TEAM USA OLYMPIAN: How Chari Hawkins Trained Her Mind to Reach Paris After Years of Falling Short
The Gabby Reece Show
Dear Media
4.8 • 954 Ratings
🗓️ 20 April 2026
⏱️ 155 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Most people watch the Olympics and see the result. Chari Hawkins lived two and a half decades of work to get there, and almost didn't make it. I sit down with US Olympian and world-class heptathlete Chari Hawkins for a wide-ranging conversation about what it actually takes to build mental toughness from scratch, compete at the highest level with a broken heart, and figure out who you are when the sport is no longer the whole answer.
This is not a highlight reel conversation. Chari is honest about the panic attacks, the identity crises, the years of therapy, the breakdowns under a tent at track meets, and the visualization breakthrough that got her to the 2024 Paris Olympics. She's also sharp, curious, and deeply thoughtful about what sport teaches you about life, not the other way around. If you've ever had to do hard things while scared, this one is for you.
What we explore:
- Why tying your identity to a single role, athlete, title, achievement, sets you up for a crisis the moment it ends.
- How Chari used a three-word visualization framework to silence the fear before the race that got her to Paris.
- Why mental toughness is not a personality trait, and what the actual work of building it looks like under pressure.
- What not winning a World Championship medal gave her that a podium finish never could have.
- How competition-day nutrition, breathwork, and sleep tools function as a performance system, and what happens when you get them wrong.
Chapter:
00:00 Intro
01:35 Why Competing Can Disconnect You From Yourself
10:56 Why She Chose the Heptathlon
16:49 How to Learn New Skills Faster Than Everyone Else
21:31 Sports Psychology Tools That Actually Work
36:28 How to Support Someone After Failure
49:25 The “See, Feel, Trust” Performance Technique
01:00:10 Parenting, Discipline, and Mental Strength
01:12:41 Peak Performance and Age in the Olympics
01:24:05 Bouncing Back After a Devastating Moment
01:34:46 What Losing Teaches You That Winning Can’t
01:36:54 What Athletes Eat on Competition Day
01:47:08 Balancing Training, Recovery, and Performance
01:51:05 A 30-Day Plan to Build Mental Strength
02:00:22 Sprint Training Mindset and Workouts
02:11:17 Overcoming Injury Fear and Recovery
02:17:33 Sleep, Travel, and Mental Recovery Tools
02:28:46 Future Goals and Final Lessons
About Chari Hawkins
Chari Hawkins is a US Olympic heptathlete who competed at the 2024 Paris Olympics. One of the most mentally transparent athletes in track and field, she has spent over 20 years competing at the world-class level across seven events, from the 100 hurdles to the 800m, and has become as well known for her openness about the mental side of sport as she has for her performance. She is based in Utah and trains alongside her husband CJ, who serves as both her training partner and one of her closest sources of perspective.
Connect with Chari Hawkins
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_charihawkins/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@_charihawkins
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@_charihawkins
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChariTrack
X: https://x.com/_charihawkins
Produced by Dear Media.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | So many Olympians and athletes, like when they retire or even when their Olympic is over, they get so sad. |
| 0:06.8 | And I think it's because they haven't been showing up for themselves that day. |
| 0:10.1 | They're always going for the future and now the future's over. |
| 0:12.6 | I also think there's another part of that that nobody talks about, whether it's making lots of money, getting the job, winning the gold. |
| 0:20.8 | People think, oh, if I get that, |
| 0:22.7 | it's all solved. And the fact is, it's not. It could be a Wednesday. And then the next day, |
| 0:28.3 | you have got to wake up and be a human. All right, Shari Hawkins, welcome to the show. |
| 0:37.5 | Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. |
| 0:39.6 | I'm excited because I, first of all, to talk to athletes always inspires me because to be an |
| 0:46.5 | athlete, listen, to be a human has its challenges. And to be an athlete, I think people see, |
| 0:53.4 | you know, they see the victories, they see the muscles, |
| 0:56.0 | they see the confidence, the ability to set goals. |
| 1:00.0 | And what's great is your story has a transparency and even a timeline that would suggest |
| 1:04.4 | how hard and how long you've worked at this. |
| 1:09.2 | Yeah. |
| 1:09.5 | But I do think that the athlete's mindset is so helpful for people in a day-to-day situation |
| 1:14.9 | because I think athletes, just by needing to do what they do, they have to figure some |
| 1:22.6 | things out on an accelerated, you know, kind of timeline. |
| 1:25.7 | And those things can be really, really helpful. |
| 1:28.1 | That's a super interesting point because I've always said that sport is so correlated with life. |
| 1:34.8 | And that's why sports are so inspiring to people is it's not just the, it's not just because |
| 1:39.9 | of a game or a meat or a race. It's because of all of the things that, you know, setting a goal, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dear Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dear Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.