One of my colleagues, Phil Seo, was a contestant on The Amazing Race Canada this season. He and his sister, Martina, finished fourth in the competition and they learned a lot from the experience. From scaling lumberjack poles to performing Mexican soap opera scenes, Phil and Martina inspired and entertained millions of Canadians with their wit, compassion and resilience. A few weeks ago I interviewed Phil to discover what this once in a lifetime experience taught him. Here are seven lessons in resilience from The Amazing Race Canada.

How are you a different person because of this experience?

I realize the value of time even more. This was a race, and we saw first hand from the very first episode, the closest finish for five teams in The Amazing Race Canada history. My sister and I were mere minutes from being eliminated. This was a wake-up call to make sure that we spend time doing the right things on the race. This translated back to my real life, at work, at home, anywhere really! Spending quality time with the right people is even more important to me now.

What was the greatest lesson you learned on The Amazing Race?

The importance of teamwork. You can go a lot further if you and your teammates are on the same page, and know how to motivate each other well. I learned that my sister thrives with lots of positive encouragement, and she learned that I prefer her to stay calm so I can focus on the task at hand. We talked openly about our strengths and weaknesses, our hopes and fears, and life in general. We recognize we have different viewpoints and that’s not a bad thing at all. All of this helped us understand each other better than ever before.

What was the hardest thing you had to do during the race?

This race is such an emotional roller coaster. You can go from the front of the pack to the back of the pack in an instant. It was important to focus all our energy in the right direction. Like when we got U-Turned in Indonesia (essentially sending us to last place), we couldn’t waste energy being upset. We just had to find ways to get everything done even faster so that we could catch up. That doesn’t necessarily mean rushing through challenges. It’s assessing the challenge and seeing what is the fastest way to get it done. For the last challenge of the day, I had to do a complex Indonesian hand dance. Seeing the full routine was completely overwhelming, so I asked my instructor to stop after every two steps so I could commit that to memory. When I got that, I moved on to the next two steps. Breaking down complex challenges into small bite size pieces was key.

How did you cultivate resilience or grit to push through a challenge (or many challenges)?

I think this really comes down to believing in yourself and your teammate. I really believed we would get every challenge done. When my sister was up climbing that 80-foot log, I really believed she would get it and told her every few minutes. It’s when my sister translated that into self-belief, that’s what propelled her to finish it off. Having that faith helped us keep going. But it’s important to balance that out with knowing everything happens for a reason if things don’t pan out.

When did you have to adapt?

I was the fourth fastest racer from the start line to get to our backpacks. But, we quickly realized that my sister was the slowest out of 20 racers. To make her faster, we decided to donate her backpack and move all of her contents into my backpack. When you’re put in this situation, you quickly realize what you once thought was essential might actually be non-essential. We had to stick together so we also ran the rest of the race holding hands. I can’t even remember the last time we ran around holding hands (probably when we were little kids), but we adapted and this helped us as a team speed up. She even asked me to push her up a mountain at one point in the race to go faster!

What brought you joy? How did you have fun?

My sister and I have had an up and down relationship over the years, but it was such an amazing experience to spend this dedicated 24/7 time with a family member. She’s my only sibling so this race is something special that we could never replicate on our own. We are closer than we have ever been before. Knowing how low our relationship had been in the past, to seeing how high it is now is such a blessing. For example, we had so much fun overacting during the Mexican telenovela soap opera!

What else? What’s a story or a reflection that you want to share?

I learned it’s important to place yourself outside of your comfort zone. It’s only in these situations (e.g., bungee jumping to save a beaver, climbing an 80’ pole, coming back from last place with a traditional hand dance, getting the winning # in a game of darts, and the list goes on), that you really see the full extent of what you can do. It’s those memories that stick out when I look back on the race, and also when I look back on life. It’s a mindset that I think is important to apply more and more in life.