with open awareness, and it's my decision really no one else's, just like it was Lindsay's decision to compete or a football player's decision to compete.

It's not fair. Celebrate and cheer for all the bravery and then shame the cost. And it's certainly not fair to do it differently for women, for men and non-binary athletes, the most simple thing that people can do is wish her well, hope that she has a speedy recovery and respect her agency. Anything less isn't concern.

By the trolls on the internet, it's a double standard. It's actually called sexism, and it's rampant in sports. Women, athletes face this all the time. Women in society face this all the time, and as a culture, we can't feel whole again without more mindfulness and beliefs that divide us, that separate us, that prevent us from feeling whole again.

Sexism is a belief that prevents that from happening. But through mindfulness, we can do a deeper dive and begin to understand why we might feel the way we do. And once we get there, we can take different action to let those thoughts be and celebrate athletes all around the world. For going out into the arena and competing and taking on risk.

They're inspiring, they're motivational, and we can see ourselves in them. Much like I see myself in Lindsay and I see myself in Sam and I see myself in Bad Bunny. All three are stories of resilience. Of love of getting out there into the arena and making things happen, creating a beautiful ripple that can inspire current generations and future generations.

To believe that we can be more that we are today, that by coming together, we can create a better tomorrow, not just for some of us, but for all of us. And as always, thank you for being here. Let me know your reflections of the Super Bowl of Bad Bunny's, performance of the Olympics. I really do appreciate you being part of our whole again, community.

And if you haven't yet, join me over on Substack there. I share my writing. I do a teaching each week as well as I host two meditations each week so you can come together and practice in community. And every Friday we do a love and kindness meditation or a meta meditation. It's fantastic. You'll love it.

So join us over there and until then, keep pedaling and put a beautiful ripple into the world. I appreciate you.