Olympics

Aly Raisman said her Olympics success gave her a ‘more positive outlook’ on what’s next

"I think perseverance is really crucial and key if you want to be successful at anything in life," she said at the Forbes Under 30 Summit in Boston.

Aly Raisman at the Forbes Under 30 Summit. Uyen Cao for Forbes

October 18, 2016

2 minutes to read

Becoming a six-time Olympic medalist is no easy feat.

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” two-time Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman told the audience during the Forbes Under 30 Summit Tuesday morning at the Harvard Business School.

But after achieving that level of success during the summer Olympic Games in Rio, Raisman, a Needham native, said she thinks she is ready for whatever the future holds—whether that’s Tokyo or focusing on building her personal brand.

“The way I look at it is, if I could accomplish the Olympics—it was so hard, it was so exhausting, it was so mentally draining—then I have a little bit more of a positive outlook that I can accomplish other things,” Raisman, 22, told Boston.com before her session at the Summit. “But it is hard for me to say what that will be because I haven’t done so much outside of gymnastics. I have a leotard line, and a sock line, and now I just partnered with a jewelry company, but it has been really great to use my brand I created from gymnastics.”

Raisman spoke on day two of the Summit, which was hosted for the first time in Boston this year, and focused her discussion around the idea of perseverance.

“I think perseverance is really crucial and key if you want to be successful at anything in life,” she told Boston.com. “It is sort of the idea that the bad days or the harder days make you stronger. I think a lot of people look at [gymnastics] and think it is super easy or always fun, but they don’t see all the days behind it when we are struggling or having a hard time. And it is those days where you kind of push forward and do everything you can to not give up.”

Raisman said when she was having a hard day, she leaned on her family, coaches, and USA teammates, like fellow gymnastics superstar Simone Biles.

“[The all-around competition] was individual, but we kind of just treated it like it was a team competition,” Raisman said. “We would just try to cheer each other on and help each other out, and I think that was really important because under that kind of stress and pressure, you just need someone who will love and support you.”

Though Raisman is looking forward to some much-needed downtime, she also said she is excited about both the “surreal” opportunities being an Olympian has given her (like meeting President Obama and teaching him how to do a split) and the lessons she has learned throughout the process.

“I think the best advice [for others working toward a goal] is to only compare yourself to yourself,” Raisman said. “I think our world and our generation is so focused on what someone else has. And you always want what you don’t have instead of just focusing on what works for you, what makes you happy. I think, at the end of the day, that is all that really matters, because as long as you are doing what makes you happy, and you feel good with yourself, and you are a good person, then that’s all you can ask for.”