August 19, 2024 • 41 mins
HAPPY MONDAY! Morgan brings on two guests this week. First she interviews five-time Olympic gold medalist and multiple world record-holder in the sport of swimming, Missy Franklin. Missy shares her experience training for the Olympics since she was young. But how did it all impact her mental health and was there ever a moment of hitting rock bottom? Then adaptive athlete Amy Bream comes on to share her experience being born without one leg. She went from chasing a career as an artist to participating in CrossFit games. Morgan also asks her to share the way people can be more open-minded when around those with a birth defect.
If you liked this episode, please rate, review & subscribe!
Follow Missy Franklin: @MissyFranklin88
Follow Amy Bream: @onelegtostandon
Follow Morgan: @webgirlmorgan
Follow Take This Personally: @takethispersonally
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Take Personally, Morgan Juelsman.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
What's up, y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
It's the fifth episode of Take This Personally.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'm Morgan.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
As you've heard the first few episodes. My hope with
this podcast is to help us all navigate life a
little bit easier by connecting. Maybe this podcast can help
you feel less alone, Maybe it can help you feel
related to Maybe it helps you get through something, whatever
it may be. That's what I'm here to do, and
this episode is a very inspiring one in many ways.
(00:44):
I'm bringing on Missy Franklin, who is an Olympian with
several medals, titles, and years of experience as an athlete
in her chosen sport of swimming. And then I'm bringing
on Amy Bream, who is a Nike adaptive athlete. She
was born with one leg and recently been taking the
crossboit world by storm. Right now, I'm joined by Olympian
(01:12):
Missy Franklin. Many would know her for her incredible swimming talent.
She has a five Olympic gold medals, two NCAA National
championship titles, eleven world swimming titles. The list goes on
of what Missy has accomplished in her life and career,
and I'm just so excited to welcome her to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Thank you so much for coming on. How are you
some so good? Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I'm excited to now tell me a little bit about
your story, just for anyone who maybe hasn't heard some
of it.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
What you started in swimming absolutely well, I expect many
people have not heard. But long story long, I started
swimming from I mean as early an age as you
can imagine. My mom never learned how to swim, and
so this fear of the water, it's actually proven to
be generationally based. So if the parents don't know how
to swim, there's only an eighteen percent chance that the
(02:03):
children in that household they're going to know how to
swim as well. So it's really something that's passed down.
And I was very grateful for my mom who was
willing to face her own fears to not pass them
down to me. So we got in a Mommy and
Me YMCA class when I was six months old, and
I was that baby that was being dunked under and
coming back up just cackling, like just loving every second
(02:25):
of it. And pretty much since then, you have not
been able to get me out of the water. I
was snorkeling by the time I was too The earliest
you can really start summer club is when you're five.
I petitioned to do it when I was four, but
they wouldn't let me, and then it just kind of
took off from there. I did every sport growing up
as well, but swimming was just my passion, you know.
It was the thing that I really felt called to,
(02:45):
and it turns out I had a bit of a
knack for it, which happened very early, which is a
little different. But I started doing pretty well and finding
some success, and I qualified for my first Olympic Trials
when I was twelve, and I competed there the first
time when I was thirteen, and that was the Olympic
Trials for Beijing in two thousand and eight, and I
was the second youngest person there. And it was just
(03:06):
such a surreal experience. I was on the same pool
deck and swimming in the same pools as Michael Phelps
and Natalie Coughlin and people who's posters I literally had
on my wall back home in my bedroom and now
I'm next to them, like it was just so surreal,
and so I kind of left that experience going. I
made it here and I've seen it now in person,
(03:27):
and this is something that I want more than anything.
And so I trained as hard as I possibly could
for the next four years, and I came back for
the twenty twelve Olympic Trials and qualified for my first
Olympic Games in seven events, and went to compete in
the London Olympics, and I won four gold medals there
in a bronze, And then four years later qualified for
(03:49):
the twenty sixteen Olympic Games in Rio and won another
gold medal there. And then I recently retired in twenty
eighteen due to an injury and have just been living
a beautiful ever since. That honestly makes my swimming career
feel literally another lifetime ago.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Oh my gosh, it's so cool to hear from the
beginning about your mom and how that all started. To
see where you are now. I know that has to
be really cool for you too. Did you always see
Olympics in your future? Was that always the dream or
did that not come true until a little bit later
on in your life?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It honestly was always the dream. I mean, we have
pictures that I drew when I was five of me
standing on top of an Olympic podium with a gold medal,
and I think there's just something really special about the Olympics.
For some sports, it's the peak. I mean, that's it.
And so growing up and being a swimmer and having
swimming really be an Olympic sport, that to me was
(04:42):
the end all be all. This is one of the
most incredible things. And to be named the best athlete
in the world, it's just while representing your own country,
I mean, just seemed to me like such an unbelievable
thing to strive for an almost to a degree impossible.
But I think it was because of that that it
made it so much more fun. You know, when you
(05:03):
set goals that scare you, it makes working towards them
and getting closer to them such a fulfilling journey. And
that was such a big lesson that I learned, I mean,
the entire process, but now especially being able to look
back on it was. Yes, standing up on those podiums
and getting those medals were absolutely unbelievable moments in my life.
(05:23):
But when I look back on my swimming career, those
aren't necessarily the first moments I think of. It's actually
some of the smallest, maybe seemingly insignificant moments of dancing
with all my teammates after Saturday morning practice and Friday
night carbl loading dinners before the swim meets, Like those
small moments, and you really do realize that it's great
(05:46):
to have a destination, to have a goal, but at
the end of the day, I really is about the
journey getting there. Yeah, and that.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Journey has to be tough to you. I know, you
look at it and you can see all the successes
you've had and there's been gosh, you have so many titles,
one of the best athletes in the world, you have
so much success in this sport.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
But there had to be hardships on the way.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
What were some of those moments where you were like, Oh,
my gosh, is this gonna happen?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Can I do this? What did that all look like? Absolutely?
I would say those hardships really came for me in
between the twenty twelve and twenty sixteen Olympic Games. I
think leading up to twenty twelve in London, I was
so naive and that really worked to my advantage. Like
I was so young, I was sixteen, seventeen years old,
and I didn't really have a care in the world, right, Like,
(06:32):
I was just swimming. It was so fun and I
was doing well. So I trained harder and I swam faster,
and like it was all just this very seemingly simple.
Of course, it was a ton of hard work, but
it kind of made sense, you know, like I worked
harder and harder and harder every single day, and I
got faster and I kept achieving my goals and I
had a blast while doing it, and no one knew
(06:53):
who I was. I was the young one. I was
the rookie on the scene. So my first Olympics was
just so like no pressure, like let's just go out,
I have a great time, like we're here for the experience.
And that's how I performed, you know, you could kind
of see that, like I was just so full of
joy and I wasn't swimming out of fear. I was
just swimming because I was just happy to be there.
You just love this saying exactly exactly. And then things
(07:17):
really changed over the next four years. I decided to
remain amateur. So after London, I didn't accept any money, sponsorships,
anything like that because I really wanted to go to
college and swim for my college team, because that was
another dream of mine that I really wanted to see
come true. So I went through that process and had
two years at Cal Berkeley, and then I came home
(07:38):
to train for the twenty sixteen games, and that's when
things kind of shifted for me. I think that year
was probably the hardest of my life because I went
from an amazing team environment and having been a part
of a team and having a lot of balance in
my life with school and friends and swimming, so kind
of really for the first time ever, just honing in
(07:59):
on training alone. And I think I really made that
decision because I was scared. I really wanted twenty sixteen
to be better than twenty twelve, and I had set
the bar quite high in twenty twelve, and it wasn't
just me that wanted that, but I started to feel
those outside expectations and that outside pressure, which I had
never really let get to me before. But I think
(08:20):
once you compete and achieve at that level, it does
get really hard to tune that out. And so for
the first time in my life, I really stopped swimming
because I loved it and I started swimming because I
felt like I had to achieve these things that were
expected of me, and it became much more fear based
out of not wanting to disappoint other people as opposed
to just going out there and doing my best. So
(08:43):
there was a lot that I struggled with during that time.
Just a few months out from Olympic Trials, I got
diagnosed with depression, insomnia, anxiety, and eating disorder, like just
a whole gamut of things that just came from essentially
lack of balance, just training day in and day out,
and for the first time in my life, feeling like
my self worth was completely wrapped up in my sport
(09:04):
and if I didn't achieve in my sport, then I
had nothing else to really offer as a human being.
And so Olympic Trials in twenty sixteen was really, really tough.
The first event that I had there was the Hunter backstroke,
and I was the reigning Olympic champion in that event
and you have to finish top two in order to
make the team, and that night my first final, I
(09:27):
got seventh. I mean, in swimming, it's always close, but
in my mind, you know, not even close to making
the team. And I remember going back to my hotel
room that night and just sobbing for like several hours
and really thinking, I'm not going to make this team.
Not only am I not going to have a second
Olympics better than my first, I'm not even going to
(09:47):
have a second Olympics. Like this is just not going
to happen. And I kind of just went pretty much
as far within myself as I could and said, you know,
you've got two options here. You can you can give up,
and you can just say you know, this is it,
or you fight with everything that you have left within you,
and it may not be much, but if you look
(10:08):
back at this and know that you didn't do everything
you possibly could have, you're going to regret it for
the rest of your life, no matter how hard it is.
And so somehow I found that within me, and over
the course of the next several days, I qualified in
three events for my second Olympics. And those games themselves,
for me, were still a massive disappointment, but the fact
that I was able to make an Olympic team in
(10:30):
that state and still walk away from a gold medal,
that medal definitely holds different meaning than the ones from
my London Games.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Wow, and just hearing about that when you were in
that really kind of hard, dark place in a moment
that was very intense for you.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
What got you out of that?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
You mentioned a little bit of like, Okay, I saw
a turning point, but there had to be something that
got you through that moment in time?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah? Was it family? Like? What did that look like? Well?
My family was amazing, saying first of all, my mom
and dad are my best friends, and so living with them.
I don't mean to make that sound like it wasn't
a great situation. It was wonderful, But I think it
is hard when all of your friends are at college
right and you are at home, and so I don't
really have any friends around where I am. I don't again,
(11:16):
I don't have any of that balance. So I did
have my mom and dad, and unfortunately, I wish I
could say that this isn't what happened, but this really is.
I just kind of hit rock bottom, Like I just
hit a place where I was like I can't go
any lower than this, and it got scary to a
point where I was like I have to ask for help.
And that's why I want to talk about it. While
I do talk about it so much is I don't
(11:38):
want people waiting to that point before they realize that
they need to ask for help. And it was in
that moment and when I did ask for help from
my parents, I remember sitting down with both of my
coaches and just saying, you know, something's not right. There's
something going on, and something's been going on for a
really long time. And it was literally in that moment
(11:59):
of verbalizing it and speaking it out loud, I had
never felt more courageous in my life. And I think
not only as an elite athlete, but as human beings.
At some point somewhere, for whatever reason, we're told that
asking for help is a sign of weakness. And I
(12:20):
don't know where it comes from. I'm doing everything in
my power to try to unravel this because that was
that moment for me where I've never felt more brave.
I've never felt more strength and being able to go
to the people that I trust in love and saying
I need help. Something is wrong. And I thought that
I could do this on my own, but I'm now
realizing that it's not about doing it on your own.
(12:40):
You're not weak because you can't get through something on
your own You're so strong because you have the power
and the trust in yourself to know when you do
need help and reach out for that. And so that
was kind of my moment of Okay, this is this
is real. I need that help, and then once I did,
of course, it all started getting better from there.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
That's such a powerful message, especially coming from you, for
many reasons, not only because you are an extremely gifted
and talented human and athlete, but also just because I
think it's important to share the side of the story
that isn't so glamorous, especially when it does look very glamorous.
You're an athlete, You've been on TV, and you have
(13:21):
all these titles and all these medals, and people think, well,
that's what they wanted, that's what they know they spent
their whole life doing.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
But hearing you.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Talk about that, that's incredibly moving, just to know that
I know, for me personally and a lot of people
that you're going through those same things. And I know
we would like to say that celebrities and athletes are
not like us and it doesn't look the same, but
we all are. We're all going through similar issues in
one way or another. May not look the same way
and the journey may not look the same, but there's
(13:49):
definitely similar issues going on there exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And I think that's one of the most beautiful things
that comes out of talking about it is just like
you said, it may not be the same experience, but
the feelings are often very, very similar. And I remember
for a long time after Rio, just as I was
kind of struggling to understand why this had happened. My
faith is very important to me, and so I kind
(14:13):
of came to the understanding that sometimes I don't think
we're meant to know the why of things that we
go through in life. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we find
out the why, you know, whether it stays months years later,
we look back and we're like, Okay, I see what
you did, Like I understand why I went through that.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
But I think there are scenarios where we're just not
meant to know that. We just have to trust that
we did go through them for our reason. And when
I look back on that, I think, for me, that
reason is we go through the things we go through
to then help other people get through similar situations. And
to me, it's like, if that was what came out
of that experience. As hard and honestly horrible as it was,
(14:53):
it was worth it, and I'd do it one hundred
times over because now I'm able to speak about mental health,
I'm able to bring awareness to the top. I'm able
to talk to young athletes. And I remember beforehand when
I was young, and I would have younger athletes come
up to me and ask, what do you do when
you're feeling really dumb, when you just don't want to
go to practice, when you're having a plateau. And I'd
never experienced that, so I never knew what to say,
(15:15):
and so I felt so bad that I couldn't help them.
And now again, as hard as it was, having gone
through it, I'm able to talk to them from a
place of having been there, which is always a really
special moment and conversation.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Speaking of young athletes and just people going after their dreams,
much like you did from the beginning, if you could
give them some advice as they kind of journey. Maybe
it's a dream that seems impossible, like going to the Olympics,
or maybe it's something very simple. What would you tell
them given all of your experience.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Now, honestly, I would say as much as you can
just stay true to you and your why you know.
I think in the world that we live in, it's
very interesting. And I don't think applies just to athletes either,
but it's almost like being a superb athlete isn't enough.
You also have to have the personality. You have to
(16:09):
have the looks, you have to have the social accounts,
you have to be funny, you have to be personable,
like you have to come off like it's so much pressure.
It's almost not enough to just be you. And I
think a lot of us feel like that some days,
that sometimes it just feels like we're not enough. And
I would just tell them to trust and believe in
(16:30):
your absolute heart of hearts that you are exactly as
you are. You are enough, you are worthy. You are
not just what your sport or your job or your
hobby deems of you. Like you are so multifaceted and
you have so many different aspects of you that are
wonderful and that makeup who you are. So stay true
to all of those things, and remember why you are
(16:52):
doing this, not why other people want you to do
it or what they're expecting to come out of it,
but what are your goals for yourself, why are you
doing this? And just stay as true to that path
as you can. I love that you said.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
That reminds me of a conversation I had with a
friend when he was kind of trying to figure out
all these different paths that he could go on, and
I was like, what is your middle core?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
What is the one word that you could use to
describe everything you want to do in your life if
you could stay true to that one thing. And I
think that's similar to what you're speaking about now, and
it helped him at least guide him in the direction
of what he wanted to find and how he could
stay true to exactly what he was trying to do.
I love that, But I think that's what you're saying,
and I think that's so important for a lot of
people to hear, and to your point, not just athletes,
(17:33):
we all need to.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Exactly all of us.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
If you had to change anything that happened in your career,
is there anything or is it, like you said, everything
had to happen the way it happened, Just like.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
That, I think everything happens for a reason, and I
believe in that so so so strongly. So again, as
hard as some of those moments were I wouldn't change
a thing. It was really hard retiring on terms that
weren't my own as well, Like that was kind of
another transition that I had to go to as well,
Like I wanted to go to three Olympics. I wanted
(18:07):
to go to four Olympics. And when I had to
retire at twenty three years old, it killed me. I mean,
that was so hard. And I had pushed for almost
two years trying to get past an injury and had
done everything imaginable and the amount of hours I had
spent in physical therapy and with ice on my shoulders
and just I mean it was exhausting. And I think
(18:28):
it was again hard because we often glorify like the
comeback story, like there was disappointment and then you have
the like rocky moment of the training and the intensity
and then you come out on top, and it's like
and I wanted that so desperately, and I was the
story of there's disappointment, there's injury, you do everything you
can to come back, and you just can't. You know,
(18:48):
your body just no matter what you do, it's just
not there for you. And so that was hard. But again,
I know that in my journey, my path, my life,
that was exactly what was meant to happen. I look
at my life now and where I'm sitting and the
things that have happened since I retired, and it's like,
I can't imagine doing anything different because it means that
(19:11):
my life would be different, and I wouldn't change a
thing about my life right now.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
And what does your life look like, you know, post retirement,
post all of these Olympic medals and all these titles
that you have.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
What does it look like now? Well, I was very
fortunate and that that kind of rough time of injury
and working through it and going through retirement also lined
up with me meeting my soulmate, so that made a
significant difference. But that was around the time where I
started dating my now husband and we got engaged the
year after I retired and then got married. Congratulations, And
(19:49):
we have the best present of all, which is a
baby girl and her name is Sarah Caitlin. So now
being a mom has been a whole other transition, and
it's that has really been my dream job for forever,
is being a mom, and she has made that dream
come true in just so many more ways. Than one,
and I still get to work, which is really fun.
I still do a lot of public speaking. I talk
(20:10):
a lot about mental health, I do a lot of motivational,
inspirational talks things like that, and still work with different companies.
So that's really fun as well, because I kind of
get the best of both worlds of being a mom
and getting to spend a ton of time with my girl,
but also still getting to travel a bit and use
the platform that swimming gave me to still inspire, which
is very very important to me. And you're totally doing that.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
I mean you're inspiring me right now sitting here talking.
I need to go like swimsuit last hour or something.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Are you going to teach your daughter how to swim?
Are you gonna havers? Of course she's honestly, she's been
in some lessons since six months old, so same as us.
She's a total water bug, absolutely loves it. But nothing
too formal. Right now. We have her a Safe Splash
which is an awesome learn to Swim school, but during
summertime we were honestly just trying to get her a
lot of exposure in the pool. I think for younger
(21:00):
ones that's really the most important thing. You don't have
to do anything like I don't want you feel the
pressure of doing those formalsome lessons right away, but just
that exposure to getting them in the water and around
it really helps take some of that fear component away.
So when it comes time for formalsome lessons, which again
I also believe there's no time too early, So whenever
you're ready, like it's I think it's a great time.
(21:22):
But they're kind of used to it, right it's not
this really big scary thing that they've never seen before.
So we spent a lot of time in the pool
with her this summer, and now that pools are closed,
will start getting her back into weekly some lessons, so
she's still getting that exposure all year long. Oh that's
so much fun.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
You're definitely having a great period of your life now,
just a new season of life.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And it's really cool to see the.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Transition for you and showing too that sometimes the redirection
can be a really cool and good thing.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Oh my gosh, I couldn't agree with that more. And again,
just trusting the process. It's really hard when you don't
really know where that redirection is going and you've never
known another direction. But I think trusting yourself is something
that we could all do a little bit more, and
trusting our strength and our integrity and just our sense
of self and knowing that no matter what happens in
(22:09):
this life, we're going to handle it. And you know,
that's something that I'm still working on. That's something that
I think a lot of us are still working on.
But it's really empowering when you kind of feel that
trust coming into play of you know, whatever happens, whatever
transitions I go through, whatever paths I might have to
go down that I'm not expecting to, I know that
I have what it takes to walk it in a
(22:30):
way that I'm going to be proud of.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Absolutely, And that's the best way we could totally end this,
because if you give any more advice, I'm just I'm
going to go like run through a wall and have
all these things I.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Need to go do.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
You inspire me, which is exactly what you want to
be doing.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
And I love that for you. I love to see
that your life has gotten to be where you want
it to be too.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
So it's a lot just very exciting stuff. And thank
you for coming on and hanging out with me for
a little.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Bit being here. I will do it anytime.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
As you heard, Missy is doing a lot of exciting
things in her life post retirement. If you want to
follow along her journey and see the things she's up to,
you can follow her at Missy Franklin eighty eight. Amy
Breem is a Nike adaptive athlete who was born without
(23:18):
her right leg. She competed for the first time at
the twenty twenty one CrossFit Games in the lower Adaptive division.
She took first place in her division at the twenty
twenty two Watapalooza competition and placed third in her division
at the twenty twenty two CrossFit Games. She's never let
her birth's effect stop her from chasing any of her dreams,
and she's obviously taking the CrossFit world by storm. Amy,
(23:42):
thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Of course, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
I met you through Title nash which is a kickboxing
gym here in Nashville. But you had moved to Nashville
with the intent of becoming an artist.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Where did the change up happen?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Oh, life's a funny thing, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I was actually a commercial music major in college. And
I moved here in twenty fourteen every intention of, you know,
pursuing music, but was a little apprehensive, not quite sure,
you know, what it would look like. And you know,
definitely did the whole playing around town thing, all of
that great stuff that everyone does in Nashville. And I
realized in the first few years that I was doing
(24:19):
it more because I felt like it was just what
I'd always identified as, like a musician, and that's kind
of like what I needed to do. But I wasn't
actually enjoying the process. I love music. I still love music,
but the more I did it in that capacity, I
found I was kind of falling out of love with music.
So I decided to lay that down. It was a
rough couple of years, if I'm being honest. In Nashville.
(24:40):
In twenty seventeen, I was just like, let's just start
from scratch, figure out what I like. I was boxing
at title for fun and then was offered a fun
part time job. I had a marketing position at another company.
I just did it on the weekends for fun, and
it just morphed into this. I didn't start any of
that with a specific intent other than I liked who
I was becoming in the process, and I just was
(25:01):
having fun and here we are.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Well, also along that journey, you've started to share a
very vulnerable side of your life and of your journey.
What inspired you to start talking about in sharing the
story of growing up with a birth defect.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, so around the same time, around twenty seventeen, again, like,
I had some things happen that kind of rocked my
world a little bit, and I wasn't sure what direction
to do if I was even going to stay in Nashville.
And I had two really close friends of mine. They
came over for like a girl's wine night, and they
were like, you know, why don't you ever share your story?
And I remember thinking, because I've thought this quite a
(25:38):
bit growing up, like, well, people, you know, I don't
want to say anything because I've never even had an amputation.
It's a birth defect. I've just always had one, like,
and so for some reason I thought that that like
counted me out. I was like, people don't want to
hear it's just like me growing up. It's whatever. They're like, well,
you probably have some insight that you don't even realize,
or just like a cool world asking people that are
amputees or anything can be such a taboo. People are
(26:00):
a little nervous around it. I've had it for so long,
very very little offense or shocks me anymore. So I
was like, well, I want people to know and understand
this world, just understand how cool it is. So if
I'm not going to be offended by the questions, I
should be the one to like just start the conversation.
So that's kind of where it started, and it I
had no idea what would lead me where I am now,
(26:20):
but it's been great.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
It's funny you say, sharing that side and you wouldn't
be offended in anything, and you blew up on social
media after some videos went viral of you competing at
the CrossFit Games and being an adaptive athlete.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
What was that first.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Feeling like when you're like, holy crap, my account was
blowing up.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah, it was a lot. I wasn't expecting any of that.
And it's funny because if you know me, I don't
like to cry in public at all, and in that
video I was crying. And of course it's like what
I went viral for. My friends give me such a
hard time about it, but yeah, all of that happens
within like a week, so it was like a very
much a blur. I was not expecting any of it,
and it definitely took a while. It's been quite a
(27:00):
year just to adjust to. But I remember again I
was second guessing kind of like how I's posting because
I like to be a dork, you know, just like
be myself whatever, I don't care on Instagram. And I
had Jared and Tyler at the gym and at one
point they kind of called me out and they're like,
you're trying too hard. You're trying to act like you
have X amount of followers, but like you're a dork
(27:20):
and like, for whatever reason, that's worked for you. So
just like keep doing what you've always been doing and
just be you, and it doesn't matter how many people
are following, just keep doing it. And that kind of
reset my mind. It just kind of took the tension
out of it, and I was just, yeah, let's just
see where this goes.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I love that you have the people in your life
that can always make sure to set you straight.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
That's a good thing to have always. I don't tend
to like it in the moment, but afterwards, I'm grateful
for it.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
We never like being told some of the truth until
it actually happens. What's one thing you hope people take
away when they hear you talk about your journey across
the board?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
That's a great question. Definitely the idea that not the idea,
the fact that there's really nothing separating me and anyone else.
I specifically remember telling my coach Scooter on the way
back from the games. I posted that video and I
randomly checked my Instagram and it was like nothing I'd
ever posted, just like blowing up. And I was like,
I think this is a thing I think, And I
(28:16):
told him one of my greatest fears, as much as
this is amazing, is that someone like a middle school
girl who maybe has lost your leg or deals with confidence,
you know, like struggling with that and herself, is going
to look at my profile and think that we're unrelatable
and there's like a separation between what I've been able
to accomplish in what she can do, and there's really
not I did not grow up an athlete. I didn't
(28:37):
touch sports. I didn't wear shorts. I wore mostly pants
until I was twenty one twenty two because I was
so self conscious and I just did a little bit
every day that made me feel uncomfortable, and I put
people in my life that I trusted, very few people
that I allowed to speak into my life and keep
me accountable, and just a little bit more each day
to like bring me a tiny bit further. Like one
(28:58):
of my favorite quotes is the more that you do,
it's not that you become less afraid, it's that you
become more brave. And that has been one hundred percent
of my journey. And I truly truly believe that no
matter your circumstances, even if you're not going to be
a cross of an athlete, you can go so so
far if you just do a little bit at a time.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah, and you mention how you wanted to share this
part of your journey because it's important for people to
see all these kind of different things you've went through,
even if it was.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Hard for you.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I think looking at your story, what I've been able
to see is that you should never give up on yourself.
Watching you, you show all the sides of it, everything
that's hard, and you want to give up, but you
don't and you keep pushing through. And that's something I've
learned just following you and being around you, which.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I think is a cool lesson in itself.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
But what has kept you going through all of those
really hard moments in your life where you're like, there's
no way I can't do this, this is not going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I think couple of things. Definitely, once you cross one
hurdle and see the other side of it, even if
you don't, like I think, you start to recognize, like
maybe before the next hurdle comes, you're like, oh no,
these feelings are coming back. I don't prefer feeling this way.
But you also are like, well I got over that,
so I can do this too again, like not less afraid,
(30:13):
more brave. So experiencing that also on a really real level,
I realized the power of the words that I speak
to myself. For a really long time. It wasn't things
that I was saying out loud necessarily, but I realized
how negative my self talk was, and so I was
just really intentional about like such a tiny thing I
started my day with. I wrote down three insecurities and
wrote the opposite of them, and ninety five percent of
(30:35):
the days I was annoyed and I didn't believe them.
But I still made myself say it out loud, and
I'm a huge believer that eventually, like even if you
don't believe it, you eventually will believe it. So there's
power in that. When I'm insecure and feeling all of
those things, I say the opposite of what I feel.
And also just placing people in your life that can
keep you accountable. There's plenty of times I've been the
absolute worst, like such a brat, and then those people
(30:56):
know who they are in my life who can speak
to me, and they have been pretty direct, and even
if I don't like it in the moment, I trust
them enough that I know when I need to be
humbled a little bit. It's really made a huge difference.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
People always mention the thing about blowing up or going viral,
that the most important thing is to stay true to
who you are, and.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
The way to do that is be surrounded by the
right people. Yeah, it sounds like you found that, which
I think is cool.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah, it's been great.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
In talking on those hard moments. What's one challenge that
comes to mind that you faced that seemed so impossible
for you to accomplish, but then you did.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Honestly, I mean keeping it. It might seem obvious, but
going into the CrossFit Games, I was very new to CrossFit.
I had a very unique journey. Actually don't work out
at a CrossFit gym. I never have. My first step
into a CrossFit gym was the Saturday before I left
for the Games, which was like very unique. I started
a CrossFit in January twenty twenty one when an adaptive
athlete told me it was the first year that CrossFit
(31:55):
had an adapted division. I didn't know. You don't have
to know anything about CrossFit, but there's something called the OPE,
which is like an online qualifier you go through a
bunch of hoops to be able to get to an
in person competition like the Games. And so I started
it for fun on a whim, started following my coach
around because he was working with us, and eventually it
like turned into this thing and I was able to
go to the next round, and all of a sudden,
I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to this competition.
(32:17):
But I was six months into the sport, which like
doesn't happen. It was a great opportunity, especially it being
the first year of Adaptive. All the stars kind of
aligned for it. Obviously I worked very hard, but like
there's a lot of opportunity there as well. So I
had such fear and anxiety going in, like I had
to mute every account associated like a fellow competitor CrossFit everyone,
(32:40):
because all the posts I ever saw from any athlete
were like, let's go, We're so pumped. I'm like, no
one's scared, no one is acknowledging that this is actually
quite terrifying. We're about to like work out in front
of thousands of people, like okay, And it was just
so overwhelming because I was like, I feel like I can't.
I feel like I'm the only one that's scared, like
should I? And it was such imposters and it was unreal.
(33:01):
But yeah, I faced that. There was so many things
that helped me through it, and I definitely had many
moments of feeling weak, which I think in that video
that went viral. The emotion of that was me feeling
all of the months and the days leading up to
it and the workouts leading up to it, which is
why it was such an emotional moment between myself and
even my coach because he also understood it, and so
(33:21):
it was definitely worth it. But it was not an
easy journey.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Well, I think it's even cooler that that was the
moment that went viral because it's showing everything coming to
a head, all of your feelings, everything you went through
open to that moment.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah, it really was. It sounds so cliche, but it
really felt like a movie. It was like, true, I
didn't even really know what was happening. It didn't really
click that I was even crying or ed. I didn't
know a camera was on me until like after everything,
and people were like, oh my gosh, that's amazing, and
it was so over my head. I was like, oh,
you watched like thank you, Like I had no clue.
(33:55):
And then I was like, oh, someone caught that on film,
and yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
So you were just happy to have gone through it.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, that was I was like, I didn't die.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
You had said this a little bit earlier, and they
say hindsight's always twenty twenty. Do you feel like your
life worked out how it's supposed to instead of how
you intended for it too?
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yes, yes, And like that is one of the most
annoying things to say to because if you had talked
to Amy five years ago, six years ago. Even people
that would see me on social media from high school,
they're probably like what, like, like, I mean, night and day,
I still have my personality. I'm still me in a
lot of ways. But like also it's like a one
(34:38):
to eighty and so a lot a lot of moments
of honestly pain and struggle of why I didn't understand,
you know, why things weren't working out, why like doors
are being shut, and I just kept coming up against
this imaginary wall and then realizing, okay, well, like do
I want to spend the rest of my life beating
my head against the door and actually not enjoying it.
I don't feel like I'm growing because I'm not enjoying
(35:01):
any part of it. I'm doing it because I feel
like I am supposed to, which really might have come
more from outside sources and things. That was it was
just a lot of self journey. I mean, you know,
I feel like from when you graduate college, especially to
like age twenty six, grow so much.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Like all of life happened.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
A lot of life happens. You're like, wow, they did
not prepare me for this, So yeah, it was it
was painful again I keep using that word, but now
looking back. I'm like, oh, like that was actually for
the good. I just didn't see it at the time.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Do you still play music at all now? Is it
just more of a passion than it is yeah the
job career.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, yeah, it definitely is passion. I mean I love music,
I always will. It was actually also majored in saxophone.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Wow, I did to see you play the saxophone.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Just such a little dork, but I love it. I
love the instrument. So I obviously singer songwriter with piano
and saxophone. That's what I did, and that's I mean,
I played like eight hours a day in college.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
You have your own jazz club, That's what I'm picturing
right now.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
A little workout area over here, little jazz session here,
Like let's just put it all together.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
People do that now and it somehow works. Yeah, So
I think you could do that.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
You could just play jazz while people are working out.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I'm here for it.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, it could be a vibe.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I'm here.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
There's so many people out there with challenging life circumstances,
and some that are probably similar to yours in some ways.
If there's one piece of advice that you could give
through your lens of what you've been through.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
What would it be realize that everyone goes through it.
I think, especially with social media, there's this such an
isolation factor if for not careful that we look at
these highlight reels. And I don't even necessarily feel that
there's a problem with someone sharing their highlights. If they're
being untruthful about it, that's where I have an issue.
But like, yeah, you can show your wins, that's great.
(36:49):
Like if you don't want to show the moments you're
not winning, that's okay, as long as the people watching
have the maturity to understand that's not the whole story.
And I think doesn't make it easier necessarily, But there
is such a sense of community again, like such fear
going in Toto the CrossFit games. I remember day one
of orientation me talking with my fellow competitors and just
people that I met that are now friends, and hearing them,
(37:11):
I'm like, Oh, everyone's scared. We're just not saying it.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
It's not a common thing to say, hey I'm scared,
Hey I'm vulnerable. That's not something we encourage often.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yes, Yeah, and even like this past year too, I
was able to talk with some other athletes that I mean,
I've looked up to. They've been in the sport for
fifteen years and are like really big names and CrossFit
and I have the opportunity to have some real conversations
with them too, and they said the same thing. One
person was like, we all wake up on day one
terrified and feeling less than and that we can't do this,
(37:40):
and it's like he's one of the biggest names in CrossFit,
and just it was such a relief to be like,
oh my gosh, we are all in that space. And again,
not that you have to go spill your guts on
social media if that's not what you want to do,
but just recognizing I'm not alone in this, and so
if I feel this, they feel this, and we can
just figure it out together rather than seeing it as
me versus them kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
That's an important lesson for sure.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
There's one more thing I want to ask you, Being
a somebody that was born with a birth's effect and
I'm not someone who was, if you could tell me
something or people who haven't been born with one that
you wish you could have told back in the day
when you were going through it and you were learning
so much about yourself that you wish people like me
would know.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
What would it be? That is a great question. No
one's ever asked me that before.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Well, I think there's so much beauty in learning, yeah,
and understanding things that we didn't grow up around or
have to deal with, because everybody has different challenges. Just
because I didn't have that didn't mean I didn't have
other things. But I love learning about other peoples because
then it allows me to be more open minded. It
allows me to be more sensitive and empathetic towards things.
(38:47):
So I think it's important that we learned that.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah, No, I genuinely love that. I think one thing,
probably just an awareness maybe to create an empathy if possible,
of like one thing that I'm very grateful about having
my defect. When I go into the gym, I'm very
aware of the potential emotions of everyone around me. I mean,
I've always worked hard in the gym, and I know
that when I walk into a gym, but the chances
(39:10):
of a stranger telling me, oh my gosh, that's awesome,
great job. Even if I'm being really lazy, They're probably
still going to say it because they see a physical challenge.
I've always thought, well, if I'm going to get the
compliments regardless, I want to feel like I've earned them,
like I actually want to work hard. I want to
get better and also do it for the person that's
maybe next to me that's actually struggling more because of anxiety,
(39:30):
but no one knows it, and so they're just struggling
in silence. That's one thing that I'm very grateful that
I think growing up with a birth defect, because it
does affect you, you know, emotionally, physically, mentally, all of
those good things that it's created, that automatic awareness that
I wish that I could transfer to other people as
well of just even I've had it for so long,
I'm really comfortable with it. It's cool. But maybe the
(39:52):
way that people approach someone with any kind of disability,
it's like, hey, they're not broken, they're not fragile, they're okay,
but like, also, so let's frame these conversations in a
way that's going to make them feel comfortable and not oh, dear,
like look how cute you are, but like good job,
But no, like they're killing it. They're actually able to thrive.
There are moments when they're just a human being living
(40:13):
their life and let's have cool conversations and learn about
prosthetics and their life without making them feel less than I.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Think that's the perfect thing to end on an import
and lesson for all of us to take away from
this if they take away anything. Yeah, So, Amy, thank
you so much for joining me and just being on.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Here with me today.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Awesome of course, thanks so much, Morgan.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Like I mentioned in the interview, Amy is very inspiring
to follow on her journey through life. You can check
out all the things she's up to on her Instagram
at One Leg to Stand On. I don't know about
you all, but listening to both Missy Franklin and Amy
Bram this week seriously has me inspired to chase my dreams.
(40:55):
I think it's so cool to hear from people and
what their journey to a goal, destiny nation looked like,
because oftentimes those journeys aren't pretty, and it's a good
reminder that life can get very messy, but our dreams
are always possible in the midst of all the mess
and the chaos. Make sure to hit up the podcast
on Instagram at Take This Personally or email me at
(41:17):
Take This Personally podcast at gmail dot com for some
comments about today's episode, or pieces of advice you may
want from the experts, or lessons you want from my life.
Next week, I'm bringing on Christina Lai Carry She helps
people expand their self awareness and align their energy to
create a better world for themselves. And then I'll come
on and share my journey to my best self. Although
(41:40):
rocky and still not all the way there, it's one
that I'm still very proud of. That's all for now.
I hope to talk to y'all next week.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Love you,
Take Personally, Morgan Juelsman.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
What's up, y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
It's the fifth episode of Take This Personally.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'm Morgan.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
As you've heard the first few episodes. My hope with
this podcast is to help us all navigate life a
little bit easier by connecting. Maybe this podcast can help
you feel less alone, Maybe it can help you feel
related to Maybe it helps you get through something, whatever
it may be. That's what I'm here to do, and
this episode is a very inspiring one in many ways.
(00:44):
I'm bringing on Missy Franklin, who is an Olympian with
several medals, titles, and years of experience as an athlete
in her chosen sport of swimming. And then I'm bringing
on Amy Bream, who is a Nike adaptive athlete. She
was born with one leg and recently been taking the
crossboit world by storm. Right now, I'm joined by Olympian
(01:12):
Missy Franklin. Many would know her for her incredible swimming talent.
She has a five Olympic gold medals, two NCAA National
championship titles, eleven world swimming titles. The list goes on
of what Missy has accomplished in her life and career,
and I'm just so excited to welcome her to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Thank you so much for coming on. How are you
some so good? Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I'm excited to now tell me a little bit about
your story, just for anyone who maybe hasn't heard some
of it.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
What you started in swimming absolutely well, I expect many
people have not heard. But long story long, I started
swimming from I mean as early an age as you
can imagine. My mom never learned how to swim, and
so this fear of the water, it's actually proven to
be generationally based. So if the parents don't know how
to swim, there's only an eighteen percent chance that the
(02:03):
children in that household they're going to know how to
swim as well. So it's really something that's passed down.
And I was very grateful for my mom who was
willing to face her own fears to not pass them
down to me. So we got in a Mommy and
Me YMCA class when I was six months old, and
I was that baby that was being dunked under and
coming back up just cackling, like just loving every second
(02:25):
of it. And pretty much since then, you have not
been able to get me out of the water. I
was snorkeling by the time I was too The earliest
you can really start summer club is when you're five.
I petitioned to do it when I was four, but
they wouldn't let me, and then it just kind of
took off from there. I did every sport growing up
as well, but swimming was just my passion, you know.
It was the thing that I really felt called to,
(02:45):
and it turns out I had a bit of a
knack for it, which happened very early, which is a
little different. But I started doing pretty well and finding
some success, and I qualified for my first Olympic Trials
when I was twelve, and I competed there the first
time when I was thirteen, and that was the Olympic
Trials for Beijing in two thousand and eight, and I
was the second youngest person there. And it was just
(03:06):
such a surreal experience. I was on the same pool
deck and swimming in the same pools as Michael Phelps
and Natalie Coughlin and people who's posters I literally had
on my wall back home in my bedroom and now
I'm next to them, like it was just so surreal,
and so I kind of left that experience going. I
made it here and I've seen it now in person,
(03:27):
and this is something that I want more than anything.
And so I trained as hard as I possibly could
for the next four years, and I came back for
the twenty twelve Olympic Trials and qualified for my first
Olympic Games in seven events, and went to compete in
the London Olympics, and I won four gold medals there
in a bronze, And then four years later qualified for
(03:49):
the twenty sixteen Olympic Games in Rio and won another
gold medal there. And then I recently retired in twenty
eighteen due to an injury and have just been living
a beautiful ever since. That honestly makes my swimming career
feel literally another lifetime ago.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Oh my gosh, it's so cool to hear from the
beginning about your mom and how that all started. To
see where you are now. I know that has to
be really cool for you too. Did you always see
Olympics in your future? Was that always the dream or
did that not come true until a little bit later
on in your life?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It honestly was always the dream. I mean, we have
pictures that I drew when I was five of me
standing on top of an Olympic podium with a gold medal,
and I think there's just something really special about the Olympics.
For some sports, it's the peak. I mean, that's it.
And so growing up and being a swimmer and having
swimming really be an Olympic sport, that to me was
(04:42):
the end all be all. This is one of the
most incredible things. And to be named the best athlete
in the world, it's just while representing your own country,
I mean, just seemed to me like such an unbelievable
thing to strive for an almost to a degree impossible.
But I think it was because of that that it
made it so much more fun. You know, when you
(05:03):
set goals that scare you, it makes working towards them
and getting closer to them such a fulfilling journey. And
that was such a big lesson that I learned, I mean,
the entire process, but now especially being able to look
back on it was. Yes, standing up on those podiums
and getting those medals were absolutely unbelievable moments in my life.
(05:23):
But when I look back on my swimming career, those
aren't necessarily the first moments I think of. It's actually
some of the smallest, maybe seemingly insignificant moments of dancing
with all my teammates after Saturday morning practice and Friday
night carbl loading dinners before the swim meets, Like those
small moments, and you really do realize that it's great
(05:46):
to have a destination, to have a goal, but at
the end of the day, I really is about the
journey getting there. Yeah, and that.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Journey has to be tough to you. I know, you
look at it and you can see all the successes
you've had and there's been gosh, you have so many titles,
one of the best athletes in the world, you have
so much success in this sport.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
But there had to be hardships on the way.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
What were some of those moments where you were like, Oh,
my gosh, is this gonna happen?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Can I do this? What did that all look like? Absolutely?
I would say those hardships really came for me in
between the twenty twelve and twenty sixteen Olympic Games. I
think leading up to twenty twelve in London, I was
so naive and that really worked to my advantage. Like
I was so young, I was sixteen, seventeen years old,
and I didn't really have a care in the world, right, Like,
(06:32):
I was just swimming. It was so fun and I
was doing well. So I trained harder and I swam faster,
and like it was all just this very seemingly simple.
Of course, it was a ton of hard work, but
it kind of made sense, you know, like I worked
harder and harder and harder every single day, and I
got faster and I kept achieving my goals and I
had a blast while doing it, and no one knew
(06:53):
who I was. I was the young one. I was
the rookie on the scene. So my first Olympics was
just so like no pressure, like let's just go out,
I have a great time, like we're here for the experience.
And that's how I performed, you know, you could kind
of see that, like I was just so full of
joy and I wasn't swimming out of fear. I was
just swimming because I was just happy to be there.
You just love this saying exactly exactly. And then things
(07:17):
really changed over the next four years. I decided to
remain amateur. So after London, I didn't accept any money, sponsorships,
anything like that because I really wanted to go to
college and swim for my college team, because that was
another dream of mine that I really wanted to see
come true. So I went through that process and had
two years at Cal Berkeley, and then I came home
(07:38):
to train for the twenty sixteen games, and that's when
things kind of shifted for me. I think that year
was probably the hardest of my life because I went
from an amazing team environment and having been a part
of a team and having a lot of balance in
my life with school and friends and swimming, so kind
of really for the first time ever, just honing in
(07:59):
on training alone. And I think I really made that
decision because I was scared. I really wanted twenty sixteen
to be better than twenty twelve, and I had set
the bar quite high in twenty twelve, and it wasn't
just me that wanted that, but I started to feel
those outside expectations and that outside pressure, which I had
never really let get to me before. But I think
(08:20):
once you compete and achieve at that level, it does
get really hard to tune that out. And so for
the first time in my life, I really stopped swimming
because I loved it and I started swimming because I
felt like I had to achieve these things that were
expected of me, and it became much more fear based
out of not wanting to disappoint other people as opposed
to just going out there and doing my best. So
(08:43):
there was a lot that I struggled with during that time.
Just a few months out from Olympic Trials, I got
diagnosed with depression, insomnia, anxiety, and eating disorder, like just
a whole gamut of things that just came from essentially
lack of balance, just training day in and day out,
and for the first time in my life, feeling like
my self worth was completely wrapped up in my sport
(09:04):
and if I didn't achieve in my sport, then I
had nothing else to really offer as a human being.
And so Olympic Trials in twenty sixteen was really, really tough.
The first event that I had there was the Hunter backstroke,
and I was the reigning Olympic champion in that event
and you have to finish top two in order to
make the team, and that night my first final, I
(09:27):
got seventh. I mean, in swimming, it's always close, but
in my mind, you know, not even close to making
the team. And I remember going back to my hotel
room that night and just sobbing for like several hours
and really thinking, I'm not going to make this team.
Not only am I not going to have a second
Olympics better than my first, I'm not even going to
(09:47):
have a second Olympics. Like this is just not going
to happen. And I kind of just went pretty much
as far within myself as I could and said, you know,
you've got two options here. You can you can give up,
and you can just say you know, this is it,
or you fight with everything that you have left within you,
and it may not be much, but if you look
(10:08):
back at this and know that you didn't do everything
you possibly could have, you're going to regret it for
the rest of your life, no matter how hard it is.
And so somehow I found that within me, and over
the course of the next several days, I qualified in
three events for my second Olympics. And those games themselves,
for me, were still a massive disappointment, but the fact
that I was able to make an Olympic team in
(10:30):
that state and still walk away from a gold medal,
that medal definitely holds different meaning than the ones from
my London Games.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Wow, and just hearing about that when you were in
that really kind of hard, dark place in a moment
that was very intense for you.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
What got you out of that?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
You mentioned a little bit of like, Okay, I saw
a turning point, but there had to be something that
got you through that moment in time?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah? Was it family? Like? What did that look like? Well?
My family was amazing, saying first of all, my mom
and dad are my best friends, and so living with them.
I don't mean to make that sound like it wasn't
a great situation. It was wonderful, But I think it
is hard when all of your friends are at college
right and you are at home, and so I don't
really have any friends around where I am. I don't again,
(11:16):
I don't have any of that balance. So I did
have my mom and dad, and unfortunately, I wish I
could say that this isn't what happened, but this really is.
I just kind of hit rock bottom, Like I just
hit a place where I was like I can't go
any lower than this, and it got scary to a
point where I was like I have to ask for help.
And that's why I want to talk about it. While
I do talk about it so much is I don't
(11:38):
want people waiting to that point before they realize that
they need to ask for help. And it was in
that moment and when I did ask for help from
my parents, I remember sitting down with both of my
coaches and just saying, you know, something's not right. There's
something going on, and something's been going on for a
really long time. And it was literally in that moment
(11:59):
of verbalizing it and speaking it out loud, I had
never felt more courageous in my life. And I think
not only as an elite athlete, but as human beings.
At some point somewhere, for whatever reason, we're told that
asking for help is a sign of weakness. And I
(12:20):
don't know where it comes from. I'm doing everything in
my power to try to unravel this because that was
that moment for me where I've never felt more brave.
I've never felt more strength and being able to go
to the people that I trust in love and saying
I need help. Something is wrong. And I thought that
I could do this on my own, but I'm now
realizing that it's not about doing it on your own.
(12:40):
You're not weak because you can't get through something on
your own You're so strong because you have the power
and the trust in yourself to know when you do
need help and reach out for that. And so that
was kind of my moment of Okay, this is this
is real. I need that help, and then once I did,
of course, it all started getting better from there.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
That's such a powerful message, especially coming from you, for
many reasons, not only because you are an extremely gifted
and talented human and athlete, but also just because I
think it's important to share the side of the story
that isn't so glamorous, especially when it does look very glamorous.
You're an athlete, You've been on TV, and you have
(13:21):
all these titles and all these medals, and people think, well,
that's what they wanted, that's what they know they spent
their whole life doing.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
But hearing you.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Talk about that, that's incredibly moving, just to know that
I know, for me personally and a lot of people
that you're going through those same things. And I know
we would like to say that celebrities and athletes are
not like us and it doesn't look the same, but
we all are. We're all going through similar issues in
one way or another. May not look the same way
and the journey may not look the same, but there's
(13:49):
definitely similar issues going on there exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And I think that's one of the most beautiful things
that comes out of talking about it is just like
you said, it may not be the same experience, but
the feelings are often very, very similar. And I remember
for a long time after Rio, just as I was
kind of struggling to understand why this had happened. My
faith is very important to me, and so I kind
(14:13):
of came to the understanding that sometimes I don't think
we're meant to know the why of things that we
go through in life. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we find
out the why, you know, whether it stays months years later,
we look back and we're like, Okay, I see what
you did, Like I understand why I went through that.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
But I think there are scenarios where we're just not
meant to know that. We just have to trust that
we did go through them for our reason. And when
I look back on that, I think, for me, that
reason is we go through the things we go through
to then help other people get through similar situations. And
to me, it's like, if that was what came out
of that experience. As hard and honestly horrible as it was,
(14:53):
it was worth it, and I'd do it one hundred
times over because now I'm able to speak about mental health,
I'm able to bring awareness to the top. I'm able
to talk to young athletes. And I remember beforehand when
I was young, and I would have younger athletes come
up to me and ask, what do you do when
you're feeling really dumb, when you just don't want to
go to practice, when you're having a plateau. And I'd
never experienced that, so I never knew what to say,
(15:15):
and so I felt so bad that I couldn't help them.
And now again, as hard as it was, having gone
through it, I'm able to talk to them from a
place of having been there, which is always a really
special moment and conversation.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Speaking of young athletes and just people going after their dreams,
much like you did from the beginning, if you could
give them some advice as they kind of journey. Maybe
it's a dream that seems impossible, like going to the Olympics,
or maybe it's something very simple. What would you tell
them given all of your experience.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Now, honestly, I would say as much as you can
just stay true to you and your why you know.
I think in the world that we live in, it's
very interesting. And I don't think applies just to athletes either,
but it's almost like being a superb athlete isn't enough.
You also have to have the personality. You have to
(16:09):
have the looks, you have to have the social accounts,
you have to be funny, you have to be personable,
like you have to come off like it's so much pressure.
It's almost not enough to just be you. And I
think a lot of us feel like that some days,
that sometimes it just feels like we're not enough. And
I would just tell them to trust and believe in
(16:30):
your absolute heart of hearts that you are exactly as
you are. You are enough, you are worthy. You are
not just what your sport or your job or your
hobby deems of you. Like you are so multifaceted and
you have so many different aspects of you that are
wonderful and that makeup who you are. So stay true
to all of those things, and remember why you are
(16:52):
doing this, not why other people want you to do
it or what they're expecting to come out of it,
but what are your goals for yourself, why are you
doing this? And just stay as true to that path
as you can. I love that you said.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
That reminds me of a conversation I had with a
friend when he was kind of trying to figure out
all these different paths that he could go on, and
I was like, what is your middle core?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
What is the one word that you could use to
describe everything you want to do in your life if
you could stay true to that one thing. And I
think that's similar to what you're speaking about now, and
it helped him at least guide him in the direction
of what he wanted to find and how he could
stay true to exactly what he was trying to do.
I love that, But I think that's what you're saying,
and I think that's so important for a lot of
people to hear, and to your point, not just athletes,
(17:33):
we all need to.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Exactly all of us.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
If you had to change anything that happened in your career,
is there anything or is it, like you said, everything
had to happen the way it happened, Just like.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
That, I think everything happens for a reason, and I
believe in that so so so strongly. So again, as
hard as some of those moments were I wouldn't change
a thing. It was really hard retiring on terms that
weren't my own as well, Like that was kind of
another transition that I had to go to as well,
Like I wanted to go to three Olympics. I wanted
(18:07):
to go to four Olympics. And when I had to
retire at twenty three years old, it killed me. I mean,
that was so hard. And I had pushed for almost
two years trying to get past an injury and had
done everything imaginable and the amount of hours I had
spent in physical therapy and with ice on my shoulders
and just I mean it was exhausting. And I think
(18:28):
it was again hard because we often glorify like the
comeback story, like there was disappointment and then you have
the like rocky moment of the training and the intensity
and then you come out on top, and it's like
and I wanted that so desperately, and I was the
story of there's disappointment, there's injury, you do everything you
can to come back, and you just can't. You know,
(18:48):
your body just no matter what you do, it's just
not there for you. And so that was hard. But again,
I know that in my journey, my path, my life,
that was exactly what was meant to happen. I look
at my life now and where I'm sitting and the
things that have happened since I retired, and it's like,
I can't imagine doing anything different because it means that
(19:11):
my life would be different, and I wouldn't change a
thing about my life right now.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
And what does your life look like, you know, post retirement,
post all of these Olympic medals and all these titles
that you have.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
What does it look like now? Well, I was very
fortunate and that that kind of rough time of injury
and working through it and going through retirement also lined
up with me meeting my soulmate, so that made a
significant difference. But that was around the time where I
started dating my now husband and we got engaged the
year after I retired and then got married. Congratulations, And
(19:49):
we have the best present of all, which is a
baby girl and her name is Sarah Caitlin. So now
being a mom has been a whole other transition, and
it's that has really been my dream job for forever,
is being a mom, and she has made that dream
come true in just so many more ways. Than one,
and I still get to work, which is really fun.
I still do a lot of public speaking. I talk
(20:10):
a lot about mental health, I do a lot of motivational,
inspirational talks things like that, and still work with different companies.
So that's really fun as well, because I kind of
get the best of both worlds of being a mom
and getting to spend a ton of time with my girl,
but also still getting to travel a bit and use
the platform that swimming gave me to still inspire, which
is very very important to me. And you're totally doing that.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
I mean you're inspiring me right now sitting here talking.
I need to go like swimsuit last hour or something.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Are you going to teach your daughter how to swim?
Are you gonna havers? Of course she's honestly, she's been
in some lessons since six months old, so same as us.
She's a total water bug, absolutely loves it. But nothing
too formal. Right now. We have her a Safe Splash
which is an awesome learn to Swim school, but during
summertime we were honestly just trying to get her a
lot of exposure in the pool. I think for younger
(21:00):
ones that's really the most important thing. You don't have
to do anything like I don't want you feel the
pressure of doing those formalsome lessons right away, but just
that exposure to getting them in the water and around
it really helps take some of that fear component away.
So when it comes time for formalsome lessons, which again
I also believe there's no time too early, So whenever
you're ready, like it's I think it's a great time.
(21:22):
But they're kind of used to it, right it's not
this really big scary thing that they've never seen before.
So we spent a lot of time in the pool
with her this summer, and now that pools are closed,
will start getting her back into weekly some lessons, so
she's still getting that exposure all year long. Oh that's
so much fun.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
You're definitely having a great period of your life now,
just a new season of life.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And it's really cool to see the.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Transition for you and showing too that sometimes the redirection
can be a really cool and good thing.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Oh my gosh, I couldn't agree with that more. And again,
just trusting the process. It's really hard when you don't
really know where that redirection is going and you've never
known another direction. But I think trusting yourself is something
that we could all do a little bit more, and
trusting our strength and our integrity and just our sense
of self and knowing that no matter what happens in
(22:09):
this life, we're going to handle it. And you know,
that's something that I'm still working on. That's something that
I think a lot of us are still working on.
But it's really empowering when you kind of feel that
trust coming into play of you know, whatever happens, whatever
transitions I go through, whatever paths I might have to
go down that I'm not expecting to, I know that
I have what it takes to walk it in a
(22:30):
way that I'm going to be proud of.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Absolutely, And that's the best way we could totally end this,
because if you give any more advice, I'm just I'm
going to go like run through a wall and have
all these things I.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Need to go do.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
You inspire me, which is exactly what you want to
be doing.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
And I love that for you. I love to see
that your life has gotten to be where you want
it to be too.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
So it's a lot just very exciting stuff. And thank
you for coming on and hanging out with me for
a little.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Bit being here. I will do it anytime.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
As you heard, Missy is doing a lot of exciting
things in her life post retirement. If you want to
follow along her journey and see the things she's up to,
you can follow her at Missy Franklin eighty eight. Amy
Breem is a Nike adaptive athlete who was born without
(23:18):
her right leg. She competed for the first time at
the twenty twenty one CrossFit Games in the lower Adaptive division.
She took first place in her division at the twenty
twenty two Watapalooza competition and placed third in her division
at the twenty twenty two CrossFit Games. She's never let
her birth's effect stop her from chasing any of her dreams,
and she's obviously taking the CrossFit world by storm. Amy,
(23:42):
thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Of course, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
I met you through Title nash which is a kickboxing
gym here in Nashville. But you had moved to Nashville
with the intent of becoming an artist.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Where did the change up happen?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Oh, life's a funny thing, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I was actually a commercial music major in college. And
I moved here in twenty fourteen every intention of, you know,
pursuing music, but was a little apprehensive, not quite sure,
you know, what it would look like. And you know,
definitely did the whole playing around town thing, all of
that great stuff that everyone does in Nashville. And I
realized in the first few years that I was doing
(24:19):
it more because I felt like it was just what
I'd always identified as, like a musician, and that's kind
of like what I needed to do. But I wasn't
actually enjoying the process. I love music. I still love music,
but the more I did it in that capacity, I
found I was kind of falling out of love with music.
So I decided to lay that down. It was a
rough couple of years, if I'm being honest. In Nashville.
(24:40):
In twenty seventeen, I was just like, let's just start
from scratch, figure out what I like. I was boxing
at title for fun and then was offered a fun
part time job. I had a marketing position at another company.
I just did it on the weekends for fun, and
it just morphed into this. I didn't start any of
that with a specific intent other than I liked who
I was becoming in the process, and I just was
(25:01):
having fun and here we are.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Well, also along that journey, you've started to share a
very vulnerable side of your life and of your journey.
What inspired you to start talking about in sharing the
story of growing up with a birth defect.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, so around the same time, around twenty seventeen, again, like,
I had some things happen that kind of rocked my
world a little bit, and I wasn't sure what direction
to do if I was even going to stay in Nashville.
And I had two really close friends of mine. They
came over for like a girl's wine night, and they
were like, you know, why don't you ever share your story?
And I remember thinking, because I've thought this quite a
(25:38):
bit growing up, like, well, people, you know, I don't
want to say anything because I've never even had an amputation.
It's a birth defect. I've just always had one, like,
and so for some reason I thought that that like
counted me out. I was like, people don't want to
hear it's just like me growing up. It's whatever. They're like, well,
you probably have some insight that you don't even realize,
or just like a cool world asking people that are
amputees or anything can be such a taboo. People are
(26:00):
a little nervous around it. I've had it for so long,
very very little offense or shocks me anymore. So I
was like, well, I want people to know and understand
this world, just understand how cool it is. So if
I'm not going to be offended by the questions, I
should be the one to like just start the conversation.
So that's kind of where it started, and it I
had no idea what would lead me where I am now,
(26:20):
but it's been great.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
It's funny you say, sharing that side and you wouldn't
be offended in anything, and you blew up on social
media after some videos went viral of you competing at
the CrossFit Games and being an adaptive athlete.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
What was that first.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Feeling like when you're like, holy crap, my account was
blowing up.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah, it was a lot. I wasn't expecting any of that.
And it's funny because if you know me, I don't
like to cry in public at all, and in that
video I was crying. And of course it's like what
I went viral for. My friends give me such a
hard time about it, but yeah, all of that happens
within like a week, so it was like a very
much a blur. I was not expecting any of it,
and it definitely took a while. It's been quite a
(27:00):
year just to adjust to. But I remember again I
was second guessing kind of like how I's posting because
I like to be a dork, you know, just like
be myself whatever, I don't care on Instagram. And I
had Jared and Tyler at the gym and at one
point they kind of called me out and they're like,
you're trying too hard. You're trying to act like you
have X amount of followers, but like you're a dork
(27:20):
and like, for whatever reason, that's worked for you. So
just like keep doing what you've always been doing and
just be you, and it doesn't matter how many people
are following, just keep doing it. And that kind of
reset my mind. It just kind of took the tension
out of it, and I was just, yeah, let's just
see where this goes.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I love that you have the people in your life
that can always make sure to set you straight.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
That's a good thing to have always. I don't tend
to like it in the moment, but afterwards, I'm grateful
for it.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
We never like being told some of the truth until
it actually happens. What's one thing you hope people take
away when they hear you talk about your journey across
the board?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
That's a great question. Definitely the idea that not the idea,
the fact that there's really nothing separating me and anyone else.
I specifically remember telling my coach Scooter on the way
back from the games. I posted that video and I
randomly checked my Instagram and it was like nothing I'd
ever posted, just like blowing up. And I was like,
I think this is a thing I think, And I
(28:16):
told him one of my greatest fears, as much as
this is amazing, is that someone like a middle school
girl who maybe has lost your leg or deals with confidence,
you know, like struggling with that and herself, is going
to look at my profile and think that we're unrelatable
and there's like a separation between what I've been able
to accomplish in what she can do, and there's really
not I did not grow up an athlete. I didn't
(28:37):
touch sports. I didn't wear shorts. I wore mostly pants
until I was twenty one twenty two because I was
so self conscious and I just did a little bit
every day that made me feel uncomfortable, and I put
people in my life that I trusted, very few people
that I allowed to speak into my life and keep
me accountable, and just a little bit more each day
to like bring me a tiny bit further. Like one
(28:58):
of my favorite quotes is the more that you do,
it's not that you become less afraid, it's that you
become more brave. And that has been one hundred percent
of my journey. And I truly truly believe that no
matter your circumstances, even if you're not going to be
a cross of an athlete, you can go so so
far if you just do a little bit at a time.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah, and you mention how you wanted to share this
part of your journey because it's important for people to
see all these kind of different things you've went through,
even if it was.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Hard for you.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I think looking at your story, what I've been able
to see is that you should never give up on yourself.
Watching you, you show all the sides of it, everything
that's hard, and you want to give up, but you
don't and you keep pushing through. And that's something I've
learned just following you and being around you, which.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I think is a cool lesson in itself.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
But what has kept you going through all of those
really hard moments in your life where you're like, there's
no way I can't do this, this is not going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I think couple of things. Definitely, once you cross one
hurdle and see the other side of it, even if
you don't, like I think, you start to recognize, like
maybe before the next hurdle comes, you're like, oh no,
these feelings are coming back. I don't prefer feeling this way.
But you also are like, well I got over that,
so I can do this too again, like not less afraid,
(30:13):
more brave. So experiencing that also on a really real level,
I realized the power of the words that I speak
to myself. For a really long time. It wasn't things
that I was saying out loud necessarily, but I realized
how negative my self talk was, and so I was
just really intentional about like such a tiny thing I
started my day with. I wrote down three insecurities and
wrote the opposite of them, and ninety five percent of
(30:35):
the days I was annoyed and I didn't believe them.
But I still made myself say it out loud, and
I'm a huge believer that eventually, like even if you
don't believe it, you eventually will believe it. So there's
power in that. When I'm insecure and feeling all of
those things, I say the opposite of what I feel.
And also just placing people in your life that can
keep you accountable. There's plenty of times I've been the
absolute worst, like such a brat, and then those people
(30:56):
know who they are in my life who can speak
to me, and they have been pretty direct, and even
if I don't like it in the moment, I trust
them enough that I know when I need to be
humbled a little bit. It's really made a huge difference.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
People always mention the thing about blowing up or going viral,
that the most important thing is to stay true to
who you are, and.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
The way to do that is be surrounded by the
right people. Yeah, it sounds like you found that, which
I think is cool.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah, it's been great.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
In talking on those hard moments. What's one challenge that
comes to mind that you faced that seemed so impossible
for you to accomplish, but then you did.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Honestly, I mean keeping it. It might seem obvious, but
going into the CrossFit Games, I was very new to CrossFit.
I had a very unique journey. Actually don't work out
at a CrossFit gym. I never have. My first step
into a CrossFit gym was the Saturday before I left
for the Games, which was like very unique. I started
a CrossFit in January twenty twenty one when an adaptive
athlete told me it was the first year that CrossFit
(31:55):
had an adapted division. I didn't know. You don't have
to know anything about CrossFit, but there's something called the OPE,
which is like an online qualifier you go through a
bunch of hoops to be able to get to an
in person competition like the Games. And so I started
it for fun on a whim, started following my coach
around because he was working with us, and eventually it
like turned into this thing and I was able to
go to the next round, and all of a sudden,
I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to this competition.
(32:17):
But I was six months into the sport, which like
doesn't happen. It was a great opportunity, especially it being
the first year of Adaptive. All the stars kind of
aligned for it. Obviously I worked very hard, but like
there's a lot of opportunity there as well. So I
had such fear and anxiety going in, like I had
to mute every account associated like a fellow competitor CrossFit everyone,
(32:40):
because all the posts I ever saw from any athlete
were like, let's go, We're so pumped. I'm like, no
one's scared, no one is acknowledging that this is actually
quite terrifying. We're about to like work out in front
of thousands of people, like okay, And it was just
so overwhelming because I was like, I feel like I can't.
I feel like I'm the only one that's scared, like
should I? And it was such imposters and it was unreal.
(33:01):
But yeah, I faced that. There was so many things
that helped me through it, and I definitely had many
moments of feeling weak, which I think in that video
that went viral. The emotion of that was me feeling
all of the months and the days leading up to
it and the workouts leading up to it, which is
why it was such an emotional moment between myself and
even my coach because he also understood it, and so
(33:21):
it was definitely worth it. But it was not an
easy journey.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Well, I think it's even cooler that that was the
moment that went viral because it's showing everything coming to
a head, all of your feelings, everything you went through
open to that moment.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah, it really was. It sounds so cliche, but it
really felt like a movie. It was like, true, I
didn't even really know what was happening. It didn't really
click that I was even crying or ed. I didn't
know a camera was on me until like after everything,
and people were like, oh my gosh, that's amazing, and
it was so over my head. I was like, oh,
you watched like thank you, Like I had no clue.
(33:55):
And then I was like, oh, someone caught that on film,
and yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
So you were just happy to have gone through it.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, that was I was like, I didn't die.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
You had said this a little bit earlier, and they
say hindsight's always twenty twenty. Do you feel like your
life worked out how it's supposed to instead of how
you intended for it too?
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yes, yes, And like that is one of the most
annoying things to say to because if you had talked
to Amy five years ago, six years ago. Even people
that would see me on social media from high school,
they're probably like what, like, like, I mean, night and day,
I still have my personality. I'm still me in a
lot of ways. But like also it's like a one
(34:38):
to eighty and so a lot a lot of moments
of honestly pain and struggle of why I didn't understand,
you know, why things weren't working out, why like doors
are being shut, and I just kept coming up against
this imaginary wall and then realizing, okay, well, like do
I want to spend the rest of my life beating
my head against the door and actually not enjoying it.
I don't feel like I'm growing because I'm not enjoying
(35:01):
any part of it. I'm doing it because I feel
like I am supposed to, which really might have come
more from outside sources and things. That was it was
just a lot of self journey. I mean, you know,
I feel like from when you graduate college, especially to
like age twenty six, grow so much.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Like all of life happened.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
A lot of life happens. You're like, wow, they did
not prepare me for this, So yeah, it was it
was painful again I keep using that word, but now
looking back. I'm like, oh, like that was actually for
the good. I just didn't see it at the time.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Do you still play music at all now? Is it
just more of a passion than it is yeah the
job career.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, yeah, it definitely is passion. I mean I love music,
I always will. It was actually also majored in saxophone.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Wow, I did to see you play the saxophone.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Just such a little dork, but I love it. I
love the instrument. So I obviously singer songwriter with piano
and saxophone. That's what I did, and that's I mean,
I played like eight hours a day in college.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
You have your own jazz club, That's what I'm picturing
right now.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
A little workout area over here, little jazz session here,
Like let's just put it all together.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
People do that now and it somehow works. Yeah, So
I think you could do that.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
You could just play jazz while people are working out.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I'm here for it.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, it could be a vibe.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I'm here.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
There's so many people out there with challenging life circumstances,
and some that are probably similar to yours in some ways.
If there's one piece of advice that you could give
through your lens of what you've been through.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
What would it be realize that everyone goes through it.
I think, especially with social media, there's this such an
isolation factor if for not careful that we look at
these highlight reels. And I don't even necessarily feel that
there's a problem with someone sharing their highlights. If they're
being untruthful about it, that's where I have an issue.
But like, yeah, you can show your wins, that's great.
(36:49):
Like if you don't want to show the moments you're
not winning, that's okay, as long as the people watching
have the maturity to understand that's not the whole story.
And I think doesn't make it easier necessarily, But there
is such a sense of community again, like such fear
going in Toto the CrossFit games. I remember day one
of orientation me talking with my fellow competitors and just
people that I met that are now friends, and hearing them,
(37:11):
I'm like, Oh, everyone's scared. We're just not saying it.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
It's not a common thing to say, hey I'm scared,
Hey I'm vulnerable. That's not something we encourage often.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yes, Yeah, and even like this past year too, I
was able to talk with some other athletes that I mean,
I've looked up to. They've been in the sport for
fifteen years and are like really big names and CrossFit
and I have the opportunity to have some real conversations
with them too, and they said the same thing. One
person was like, we all wake up on day one
terrified and feeling less than and that we can't do this,
(37:40):
and it's like he's one of the biggest names in CrossFit,
and just it was such a relief to be like,
oh my gosh, we are all in that space. And again,
not that you have to go spill your guts on
social media if that's not what you want to do,
but just recognizing I'm not alone in this, and so
if I feel this, they feel this, and we can
just figure it out together rather than seeing it as
me versus them kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
That's an important lesson for sure.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
There's one more thing I want to ask you, Being
a somebody that was born with a birth's effect and
I'm not someone who was, if you could tell me
something or people who haven't been born with one that
you wish you could have told back in the day
when you were going through it and you were learning
so much about yourself that you wish people like me
would know.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
What would it be? That is a great question. No
one's ever asked me that before.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Well, I think there's so much beauty in learning, yeah,
and understanding things that we didn't grow up around or
have to deal with, because everybody has different challenges. Just
because I didn't have that didn't mean I didn't have
other things. But I love learning about other peoples because
then it allows me to be more open minded. It
allows me to be more sensitive and empathetic towards things.
(38:47):
So I think it's important that we learned that.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah, No, I genuinely love that. I think one thing,
probably just an awareness maybe to create an empathy if possible,
of like one thing that I'm very grateful about having
my defect. When I go into the gym, I'm very
aware of the potential emotions of everyone around me. I mean,
I've always worked hard in the gym, and I know
that when I walk into a gym, but the chances
(39:10):
of a stranger telling me, oh my gosh, that's awesome,
great job. Even if I'm being really lazy, They're probably
still going to say it because they see a physical challenge.
I've always thought, well, if I'm going to get the
compliments regardless, I want to feel like I've earned them,
like I actually want to work hard. I want to
get better and also do it for the person that's
maybe next to me that's actually struggling more because of anxiety,
(39:30):
but no one knows it, and so they're just struggling
in silence. That's one thing that I'm very grateful that
I think growing up with a birth defect, because it
does affect you, you know, emotionally, physically, mentally, all of
those good things that it's created, that automatic awareness that
I wish that I could transfer to other people as
well of just even I've had it for so long,
I'm really comfortable with it. It's cool. But maybe the
(39:52):
way that people approach someone with any kind of disability,
it's like, hey, they're not broken, they're not fragile, they're okay,
but like, also, so let's frame these conversations in a
way that's going to make them feel comfortable and not oh, dear,
like look how cute you are, but like good job,
But no, like they're killing it. They're actually able to thrive.
There are moments when they're just a human being living
(40:13):
their life and let's have cool conversations and learn about
prosthetics and their life without making them feel less than I.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Think that's the perfect thing to end on an import
and lesson for all of us to take away from
this if they take away anything. Yeah, So, Amy, thank
you so much for joining me and just being on.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Here with me today.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Awesome of course, thanks so much, Morgan.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Like I mentioned in the interview, Amy is very inspiring
to follow on her journey through life. You can check
out all the things she's up to on her Instagram
at One Leg to Stand On. I don't know about
you all, but listening to both Missy Franklin and Amy
Bram this week seriously has me inspired to chase my dreams.
(40:55):
I think it's so cool to hear from people and
what their journey to a goal, destiny nation looked like,
because oftentimes those journeys aren't pretty, and it's a good
reminder that life can get very messy, but our dreams
are always possible in the midst of all the mess
and the chaos. Make sure to hit up the podcast
on Instagram at Take This Personally or email me at
(41:17):
Take This Personally podcast at gmail dot com for some
comments about today's episode, or pieces of advice you may
want from the experts, or lessons you want from my life.
Next week, I'm bringing on Christina Lai Carry She helps
people expand their self awareness and align their energy to
create a better world for themselves. And then I'll come
on and share my journey to my best self. Although
(41:40):
rocky and still not all the way there, it's one
that I'm still very proud of. That's all for now.
I hope to talk to y'all next week.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Love you,
Hosts And Creators
Bobby Bones
Amy Brown
Lunchbox
Eddie Garcia
Morgan Huelsman
Raymundo
Mike D
Abby Anderson
Scuba Steve
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.