Meet Malcolm Havens

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Malcolm Havens a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Malcolm, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

Confidence and self esteem come from different sources. Confidence is a belief in your abilities. In general, I’m a confident person but I’m confident in my ability to put in the work to create results in any given arena that I choose. If someone put me in a new environment, I wouldn’t start off confident, but i’d have confidence in my ability to learn the skills necessary to succeed.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

The story that I wanted to share wasn’t so much about my career as it is a story of overcoming despite challenges. I grew up battling upper respiratory infections my entire life. Between the ages of 5 and 15 years old i had 5 sinus surgeries, my tonsils removed, biopsy’s done on my lungs. My parents took me to see every different kind of doctor and specialist that someone cold think of trying to figure out why i was having these health problems. They persisted my entire life until this last January. At 41 years old I was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. Normallly, left untreated, the average life expectancy for an individual with Cystic fibrosis is 37-42 years old.
Despite having un-diagnosed CF, I was a successful athlete. I was a state placer in high school. I was the 4th ranked wrestler in the nation as a high school senior. I wrestled at the University of Wyoming. 2 years after college I represented the united states at the world grappling championships and I won the gold there. After my college career i continued to pursue varius athletic ventures, placing high in some mens physique competitions and carrying a handicapped boy up a 14,000 foot peak in colorado.
Through all this I was known for a persistent cough and was always the guy in the corner hacking up a lung.
Since my diagnosis I feel like a completely different person. I sleep better at night because i dont cough, i can workout without hacking. My lung function has improoved by over 25% in just a few months.

2 months ago, i was having a conversation with my father about the sport of wrestling. We had a conversation about this years olympic games and then the olympics in 2028. After our conversation I knew with every ounce of my being that i’m supposed to train to try and compete at the 2028 olympic games.

I’m working on building up a mental skills and mindset coaching program that I started a few months ago to replace my income from my jog in oil and gas so that I can free up more of my time to train. I’m also working on getting funding to help support. my training journey for 2028.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I think the most important skills are the ability to push yourself regardless of how you feel or your emotions. Aside form pushing through actual injury, which is dumb, pushing through discomfort is necessary for success in any endeavor. For me, I had to embrace more discomfort than most in my sport becuase of the limitations of my lung function.

Listen to the right people. I had doctors that told my parents that I wouldn’t live past 30 years old and that I’d never succeed as an athlete and I’d never have quality health. I chose not to listen to them and went to work battling every day in the areas that I thought would help me live a better life. Yes, I know that medication has helped a ton in the last few months but outside of that, I was still living a quality life because of hard work and dedication.

Cultivating self belief. As I mentioned before, that I have confidence in my ability to learn and master things. We cultivate confidence and self belief by building trust in ourselves. If we say were going to do things and don’t do them, or we quit most things we do becauese they get hard, then we undercut our ability to grow in confidence. We have no reason to believe in ourselves becasue we’ve never seen ourself persevere despite difficulty.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I’m looking for people that want to be a part of the journey in the pathway to the 2028 Olympic games. It may be anyone that would want to contribute to help found the journey or could be someone with connections to groups of athletes that could benefit from building the mental skills that will help consistently unlock every bit of their potential as athletes.
They can email me at [email protected], call me at 303-888-7218 or go to my website www.malcolmhavens.com

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.malcolmhavens.xom
• Youtube: @malcolmhavens2283