Carl Magnus: Hello! And welcome to a webinar or seminar, whatever you want to call it, together with one of the world's best alpine skiers who will get to introduce himself a little more. My name is CM and I work for a company called TQ Nordic. We work with tests and personality analyzes linked to performance, recruitment and a little more. But we'll focus on you and your journey, and we'll see where we end up because neither you nor I are particularly structured or planned, so we'll take it one step at a time. How does it feel?

Sara Hector: Yes, thank you so much for letting me come right here. It feels exciting. I compete in alpine skiing, have done it in the World Cup since 2009 so it's a long journey I've been on now.

Carl Magnus: It's getting to be a few years.

Sara Hector: It's getting to be quite a few years and I love to ski. Besides that, I think it's a lot of fun to get better at things, regardless of what it is. I think development is a lot of fun.

Carl Magnus: And if you tell something more personal about yourself that no one else knows about, what would you highlight?

Sara Hector: Something personal about myself? Yes, I like to study a lot too. Read, think. I have two bachelor's degrees in economics, one in psychology. I love being on water. I like summer very much, although I love winter too. I really enjoy working out. I like to push my limits, see what I can become. I'm curious too, and surely that would be how we met. But that's not really true actually.

Carl Magnus: I know that you are not only curious, but you also have an extremely high desire to experiment with things that you may not know the outcome of.

Sara Hector: No, but I cook. I do. But it often turns out well. Now I'm for real. I ask my boyfriend. Yes, it actually often turns out well. But I'm not very good at following a recipe. No, you can imagine it.

Carl Magnus: Can imagine it.

Sara Hector: What gets bad is when you bake because baking is harder than cooking. Food can be experimented with and it often turns out quite well. But baking, it must also rise.

Sara Hector: And there, if you experiment too much, then it can get a little bad.

Carl Magnus: And how is it?

Sara Hector: I've realized lately that if we follow a recipe, or at least partially follow it, then the results tend to be better. But not always.

Carl Magnus: Because I know that baking in particular has some kind of connection to your career and your performance. After all, baking requires patience during the fermentation time. And that is…

Sara Hector: I have a very hard time with patience.

Carl Magnus: I know patience is not your strong suit.

Sara Hector: No, it has definitely been a challenge in my career. I had a coach who talked a lot about patience, patience, and I thought no, how long do you have to be patient? But I've had to practice that.

Carl Magnus: Yes I understand. But we've sent out here on LinkedIn and a lot of invitations to talk about tests and connect you to the Olympic gold, so we'll see what we come up with. But we'll try to stay on topic. So I was wondering if you could outline for us how we started working together, because it was actually connected to tests.

Sara Hector: Yes exactly. The funny thing was that my brother, he had worked as a telemarketer one summer and said, "You need to learn to sell better, it's so useful in life to be able to sell." When I had been a telemarketer I learned so much and he beat me to the punch. I was so disappointed in that.

Sara Hector: He can be quite intense when he nags so I got quite annoyed. Had I met you at Bosön when you had been there and trained the summer before? Then I said to my brother, "I know someone who works with tests, so I can get in touch with him." Then he said, "Then do it." All said and done, terrified I call you on the phone and feel like do I really have to do this? But I got an answer. And those who were excited on the other end of the phone, I was very happy because then I didn't have to work as a telemarketer, which I had no desire to do. Then you sent me lots of tests.

Sara Hector: I did the tests and fixed everything and then I came to your office and waited.

Carl Magnus: Let's say that the tests you took were a personality test, a motivation test and three aptitude tests. I think it's quite brave of you to dare to do that, to dare to reveal yourself the first thing you do to someone you don't know, to do a verbal, numerical and logical test.

Sara Hector: It would have been worse if it was someone I knew.

Carl Magnus: Okay, tell me why.

Sara Hector: Because if there is someone who has already formed an opinion about me, whether I am smart or not. But if it's someone I don't know, then there isn't a preconceived notion I need to live up to.

Carl Magnus: Now I understand. I'll come back with a question related to that later, remind me.

Sara Hector: Anyway, when I did these tests and I come to you in the office and I was very nervous because I didn't know what to expect at all. I remember this day so well. So we sit down, and you say, "I think in skiing you have problems with this, this, and this." I thought, my God, how does he know this? I only did one test and based on that you could pinpoint things that my coaches didn't even understand about me, or that I myself had thought and felt.

Sara Hector: It was really like you had opened a book about me. I was completely shocked. The idea was actually that I would work in sales, but it turned out to be mental training instead. The one I worked with during that time I think was from the Olympic Committee. But it happened very quickly that I switched to working with you because I felt that you understood me on a level that no one else had. It helped me start working on getting better confidence, especially in competitive situations. I called you very often.

Carl Magnus: Yes, we had a very close dialogue at first.

Sara Hector: Very, very close for the first two or three years. But then we also trained a lot together. I have a question for you, how much of a difference would you say it made to recognize me just by looking at a personality test and of course the other parts like motivation and aptitude tests? How much of a difference would you say it made when you really got to know me?

Carl Magnus: It is probably a matter of training to be able to be objective based on tests. One must not forget that you are not the test result, however, I think that the test reflects you very, very well. The personality test reflects your actions in both competition contexts and training situations. I would say they are pretty similar to what I expected.

Sara Hector: So I have pretty good self-awareness?

Carl Magnus: Yes, you answered the tests very honestly. You opened up very honestly and one of the parts that stood out very clearly is the self-critical side. The thing about it taking time for you to recover from setbacks, you take it pretty hard and sometimes beat yourself up. But it also means that you take quite a lot of responsibility for your results and so on.

Carl Magnus: Could you tell us a little bit about how the self-critical side has expressed itself in both the training context and the competition context? And what is the difference between training and competition in that respect?

Sara Hector: I'm always self-critical, but the more things are put to the test, the more important it becomes to me. Then those feelings usually come stronger.

Carl Magnus: Do you want to reveal how it manifests itself on the actual competition day?

Sara Hector: Yes, I get a lot of performance anxiety. I have worked on managing that over the years. Incredibly much. I was at an Olympic Committee event recently and many people had not experienced performance anxiety. I thought, my God, how could you not have experienced that? It can take different forms. Sometimes I felt like I didn't have a clue how to handle it. The anxiety causes the body's fight-or-flight system to turn on, you become stressed and it takes physical expression. You need to go to the toilet, feel nervous, sleep worse. Many things are affected by stress. But I've learned that being nervous doesn't have to be a problem, it can be an advantage. I perform better when I have it, because somewhere I might sharpen up when I get stressed.

Sara Hector: But when there is too much stress, then I start thinking very negatively. My coaches think it's a big problem. They wish I didn't have this site. I've been told that we have to build a belief that I'm better than I am, especially in competitive situations. When it's competition, it hits and I don't think I can. But I've competed and felt like I can't and still performed great.

Carl Magnus: I feel that you have always been self-critical and have a high self-awareness. Tests have helped you put it into words, and instead of trying to change yourself, you've accepted and worked with it. You try to find the positive aspects of it instead of changing your personality.

Sara Hector: I clearly remember one time when you said that when thoughts come, I can't trust them. I cannot see them as truth. It made a big difference to me. To accept that this is how it is. That many who perform well may not have that side, but I actually think Mikaela Shiffrin does.

Carl Magnus: Why do you think that?

Sara Hector: I've got the feeling that she also has a lot of performance anxiety and has been working on being happy even if it's not always perfect. I think she is self-critical.

Carl Magnus: I know you've said sometime before competition that you might not be able to perform when it matters most. But when it absolutely mattered most and you were going to take Olympic gold, you performed at your best.

Sara Hector: Yes, I was in great shape, but I have never been so nervous in my entire life as I was that day. It was the hardest day of my entire life.

Carl Magnus: How did you get through that day and the Olympic gold? How did you get through it mentally and connected to tests and personality?

Sara Hector: I started the day by struggling to eat breakfast. I am quite emotional, as you can see from my tests. I feel a lot of emotions. I started the day extremely nervous, stressed, but I was extremely focused on what I was going to do. I had a clear goal. I remember sitting in the lift on the way up to the inspection, it was quite quiet. Normally I talk a lot, but then I was quiet and focused.

Carl Magnus: And it shows in the personality tests, but also something that is extremely important for your sport.

Sara Hector: Yes, I probably become extremely selfish in such moments, only seeing myself. I feel that I have become much better at handling stress and trusting what I see in the inspection.

Carl Magnus: It's actually one of your superpowers. You stick to the plan you set.

Sara Hector: Yes, most of the time. I have colleagues who go through the track maybe 80 times. I would die of boredom if I did. I won't fix it. I'm pretty professional, but the fact that I toast the tests so much means I don't have to do it 80 times. I do it once and then it sits.

Carl Magnus: Few are blessed.

Sara Hector: I have learned to manage stress and make smart decisions. Keeping calm, I've had to work on that. But I feel like I've gotten a lot better at it.

Carl Magnus: But how did you get through that day?

Sara Hector: I was extremely focused, saw the track as opportunities. The warm-up went well. I was nervous about the first ride but decided to enjoy it. When I got to the start I calmed down. I was leading after the first run.

Carl Magnus: And what was it like to take the lead in the second run?

Sara Hector: It was very nerve-wracking. There were many hours between races because there were downhill races for the men in between. I tried to sleep but couldn't. I was so nervous, could barely eat. But I decided to enjoy the feeling, even if it was hard. I was extremely nervous the whole time, but when I stood on the starting line I felt proud to be fighting for an Olympic gold medal.

Carl Magnus: It must be an amazing feeling, especially considering your knee injury a few years earlier when you weren't even sure if you would be able to continue skiing.

Sara Hector: Yes, I was convinced that I would come back. Your faith in me gave me a lot of security during that period. It is important to believe that things will go well.

Carl Magnus: And now you have picked up the Olympic gold. How did it feel to achieve that goal?

Sara Hector: It was a great feeling, but the funny thing is that I didn't quite reach my goal. I set a very high goal for myself. But it gave me a lot of motivation and drive. I think it's important to always strive to be better.

Carl Magnus: It is also the part that makes you never satisfied, that you always want to be better and make high demands on yourself and your surroundings. Can you tell us a little more about that?

Sara Hector: Yes, I know that I make high demands on myself and indirectly on those around me. It can be a strength, but also a challenge. I'm working on trying to be kinder to myself and others, but it's not always easy. I have amazing people around me who help me get better.

Carl Magnus: It is important to find a balance there. Now I see that time is up here, so let's wrap this up. It's been really interesting talking to you, and maybe we can do it again sometime in the future.

Sara Hector: Yes, there is much more to talk about. It's been great fun being here.

Carl Magnus: Thank you so much for taking the time. Hope you all had a good lunch and an inspiring time. Bye!