October 15, 2022 • 52 mins
Chris Spetzler, Executive Director of the Decision Education Foundation along with Olympic and legendary track star Justin Gatlin, who opens up and shares the importance of good and bad decision making and how it has affected Justin's career in track and field and what those decisions have led to in Justin's life, with podcast producer Dave Ungrady.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's been quite a journey for Gatlin. No athlete in
track and field has returned to achieve such greatness after
serving a drug suspension. I didn't want to be a
cautionary champ, so I thought hard not to be a
caution Harry Tito. Over the years, he's faced many difficult decisions,
(00:24):
choosing a coach, figuring out what to do with your
time after you were suspended, why to return to competition.
It's always a challenge to come back from a bad
decision with the bad outcome. When I went through my depression,
(00:45):
I felt like I was useless. I felt like I
didn't have a case, and not necessarily became suicidal, but
more I started leading towards being reckless, you know. And
I remember basically running over almost like a rock or
a herb, and I could barely see straight. And this
(01:08):
cop comes over to me and said, hey, did you
not see that rock in the road. I was like,
nys oh. He's like, okay, cool, make sure you get
home safe. And that nice scared the living crap about me,
because I realized that not only could I make headlines again,
it could be ex gold medalist dies or excol melists
kill somebody else. And what I am really impressed by
(01:31):
and the story Justin is the way that you put
it behind you. We talked about some cost and you
can't change the past. You gotta work on the future.
And it sounds like running was truly your fire in
life and you did everything to reclaim um your success.
(01:56):
The world will never understand how much pressure you have
to deal with, but the only the world will see
your actions, how you react to situations, you know, and
if you're careless for that moment, they're going to think
that you can careless on your In this segment of
len Bias A Mixed Legacy, Episode three of Epilogue, The
(02:20):
Importance of making the right decision. This is Davon Grady,
executive producer of this podcast series. With this episode, we
complete our podcast series on the legacy of len Bias.
We feature an iconic figure in track and field and
(02:41):
Olympic and World champion sprinter in his early twenties who
later served a four year drug suspension, only to return
to the sport in dramatic and triumphant ways. We're talking
about Justin Gatlin. Few people can claim they've beaten Hussain
(03:02):
Bolt in the one race. Justin Gatland is one of them,
but that's not the most interesting part of his story.
At the age of twenty three, Gatland seemed destined to
become an iconic sprinter. He was an Olympic champion and
world record holder in the one and a world champion
in the one and two D. But the golden future
(03:26):
faded after Gatland turned twenty four. In two thousand six,
he tested positive for a banned substance and then served
the four year suspension from competition. But Gatlin showed impressive
resilience and returned to competition in By the end of
(03:46):
the tens, he had reclaimed his position as one of
the top sprinters in the world. In Gatland won Olympic
bronze in the one hundred, and he was the overall
one hundred champion in the Diamond League Meat Series, the
(04:09):
top track and field pro circuit. He won silver medals
in the one at fifteen World Championships. Bolt beat him
in both races. In Gatland finally beat Bolt in the
one D beaters at the World Championships. Gatland won his
(04:31):
last world medal in nineteen, at the age of thirty seven.
It was a silver in the one Dreds. It's been
quite a journey for Gatlin. No athlete in track and
field has returned to achieve such greatness after serving a
drug suspension. Over the years, Gatlin has faced many difficult
(04:52):
decisions to appeal his suspension, how to find work when suspended,
to try and play in the NFL, which coaches to
hire during his comeback, and when to retire. And Gatlin
is with us to talk about his unique career and
the decisions he made. A big part of what we're
(05:15):
trying to do is use lens story and legacy to
promote effective decision making. He made a bad decision and
it created all these issues. So, um, what do you
recall remember, if anything, about lens story when you were
growing up, that you heard about him as I became
older and became a teenager and a young adult, where
(05:36):
obviously he was a cautionary tale for me when I
was growing up about making right choice and right decisions,
especially in the moment's notice when you are that athlete
who can ascend to the next level and you're hanging
around people who don't have that same opportunity, so you
have to make wise decisions. For me, he was urban
(05:56):
legend and still has been. You know, um, like I said, didn't,
I didn't know what his jersey number was. I can
tell you what college you went to, but I can
tell you the night of his story and how it
changed his life, how it changed everyone around him. It
opened my eyes up to see other asthletes around me
making poor decisions or allowing their decisions be made by
(06:19):
someone else. So it shows you that, to be honest,
that limb bias kind of tail happens through sports repeatedly
even to this day. Justin you faced some critical decisions
in your life. We like to call our decisions are
three types life shaping, which are long term decisions, Significant
(06:41):
decisions which are more short term like four or five
or six months impact, and uh in the moment decisions,
which are spontaneous decisions. Um. Of all the professional decisions
you faced, choosing a coach, figuring out what to do
with your time after you were suspended, why to return
the competition, and what was the most significant for you
(07:04):
of all though, is or was there something else? I
felt like for me coming back into the sport, it
had to be the environment, choosing the right coach, choosing
the right training partners, to be able to sharpen my
skills with UM, I felt, I don't want to say
I stumbled along the way, but coming back was a
hard climb for me because you know, when I came
into the sport, it was almost handing glove made for me.
(07:27):
You know, n C double a champion, get whisked the
way to one of the best coaches, get whisked the
way to one of the best sponsors. So my my
comeback was actually a climb, like I had to find
the right coaching system, had to find the right coach
who had the same you know, ideology that I had
about being one of the best in the world. Take
us through that decision. What was the process? Who did
(07:49):
you talk to? How did you figure out the best
way to make that decision? So for me, families, everything,
and circle too. I try to keep my circle tight
and just gnatch you that way. And UM, throughout my
ups and downs, my agent's been with me, you know,
through me being Olympic champion too, even through the hard
(08:12):
times of four years of being away from my sport.
He could have just left me be like, hey, you're
not making men money, you know, we can go aways.
But he was a God said to me, and once
I came back to the sport, he helped me find
a coach that would be good for me in that moment.
So um, I started off with a coach in Atlanta
and it just didn't pan out. The rhythm of it
(08:34):
wasn't right, you know, it just wasn't the right fit
for me because it wasn't getting me where I need
to be competition wise. So then I moved to Orlando
where I found a coach and this coach took me on,
even with my name being muddy at that point in time,
and Brooks Johnson took me on. And I was with
Brooks for about a year and a half and unfortunately
(08:54):
we didn't have sparring partners there for me like to
to really train with. So I moved across town to
another coach where he had top of league athletes that
I could be able to sharpen my skills with. And
I stayed in Claremont with Dennis Mitchell for about um
since twelve up to the time I retired, which was
(09:15):
but there was also Trevor Graham, who was your first coach.
And when we talk about decision making, I'd like to
get into this your head a little bit on this.
Trevor Graham. At if I recall when you picked him,
he was connected to Marion Jones who was having drug issues. Correct,
So when we were talking about your decision making, I
would imagine you had to anticipate picking these coaches might
(09:37):
not maybe best for you, but people are gonna start
thinking about why is he going to these coaches? How
did that affect your decision making it at all? It
was the fact that I was a twenty year old,
naive kid who didn't know nothing about the track and
field professional realm. I didn't even know what a coach,
a professional track and field coach look like. I'm a
six time n C double A champion. I didn't know
(09:59):
what it took to turn pro um. All I know
is I need to run my ass off, and if
I run my ass off, then I'm gonna get noticed.
When my phone rang, that was gonna be Trevor Graham
and what his back His backing was no, then um,
Then I got a phone call from Nike, So it
was like, Okay, my dreams are coming true. And obviously,
(10:19):
from the outside looking in as a young athlete, I
don't know the inter kid workings of a professional realm.
I didn't know anything about the drug scandal that was
about to happen, because it didn't happen right when I
turned pro. You know. Um, so I'm working with the
guy who was who was working with one of my
idols at that point in time, which was Amarian Jones,
and when he won the Golden Sydney and I just
(10:39):
turned pro in two thousand two, so the world was
a buzz I was happy. I was elated. I was
I couldn't been in a better place. I was about
to train with one of the people I looked up to,
and I was about to be signed by the same company.
I thought, Yeah, the writing for me was on the
wall that I was gonna be the next great sprinter
in America and was ready to take on that challenge.
(11:01):
Now responsibility. This is Davon Grady, executive producer of this
podcast series. I'm talking with Olympic and World sprint champion
Justin Gatlin and Chris Spetzler, executive director of the Decision
Education Foundation, about critical decisions made by Gatlin in his career.
(11:23):
Let's now bring in again Chris Spetzler, the executive director
of the Decision Education Foundation a content partner in this
podcast series. Can you offer any any insight? And I
know you and I have talked a lot about framing
a decision where you've got to you've got to find
the stakeholders who are going to help you make that decision.
Does that work in here or is there something else
we're missing? Let me let me back up a little
(11:46):
bit and take a couple of different things. One of
the first things that I heard Justin talk about was
his values and how important his family is to him.
And in the latter part of the story, it sounds
like at has played a huge role in his resilience
and his commitment and has followed through even when he
(12:08):
had to figure out, through a couple of different experiences
with a couple of different coaches, what was really going
to work for him. And that's important to me in
that story because it's something that stands in contrast to
the first situation. The first decision was one that felt
(12:30):
like a no brainer and didn't have the benefit of
the later experiences and was just that, um, this is
the way it's supposed to be. It's almost faded, and
there wasn't a lot of search for alternatives because it
just didn't seem like it was needed. It was the
(12:51):
way to go and um on automatic. You know, you
have to recognize that you're making a decision for it
to be a conscious decision. And was that a conscious
decision in your mind at that point? For for justin
the earlier one with the coach, well, I'm I'm sure
that it was a conscious decision that he knew he
was signing up for that coach and that sponsor. On
(13:14):
the other hand, it sounds like there wasn't a lot
of thought about what other alternatives and does this align
with my values? It was just this is the way
it's supposed to be, and I'm going for it. So
most of the decisions that I made going forward were
not by me. It was also by my parents and
my circle. They thoroughly vet it, Trevor, they thoroughly vet it.
(13:37):
Even Nike. UM, we didn't know much about the track
and field work pre professional aspect, so we can only
ask questions that we felt were um on a moral level,
and we got so much reinsurance. No, man, your sons
is is in good hands. He's going to be great,
you know, Um, he has great talent. We're going to
(13:57):
make sure that we nurture that talent. So when all
these stories started coming down and the scandal start happening,
we were reassured that none of this was going to
blow back and we weren't going to be put in
a awkward situation in this story. So we've sat at
a round table and we discussed and we moved forward.
We knew that none of us were testing pilot at
(14:17):
that point in time, so clearly you were consulting with
the stakeholders, the other people who had could provide authoritative
input into your decision. Um. And to clarify for our listeners,
both Jones what Jones was Ultimately she ultimately admitted using,
if I'm correct, using a band substances, although she denied
it for years. And Trevor Graham was kicked basically kicked
(14:39):
out of the sport for for yeah, for um, his
involvement with athletes and and and performance enhancing drugs. Um. Now,
let's let's just get talking about then especial quickly, because
I remember when you picked him, Dennis Mitchell had a
history of performance enhancing drugs. Connections maybe can clear a fight,
(15:00):
but you still decided to go with them. Can you
explain that decision process after my suspension, coming back and
expressing myself to to coach Brooks about what was needed,
and he agreed with me that I needed training partners.
So that's where Uh then his then his name came
into the into the picture. Um, he had an incident
that came up with a drug suspension almost more than
(15:23):
twenty years ago when he was running, you know. So
it was him as a runner, not as a coach.
And then I literally had a man demand conversation with him.
I took him out to eat, We had some chicken wings,
and we had some beer, and we had a real
man talk and said, Hey, this is what I need,
this is what I don't need in my life. And
he explained, this is what I need in my life
as a runner and an athlete, and this is what
(15:44):
I don't need in my life. And we shook hands.
Right then we agreed to be able to work with
each other with no kind of incident, no kind of disruption,
And I think we kind of had a kindred spirit
because we were like, we don't want to feel that
pain anymore. We just want to go out and run
and compete. I want to be the best coach I
can be. I want to be the best athlete I
could be. Chris says, you've heard Justin. Explain the conversation
(16:04):
you had with Dennis Mitchell, his his most recent coach,
and how how he went about making that decision that
that one on one. How does that fit into the
proper way to make a decision in that situation. It's
always a challenge to come back from a bad decision
with a bad outcome. And what I am really impressed
(16:28):
by in the story, Justin, is the way that you
put it behind you. We talked about some cost and
you can't change the past. You gotta work on the future.
And it sounds like running was truly your fire in
life and you did everything to reclaim um your success.
(16:51):
And that's that's just really inspiring. Okay, Justin, let's go
back even a little more. When you realize that you
work gonna be able to compete for four years and
I remember when I was working at the w c
C and it came down and did a story for
you for them. You were about a year in and
you were a personal trainer. That's how you were getting
(17:12):
some of your income. Uh, you were living in an
apartment in Georgia in Atlanta. If I recall, and it,
I remember not being a very um, maybe rewarding time
for you, or it was a challenging time. What was
your decision making process about the next step. I think
the first year in was so surreal to me. It
(17:36):
felt like I was away from my sport just extended period.
For that first year at least I watched the Olympics.
I watched every meat that I could. I watched people
were competed against. But it did make me sad to
watch it. It made me inspired to work harder to
(17:57):
come back. Um, I looked at I guess you call
it the long the long picture of things with a
long goal of things, you know, And for me it
was I had nothing to lose. At first, when I
was in my situation, I was looking at a lifetime band. Okay,
then the guy reduced to eight, right, and then I
(18:20):
fought that down to four right. But coming back now,
in that first year of my suspension, it was like
they I can't really explain it. It just felt like
so weird. I felt like out of place in life
and society because all I knew was track and field,
you know, all I knew was that was my success.
(18:42):
That's how I made my money, That's how I earned
my earned a living, That's where my fire came from.
So um, when that wasn't there for me, I tried
to figure out other things that I could do. So
what were your values at that time? We were Christmas
mentioned referenced values determined a lot about your decision making.
It was important. What was most important to you at
that time? Was it finding a job, We're you gonna
(19:04):
make money or was it finding something that you're gonna
have fun with a little bit of gutting it out
and uh, finding what I loved because you remember I
ran track from from the moment in high school like fifteen,
sixteen years old, right, and then became state champion, then
became six time n C double A champion, then became
(19:25):
Olympic champions, then became world champions, they became war Bickert holder.
So everything that in my young adult life was centered
around track. And so when you took me out of it,
I felt like I was nothing. So I had to
rediscover who justed us in those years that I was
awake from track. So you were considering football, you had
to try it. I did I had a couple of
(19:47):
a couple of trials and a couple of teams. How
did that? It was a different experience. I enjoyed it
because it made me. It forced me to learn what
it is to be in a different realm, a different world.
I wasn't just floating around. So I literally had to
like be disciplined for football, to lift, to learn the
routes to to become a football player, mold myself to
(20:08):
become a football player. I think that I would be
able to make at least to a practice squad, you
know what I mean, and see where it goes from there.
But track would leave me alone, even even being well
suspended in like in the middle of my suspension, Track
would not leave me alone. Like I laid in bed
at a rookie at a a mini camp and bucket
(20:31):
at the Buccaneers, and I remember looking at the ceiling
at one o'clock in the morning, just thinking, like, why
am I trying so hard to fit into a sport
that's already going to alienate me. Because I'm a track athlete,
I shouldn't be on the football field. Probably can't catch,
so I'm already gonna be judged. So I feel like
if I'm gonna be judged, be judging around where I
(20:53):
know that I can excel, which is track and field.
So I felt like I had to make my way
back into a sport that once was a king talking
about what the to become a personal trainer. Why that
became so important. I have a big heart for young athletes,
and I think some of the best times in my life,
other than having my children, from the best time of
my life, like working wise, was being a runner, discovering
(21:18):
where it's gonna take me to the the opportunity to
show everyone my talent, the praise, the glory that come
with it. Um. So when I see young athletes, I
see a little bit of me and all that like
working hard, trying to find themselves, especially in track, because
I told you before, there's not a lot of people
telling these young athletes how to turn pro, so they're
(21:39):
just kind of guessing as they go. So I wanted
to help. A lot of these kids were coming to
me ages from like sixteen seventeen alway down to like
six years old, so I had I was training these
young athletes just to be better, have better form, even
if they were working on in a different sport. Christmas,
You're here and Justin talk now and he's making all
(22:01):
these decisions. Are you seeing any evolution in his decision
making process or any insight? Well? I share that huge
value that I get out of working with young people,
and I have only recognized that over time, and it's
the source of real passion and fire. And what I
(22:22):
hear in this story is, you know, if everything had
gone perfectly for you, Justin, I'm not sure that you
would have grown as much as an individual, as painful
as it's been. And it sounds like you're creating a
tremendous amount of value and um getting a lot of
(22:42):
real um value out of working with these young people
just because you had an experience that wasn't an easy
one and we're able to come back from it. Yeah. Um,
I tell myself all the time. I actually think, I say,
what if I wasn't suspended, what I be the person
I am today? I think my time away from the
(23:03):
sport kind of opened my heart up to see from
a different angle. You know, I remember training with this
athlete when I lived in Atlanta and he was training
for the long jump and he was living out his car.
He didn't a lot of people didn't know this. I
pulled up the practice one day early and I saw,
you know, and you could tell when somebody's kind of
moving or they're living out of their car. I kept
it to myself, but one thing I did watch, I
(23:26):
watched his progression. I watched how he grew had grew confidence,
and I also make sure I reassured him every day,
you know, And he went on to make the Olympic team.
That was his goal in his dream. He went from
living in his car to make the Olympic team. And
even though he filed out at the Olympics, he had
the biggest smile on his face because he finally made it.
(23:47):
And if I would have been a Justined and never
been away from track and field, I would have never
witnessed something like that. I think I would have been
jaded to the fact that succession that became easy for everybody.
Christ and Justin tells that story. We talked about good decision,
bad outcome, bad decision, good outcome, and I was gonna
ask Justin if you ever recalled any bad decision he
(24:07):
felt he made it had a good outcome and vice versa.
But that seems that that decision that he made to
become a trainer. Maybe he didn't foresee this happening, but
it had several different forms of good outcomes. Can you
put that in perspective? Let let me back up a second. Okay, UM,
so justin I'm I think I've already made it clear.
(24:29):
I'm I'm pretty blown away and inspired by your story
and it's it's been, um, some tough stuff. I imagine
when all of this went down. Um, there was a
tremendous amount of breath. So UM. One of the things
we talked about decision traps, which is about cognitive biases,
(24:53):
and one of the things that human beings do is, um,
picture the world that they want and minimum eyes the
world that they don't want and don't expect, and so
that kind of pushes decisions in a direction. Um, you know,
potentially we call it over confidence. It sounds to me
like you also relied on a group of people that
(25:16):
supported you in your training and your decision making, and
um that there was a natural progression that was a
part of that. Maybe it was also not a fully
conscious kind of decision situation. You know this we're just
moving forward and we're doing the things we're doing. I'm
blown away that we're sitting here talking about this because
(25:37):
I didn't it, certainly didn't know of your story, and
I your your honesty with all of this is just
amazing to me. And then that story of like, Okay,
so now I'm on this the other side of this, UM,
this really sucks. What do I do now? And rather
than UM staying that, you dug yourself out of it,
(26:04):
and you you found the people to support you in
getting out of it, and you came back and you
did the things that day've went through. And that's I mean,
that's really quite astounding. UM. And it must have been
a deep down that you'd never expected. You never know
(26:26):
how tough you are until you put in a situation
where you have to be tough, and how tough you
need to be to be able to survive and thrive
and hold onto your goals and ambitions. UM. I feel
like everything was taken from me, my identity. UM. Even
when I watched shows like or track Meets, they wouldn't
(26:47):
even speak of my name. So it's like everything I
worked hard for which just kind of like blowing away
in the wind. Eventually I'll just be an outcast and
someone who was in the sport years to go. So
I didn't want to be that way because I feel
like I had so much worth to give not only
to the sport but to the next generation when it
(27:08):
came to my upstand my downs. You know, I never
never want to see anybody go through the situation that
I went through. I wouldn't wish it on anybody because
it was such a smack in my face of reality
that I went through so many different variations of anger, depression,
chicken my shoulder that I once I came back into
(27:29):
the sport, I had to like mold all this energy
that I had boiled balled up inside me for so
long and somehow projected into training and somehow projected into
into competition. You know. So um, those four years were pivotal,
(27:50):
not only for my career but for my life. You know. Um,
it grew me. It grew me so much. So so
I I hear two things and and and the the
frame I'd like you to be in his like advising
the young athletes or any young person. And the first
(28:10):
one is, you know, if you could go back to
before all of this went down, Um, what would you
suggest somebody facing that situation, do differently. And then the
second one is, you know, when you're in your deepest,
darkest recovery, um, how do you not let get a
(28:35):
go of hope and come back? Because those are two
very different things, but you've got special insight into them.
I guess I would tell young athletes today that are
that are making the same moves and walking the same
path that I walked, is believe in yourself. Know who
you are, not only um move like an athlete. Start
(28:58):
to understand business, Start to understand people who are going
to make decisions for your life. You know, like that's
gonna change your life, it may not change their life
that much. And that's what I went through. And I
felt like walking into a door and saying, oh, this
is what it is. Okay, I let you handle what
you handle. I'm just gonna worry about focus on running,
(29:19):
and that's it. And I think for me, that was
that should have been a red flag in my in
my hindsight, where I should have took those situations where
I might have scratched my head and said, home, let's
figure something out here, let's do a better job of
doing a little more research. So for the young athletes.
(29:43):
I say, as much as you want to be a
professional athlete, be a business person to your brand. Now,
especially young athletes, you're a brand. Remember who you are
because at the end of the day, you make decisions
for yourself. And I didn't have the opportunity and I
wish that I could move back and change that. We
talked about decision power, and it sounds like you you
(30:06):
trusted others with your decision power and if you could
do it again, UM, you wish you had held on
to that decision power. Absolutely absolutely, And I think that
that's how success is built. And if it's something that
you love, you should pay attention to the details. And
those young athletes should do so well. Just so then
there's the other side of it, right And and some
(30:27):
of this stuff is really tough. I mean, we've we
know that there are kids out there that give up
hope and leave this world. Um, and that kind of stuff.
You were in the depths and you found the strength
to come back. So UM, you know when someone experiences
that kind of a UM, you know, trauma to their life. UM,
(30:53):
what did you learn and what can you share in
terms of pulling yourself back together? I had so many
different feelings through my process of my ups and downs,
and it reminds me of the point where I came
to depression. Because depression is such a big thing right
now for a lot of people, they're realizing depression doesn't
(31:13):
just mean that you're sad and crying all the time. Um.
When I went through my depression, I felt like I
was useless. I felt like I didn't have a place,
and not necessarily became suicidal, but more I started leaning
towards being reckless, you know, like going out and party
(31:35):
on a weekday, getting so drunk that my eyes are blurry.
Who's gonna drive me home? I'm gonna drive me home
kind of thing, you know. And I remember basically running
over almost like a rock or a curb, and I
could barely see straight. And this cop comes over to
me and said, hey, did you not see that rock
(31:56):
in the road. I was like, no, I see it. No.
He's like, okay, cool makes you get home and say
now I knew he knew he could see that I drinking,
you know what I mean. It was hard for me
to hide it. That's how DRUNKUND was. And that nice
scared the living crap out of me. Because it realized
that not only could I make headlines again, it could
be ex Gold medalists dies or exco medaists killed somebody else.
(32:20):
And I started thinking in the big frame of things.
So that depression I look back at it and said, Okay,
all the people who were in my circle who wanted
me to do well, lift me up. If I checked
out now in any kind of form, in any kind
of way, then I would be doing them with this
service because they vouched for me, they fought for me,
(32:42):
they loved me, and doing anything less would have been
an injustice to them. And I think I didn't care
about any else in the world but the people who
cared for me, And that's why I wanted to make
a change. So for those young athletes, the only think
about yourself. Think about the people who been helping you
get to where you are. Your mom, your dad, your guardians.
(33:04):
It might be even coaches or principles or whoever else
out there, but the ones that have your best interests
at heart. Think about them in them hard times that
you're having. I see such a correlation two. What lens
Bias could have been thinking as well, if he had
a different frame of mind or how how is what
I'm doing here going to affect someone else? It's gonna
(33:25):
have it's gonna affect other people. He never did that.
When he decided to to consume so much cocaine so
early in the morning and party like that, he was thinking,
right in front of them, how am I going to
please myself? He would clearly lost perspective of where he was.
So I see a really strong direct correlation between that
(33:45):
situation that he didn't survive in your situation in which
you did survived exactly. You're coming out on the on
the on the good side of this. In a way.
When I was in those situations, I really had that
time to think and have some clarity. Situations like limb
bias really came to mind because it was like, the
world will never understand how much pain you're in, the
(34:07):
world would never understand how much pressure you have to
deal with. But the only the world will see your actions,
how you react to situations, you know, and if you're
careless for that moment, they're going to think that you've
been careless all your life, you know. So for me,
it was taking on that responsibility and obligation of realizing
(34:28):
I have to walk a certain line to be the
athlete I want to be, But also I couldn't be
a careless person and still give so much inspiration to
young athletes that coming behind. I didn't want to be
a cautionary tale, so I thought hard not to be
a caution harry tale. I have I have one thing
that I'd like to to ask for David, if you'll
(34:51):
indulge me. So we're spending all of this time on
kind of this down stuff, and I'm working on integrating
the decision stuff into a health course, and um, I
don't really want to talk so much about mental health
as sort of the positive psychology stuff that has to
do with mental edge. And you've been talking about how
(35:13):
you pulled it back together. Could you just spend a
little bit of time talking about, like, when you're really
on your game, how that feels and how you get
there and how you stay there, Because you know, we
spent all this time on the other stuff. You have
(35:33):
been and our champion and so you know at that
elite level what it takes to be on your game.
Totally different side of the coin. I love the side
of the coin because coming back through all that and
started being back on my game. It felt good because
I wasn't clouded by fan cheers. I wasn't distracted by
(36:00):
bandwagon fans or people want a moment in the spotlight.
I was mug when I came back. I had to
like create a persona that kind of protected me, the
soft justice, the justin I wants to be friends with
everybody and have fun. I had to create this hard
out of shell that said, you know what you're hear
a hand with business. I had to be strong enough
(36:21):
to take on anything as I step into that stadium,
let it be distractions or booze or anything. I knew
where my objective was because I had so much clarity
now I knew what rock bottom looked like. So the
toughness was staying the course, staying dialed in making not
only my sport a sport or a job, but making
it my lifestyle. That's what it was for me. I
(36:44):
was doing. I was doing five hundred, six hundred uh
sit ups every night. I was doing a hundred two
hundred push ups every night. Before. I was walking around
like a cage animal in my hotel room, counting the
time for it. I had to leave to go downstair
as I kissed the bus because I knew that I
knew what it felt like to fail. I knew what
it felt like to fail in life at that point
(37:05):
in time. I knew what it feel like to live
in an apartment in Atlanta that was that was infested
by bugs and roaches. I knew what it failed to fall,
and I didn't want to fall anymore. I said, I
was tired of it. I was sick of fallowing. So
I said, you know what I'm gonna do the out
I'm just gonna go out here and I care about
anything and just run. If I got a lane, great,
(37:26):
I have opportunity, and I'm gonna run my butt off
to be able to make this next team, run my
butt off to be recognized. I'm rund my butt off
to to get a niece that were black balling me
and blackness to me and beaten by me doing that
and stay in the course and never really talking to
the media as in a sense of life, what was me?
I just want to show my talent. That's it. This
(37:49):
is Davon Grady, executive producer of this podcast series. I'm
talking with Olympic and World sprint champion Justin Gatlin and
Chris Spetzler, executive director of the Decision Education Foundation, about
critical decisions made by Gatlin in his career. I do
recall when you came back, there were a lot of
(38:09):
meat directors who wouldn't even consider you. And this is
part of what I wrote a New York Times story.
A lot of meat directors didn't want to talk to you.
I didn't want to consider you free the further races
because they were concerned about your history. You know. I
just I always looked at myself as the good guy,
you know, and I just wanted the opportunity to come back,
(38:30):
and with those meat promoters not allowing me, I remember
my agent saying, Hey, it's not about where you run,
it's how you run. So if you get the opportunity
to jump on the track and run anywhere, make sure
that you look at it as the Olympic finals. Are
you running for the last race of your life? And
that's the ideology that I took into every race coming
back into the sport, was I was running for my
(38:51):
life because at that point in time, it was a
lot of meating I couldn't get into and I wouldn't
I had to go to meets where it wouldn't even
cover my airfare, so I was still losing. I was
just running. So it was it was a struggle. There
was a struggle for me, but I stayed the course
and a lot of my people in my inner circle
of my family, my friends, like they believed in me
(39:14):
that I could come back, and that was one of
my sources of power. Did you feel like your confidence
level was any different when you got on the track?
Did you feel more motivated? I felt like coming back,
I feel like I still was trying to find what
my purpose was. You know, Um, in the beginning of
my career, I did have purpose. I was supposed to
be the next great one. But coming back in the sport,
(39:36):
you gotta remember there was a lot of fast guys.
Almost all those guys are running nine seven by the
time I came back into the sport, and you know,
I left the sport running nine and seven. That was
almost half a decade ago before. So I had to
figure out how I can be able to put myself
back into um a situation where I could flourish. It
(39:56):
was uncomfortable for me because I had to change the
out of physical things about me as well. Um, if
you watch a lot of my racists. From the beginning
I was. I didn't get out the blocks very well,
or at least I got out with the field, you know,
and I could run away from everybody. Now I was
in a in a realm where everyone was pretty much
showing paper faster than me. So I had to get
(40:18):
out in front of the field and hold that race
pattern and be able to finish the race. So I
had to change, not only mentally, I had to change physically.
I had become a whole new athlete. I had to
throw away all the things that made me who I was,
who made me Olympic gold medalist. I had to be
able to evolve before I say something. Let me just
(40:39):
I mean that that was in essence, it was kind
of the money shot what you just said there. Um.
What I heard Justin say was that when he came back,
he had to change the way that he approached the
sport because what worked for him before wouldn't work for
(41:02):
him going forward. And so he had to relearn everything
that he knew. And that was at a physical level,
and that was at a mental level. And it's really
just an astonishing sort of transformation that it sounds like
he went through. Now, can we tie it into some
ways of that of that decision, the tools we use
(41:23):
in the decision process. Well, it sounds to me like
the commitment and the follow through that was associated with
kind of the break through decision of I'm coming back
and I'm going to do whatever it takes was something
that had to be every day, and that it was
(41:44):
really fueled by this um recognition that it was his
purpose for himself and that there were a lot of
people that were a part of that purpose that were
very um much a part of his success and wanted
to see him successful. And then he loved them and
(42:07):
that's part of what helped him to do it because
it was a challenging time. So that ties into values
as well. The people that were important to him helped
motivate him to do certain things. I'd like to sort
of wrap it up with two things here. Just I'd
like you to talk about the decision into finally retiring,
how that, how that happens. That's a big decision for athletes, uh,
(42:29):
and also you beating the same boat put that in
perspective and accomplishments in your career only because of where
he was at the time. So first, your decision to retire.
How did you go about that decision and what were
some of the important factors. I was scared to retire
for a couple of years. A new retirement was coming,
at least from twenty eight on. I knew that the
(42:50):
next couple of years I had to think about retiring.
I remember reading an article I think Gret Farve said that,
and you know, Bret Farr had a hard time with
arguing too, so he he said, it feels like a
piece of you dies. And when he said that, I
felt like a horror movie. To me, from an athlete's perspective,
it felt like part of me is going to die.
(43:13):
And then I realized that it's going to be a
moment in time where I wake up and I'm never
going to stretch again for practice and then get up
for practice again, never have to go run again, never
have to do an a skip or where spikes ever
again in my life. What am I gonna do for
us in my life? And then the pandemic happened and
it made things even more depressing, and then it gave
(43:37):
me opportunity in really look back and see all the
accolades that I achieved. I never took the time to
kind of witness my own greatness because I always kind
of set it aside and tried to work on the
next thing. So now I had the opportunity to look
back and say, man, I did that. When they speak
(43:58):
of like reference of like time, aims or or medals
or championships, I said, I did that. I did that.
I did that. I did that. I did that. Okay, awesome,
What else can I do in this sport except just be?
So I felt like it was a moment of time
where I need to make another adult decision my life
and say, okay, but I'd rather just be and start,
(44:20):
you know, not have that passion I used to have
and start getting seconds and thirds and the fourth and
fifths in my races just because that's all I knew.
Or could I step out there on faith and find
another adventure, another challenge for myself because I realized that
my talent isn't being fast, My talent is being resilient.
(44:42):
My talent is pushing myself to be a better person.
And then I got excited. Did I was like, I
can do something else. I can start a whole another career.
So that kind of pushed me towards retirement in if
I can jump in there, that's that's a huge frame shift.
(45:03):
And there was a lot of fear and a lot
of courage in recognizing that something that has always you know,
defined you justin running is your is your passion, as
as the thing that is all consuming wasn't going to
be something that was always there in that way, and
(45:25):
you needed to find a way to transform it to
something new. It sounds like working with young athletes, um
has has become one of those things that you've you've
learned and found. So I felt like I'm obligated to
tell these young athletes coming up what it was for me.
(45:46):
If they're willing to do what they want to know
what they're willing to listen because it can make their
career much better, it can make the sport much better.
And that's really what it comes down to. Can you
go back to, just briefly, who are the stakeholders were
or people you talked to when you decided to restart
retire My coach Dennis Mitchell, why because he's been down
(46:06):
that road. So I feel like if out of anybody
who understood what I was going through, I felt like
my coach would understand what what I'm what I would
look to do next in my life. Um And we
talked for years. We talked for almost three and a
half years about retiring, what it would look like for me,
where I need to grow to um making sure that
(46:27):
you're ready for a big move like that. But obviously emotions,
I wasn't ready for that part. In what ways, what
do you mean? Um M, I pushed so much down
(46:48):
inside of me emotionally, my happiness, my sadness, anger, joy
because if you look at the second half of my career,
um M, I just I always displayed little to no
joy or sadness. I was kind of just there. I
was that person. I was even right. So I remember
(47:13):
the moment I finished running Athlympic trials and I laid
there after a whole night, hamstring sore, and just like,
all those emotions came out. Finally, all those emotions came out,
just all at once, just crying in tears, and I
was able to release myself and be who I needed
to be. But and a lot of people say, always
(47:36):
be you, That's which is true, But sometimes you need
to be something, something a little different to get the
job done. And I needed to be that person. Let's
talk about when you beat both Um, did you think
it could have happened sooner than that? I raced against
him since two thousand five. I raised them always in
my comeback from twelve on, and I beat him in
(47:58):
a one off race in room in thirteen, and ever
since thirteen, we never raced against each other in a
one off raice. It always was a championship in the finals,
so I only would see him one race each year,
and then it was the old verse to new. Then
it was bad guy versus good guy. Then it was
vinin versus hero. So I thought when it was time
(48:26):
for me to win, and when I saved time for
me to win, because I've worked hard for it and
I knew this moment was going to come. I didn't
feel no little emotional connection when I raced against anybody
else because in twenty and two thousand and eight, I
was still suspended, and I remember watching the Olympics in
a bar, and I sat with some other athletes and
(48:46):
their mind was just blown. He came across the line
like they were just like a shock, like they just
saw an alien or something. And the first thing came
across my mind is I want to raise that. I
want to raise that guy because I feel like that
person would push me to a level that I've never
been before. And that was one of the reasons why
I really wanted to come back to the sport, because
(49:07):
I wanted to be shoulder shoulder with him at starting on.
And when it before it happened, I remember, I was like,
I was gonna be like I did. I was gonna
be so arrogant and so cocky, you know what I mean,
like usay, beat two, you out of here kind of thing.
None of that happened. Why another that it didn't happen,
because if you watch the video, I come across the line,
(49:30):
I celebrate, I hushed the crowd that were boring me
for three rounds, and then I proceed to pay homage
by bowing to you, saying and why I do that?
So to this day, so many people ask me that
question because I've never met a person in my life
who forced me to change who I was to be
a better person, and he did that. That's saying something.
(49:54):
I had to literally change my whole program to beat him.
I could be of the people in the world. I
running a certain style of technique I had to change
who I was as a person an athlete to beat him.
How is a person? Did you have to change as
a person? Because I always feel like I came into that,
into that environment meeting like the Olympics or the World Championships,
(50:17):
thinking that, um, I had to be aggressive and angry
and mean and this monster. And then I realized I
had to be none of that. I just had to
be me. I had to be the fighter. That's it.
I realized at the end, being myself was good enough.
I was able to win no matter what the time was.
I was able to cut it out and win like
(50:38):
a champion. Uh, Chris, any as you hear all this,
anything you wanted to add about how he took some
of those situations and made decisions for motivational purposes, for
you know, adjusting things just in the way he does things. Yeah, Well,
something that occurred to me, Dave that I'm not sure
if you made this connection, but I think it came
(50:58):
out that we got started with this around len Bias
and the bad decision that he made, and len Bias
didn't get to recover from his bad decision, and who knows,
maybe he would have had a similar transformation and insight
if he had had kind of a fall and then
(51:21):
been able to pick himself up, but he didn't get
that opportunity. And it sounds like Justin experienced that depth
and even had some responses and some struggles and realized
that it was ultimately not where he wanted to stop,
but he wanted to come back. And um, you know
(51:43):
that frame shift and that commitment to rise above it,
um is really astounding and inspiring. This podcast series is
based on the book Born Ready The Mixed Legacy of Lenba,
published by Go Grady Media. The series is produced by
Go Grady Media in partnership with Octagon Entertainment. This segment
(52:07):
was produced by daveon Grady and Don Marcus. That was
written by Dave v Grady and edited by Don Marcus.
The narrator was Dave von Grady with additional narration by
Jamal Williams. Technical production was provided by Octagon Entertainment. Production
assistance was produced by Kevin McNalty, Tina Quagliata, Lauren ros
Georgia brun Casey Fair, Jamal Williams, Kelsey Mannix, and Enzo Alvarino.
(52:31):
Matt Dewhurst is providing the social media assistance. Special thanks
to the University of Maryland and American University from providing inserts.
The Decision Education Foundation as a content and promotional partner
of this podcast series. More information go to go grady
media dot com. This has been a production of Go
Grady Media and the eight Side Network
It's been quite a journey for Gatlin. No athlete in
track and field has returned to achieve such greatness after
serving a drug suspension. I didn't want to be a
cautionary champ, so I thought hard not to be a
caution Harry Tito. Over the years, he's faced many difficult decisions,
(00:24):
choosing a coach, figuring out what to do with your
time after you were suspended, why to return to competition.
It's always a challenge to come back from a bad
decision with the bad outcome. When I went through my depression,
(00:45):
I felt like I was useless. I felt like I
didn't have a case, and not necessarily became suicidal, but
more I started leading towards being reckless, you know. And
I remember basically running over almost like a rock or
a herb, and I could barely see straight. And this
(01:08):
cop comes over to me and said, hey, did you
not see that rock in the road. I was like,
nys oh. He's like, okay, cool, make sure you get
home safe. And that nice scared the living crap about me,
because I realized that not only could I make headlines again,
it could be ex gold medalist dies or excol melists
kill somebody else. And what I am really impressed by
(01:31):
and the story Justin is the way that you put
it behind you. We talked about some cost and you
can't change the past. You gotta work on the future.
And it sounds like running was truly your fire in
life and you did everything to reclaim um your success.
(01:56):
The world will never understand how much pressure you have
to deal with, but the only the world will see
your actions, how you react to situations, you know, and
if you're careless for that moment, they're going to think
that you can careless on your In this segment of
len Bias A Mixed Legacy, Episode three of Epilogue, The
(02:20):
Importance of making the right decision. This is Davon Grady,
executive producer of this podcast series. With this episode, we
complete our podcast series on the legacy of len Bias.
We feature an iconic figure in track and field and
(02:41):
Olympic and World champion sprinter in his early twenties who
later served a four year drug suspension, only to return
to the sport in dramatic and triumphant ways. We're talking
about Justin Gatlin. Few people can claim they've beaten Hussain
(03:02):
Bolt in the one race. Justin Gatland is one of them,
but that's not the most interesting part of his story.
At the age of twenty three, Gatland seemed destined to
become an iconic sprinter. He was an Olympic champion and
world record holder in the one and a world champion
in the one and two D. But the golden future
(03:26):
faded after Gatland turned twenty four. In two thousand six,
he tested positive for a banned substance and then served
the four year suspension from competition. But Gatlin showed impressive
resilience and returned to competition in By the end of
(03:46):
the tens, he had reclaimed his position as one of
the top sprinters in the world. In Gatland won Olympic
bronze in the one hundred, and he was the overall
one hundred champion in the Diamond League Meat Series, the
(04:09):
top track and field pro circuit. He won silver medals
in the one at fifteen World Championships. Bolt beat him
in both races. In Gatland finally beat Bolt in the
one D beaters at the World Championships. Gatland won his
(04:31):
last world medal in nineteen, at the age of thirty seven.
It was a silver in the one Dreds. It's been
quite a journey for Gatlin. No athlete in track and
field has returned to achieve such greatness after serving a
drug suspension. Over the years, Gatlin has faced many difficult
(04:52):
decisions to appeal his suspension, how to find work when suspended,
to try and play in the NFL, which coaches to
hire during his comeback, and when to retire. And Gatlin
is with us to talk about his unique career and
the decisions he made. A big part of what we're
(05:15):
trying to do is use lens story and legacy to
promote effective decision making. He made a bad decision and
it created all these issues. So, um, what do you
recall remember, if anything, about lens story when you were
growing up, that you heard about him as I became
older and became a teenager and a young adult, where
(05:36):
obviously he was a cautionary tale for me when I
was growing up about making right choice and right decisions,
especially in the moment's notice when you are that athlete
who can ascend to the next level and you're hanging
around people who don't have that same opportunity, so you
have to make wise decisions. For me, he was urban
(05:56):
legend and still has been. You know, um, like I said, didn't,
I didn't know what his jersey number was. I can
tell you what college you went to, but I can
tell you the night of his story and how it
changed his life, how it changed everyone around him. It
opened my eyes up to see other asthletes around me
making poor decisions or allowing their decisions be made by
(06:19):
someone else. So it shows you that, to be honest,
that limb bias kind of tail happens through sports repeatedly
even to this day. Justin you faced some critical decisions
in your life. We like to call our decisions are
three types life shaping, which are long term decisions, Significant
(06:41):
decisions which are more short term like four or five
or six months impact, and uh in the moment decisions,
which are spontaneous decisions. Um. Of all the professional decisions
you faced, choosing a coach, figuring out what to do
with your time after you were suspended, why to return
the competition, and what was the most significant for you
(07:04):
of all though, is or was there something else? I
felt like for me coming back into the sport, it
had to be the environment, choosing the right coach, choosing
the right training partners, to be able to sharpen my
skills with UM, I felt, I don't want to say
I stumbled along the way, but coming back was a
hard climb for me because you know, when I came
into the sport, it was almost handing glove made for me.
(07:27):
You know, n C double a champion, get whisked the
way to one of the best coaches, get whisked the
way to one of the best sponsors. So my my
comeback was actually a climb, like I had to find
the right coaching system, had to find the right coach
who had the same you know, ideology that I had
about being one of the best in the world. Take
us through that decision. What was the process? Who did
(07:49):
you talk to? How did you figure out the best
way to make that decision? So for me, families, everything,
and circle too. I try to keep my circle tight
and just gnatch you that way. And UM, throughout my
ups and downs, my agent's been with me, you know,
through me being Olympic champion too, even through the hard
(08:12):
times of four years of being away from my sport.
He could have just left me be like, hey, you're
not making men money, you know, we can go aways.
But he was a God said to me, and once
I came back to the sport, he helped me find
a coach that would be good for me in that moment.
So um, I started off with a coach in Atlanta
and it just didn't pan out. The rhythm of it
(08:34):
wasn't right, you know, it just wasn't the right fit
for me because it wasn't getting me where I need
to be competition wise. So then I moved to Orlando
where I found a coach and this coach took me on,
even with my name being muddy at that point in time,
and Brooks Johnson took me on. And I was with
Brooks for about a year and a half and unfortunately
(08:54):
we didn't have sparring partners there for me like to
to really train with. So I moved across town to
another coach where he had top of league athletes that
I could be able to sharpen my skills with. And
I stayed in Claremont with Dennis Mitchell for about um
since twelve up to the time I retired, which was
(09:15):
but there was also Trevor Graham, who was your first coach.
And when we talk about decision making, I'd like to
get into this your head a little bit on this.
Trevor Graham. At if I recall when you picked him,
he was connected to Marion Jones who was having drug issues. Correct,
So when we were talking about your decision making, I
would imagine you had to anticipate picking these coaches might
(09:37):
not maybe best for you, but people are gonna start
thinking about why is he going to these coaches? How
did that affect your decision making it at all? It
was the fact that I was a twenty year old,
naive kid who didn't know nothing about the track and
field professional realm. I didn't even know what a coach,
a professional track and field coach look like. I'm a
six time n C double A champion. I didn't know
(09:59):
what it took to turn pro um. All I know
is I need to run my ass off, and if
I run my ass off, then I'm gonna get noticed.
When my phone rang, that was gonna be Trevor Graham
and what his back His backing was no, then um,
Then I got a phone call from Nike, So it
was like, Okay, my dreams are coming true. And obviously,
(10:19):
from the outside looking in as a young athlete, I
don't know the inter kid workings of a professional realm.
I didn't know anything about the drug scandal that was
about to happen, because it didn't happen right when I
turned pro. You know. Um, so I'm working with the
guy who was who was working with one of my
idols at that point in time, which was Amarian Jones,
and when he won the Golden Sydney and I just
(10:39):
turned pro in two thousand two, so the world was
a buzz I was happy. I was elated. I was
I couldn't been in a better place. I was about
to train with one of the people I looked up to,
and I was about to be signed by the same company.
I thought, Yeah, the writing for me was on the
wall that I was gonna be the next great sprinter
in America and was ready to take on that challenge.
(11:01):
Now responsibility. This is Davon Grady, executive producer of this
podcast series. I'm talking with Olympic and World sprint champion
Justin Gatlin and Chris Spetzler, executive director of the Decision
Education Foundation, about critical decisions made by Gatlin in his career.
(11:23):
Let's now bring in again Chris Spetzler, the executive director
of the Decision Education Foundation a content partner in this
podcast series. Can you offer any any insight? And I
know you and I have talked a lot about framing
a decision where you've got to you've got to find
the stakeholders who are going to help you make that decision.
Does that work in here or is there something else
we're missing? Let me let me back up a little
(11:46):
bit and take a couple of different things. One of
the first things that I heard Justin talk about was
his values and how important his family is to him.
And in the latter part of the story, it sounds
like at has played a huge role in his resilience
and his commitment and has followed through even when he
(12:08):
had to figure out, through a couple of different experiences
with a couple of different coaches, what was really going
to work for him. And that's important to me in
that story because it's something that stands in contrast to
the first situation. The first decision was one that felt
(12:30):
like a no brainer and didn't have the benefit of
the later experiences and was just that, um, this is
the way it's supposed to be. It's almost faded, and
there wasn't a lot of search for alternatives because it
just didn't seem like it was needed. It was the
(12:51):
way to go and um on automatic. You know, you
have to recognize that you're making a decision for it
to be a conscious decision. And was that a conscious
decision in your mind at that point? For for justin
the earlier one with the coach, well, I'm I'm sure
that it was a conscious decision that he knew he
was signing up for that coach and that sponsor. On
(13:14):
the other hand, it sounds like there wasn't a lot
of thought about what other alternatives and does this align
with my values? It was just this is the way
it's supposed to be, and I'm going for it. So
most of the decisions that I made going forward were
not by me. It was also by my parents and
my circle. They thoroughly vet it, Trevor, they thoroughly vet it.
(13:37):
Even Nike. UM, we didn't know much about the track
and field work pre professional aspect, so we can only
ask questions that we felt were um on a moral level,
and we got so much reinsurance. No, man, your sons
is is in good hands. He's going to be great,
you know, Um, he has great talent. We're going to
(13:57):
make sure that we nurture that talent. So when all
these stories started coming down and the scandal start happening,
we were reassured that none of this was going to
blow back and we weren't going to be put in
a awkward situation in this story. So we've sat at
a round table and we discussed and we moved forward.
We knew that none of us were testing pilot at
(14:17):
that point in time, so clearly you were consulting with
the stakeholders, the other people who had could provide authoritative
input into your decision. Um. And to clarify for our listeners,
both Jones what Jones was Ultimately she ultimately admitted using,
if I'm correct, using a band substances, although she denied
it for years. And Trevor Graham was kicked basically kicked
(14:39):
out of the sport for for yeah, for um, his
involvement with athletes and and and performance enhancing drugs. Um. Now,
let's let's just get talking about then especial quickly, because
I remember when you picked him, Dennis Mitchell had a
history of performance enhancing drugs. Connections maybe can clear a fight,
(15:00):
but you still decided to go with them. Can you
explain that decision process after my suspension, coming back and
expressing myself to to coach Brooks about what was needed,
and he agreed with me that I needed training partners.
So that's where Uh then his then his name came
into the into the picture. Um, he had an incident
that came up with a drug suspension almost more than
(15:23):
twenty years ago when he was running, you know. So
it was him as a runner, not as a coach.
And then I literally had a man demand conversation with him.
I took him out to eat, We had some chicken wings,
and we had some beer, and we had a real
man talk and said, Hey, this is what I need,
this is what I don't need in my life. And
he explained, this is what I need in my life
as a runner and an athlete, and this is what
(15:44):
I don't need in my life. And we shook hands.
Right then we agreed to be able to work with
each other with no kind of incident, no kind of disruption,
And I think we kind of had a kindred spirit
because we were like, we don't want to feel that
pain anymore. We just want to go out and run
and compete. I want to be the best coach I
can be. I want to be the best athlete I
could be. Chris says, you've heard Justin. Explain the conversation
(16:04):
you had with Dennis Mitchell, his his most recent coach,
and how how he went about making that decision that
that one on one. How does that fit into the
proper way to make a decision in that situation. It's
always a challenge to come back from a bad decision
with a bad outcome. And what I am really impressed
(16:28):
by in the story, Justin, is the way that you
put it behind you. We talked about some cost and
you can't change the past. You gotta work on the future.
And it sounds like running was truly your fire in
life and you did everything to reclaim um your success.
(16:51):
And that's that's just really inspiring. Okay, Justin, let's go
back even a little more. When you realize that you
work gonna be able to compete for four years and
I remember when I was working at the w c
C and it came down and did a story for
you for them. You were about a year in and
you were a personal trainer. That's how you were getting
(17:12):
some of your income. Uh, you were living in an
apartment in Georgia in Atlanta. If I recall, and it,
I remember not being a very um, maybe rewarding time
for you, or it was a challenging time. What was
your decision making process about the next step. I think
the first year in was so surreal to me. It
(17:36):
felt like I was away from my sport just extended period.
For that first year at least I watched the Olympics.
I watched every meat that I could. I watched people
were competed against. But it did make me sad to
watch it. It made me inspired to work harder to
(17:57):
come back. Um, I looked at I guess you call
it the long the long picture of things with a
long goal of things, you know, And for me it
was I had nothing to lose. At first, when I
was in my situation, I was looking at a lifetime band. Okay,
then the guy reduced to eight, right, and then I
(18:20):
fought that down to four right. But coming back now,
in that first year of my suspension, it was like
they I can't really explain it. It just felt like
so weird. I felt like out of place in life
and society because all I knew was track and field,
you know, all I knew was that was my success.
(18:42):
That's how I made my money, That's how I earned
my earned a living, That's where my fire came from.
So um, when that wasn't there for me, I tried
to figure out other things that I could do. So
what were your values at that time? We were Christmas
mentioned referenced values determined a lot about your decision making.
It was important. What was most important to you at
that time? Was it finding a job, We're you gonna
(19:04):
make money or was it finding something that you're gonna
have fun with a little bit of gutting it out
and uh, finding what I loved because you remember I
ran track from from the moment in high school like fifteen,
sixteen years old, right, and then became state champion, then
became six time n C double A champion, then became
(19:25):
Olympic champions, then became world champions, they became war Bickert holder.
So everything that in my young adult life was centered
around track. And so when you took me out of it,
I felt like I was nothing. So I had to
rediscover who justed us in those years that I was
awake from track. So you were considering football, you had
to try it. I did I had a couple of
(19:47):
a couple of trials and a couple of teams. How
did that? It was a different experience. I enjoyed it
because it made me. It forced me to learn what
it is to be in a different realm, a different world.
I wasn't just floating around. So I literally had to
like be disciplined for football, to lift, to learn the
routes to to become a football player, mold myself to
(20:08):
become a football player. I think that I would be
able to make at least to a practice squad, you
know what I mean, and see where it goes from there.
But track would leave me alone, even even being well
suspended in like in the middle of my suspension, Track
would not leave me alone. Like I laid in bed
at a rookie at a a mini camp and bucket
(20:31):
at the Buccaneers, and I remember looking at the ceiling
at one o'clock in the morning, just thinking, like, why
am I trying so hard to fit into a sport
that's already going to alienate me. Because I'm a track athlete,
I shouldn't be on the football field. Probably can't catch,
so I'm already gonna be judged. So I feel like
if I'm gonna be judged, be judging around where I
(20:53):
know that I can excel, which is track and field.
So I felt like I had to make my way
back into a sport that once was a king talking
about what the to become a personal trainer. Why that
became so important. I have a big heart for young athletes,
and I think some of the best times in my life,
other than having my children, from the best time of
my life, like working wise, was being a runner, discovering
(21:18):
where it's gonna take me to the the opportunity to
show everyone my talent, the praise, the glory that come
with it. Um. So when I see young athletes, I
see a little bit of me and all that like
working hard, trying to find themselves, especially in track, because
I told you before, there's not a lot of people
telling these young athletes how to turn pro, so they're
(21:39):
just kind of guessing as they go. So I wanted
to help. A lot of these kids were coming to
me ages from like sixteen seventeen alway down to like
six years old, so I had I was training these
young athletes just to be better, have better form, even
if they were working on in a different sport. Christmas,
You're here and Justin talk now and he's making all
(22:01):
these decisions. Are you seeing any evolution in his decision
making process or any insight? Well? I share that huge
value that I get out of working with young people,
and I have only recognized that over time, and it's
the source of real passion and fire. And what I
(22:22):
hear in this story is, you know, if everything had
gone perfectly for you, Justin, I'm not sure that you
would have grown as much as an individual, as painful
as it's been. And it sounds like you're creating a
tremendous amount of value and um getting a lot of
(22:42):
real um value out of working with these young people
just because you had an experience that wasn't an easy
one and we're able to come back from it. Yeah. Um,
I tell myself all the time. I actually think, I say,
what if I wasn't suspended, what I be the person
I am today? I think my time away from the
(23:03):
sport kind of opened my heart up to see from
a different angle. You know, I remember training with this
athlete when I lived in Atlanta and he was training
for the long jump and he was living out his car.
He didn't a lot of people didn't know this. I
pulled up the practice one day early and I saw,
you know, and you could tell when somebody's kind of
moving or they're living out of their car. I kept
it to myself, but one thing I did watch, I
(23:26):
watched his progression. I watched how he grew had grew confidence,
and I also make sure I reassured him every day,
you know, And he went on to make the Olympic team.
That was his goal in his dream. He went from
living in his car to make the Olympic team. And
even though he filed out at the Olympics, he had
the biggest smile on his face because he finally made it.
(23:47):
And if I would have been a Justined and never
been away from track and field, I would have never
witnessed something like that. I think I would have been
jaded to the fact that succession that became easy for everybody.
Christ and Justin tells that story. We talked about good decision,
bad outcome, bad decision, good outcome, and I was gonna
ask Justin if you ever recalled any bad decision he
(24:07):
felt he made it had a good outcome and vice versa.
But that seems that that decision that he made to
become a trainer. Maybe he didn't foresee this happening, but
it had several different forms of good outcomes. Can you
put that in perspective? Let let me back up a second. Okay, UM,
so justin I'm I think I've already made it clear.
(24:29):
I'm I'm pretty blown away and inspired by your story
and it's it's been, um, some tough stuff. I imagine
when all of this went down. Um, there was a
tremendous amount of breath. So UM. One of the things
we talked about decision traps, which is about cognitive biases,
(24:53):
and one of the things that human beings do is, um,
picture the world that they want and minimum eyes the
world that they don't want and don't expect, and so
that kind of pushes decisions in a direction. Um, you know,
potentially we call it over confidence. It sounds to me
like you also relied on a group of people that
(25:16):
supported you in your training and your decision making, and
um that there was a natural progression that was a
part of that. Maybe it was also not a fully
conscious kind of decision situation. You know this we're just
moving forward and we're doing the things we're doing. I'm
blown away that we're sitting here talking about this because
(25:37):
I didn't it, certainly didn't know of your story, and
I your your honesty with all of this is just
amazing to me. And then that story of like, Okay,
so now I'm on this the other side of this, UM,
this really sucks. What do I do now? And rather
than UM staying that, you dug yourself out of it,
(26:04):
and you you found the people to support you in
getting out of it, and you came back and you
did the things that day've went through. And that's I mean,
that's really quite astounding. UM. And it must have been
a deep down that you'd never expected. You never know
(26:26):
how tough you are until you put in a situation
where you have to be tough, and how tough you
need to be to be able to survive and thrive
and hold onto your goals and ambitions. UM. I feel
like everything was taken from me, my identity. UM. Even
when I watched shows like or track Meets, they wouldn't
(26:47):
even speak of my name. So it's like everything I
worked hard for which just kind of like blowing away
in the wind. Eventually I'll just be an outcast and
someone who was in the sport years to go. So
I didn't want to be that way because I feel
like I had so much worth to give not only
to the sport but to the next generation when it
(27:08):
came to my upstand my downs. You know, I never
never want to see anybody go through the situation that
I went through. I wouldn't wish it on anybody because
it was such a smack in my face of reality
that I went through so many different variations of anger, depression,
chicken my shoulder that I once I came back into
(27:29):
the sport, I had to like mold all this energy
that I had boiled balled up inside me for so
long and somehow projected into training and somehow projected into
into competition. You know. So um, those four years were pivotal,
(27:50):
not only for my career but for my life. You know. Um,
it grew me. It grew me so much. So so
I I hear two things and and and the the
frame I'd like you to be in his like advising
the young athletes or any young person. And the first
(28:10):
one is, you know, if you could go back to
before all of this went down, Um, what would you
suggest somebody facing that situation, do differently. And then the
second one is, you know, when you're in your deepest,
darkest recovery, um, how do you not let get a
(28:35):
go of hope and come back? Because those are two
very different things, but you've got special insight into them.
I guess I would tell young athletes today that are
that are making the same moves and walking the same
path that I walked, is believe in yourself. Know who
you are, not only um move like an athlete. Start
(28:58):
to understand business, Start to understand people who are going
to make decisions for your life. You know, like that's
gonna change your life, it may not change their life
that much. And that's what I went through. And I
felt like walking into a door and saying, oh, this
is what it is. Okay, I let you handle what
you handle. I'm just gonna worry about focus on running,
(29:19):
and that's it. And I think for me, that was
that should have been a red flag in my in
my hindsight, where I should have took those situations where
I might have scratched my head and said, home, let's
figure something out here, let's do a better job of
doing a little more research. So for the young athletes.
(29:43):
I say, as much as you want to be a
professional athlete, be a business person to your brand. Now,
especially young athletes, you're a brand. Remember who you are
because at the end of the day, you make decisions
for yourself. And I didn't have the opportunity and I
wish that I could move back and change that. We
talked about decision power, and it sounds like you you
(30:06):
trusted others with your decision power and if you could
do it again, UM, you wish you had held on
to that decision power. Absolutely absolutely, And I think that
that's how success is built. And if it's something that
you love, you should pay attention to the details. And
those young athletes should do so well. Just so then
there's the other side of it, right And and some
(30:27):
of this stuff is really tough. I mean, we've we
know that there are kids out there that give up
hope and leave this world. Um, and that kind of stuff.
You were in the depths and you found the strength
to come back. So UM, you know when someone experiences
that kind of a UM, you know, trauma to their life. UM,
(30:53):
what did you learn and what can you share in
terms of pulling yourself back together? I had so many
different feelings through my process of my ups and downs,
and it reminds me of the point where I came
to depression. Because depression is such a big thing right
now for a lot of people, they're realizing depression doesn't
(31:13):
just mean that you're sad and crying all the time. Um.
When I went through my depression, I felt like I
was useless. I felt like I didn't have a place,
and not necessarily became suicidal, but more I started leaning
towards being reckless, you know, like going out and party
(31:35):
on a weekday, getting so drunk that my eyes are blurry.
Who's gonna drive me home? I'm gonna drive me home
kind of thing, you know. And I remember basically running
over almost like a rock or a curb, and I
could barely see straight. And this cop comes over to
me and said, hey, did you not see that rock
(31:56):
in the road. I was like, no, I see it. No.
He's like, okay, cool makes you get home and say
now I knew he knew he could see that I drinking,
you know what I mean. It was hard for me
to hide it. That's how DRUNKUND was. And that nice
scared the living crap out of me. Because it realized
that not only could I make headlines again, it could
be ex Gold medalists dies or exco medaists killed somebody else.
(32:20):
And I started thinking in the big frame of things.
So that depression I look back at it and said, Okay,
all the people who were in my circle who wanted
me to do well, lift me up. If I checked
out now in any kind of form, in any kind
of way, then I would be doing them with this
service because they vouched for me, they fought for me,
(32:42):
they loved me, and doing anything less would have been
an injustice to them. And I think I didn't care
about any else in the world but the people who
cared for me, And that's why I wanted to make
a change. So for those young athletes, the only think
about yourself. Think about the people who been helping you
get to where you are. Your mom, your dad, your guardians.
(33:04):
It might be even coaches or principles or whoever else
out there, but the ones that have your best interests
at heart. Think about them in them hard times that
you're having. I see such a correlation two. What lens
Bias could have been thinking as well, if he had
a different frame of mind or how how is what
I'm doing here going to affect someone else? It's gonna
(33:25):
have it's gonna affect other people. He never did that.
When he decided to to consume so much cocaine so
early in the morning and party like that, he was thinking,
right in front of them, how am I going to
please myself? He would clearly lost perspective of where he was.
So I see a really strong direct correlation between that
(33:45):
situation that he didn't survive in your situation in which
you did survived exactly. You're coming out on the on
the on the good side of this. In a way.
When I was in those situations, I really had that
time to think and have some clarity. Situations like limb
bias really came to mind because it was like, the
world will never understand how much pain you're in, the
(34:07):
world would never understand how much pressure you have to
deal with. But the only the world will see your actions,
how you react to situations, you know, and if you're
careless for that moment, they're going to think that you've
been careless all your life, you know. So for me,
it was taking on that responsibility and obligation of realizing
(34:28):
I have to walk a certain line to be the
athlete I want to be, But also I couldn't be
a careless person and still give so much inspiration to
young athletes that coming behind. I didn't want to be
a cautionary tale, so I thought hard not to be
a caution harry tale. I have I have one thing
that I'd like to to ask for David, if you'll
(34:51):
indulge me. So we're spending all of this time on
kind of this down stuff, and I'm working on integrating
the decision stuff into a health course, and um, I
don't really want to talk so much about mental health
as sort of the positive psychology stuff that has to
do with mental edge. And you've been talking about how
(35:13):
you pulled it back together. Could you just spend a
little bit of time talking about, like, when you're really
on your game, how that feels and how you get
there and how you stay there, Because you know, we
spent all this time on the other stuff. You have
(35:33):
been and our champion and so you know at that
elite level what it takes to be on your game.
Totally different side of the coin. I love the side
of the coin because coming back through all that and
started being back on my game. It felt good because
I wasn't clouded by fan cheers. I wasn't distracted by
(36:00):
bandwagon fans or people want a moment in the spotlight.
I was mug when I came back. I had to
like create a persona that kind of protected me, the
soft justice, the justin I wants to be friends with
everybody and have fun. I had to create this hard
out of shell that said, you know what you're hear
a hand with business. I had to be strong enough
(36:21):
to take on anything as I step into that stadium,
let it be distractions or booze or anything. I knew
where my objective was because I had so much clarity
now I knew what rock bottom looked like. So the
toughness was staying the course, staying dialed in making not
only my sport a sport or a job, but making
it my lifestyle. That's what it was for me. I
(36:44):
was doing. I was doing five hundred, six hundred uh
sit ups every night. I was doing a hundred two
hundred push ups every night. Before. I was walking around
like a cage animal in my hotel room, counting the
time for it. I had to leave to go downstair
as I kissed the bus because I knew that I
knew what it felt like to fail. I knew what
it felt like to fail in life at that point
(37:05):
in time. I knew what it feel like to live
in an apartment in Atlanta that was that was infested
by bugs and roaches. I knew what it failed to fall,
and I didn't want to fall anymore. I said, I
was tired of it. I was sick of fallowing. So
I said, you know what I'm gonna do the out
I'm just gonna go out here and I care about
anything and just run. If I got a lane, great,
(37:26):
I have opportunity, and I'm gonna run my butt off
to be able to make this next team, run my
butt off to be recognized. I'm rund my butt off
to to get a niece that were black balling me
and blackness to me and beaten by me doing that
and stay in the course and never really talking to
the media as in a sense of life, what was me?
I just want to show my talent. That's it. This
(37:49):
is Davon Grady, executive producer of this podcast series. I'm
talking with Olympic and World sprint champion Justin Gatlin and
Chris Spetzler, executive director of the Decision Education Foundation, about
critical decisions made by Gatlin in his career. I do
recall when you came back, there were a lot of
(38:09):
meat directors who wouldn't even consider you. And this is
part of what I wrote a New York Times story.
A lot of meat directors didn't want to talk to you.
I didn't want to consider you free the further races
because they were concerned about your history. You know. I
just I always looked at myself as the good guy,
you know, and I just wanted the opportunity to come back,
(38:30):
and with those meat promoters not allowing me, I remember
my agent saying, Hey, it's not about where you run,
it's how you run. So if you get the opportunity
to jump on the track and run anywhere, make sure
that you look at it as the Olympic finals. Are
you running for the last race of your life? And
that's the ideology that I took into every race coming
back into the sport, was I was running for my
(38:51):
life because at that point in time, it was a
lot of meating I couldn't get into and I wouldn't
I had to go to meets where it wouldn't even
cover my airfare, so I was still losing. I was
just running. So it was it was a struggle. There
was a struggle for me, but I stayed the course
and a lot of my people in my inner circle
of my family, my friends, like they believed in me
(39:14):
that I could come back, and that was one of
my sources of power. Did you feel like your confidence
level was any different when you got on the track?
Did you feel more motivated? I felt like coming back,
I feel like I still was trying to find what
my purpose was. You know, Um, in the beginning of
my career, I did have purpose. I was supposed to
be the next great one. But coming back in the sport,
(39:36):
you gotta remember there was a lot of fast guys.
Almost all those guys are running nine seven by the
time I came back into the sport, and you know,
I left the sport running nine and seven. That was
almost half a decade ago before. So I had to
figure out how I can be able to put myself
back into um a situation where I could flourish. It
(39:56):
was uncomfortable for me because I had to change the
out of physical things about me as well. Um, if
you watch a lot of my racists. From the beginning
I was. I didn't get out the blocks very well,
or at least I got out with the field, you know,
and I could run away from everybody. Now I was
in a in a realm where everyone was pretty much
showing paper faster than me. So I had to get
(40:18):
out in front of the field and hold that race
pattern and be able to finish the race. So I
had to change, not only mentally, I had to change physically.
I had become a whole new athlete. I had to
throw away all the things that made me who I was,
who made me Olympic gold medalist. I had to be
able to evolve before I say something. Let me just
(40:39):
I mean that that was in essence, it was kind
of the money shot what you just said there. Um.
What I heard Justin say was that when he came back,
he had to change the way that he approached the
sport because what worked for him before wouldn't work for
(41:02):
him going forward. And so he had to relearn everything
that he knew. And that was at a physical level,
and that was at a mental level. And it's really
just an astonishing sort of transformation that it sounds like
he went through. Now, can we tie it into some
ways of that of that decision, the tools we use
(41:23):
in the decision process. Well, it sounds to me like
the commitment and the follow through that was associated with
kind of the break through decision of I'm coming back
and I'm going to do whatever it takes was something
that had to be every day, and that it was
(41:44):
really fueled by this um recognition that it was his
purpose for himself and that there were a lot of
people that were a part of that purpose that were
very um much a part of his success and wanted
to see him successful. And then he loved them and
(42:07):
that's part of what helped him to do it because
it was a challenging time. So that ties into values
as well. The people that were important to him helped
motivate him to do certain things. I'd like to sort
of wrap it up with two things here. Just I'd
like you to talk about the decision into finally retiring,
how that, how that happens. That's a big decision for athletes, uh,
(42:29):
and also you beating the same boat put that in
perspective and accomplishments in your career only because of where
he was at the time. So first, your decision to retire.
How did you go about that decision and what were
some of the important factors. I was scared to retire
for a couple of years. A new retirement was coming,
at least from twenty eight on. I knew that the
(42:50):
next couple of years I had to think about retiring.
I remember reading an article I think Gret Farve said that,
and you know, Bret Farr had a hard time with
arguing too, so he he said, it feels like a
piece of you dies. And when he said that, I
felt like a horror movie. To me, from an athlete's perspective,
it felt like part of me is going to die.
(43:13):
And then I realized that it's going to be a
moment in time where I wake up and I'm never
going to stretch again for practice and then get up
for practice again, never have to go run again, never
have to do an a skip or where spikes ever
again in my life. What am I gonna do for
us in my life? And then the pandemic happened and
it made things even more depressing, and then it gave
(43:37):
me opportunity in really look back and see all the
accolades that I achieved. I never took the time to
kind of witness my own greatness because I always kind
of set it aside and tried to work on the
next thing. So now I had the opportunity to look
back and say, man, I did that. When they speak
(43:58):
of like reference of like time, aims or or medals
or championships, I said, I did that. I did that.
I did that. I did that. I did that. Okay, awesome,
What else can I do in this sport except just be?
So I felt like it was a moment of time
where I need to make another adult decision my life
and say, okay, but I'd rather just be and start,
(44:20):
you know, not have that passion I used to have
and start getting seconds and thirds and the fourth and
fifths in my races just because that's all I knew.
Or could I step out there on faith and find
another adventure, another challenge for myself because I realized that
my talent isn't being fast, My talent is being resilient.
(44:42):
My talent is pushing myself to be a better person.
And then I got excited. Did I was like, I
can do something else. I can start a whole another career.
So that kind of pushed me towards retirement in if
I can jump in there, that's that's a huge frame shift.
(45:03):
And there was a lot of fear and a lot
of courage in recognizing that something that has always you know,
defined you justin running is your is your passion, as
as the thing that is all consuming wasn't going to
be something that was always there in that way, and
(45:25):
you needed to find a way to transform it to
something new. It sounds like working with young athletes, um
has has become one of those things that you've you've
learned and found. So I felt like I'm obligated to
tell these young athletes coming up what it was for me.
(45:46):
If they're willing to do what they want to know
what they're willing to listen because it can make their
career much better, it can make the sport much better.
And that's really what it comes down to. Can you
go back to, just briefly, who are the stakeholders were
or people you talked to when you decided to restart
retire My coach Dennis Mitchell, why because he's been down
(46:06):
that road. So I feel like if out of anybody
who understood what I was going through, I felt like
my coach would understand what what I'm what I would
look to do next in my life. Um And we
talked for years. We talked for almost three and a
half years about retiring, what it would look like for me,
where I need to grow to um making sure that
(46:27):
you're ready for a big move like that. But obviously emotions,
I wasn't ready for that part. In what ways, what
do you mean? Um M, I pushed so much down
(46:48):
inside of me emotionally, my happiness, my sadness, anger, joy
because if you look at the second half of my career,
um M, I just I always displayed little to no
joy or sadness. I was kind of just there. I
was that person. I was even right. So I remember
(47:13):
the moment I finished running Athlympic trials and I laid
there after a whole night, hamstring sore, and just like,
all those emotions came out. Finally, all those emotions came out,
just all at once, just crying in tears, and I
was able to release myself and be who I needed
to be. But and a lot of people say, always
(47:36):
be you, That's which is true, But sometimes you need
to be something, something a little different to get the
job done. And I needed to be that person. Let's
talk about when you beat both Um, did you think
it could have happened sooner than that? I raced against
him since two thousand five. I raised them always in
my comeback from twelve on, and I beat him in
(47:58):
a one off race in room in thirteen, and ever
since thirteen, we never raced against each other in a
one off raice. It always was a championship in the finals,
so I only would see him one race each year,
and then it was the old verse to new. Then
it was bad guy versus good guy. Then it was
vinin versus hero. So I thought when it was time
(48:26):
for me to win, and when I saved time for
me to win, because I've worked hard for it and
I knew this moment was going to come. I didn't
feel no little emotional connection when I raced against anybody
else because in twenty and two thousand and eight, I
was still suspended, and I remember watching the Olympics in
a bar, and I sat with some other athletes and
(48:46):
their mind was just blown. He came across the line
like they were just like a shock, like they just
saw an alien or something. And the first thing came
across my mind is I want to raise that. I
want to raise that guy because I feel like that
person would push me to a level that I've never
been before. And that was one of the reasons why
I really wanted to come back to the sport, because
(49:07):
I wanted to be shoulder shoulder with him at starting on.
And when it before it happened, I remember, I was like,
I was gonna be like I did. I was gonna
be so arrogant and so cocky, you know what I mean,
like usay, beat two, you out of here kind of thing.
None of that happened. Why another that it didn't happen,
because if you watch the video, I come across the line,
(49:30):
I celebrate, I hushed the crowd that were boring me
for three rounds, and then I proceed to pay homage
by bowing to you, saying and why I do that?
So to this day, so many people ask me that
question because I've never met a person in my life
who forced me to change who I was to be
a better person, and he did that. That's saying something.
(49:54):
I had to literally change my whole program to beat him.
I could be of the people in the world. I
running a certain style of technique I had to change
who I was as a person an athlete to beat him.
How is a person? Did you have to change as
a person? Because I always feel like I came into that,
into that environment meeting like the Olympics or the World Championships,
(50:17):
thinking that, um, I had to be aggressive and angry
and mean and this monster. And then I realized I
had to be none of that. I just had to
be me. I had to be the fighter. That's it.
I realized at the end, being myself was good enough.
I was able to win no matter what the time was.
I was able to cut it out and win like
(50:38):
a champion. Uh, Chris, any as you hear all this,
anything you wanted to add about how he took some
of those situations and made decisions for motivational purposes, for
you know, adjusting things just in the way he does things. Yeah, Well,
something that occurred to me, Dave that I'm not sure
if you made this connection, but I think it came
(50:58):
out that we got started with this around len Bias
and the bad decision that he made, and len Bias
didn't get to recover from his bad decision, and who knows,
maybe he would have had a similar transformation and insight
if he had had kind of a fall and then
(51:21):
been able to pick himself up, but he didn't get
that opportunity. And it sounds like Justin experienced that depth
and even had some responses and some struggles and realized
that it was ultimately not where he wanted to stop,
but he wanted to come back. And um, you know
(51:43):
that frame shift and that commitment to rise above it,
um is really astounding and inspiring. This podcast series is
based on the book Born Ready The Mixed Legacy of Lenba,
published by Go Grady Media. The series is produced by
Go Grady Media in partnership with Octagon Entertainment. This segment
(52:07):
was produced by daveon Grady and Don Marcus. That was
written by Dave v Grady and edited by Don Marcus.
The narrator was Dave von Grady with additional narration by
Jamal Williams. Technical production was provided by Octagon Entertainment. Production
assistance was produced by Kevin McNalty, Tina Quagliata, Lauren ros
Georgia brun Casey Fair, Jamal Williams, Kelsey Mannix, and Enzo Alvarino.
(52:31):
Matt Dewhurst is providing the social media assistance. Special thanks
to the University of Maryland and American University from providing inserts.
The Decision Education Foundation as a content and promotional partner
of this podcast series. More information go to go grady
media dot com. This has been a production of Go
Grady Media and the eight Side Network
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