← Youth Inc. with Greg Olsen
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- [00:00]
A
Make sure you subscribe to both our YouTube channel and our RSS feed for all future conversations here at youthink. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode here on you Think. And I'm super pumped for our guest today. One of the most accomplished Olympians in history, five time gold medalist, incredible athlete, Great story. Bet your husband he's okay. More excited to talk to you. Hayes. Kidding. Talk to Hayes, asked him 5,000 questions, but no one other than Missy Franklin. Thank you so much for joining us here on youthink.
- [00:35]
B
Of course, Greg, you come very highly recommended from Hayes. So I'm so.
- [00:40]
A
We had a blast.
- [00:41]
B
He told me, he said, y' all had so much fun.
- [00:44]
A
I'm probably. He probably left and he was like, that guy is nuts. He asked me 5,000 questions. I was just so fascinated. From talking to them both about just the world and the experience for young athletes and how the trajectory of becoming obviously an Olympian, which is obviously the dream. I just found myself saying if our kids had any idea what the swimming culture was like at a young age, they would not complain about their two baseball practices a week where they didn't even break a sweat.
- [01:14]
B
It's pretty intense. It's pretty intense. But at the same time, swimming, swimming is one of those sports where Hayes and I, we're such strong advocates for this, of kids just doing what they're passionate about because that passion is going to take you so much further. And when the sport does start to get harder and you're starting to make sacrifices and as a, as a kid, you have to love what you're doing to really stay in it and want to continue to work hard. So it is intense. But I think Hayes and I both had the same experience of we just loved it so we almost didn't even realize it. Like, that was just the normal for us.
- [01:49]
A
Well, I asked, hey, so I'm going to ask you the same question. And I think this is kind of like at the center of everything else. We dive into the rest of this conversation. Can you teach a kid to love it? So let's stick with swimming. Can you teach a kid to love getting up at 5am for the morning session and then after school, the afternoon session, the dry land work. Like, can you teach them that grind and can you teach them to love it or are you just born with it?
- [02:19]
B
I think it's a mix. And that's a great question. I think you have both. I think you have some people that are born and they're just like, I want to be in the water. I love the work, the workouts, the work ethic, the amount of energy and intensity, but then the payoff at the end and how amazing that feels. But then I also think you have the athletes that are maybe more hesitant and that realize what an insane amount of work it is and realize the sacrifices they do have to make. And it might take a little bit more time for them to kind of get into it, but then they might start to get that feeling of like, hey, I work so hard for this moment and when I touched my hand to the wall and turned around and saw that time, it was worth it. Like, I recognize that. I may not have thought that at first, but now I feel that. And that's going to motivate me to go even further. And, and so I think keeping an eye out for both, but there's definitely also the cases where you're going to put kids in it and they're going to be like, nope, this, this is not for me, not my thing.
- [03:18]
A
So how much different is your perspective? Like, so take us back both into the. The mind of a young Missy Franklin starting her Olympic journey as a little girl and maybe how the mindset then compared to now. Obviously, how you look back on retrospect, it's a lot easier to look back now in hindsight and say, it was all worth it. I was an Olympian. I was one of the most heralded Olympians in history. You know, obviously your 2012 kind of coming out party in London, I remember watching that at training camp. Like, we all remember those moments. So it's easy to say, oh yeah, it was all worse worth it for Missy. She became so accomplished before all the accomplishments, before you busted onto the scene at 17 or whatever. Tell us about the 8 year old Missy Franklin. Like, where was her mindset when they said, and you're like, I'm going to do what? Like, this is the path to being an Olympian. Like, I know I want to do it, but I don't know if I really want to do all of that.
- [04:14]
B
Yeah, that's a great question, Greg. I think for me, something that has always been very intuitive with my mindset is I have always enjoyed the journey just as much, if not more than the destiny. And I think especially when I was younger, that was really beneficial to me because I didn't just love going to competitions and swimming fast. I loved going to practice every day. Like, I loved spending two hours with my best friends, talking on the wall in between intervals. I loved the feeling after hard workouts. Like, for me, that brought me joy that made me really happy. And so when I started to get an understanding, which I would say was probably. I made my first Olympic trial cuts when I was 12, and I went to Olympic trials when I was 2008. And that for me was like, right. Like an unreal moment, you know, being not only in the same area, but swimming in the same pool as Natalie Coughlin and Nathan Adrian and Ryan Lochte. And it's just like, this is happening. Like, I'm here and I can actually see a pathway where this is my future and I can make this happen.
- [05:22]
A
This episode of youf Think is brought to you by Players Health, a company that believes youth athletes deserve the safest and the most accessible environments possible to play the sports they love. To break this down, I spoke with Tyree Burks, Players Health's founder and CEO, to hear the mission and principles of Players Health firsthand. We have a really special guest, the founder of Players Health, Tyre Burks. Tyre, thanks for joining us here on youthink. I'd love to just hear a little bit about your background, a little bit about starting and founding of Players Health and really just why you saw hole in in the youth sports kind of world that you thought needed to be filled, and it is being filled by your work with your team.
- [06:05]
C
At Players Health, my background and where I grew up, the environment that I grew up in played a huge part of me creating Players Health. I grew up in the south side of Chicago. Sports truly saved my life. And when I say that, like, I had an opportunity to choose two paths. Either it was the streets or sports. And fortunately enough, I chose sports. I was invited to come out to a youth football practice. I showed up early and I stayed late, and it kept me out of the streets. And so there's been two things that I've been obsessed with. You know, the past, call it 15 years of my. Call it professional career. As I've been, I've been focused on safety and I've been focused on sports. Like, I've just been obsessed with those things. I know what it feels like to grow up in an environment where safety is a luxury and sports was a safe place for me through that experience. I had all these injuries growing up. I had. I got three bulging discs in my neck. I ended up tearing my hamstrings, broken fingers, ligaments. You know, just playing sports and playing football, we didn't have athletic trainers. Growing up with a school I went to, and then until I went to the college level, I really didn't understand policies and protocols around how these things were managed. And so when I look back over my career, I ended up playing in the Canadian Football League for a couple of years and I decided to hang it up. I started to reflect on my career and go, hey, half these injuries would have been managed a lot better when I was younger. Like, who knows what would have happened, but maybe I would have played a lot longer. And so I started to look at the impact that I wanted to make in my life and also in the world. And sports was such a. He played a huge role in my life, so I wanted to give back to it and players up was my way of going about doing that. And so our mission has been the same mission since day one, which is how do we create the safest environment for an athlete to play the sport that they love? I think this is something that the world needs for our youth. And so we've been focused on leaning into creating those safe spaces here at.
- [07:53]
A
You think we want to bring value to you, the parents, coaches, the athletes listening in everything that we do. Check out players health today and let them know Youth Inc. Sent you. Now back to the episode. Okay, so we spend so much of our time saying like, we don't need kids to know what they are at 12. Continue to try other things. The caveat should be except if you could go to the Olympics, like if you can go to the Olympics at 12, then you can pick a sport and you. Nothing we say has anything to do with you, but like I need to know. You're 12 years old and you're at the Olympic trials and at 13, like I, I have to imagine you were the only one. Like I have to imagine There was no one. Even two.
- [08:36]
B
I think there was two 13 year.
- [08:37]
A
There was multiple 13 year olds at the Olympics.
- [08:40]
B
Olympic trials.
- [08:41]
A
Olympic trials. That's what I mean. Olympic trials, yeah. It is that unique. Like how, at what age do you know? Okay, I'm different than everybody else. When you're swimming as a seven year old.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Are you that much better that you're swimming? Like you're a 10 year old? Like I know in gymnastics, right, there's like ratings, so it's not so much like how old you are, but it's like, okay, I'm a, what is it? A nine? I'm a level nine, I'm a level ten. And that's kind of how you gauge it. Doesn't matter really what age you are. How do they do it in swimming? Like are you racing against 10 year old girls or are you racing against girls? That might be 14, but it's all based on, like, your qualifying times.
- [09:20]
B
Yeah. So normally when you're an age group swimmer, you're swimming against people your own age, and that's normally within a two year age group. So you'll have 6 and unders, 7 eights, 9 tens, 11, 12s, 13, 14s. Like, that's kind of how you're.
- [09:33]
A
That makes sense. That makes sense to my brain.
- [09:35]
B
Yes. Once you get to the club level and you're starting to swim year round, that's when time standards become universal. So if you're trying to qualify for a sectional meet or for a junior nationals, there's just time standards. It doesn't matter how old you are, you have to make those time standards in order to qualify for that competition. And so that's exactly how Olympic trials works as well. There's an Olympic trial cut for every event. It doesn't matter how old you are, how long you've been swimming, where you come from, if you make an Olympic trial cut, you can go and compete at Olympic trials. So.
- [10:07]
A
Which is so cool.
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B
It's so cool, right?
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A
Like, it's just so objective.
- [10:11]
B
Or do you have a middle school athlete playing or swimming in the same arena as the best in the world? Like, you don't have amazing, you know, a middle school basketball player on the same court as Caitlin Clark. Right. Like, that just doesn't happen. And that's one of my favorite things about swimming is it happens for us. Like, you get to see them in person, you get to watch their warm up, you get to watch them race, like, everything. And it's just such a cool, cool thing to be a part of. So I'm totally with you. I think there's no reason to specialize for young kids. Like, let them play, let them be kids. Let them see what they enjoy. And I always kind of preface that when I'm talking to families and to swimmers and saying, you know, my story is a little unique. Like, it was, it was unique in that I. From a very young age, we kind of knew that this was gonna be something special. Special.
- [11:02]
A
And how old? I would say, like, give me an example. When everyone was like, wow, like, this is. We haven't seen anything like this before. That was happening at what age?
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B
Probably around 9 and 10.
- [11:16]
A
And you're doing what? Like, give us a perspective of what you did at nine that caught the attention. And people go, okay, we have something special here. We need to make sure we nurture this. Like, what were you doing relative to other nine year Olds. That was so different.
- [11:31]
B
Yeah. So I would say I'm not going to know full specifics because honestly, my parents did such a good job of just kind of like bubbling me and being like, she loves this. She has fun. Like, we just want her to focus on that. We don't want her to kind of start hearing all this chatter. But I think that the idea was that I was going times that were significantly faster than the average 9 and 10 year olds. You know, I was going times that 12 year olds and 13 year olds and 14 year olds were going to several years their. Their age. And so I think it was around that time, actually, that my parents started to get a ton of feedback from other people saying that we needed to move because we lived in Colorado. And so we would have constant people coming up to my parents saying, you guys need to leave. Like, she needs to go to Texas. She needs to go to California. Like, you need to go to a swimming state and go to a coach who is seasoned, who knows what he's doing. Like my coach, this his first day on my club team was my first day as a starfish, you know, so it was like it was his first time, too. And then lo and behold, there we are standing at the Olympics, you know, 10 years later, winning, you know, four gold medals. So it was just like, we really stayed true to us, and I was so happy with where I was. And I loved Colorado, I loved my team, I loved my coach, that we were all just like, why? Why would we change anything? And also, it's working. So. So why, you know, why. Why fix something that's not broken? And I am so glad that we made that decision and stayed in Colorado.
- [13:01]
A
Well, I'm glad you brought it up because I want to stay about the relationship with your parents and the job they did. Right. It's. It's the typical prodigy athlete prodigy story that we've seen the other side of this spectrum. We've seen the overbearing parent who identifies they got a paycheck there. They have something special. There's a. Whether it's intentionally exploitive or it's just. Just they get caught up in the moment. I don't know if anyone intentionally tries to do it, although there are some crazy stories. But, like, talk a little bit more about your parents and your upbringing and how you guys found the balance between growing up as a young girl in Colorado and having friends and having sleepovers and playing, you know, just being a normal kid, but then also recognizing, like, listen, we can harness a really unique gift and the desire to pursue it, that there is an opportunity, There is a path that's unique for Missy that is not the same path for everybody else. We can pursue that with great intent without sacrificing the other side. Like, how did they do it? As you look back now as a mom, like, what is your reference of the job they did protecting you, keeping you innocent, but also keeping you driven and on course to achieve what you did?
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B
Yeah, well, I'll talk about them for an hour, so just buckle up. But my parents are my best friends. I mean, they are the two most incredible people that I know. And the more I have grown, becoming a mom, I just have become more in awe of what they did, because at the time, when I was that young, right. I didn't realize that this was their first time too. Like, they always seem so calm and in control that it was like, oh, they know what they're doing. And I look back now, and I'm like, they had no idea what they were doing. And now being a mom, I'm like.
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A
I don't know what I'm doing.
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B
They didn't know what they were doing.
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A
Of course I don't know what I'm doing.
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B
We just don't know.
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A
We don't know.
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B
But they never, ever made me feel like that. And I think I just have so much respect for them. But, Greg, I think one thing that was so important with our family and so unique was I was very intrinsically motivated. And I think my parents recognized that, and they let that work to my advantage. So. So my dad talks a lot about being an enabler and not a motivator. So they would never wake me up for a practice, because at the end of the day, yeah, sure, they could have come in, woken me up, thrown me in the car, driven me to practice, but I'm the one getting in the pool. Like, it was up to me whether or not I was gonna make that practice worthwhile or a total waste of time. So why wake me up if that decision is ultimately mine to begin with anyway? So. So I would be the one to wake myself up in the morning. I would have to set my own alarm, and they wouldn't wake me up if I didn't. But I always.
- [15:47]
A
Did you ever sleep through. Did you ever sleep through a practice?
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B
No. No. But on the other side, they had everything ready for me. So I would wake up in the morning, my mom would have a breakfast. It's Colorado. She would have my parka in the dryer so that it would be warm. My dad would be outside screen scraping the snow off the car. So I knew in my mind that literally all I had to do was show up and they were going to support me every way they could around me, just showing up and doing my best. And that was really throughout our entire careers. Like, I understood that this was my dream and my goal and no one else could do that for me. Like, I was the only one that was in control of that outcome. But I had so many much help and support in making that outcome possible.
- [16:36]
A
Yeah. And that's super powerful and just such a great message and again, a great lesson for all of us parents. Like, I've woken my kids up to go to practice, right. I'm sitting like we've all done it. Well, maybe not all your parents didn't, but we all do it. And you know, just it's such a really powerful message and really good perspective that at the end of the day, while we can be supportive and we can help and we can guide, it is the kid's journey. If it's really what they say they want to do, their actions will tell us how important it really is. When you talk about your, you know, intrinsic motivation and the ability to kind of get yourself and how driven you were, has it ever been that? I think with that could come sometimes where it becomes obsessive. Right. There's a borderline between being heavily internally motivated and becoming obsessive and almost where it becomes a little bit of a hindrance. Are there any examples in your entire career and journey where you had to almost kind of control and keep your own inner drive in check because it was almost being counterproductive?
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B
100%, yes. And we talk about this a lot on, on our podcast and we've had several athletes that.
- [17:43]
A
Which I need to come on, obviously.
- [17:45]
B
Clearly.
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A
But really I was waiting for, I was waiting for the invite, but maybe you were about to invite me. Maybe I jumped the gun. Sorry.
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B
It'll be perfect.
- [17:52]
A
Continue, continue. Sorry.
- [17:53]
B
But we talk about the double edged sword of perfectionism, which is essentially, if you're an elite athlete, any sport, it doesn't matter, you're a perfectionist like you are, that's just, that's just how it is. And you are going to overanalyze, you're going to be your own harshest critic. You are going to review and look over things a hundred times over to see what you could have done better, what mistakes you made. And that is the part you have to be careful of. Because if that becomes all that you're Thinking about, for me, that was when I started to lose joy in the story sport because I was so focused on the things I was doing wrong and the mistakes I was making and ways that I could have been better that I was starting to miss out on the part that brought me joy all along. Which as I mentioned in the beginning, was just the journey, right? And just the process to get there. So practices instead of kind of relaxing, having fun with friends and just doing my best, I was so over thinking everything that I was doing and that was when I just start to feel exhausted. Like you're so emotionally and physically tired from that. So that was something I definitely had to learn throughout my career. I could tell when that double edged sword was starting to really impact my overall health and wellbeing. And I had to figure out ways to kind of reel that back in and focus more on my effort and being proud of the things that I needed to be proud of and acknowledging those things and celebrating the little wins and, and finding the joy in all of that as well. Because we're human and we're going to make mistakes. And that's kind of the good and bad thing about swimming is in my mind, there's no such thing as a perfect race. Like, I think there's always ways that you can be better. So on one hand that's infuriating, right? But on the other hand, how cool is that? That like there's always ways that you can be faster and you can improve. And we're seeing that now in this sport, which is so cool with just how fast it's getting. Like, I would have never in a million years imagined that we would be swimming times like this in this year. Like, it's just, it's mind blowing what people are capable of doing. And so it's just, it's so cool to see.
- [19:59]
A
What's up guys? Do you want custom fanware like this cricket shirt? For Charlotte Christian School, we've got premium apparel from your favorite brands. The best part about it is I don't have to just wear it to Charlotte Christian's events. I can wear it to golf. I can wear it to lunch. It's turned into my uniform. Go right now over to Youth Inc. Sign up for our newsletter. It talks about our podcast for that week, our interview guests, all the breaking news across the landscape of youth sports. And you can win one piece of merch for your school by going to sign up today. And remember, it's not dot com, it's youth dot Ink. Now back to our episode. It's so true. And in swimming and so many other sports that the athletes that are coming into the world of competitive athletics now are better than they ever have. And there's a lot of reasons for that. I want to say though, something that you said that really struck a chord with me and it goes back to again, my conversation with your husband. We really hit it off and he was awesome, but something that we actually had very different opinions on. So you just talked about the idea like celebrate the little wins. You guys don't compete every weekend. You guys practice far and away more than you guys compete. And I was actually blown away at the, when Hayes was letting me know, like the structure of the youth kind of club travel swimming world where there's only a handful of meets a year on a 12 month calendar and you guys are training and training and training for very little competition. Right. And then. And he's saying we need to do a better job, you know, at the higher levels getting kids more competition for more outcomes. And here I am, I'm on the other side of this with kids growing up playing travel basketball and travel baseball where all they do is play games. It's all competition. And I'm sitting here saying we need less tournaments, we need less games, we need more training, we need more fundamentals, we need to build that better work habit. So it was kind of interesting. We were both living it on opposite sides. I'm saying we need more training. He's seeing we need less training and more. Where are you on the whole stance, like both in swimming and just beyond like the relationship between connecting training to competition where the outcome does matter, like where are you on that?
- [22:09]
B
Yeah, I mean it's a very vague answer, but I think finding that perfect balance is so important. So when it comes to swimming, I agree with Hayes. I think having more competition would be wonderful, especially for the younger ages because that is such an important time where like we want to show them. Look, you put in the work ethic and you put in the effort and, and you get results like, how cool is that? How fun is that? And then you want to do it again. But if you have them training for three months at a time with no swim meet, it's like they're going to get bored, right? And then they're going to be like, why am I doing this now for other sports, I think that more practice is so crucial because I think one of the most important things swimming taught me and it's something that I'm seeing the younger generation struggle with, is delayed gratification and just the idea that sometimes things don't happen overnight and it's not as easy as working hard for a couple weeks and then going and having everything pan out perfectly. With swimming, once you get to that elite level, sometimes you're only going a best time every four years. Like, it's, I mean, it is a serious chunk of time that you are training and you are just hoping, praying and doing everything you can every day to just trust the process, knowing that the work and effort you're putting in is eventually going to pay off. But I think that skill in every area of your life is so important, whether it's relationships, whether it's school, whether it's your faith, like having this idea that you just sometimes have to put in the work and trust that it's going to show up at some point, point. And it might not be tomorrow and it might not be the next day, but when it does, it's going to be so worth the time and energy that you put into it.
- [23:55]
A
Is that something that in the world of swimming, the coaches are equipped to communicate to you guys? Like, are they continuing to beat it into you guys at training? Like, hang in there, hang in there. This is the long term, it's the long run. We're not trying to just get ready for Saturday's race. Saturday's race might not be for seven more Saturdays. Like, is that something that is being constantly communicated to young swimmers to build that mentality, to get them used to that culture?
- [24:24]
B
I think for the good coaches, yes.
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A
The good coaches get that part. It's not just teaching stroke, it's not teaching breath 100.
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B
It's the bigger picture. And I think something that coaches will do a lot of the time too is like our Saturdays will often be, or different days, depending on the coach, but we'll have like race sets where we go in and we have our race warmup. We'll get changed into our racing suit. We'll have all like, it'll be essentially a mock competition, but in practice, we're racing against each other, we're going off the blocks and we're kind of having that same feeling of you get the butterflies, you get nervous, you get the adrenaline, but it's that simulation of racing without it actually being a competition. And coaches will do that periodically throughout the, throughout the season just to kind of, I think, give athletes that little nudge of confidence of like, hey, I know we've been putting in the work, I know there's been tough practices, but, like, you were on the right Track. So just keep doing.
- [25:19]
A
Yeah. Again, good coaching, it's just makes all the difference. It's. Good coaching is one of those things. Like, it's hard to describe what it is, but when you see it, you're like, that's it, that's it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And when you have it, you're like, I'm gonna wrap my arms around it and I'm just gonna keep it for everything I have. So I vividly remember the 2012 London Olympics, and obviously there was a million storylines between Phelps and Usain Bolt and. But your story, like, coming on, maybe not in the swimming world, you were probably more known, but, like, on the world stage. For the avid Olympian fans like myself, who just tuned in because I love the Olympics. And also the Summer Olympics was also always during training camp. So it was like the end of the day after a long day. It was like, fine, there's something to, like, watch and just. Yes, just chill in our little crappy dorm rooms. I want to know the process leading up to that. All of the training, all of the expectations, all of the conjecture, like, take me back to 2012, which was obviously the coming out party of all coming out parties on the world stage for you. Four golds, a bronze. You were the story. Phelps got his love and Usain Bolt, but like, you in a lot of ways were the story of that Olympics. Your age and what you did, like, take us back to that time. Thoughts going into it, the nerves, expectations. Did you know you were going to win all those races? Like, I'm. I need to know, like, everything leading up to what we all eventually saw unfold that summer.
- [26:52]
B
Yeah. Gosh. Well, first off, thank you for saying all that. That's so kind. It was an unbelievable experience. Like, it truly was. If you could ask for a dream Olympics, like, that was what London was for me. And I think going into it, I was coming off a really good Olympic trials. I was definitely a little bit nervous. I qualified in seven events, so just like the pure amount that I was going to be swimming. And for those that don't know, for individual events at major international competition, you swim each event three times. So it's prelims, semifinals, and then finals, except for distance events, which I don't touch, so we don't have to worry about that. And then there's the relays. So I was swimming a significant amount of times in that eight day period. And I think I.
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A
How many had, you know, how many races did you have?
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B
I do know that I only had there was, I think, 16 sessions so prelim, like morning session, final session, 16 sessions. And I only had two sessions where I was not swimming over eight days.
- [28:01]
A
Wow. I mean, well, to win five medals. Yeah, that's 15 races. Yeah, yeah, there and then how many total events did you compete in?
- [28:10]
B
18, I want to say 18 races.
- [28:13]
A
18 races?
- [28:14]
B
Yeah.
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A
Oh my gosh.
- [28:15]
B
Yeah. So I think that. But that was also what we had trained for. So like I had the confidence going in that, like I said, can handle this kind of load, but it was still really intimidating because it was my first Olympics. I'm swimming seven events and that was a lot. But I went in feeling really confident, really excited just to go out and do my best. Like, I really wasn't concerned with where I was going to fall compared to my competitors, with what medals I was going to win. I just felt in my heart that if I went out there and did my best, that really special things were going to happen. And so that was what I focused on. And a lot of the, the veterans on the team would sit down with the rookies and tell us like, yes, it's the Olympics, it's super exciting, but also like it's just another swim meet. So like don't forget, same pool. Yeah. Like it's the 200 back. It's the same one that you have swum a thousand times before. There is nothing different about it. So don't stress yourself out, don't do anything different. Like what got you here is what's working. So just stick to your routine, do what you do best and just go out and have fun. And that was, that was so huge. And I feel like that was why London was such a success for me is because it was genuinely just me going out there and having fun. And I think that was another reason why I connected with the people at home so much, is because they could see that, like, they could just see that this little 17 year old was just out here having the time of her life at the Olympics, didn't know.
- [29:45]
A
What she didn't know. Ignorance is bliss in a lot of ways.
- [29:49]
B
Exactly.
- [29:50]
A
So you talk about the bulk of the training. Is there ever a consideration, especially given your age and that it was your first Olympics to say, you know what, I qualified for seven, I'm only going to do five. Like was there ever. Is there? And again, forgive my ignorance, like if you qualify. Does everyone always compete at the Olympics in every event they qualify for or do you sometimes scale it down just for volume?
- [30:12]
B
So the Olympics, first of all, no ignorance there at all. The Olympics normally Yes, because just compete in everything. And you want to be able to compete as much as you can, have as many opportunities to win a medal, as many opportunities to help your country. Now, even just going down one tier, World Championships, we see all the time people will qualify for events in World Championships and they'll pull out and they'll either focus solely on one or two races or whatever it is. Leon Marchand, I don't know if that name is.
- [30:41]
A
I know the name. Yeah.
- [30:43]
B
So he was like the breakout star in Paris. And he Swam, I think, four individual events in Paris, 2am, 4am, two breast and two fly at Worlds this summer. They really just wanted to see what he could do in his IMs. And so he didn't swim the 200 fly and the 200 breaststroke, and he ended up doing. Demolishing the world record in the 200 IM. But again, world Championships is less about the medals and kind of more about the times and the record. So I think it's more common for people to do that. But Olympics, I think it's fairly rare to have someone qualify in an event and then not swim it.
- [31:23]
A
And this is something I've always been interested in, and obviously, I don't know many Olympians, so I'm going to take advantage of the opportunity. How, like, back home, American fans, we are very aware of the gold medal count, how we compare against China and, you know, yada, yada are like, in the Olympic village, like, did the actual athletes. Do you guys take pride in, like, we got the most gold most overall? Like, do you know, do you care? Do you. Like, where do you guys even think about that? Because at home, like, every night before you go to bed, every person I know checks the metal count.
- [32:00]
B
I think it's really changed over the last decade. Like, I don't remember that being as big of a deal in 2000.
- [32:06]
A
Maybe our egos, our American egos are a little bigger now.
- [32:09]
B
Maybe 2016 and on was when I think with social media, with the coverage, like, it's every single day, it's like up there, you're checking on it. And then swimming in particular, I think they've really perpetuated this idea of the Australian and the USA rivalry. So then that's being thrown at you constantly. So I would say the athletes now probably have to deal with that a lot more than I did when I was swimming. I didn't think about that one time. But now I think it would be really hard for the athletes not to, because they're getting asked in every single press Conference and every interview, you know, so I think they're doing a really good job of handling it and saying, listen, like, we're out here, we have to focus on our races. We, at the end of the day, we can't control that. We can control what we do in the water, and that's ultimately what's on going, going to impact metal count.
- [32:55]
A
So before we get back into the episode, a quick reminder to follow us across all socials. We're posting daily content centered around youth sports. All right, let's hop back into it. And, and, and I think what's so cool about your story, and obviously you have your own pod and you share and you're, and you're so open about. There's so much good, right, Your gold, the gold medals and the stories. But I think what's so cool about your story that is such a good lesson for so many of our listeners is here you are, the young prodigy, the dream plays out. Exactly. Storybook. You go to, you go to London and you're the star of the Olympics, but not everything in your career was always perfect, right? There's injury, there's setback, there's time out of the water, there's disappointment. Like, and to me, that's the real, like, human experience of sport. Like, it's easy to everybody to sit here and say, you know, I consider and say how many touchdowns I caught. I remember the balls I dropped a lot more. Yeah, I remember going to the Super Bowl. I only got one time and we lost. So, like, the scars of that. I'd love to just hear a little bit about, like, your mindset. You're so positive, you're so in love with the grind of it. But, like, there were some challenges on the back end of that where. And a lot of it was injury driven, which is an athlete's journey. Like, take us into your mindset there. Like, how hard was it to keep your positive mindset that you were always known for your personality, your smile, and, like, how hard was it to keep being true to that when things weren't going your way? You weren't, it wasn't what you had experienced your entire life since you were a little girl through that first Olympics. How challenging were those times?
- [34:26]
B
Yeah, gosh, there's so much to unpack there. I, I would say, well, I love talking about it because I'm the same as you. I'm like, this is the part I love talking about. Yeah, great. We can talk about the wins and the medals all day long, but, like, let's Talk about the hard stuff, because we all go through it, and let's help each other figure out how to get through it and what we learned. So after London, my life changed, right? And I turned professional two years later because Nil was not a thing when I was. I was.
- [34:53]
A
Because you were at. You were at Cal or you were going to Cal following the.
- [34:57]
B
You were at Cal collegiately. So I stayed amateur so that I could swim in.
- [35:00]
A
But that was after you got back from London, right?
- [35:03]
B
Yes. Okay, so got.
- [35:04]
A
So when you went to London, where you. You were a high school senior, a junior, you were going into your senior year.
- [35:09]
B
Okay, my senior year. Swam two seasons at Cal and then turned professional, and that was about a year and a half out from the Rio Olympics. So then I got all these major sponsors. All of a sudden, swimming is my job. And then I'm starting to hear the media of this idea that, okay, not only do I have to do what I did in London again, I have to be better, right? So set that bar pretty high for myself first time around. So now I'm hearing things thrown around, like, five gold medals, six gold medals. You know, can she compete in seven events? Can she do eight events? And I really started to feel that pressure and that intensity, and I ended up getting injured in April, which was just three months before Olympic trials in 2016. And it was. So one of the hardest things I had to go through was that whole experience of. I remember Olympic trials. Hunter Back was the first event that I had, and I didn't make the team. And I was the reigning Olympic champion from 2012. And I went back to my hotel room, and I sobbed for, like, three hours. And then I just kind of, like, had a moment where I, like, looked at myself, and I was like, you have two choices here. Like, you pack it in now and you go home and you say, okay, I had a good Olympics. Great. I'm done, or you fight like hell. And I wanted to fight because it was finally giving me a chance to be the person I always said I was gonna be when things weren't going my way. And so, by every ounce of grit in my body and the grace of God, I managed to make my second Olympic team in three events for Rio. But then that whole experience was just completely different. I didn't make a single individual final while I was there. I did still get a gold medal because I. I was part of the 4x200 freestyle relay. But I remember coming home from that meet, and it was just so. I'd never felt Disappointment like that in my life, I was so lost because I had realized for the first time how much my identity had become wrapped up in my success and in who I was as a swimmer. I felt like I had just let down so many people and I was getting asked time and time again, interview after interviewing, what's wrong with you? What's going on? Like, where's the real Missy? And every time it was just like daggers going into my heart because I had put so much work and effort into it. And for whatever reason, injury, I mean, it just wasn't adding up. And I just wasn't swimming the way that I knew that I could. But I did my absolute best in those moments to be what I call being an inspiration and disappointment is that it's really easy to be an inspiration and success when you're winning and things are going your way. But how about I take on that challenge of being an inspiration and disappointment? Because we're all going to have disappointments, and I don't think those are shown a lot. So what if I could be an example of someone who's going through disappointment? But the way that I'm showing up, the way that I'm treating my competitors, the way that I'm still being there for my teammates, how can I set that example for young athletes that are still watching? And I remember flying back home and we were driving into our neighborhood and we pulled up to our house and all of the kids in the neighborhood had gotten together and they had cut out poster board hearts and they had written notes and they had stuck them all over our lawn. And I still get so emotional thinking about it because all of the notes essentially said, we're more proud of you now than we were four years ago because of how you feel handled yourself. And it was just such an eye opening experience for me that, yes, winning gold medals is really powerful. But being positive, being a good teammate, being encouraging and still being the best version of myself that I could be when everything was not going my way, actually had more of a profound impact than breaking a world record.
- [39:06]
A
And the story you just told, which again, we appreciate greatly, like, being willing to, like, share those vulnerabilities and those scars and whatnot. Like, that's a more powerful lesson for our families that follow and listen. And I'm gonna make my children listen. Like, yes. All of the work that led up to being the 2012 Ford gold medals 5 metal is like, that's a fun story. That's a great motivating story. Hey, here's the relationship between hard work and outcome, like there's something to learn. It pales in comparison to, to that story. It pales in impact in comparison to who are you when things are bad? Who are you when things are not going your way? Things both in and out of your control. Like, that's where we really find out. It's easy to be a great teammate in high five when you're standing on the gold medal podium and you're hugging the silver medalist saying, you did so great. That's easy. It's easy to be humble in those moments. But I just commend you for, for sharing it, for being so honest with us. Because if there's one lesson from this interview that I could, if I could only pick one lesson to share and the rest of it we had to delete, that would be the part that I would share because to me, that's going to make the biggest impact.
- [40:13]
B
Me too. And thank you. And I love that about you. And that's why I was so excited to come on here and talk about it. Because I think sharing that stuff and what you guys are doing is so important because we're gonna, we're gonna have disappointments, we're gonna have failures. Our kids are gonna go, I got lots of right. And it's just like, rather teach my daughters. I want to teach them how to fail. I don't want to teach them not to fail because that's not going to happen. There's not a world where that happens. So when it does, I don't want it to affect how they see themselves as a person. I want them to view it as an opportunity to be a better person, to gain something from it, to learn something from it and use it as. I think that can be one of your greatest superpowers. If you can take some of the most heart wrenching and disappointing moments in your life and turn them into something that's going to make you into a better version of yourself.
- [41:06]
A
The last couple things I have for you, and I'm going to let you go. I know you have a napping child to get back to. How do we not let kids wrap their identity up in said sport? You mentioned before, you realize when you came home from Rio how much of your identity was wrapped up in not only being a swimmer, but being. Being the best swimmer. You, you only knew winning a race. I can't imagine you lost many races in your life prior to that Olympics. Maybe never. Like what? How do we prevent kids from wrapping their identity up in what they're doing and and what the sport you play is what you do, not who you are.
- [41:41]
B
Yeah, I would say praise the effort and not the outcome. Like, let's focus more on what you are doing, the work you are putting in every single day. Like, that is what makes you who you are. Not whether or not you get first or second when your hand touches the wall. It's everything you did to get to that point that makes you who you are. So as parents, as coaches, as mentors, if we can help our kids see that, that it's about the effort, it's about what you've put in every single day, what you put fought for, that is what makes you who you are. It's not the. At the end of the day, well said.
- [42:21]
A
Last thing for you. What. What is your relationship now with the sport of swimming? I know, I know. Obviously, again, I bring up Hayes a bunch. He's probably loving all this attention, but, like, I know you guys, like, what is your relationship with it? What will you want your daughter's relationships with it if they so choose? Like, where does that stand now after everything you've been through and everything you've accomplished?
- [42:42]
B
Yeah. Well, it's so funny, right, because Hayes has done the total opposite. Like, he finished swimming and that competitive itch for him just grew and he was like, okay, what's next? Like, I want.
- [42:52]
A
Yeah, he's like, Iron Man. He's doing all these, like, crazy things.
- [42:55]
B
Professional Iron man team. And now we're going to Worlds next. I just can't.
- [42:59]
A
You're doing it too.
- [43:00]
B
Oh, God, no. I'm the support system.
- [43:02]
A
Oh, I make this. Oh, got it, got it.
- [43:03]
B
That's. That's my job. But I have had a lot of reassurance from people that being a spectator at Ironman's with two young kids is, in fact, harder than the actual Iron Man.
- [43:13]
A
I bet it all sounds brutal. It all sounds brutal, but it's so fun.
- [43:19]
B
We've loved it. I was different in that way. My career ended and I just was like, again, I just want to focus on the journey. I love moving my body every day just because it brings me joy. And as a mom, that's now, like, my me time, where I have that kind of quiet space. So I still love getting after it and pushing myself really hard.
- [43:39]
A
But in the water.
- [43:40]
B
Less in the water. I do eat less in the water. Water for me now is really a space of therapy and, like, calm and peace. And honestly, it was really healing to be able to swim while I was pregnant and postpartum with both of my daughters because it's just like the. It's such a good exercise for you at any point. Point. But especially if you're going through something like a pregnancy or an injury where, like, you really need something that's more low impact. It's just so good for your body. And we have this saying called black line therapy. I don't know if Hayes talked about that.
- [44:12]
A
That's like the line at the bottom of the pool, right?
- [44:14]
B
The bottom. And essentially you. You're swimming. Like you can't be on your phone, you can't be watching a show, you can't be listening to an audiobook. Like, you are forced to just sit in your own head with your own thoughts. And I don't think there's a lot of opportunities that we get like that in our world today. But swimming is one of those places where you just have to sit with yourself and it's so healing to just kind of. Sometimes it's not comfortable, sometimes it's comfortable. But to just sit in it and be like, this is where I'm at. This is how I'm feeling. These are my thoughts, these are my emotions. And just feel it. And just feel it and swimming at the same time. So I'm so thankful. We have a little endless pool in our backyard, which is amazing. So we have. And we're out there almost every day with our daughter. So I would say that's the other really cool part of it too, is now Caitlin just turned 4 and to see her at the point where she's like starting to learn strokes and she's really getting into it and like finding her confidence in the water, she has brought back so much joy for me with the sport because I just look at her and I see myself.
- [45:21]
A
Would you ever coach her one day if she wanted you to?
- [45:24]
B
No.
- [45:26]
A
I had a feeling that was going to be the answer.
- [45:28]
B
Nope. No. I am so proud to be mom and I will be her number one support system and cheerleader, But I will leave the coaching to.
- [45:38]
A
What about dad?
- [45:40]
B
You know, I think Hayes would be a great. He is a summer club coach here in Nashville. He is.
- [45:45]
A
So you'd let him coach her?
- [45:46]
B
I would, yeah. He's a fantastic coach and he always. He's so self aware, he's so emotionally mature that I. I don't doubt him for a second. Having an issue with being.
- [45:56]
A
Yeah, well, we're gonna keep an eye on her.
- [45:58]
B
We'll see. I don't know.
- [45:59]
A
I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
- [46:02]
B
I Kind of want her to do volleyball.
- [46:04]
A
I'm trying to get. I have a, I have a 12 year old daughter who's tall and athletic and hasn't played volleyball yet and she's played basketball and she runs track, but I think next year in eighth grade at school, she's gonna play volleyball for the first time. So my wife and I are like.
- [46:18]
B
I know, we're like, oh.
- [46:20]
A
Like we're trying not to like overdo it, but we're like, yeah, like that sounds like a really good idea.
- [46:25]
B
I know. I'm taking her to the SEC tournament at Bridgestone.
- [46:28]
A
Oh, fun.
- [46:28]
B
And that's sick. I'm so excited.
- [46:31]
A
It's a great girl. I love volleyball. It's a great sport. I love everything about it.
- [46:37]
B
Well, she also loves music and dancing, so she could probably be in theater.
- [46:40]
A
Love it all.
- [46:41]
B
Brilliant.
- [46:41]
A
Love it all.
- [46:42]
B
They're going to be an academic. She's going to do everything. She'll change the world.
- [46:44]
A
Of course, these young girls, they're just the best. As my boys say, she's your favorite. I say you're right. Missy, I can't thank you enough. This was awesome. Your insight, your experiences, your perspective is just so valuable to what we're trying to do here at you think. And I just can't thank you enough. Tell Hayes I said what's up? And I just, again, I can't thank you enough for joining us. This was awesome.
- [47:06]
B
Thank you so much for having me, Greg. It was so fun. And we'll see you on unfiltered water soon.