I'm learning that I constantly surprise people. Most people I meet these days know me as someone's mom, Eriek's wife, or Laura from church, etc. They are always surprised (usually months later) to discover I'm an Olympic athlete... and happen to have won a gold medal. I've met quite a few people whose first impression of me isn't much or questionable. You can tell by obvious expressions. I'm a motivational speaker, and a good one at that, but I'm not an overwhelming loud personality off the stage. Sometimes people meet this fairly quiet, smallish person and you can almost hear them thinking, "Can she actually speak in front of people?" In diving, I was almost always the lone smile among a very intense and serious group of elite athletes. Quite a few people said I didn't have what it takes, I wasn't focused or I needed to be something different. Then someone dubbed me the "Angel of Death" because my happy-go-lucky appearance won every world title available. The moral of the story is ...