Beyond the Surface: Identity, Challenges, and Support with Greg Louganis | Episode 45

*This Transcript is Autogenerated*

Greg Louganis  0:00  
As I was getting up in the morning, literally crawling from my bed to the bathroom to pull myself the hottest bath I could stand, so I could just touch my toes and function. I was afraid to tell anybody I was afraid to tell my coach or my doctor, because, you know, I was afraid they would say you got to back off. You can't do this, but I just kind of pushed through. When I told my co author Eric Marquez, he said you don't understand you want to win Olympic gold medals on AZT too. So it's not a performance enhancing drug. Like I didn't know I mean, I didn't I didn't have anybody to talk to you. But in many ways, ignorance is bliss.

Kristi Wagner  0:43  
Welcome to the other three years, a show for anyone who has an Olympic sized dream they want to turn into a reality. Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the other three years podcast. This week on the podcast I've guest Greg Louganis. So Greg has been called the best American diver ever. And for seriously good reason. He is a three time Olympian, five time Olympic medalist most notably sweeping the men's diving events in both 1984 and 1988. So both isn't Olympics, he won both gold medals that were offered for men's diving. It's crazy impressive. And I had a really great time speaking with Greg and feel like I learned a lot from our conversation, we talked about kind of his whole athletic journey and how he overcame adversity time and time again, we also talked about the importance of mindfulness and visualization practice for him amongst many other things. So it was a really awesome conversation. And I'm so excited to share it with all of you. But before we get into that, here is an update on what's currently going on in my training. So I'm still in Sarasota. Last weekend, we had the winter speed order. And I had definitely like the worst performance that I've ever had. Because I have some personal things going on, which you know, I don't really feel comfortable talking about, which I think is okay. And I also like to own my results. And I'm not saying that to give them an excuse. Those are the results that I had. And, you know, there are reasons for it. reasons and excuses aren't the same thing. So it's definitely been a hard time. And obviously really frustrating for me, because, you know, I've put a lot into training over the past few years, and especially this year, and to have this stuff happening right now is really, really frustrating. But I can't really like dwell on the past or be mad about circumstances, I kind of only can look to the future and control what I can control. So I'm just lucky that other people are helping me and figuring out what I can do to get back to where I need to be. And that's all I'm doing. And while it was frustrating, and it continues to be frustrating, and I never want to not have my best performance. I'm also like proud of myself that I did race, I think taking the easy road out would be when you're not prepared for something just not showing up. And I didn't do that. So I think I'm still like fighting the good fight, so to speak. And that, you know, it is the Olympic year and Olympic selection is going to happen really soon. So I've just been trying to like I said, control what I can control and do the best training for me possible so that I can achieve the goals that I want to achieve. But we did have this race and a lot of people did really great jobs. And, you know, I'm so happy for all those people, it's really awesome to see other people going fast and achieving things maybe that they haven't achieved before. Or maybe they didn't have the best year last year and coming back better year this year. And I think that's really awesome. You know, I don't I think that you can, at one time both be like frustrated with your own performance and happy for other people's performances. So you know, I'm really happy for other people. And it's really motivating for me, you know, to, to want to keep getting healthier and better and back to feeling good. Other than that, we moved out of our hotel and I'm going to Airbnb now, which is nice. Not that the hotel wasn't nice, but it can be nice to change things up every now and again. And now there's kind of a two week period of time before the official Olympic selection camp starts. So it's not really a break, but it's kind of a little bit of a break the past couple of days there haven't really been any coaches around tomorrow, Wednesday, we'll start having some coach sessions again. So it's a little bit of like a mental break, I think and also the stakes aren't quite as high for these next few weeks. So a little bit of time for people to just decompress because then we're gonna go into Official Selection camp. So about really intense time So nice to have a few, a few weeks of a little bit less stressful time before we get into that. That's kind of what's been going on. But I also have to say like, I am very grateful for kind of the support that people are giving me. It's really nice. And it's very appreciated. And yeah, I don't know, like, losing socks, there's nothing, there's nothing else you can say about it. And not feeling like yourself. Socks, I think is really the thing like, losing when you knew that your performance was everything you could have given is an easy pill to swallow. But losing when you know that that wasn't even close to what you're capable of is like, frustrating. So yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's like sports. So these things happen. But I'm lucky that it's February, and not July, so there's not a lot of time, there is time. So just kind of trying to keep my head on straight and do my thing because I know that if I can correct ship and get where I need to go. This is just gonna have been a blip. But blips feel really big in the moment. So now it is time for my conversation with Greg Louganis. Yes, well, I'm so excited. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. Sure. I have been researching you. And like there are just so many directions that we could take. I'd love to start just chatting a little bit about your career. And you were so young, you know, when you got into all of it. Right? And at your first Olympics. So what was that like? Like competing on that stage at 16? I think. And

Greg Louganis  6:54  
so leading up to the Olympics and my first Olympics 1976 where I came from, I was adopted. I spent my first nine months in foster care, and then was finally adopted by you know, Francis and Peter Louganis. So, through through there, I started taking dance lessons. Because my sister was taking dance my mother didn't want you know, klutzy kid running around the house, knocking down lamps. So she got her lessons, and I was a year and a half. And she was taking her to lessons and I, I used to sneak into the studio and imitate what they were doing. And so at a year and a half, the teacher said, Oh, well let him stay and see what he can learn. And so I had my first performance on stage when I was three. And so that was kind of the beginning. And then I got a partner. And then when I got a partner, we couldn't start competing in talent contests until I turned six. And so we did recitals, we did parades, we did plays, we did all types of performing. And then once we started and, you know, doing talent contests, we started winning everything. And then Eleanor went into gymnastics, and I followed her into gymnastics. And that was my first love. I really wanted to make the Olympic team in gymnastics. And then we had a pool built in our backyard. So I was about seven when we went into gymnastics, and then I was eight when the pool was built. And then that's when my mother, I was trying to sell my gymnastics tents up the diving board at home, and my mother didn't want me to kill myself. So she got me lessons. And so first out to lessons the coach was oh my god, you know, we joined the team, the club team, and I said, Oh, think about it. You know, because I was doing dance. I was doing acrobatics. I was doing, you know all of these things. And you know, adding diving to this. And that was crazy. But as it turned out, I got Osney slaughters, which is very common for young kids who are very active and so water on the knee. And so the doctor said My advice to you is you should quit the diving dance because we're dancing on concrete, the acrobatics, all of that stuff, except diving because you're landing in water. And so all of those things, all of those different disciplines that I was like, directing my energy into was focused down into one discipline into diving. And then that's when my diving career really shot through the roof. I year later, I was world champion for my age group. And then three years later, I was on my first Olympic team. Wow,

Kristi Wagner  9:33  
that's quite the like meteoric rise, and then you got a silver medal at your first Olympics, right? Yeah.

Greg Louganis  9:39  
And, and the thing was, okay, so, in preparation for Montreal, I was diving with Dr. Samuel Lee and Dr. Samuel Lee won two gold medalists in 48 and 52. And then he helped Coach Bobby Webster from the US who went to Olympic Gold Medalist 6064 I believe. And then Klaus Dibiase, from Italy was going for his third Olympic gold medal. So my sole purpose on this planet was to prevent Klaus from winning that gold medal. And so all of our training, you know, and this is what I talk to the people that I work with, I was training as if I was at the Olympic Games, even at 16. So I'm imagining what that would look like, what that would feel like, what that would smell like, all of that stuff. So the, you know, visualization stuff. And then Dr. Lee would say, Okay, you're behind by 20 points, you need nines on this dive, you know, it's like kids playing basketball, you know, and they're emulating their favorite player and say, Oh, the clocks running out and he throws the ball and he shoots and sometimes you're successful. Sometimes you're not. More often than not, you're not, but you practice with that intensity. They say that when I got to Montreal, I didn't feel prepared for the springboard because it wasn't anticipated that I would make the springboard team but I did win the three meters Springboard Olympic trials on three meter springboard and 10 meter platform. But I just wasn't really prepared for the springboard but platform I was. And so Klaus and I were going diaper dive happened to miss my ninth dive. That was really tough. That was really tough. Also, you know, the highest rate of suicides amongst Olympians is an Olympic silver medalists. And I was a part of that group. I mean, I tried to commit suicide after that. I, you know, I didn't understand how people were celebrating me when I felt like such a failure.

Kristi Wagner  11:45  
Wow. You know, yeah. Did you feel like all of that pressure was kind of self inflicted? Or did you feel like external pressures?

Greg Louganis  12:00  
Well, that was I was only 16. So yeah, I was only I was taking on Dr. Lee's dream. And so I let him down. He let me know it. It was tough. It was tough. I just didn't understand when I went back to high school, why everybody was celebrating me. And I felt like a fraud. I felt like a failure. I thought, you know, I just didn't understand it. I felt like, you know, the world would be a better place without me.

Kristi Wagner  12:32  
That's horrible. How did you, like work through that, especially at such a young age? Well,

Greg Louganis  12:40  
my mother was very, very supportive. She wanted me to have fun. It's not fun, don't do it. And also that we make choices. Everything that I did, it was a choice. You know, so we have to own the choices we make. And sometimes we make choices to please other people. Ultimately, we have to live with the choices that we do make and own them. So that was one of the things that was incredible. Also, I went to Rondo Bryan's diving camp when I was 15 and 75. So it was a year before the the Olympic trials. And that's really how I qualified for the Olympic trials. You know, there are certain skills that he taught me, so that I could be successful. And then he came out to California in 78. And so then I started diving with him. He understood me, he got me, I'm not competitive. I'm a performer. And there's a difference. It was all about the performance. He gave me performance goals, and we devise games like one of the things to in order to break 700 on 10 meter platform. Back in my day, I had to average eight and a half's or better on all 10 dives that I executed. And so we turned that into a game, you know that we played the 700 game one time we played it, it was you know, the gale force winds were training in Miami gale force winds, it was like, drain is coming in sideways into the platform, the wind is blowing into the platform. So it feels precarious. And so we said okay, weather is so horrendous, we'll play the 700 game because then I could potentially get out and just do one of each of all of my dives. And so I went along, I was going back and forth over that eight and a half mark. And then it came down to the last dive my reverse three and a half. And then I think I just needed eight. And I think he gave me a nine and says All right, awesome, great. So I packed up my stuff and went about my business ran errands and all and I showed up the pool the next day and he said Great Maggie pulled me aside, he said, Greg, you were the only person who got in the pool yesterday. So it's like, what are you going to do that no one else is going to do? Right? You know, to make that difference? You know, we're having fun. Yeah, of getting on the phone getting on the podium, you know, what, what are you going to do to get there that nobody else is going to do? Yeah, right

Kristi Wagner  15:24  
now 100%. I just finished? Once a runner, have you read it? I have it. Oh, it's, it's good. It's a novel. But it's about like this fictional university that's based on the University of Florida. And these distance runners, there's a man that had previously won like a gold medal. I think in the 10,000 meters at the Olympics, that still trains he's getting his PhD. So he's still training at the University. And he just sort of incentivizes them to be doing these crazy workouts. And because it's kind of like, yeah, what are you doing that nobody else is doing? And there's, there's no secret, you just have to work harder. And so it was very similar theme. Yeah.

Greg Louganis  16:10  
And also, you know, really training smart. You know, because that's one thing, you know, especially like in the sport of diving, you know, the Chinese divers, they're subsidized by their government, you know, if they do well, they're taken care of for the rest of their lives, it's a very different dynamic, and they have such an incredible talent pool to choose from, because diving is a high value sport, in their culture, it's high repetitions, you know, it's, it's, it's a different mentality, it is muscle memory, total muscle memory, you know, going through again, and again, and again, that type of training, you do risk, injury and illness, you know, with that, you know, heightened number of repetitions, what I learned is, you know, the training that I did I trained smart, I learned, if I got an adjustment to make, and I made that adjustment. I learned what that was, what did that look like? What that feel like, what that tastes like, all of the sensations of what that was to lock that in, you know, because a lot of times we don't take the time to lock in what we do, right. You know, we get told what we're doing wrong so often, but then once we get it, right, locking in what we do, right, also, I mean, we have a tendency, you know, as sensitive beings, you know, to focus on the negative to focus on what we did wrong. Oh, but then if you put your focus there, then your attention is there, and you're more apt to do the thing that was wrong.

Kristi Wagner  17:54  
That's interesting. I feel like it's so easy to focus on what you did wrong.

Greg Louganis  18:00  
Right. Yeah. I mean, we just think seem to be kind of wired that way. But really, if you flip that, and think about, Okay, what did I do, right? That's, that's when things go right. Because you're focusing on on what you should be focusing on. Because I remember my last dive at the Seoul Olympics, Shin knee, he was 14 years old, I was 28. He was leading by three points going into the last that last dive, I knew that I had higher degree of difficulty, but he nailed his dive, I had to remind myself that they're cheering for him, and not against me, because we take things so personally, right? It was like, okay, they're cheering for him, not against me. And then I had this visualization, you know, I was visualizing, okay, you know, what could happen, and I visualized my mother sitting at home watching it on TV, because she wasn't in Seoul. And I do this bomb of a dive my reverse three and a half, the splash goes all the way up to the 10 meter platform. And then my mother bouncing on the couch watching TV and saying wasn't that a pretty splash? When we're not supposed to make a splash? And I just started laughing. I was like, I was like, I just started laughing. So I mean, you can think of all the negative things, but you can flip that switch and you know, kind of laugh at it. And that's what I did. And just I laughed at it, which let go of a lot of that negativity, to be able to say, hey, whatever is going to happen is going to happen. And just allowing my body to do what it was trained to do, because we get hurt. We get in our heads we get in our way so often because either we're trying to play safe, or fear. You know? Yeah,

Kristi Wagner  19:52  
no, totally. It seems like you know, visualization and meditation And then all of those things have played played a massive role in, in your career, which I feel like was I think now they're pretty common, but it's been. Yeah, then I don't think it was as common. So,

Greg Louganis  20:14  
yeah, back then it was crazy because I remember the sports psychologist start coming around the pool back in, you know, late 70s, early 80s. And then I learned I learned visualization when I was three years old. Wow. Because what happened was my teacher, my first performance on stage, it was the day of the recital. And so my teacher had a top hat, I had a cane. So there were some little adjustments to some of the choreography. And my teacher said, Okay, do the routine fluid, put the needle down on the record left the room. I was three years old. And so my interpretation was okay, I imagined myself doing the routine, fluid. And so I was three years old, I could, you know, pick up the needle and start again. And it took about three or four times, and I got it fluid. And then I found her and told her that I got it fluid, and she came back into the room, increase the tempo. And she said, Make it fluid. And then the first time out, I made it fluid. She said, Okay, you're ready. Wow. So that was my introduction to visualization. And I was three years old. I thought everybody knew this stuff. And I'd been practicing it all through, you know, dance and acrobatics, and gymnastics and diving. You know, it was the I wouldn't do a trick unless I could visualize it.

Kristi Wagner  21:48  
Yeah. I mean, I think it's not that common, especially for a little kid. You know, I don't think I learned about visualization until, yeah, college, maybe like maybe a little bit in high school. But now it's really calm. You know, now it's something we talk about a lot. But yeah, yeah.

Greg Louganis  22:07  
And the other thing that I realized is that when I was 11, I was fascinated by the series, Kung Fu. It's before your time, but David Carradine, you know, Kung Fu, he could control his body, you know, to where he stopped breathing, stop, stop his heart. So, you know, they would think that he was dead, you know, but he wasn't, you know, he had such control, you know, and that was through meditation. It was through, you know, all of that stuff. And I got fascinated by that. And then I found a book in my father's office, and I didn't read much, but it was Jose Silva was, you know, it was about mind control. And I thought, Oh, this is it. This is it, you know, so I really dug into that. And I didn't realize that it was Jose Silva until I came across Vishen Lakhiani did the six phase meditation was teaching that it's like, Oh, my God, this is, this is what I was doing. It was so it must have been the Silva method, the Silva stuff, and it's like, wow, that is so cool. So it was yeah, it was fascinating. But yeah, I mean, I was just always fascinated by that. How can we push our bodies and our minds? Right, your mind

Kristi Wagner  23:25  
is so much stronger? Been? Yeah, you think? Yeah. Well, kind of speaking of that, I feel like, it just must have been such a tough time to go from, you know, disappointment and 76. And then disappointment again, in 1980. Mike,

Greg Louganis  23:41  
you know, I look at 1980 kind of as a mixed blessing. You know, really, because in 1980 Diving was something I was good at. It wasn't something I was particularly enjoying. I was in the theater department, probably my, my trajectory, had I gone to the 1980 Olympic Games is what I had intended is if I was successful at the at Olympic Games, you know, I was moving to New York, I was pursuing the acting thing, you know, because that's what all my friends were doing from college. And so, you know, that would have been very different. But because that was taken away from me, then it changed the focus, like, well, you know, I don't want to give up on that Olympic gold dream, right. So it was my coach Ron O'Brien, his biggest concern was to keep me engaged, to keep me engaged in the sport, you know, to keep me pushing forward, you know, how can I how can I push forward and so he was one who really got me through and then once and actually got me to 84 I broke 710 meter platform. And so I got my two gold medals. I went to the nationals. Right after that. And I broke Cynthia Potter's record for national titles. And my intent was to retire after that I got all my records, you know, I got the Olympic gold, I've got broke Cynthia Potter's record, my intent was to retire after that and Olympic Games. But what happened was I went to the president of USA diving at that time, Phil Boggs and I said, Well, what's going on with trust funds, because this was during the time when we were true amateurs, and we couldn't do certain things. And so in talking with Edwin Moses, you know, we were talking about, you know, putting trust funds in place so that an athlete can pursue his athletic career beyond college and be eligible. And so when I went to Phil, and I said, What's going on with trust funds, he said, Greg, you're the other one that it affects, and you're retiring. So we don't have to spend the money on the attorneys to get the trust funds, put it into place. I said, Fine, I'm not retiring, do your homework. You know, I, you know, it just really pissed me off. And so then my intent was to stay eligible until the trust funds were put into place. And it took two years. And then, in that two years, I found myself at the World Championships in Madrid, and I won. And so Ron came to me and he said, Well, what are you going to do trust funds are in place now. And you said you were going to retire, but it's only two more years. I said, Okay, two years, I can do two years. But I mean, what happened in that two years is pretty insane. I mean, that was Who could have known what what that was going to be like, it was because it was it was crazy.

Kristi Wagner  26:43  
I know we we all joke that you can't ever say you're gonna retire because then it doesn't happen. Yeah, you can't make you can't make those promises. Yeah. Do you have a Like, Favorite Year in terms of just like, training? Me like not necessarily competing, but just when everything felt like it was clicking, and it was just like, you look back and you're like that was it kind of?

Greg Louganis  27:11  
Well, you know what? I'll say this and it'll probably surprise a lot of people but I'm gonna have to say the 1982 World Championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The reason being I never thought I was good enough. You know, even after, you know, I, you know, I want all this stuff I won, you know, and I just didn't think I was good enough. So I felt, you know, kind of like an imposter. But what happened in 1982 in Guayaquil at the World Championships, so I won the prelims. And so I went last, and Alexander Portneuf was right before me. So he he was second, Alexander Portneuf, from the Soviet Union was introduced as Alexander Portneuf, Soviet Union Olympic gold medalist 1980. And then I was introduced Greg Louganis, from the United States, Olympic silver medalist 1976. When I looked at Alexander said, you know, in my head, I was thinking you want to go because I wasn't there. And so then I was kind of like, on a mission, you know, at that competition, and I took that on. And as it turned out, it was a great competition. And then it came down to the last dive, and I'm looking at the scoreboard to make sure that it was the correct dive number. I don't usually watch how I'm doing in the standings or anything. And so I saw my score, it was flashing. I was like, Ah, so that meant I already won. I didn't have to do my last dive. To win. It was like, okay, you know, get it together, keep it together. And as it turns out, I think it's, I think it's still the highest point spread any world championships has ever been on one. And that's when I felt like I arrived because I proved myself, you know, and so then that's when I felt like I deserved it. Yeah, that was pretty special.

Kristi Wagner  29:09  
That's awesome. I totally understand, though, I feel like I constantly feel that imposter syndrome and just, I, it's, it's hard. I don't know, I don't know if everyone feels that way. But it's, you

Greg Louganis  29:26  
know, in some ways, it can be incredibly motivating, you know, but you really have to be careful, you know, with that because, you know, if you're taking that impostor to the performance, you know, you can have all the doubts in the world but right when you perform, you have to be spot on and and, and it's it really is about letting go for myself. I always told myself, no matter what happens, my mother's still gonna love me. So I it was okay, whatever happened, but not to have any type of resistance as far as As holding back or fear or what ifs and all that, because it really is truly about now, you know, it's all about now that yeah, that moment in time.

Kristi Wagner  30:12  
Yeah, you have to capitalize on the moments when they present themselves. Yeah. Well, I am also just curious about ATA, it seems like quite the ups and downs. And how do you think that you were prepared to deal with that? And was there ever doubt in your mind, you know, that you were going to be able to continue to compete and perform? Or, but do you think if that had happened at one of your earlier Olympics, like the story would have been different. And just,

Greg Louganis  30:49  
you know, my first Olympics was in 76. And then my last, you know, 7088, you know, so that's 12 years.

Kristi Wagner  30:59  
It's a long time.

Greg Louganis  31:00  
That's a lot, it is a long time. And so all all of my experience, I mean, from my experience with Dr. Sammy Lee, you know, and that that whole experience, he toughened me up, he made me realize that I was a lot tougher than I believed myself to be. So you know, even though it was difficult to live through, I see the value that he gave me the other competitions, various experiences, the 10 years of, of love and trust with my coach, because you don't achieve greatness on your own. There's always someone there, you know, whether it's your coach, parent, friend, there's always someone there. And for me at that moment in time was it was definitely my coach, Ron O'Brien, I couldn't have gotten through without him. So six months prior to the Olympic Games, in 88, I was diagnosed HIV positive, when I did the test, my thought was, if I tested positive, then I was going to do the honorable thing and pack my bags, move back to California, because I was training in Florida, moved back to California, lock myself in my house and wait to die. Because that's what we thought of HIV at that time. You know, you don't have once you're diagnosed you, you know, they say, get your affairs in order. Because your the expectation is, you have two years at max. And so that's what I thought, you know, I thought that I wouldn't see 30. But my doctor who was also my cousin said, you know, the healthiest thing for you, we don't know when you were exposed to HIV. So the healthiest thing for you is to continue training continue on that trajectory. So it was much easier at a much more positive focus to focus on my diving, I could focus on my diving and he take care of the medical side, make sure all that is in order. And then my coach would take care of the diving portion. That was such a blessing because so many of my friends who were diagnosed at the time that I was there, HIV became their next career, they were so immersed, okay, what drugs are coming down the pipeline? What are my T cells, they were just obsessed with what was happening and there wasn't a whole lot happening. So it wasn't really encouraging. So they remained in kind of a negative space. Whereas I was focused on the Olympic Games, I did have an experience that I didn't understand at the time, but I couldn't share with anybody and that was they put me on AZT right away. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't have anybody to talk to you about my medications. One of the side effects is low testosterone, it lowers your testosterone. And what I didn't realize I was getting up in the morning, literally crawling from my bed to the bathroom to pour myself the hottest bath I could stand. So I could just touch my toes and function. And I just thought I was overtraining. I was afraid to tell anybody I was afraid to tell my coach or my doctor or anything like that, because, you know, I was afraid they would say you got to back off. You can't do this, but I just kind of pushed through. I didn't realize that. And also when I told my co author Eric Marcus, he asked, you know, would did they treat you when you were diagnosed? said yeah, they put me on AZT right away, and he started sobbing. And I didn't understand that. And he said, Greg, you don't understand any of his friends that were on AZT. They didn't tolerate it. Well, if they tolerated it at all, because it killed some a lot of people. They just couldn't tolerate it. And he said, You don't understand you won two Olympic gold medals on AZT. So it's not a performance enhancing drug. It's like, I didn't know I mean, I didn't I didn't have anybody to talk to you. But in many ways, ignorance is bliss. In situations like that you don't know You don't limit yourself?

Kristi Wagner  35:01  
Yeah, athletes are pretty tough. Yeah. When you did officially retire, you did a lot of stuff like acting and in movies, and did you always keep in touch with, you know, diving in with the diving community? Or did you step away and then come back? Like, how was the transition away from, you know, being a professional athlete for you?

Greg Louganis  35:26  
You know, that was hard. I didn't feel really very welcome. In that environment, there was still a lot of, you know, homophobia. And so I, you know, focused on other things. And yeah, but it also gave me the opportunity to do musicals. I did Cinderella, Long Beach civic light opera. I did. Jeffrey, in New York, I did a one man show in New York, which I was really, really proud of. So it allowed me to step away from something and really focus on something that it needed that that kind of focus.

Kristi Wagner  36:05  
And now, what is your role within the La 2028? Campaign? Yeah,

Greg Louganis  36:13  
with La 28. I just started, there was a fellowship program that came up and it's like, Oh, my God, that'd be so awesome. Because, you know, everybody says, Well, what's going on with the Olympics and LA, the Olympics are coming back to LA is like, I don't know, I don't know, is like, what better way than to, you know, then to now didn't get involved. And so this has been great. It's also been wonderful to have that, you know, connection, you know, more direct connection to a lot of my fellow Olympians. And I was a part of 84. You know, the Los Angeles Olympics. It was it was a pretty awesome time to be here in LA. And that was pretty special. Yeah, it's kind of a lot to live up to. Yeah, that's, but and also, I mean, it's going to be different. I mean, we're in we're living in such a different time, then, you know, we were back then. But it's still exciting.

Kristi Wagner  37:10  
It's super exciting. I know. It's, it's really cool. I also know very little about the 2028. You know, campaign.

Greg Louganis  37:23  
Well, what? It was funny, though, what brought me there was I did a speaking event in Estonia for Vishen, Lakhiani Mindvalley. University. And I spoke there and it was very mindful, very conscientious about the carbon footprint. Then I went to Fukuoka, Japan, for the world aquatic championships. And it was like single use bento boxes in all these plastic bottles. It was like, Oh, my God, he was so crazy. I asked the President, I said, you know, will you because he asked me, he said what my impression was of the World Championships. And I said, Well, there's a lot of plastic. That's what really struck me and I just feel like we could do better, you know, and so that is something that really kind of triggered thought of, hey, get involved, you know, be a part of the solution. Yeah. So that's what kind of brought me there. Well, this

Kristi Wagner  38:14  
has been so fun. Thank you so much for for chatting with me. But

Greg Louganis  38:19  
it you know, and it's true. I mean, what I you know, when I saw your podcast the other three years, I mean, that is so incredibly powerful, you know, to anybody that has been on any type of an Olympic path because we gear our lives toward that quadrennial you know, I that's how I remember every everything is on the quadrennial, what Olympics of that was that Olympics. Okay, so two years before that, or after that, that was World Championships. And then right before the Olympic Games is Pan American Games, and, you know, and it's just like you, you know, you gauge every thing, you know, is what, what happens on those three years, because when people see these elite athletes competing at the Olympic Games, that's a finished product. Yeah. You know, and so it took years and years and years to direct and sculpt and nurture these individuals to be able to perform the way that they're going to be performing. Yeah,

Kristi Wagner  39:22  
I one of my favorite quotes from right before Tokyo was somebody you know, called me an overnight sensation. And my coach was like, yeah, it takes 15 years to be an overnight sensation. Right. Right. And it's, but it's kind of exactly what you're talking about, like you see it and yes, everyone is peaked and primed and as perfect, you know, as close to perfect as they're gonna get on TV for, you know, this culminating event, but so much goes into it. And no, you know, that was really like the press Purpose of the podcast was just trying to share a little bit about what it's actually like, and, you know, all the sports that aren't maybe the cover sports of the Olympics,

Greg Louganis  40:12  
right. And also, you have to take a look at, you know, the whole picture, because it may have been 15 years in your sport. Well, but your whole life, but but your activities prior to that, you know, that's reason why, you know, I, I, it's important for me to talk about my dance when I started dancing when I was a year and a half. I mean, because all of those skills, all of those things that you're teaching your brain and your body movement and awareness at whatever age that is going to facilitate your success in in the future for for everything. Definitely.

Kristi Wagner  40:53  
I know. Yeah, yeah. But it's been fun. I've gotten to, you know, connect with so many different people. And it's really cool, how many similarities there are with athletes from you know, different generations, different sports, different countries, like it's, it's just really cool. So yeah, yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time. And sure,

Greg Louganis  41:16  
it's my pleasure.

Kristi Wagner  41:21  
So thanks for listening. And thank you to Greg for coming on the show and being so open and vulnerable to share so much with me and all of you. So to close the show. This week, I'm sharing a quote from former guest on the show Nick mom gardeners book gold from iron that I just finished and it was, it was really good. I did I liked it a lot. So if you'd like next episode on the podcast, I'd really recommend reading the book. But this code specifically it was very fitting for, you know, what's been happening. So, Nick wrote, You can't let one failure sabotage the next opportunity. So learn what you can from it, leave the negative behind and take the positive. So thanks for listening and have a great week. See you next time. I'd love to hear from you. So send us a topic suggestion or if you'd like to submit a question for our Ask Christy anything segment, head to our website, the other three years.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai