đ§ In This Episode
We sit down with Annie Thorisdottir â 15-season CrossFit Games veteran and two-time Fittest Woman on Earth â and Christine Bald, co-writer of her new biography Iceland Annie: The Evolution of a CrossFit Games Legend, five years in the making.
Together, they unpack what actually built Annieâs career: the private work most people never see, the character trained alongside the fitness, and the collaboration that made the book possible.
Youâll learn why character â humility, resilience, generosity, curiosity â has to be trained the same way fitness is: in private, repeatedly, without immediate reward. And youâll hear why obsession, aimed at progress instead of outcome, becomes fuel rather than a threat.
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đ 5 BIG IDEAS
1. You Donât Just Train Fitness. You Train Character.
Christine names it clearly in this conversation: Annie wasnât just training rope climbs and snatches in private. She was training humility â the willingness to ask for help. Resilience â the ability to respond to setbacks with action instead of excuses. Generosity â the mental freedom to celebrate a younger athleteâs success. Curiosity â staying open to learning in her 15th season.
These are not soft skills. They are practiced behaviors, developed through repetition, in private, without an audience. The character that shows up on the podium is the same character that was being built long before anyone was watching.
2. Consistency Is Unglamorous By Design.
Steph Curry shoots 500 shots every single day. Annie has had a six-pack since she was seven â not because of genetics, but because she started working at seven and never stopped. The discipline behind elite performance is, by design, invisible to anyone who hasnât lived it.
What most of us see is the CrossFit Games weekend â Annie at peak shape, performing at peak capacity. What we donât see is every other day of every other week of every other year. The compounding effect of unremarkable days, done well, is the most underrated force in human performance.
3. Obsession Is Fuel â Control the Throttle.
Annie describes being obsessed with progress: always hunting the next increment, always finding something to improve. Christine acknowledges that ADHD means when she finds something interesting, she excavates it completely. Both credit obsession as a primary driver of their success.
But both note its limits. If a bad training day becomes a bad life, the obsession starts to pull you under instead of forward. The goal isnât to eliminate obsession â itâs to direct it toward progress rather than outcome. Obsessed with getting better: yes. Obsessed with a single result: dangerous.
4. Think Only About the Next Event.
Annie describes competing at the CrossFit Games after her heat stroke experience, fixated on the long run event scheduled for Saturday morning â two events before it happened. Her coaches had to keep pulling her back: this event, not that one.
The same principle applied when Christine was writing the book. All 480 pages at once was paralyzing. One chapter at a time was manageable. The military teaches the same thing: focus only on the mission in front of you. Get through it. Then move to the next one. Present-moment focus is not passive â itâs an active discipline, practiced under pressure.
5. The Right Collaborator Raises the Ceiling.
Annie was unwilling to write this book with anyone other than Christine â not because Christine was the most credentialed, but because she was the right fit. Someone who knew CrossFit deeply, had proven herself on the childrenâs book, and whose values aligned with Annieâs. Same held with her training partnerships, coaches, and sports psychiatrist.
The right collaboration doesnât just add skills. It raises the ceiling. And the way you find the right collaborators is by knowing your own values clearly enough to recognize theirs.
Nobody drifts on purpose, just like nobody chases excellence by accident.
Thatâs why we built the ChaseTracker app. A simple system to identify, track, and chase what matters in just a few minutes a day.
đ¤ 3 REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. Where in your life are you only seeing other peopleâs public moments â and using them to measure your private effort?
Itâs easy to see Annie on the podium and think you understand what it took. Itâs easy to see Christineâs books on a shelf and think the work came naturally. Where are you looking at someone elseâs visible wins and drawing unfair conclusions about your own invisible effort? What would it look like to ask: what is this person actually doing in private that Iâm not seeing?
2. What are you training in private that has nothing to do with a physical skill?
Annie was training humility, resilience, generosity, curiosity. Christine was training the capacity to prepare for projects that might not materialize. What character trait do you most need to develop right now â and what does a private training session for that actually look like in your week?
3. Where are you letting your mind run ahead to the hard future thing instead of staying present with the current one?
Annie spent part of the 2021 Games fixated on a long run event she hadnât reached yet â and it was costing her. Where in your life are you compromising your present performance by dreading something that hasnât happened yet? What would it feel like to practice returning to the mission in front of you?
đŻ 1 PRACTICE
Train one character rep this week.
Not a physical rep. A character rep. Pick one trait â patience, humility, resilience, generosity â that you know you need to develop, and identify one specific situation this week where youâre likely to be tested on it.
Before the situation, set the intention: This is where I practice. During it, notice when you want to take the easier path â the defensive response, the retreat, the complaint â and choose differently. After, note what happened. Not as a performance review. As a data point.
Annie didnât become a resilient competitor by accident. She practiced resilience in small moments, over years. The same is available to any of us. One rep at a time.