2ndwind Academy Podcast
2ndwind Academy Podcast
126: Erin Cafaro - From Olympic Rowing to Psychology
Erin Cafaro, a former elite athlete turned neuropsychologist, joins us to share the incredible journey sparked by her father's diagnosis with vascular dementia. She opens up about the powerful influence of personal experiences on career transitions, illustrating how curiosity and passion can lead to unexpected and fulfilling paths. Listeners will learn how Erin's early life in a small California town and the male-focused sports culture set the stage for her career in rowing, ultimately leading her to national and Olympic teams.
From the significance of Title IX in her rowing journey to the importance of emotional balance, Erin's candid reflections offer guidance for athletes seeking fulfillment beyond their competitive careers. The conversation highlights the necessity of recovery and personal growth, taking into account how understanding one's past can empower future endeavors.
Tune in to learn more about:
- Why and how early-life challenges often fuel athletes' ambition and, sometimes become a double-edged sword.
- The psychological and emotional toll of stepping off the podium and the journey to redefine one’s self-worth and purpose beyond achievement.
- Why it’s difficult for athletes to publicly acknowledge mental health struggles and why open discussions are crucial for healing.
- How athletic discipline impacts cognitive resilience and contributes to mental toughness.
- The challenges and rewards of transitioning from a performance-oriented mindset to a more academic one
- Insights into her current work in clinical psychology research on how athletes cope with life off the podium
- Erin’s perspective on resilience, recovery, and the value of community support in overcoming life’s setbacks.
…and so much more!
Are you looking for Career Clarity for your next step, for more information, or to book a consultancy, make sure you check out www.2ndwind.io
What was going through your mind? The view of saying, well, I leave basketball behind and go into rowing, or was there evidently an opportunity to do both?
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting question. So I mean, in the university system in the US you usually end up specializing in one sport. There are absolutely like freaky athletes single-win sport. There are absolutely like freaky athletes. I don't know if you've heard of like a Bo Jackson who is like just good at baseball and American football. Well, yeah, he was pretty good.
Speaker 3:Hi, I'm Ryan Gonsalves and welcome to a Second Wind Academy podcast, a show all about career transition through the lens of elite athletes. Each week, I invite a guest to the show who shares their unique sporting story. Please join me to delve into the thoughts and actions of athletes through a series of conversations. Don't worry, there's plenty to learn from those of you that aren't particularly sporty. Elite athletes are still people after all. Let's be inspired by the stories of others.
Speaker 1:Erin, thank you for joining me on the show today, really looking forward to our conversation on all that is your career transition.
Speaker 2:Ryan, thank you so much for having me. Obviously, I've been waiting for this conversation for a while, so I'm so glad we finally connected.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is, it is good and yeah, we have been waiting. It's been, I guess, a few weeks or months, as we've sort of tried to piece together a time that works. And well, there's a lot that you're up to at the moment, and so, for those who are tuning in to learn a bit more, can you just introduce yourself and tell us what are you up to nowadays?
Speaker 2:I am happy to. So yeah, my name is Erin Cafaro. I am up to these days. What am I up to? I am at the tail end of my graduate school career in psychology and I am at an internship right now at UCLA Semmel Institute, which is psychiatry and neuroscience, and I am specializing in neuropsychology, which is just a fancy way of saying helping folks with brain injuries and brain diseases and helping them adapt. And you know, get back to meaningful activities.
Speaker 1:Wow, I like the way you say. It's a simple way of describing that. Even that in itself is must be so complex and must be quite interesting in the people that you are meeting during this internship.
Speaker 2:Totally. I mean, I feel like we're going to dig deeper into this, but I see so many through lines. Having a major injury or diagnosis that changes the way you think and feel is absolutely a major life transition. And I just feel, the more I get to sit with others, the more I study the brain, the more generous I am with myself and the more in I am of like the intricate ways we adapt. And it is just, it's amazing, the resilience of the human body, mind and spirit. I get the absolute privilege of seeing that every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you mean by you're more generous with yourself?
Speaker 2:I think that you know to be sure, I neglected the thinking part of myself. I was so focused on my body and spirit as an athlete and so even from a younger age I did decently well in school, but it wasn't something that I really focused on or put a lot of energy into. I allow myself to dig into that. The more I allow, more I understand how there's really no such thing as like a single intelligence and that everybody I think my job is just finding everybody's strengths and where they can really lean into, especially when they have an injury or disease. So I think seeing the strengths, how different people's strengths come out in different ways, has allowed me to realize my strengths in many different ways too.
Speaker 1:Is that an element, Is it an area of study that you're always interested in? Do you think you know? Has it always been there, or was it something that came through sport?
Speaker 2:No, yeah, I mean, I don't know if I it's hard, it's hard to put my actually it's. I feel like I'm talking around it, cause like, yeah, I think I did have an insecurity with my intelligence and like how, how much I was going to be able to contribute to this community I was, I just thought of myself as like a body, you know, and that was, that was going to be my contribution, of inspiring people to move and, in ways you know, to see how the wonderful things you can achieve together in a team. And so it really, as I think most you know, beautiful things are started with the tragedy Like my father was diagnosed with vascular dementia. I guess it was about seven or eight years ago, and I became his caregiver and just became deeply curious about what was going on, what was going to be the progression and how to really support him continuing to live a fulfilling life, even though he was losing different capacities, being able to communicate and talk and verbally being able to move. Like he was also an athlete and so movement was a big part of his life, and so it really kind of put me in touch with these like existential anxieties as well.
Speaker 2:But I think, yeah, it just really drove me to be. I feel like it's just such a meta thing to learn about the brain with your brain, and it intimidated me. But once I started digging in, I was like this is like anything, it's like anything else. You just there's patterns, you know there's patterns and so, and there's, there are ways that the human brain is, I think, functions, very much like the human body. So it's well, I guess it is part of the human body, but yeah, so I just dug into it and, as it goes like, once you start taking that first step, you can keep walking that path. And I discovered that I didn't matter if I was smart or not. I had an interest and a curiosity which was way more of a jet fuel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so much to go through there. I mean, you know sorry to hear about the journey that you had to undertake with your father, but, like you say that going through that tragedy or through that trauma, often something beautiful can emerge. And you talking about that intimidation or feeling intimidated because you felt that you were brought to sound very meta. You were brought onto this planet to dedicate your body to awesome sport and inspire people through your physical attributes Left. You intimidated that you couldn't do more than that. That was it. You didn't have the intellect to bring something else, and so it is wonderful that you're finding that actually you do have more to give than being an awesome Olympic athlete. Now you're able to explore that journey. I think that is that's great. Thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean I and I think there perhaps is a bit of this gender influence of like the imposter syndrome I hear and see and feel outwardly, women kind of feel like they aren't, they aren't going to do something or aren't going to be good enough until, or continue to not feel like they're going to be able to measure up.
Speaker 2:But I and I had hoped and you know heard from so many mentors of like you know you just been winning an Olympic medal. I know we haven't gotten there yet, but yes, I won an Olympic medal and I wasn't sure that was really on purpose or earned, so I had to go back and earn another. So, but yeah, I think this insecurity can be a fuel for sure, but you know, know, I think, as we can get into it, I think it does underlie some other deeper processes that, like I just think, yeah, while it can be good jet fuel, it doesn't on the back end of it, and these transition period transitional periods is really when it comes up can kind of haunt you period transitional periods is really when it comes up and kind of haunts you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like insecurity can propel you, it can move you forward, but it's often not enough to reach that the destination. You need a different fuel or something else to help take you that whole journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean like I actually think you can win gold medals, you can publish papers and win prizes based on insecurity. But I think where it really comes out is in those transitional periods, because it's a greedy fuel Like it has to be constantly, has to have constant feedback of like you're OK, ok, I, you know, like I just turned in a paper, or okay, I just had a decent practice, you're going to be okay. But when you don't have that constant feedback, I think that's when it really comes up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know we we mentioned that because I'm keen to capture a bit of your journey to this point, because this, this conversation itself, is fascinating and it really does well bring out everything as to why we're connected, why we're talking about this whole career transition and the trauma that we go through. So I want to sort of go back a little bit to that, beginning for you, then, in terms of when sport had started, how you grew up in sport. Essentially, what was that like for you? Because I'm keen to unpick also that balance between sport and academic. So the simple question is for you, as you grew up, how important was sport and how did it occur in your life?
Speaker 2:yeah, I appreciate you. Yeah, kind of bringing it back to the beginning, because I think that is perhaps what might make all of this make a little bit more sense. So I grew up in a small farm town in California and, you know, the most important things were football, american football, so, like you know, like the gridiron, football and family, and we had a, you know, community was a big thing and faith, and so there was, you know, every Sunday big thing and faith and so there was, all you know, every Sunday, everybody would be going to church, of different denominations, but everybody was at church, and so it was a super conservative, close knit community. But there was, you know, I think there was some women. There's definitely opportunities for women to play in sport, but it was definitely male focused and you know, nobody was going to watch women's sports. Now, everybody watches women's sports, but I looked up to my brother, who is a football player, and my dad, who also was a football player, and, you know, not just for their athletic acumen but just the way they held themselves, you know, they just had this stillness and body confidence. But I that I think that I assumed came from being able to, to know that they can put their body through hard things. And so my older brother was like my hero and he also. You know I would just follow him around everywhere and he let me play with he and his friends.
Speaker 2:I was not an indoor kid. I always wanted to be outside and so, you know, most of the other girls my age were indoors and playing, at least in my neighborhood. They were indoors and wanted to play indoors. But I wanted to be outside and so I got to play with the boys. I think, thankfully, there's so many more role models and opportunities for young girls to to play with each other. But I also think it was, it was very formative for me to play with the boys. And you know, as my brother said, he's like I know you're smaller, I know you're a girl, but we're not going to change. You know, if you're going to play with us, we're not going to change any of the rules for you. So I got, I got roughed up and but it was like she got pushed around a bit, but it was.
Speaker 2:It was fun yes, yeah, I mean broken bones, you know what it was. But I was just kind of like I don't care, like I'll ride the bench, like as long as you let me just like be on the team, and he did, um, you know, and, and everybody these guys in the neighborhood just allowed me to, to be part of the part of the team too, and so, um, that was really helpful because I came to even take one step backwards I came from. In my early years I was a dancer, so I got into a for a young girl to start out with body image and you know just a lot of the. There was some unhealthy dynamics, and so I really gravitated again. I just felt a lot more freedom and outdoors, and so I ended up stopping ballet and switching over to sport, and so, yeah, I think I mean so, whilst you grew up with your, again following your brother around and sort of moving away from ballet.
Speaker 1:What sports did you then get exposed to whilst doing that?
Speaker 2:I don't know if they had this over where you were, but we had this in the 80s. I was a gen gen x millennial elder, millennial kid, but we had a even that in that zennial phase. Thank you, okay, there we go, that's it yeah. So I roller hockey was like a really big thing, like rollerblades were coming out and like that was like really cool. I mean I feel like they're. I feel like they're making a comeback I'm with you.
Speaker 1:They're still cool. They were always cool. Okay, they were always cool. I was never gifted on rollerblades, but I'll say they're cool yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean, I was I, we would set up like these roller derby courses on our on our street. We would play roller hockey but also play like home run derby. You know just a lot of just ball, ball and stick games. So yeah, that was kind of like my first introduction. To play like ballet did not feel like play.
Speaker 1:This felt like play it sounds like you needed a bit of a competitive edge to sort of flow through in order to get you going but I would say ballet like classical ballet is probably one of the most competitive sports I've ever played like it is right, okay, it can be like really gnarly yeah, I imagine so. Yeah, I suppose I was thinking of the physical impact of others more than that side, but but yes, yeah. I suppose you're right that context is good yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you know, as I got into middle school and high school, I really gravitated towards basketball. That's my favorite sport. I still love, you know, shooting around. But I was a. I was a decent basketball player, not great one and I was my senior year in high school. I just, I knew, wanted to be, have sports still be a part of my life.
Speaker 2:When I went off to college and I was ready to again ride the bench, I didn't care what I was going to do, I just knew I wanted to be on a team. When I went to college and my dad actually found this article about one of the my, the crosstown rivals in basketball, she got a full ride, rowing scholarship, and so that piqued his interest because he was like, hey, like let's, let's look into this sport so you can get a scholarship. And this was when you know the, the work that the women and allies did with um title nine, which is a, which is a law that was enacted over here in the US to have equal amount of female, equal opportunities for female to male education but also athletic opportunities. So that really changed the game over here in the US and it started to really kick in in the 2000s, when I started college.
Speaker 1:Right, okay. So Title IX, as you said, brought about that equal opportunity in terms of resource spend and allocation for men and women at universities or in college through the US and, yeah, okay. So you managed to, I guess, use or I guess the, the act of that started to mean more opportunities appeared for you as an athlete yeah, I think across the board, but especially with rowing.
Speaker 2:like rowing really took off because for big American football teams or universities with big American football teams like they needed another sport that could balance out the big roster and the big expenditures. And rowing is not a cheap sport to start a team with like these boats are super expensive. While you have nine people to a boat, especially in the college level, you know there's probably 60, 70 women to a team and so that really you know a lot of the athletic directors were like, hey, we need to put more into these rowing teams so we can spend more on our American football teams.
Speaker 1:It may be gaming the system, but if everyone benefits, it's okay. If you certainly see the benefit, then it can work. So great that your dad had seen this opportunity, but to what extent? So how often had you been in a boat up until that point?
Speaker 2:Not at all. So again, I grew up in a place with very little water. The water was used for irrigating the farm. It was not rowable water around me, but once he knew how to push my farm, it was like not rowable water around me. But once he, you know, and he knew how to push my buttons, he was like, oh, this girl, you know, this girl from across town, got a full scholarship. And I was like, oh, she can do it, I can do it. And, funny enough, she made it to the national team and we're dear friends still.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Does she know how much the national team and we're dear friends, still so yeah Does she know how much you motivated her and changed, or how she motivated you and changed the trajectory of your career?
Speaker 2:Absolutely yes, yes, she, yeah, she actually moved back to like our hometown and we we still keep in touch. When I go back there, I I visit her. But, yeah, she actually was on the planted another seed for me. She was in the 2004 Women's Eight who won a silver medal in the Athens Olympics, which was the first time that the women had won a medal over 2000 meters in that boat. And so they, yeah, they just planted the seed to be like, oh, these US women can actually play this European sport, so it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, yeah, so interesting then. So, while sport for you, at this point, senior year sport was important. You wanted to be on the team bench, whatever it might be Academically, whilst college was a path for you, how did you see yourself academically at that point?
Speaker 2:I am curious to hear if this is how this might be similar or different to other guests that you've had on and athletes that you've worked with, but it almost felt like a necessary evil, like it was something that I knew was going to be good for me. It was like taking a vitamin. I was like I knew I know this is going to be good for me. It's just going to get stuck in my throat, though, and like it's just like I'm going to do what I need to do in order to play and it yeah, again, I, I, it was an anxiety for me.
Speaker 2:There was other, you know, layers of, you know, I think, other things that that were happened early on in my educational career or my early on in elementary school. That just made it, made it hard for me to really like it didn't feel I didn't feel good. I'm spending a lot of time there, so it was like I'm going to go towards what does feel good, and it's being on a team and moving my body. Yeah, and I still think movement is my first language. I think that's the way for every baby in development, but yeah, I still I've really put a lot of my attention towards movement, and academics was like a side gig something you had to get.
Speaker 1:Academics was something you had to get done. If anything, it wasn't for you as enjoyable and perhaps as successful as you were physically. So doing your sport brought you a lot more joy and a lot more, perhaps, success.
Speaker 2:Um, in in that regard, yeah, yeah, and I feel like I was actually listening to some of your podcasts.
Speaker 2:I think it was a conversation you had with taj des and I really liked something you said about. Like you know, when he transitioned into afterwards I think he was like in sales, how it just it didn't feel good to be like an individual contributor, like he wanted to be on somewhere where he could kind of feel like there was a community contribution and be yeah. And so I feel like and I still struggle with this, to be very sure in academia, like I am in the thick of it, like UCLA is like one of the premier, like research institutions, and I still feel like it's hard because like being in academia is really it doesn't have to be when done right. It is a team effort, it is interdisciplinary, but a lot of times it's about like how many individual contributions or how many papers can I get my name on, not how can I lift everybody up around me yes, perhaps, and it's sometimes a sort of timing or at least a feedback issue.
Speaker 1:So how, how rapidly does it feel like you're feeling part of a team? So it's not necessarily looking back, but it's almost a daily sense of, yeah, I'm part of a team and I'm contributing all the time. That's what I'm understanding from you, is it becomes a key aspect of what you were looking for.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, and I do think I found a niche within this crazy academic world that really fits of like tying this into clinical work. Like I get to be in a boat with one other person every single day and it's like, okay, we're going to figure this out, how are we going to get to what's the best way to get to the finish line? And so I really get to have a teammate when I'm doing clinical work and I absolutely love that.
Speaker 1:I guess problem solving and that impacts. So you know, we kind of just got there in terms of your career, with your the view on hey, getting to college, doing that through rowing is going to be a great way to make this happen. So the academic route was less important, certainly in your mind at that time, and it was more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, college. That clearly is good for parents and others as well, but also continues a sort of athletic journey for you as well. So, how, what was going through your mind? The view of saying, well, I leave basketball behind and go into rowing or was there evidently an opportunity to do both?
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting question. So I mean in the university system in the US you usually end up specializing in one sport. There are absolutely like freaky athletes. I don't know if you've heard of like a bo jackson who's like just good at baseball and american football exceptional yeah, he was quite exceptional.
Speaker 1:He was pretty good. There are a few who have, who have been on this show, spoken about doing, you know, both sports and getting that you know and trying to balance the two, but, as you're saying, typically you have to select one and move down that path. How was that for you then?
Speaker 2:it's something that I've learned about myself that I really enjoy, and I guess this also has helped me in this phase of my career as well. Like I like to go deep on one thing, I prefer not to have multiple different activities. I'm doing multiple different books, I'm reading. Like I like to go real deep on one thing at a time and it's so far, it's paid off and it's been helpful. I mean, that's kind of like how I feel.
Speaker 2:Like I was able to get into rowing so quickly from yeah, again, not not rowing in high school. Actually, once I signed to get on the team in college, I was like I don't want to be the new kid on the block, so I ended up taking a couple strokes before I got to college, but still, like I just went, I went deep down the rabbit hole with rowing and I think that really helped. I had a very quick trajectory to get onto the national team. You know I had rowed for three years total before I got on the national team and I think it was about four or five years before I got onto the Olympic team.
Speaker 1:So I mean that's quick you speak there and it's a trait we see in many athletes. You described as going deep down the rabbit hole, that real focus on one thing Others may say an obsessive focus, or an ability to really blink everything out and just be like, yeah, this is me, this is where I'm going down the path, would you say it comes down to. How do you feel about me describing it that way?
Speaker 2:I totally pick up what you're throwing down. It actually reminds me and I think I mentioned this to you in one of our first conversations like one of the books that really actually was one of the impetus for me to get into grad school and kind of study about like major life transitions is a book called winning at all costs, and they do a deep dive, like psychoanalytical dive, into famous athletes. And one of the athletes was an Australian rugby player, johnny Wilkinson, and they talk about his obsessional drive and where what that might have stemmed from like early in his childhood, that might have stemmed from like early in his childhood other stressors like and why granted, it is an absolute feature for successful athletes Like, how, how is that adaptive? And yeah, I think one, where's it come from? And then two, how do you adapt that feature?
Speaker 2:And so for me, yeah, I mean like I have a different story than Johnny Wilkinson, but not so different. I had some early unfortunate childhood stressors that just made me want to. I was very hyper vigilant about doing things and not to the point of becoming obsessive, like as in a diagnosis, but like I had a high pain tolerance to do things repetitively because I just kind of like I had this knee and lo and behold, rowing is very repetitive and high needs, high pain tolerance.
Speaker 2:So it was just kind of like, but it I think again, sometimes some again.
Speaker 1:Sometimes some tragedies can turn into something beautiful. Yes, and like you say, that ability to refocus, that ability to focus or that I should say the ability to refocus, that healthy obsessive trait is is important and can support you as an athlete. But then you know, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, you know, being a researcher and going deep into research, it syncs actually works, it fits really well because it allows you to say, well, I really need to know, I'll say everything, or as much as possible, about this subject to be able to report it back. And it's similar then in sport, where we get this desire to be an expert, to feel like we've mastered something, and to do that you tend to need to go deep, to really focus your efforts on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean and I think this kind of brings up the interesting conversation about building Is grit something you build and discipline something you build, or is it something that you? There's contextual factors that make you want to go back and go back? And it's not because I remember people being like oh my gosh, you're so disciplined like you. I could never practice as many times as you do and I'm like no, like it's almost like I can't stop see that there becomes a point.
Speaker 1:It's as much a question as a statement, but it there's, it comes a point where what we, or what, as an elite athlete, you will do as oh well, this is, this is just what I have to do anyway, or this, what I want to do, is natural, but your desire to do something so repetitively and so intensely just happens to be 10x that of the average, or you know somebody else, and that's what helps set you apart, that's what helps you to master it. So there's a good chunk of perhaps achieving what you achieved, or what one achieves as an elite athlete is yeah, it's just what I wanted to do. I didn't realize it was so much more than other people, and then it gets hard. Then there's something else that has to come on top of it, but that first part, at least is least, is just yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll row myself until I black out is perfectly normal, something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think this is the interesting question that I don't. I don't know if I can. I can answer, but I can. I'm trying to collect more information on with my research, collect more information on with my research. Like it's, it was actually cued by this study I read out of the UK called the gold medalist project, and it was this team of researchers who did a beautiful job of like doing these very in depth interviews on different levels of athletes, and this was right before 2012 Olympics in.
Speaker 2:London. So of course they're putting like. They're like, how do we make more gold medalists in London? So that did not escape me. But UK does a beautiful job of of like under, doing psychology, understanding, investing in psychology and sport too as a side note. But yeah, so I believe it was like Lou Hardy and his colleagues interviewed 30 different athletes 15, which they said were I think they call them elites, so folks that had made like national teams, had, you know, been on professional, played professional sport, and then 15 that they called super elite, and these were folks that were multiple medalists.
Speaker 2:And we're trying to figure out what was the defining differences, or are there any themes or patterns between you know, somebody who makes who's really freaking good and somebody who's really really, really freaking good. You know and there was many pieces that came out of it Again, a lot of the themes that we were already talking about that there there was, you know, this obsessional drive. There's professional perfectionism, higher traits of narcissism, if you will, because you know you're you have to concentrate sometimes and block everything else out. And the other interesting finding was I can't remember the stats off the top of my head, but it was something like 13 out of 15. So almost all 15 super elites had had multiple childhood stressors and I think it was like three out of 15 of the elites had childhood stressors and I think it was like three out of 15 of the elites had childhood stressors. And so this I think they didn't really highlight this finding like as much, but other researchers like pick this up as like does talent need trauma? And I think the debate is still very open because it's like what one person's stressor and trauma is will affect somebody else's nervous system completely different.
Speaker 2:But there is to me, as I understand this, like there is an interesting correlation between, correlation between surviving stressors and especially, most especially, if you have like a safe support to help you or, like you know, a good coach or supportive parents to help you through it, that you would be better at dealing with the stressors and the ups and downs of a sporting career. So that is kind of like how I conceptualize it. But I think where I'm doing the, I want to kind of continue on that research is okay. So that makes you a high performer in these really highly stressful situations. But what does that look like on the back end? Are you just, as we call it in psychology like sublimating. So are you just kind of again using that high octane fuel over and over again in this high stress environment and does that have more wear and tear on your mental and physical health on the back end is that's kind of like. My question is yeah, like how are retired athletes well-being on the back end who've had these multiple stressors?
Speaker 1:and what's your hypothesis, then, of that?
Speaker 2:yeah. So I think that you know we were all very human. We are not. Even if you are a sporting god, you are not immune to stressors. There are so many benefits to participating in sport, but that does not negate, that does not negate traumas and stressors. And so I think that folks who have had multiple stressors and have not processed them or have not gotten support processing them with, like you know, an expert other whether that's like a pastor, a therapist, you know, a good coach can perhaps maybe be that person. So if they haven't helped process these stressors then, yeah, it will have wear and tear on the back end of a sporting career.
Speaker 1:That's powerful and wonderful to be studying that and to be, even if chipping away even a small bit in understanding the impact of long-term of stressors on athletes and and the impact it has or how that might play out on the back end. I think shining a light on that is absolutely wonderful and hence why we're talking forever whilst we're discovering this, because it is certainly a passion of of mine as well to try and get that understanding it. It does make me think and I think one of the consistent threads across, I'll say, every athlete statistically valid or not, but every athlete who's come on here and spoken, always talks about the value of having a strong support structure. So having someone in your corner, having family, friends or loved ones to speak with, someone who, they'll say, kept me grounded, somebody who looked after me when I was having tough times, gave me the sofa to lay on when I hit rock bottom Nearly everybody, if not everyone, has brought about the importance of a community or a support structure to help them with this transition absolutely like.
Speaker 2:I think that is one of the biggest, as we call them, like protective factors, like of having better mental and physical health on the back end. I mean, if you think about it again, it's not going through this life. It's like you don't, you don't want to die without any scars. It's like I think that's a Fight Club reference.
Speaker 1:But it's yours.
Speaker 2:But seriously, like you know, I mean it is that's part of the human experience to go to have immense joy and then also to experience, you know, immense sadness and you know you never wish tragedy upon anyone, but it really is. It's not about avoiding tragedy because that will just happen, but it's like how can you get back into rhythm? And community is the best way. You can borrow somebody else's rhythm, you can borrow their sofa bed. I found that so much in rowing, like when there's days where I was just overtrained, overcooked and I was like I'm just gonna, kind of I just have to show up and I'm going to lean on somebody else bringing the rhythm today and I'm going to fall into their rhythm and I don't have to create it, I just have to show up and be there. And that actually helps strengthen them in some ways, because then they can lead and then other days they can borrow my rhythm. But I think that's the beauty of community.
Speaker 1:I do love that. Yeah, it's quite powerful, or the way you describe it, because I can see it in a boat. I can see eight or nine people in that boat. I can see the eight rowing and I can envisage one of them having an off training session and thinking you know what? My brain isn't here, but the beat's going. I just got to keep to it until it stops and tomorrow's gonna be better. I'm gonna get through this and you get to rely on somebody and let them carry you over the water. Yeah, I see it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's, it's like. That was like. One of the biggest reliefs that I realized in my training career is that I did not have to be the best, especially every day, like I, and nor was I the fastest person on the team. All I had to do was be consistent, show up and also make sure everybody around me was having a good, good day, or at least a better day, and so I put a lot more energy into making people around me fast. Of course, I, you know, like I no-transcript under physiology compared to my peers, and so I knew that if I could increase their rhythm, that my rhythm, you know, we would all benefit.
Speaker 1:You know, in that that benefit you. You know, as you were just ending there, you would all benefit. It almost makes me change a little mantra that I had in my head, which is about bringing your best every day. There's almost a there's a fine tune, it's almost's almost saying. Actually, the sentence is incomplete, it needs a bit more context. So it's not necessarily bring you be the best every day, but it is set your standard be consistent and show up, and that perhaps is a definition of being your best every day. But it is setting that standard and being consistent and meeting that. There you go you just gave me a brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's just.
Speaker 2:I love that connection.
Speaker 1:It's a bit different, but on that. So I'm curious then about you. So as you then come into college, we talk about that to the extent it was planned or not, that five year trajectory to get you into that Olympic team. But when you came into college and you got in that boat, joined the crew, what did you aspire to achieve?
Speaker 2:I was on the prize, no doubt about it. Yeah, Again, as I kind of referenced earlier, that seed was planted because of the women before me. I cannot emphasize enough that being great or for me like being great at rowing and being great at sport was skill, but it was absolutely timing. It was timing because women before me fought hard for Title IX and gave me this opportunity. It was timing because the women on the national team before me trained their asses off and believed in themselves enough to like make the podium, and so that allowed me to have this focus to go after the gold medal with my teammates.
Speaker 1:And so how did it feel when you achieved the gold medal?
Speaker 2:Simple question hard to answer um.
Speaker 2:Tell me more yeah, I am been evolving how I answer this, because it to me like I just remember looking over at my teammates and seeing them jumping for joy, and you know what it seemed like tears of joy, like it just over overwhelmed with emotion, and I felt this. I was crying as well, but I also felt this, like felt this shock, but also this sense of loss, and I was like what is this? This is not what I anticipated. I just won.
Speaker 2:Like how can I feel loss when I just not I, we did what we set out to do? Yeah, and so that was a very curious feeling for me. I think, yeah, as I kind of reflect on it more now and again, understanding a little bit more about human psyche and how we can feel multiple emotions, we try to condense it into one. But like, yeah, I think there was joy in there, but I think there was also a bit of grief, because I did again like I did not want those moments in the boat with my teammates to stop, because standing on the podium felt like a finish line, like an ultimate finish line. I was like, nope, I'm not ready for that, so I went back for another so okay, so again I'll ask that simple question then.
Speaker 1:So when you got the second one, how did you feel after that?
Speaker 2:similar, similar. I felt very similar, similar. There was actually more of a relief. I mean, we were racing from. I mean we were ahead the whole race. I attribute that to the front of the boat, they had wonderful front end drive, but we were the underdogs. We were the underdogs and this was in 2008 in Beijing, because Romania had won. I think it was 24 years no-transcript, besides through sport, and I knew if I. Well, there's two things I knew if I stopped, that would be really hard because it was like such again, I felt like I was put on this earth to like kind of express myself through movement. But two, I was like I know I need to, I know I need to stop because I lifetime is short and I need to figure out can I speak another language? Can I, can I contribute to this world in a different way? So that's been a journey.
Speaker 1:On that journey, the starting point of that journey. At what point did you start to think well, this is it, I'm not doing another cycle, I'm going to stop competing at this level.
Speaker 2:It was very clear to me on the podium. To be honest, I was like I'm done, like. If this does not feel satisfying or satiating, then it's time to allow, it's time to pass the baton, it's time to let somebody else have this experience and so what did you do when that that sense came over?
Speaker 1:And I guess not the reflection part, but I'm interested in like you went here okay, this is done. What did you do next?
Speaker 2:part. But I'm interested in. Like you went yeah, okay, this is done. What did you do next?
Speaker 1:like in the, the moments afterwards, or like after well, yeah, after the, after the games, and you're coming home and or you are and it's like okay, this is it, we're done. To give the context, because I think for many athletes, when we reflect, we can give a story and say so, I did this and it felt like that, but actually what I really did was nothing. I just hid, I went missing for six months or I didn't know what to do. I Googled what do I do when I stop playing or stop training, and saw what that answer did. So when you think back to that moment, what did you do?
Speaker 2:I, um, I feel so much relief and validation even from hearing that, because that that is. That is, um, you know what I, what I did. I went back home and you know I would go out and you know, do motivational speaking or some gigs, but that was. It was so hard, so so hard to get out of bed and I remember Googling post Olympic. I don't even remember exactly what it was, but yeah, this was the era. I think this was the first games. There was a little bit of YouTube around, a little bit of social media, but like nobody was talking about the backend of the Olympics, like nobody feels sorry for especially an athlete that just won a gold medal. It's like, what do you do? Like why am?
Speaker 1:I feeling so shitty yeah.
Speaker 2:And I remember coming across I believe it was after 2012, coming across a article by Amanda Beard, who was like a swimming phenom in the US and she started. I think she was like I don't know one of like the 14, maybe 15 year olds that started. She like brought in this, like little bear I think it was like the 96 games that she went and she would bring like this transitional object, like stuff bear, with her to out onto the starting blocks and I was like okay, but that was like she talked about how difficult it was for her on the back end and it was like a blog, I think, when those were still a thing. But yeah, and I that was the only thing I could find and I was like, okay, so nobody else is experiencing this, so I better just like just hush up about it and figure it out.
Speaker 1:yeah, and, to be sure, the hardest thing for you. At that time you said it was hard getting up doing the motivational, doing the circuit. What did you find hard?
Speaker 2:Everything Like it. It just it felt like I can put words to it now, but it you can label it as depression, but I think what? Because it was like, yeah, I just all I wanted to do was sleep. I would maybe walk around a little bit during the day, go outside, but didn't want to talk to anybody. It was like a big withdrawal from everybody around me. And I, as I understand it now there is words for it Like the.
Speaker 2:I think you I saw you had Stacey on a stitz on your podcast, yeah, and I think she, she did her college thesis on like this post Olympic syndrome, which I had actually never heard that or sometimes it's referred to as like post Olympic depression, but as I understand it now from more of like a neuroscience perspective, it's sympathetic. Saturation, like your nervous system is overloaded. You just potentiated, you know. And again, I think the hopeful thing and maybe it's not hopeful, but the hard thing is that it doesn't matter what you achieve, if you did not perform or if you performed your best, you just potentiated.
Speaker 2:You know you were just on the stage, you're getting all this. You've trained in the darkness, if you will, and then you, you're out here, you get this full on hardcore, like overstimulation from everything at the Olympics, and then it's lights out again, like from the cumulative stressors of training, from the stressors of just being performing at the Olympics, and perhaps from personal life stressors. Those things kind of peak and you potentiate and then, of course, your system's going to have to go into depression in order to recalibrate. So yeah, I mean I feel like I can tell I talk about it more like from a science-y background because it was hard, like it was so gnarly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, listen, the perspective you bring and the vocabulary that you can now use to it is great because, you said it earlier, it gives validation. You know people feel it and it's like am I the only one who feels this? Being on the show, sharing now is certainly helping a community of athletes actually non-athletes recognize hey, it's not just me. And hearing you now describe it in I'm just going to say it in a science-y way makes it really cool. It gives it a yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all right. This, this actually happens. There are emotions flowing through the body at this point, or not emotions I mean adrenaline, chemicals, that type of thing.
Speaker 1:Uh, there's a chemical reaction actually taking place totally yeah so how did you get to where you are now then? So you went through that phase, or you're going through that phase, that gnarly phase. What steps did you take to move out of it, to kind of get to where you are today?
Speaker 2:Such an important question and something that I hesitate to talk about, because I took a windy road and I hope I think this is one of my hopes and figuring out a way to better support people to do it better than I did.
Speaker 2:I think one of the smartest things I did was go.
Speaker 2:I sought mental health professional just like an expert observer that could kind of like help me, just would listen but also give me feedback from a objective standpoint or as objective as they could be, and that was that was very helpful.
Speaker 2:I think one of the mistakes I made was I wanted to be sure that they had a sports background, because I was positive that if any psychologist like would talk to me, they would. They would pathologize me and be like what's wrong with you, you know like you know you're, you're just, you were hyper focused on going backwards in a boat, I don't know. I just had this like this thought that a regular psychologist could not understand what I was going through and that was absolutely false. So I think one of well and, to be sure, like I took some trying on and like it took multiple different therapists to really find a good fit for me and and help me feel comfortable enough to really start exploring again these other insecurities I've been carrying along in my backpack with me everywhere I went and so that I feel like that definitely influenced me getting into the clinical psychology world to learn how to be a better listener, be a better teammate and guide for somebody going through a really hard transition.
Speaker 1:So how do you get into clinical psychology? You talk about it being this winding road, which is great. Everyone loves it. There isn't. It's very rarely a linear path to anything. To be honest, I think only birds, only birds, travel that way. So for you then, traveling the more human winding path, how'd you get into it? Was that a right clinical psychology? Here I go.
Speaker 2:No, again, like I, we didn't really talk about feelings in my family. I don't know if that might resonate with any of your listeners, but it was like all right, dust it off, kid, like get back out there, which was again helpful for to for me to fit in in some of these competitive spaces, if you will. But yeah, there wasn't room for my emotional life growing up and so I just the way I metabolized it was through movement and so I did not want to see a psychologist, I did not want to do anything, I definitely didn't had no aspirations of, you know, training to be one. But I think what really what was one of the like impetus, like liminal moments, was when I was actually a coach and I continue to see athletes who would get chronically injured that was kind of what I specialized in is athletes who I had a career, surprise, surprise that I just pushed really hard and would get be chronically injured but figure out how to come back. And so I was working with a lot of athletes who were struggling, you know, to get to get healthy again so they can get back to the team, and I just saw so much of what they were, what other things they were struggling with.
Speaker 2:What was, you know, perhaps leading to this obsessive need to compete, and you know and again, we all have our soft spots and what they might be avoiding by continuing to compete rather than retire. And so, in seeing these, in seeing this in in athletes that I was training and then also, you know, mentoring some of my dearest friends and teammates, like I was like I want to figure out how to help people, be better support to people, Cause again, like that was, I could hear myself talking to them Like I don't know what's going on. You got to figure this out and before you come practice tomorrow, so show up to your full self, your best self, tomorrow. Like figure it out, kid. I was like who is it? Like that was how I would talk to myself and it doesn't, you know, surprise, it didn't work but it also didn't resonate with you.
Speaker 1:There was, it sounds like even though you were saying this because that's what coaches say, you were were like hold on. This isn't quite right.
Speaker 2:It didn't work on share Well and, to be sure, some of the people that I coached were some of my teammates before, so I had some context of knowing from as a friend, like knowing what they were going through and knowing what these buttons were and how, what their hot octane fuel was to be like. You know whether you think you're not good enough or you're doing it for somebody who you know had passed and you know that was, this was their dying wish. It was like these are hot button things that absolutely can make you go fast and win gold medals and can be very dangerous and unfulfilling to continue to reinforce. And that was where I was like hold on, like I don't want to keep pushing my athletes, my friends, people that I really admired. I want to understand why people are doing what they do and how to help them have a healthier way of being involved in things that they love.
Speaker 1:It takes a lot of courage in yourself to recognize there's a better way to drive or to motivate individuals and using the high octane approach isn't necessarily the most healthy for them. As a person and I get a sense that you know that helped you to think about what happens in the back end, to think about okay, this is dangerous. You're seeing your friends, former teammates, your athletes burn out either before they've achieved or after they've achieved, but, like you said, it has that same impact on them emotionally and physically. That does take a lot of courage, I would say, for you to actually make that shift thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that was one of the biggest things. The other one was I continued to stay in the human I guess we could call it human performance business and you know coaching, you know everyday athletes too, and I saw how dysregulated people would get when I was sick or like when I couldn't show up. So again, when they couldn't get that instant hit of feedback, like to be sure, we were like we had ran a programming site and so would sell programming and so if the site went down, like people would flip out if they didn't have their structure or they didn't have this, and so it just made me really question a lot I'm like is why I still believe in the beauty of sport, and obviously there's so much to back that like movement and exercise is healthy, like is there a ceiling, is there a threshold for it being healthy? And how some people use movement to avoid difficult feelings because it kind of numb it. If you're really going hard, it kind of numbs you out, right yes, it does, it does.
Speaker 1:There's one of these things there in sport and high performance, like we said, is that the healthy side of the individual there's, doing things in a healthy way, which because, as you said, as part of the work you're doing now, that athletes are still human, the athletes are still human.
Speaker 2:So, after it all, after all of that, you have a human at the end of it, and what's best then for that human, both mentally and physically, is this, I guess, is this fine balance, a fine balance, and each generation of sport is trying to figure out what that is as we continue to go faster, further and all those types of things I'm so glad you mentioned that, because I have so much admiration for the, the athletes, like the active athletes and even a lot of the retired athletes who are who have been a lot more open about their journey, and so, you know, there's this kind of like phrase of like they don't hide the ladder, if you will, of like how they got there, and so they're actually showing that, yeah, I am struggling and that's, that's normal. You can still do hard things if you're struggling too, and I think that is such a powerful message and, yeah, I'll be. I'll be interested how that influences the next generation of athletes, cause, you know, when I was growing up, it was like, nope, we're all, we only want the highlights.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's it. Don't talk about that, just keep going. Um, you know, don't tell me just to show me off. You go, off, you go. Yes, and that's that In terms of where you are now. When you look back at your career and your transition, when you're now speaking with an athlete who's on their way up, someone who aspires to achieve what you achieved athletically, what advice or what guidance do you give them to help them in their back end or, in that, to find their second wind in life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the the number one thing is exactly what we're just talking about Normalize that, like if you're not feeling OK, that's OK, you just put your body, your heart, your soul through a big training session, you know a big training round if you will. And so to kind of what's really resonated with people that I've talked to recently is talk about it as far as like a training cycle. Right, In order to get the most out of your, your training, you have to recover, and the recovery feels shitty sometimes, Right, Um, you know I always hated tapering because it was like when you could start feeling again. But with that like, yes, after you put your, after you ask a lot of your body, it's going to need some time to recalibrate. And so, in order to help kind of ease that calibration period, there's like I've been framing it in a way that I borrow this from there's a wonderful psychotherapist over here, Esther Perel, and she kind of would talk to her. She mentioned the way that she helps frame how to kind of like help recover through.
Speaker 2:Something is in, down and out, and so, in being the basics Athletes are usually really good at this Like to calibrate. You need to sleep, you need to eat well, you need to sleep, you need to eat well, you need some movement, and so these three things are like non-negotiables, Because if you don't kind of have that foundation, everything else is going to. Your body's going to have a harder time recovering and recalibrating the down is the harder part. This is like convincing somebody they need to stretch, add stretching to their training program. It's like not the sexy part, but you gotta like, you gotta dig in and do some of this psychological, emotional work. You know and it doesn't have to be with a therapist there's so many other wonderful ways to heal. But you know, I have yet to meet an athlete that has not either had a personal period of personal stressors, time where they went through like some immense personal stressors, or a period where there was immense sports stressors, or a combination of both usually.
Speaker 2:So how can you kind of process that? Again, some people are on it, some people are doing that while they're actively competing, but some of it you just can't really bring up or it's not going to come to the surface level while you're still competing. So, figuring out how to like, really allow yourself to process some of the pieces that you've been through and really integrate your story and, to be sure, this down part is part of like frame. This will really help you figure out what you might want to do next. But I think sometimes this part gets skipped over, like let's build your CV before you can kind of like finish the story.
Speaker 2:I think, yes, getting a job is especially for Olympic athletes is absolutely necessary because you don't have those financial resources usually. But in order to really figure out what you want to do next, that's meaningful you have to dig in and go down before you build your CV, and then out is something that you place to ask for help and also give feels like it's not going to feel good because, again, you can borrow somebody else's rhythm. You can borrow somebody else's rhythm for a moment. So, yeah, I think those are the things that have been resonating and I think also the things that I wish I had done and heard from along my journey.
Speaker 1:I mean, I have to say, by through this conversation and being on the show with me, you certainly are contributing back to community and you know the the greater sporting society as well by sharing your story, bringing your perspective to well, how it began, how you won the Olympic medals and certainly the the challenges that you've had to transition and find your second wind as well. So I want to say a massive thanks for sharing your journey with me today. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, this is. This has been such a pleasure and it's been so, so easy to share and I, I am just so grateful for you for creating a platform like this Cause. Again, I think, think, yeah, I think having knowing that you're not alone and hearing other people's stories can help you kind of create, create yours and and your next step. So thank you for, yeah, your constant contribution to athletes on the back end and, yeah, knowing seeing that there's still a lot of value in athletes, even after sports?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, aaron, thank you. Thank you for listening to the Second Wind podcast. We hope you enjoyed hearing insights from today's athlete on transitioning out of competitive careers. If you're looking for career clarity for your next step, make sure you check out secondwindio for more information or to book a consultation with me secondwindio for more information or to book a consultation with me.
Speaker 1:I'd like to thank Claire from Betty Brook Design, Nancy from Savvy Podcast Solutions and Cerise from Copying Content by Lola for their help in putting this podcast together. That's all from me. Take it easy Until next time.
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