Finding Your Inner Perseverance
Emily Rodger’s Story of Overcoming Adversity To Achieve A Multifaceted Life
Listen Now
In This Episode
Imagine finding a career that you love, are talented at and have achieved success. Got it? Okay, now imagine you are hit by a car. Twice. Would you have the mental and physical endurance to come back from such traumatic events? If you did fight your way back, would you be able to know when your mental health needs to take precedence over that career and walk away from it? If you’ve faced adversity in your career, you need to listen to the story of our guest Emily Rodger.
Emily joined us in the studio as a surprise guest after having lunch with Greg to discuss potential projects with Hemmings House Pictures. Greg felt like he needed to bring her along as a guest to tell her story to our Boiling Point listeners. Emily has a successful career as a professional cyclist but has faced her share of challenges to overcome surviving being hit by a car not once, but twice. Her strength of character shines through as she explains the times that she avoided dealing with her mental health. She shares the times when she knew she needed to take a step back to prioritize her mental health. Wonderful lessons learned about recognizing the strength in our skills that we can transfer to other opportunities and the perseverance we should all work towards finding in ourselves.
Episode Breakdown
First 10 Minutes
Greg introduces us to Emily, who he brought along for the day right from lunch to surprise Dave. Emily introduces herself and explains how she started biking at the age of 28 and the path she took to pursuing a competitive cycling career. Emily talks very openly about the mental struggles she faced after suffering from a very severe car crash.
10 Minutes – 20 Minutes
Emily shares how her family helped her address her mental health challenges so that she could move past them and focus on her competitive biking career. Emily shares that during her successful wins, she suffered a second accident of being hit by a car. She speaks about her recovery to get back to racing. How she chose to take a break and step back from racing because she recognized her mental health needed to be a priority. She shares how she put her time and energy into fly fishing which currently became a passion for her.
The group talks about making sure you enjoy the journey of whatever you are doing and not always focus on the results.
20 Minutes – 30 Minutes
The group discusses how making “I am…” statements can sometimes make you feel trapped if something helps and makes you unable to continue on that path. Emily talks about how you can look at the skills you learned and re-apply them somewhere else. Greg talks about the opportunity to share Emily’s story.
The group discusses the strength needed to overcome adversity as different trials and tribulations come in and out of your life.
Emily Rodger
Emily Rodger is a professional competitive cyclist. She is a 2 times UCI Gran Fondo World Champion. Her hobbies include biking, fly fishing and all things outdoors.