The Weight of Gold: Peter Carlisle On The Olympian Mental Health Crisis, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles & The Hidden Cost of Greatness | The Rich Roll Podcast

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The Olympic experience is so difficult for athletes to process and to get there.

There's so much sacrifice.

There's so much imbalance that when they come out of the Olympic Games, the overwhelming majority of athletes suffer what has now been called like, well, the post -Olympic blues or whatever it may be.

But there's a very, very difficult transition coming from the Olympics back to civilian life or back to whatever that life is.

It may be going back into college.

You're still competing.

It doesn't really matter because you go from relative anonymity to this global stage where really the whole world is kind of celebrating what you do and it's very hard i think and abrupt it's just difficult i think to process that to make sense of that i'm not sure it does make sense and i think that athletes really suffer for that hey everybody welcome to the podcast you know i've been doing this thing for a long time i wouldn't say i was part of the first wave more like the second wave but i've been at it long enough to be considered a bit of an OG in the space.

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seem to increasingly be a function of trying to fit the algorithm to farm attention or create virality, all of which in turn creates this tension between doing the show that I want to do versus what everyone who knows more about this stuff than me tells me, quote unquote, works or is, quote unquote, best practices.

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With a client list that includes Michael Phelps, who he has represented for, I don't know, something like 25 years, also Simone Biles, and many other of the world's most elite top performers.

And it's all coming up quick, but first. Movement is so much more than just exercise or training or motion even.

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All right. I met Peter for the first time at the Paris Olympics last summer.

We had a great lunch, and I knew then that I wanted to have him on the show, not just to learn about what he does and what he's learned about high performance from this incredible career working intimately with the best of the best, but mostly for this very clear passion that he has and this call to advocacy around the mental health issues that are faced by athletes, not just world -class level athletes, but all the way down to what is going on in youth sports, in your backyard, in our neighborhoods.

So this is what we get into.

It was an honor to spend time with him and share a conversation that I think is pretty great, which was made possible by our friends at WHOOP, who opened up their studio to us at their headquarters.

So this This could go down in the midst of my recent visit to Boston.

So thank you to everyone at Whoop.

And final note, if you dig this one, and I think you will, please make a point of checking out the HBO documentary Weight of Gold.

I've mentioned it before on the podcast. It's a documentary that Peter and Michael Phelps produced together, which is very much about the topics we get into today.

day, the mental health issues faced by Olympic athletes, a link to which you will find on the episode page at richroll .com, as well as various youth sports resources that Peter has provided us with to support all of you parents out there who have kids who are engaged in youth sports, who are in high school sports, even college sports and beyond.

So that's it. Crazy long long intro complete.

Did that work for you?

Do you want me to continue with these longer audio intros?

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Anyway, let's do it.

This is me and Octagon managing partner and sports agent extraordinaire, Peter Carlyle.

Cool, Peter. Thanks for doing this.

It's exciting to have this opportunity to talk to you.

I really enjoyed meeting you in Paris.

That was almost a year ago, exactly.

It took a year to get you in front of me.

And I just wanted to shout out to everybody at Whoop for creating a home for this podcast in Boston.

Whoop has opened up their podcast studio to allow this conversation to happen.

And you drove down from your home in Maine to do it.

So thanks for doing that.

Yeah, no, thanks for having me.

It's great to be here.

I wanted to start with something that you said that I think kind of opens up the door to a conversation around mental health that I want to have with you.

And what you said was competitive success is enhanced by diversity of experience, enhanced by prioritizing mental wellness.

So I just wanted to give you the opportunity to explain what that means and expound upon it.

Well, I think that I said that is kind of interesting to me because I'd say you could probably have it either way in the sense that I think many people in a narrow sense would say competitive success is enhanced by specialization, by a narrow focus, and not by diversity of experience.

And I think that's part of the problem in sports today.

But I think that in terms of success generally, it's the diversity of experience that matters the most. And I think when you get to the highest level of sports, that's when you get the perspective where they're saying, hey, you know, I realize that that the predominant viewpoint is specialize, get very good at this one thing.

And that will take you, you know, the furthest. But they then will say once they're there, actually, it was all of these other experiences and this balance that enabled me to achieve that success.

And I think that's the tricky situation, you know, which do you choose?

Which path? It is a counterintuitive thing.

And I think that sports, you know, we're of a similar age.

We've borne witness to many changes in sports from when we were kids where it was about fun and community.

And now it's about hyper -specialization and, you know, bringing in experts.

And, you know, if you're a young kid who's showing promise, like there's going to be, kind of a bum -rushing effect that takes place there?

And what does that do to a young person's mind when suddenly that kind of enters the picture and puts them on a trajectory such that if they are lucky enough to reach that elite level, that's when they suddenly come onto your radar.

By the time you're getting involved in athletes' lives, they're at that kind of later stages of all of that.

And I would have to imagine or presume that this is what has, you know, given birth to your concerns and your passion around the mental well -being of the athletes that you work with and what that means or what needs to be done with respect, you know, sort of systemically about sports writ large.

Yeah, I think that, I mean, if you think about it, it happens at such a young age and And it may not have when we were coming up, but nowadays the entire system is set up to encourage specialization.

I mean you have like eight -year -olds committing to colleges.

Is that true? Yeah.

No, it's true. If you look at social media, I don't know how it works because where is the enforceability of that?

But they'll commit to college at ages – before they've gone through puberty to play football, say, at Oregon.

That's wild. I had no idea it was that deep.

Yeah, it can be that deep.

And moreover, it's – you've got social media.

You've got the fact that if you show promise at a young age, and of course with sports being so much more organized now at the younger ages, that you've got social media.

You've got all of these influences and pressures.

structures and parents, of course, how does it feel as a parent if your child has been identified as someone with that unique potential to play in college, to go beyond that, whatever, even at a young age?

So if your kid is starting to play sports at the age of what, seven?

Think of the impact on the child.

Yeah. Because all of the peers begin to think, well, this kid is special.

special the parents the other parents the coaches treat them differently they go to school they're treated differently and you can so easily see how tempting it is to just narrow the focus like this is the answer this is what makes me special and you know so long before I ever meet these athletes their identity is you know well established and I'd say it's it's so narrowly based that it's it's, you know, in my view, it becomes problematic outside of the sport.

And that identity is sort of indelibly woven into performance, like as an athlete, like there is no identity outside of that, which can't help but be deranging, especially on a young mind that isn't fully formed and deranging on the parents.

Like what happens when you're that young and the world starts to, you know, kind of cater to you or bow to you and cohere to, you know, whatever it is that you want and need.

And then they reach the peak and, you know, invariably things don't always go as planned, right?

And what happens, you know, when that happens or what happens when they get injured and they can't do that anymore, or they've done their Olympic thing and then it's over and they have to become a civilian.

Yeah. It's an existential threat, all of that.

And if you think about all of the athletes that are fortunate enough to qualify for the Olympics, you know they they dream of gold and how many win gold so what is that experience you know it's is that that's a disappointment that's a letdown do they stay in it longer because they're that close to the answer to all of their problems or what and for the for the people that win gold i would argue that it's just as much of a problem if not more because you've now eliminated the one potential answer.

Right. And when that that hole inside of you still isn't filled by that, what is that auger, you know, in terms of like what life is about?

But even in the best case scenario, they win Olympic gold.

What does their life look like once they can't compete anymore?

There's only, you know, one Michael Phelps or Simone Biles.

And, you know, having attended the Olympics this past summer, you know, how many names do you remember that are going to be able to to create something long -term and sustainable on the heels of their performance at that Olympics.

There aren't very many.

No. And what is that fulfillment?

I mean, the fulfillment itself, it's like peer -to -peer comparison.

It's results oriented.

It's times, it's marks, it's whatever historical, you know, measurements that they are driven by.

And when you take yourself out of that system, what are you left with?

And if you lack that diversity of experience and you're so self -identified with your identity as an athlete and performance, you don't have anything to fall back on to become a fully rounded human being.

Right. You've got to get to know yourself for the first time almost. I'm sure you've seen, you know, many varieties of that existential crisis bloom, you know, over the many years that you've been doing what you've been doing.

Yeah. I mean, I think from the beginning, I would say, I don't know, I mean, more than 90 percent, all of them.

I can't think of too many exceptions of the athletes that I've worked with over the years.

They don't all win gold medals, but it doesn't matter.

Just the Olympic experience, I think, is so difficult for athletes to process and to get there.

There's so much sacrifice.

There's so much imbalance that when they come out of the Olympic So I'm not talking about retirement.

I'm talking about whether you could compete in three different Olympics.

But, you know, in my experience, the overwhelming majority of athletes suffer what has now been called like, well, the post Olympic blues or whatever it may be.

but there's a very, very difficult transition coming from the Olympics back to civilian life or back to whatever that life is.

It may be going back into college.

You're still competing.

It doesn't really matter because you go from relative anonymity to this global stage where really the whole world is kind of celebrating what you do.

And then you, it's football season, we're done, One night drift off into, you know, and it's very hard, I think, and abrupt.

It's just difficult, I think, to process that, to make sense of that.

I'm not sure it does make sense.

And I think that athletes really suffer for that.

I noticed that throughout and saw so many athletes struggling with it.

You know, in thinking about it, you kind of trace it all the way back to when they were kids.

And I think, you know, watching the clients that that I've had as I raised my own kids, I think that was like for me informed a lot of the way I think about it and have thought about it.

And also the way I've tried to, you know, support my clients through that process, because you can see, wow, these things that are happening to my kids and they don't have that type of ability.

but I can see how it's affecting them just through their own involvement in youth sports and just youth sports high school sports and stuff like that yeah not even high school I mean I think even I struggled with it my oldest son he was seven years old and if he was going to play ice hockey that was all he was going to play at least for like a significant part of the year and I just thought that was insane like honestly it's almost like the the, you know, 70s Soviet era, you know, era kind of like we're choosing, you know, who you're going to be at a very young age and you're going to get it's

a farm system, you know, from the moment you enter the picture of youth sports.

Yeah. And I I would resist that for them in the sense that I would I would say, well, no, it's fine.

You play ice hockey, but but you love soccer.

So you can love baseball let's say so i would have to sort of play defense just to provide enough space for them to play multiple sports in addition to like whatever you're doing around the neighborhood i mean i grew up playing i love all sports i mean and that to me is a healthy way to do it but to play three sports at the age of like you know seven to ten required me to intervene and and And what was crazy is I couldn't effectively intervene.

And was it the coaches or the leagues or, you know, what was it, where was the resistance coming from?

All of it. And it may trickle down, but it becomes all of it, right?

In the sense that I would tell the hockey coach, the hockey, you know, administration, like, look, I understand that you're going to start, you know, the, you know, the season or practice in August, but my son plays soccer too.

and so he's going to play that and he'll join the team in November and and you know you'll you'll find somewhere you can't do that you gotta you can you gotta pick and you can you can only do one or the other because we start you know they overlap or you know they're they're competing with each other they're competing with each other or if they say like okay we we encourage that they don't mean it it's it's okay so he never did do the early hockey he would play soccer and then play hockey.

But once you're back on the team, you're ostracized because parents are resentful that their kids may not be getting that ice time because this kid came in late and the child is feeling somewhat isolated in that way.

So it's just it's very, very hard to allow for that diversity of experience within sports.

And it's it becomes just a slippery slope into specialization.

we encourage that but only in lip service right like there is an understanding like yeah that would be better for the kid but that's not actually what we're doing and the irony of course is that what you're saying is true like a diversity of experiences even in the best cases with the most elite athlete is going to be the better path like i'm sure you've read david epstein's book range like this is like the bible on this like tracking all of these incredible high performers and And realizing that, you know, our illusion that like they were hyper focused from day one is nothing more than that,

an illusion. And in fact, why they're so good and why they have such longevity in their career is because they're drawing on so many different influences, you know, over the course of their life that contribute, you know, that create this sort of recipe for greatness.

The challenge with that is that youth sports has become commercialized.

And so if you've built a business that benefits from having these seven, eight, nine, 10 -year -olds in your system 10 months out of the year, you don't want to lose them for half of that time.

So it is lip service.

It's also lip service in terms of like this isn't about results.

It's not about getting a college scholarship.

This is about character build.

All of the things that we all know to be true, there is this temptation.

And, of course, now the system being so commercialized, it's it's very, very difficult for parents and kids to actually follow that recipe.

Yeah, it's the incentives are misaligned, especially now with NIL rights in college.

And like, you know, that's just going to continue to expand the commercialization all the way down to the, you know, the root at the very beginning.

What is the impact of that on young people?

Yeah, and I mean, and culturally, it's if you're in high school or even in middle school and you're seeing the NIL stuff, you're seeing like the value of social media, the value of results, the value of peer to peer comparisons.

comparisons. And you aspire to that.

I mean, what what kids don't.

I mean, you know, you grow up watching SportsCenter.

You want to be on SportsCenter.

It's just it's like slightly different now with social media.

But with the NIL stuff that is, you know, from a short term perspective that, you know, sort of lends credence to specialization.

I mean, because you can surpass your peers, make yourself more attractive to coaches, to your social media audience, to potential NIL deals, whatever it may be, to exposure.

And so you take that route.

Yeah. The conversation, the discourse around mental health and high performance is much more robust than in past years.

We are talking about this in no small part because of two of your clients, like Simone Biles and Michael Phelps, who have become really prominent advocates in in the dialogue around this, but there's still a lot of work to be done.

And, you know, when we had lunch in Paris, like you painted a very different picture than what I imagined with respect to governing bodies at the highest, at the higher echelons of sport with respect to how they're contending with this.

Yeah. I mean, there's, you know, the Olympics is big business And in the Olympic brand stands for a certain purity, I think.

And I think when Michael was going through some of his issues, that was the last thing that these governing bodies wanted to deal with.

I mean, you could have just said, look, this is not unique to the Olympics.

This is life. This is sports.

sports. And and so, you know, we need to, you know, consider that and think about how we can best support these athletes.

But, you know, that's it also impacts the brand.

Well, wait a minute.

You know, is the Olympics causing this?

Are these organizations like exacerbating the problem?

And if the thought immediately goes, well, how does that affect sponsorship?

How does that affect, you know how you know our audience views the olympic brand it becomes a more defensive you know situation and and like well let's let's you know contain that rather than let's oh let's shed light on it let's talk about it let's let's uh address it and i think that there was an effort i think um at the outset to do that and then ultimately i think the only reason it was you you know, it's been handled a little bit differently now.

And as you say, it's more a part of the conversation is because it was like there's no stopping it.

I mean, it's you can't fight the tide.

This is this is our reality.

And so now we actually have to try to do something about it.

But I think the motivation matters both in terms of when you start to address those problems and also how aggressively and effectively you address them.

Mm -hmm. What is the gap between the lip service version of this with the governing bodies and real substantive attention and programming and support?

Because when I think of whether it's USA Swimming or USA Gymnastics, these are sports that have a long history of not great behavior, coach abuse, things like that.

many occasions in which there were attempts to sweep these things under the rug.

And it took a long time for this to percolate to the surface on a level that, you know, captured mainstream awareness in order for these governing bodies to do anything about it.

Like, what's the state of the union now with governing bodies like that in terms of being proactive about mental health and preventing, you know, that kind of thing from transpiring?

Well, I think the biggest challenge is there's a disconnect between athletes and these organizations.

And that's not a condemnation of the organizations as much as it is just that's the reality.

I mean people have the mistaken perception that, oh, the gymnastics team, I mean they're with USAG all of the time.

I mean that's their team, let's say, or USA Swimming, like yeah, they're part of the national team.

But the reality is these athletes train and compete often with their own coaches in a totally different area.

They're not really interacting with the national governing body as frequently as people think.

And so that disconnect comes into play because the national governing bodies don't necessarily, you know, understand.

They're not living with the challenges that these athletes, you know, have. And they're somewhat desensitized to it, I think, until it smacks them in the face.

And then maybe they do something.

And so that's a big part of the of the of the problem.

And so what is the role of the NGBs then if they're not, you know, developing these athletes, if they're not sort of managing them through their competitive careers, what are they doing?

And the answer is they're charged with the responsibility of developing the sport, you know, in the abstract and to market the sport, which in many instances is to generate sponsorship opportunities for the governing body.

And, yes, they do fund some of those athletes to a degree, not nearly enough.

And they run the events and they handle the broadcast and all of that.

That's so far away from the daily grind.

That's so far away from the challenges that these individual athletes face on a day -to -day basis.

And so the priorities are just totally different.

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for the athlete the kind of lived experience when they are struggling is a very quiet and private one right because they feel like they're the only person who's experiencing this and to admit it or to talk to somebody about it would would compel them to you know it feels like a weakness right like i have to be strong everybody's telling me just focus get it done and when you're having a problem and I'm not even talking about going public with it but just to like confront it is a very scary prospect perhaps you know scarier for that person than it would be for the average person who's struggling

Yeah I think you're absolutely right about that It's like an existential threat to their career Yeah and to acknowledge it is to become weaker in a way that's the that's I think how many athletes would think about it but I mean thinking back through some of Michael's experiences I think that it was, he has spoken openly about how, you know, I wasn't about to acknowledge, you know, any problem because I can't be seen as weak.

I'll be vulnerable to my competitors.

And that's, I mean, that's just a very difficult situation.

And I think one of the most impactful things he ever did was to just say, well, that may be the case, but I just can't handle that anymore and I'm just going to unload.

And that's that's really what he did when he when he first opened up in a Sports Illustrated interview.

You know, that's he didn't have a plan to do that.

He still can't articulate exactly why he did that.

It just happened. But as he did it, it was like this burden just like evaporated.

And in the end, he realized that didn't make me weaker.

That may have made me stronger.

Yeah, there was no calculation to that, which is what I find to be like most courageous about it or most desperate about it.

Like he was at that point where I'm just – there's no other route that I can take.

But it opened that conversation up for a lot of other people because if he at his level is willing to talk about that, then I can do it.

Almost a survival move, right?

Like the only way that I can move forward is if I unburden myself from this.

Otherwise, it's too painful, right?

Right. And to have that cathartic experience and realize not only are you OK in the aftermath of that, but actually you feel empowered and it wasn't the threat that you imagined it to be.

I would have to imagine that's where kind of the seed was sown to to help him realize like, oh, I have a voice in this that I think is important.

Yeah. I mean, I think speaking about it initially made him feel better.

and then interestingly after he'd done that people I mean he's recognizable everywhere he goes I mean it's something else and but everyone if you think about it you know they come up like oh I watch you so thank you for you know everything you've done for the country and you know the team and all of that and it was all about his you know athletic accomplishments but after he he did that, people would come up to him and say, hey, thanks.

I, you know, I listened to what you said.

And so, it's the sharing of it alone, cathartic.

But I think that as he, it was a different feeling when he realized, like, I'm actually helping people, which is a very different phenomenon, I think.

And so, I think that he continued to do more and more of that.

But it It was when he was in Rio in 2016 and he was the old man of the team at that point.

And he talks about how he's on the – like the relay team.

He's on the – just about to go out to the podium or he's on the podium.

And these kids that are much younger than him at this point, he's looking at them.

He says, these kids are – I know what they're going through right now.

I can see it and they're in for it and that's not okay.

Like something has to be done.

And so I think that's what sort of fueled his drive to address the problem however he could coming out of Rio.

I mean it was – when he's out of – we'll go back and forth through each of the games by text and whatever.

And then when he's done, then I'll get him out of the village and we'll be together.

And he called me when he finished up.

He just finished his last event, and he'd done the mandatory press stuff, and he called.

And it was the first thing he said.

He said, look, I mean, he described that experience.

He said, like, like, that's what we're doing now.

And with the same kind of conviction that he'd had when I first met him when he back in 2002, when he said, I want to I want to change the sport of swimming, which may sound so vague and abstract.

Chuck, but it really wasn't about that is here's a kid who like best ever in the sport.

He's, uh, you know, awkward high school kid who the school doesn't even recognize as being this incredible athlete.

It, I think developed this chip on his shoulder.

Like swimming should be respected more than it is.

I mean, it should be on sports center, which again, if you're a a high school kid at that time, that would be your, you know, your, your measurement of whether it's relevant.

And so that's what I think he meant by that.

But that drove him in so many ways, not just for the sport, but like, I think to prove himself.

I think that what's interesting about that is you have, so you have this kid with this incredible drive, right?

Chip on his shoulder, this insane ability to, you know, just put the blinders on and focus to a superhuman level.

Part of that is something to celebrate.

There's another piece to that, like not so good for life, right?

And when you careen into a mental health crisis, the fear of contending with that, of course, is, well, if I go into therapy or whatever, I'm going to lose that thing that made me so great and brought me here.

I think that's That's, you know, a big piece of it as well.

He has this cathartic, you know, experience and realizes he has another path.

And what a gift, because now he can take that focus and that determination and channel it in a direction that is service based.

And that's like almost the only path that he could have found that was going to supplant or replace like these peak experiences that no human being on Earth.

You know, there's no there's nothing he could do for the rest of his life that's ever going to match that.

right? Unless he finds a way to figure out how to make his life about something more than himself and making swimming like, you know, more than it is, that's great, but it doesn't really go all the way.

But like the mental health thing, like that's something you can, he could sink his teeth into for the rest of his life and be able to find meaning and purpose when so many athletes at the end of their career, having had peak experiences, like really struggle because nothing is really really going to match that.

And it's not a lot of those skills are not applicable to day to day life.

And that's confusing because you're so good at one thing and it requires a certain mindset that should be transferable to all these other areas of life.

And I think that's another thing that disorients a lot of professional athletes after retirement.

Like, why can't I plug into something else in the way that I could plug into this one thing?

Yeah. And your expectations are that you're going to be really good at that as well.

And you don't have the diversity of experience to make those easy lateral moves.

So you've got to like reset your whole intention, I think, put the work in.

I mean, I think that's very difficult.

And if you've from the age of seven or whenever you showed yourself to be uniquely talented, you know, I think that's where it's a realistic perspective within the sport.

But once you're out of the sport, what's so special about being able to swim even a second faster than someone else, unless you're being chased by something, right?

It has no use. It has no use.

And that's the case with what separates the best athletes from great athletes, from good athletes, it's like really sort of irrelevant skills to the rest of life.

What's relevant, I think, is everything that you, the hard work, the drive, the competitiveness, the, you know, the values, all of that, the, you know, overcoming adversity, any number of things, that's what's applicable to the rest of life.

And I think, honestly, like that, that to me is the answer to youth sports.

And I know it sounds totally like oversimplified, but I believe that it's a matter of perspective.

I think that it's if you understand early on the value of those things, it's not going to detract from the competitive drive to be the best swimmer, to be the best tennis player, whatever it may be.

It's just the purpose for it will be, you know, a little bit different.

You'll have a broader understanding of it.

And so I think that, you know, in thinking about there's no fighting the tide with specialization.

I just I don't think it's realistic right now for there to be like this epiphany, you know, in our society to shift that.

that. And, you know, that's, I think what, you know, my kids experiences has, you know, informed for me.

And it's like, okay, well, if there's, because if you don't specialize, you don't nowadays, you don't even play high school sports.

So if you value your athletic experience, right?

If you, if you value what you can get through sports and I'm like, I've gotten a lot through so i i feel it'd be a real loss if if my kids didn't have the opportunity to participate in competitive sports but it's just amazing that to participate in high school high school varsity sport you really do have to specialize yeah even if you're good enough you almost have to specialize because the high school coach also has a private club and it's going to favor those those kids that are within that club.

So it's a very difficult ecosystem.

So what is your advice to the parents that are listening or watching who have either young kids or kids in high school who are active and in sports, and they're seeing this happen?

Like, you know, having, you know, having kind of navigated that yourself, like, what can you tell them about how to help their kids kind of avoid the negative aspects of this systemic situation.

If you work backwards from, well, the weight of gold, which is the HBO documentary that we did.

I think that because you're talking about athletes, the very, very best athletes in the world in a variety of sports.

But if you work backwards from there, okay, that's what you're driving towards.

So let's just explain for people who haven't seen that documentary what it is.

So, Way to Gold is, they're about a dozen of the very best Olympic athletes, US athletes that all sort of experienced the same letdown either between games or after retiring, much of what we've been talking about.

And they agreed to talk about it on camera and to, to you know sort of describe how all of that impacted them and what was really interesting is that it was a daunting prospect for them to do that because while Michael had opened up about it a lot of these other athletes hadn't and I think because Michael was doing it I think they felt you know okay I can do this you executive produced it with Michael right it's on HBO or HBO max or whatever we're calling it yeah it's right came out a couple years ago it's been a while since I've seen it.

Mandatory watching, but go ahead.

We produced it ourselves primarily because we feared that if we sought distribution, which we assumed we could get, that we'd have to forfeit control over the project.

And that would, in my view, be too problematic for all of these athletes, many of whom were talking about it for the first time.

And so, essentially, we just created a venue for these athletes to tell their story and talk about their experience.

And, you know, with the assurance that no one's going to see this if you're not comfortable with them.

And I think that that allowed for pretty candid conversations.

But what was interesting is, you know, you do these interviews and each athlete had no idea what their fellow athlete had said in their interview.

It's not like they were all doing this within the same room, But when they got together afterwards, right, and they were able to see, you know, what the other athletes had said, it was such a common experience and they were blown away.

They're like, I can't believe that anybody else felt this way.

And so I think that that's a really powerful thing.

And I think as a parent, if you say, wow, these are literally all of the best athletes in the Olympic space.

and, and these are the struggles that they're going through.

This is really difficult.

I didn't realize that.

And that doesn't mean you shouldn't aspire to be, you know, great within sport.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't, you know, drive to realize your potential at all.

It, but I do think that if, as a parent, if you listen to these athletes and you hear what they're saying in terms of that imbalance and the idea that, well, the purpose of this is to succeed competitively relative to peers and that that's going to be the answer, I don't think it will ever be the answer.

And it doesn't have to be the answer, right?

I mean, it's the process.

It's becoming your best person and that process.

And I think that's just a shift in perspective that I get it down the the road may be difficult to shift, but I think if you were to start when they're younger to give them an appreciation for process over results, I don't think it would undermine, you know, the advancement within sport, but I do think it would help to insulate kids from, you know, some of the disappointment when the results, whether they achieve them or not, don't answer answer all of their questions.

Yeah. Well, given the state of affairs with organized sports, from a parental point of view, you know, basically what I'm getting from this is like, you have to be proactive, right?

You have to insert yourself to care for your child and, you know, act on in their own, you know, kind of long -term best interests so that they're learning the lessons for life that everyone should from sport and not become this, you know, battery from which we're just supposed to extract revenue and, you know, accolades and fame, right?

That's sort of like the incentive structure here.

And you have to cut across the grain and circumvent that, I guess, on some level.

Like, that's a, it's like a, of course, every parent, you know, should be doing these things for their kid, but like, you shouldn't have to, you know, go to war with the the organizations or, you know, the powers that be or the coaches or whatever it is in order to do that.

Like it should just naturally be that.

So I, this has been how I think of it before my kids ever like started youth sports, because I, I mean, I was dealing with athletes that were struggling coming out of each Olympics and with that imbalance.

And so I wanted to encourage my kids to play sports.

I wanted to support that, but I also felt really strongly about, you know, multiple sports, you know, sort of keeping a healthy perspective, all of that.

It made me sick to, you know, see signs up in the hockey rink, like, you know, you know, D1, you can go D, that type of thing to get kids into the program.

And I mean, all of that frustrated me greatly.

So, I mean, one, the only way I could deal with it, the only way I could, um, like feel okay about my kids being in that system was if I coached, you'd have to have that level of like, I don't know, like involvement, I think.

And even that was really difficult because you're coaching, but you have all of the other parents, you have the administration of the league, you have all of that.

It's really, really difficult.

You know, I would preach to my kids about all of these things.

And, you know, it's like they, you know, they would obviously follow Michael.

They knew a lot of these different athletes.

And but I would I wouldn't talk about, you know, the number of medals.

I wouldn't talk about that.

I would just like say, you know, let's talk about this other stuff.

I mean, you know, some of the challenges they're they're They're having an why.

And despite all of that and despite the fact that they played multiple sports, my kids, it really wasn't enough because they also wanted to play in high school or college.

And to do that, they did have to specialize.

And at a certain point, it was like I have a son who's just finished up his sophomore year.

He plays baseball in college.

And he he wanted to play college baseball.

And so the only you know, he played three sports and then, you know, obviously had to had to commit to try to play in college.

And it's that's just what he wanted to do.

And, you know, I would we'd have conversations that that's that's that's fantastic if that's what you want to do.

But understand that you're going to college to learn and that, you know, it's like you're what you're getting out of.

you know you're not going to go pro okay so i or the odds are against it like i i was unapologetic about that assessment in fact if he if he were to go pro it would be because i said he's not so i'm not doing him a great disservice so i kind of you know even harder it's like here you know my dad knows all the great athletes you know and then so he has like there's a level of credibility there that is sort of crushing but but he he you know it's so you have to specialize eyes.

And, you know, despite all of that, like I had those, that perspective, I had those tools.

I mean, not everybody gets to see like, you know, athletes that are at the very top, maybe ever of their sport and some of the challenges and the imbalance and, and, you know, the things that the people don't see that you might not want for your child.

And there was no stopping, you know, my son from wanting to play and so he's part of that system and i could see how you know you know the impact that it would have if he you know wasn't recruited by a certain school the impact it would have if he had a bad game or whatever it might be and so you i'm watching on you know sort of the front end like whoa this is it's all by degree of course but it's it's having that It's the same effect that I see among the Olympians.

It's just happening.

You know, he's had more diversity of experience.

He's getting an education and all of that.

But still, it was, you know, as a parent, it was like, what do you do?

Yeah, despite all of your best efforts to buffer against that.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think finally.

I accepted that specialization is it's unavoidable right now, probably for a while, because if you want to play a sport, it's it's also competitive now and the system is what it is, it's necessary.

necessary. And so, at that point, I thought like, well, what do you do then?

Like, does that mean all of these kids are going to, you know, end up at this, you know, moment of existential threat?

And is there nothing that can be done about it?

And I, so as a parent, it was kind of out of desperation, but, you know, I thought he's not going to listen to me.

I think somehow he's got got to come to this on his own.

I wrote a book for him in a way that he wouldn't know it was written by me.

From you. Yeah. In situations like this, they can't hear it from the parent.

They need to hear it from some sort of mentor figure that they respect that isn't you.

Yeah. And the idea was simply like, all I can do, best I can do, best I can think of to do is to try to shift his perspective from results to process.

And I studied philosophy in college.

It's what I like. It's what I'm interested in.

It's what I read. And it was out of desperation, really, because I just wanted to do what I could to help him.

But I thought like, look, Look, you've got Zen masters, right, that are the very best archers, let's say, swordsmen, whatever.

It's all about specialization.

And yet it's nothing about archery.

There's the answer in my mind, right?

Right. In the sense that like they they are able to develop this strength of mind, this balance because they specialize or through specialization.

And so and they know all the while that it's it's not the result.

It's not becoming a master archer.

It's about mastering your own mind.

It doesn't mean you're not gonna, you know, care about the results.

You know, if you get shelled as a pitcher, it's gonna suck.

But at the same time, if you recognize that it's the process and you go about it with that different perspective, that's a huge change.

So a minor shift in perspective could be a huge change in terms of your resilience, in terms of, you know, what you think you're taking out of the sport each day, the progress you're making that has nothing to do with results, that has nothing to do with a good or bad call.

So much of that, if you're staking your identity on a result that could be determined by a bad call, that's a pretty tough situation.

That you're a fragile human then.

You're not a fully formed human.

Right. The Zen Archer example is a way of saying, how you do anything is how you do everything.

And the answers are always in just how present you can be with whatever it is you're doing.

And when you are identifying yourself with destinations and results, you're future tripping on something that hasn't happened yet.

And you're giving value, you know, you're placing value on that, you know, how you value yourself and how you think other people are going to value you.

uh when in fact uh it's it's mastering the capacity of your mind to be fully present in whatever you're doing that is the solution to you know all the questions you're asking yourself like it's a very profound thing but also like very practical and anybody i'm sure you would agree with all the athletes that you worked with who has been able to sustain success over a long period of time is solely because they are about the process and not the destination, right?

You have to, on some level, hold on to what it was you loved about that sport or whatever activity it was to begin with in order to be fully engaged with process over destination.

Yeah, I think that's right.

And it's interesting because I listened to an interview with one of the you know, best wrestlers in the world.

And he was recounting how, you know, he struggled at certain events and then came to the realization that he was thinking too much about that result.

And at a certain point, he just said, hell with it.

I'm just going to wrestle.

But that he sort of happened upon that realization after already becoming one of the best wrestlers in the world.

That's the opportunity, I think.

It's like, can you help athletes, like, develop that perspective or at least acquire an appreciation for that earlier on in the process?

And, you know, in my view, I think that's one of the most valuable thing about sports.

Sports. I mean, you say it's like it's like the it's a difficult thing to remain present, given all that's thrown at you in life.

But I think sports, it's not life and death, but it feels like it, doesn't it?

It feels like it so often when you're competing.

And I think that's the beauty of sports.

And so, you know, we laugh about like, yeah, well, how useful is it to swim like a second or a hundredth of a second faster?

her like maybe not but but the pressure that you put yourself through and to succeed even to advance like it doesn't matter if you win gold doesn't matter what your time is just to progress and advance more and more of it becomes mental and I think you develop this capacity to equalize you develop the ability to sort of be in the moment remain in the moment and I think deal with with pressure.

And that, that is in, in my experience, the most valuable thing that you can take out of sports.

And it's unique because maybe you could have done it back in the day by actually having to fight for your life, but that's not realistic now, but sports does an amazing job of creating this tension and this pressure.

And if you want to advance through it, you simply have have to become mentally strong.

And I think that's, I think, creating more of an appreciation for that, not just the results.

Yeah, I think that's really important.

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there's a difference between managing all those externalities and pressures from a place of like peace and equanimity versus compartmentalizing all the fear you know what i mean that's sort of like the amateur version is like you know i'm scared i'm afraid i don't think i'm good enough i don't know how to handle all these people coming you know all of that like i'll just i'll repress it it i'll push it away i'll pretend it's not there and that works for a while until it doesn't right mastery is the zen archer example of like understanding that the only thing that you have control over is your

behavior and how you respond to the world and and developing the the capacity to be malleable and and and be cool with whatever's coming at you with a with a deeper deeper self -confidence that you'll be able to manage it.

I had John, John Florence on the podcast recently, you know, world champion surfer.

And he shared this really fascinating story.

Like this is a kid who, you know, from the minute he was like this Grom, you know, on the beach, everybody telling him he's going to be the next Kelly Slater.

And to some extent early on, he was sort of living up to that, like won back to back world championships.

But then he was losing a lot and got injured and just, you know, had seven years where, you know, it was kind of, he was kind of a wash a little bit.

And he ultimately won the world championships again this past year.

And the way that he did it, well, there's a lot that went into it, but a big piece of it was, was that very thing.

Like just being okay.

Like when you're out there in the, in the waves, like you have no control over what wave you're going to get and what everybody else is doing.

like the variables are infinite, right?

How can he be okay with whatever's happening and, you know, kind of arrest the looping mind and, and, um, and just remember, like, I know how to surf.

Like, I don't have to think about this.

You know, what I have to do is stop thinking about it and just allow myself to be and, and, and tap into that like deeper reservoir of confidence.

And one of the tools that he used that I thought was super interesting was a visualization tool, but not the normal one where an athlete is, you know, imagining every step of the race or the competition and, you know, what it's going to feel like when their hand hits the wall, you know, one one -hundredth of a second, you know, before the other guy.

But instead, visualizing how he wanted to feel emotionally, like when he was out in the set, like, I want to feel good.

I want to to feel happy.

You know, I want to feel confident.

I want to feel calm and like rehearsing that state of mind so that when he's there, he can like channel that or tap into that, like drop into that state.

And I think that's a really powerful twist on that normal practice of visualization that you typically hear about.

Yeah. I think that's, that's strong.

Yeah. True or false.

you almost passed on signing michael phelps well well i'd say it's true that i almost uh i almost failed to sign michael phelps but the story i heard is that bowman was trying to get your attention and i mean this is early you know michael's super young and you were like representing snowboarders at the time right yeah i mean i had uh i mean michael's he had unique potential even even at that age.

I mean, he was, he was, um, you know, I was aware of him, but it's a big decision, as you know, to forego college within swimming and go pro.

Um, I mean, not that many swimmers have done that because it's a great system to go through to swim in college.

And so, you know, when he made that decision, then it became like a concerted effort to, um, to sign sign with an agent and do all of that.

Um, but when they reached out to me, I just happened to be like, if I was maybe two weeks from going to Salt Lake city with a significant roster of athletes, I mean, it's a, it's a busy time.

I mean, so, you know, I, I said, yeah, I'm very interested, but it's going to have to wait because I've got, um, you know, commitment to these athletes and And, you know, it's it's going to go for probably a few weeks after the games.

But after that, I would love to meet.

And, you know, understandably, you know, when you start that process, I think Michael wanted to make a decision and get on with it.

And so as I the story that that Bob and Michael had told me since is that like, yeah, they were they were really antsy to to make a decision.

And Bob saw me on the Today Show talking about marketing snowboarders, which at the time was sort of an emerging sport.

And he said, well, we got to wait.

Let's wait. Let's give them some time.

And it really was. It was probably at least three weeks after the games, if not a month, because the clients that I had in Salt Lake did really well.

And so then you're running around doing all sorts of things.

But eventually, they did fortunately wait to commit, and we had a good meeting down in Baltimore, and they decided to— The rest is history.

I mean, how long has this relationship been going on?

2002. Wow, that long, yeah.

Yeah, a long, long time.

He was 17. How do you describe your philosophy of what you do?

Like, I see you like your sports agent, you're very distinguished, successful one, but I think you're unique in many ways.

So, like, how do you put words to what it is that you do and the kind of meaning and philosophy behind it?

Well, that's a big question.

I don't know. I think that the way I got into it helped me in the sense that there was no path to follow.

I had no mentor, you know, I mean, so.

So when I started to work with these athletes in sport, like initially, you know, snowboarding in particular, you know, it was, it was about how can I help these athletes, you know, become recognizable to a bigger audience, become more relevant to that audience.

And it really was more than anything else was like a communications exercise, right?

It's PR and, and, and then if you do that, well, the rest sort of the commercial stuff will come if their results are there.

But I think in terms of philosophy, it's, I would, I would try to understand what each of them wanted to get out of it.

I mean, it's the obvious stuff.

It's like, well, I'd like to, you know, be able to continue to compete.

and, and honestly, it's that it's not making money for, you know, the overwhelming majority of these athletes.

It's about, can I stay in the sport?

Can I earn enough money to not have to work a job so that I can realize my potential and that sort of thing.

And so, you know, that's the obvious stuff, but in terms of like, okay, well, what are we, you know, what is the story that you're telling?

Who are the partners that might be aligned with that?

I mean, what are we building building together.

And I think that's just a matter of like, you know, trying to be proactive, understand, you know, what each athlete's about and then not waiting for the opportunities to come, but trying to get out in front of it.

And I mean, I think that's the approach that we try to take.

To me, it feels like it extends well beyond like what you think of a manager's role is, which is just to, like, you know, be a dealmaker.

Like, I see you as somebody who is a creative partner who's always thinking long -term.

And, you know, it's a very interesting world, this world of, like, Olympic sports, because for the vast majority of the athletes, they're under the radar and only emerge once every four years in this very heightened situation in which the The stakes are very high and you as their representative have to plan for that, strategize around that and be ready to kind of pounce and execute on deals that might happen in the immediate aftermath of a performance before the window closes and the halo effect is over.

And to do that by thinking about their best interest long term, like who are the partners that are going to serve this person where there's a there's mutual benefit and there's some path that's going to at least bridge them to the next Olympiad, you know, because memory is short.

And, you know, people forget, as we were talking about earlier, immediately, like what happened.

And that's very different than representing an NBA athlete or an NFL athlete where these people are in the public consciousness, like, you know, for most of the year, you know, kind of persistently year after year.

Yeah, they have a platform that they don't have to create and maintain, whereas Olympic athletes don't.

I mean, they have their platform is for the most part every four years.

years. And so, you know, I think strategically from the beginning, it was okay, we can do business around the games, like that year around the games, and then you'll have to wait.

And maybe if they continue, you know, a year prior to the next games, there'll be more activity.

And that just seemed like a pretty lousy way to do it.

So I think it was, you know, strategically, it's about how can you create and maintain a platform for exposure that the athletes can have more control over, however small it may be.

And I think that's where it's only sustainable if it's aligned with who they are and what they actually want to do.

But I think each media opportunity, each Each partner activation should be aligned, should be strategic.

That's the key. Treat each of these things as a platform and try to integrate all of them strategically.

And if you do that – So it's all telling one story.

Yeah, and they'll weave together.

And if you've got three overlapping partners activating in a similar way or amplifying the same message, well, that's not dependent upon world championships necessarily.

Let's not dependent upon the games.

And, you know, you start to create a bridge between the games.

And I think that's the most valuable thing you can do for for athletes, I think, from, you know, from my standpoint.

point and that's gotten a lot easier you know more recently because of social media and just content but you know certainly back in um late 90s and early 2000s you it was tricky because you really you know you had you know a couple of televised events and that's it and so the social media aspect of it uh has changed the game in so many ways for for better and for worse like In Paris, we saw the emergence of stars that we wouldn't have expected, but for social media by these athletes sort of taking responsibility for telling their own story and doing it in a way that was so captivating that it

almost didn't matter how well they performed.

like the world fell in love with them, like Alona Mar or the rugby players is probably the best example of that, which is exciting for the young athlete where it isn't necessarily just about medals, but they're being given this platform to tell their own story.

And if they do it well, they can have a similar experience.

At the same time, there's this burden, I think, that that athletes now feel that they have to be a brand and they have to be filming everything and capturing everything.

And it's not enough just to, you know, aspire to be the best in the world at something.

They also have to run a production company around themselves and, you know, are constantly in this process of, you know, content creation, which, you know, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.

But it's certainly, you know, an added burden, if not a total distraction from them just doing the thing.

And I, and I would imagine there's a lot of athletes that are like, I don't want to do that.

I just want to like, why can't I just, you know, do the, do the sport?

Like, why is it now expected that I also have to do that?

There's pressure to do that from a lot of different sources, but I mean, it's part of every deal that these athletes do now.

I mean, they're, you know, social media activation, it becomes an entitlement to the company and an obligation for the athlete, and they, they value the partnership, not entirely because of social media, but it's a significant factor.

And so, you could have that athlete that just said, look, I, I get it, but I'm, you know, I'm, I'm not into it, and I am just gonna be the best athlete I can be, and hopefully, you know, you know, commercial interest is still there.

And it probably would be, right?

But it's a matter of degree, and there's a lot of temptation to, like, maximize that value while you can, especially where, you know, that could be, you know, your funding to continue within the sport.

And so, yeah, I think social media, it, it, in my view only works if it's authentic, but it can't be authentic for all of what's happening.

It's not for everyone.

Right. Are you starting to see a deal flow around AI, like NIL rights around AI, for example, like, you know, we want to, you know, we want to scan Michael's body, you know, and then we can insert him into commercials in Japan and things like that.

Like, is that happening yet?

Yeah, there are conversations around AI that are happening more now, but that sort of thing, you know, haven't really seen in terms of like performance.

I mean, the closest we've gotten on that was, this is years ago before the whole AI thing, but it was holograms. Oh, I remember that.

Yeah, yeah. They wanted to scan him in and if they – with the thinking that if they scanned him in, he could be everywhere at once and, you know, he could be doing appearances all over the world.

This is going to happen, though.

You know, like this is on the near horizon, I think.

Oh, I think from a performance standpoint, you must see that, right?

I mean, it's – in terms of evaluating all of the data and – Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, sort of in my space, it's like you can create your own AI that like knows everything that you've, you know, like every podcast episode, or you can create like an encyclopedia out of that or like a research tool for that.

And I've already, you know, I've been deep faked a couple times.

I'm sure like your clients probably have as well.

And you kind of go to battle with that and play defense against that.

But, you know, soon, and this is something Hollywood is, you know, going to be dealing with, it's like, oh, well, we can just recreate Cary Grant and like put him in a movie and no one, it's, it's, it's going to look exactly like he did.

Like this is the world that we're tiptoeing into where, you know, NIL takes on a whole different like flavor of what it represents, uh, and, and what it would mean to do that.

Like when somebody's still young and vital to say, okay, do that.

It's one thing if you're Cary Grant, there's an estate, the person's dead, but like when they're still alive to be having facsimiles of you, like, you know, doing commercials and things like that, like it's gonna get very strange very soon, I think.

Yeah, I think it's all gonna change very rapidly, yeah.

It does feel like the Olympics are back though.

Paris was really something special.

I think that it was a definitive statement that the world still loves the Olympics.

And now we're in this ramp up to LA 28.

And I know that you have to strategize and think about, you know, what that represents for your clients and be planning well in advance.

So where's your head around L .A.

28 and what this is going to what this experience is going to be like?

Well, it's just a it's a huge opportunity because of the platform that it's in the U .S. If you look at the investment into, you know, the L .A.

games and what it will mean for the The American audience, I mean, it's just a huge opportunity for any athlete, whatever potential they may have. And we're talking about, you know, in terms of building a brand or commercially.

I mean, it's not going to be any different in terms of the competitive results.

But in terms of building and generating commercial opportunities, it'll be that much easier, that much more productive for them.

program, you know, the appetite for activation around athletes will be far greater than we've seen in a while.

And so it's the same strategy.

I mean, it's what are you trying to accomplish?

And OK, we have more options now.

So let's think about how we're going to, you know, pursue them.

So that I mean, the biggest difference is that it's just I think the scale of the opportunities and the demand will be that much greater.

And we're seeing that.

I mean, the winter games were less than a year away and winter games are always, you know, less significant than the summer games from a commercial standpoint.

But it's almost like the L .A.

and, you know, Milan, Cortina, they're like proceeding on parallel paths.

We've got just as much business relating to the summer games as we do winter already.

And that's pretty that's pretty rare.

Usually, you know, there's a shift and with summer, it would come immediately after the Winter Games because it is such a bigger opportunity.

But no, I think now there's a lot of preparation and again, opportunity for the athletes, for the sports.

I mean, some of these sports that have been recently added to the games or more emerging, I think, you know, every sport has a bigger opportunity and it's a unique opportunity that won't come again necessarily in some time.

So, you know, they should be planning and really working hard between now and then.

As somebody who has so many relationships with just incredibly high -performing athletes, what are some of the shared common traits that these individuals have that normal, you know, everyday people, you know, don't have?

Like do you see themes that emerge from all the young athletes that you work with where you can kind of identify what makes them so special and different?

I think by the time I come to know them, they've distinguished themselves from a athletic standpoint.

But I think what they have in common is competitiveness.

And by that, I mean I can't take credit for it.

Or it's Eddie Reese, who's a – Legendary Texas swimming coach. Yeah, and longtime U .S. Olympic coach and all of that.

Beloved. Yeah, beloved.

And he had a great quote that I think answers your question better than I could, which is he had said at one point of all American swimmers, 80 % love to win, 20 % hate to lose.

The Olympic team is comprised of the 20%.

And if I think of not all of my clients, but the clients that have really been at the highest level of their sport, it's like you take that 20 % and who hates to lose most. I think that's what separates these athletes at the very top because that would inform what they do every single day and how they're going to react in that moment when it matters most. This brings it all the way back to the mental health conversation because fundamentally if your fuel is that you hate to lose that's dysfunctional you know that's very different from like I want to be the best version of myself and if what it

takes to be on the top of that podium is hating to lose like what is the origin of that hate like what you know what's underneath that that that drive right and generally there's going to be something you know that is probably going to show up later in life and not a great way.

You know, the whole thing is like, you know, rigged for, uh, you know, dysfunctional mental health.

And that's what it's like, okay, well, if you solve for mental health and you know, you're, you're going to basically take that 20 % off the table.

Well, yeah, it'd be really fascinating to take the 20 % or even like the top 10 % of the 20 % and go back and try to identify like a common denominator there.

there. But I think, I mean, we talk about Michael and we talk about any of the athletes, but where Michael's spoken so much about it, I think he had a chip on his shoulder.

Okay, but what's a chip on your shoulder?

I mean, I think it's ego, which is, in my view, insecurity.

And I think that that is what drives so much of the competitiveness that we all feel.

I mean, like, I think about it, It's like, yeah.

I mean, it's like if you really honestly boil it down, it's insecurity.

It's fear of failure that that somehow you can't comprehend losing because that is the existential threat.

Right. So not to play, you know, armchair psychologist here, but, you know, in Michael's case, like if you remove the absentee dad aspect of the whole thing, like, does it all cave in?

Like, because, you know, there was this, you know, I mean, it's a childhood trauma, right?

Like you're, you don't have a dad, right?

And so what does that do to your young psyche?

And, and, you know, at what point does that motivate you or, or drive you, um, with this desire to, you know, feel worthy and be seen like, okay, he didn't, he rejected me.

So I need to, you know, I need to distinguish myself as, as worthy of love.

of. And the way I'm going to do that is to just be undeniable.

Yeah. But I think that certainly comes into play.

But so to does like he had ADHD and, you know, he was told by teachers that he'd never amount to anything.

You know, they're, they're probably like a thousand cuts along the way.

Right. Exactly. And it all, you know, and it's how he processed that uniquely.

But I would imagine that you could find, you know, that combination of factors among these great athletes that create that need to win, however unhealthy it may be.

And I think you could do the same in business.

I think you could do the same in so many different, you know, areas of life.

I mean, I know that like, you know, the highest level, the highest level of business, at least as I've I've been exposed to it in terms of like, OK, you know, if we're dealing with companies or media or whatever, there's an imbalance that that, you know, I think is common among them.

And and I think that ego and insecurity has to come into play.

You may not know that story, but that's that's what I've come to believe anyway.

Yeah, it's tension.

you know you need to be balanced fundamentally as a human being if you're gonna if you're gonna you know live a meaningful life right but if you want to achieve some insane level of greatness that demands you be out of balance and in order to you know have the motivation to go out of balance to that degree you know you have to be there has to be some kind of like mental tweak week there.

Yeah. I guess the question is, can you compete as ferociously as you need to and still be okay if you don't win?

Right. I like to believe that you can.

I mean, if you couldn't, I mean, then where's the Zen master archer?

Yeah. I think that that challenges the Yogi Berra quote.

Like, is it really the 20 % who can't stand to lose?

Or is it the people who are so committed to excellence within themselves that anything short of that is somewhat intolerable?

So it's not about beating other people or losing to another individual.

It's the demands you place on yourself, right?

Yeah, but the demands shouldn't be results oriented.

I mean, I think it's really fascinating because each sport offers like a different opportunity to challenge that mindset.

said. My son's a pitcher, so I just like end up thinking about that more.

But you're setting yourself up for failure if you're going to feel different depending upon whether you win or lose, depending upon whether you get out of an inning.

I mean, because there are conditions that you cannot control.

The results do not reflect your value as a human being or even your value as a pitcher.

You could do everything perfectly, and it's just a bad call.

Happens all the time.

I mean, you watch baseball with anybody.

You won't go through a single at bat without having a difference of opinion in terms of a call.

You know, luck comes into play, chance.

So, I mean, it may be unrealistic, but I think the right objective is challenge yourself to feel the very same way From the beginning of the game to the end, no matter what the result.

And I think that's achievable.

I think it requires a certain perspective, and you have to go through this process.

I think you have to really work to get to the point where you can maintain that perspective and that calm.

But if you think about it, if you're pitching the way you want to pitch, the results won't necessarily reflect that.

so can you go through that game despite all of those like uncontrollable conditions bad results whatever and feel the same way you may feel badly because i i did this wrong okay that's different that's not results that's that's sort of like the physical process whereby you're pitching but in terms of results win lose the get a hit what was a strike or a ball those things it's irrational rational to tie your, you know, frame of mind to those results.

The way into that is to, I mean, failure is such a terrible word. Like there should be a different word that frames it or gives it the connotation of growth opportunity.

Like when something goes wrong, like that's when you learn about how to course correct and do it better the next time.

And if we could just be curious about that rather than lambast ourselves and self -identify with it, I think we'd all be better off, but something about our human wiring kind of gets in the way.

Yeah, it's what we drive to a certain result.

But I mean, it's now I've heard it in other places.

The first time I ever heard it was Michael and I were in Singapore and we went to an MMA fight there.

And the athlete who was favored lost, but said, hey, win or learn.

And I just thought that was like, yeah, right.

And which is more valuable, right?

I mean, you know, it's hard to think that way.

And Michael's like, yeah, no, thanks.

That's a rhetorical question.

Yeah, like tell him, like, you know, it might have been better if you lost that race.

You would have been like, no, no, no. Exactly.

So that's the difference between theory and practice.

And the greatest, you know, is like, okay, well, you're the best. So you figured something out, everybody else didn't, and yet we're still saying like, hey, maybe a little more balance, maybe a little bit more diversity, maybe all these things that are just so foreign to somebody who is that focused and determined.

And it is that thing that took them to that place.

Yeah, I mean, compartmentalization works to a point.

I mean Michael, he's a great swimmer and he worked so hard and he's built for it and he's the first one to tell you like he was very good at compartmentalizing and amazing under pressure.

So in that moment when people may tighten up a bit, he didn't.

And so you could say like that's the recipe.

That's what you want.

I think it may be in a very narrow sense.

sense. But again, the question that I would pose is, can you achieve that with a different perspective?

And I think that's scary.

That's very scary because it's basically threatening your whole like worldview.

Yeah, I think you can't, I don't, I think it's too much of a shift at that point.

But the question is, well, what if you started that?

What if you took a different different approach, you know, at the youth level.

Right. Or along the way.

A Zen master archer, Zen master in anything, it's, you don't know how long that's going to take.

It's a painful experience, right?

I mean, there's a, there's a process.

And to me, it's the process is the pressure is going to, you're thinking, you're thinking it's going to impact your performance.

And it's not until you get past that that it all starts to flow.

And I think that's why can't it work that way in sports?

Well, that's mastery.

I mean, that's mental mastery of your own mind.

All of that pressure, you think it's real.

It's a story you're telling yourself.

Like, you can choose to have a different experience.

It's your relationship with it, right?

Right. And I think that ability to, you know, the archer has to be completely in the moment present without any kind of interfering thought.

It's only then that you can tap into that flow and unleash the best performance that you're capable of.

But at the Olympic level, when that pressure is so intense, that story is just so loud.

Yeah. I mean, again, it's I think it's something you have to cultivate over a longer period of time, probably.

probably, but I think it's, you know, it's a, it is a difference in perspective in the sense that it would, you'd view the setbacks very differently.

The, the failures, right?

You'd view them differently and they would appear to you as progress in some way, as opposed to, um, as opposed to a setback.

Well, these low moments, you know, are our greatest teachers and ultimately in, you know, many cases become the growth accelerators.

Like when you think about what Michael went through in that, you know, that like dark period of his life, and I'm interested in like how you helped to guide him through that, you know, I'm sure he looks back on that now as a gift because it's given him, you know, this new life and this new sense of purpose.

So, we're not very good at judging the merits of these situations when we're in them.

And it's It's only in retrospect or how we develop our relationship with them.

And in the best case, you know, use them as fuel to grow in new and interesting ways that they become like these gifts instead of like failures to be ashamed of or to feel guilty about.

Yeah. You know, there's not going to be a revolution where you're going to tear down the structures of youth sports, et cetera.

But let's just say in some parallel universe, you got nominated to some federal government position of power like, you know, presidential fitness guru, you know, or something like that, where you had the authority to make certain changes in youth sports, high school sports, etc. et cetera.

Like what kind of programs would you like to see implemented and developed and funded that could create, you know, a new generation of young athletes who are more kind of mentally fit around the ideas we've been talking about?

Yeah, it's funny. I think if you look at like the bylaws of some of these organizations or even at like the local level, like the, you know, like Maine Principals Association, which governs high school, so all of the sports in Maine, for example.

And it's like a lot of the values are there in writing, like the right ones, the balance.

And, you know, here's the purpose of high school sports.

And it's written there, but it's not it's not enforced in that way.

It's not nothing that is done is, you know, reflects those values.

And so I think it's a matter of, you know, staying true to like, Like let's think about it.

Why are we spending so much time and so much money on sports?

I'm talking from the youth level through high school, you know, towns, cities, municipalities, like the money that is invested in sport.

And I'm not saying that that's like that shouldn't happen.

I'm just saying we should all be like cognizant of the reason for it.

What is the purpose?

What is the purpose of sports in the lives of all of these kids?

Because the sacrifices that families make, that parents make, the cost, I mean, you know, if you total up what is spent, you know, from the time your kid gets into sports to graduate from high school, and that's the end of, I mean, the overwhelming majority of high school athletes, they're done then.

And you take all of that money and then what's left for college?

You know, I mean, you know, the average family struggles for, you know, for that cost. And so it doesn't mean that that it doesn't make sense.

But I think at the outset, that should be a consideration in terms of like, what are we what are we getting out of this?

What is the purpose of this?

And then from an administrative standpoint, how can we support that?

And I mean, part of that is I think you you have to consider, okay, the privatization of, of youth sports and these clubs, how are they, you know, integrating with, you know, community programs?

How are they integrating with school programs?

Is access to sports like, you know, equal among kids?

Um, all of those things I think are really important.

Um, but the biggest shift would come with, from the very beginning To instill in kids an understanding of why you're playing sports and what you what you'll likely get out of it and to somehow counter, you know, the the idea that, you know, that whoever lost that game is, you know, suffering in some way or whoever, you know, won three games in a row is is is a more valuable individual.

I mean, you've got to, I think, counter that and have open conversations about it.

And I think those conversations shouldn't just be about technique.

It shouldn't just be about, you know, the sport itself, but rather, you know, a more, you know, abstract conversation to try to get kids just understanding that, used to talking about it, get parents, you know, familiar with those ideas.

So you're really just revisiting, you know, what is the fundamental purpose for any of this?

easier said than done for sure yeah there's also a question of like okay well whose responsibility is that is it the coaches it's the parents is it the athletic departments is it the organizing bodies and i think until there is some kind of infrastructure or you know kind of guiding principles around that it just gets passed around like that's not my job that's the parents job As a coach, you know, so nothing ever kind of gets done.

But I think where I feel optimistic about it is just that this conversation is happening and young people are having it.

And there's a cultural shift in our relationship with mental health from something that, you know, would be considered a weakness or something you should you should feel bad about or hide from other people to very normalized.

marginalized and i think that that is you know there's a lot of credit that's due to michael and simone and other people who are advancing that right now and i think that that is the biggest impact on the next generation in terms of how they think about their own well -being yeah i agree and it's i mean that the number of athletes that openly you know talk about their challenges and their struggles i mean it's changed so dramatically over just the past five years yeah and i think to see press conferences where they're like, you know, just flat out, like, we'll just tell you like what's, you know,

it's like that would have never happened.

Yeah. Even like, I don't know, five or 10 years ago.

Yeah. It's huge progress.

You're a legend. I appreciate you taking the time to do this.

And I love everything that you're doing.

And I think you're a force for good in this world of sport and mental well -being.

So thanks for talking to me today.

Thank you, too, Rich. It's been a real pleasure.

I appreciate it. See you in LA in 28, if not sooner.

Cheers. That's it for today.

Thank you for listening.

I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation.

To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discuss today, visit the episode page at richroll .com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way.

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[Redefining Success: Navigating the Mental Health Crisis in Elite Sports with Peter Carlisle]-[The Weight of Gold: Peter Carlisle On The Olympian Mental Health Crisis, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles & The Hidden Cost of Greatness]

📋 Summary

Redefining Success: Navigating the Mental Health Crisis in Elite Sports

The Illusion of Hyper-Specialization

The Dark Side of the Podium

Shifting from Destination to Process

The Role of Advocacy and Vulnerability

A Call to Action for Parents and Organizations

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript