What do you do when the voice pushing you hardest at practice is the same one saying goodnight at home? For Maxim Naumov, that was everyday life. The 25-year-old figure skater is the son of Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, 1994 World Pairs champions who coached at the Skating Club of Boston, and he made his own Olympic debut in Milan this February, a year after losing both parents in a plane crash. Candace sits down with him for the first time since Special Forces Season 5, where the two of them were paired on the challenge she feared most.
Max’s first time on the ice was at three, in little white skates his parents spray-painted black because black ones didn’t come that small. He didn’t take to it right away, so his parents waited two years and tried again. At five, he started to fall in love with it. His dad’s old camcorder footage is still at the house, and Max says some days the videos and photos are wonderful while other days they’re hard to look at.
Max calls the relationship complicated. At home, his parents were often still in coach mode, and at the rink, he wanted his mom and dad. He remembers his dad saying a coach has to push to the limit while a father has to love and protect, and that finding the balance was the hard part. The family kept working at it, and by the end, Max says, they were taking bigger steps each week. Their last Thanksgiving together held the most honest heart-to-heart they’d ever had.
Candace knows this world from home. Her husband, Val, is Russian, a former pro athlete whose father and grandfather were both Olympians, and she’s heard these stories through 30 years of marriage. She asks whether some of it is cultural, and Max agrees: their culture prized getting through hardship and reaching the goal, and feelings often went unspoken.
Growing up in Connecticut, Max heard classmates talk about parents who hugged them and said “I love you” all the time, and he couldn’t picture it. It took years for him to see that his parents’ love lived in what they did: providing, advising, and pushing him toward a goal they shared. Different, he realized, didn’t mean less.
One habit stays with him. No matter how hard a practice day went, his dad came into his room at bedtime, sat down, and talked calmly, so they never went to sleep upset with each other. If a decision came up late, his dad would say they’d sleep on it and decide with a fresh head. Max still does both.
Candace brings up Gary Chapman’s book on love languages. Val made a choice as a dad to say the words out loud: “we’re going to do hard things together, and when the day is done, I’m going to hug you and tell you I love you.”
Max says self-doubt followed him right up to the year he made the Olympic team, and most of it came from inside. With his parents as his coaches, he felt his results reflected on them too. What helped was learning to stop handling everything alone. Psychology is the one interest that never faded for him, because it made him a better athlete, friend, son, and now coach. He says reaching out, even just asking a friend, “Have you ever been through something like this?” takes real strength.
He believes his failures taught him far more than his wins, and he compares it to forging a blade, heated and cooled over and over until it’s strong. The writer of James 1:2-4 says something similar: trials test our faith, and that testing grows perseverance in us. Here’s the thing: the hard years were building something.
Max grew up Russian Orthodox, going to church mostly on holidays because skating filled the calendar, but he was always curious. His roommate of nearly four years, fellow Olympian Spencer Howe, who hopes to become a military chaplain, kept that curiosity alive through long dinner conversations. After the crash, the questions got louder: why me, and how could this happen? Max chose to lean in. He now goes to Grace Church in Massachusetts every Sunday he’s home, and he describes feeling an embrace the moment he walks in.
Early on Special Forces, Candace and Max were paired on a heights challenge, her biggest fear. She cried harder than she ever has, and Max looked her in the eye, broke it into steps, and talked her through it. She saw her son in him, since he shares her son’s name and is close to his age. Max tells her he saw his mom in her, and that it pushed him to step up for both of them.
Gracie, who just turned 18, asks for one piece of advice. Candace says to read her Bible, which she calls the best coach there is, and to say yes to the things that scare her. Max agrees and adds that any big goal breaks down into small steps, so each night we can go to bed one step closer.
Sponsors mentioned in this episode:
316 Financial: bank316.com/newthings (open a new 316 savings account by January 15th with at least $2,500 in qualifying direct deposits by January 31st for a signed copy of 100 Days of All Things New)
CrowdHealth: joincrowdhealth.com, code Candace (first three months for $99 a month)
International Fellowship of Christians and Jews: ifcj.org/candace (free flag pin)
Operation Christmas Child: samaritanspurse.org/occ (National Collection Week, November 16th through the 23rd)
Grand Canyon University: gcu.edu
Fitness Basics Guide (Candace’s free download): candace.com