Olympian Katie Hoff On Embracing The Suck & Alchemizing Pain Into Gratitude

The Rich Roll Podcast

Rich Roll

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

4.8 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2021

⏱️ 139 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We all create imagined blueprints for how we want our lives to unfold—but what happens when things don’t go according to plan? Today’s guest knows a thing or two about managing pressure, prioritizing intention over expectation, and transforming disappointment into gratitude. Meet Olympic swimmer Katie Hoff. Dubbed, for better or worse, ‘the female Michael Phelps’ Katie is an 8x world champion that made her first Olympic Team at the ripe age of 15, the youngest member of the 2004 USA Swimming Team. She won 5 first place Olympic berths at the 2008 Olympic Trials, took home 3 medals in Beijing, and over the course of her career toppled more than a few American & international records, accruing 8 world championship titles along the way. But Katie’s story isn’t what you think it is. It’s not some totally unrelatable Olympic fairy tale, filled with empty platitudes and cliché mottos. It’s a story about not living up to the expectations the world set for you. What’s most interesting about Katie is that she’s an athlete that should have had a far more decorated career. So what happened? Today we explore her storied career, covering the complicated mental and emotional implications of elite performance, as well as the external forces beyond an athlete’s control. We dissect the vertigo-inducing success Katie experienced at such a young age. The insane pressure she faced that accompanied high highs, the bitter disappointment she experienced by failing to live up to unreal and unfair expectations, and the process of picking up the pieces and moving forward with life in the wake of dreams unrealized. And of course, the valuable and applicable life lessons extrapolated along the way, which she chronicles in her book, Blueprint: An Olympian’s Story of Striving, Adapting, and Embracing The Suck. Katie is an absolute delight and our exchange is littered with gems—big ideas on managing stress, expectations, and knowing when and how to push your limits. FULL BLOG & SHOW NOTES: bit.ly/richroll605 YouTube: bit.ly/katiehoff605 This was a fun one. I learned a ton, and I know you will too. Peace + Plants, Rich Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	For me, I had flat outfailed.
0:04.6	Like the articles that were coming out that I shouldn't have read,
0:08.7	and I saw this flurry of just negativity and how I failed and how I fell on my face
0:14.2	and this kind of lost and burst into tears.
0:17.5	There was a couple people that I very much looked up to that were saying really, really hurtful things.
0:24.0	It was just moments here and there where I would feel off or I'd have this pit in my stomach
0:29.1	or I would do an interview with another athlete and just feel like not good enough.
0:35.5	Like, and I would always go by gold medal.
0:38.0	Like I'm like, why have a silver, they have a gold, so.
0:41.0	And it didn't even hit me that I felt that way until I watched the Winter Olympics
0:46.6	and they announced someone and they were like silver medalists.
0:50.5	I was like, wow, that cheese is a badass.
0:53.2	And I'm like, oh, wait, I have a silver medal.
0:55.7	That's how people look at that, but at the time, I would get picked up by a car service
1:02.3	and he would be like, oh, an Olympian.
1:04.4	Did you win a medal? That's the first question.
1:06.8	Yeah, I did. Did you win gold? No.
1:10.0	Oh, bummer.
1:11.2	And that was just, oh, I was like, dagger to the heart for me.
1:15.9	That's a group of athletes.
1:17.6	If you could win an Olympic gold medal but then die five years later, guaranteed, I think.
1:24.3	It was staggering. It was like 80% said yes.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Rich Roll, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Rich Roll and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.