Insights from Olympian Dominique Dawes:

From Olympic triumphs to setbacks, resilience has shaped every chapter of Dominiques journey

In this exclusive Q&A, she shares the lessons that have guided her through challenges, built stronger teams, and shaped her approach to leadership—from checking your ego at the door to turning pain and failure into purpose. Ahead of her keynote at CCW Nashville, discover her perspective on perseverance, teamwork, vulnerability, and making a greater impact.

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Q&A with Dominique Dawes

Q #1: Your career has included historic victories and difficult setbacks. What is the most important lesson those experiences taught you about perseverance?

I think it’s just taught me never to give up. No matter how tough the road got during my Olympic journey, training for three different Olympic games, having physical pain, mental anguish, emotional drainage, and feeling detached socially, it taught me never to give up and to always put one foot in front of the other. That’s really what I think perseverance is all about: not giving up and just trying to have that forward momentum. One of the most important lessons is to always put one foot in front of the other, no matter what you’re feeling physically, emotionally, mentally, or socially. That has been, honestly, my way of life now today as a 49-year-old, a wife, a mother of four kids, a founder of a gymnastics and ninja academy, a philanthropist, and an investor in sports. I’m always open to learning, growing, and taking steps forward.

Q #2: You’ve spoken about failure as a catalyst for growth. What advice would you give leaders for turning setbacks into opportunities to learn and move forward?

There’s always something you can learn from hardships, setbacks, and rejection in life. I think back to my fall at the 1996 Olympic Games. I was going into the all-around competition and my best event, which was the floor exercise. I was known to be a dynamic performer on the floor, a very powerful tumbler. I was in first place at the time, and I fell. Definitely not a part of my plans when I set my sights on qualifying for a second Olympic Games and winning a gold medal with my team. There was no plan to then fall in the all-around competition, and unfortunately, mistakes happen, failure happens, and it’s how are you going to respond to those tough times in life.

It’s very easy to point the finger and blame others. It’s very easy to get caught up and get emotional about rejection or about an obstacle. But I think it’s really important to take a step back and reflect and see what you can learn from those tough times in your life. How moving forward, maybe you can do things differently. Of course, you don’t want to fall, but is there anything with my preparation that I could have done differently, physically or mentally? We can always learn from those hardships. And I think the hardships are victories when we choose to learn from them.

I use the motto, “Pain serves a greater purpose that leads to your passion, that allows you to make a greater impact.” Many of the things that I’ve pursued today as an entrepreneur, a founder, and an investor have come from a place of pain, but I don’t want to get stuck in that pain. That’s when you have that attitude of coulda, woulda, shoulda. I use pain to really propel me forward. It’s led to my purpose. It’s helped develop a passion. And more importantly, it’s allowed me to make a greater impact for others. Then you don’t get stuck in those hardships or those losses or, of course, those failures in life.

Q #3: You competed at the highest level as both an individual athlete and a member of the “Magnificent Seven.” What did those experiences teach you about building trust and bringing out the best in a team?

You really do have to check your ego at the door when you’re working with the team. No matter how talented you are, no matter your role or your responsibility or the amount of your contribution to the team, it’s beneficial in a team setting to check your ego. When you check your ego, you’re willing to listen to others, you’re willing to be empathetic, you’re willing to lean on others, you’re willing to be vulnerable. You’re willing to then trust in others.

I needed to learn that lesson as an individual sport athlete in the sport of gymnastics and then competing in an Olympic Games on a team that had the ability to make history. For the first week or so of us training, I really feel as if all seven of us did not check our egos. It was really focused on a me, myself, and I mentality.

At those ’96 Olympic Games, many of us were professional athletes. In our minds, we were focused on the pressure that we had to do well for ourselves, for our country, and we needed to focus on our endorsements or building our brand. You could really tell because in practices, it didn’t look as if we were training together as a team. We were seven individuals training at the same time.

But once we checked our egos and recognized, hey, if we want to make history and be the first women’s American team to win a gold medal in the sport of gymnastics, it’s not going to be one person that’s going to win it for us. It’s going to be all of us working together. When we checked our egos at the door, we then were cheering for one another, giving each other a pat on the back. We leaned on one another, and we appreciated one another, no matter what one’s contribution was to the team or their talent or anything or their coach or the politics that play a hand in the sport of gymnastics. We just learned to see each other as a friend, as a teammate, and we trusted in one another.

That’s why I think we were able to become the Magnificent Seven, win a gold medal, and go down in the history books.

Q #4: Today’s leaders are guiding teams through rapid change, from evolving customer expectations to AI and new ways of working. What can leaders do to help people stay confident and resilient through uncertainty?

I think it would go back to the whole checking for leaders, checking egos, being willing to listen, recognizing that we as leaders don’t have the answer to everything, having empathy for others, recognizing that people are going through something in this world and you might not know it. I think leading with compassion, leading with love, leading with kindness, but making it clear, the goals and the vision that the company has set forth, and being an example of that is very much key.

I think that will help people work through any uncertain times. Maybe sometimes as a leader, be vulnerable and be honest, because I think there is maybe a belief that leaders feel like they

have to have the answers to everything, but I think it’s okay for leaders to also show that, you know what? This is an uncertain time for me too. I’m putting one foot in front of the other. I’m trusting in the process. I’m following our vision and our plan. And I have faith that things will work out.

I think it’s okay to be human when you’re a leader and be vulnerable. And, like I said, lead with compassion.

Q #5: As customer contact leaders think about building high-performing teams, what is one lesson from your journey that you hope they take away from your keynote at CCW Nashville?

I think one thing, well, I guess there’s a few things they can take away from my keynote. First, I mentioned it earlier: check your ego at the door. I think we work better when our egos are not driving the ship, and so it allows us to be empathetic. It allows us to listen. It allows us to work together. And I think when we work together, we can accomplish so much more.

Also, recognizing setbacks, hardships, uncertainty, and failure, it is painful, but it does serve a purpose that leads to our passion that allows us to make a greater impact. Throughout my career, I’ve been interviewed, and many years ago, I was asked multiple times, if you could change anything about your Olympic career, which is from age six years old training and retiring at nearly 24, what would you change? Probably not falling at the Olympics. You wish you won the all-around competition.

And it’s interesting because reporters would believe that they knew the answer, like, oh, you wish you accomplished that great feat that you had set out to accomplish, being the first African-American female to win a gold medal in the all-around. And I’m like, you know what? Years after I fell, I was able to process things, I was able to work through that hardship. And I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for that painful moment because with painful moments, when you learn lessons from them, it develops resiliency, it helps you develop grit, it helps you develop perseverance, and that’s why I think I have the fighting nature that I have from the painful moments in my life and learning lessons from those painful moments.

I think those are the few things that I hope people take away from my remarks: checking ego, and recognizing that pain serves a greater purpose that leads to your passion and allows you to make a greater impact.

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October 7-9, 2026 | Omni Nashville