Olympic Legend Finding Precision & Peace | Greg Louganis

Impact the World with Lee Harris

Lee Harris

Education, Entrepreneurship, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Business, Self-improvement

5 • 752 Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Olympic Gold Medalist, Actor, and Author Greg Louganis is known as the greatest diver of all time. Today, as a coach, speaker, author, actor, activist, and humanitarian, he continues his tradition of excellence, keeping many causes close to his heart, including HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ+, mental health/addiction, human rights, animals, environmental issues, and climate change. Greg is a Samoan High Chief and shares wisdom through his Peak Performance course, speaking events, and social media. He is also a dog dad and agility handler who adores spending time with his pups.

In this heart-centered conversation, Lee and Greg explore:

(05:28) Being a pioneer at a time when there were few gay role models.
(15:08) How, by listening to the diving board and using all of his senses, he could achieve excellence in his sport.
(22:49) His work around diversity, inclusion, misinformation, and being conscious about the carbon footprint of the Olympics.
(25:42) His HIV-positive diagnosis in 1988 and encouraging people to ask themselves before they judge with words and thoughts, “Is it kind?”
(33:16) How he felt he was sharing his weaknesses in his New York Times Best Selling book, Breaking the Surface.
(50:37) The discovery of his biological family.

To learn more about his work: https://GregLouganis.com/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/greglouganis

IG: https://www.instagram.com/greglouganisYT: https://www.youtube.com/user/gregorylouganis

Use code: ITWSOUL for $100 off the full price of Lee's Soul Magic La Jolla immersive in-person experience, July 7 - 12, 2025.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	A dive takes less than three seconds.
0:02.6	And in that less than three seconds is total chaos.
0:06.3	It's a free fall.
0:07.7	And in that less than three seconds,
0:10.8	that chaos is your creation.
0:19.2	Hello, welcome to Impact the World, where my guest today is Greg Luganis.
0:25.4	Many of you will know Greg as an Olympic hero.
0:28.9	He consecutively won gold in the men's diving championships in the 80s, but he has also had a New York
0:37.2	Times bestseller, an acting career.
0:39.3	He specializes in peak performance and also recently has been training dogs who perform.
0:47.3	So he's got such an interesting story and so many different things that he has done in his life, that it was great to talk to him about his experience of all of those, and particularly being a pioneer as a gay man who was out at a time when not many were. And I ask him near the end of the interview, what's it like to be someone whose story precedes him?
1:14.0	We all know how stories can define us, but can also cause projection and public perceptions that
1:22.0	aren't necessarily true. So we touch on that near the end of the interview, but this was a great
1:27.0	conversation. Greg was a great conversation.
1:28.3	Greg was a wonderful guest and I really loved it.
1:31.3	So I hope you enjoy hearing more from and learning about Greg Lugainis.
1:39.7	Greg, welcome to the show.
1:41.7	Thank you so much for being here.
1:43.5	Thank you.
1:46.0	Thanks for having me. It's so great to be here. Yeah. I know when we first met earlier this year, I shared with you that you were very impactful for me when I was probably a late teen.
1:57.0	And at the time I knew I was gay, but there weren't many role models at all.
2:01.8	At that time, it was still very stigmatized to be out as a gay person.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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