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At Market Street, we often say that wealth lasts longer when families do. But families, like fortunes, are not sustained by accident. They are sustained by the people who show us how to live, the ones who cheer for us, write us notes, share their chocolate, and quietly widen the road for those coming behind them.
That belief came vividly to life when we sat down for a conversation with Katrín Davíðsdóttir.
Katrín is one of the most decorated athletes in the history of CrossFit. The sport itself is young, barely two decades old, but the contest at its heart is ancient. Humans have been gathering to test strength, endurance, and will since the original Greek games, and Katrín's native Iceland has its own centuries-old tradition of strength contests woven into its sagas. CrossFit simply gave that timeless impulse a modern stage, and Katrín made that stage her own. She is a two-time champion, crowned Fittest Woman on Earth in 2015 and 2016, with ten appearances at the CrossFit Games, four podium finishes, and eight consecutive top-ten finishes across a ten-year career.
But here is the number she offered us without flinching... twice, she also failed to qualify.
What drew Katrín to CrossFit was never the spotlight. It was the work, the daily, unglamorous process of becoming better. And what sustained her through a decade at the top was something that surprised us. It was the women she was competing against.
There is a remarkable collegiality among the athletes at the Games, and throughout her career Katrín was constantly supporting, and being supported by, her fellow competitors. Chief among them is Anníe Þórisdóttir, her fellow Icelander, the first woman ever to win the CrossFit Games twice, and one of Katrín's closest mentors, role models, and best friends. Anníe, Katrín told us, always gives back. She loves the push of up-and-coming athletes. To cheer herself on, she cheers others on.
It reminded us of something one of Market Street's former Directors, Rowlie Stebbins, used to say: "It's not about teaching the younger generations, it's about listening to them. Their ideas are going places." Anníe would recognize that wisdom instantly. The relationship between generations, whether in a gym, a family, or a family business, was never meant to flow in only one direction.
That was the example Anníe set for Katrín, and it surfaced at the moment it mattered most. In 2014, the year Katrín failed to make the Games, she did not let herself be crestfallen. Her thoughts went quickly to, "I will support Anníe". She has talked often about how important it is to have people train alongside you, how no one reaches the podium alone, and no one recovers from missing it alone either.
When the conversation turned to her grandparents, we could tell it was one of the topics most near and dear to her heart. They are her inspiration and her role models. Her grandfather, her afi, as she calls him, using the Icelandic word, is Helgi Ágústsson, who served for a generation as Iceland's ambassador, including to the United States. Still living, still sharp, he inspired her academically and showed her what a life of service and intellect could look like.
Her grandmother, her amma, was pure sunshine. Warm, vibrant, the kind of presence that filled a room. She passed away in 2016, and when Katrín told us that she named her eight-month-old daughter after her, she teared up. So, frankly, did we.
And then she told us about Chocolate Day.
Every April 14th, Katrín's family celebrates the day her grandparents met. Her grandfather was on his way to a dance with some chocolate in his pocket. He saw a beautiful young woman, walked up, and asked if she'd like to share some. They ate chocolate and danced the night away, and within two months they were planning the rest of their lives together. Decades later, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren still mark the date.
We talk often with families about what legacy really means, and we suspect this is it. Our deathbed selves aren't thinking about the money we made or protected. But to know that our grandchildren gather every year to eat chocolate and retell the story of how we fell in love? That is a legacy any of us would be proud to leave. The traditions that endure are rarely the elaborate ones. They are the ones with a story at the center.
There is something else Katrín treasures from her grandmother, and it worries us that fewer families will have anything like it.
In this digital age, we are losing tangible treasures: the notes, letters, and recipe cards written in a grandparent's hand. It doesn't need to be complicated. Katrín keeps three Post-it® notes her grandmother wrote her, simple messages carrying the life lessons her grandmother lived by: dream big, but keep your feet on the ground; do the right things; carry gratitude with you always.
What moved us most was how Katrín summed it up. Her grandmother didn't just tell her how to live. She showed her.
That is the inheritance no trust document can convey. Values are not transferred. They are demonstrated, witnessed, and absorbed across kitchen tables and dance floors, and occasionally preserved on a Post-it® note.
Today, Katrín is a mother, a soon-to-be wife, and an entrepreneur. She and Anníe are channeling everything they've learned into giving back to women, bringing their hard-won knowledge and experience to the world. Her passion now, she told us, is investing in people, however you choose to do it. Time, wisdom, encouragement, resources... the asset class matters less than the intention.
And for someone who twice held the title of the fittest woman alive, her current approach to her own workouts is disarmingly human, "Something is better than nothing."
We loved that. It is advice for the gym, but it is also advice for legacy. Start the tradition. Write the note. Share the chocolate. Make the call. Cheer for someone who is coming up behind you. None of it has to be perfect or grand to matter.
Something is better than nothing. And over generations, something, done with love and intention, becomes everything.
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