Olympics star Eileen Gu gives fascinating answer when asked, 'Do you think before you speak?'

Eileen Gu has competed in six Olympic events and medaled in all six. She also is a model, and oh yeah, a student at prestigious Stanford University.

So you've got to imagine her mind is moving a mile a minute. That's what made a press conference exchange at the Olympics featuring Gu so fascinating.

The Athletic's Charlotte Harpur, who spent the entire Olympics covering Gu, asked a fascinating question:

"Do you think before you speak?"

She actually prefaced it with, "This isn't supposed to be a rude question," and then explained, “Because you answer questions so quickly and so comprehensively, whether it’s about geopolitics or your sport or aerodynamics. Can you take us into your brain?”

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Gu was happy to open up.

“Thank you, Charlotte. That’s very kind,” Gu said. “Oh, man. I think overall, I’m just a pensive person. I’m a very introspective I’m an introspective young woman. I spend a lot of time in my head, and it’s not a bad place to be. I journal a lot. I break down all of my thought processes. I think I apply a very analytical lens to my own thinking, and I modify it because it’s so interesting. You can control what you think. You can control how you think, and therefore, you can control who you are. And especially as a young person, I’m 22, so with neuroplasticity on my side, I can literally become exactly who I want to be. How cool is that? How empowering is that?"

She had more to say.

“And so the fact is, I get to become every day the person that me at age 8 would revere," Gu said. "I would be obsessed with me today. Are you kidding? I would love me. And I think that’s the biggest flex of all time, that you can have little younger you be proud of you today. And so I guess for me, it’s like, yes, I spend a lot of time in my own head. Yes, I think a lot. But it’s not really in an egotistical way. It’s in a tinkering, like a scientist way. I’m always trying to modify. I’m trying to think, how can I be better? How can I approach my own brain the way that I approach my craft of free skiing? Skiing so that I can be better tomorrow than I was.”

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Gu, 22, has generated a lot of headlines in her freestyle skiing career for choosing to represent China rather than the United States.

But she handles questions and criticism well, and she skis as well as anyone.

Clearly, she has a lot of well-developed thoughts.

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