​On Valentine’s Day in 1988, Dan Jansen was awakened at Calgary’s Olympic Village with terrible news: His sister was dying of leukemia.Then 22, Dan was a world-champion speed skater. Favored to win his Olympic race later that day, he had one last phone call with 27-year-old Jane.On a ventilator, she could understand him but couldn’t speak. She died around 10 a.m., just hours after the call.Compete Despite Personal HardshipWith Jane’s health declining before the Olympics, she had urged Dan to compete and not change his plans. So he fought through his grief in the 500-meter race.But he slipped and fell. The same thing happened a few days later in the 1000-meter race.The next day, Dan held a packed news conference. The moderator set a ground rule: No questions about Jane’s passing.When a reporter broke the rule, Jansen kept his composure.”He was very calm,” recalled Mike Jansen, Dan’s brother. “He sat back and said, ‘We’re not answering questions about that.'”Recruit SupportBy then, Dan Jansen had won a legion of supporters for his ability to fight through adversity.Jansen returned to the Olympics four years later but missed out again on winning any medals. It was only in his last Olympics in 1994, after 10 years of intense Olympic effort, that he finally won a gold medal.For Jansen, the long road to Olympic glory was the culmination of years of mental and physical preparation.At 12, Jansen competed in his first national championship along with his brother Mike, another elite speed skater. Their parents drove the boys from their Wisconsin home to Minnesota for the race.Mike won his race. But Dan finished second in his event.”I was happy for him but I was devastated,” Dan said. “For much of the six-hour drive back home, I was crying in the back seat.”Accept Help From People You TrustJansen, 61, describes his father as a “gentle giant” who shared words of wisdom during trying times. So he waited for his dad to console him.”When we get home, he comes into the room and says, ‘There’s more to life than skating around in a circle,'” Dan said. “At the time, it was the worst thing to say. But 10 years later when my sister passed away on the morning of my race and I fell, it put everything in perspective. It was a defining lesson in my life.”Measure Success On Your TermsThe Calgary Games were not Jansen’s first Olympics. He made his debut four years earlier in Sarajevo as an 18-year-old world champion who was expected to win the gold.”I finished in fourth place (in the 500-meters) and just missed a bronze,” he said. “I was hoping to finish in the top 10. So I thought, ‘I did OK.'”Yet others treated his fourth-place finish as a crushing disappointment.”I think it’s important that you measure your own success,” he said. “I don’t like that others can call you a success or failure. You’re the only one who knows if you gave it everything.”Jansen had unlocked a key to superior performance: Rather than focus on how others perceive you, set your own goals and judge y