Anthony Ervin: The Rebel Olympian on Chasing Water, Finding Meaning in Gold & The Search For Authenticity

The Rich Roll Podcast

Rich Roll

Society & Culture, Education, Health & Fitness, Self-improvement

4.8 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2016

⏱️ 106 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Imagine winning an Olympic gold medal in swimming at age 19 at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. A feat never-before achieved by a swimmer of African-American descent, the frenzied media swarms. The only problem? You’re only half-black. You definitely don’t look black. And you know nothing about what it’s like to be part of the black experience. The unrelenting crush of public expectation to fulfill a role at odds with your private sense of self becomes so intense, you retreat from your Olympic experience not with any lasting sense of happiness, satisfaction and pride, but rather a numb confusion. This isn’t anything like I thought it would be… Over time, the confusion metastasizes into disillusionment. And it’s not long before depression sets in. Lost and lacking the tools to cope, life begins to pivot away from the dreaded black line at the bottom of the pool and towards a dreadlocked blur of rock ‘n roll, boozy, drug-fueled binges, rampant womanizing, cigarette haze, and death-defying motorcycle crashes. Nonetheless, over the next three years you continue to do the one thing you know how to do: swim. Not only do you continue to win, in 2001 you’re crowned the world champion in two events. But these results only magnify what is quickly becoming a profound crisis of identity. Who am I? Why am I doing this? What does it all mean? The answers continue to elude you until you find yourself so despondent, so desperate for relief, that you down a handful of tranquilizers. But the suicide attempt fails, fueling a sense of invincibility that only hastens the onset of an even more profound darkness. So, at the young age of 22, at the peak of his abilities, Anthony Ervin does what he has to — he walks away from the thing he used to love. The thing that gave him everything. The thing that made him a star. The thing that betrayed it’s promise of making him whole. In a Hail Mary attempt to discover and re-create his life, Anthony travels the world. He meditates at a Buddhist temple. He studies philosophy with a Sufi mystic. He reclaims his body with tattoos. He enrolls in graduate school but spends summers in Brooklyn, where he immerses himself in books, writes poetry, and even occasionally cross-dresses at parties. The denouement? Hawking his Olympic gold medal on eBay and donating the proceeds to the UNICEF tsunami relief fund. The only thing Anthony Ervin didn’t do during this time? Swim. Not one stroke. The next eight years marked a complete divorce from anything and everything swimming. In fact, not one of Anthony’s new friends during this time had any idea he was even an athlete, let alone an Olympic champion. He was just another tattooed, guitar-playing Brooklynite seeking answers to the Universe in music, meditation, books and partying. But with funds dwindling, Anthony offhandedly takes a gig teaching New York kids how to swim. The experience of service begins to erode his jaded shell and ignites an unexpected spark of appreciation for his former life. A new sense of self worth begins to emerge, informing the why in Anthony’s quest for spiritual self-actualization. Suddenly, love for the sport he so thoroughly placed in his rearview begins to rekindle. In 2011, Anthony returns to the water. And almost overnight, the impossible occurs. Twelve years after Sydney, Anthony qualifies for the 2012 London Olympics — his second U.S. Olympic team. Despite his 31 years of age (ancient in the world of swi...

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0:00.0	So imagine what it would be like to hit pause on your busy life so you can spend seven immersive days in a beautiful historic villa nestled in the hills of the Italian countryside with just me and Julie and a group of 40 like-minded individuals getting together for a fun and intense week of life transformation laughter play yoga meditation trail running cooking connection workshops day trips nutrition and of course incredible plant-based food.
0:29.0	Well this is plant power Italia something I think is a really beautiful and rare opportunity to learn how to live better and more authentically together.
0:41.0	So our first retreat experience this past May was absolutely magical it exceeded our wildest expectations so we're doing it again and the dates are October 1 through 8 2016.
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1:16.0	I always liked a Latin phrase tabula rassa the blank slate you know because nobody nobody ever really has a blank slate and you know I tried I tried my best to create one for myself but everybody's thrown into this universe with some kind of past history to their family and as a child you know you do things that aren't necessarily your choices and you you know there's a certain momentum to everything and a lot of times your choices are just about steering in a particular direction or not.
1:44.0	But you can't really change directions that's Olympic gold medalist Anthony Irvin and this is the ritual podcast.
1:54.0	The ritual podcast.
2:04.0	Hey everybody how you guys doing what's going on what is happening greetings my name is rich roll I am your host welcome to the ritual podcast the show where each week of course I sit down with all kinds of wildly inspiring people thought leaders paradigm breakers doctors filmmakers authors advocates
2:23.0	Olympic athletes in the case of today's guest and even the occasional every man and I do this across all categories of health and wellness everything from fitness to food entrepreneurship athletic performance creativity and of course positive social change and my hope really is that these conversations will somehow serve you in your journey towards unlocking and unlation your best most authentic self so I've got a really interesting
2:52.0	different kind of show for you guys today today's guest is a US Olympic gold medalist he is a three time Olympian he made his first Olympic team at the age of 19 and his most recent just a few weeks ago at age 35 it's incredible he's a former world record holder in the 50 free style and a former world champion in the 50 and 100 meter free style events that's competitive swimming for the uninitiated out there.
3:20.0	Anthony Irvin is a sprinter sprinter this is a guy who is just gifted with pure speed a guy who is arguably the greatest or at a minimum among the very greatest sprint talents in the history of competitive swimming and his accomplishments are extraordinary of course but they're not really what makes him interesting to me what's interesting to me is the amazing personal story behind one of the most unique one of the most
3:49.0	introspective and I think it's fair to say one of the most complicated world class athletes of our time and I got a whole bunch more I want to say about Anthony in a second but first today's episode is brought to you by frame bridge so I don't know about you guys but I got a ton of empty walls in both my office and my home and right here sitting right next to my desk I have this huge stack of photos and art and clippings and just all kinds of stuff that I am going to do.
4:19.0	I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go
4:49.0	to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I'm going to go to the screen and I
5:19.0	spend a lot of money and this means that once everybody receives receipt money and they correct, they fix real thing. So then we decided to keep around
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