#78 - Sasha Cohen: The price of achievement, and redefining success

Foreign. Hey everyone. Welcome to the Peter Attia Drive. I'm your host, Peter Attia. The Drive is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking, along with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working with some of the most successful, top performing individuals in the world, and this podcast is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality, more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information on today's episode and other topics@peterattiamd.com. Hey everybody. Welcome to this week's episode of the Drive. I'd like to take a couple of minutes to talk about why we don't run ads on this podcast and why instead we've chosen to rely entirely on listener support. If you're listening to this, you probably already know, but the two things I care most about professionally are how to live longer and how to live better. 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Again, the podcast will remain free to all, but my hope is that many of you will find enough value in 1 the podcast itself, and 2 the additional content, exclusive for members to support us at a level that makes sense for you. I want to thank you for taking a moment to listen to this. If you learn from and find value in the content I produce, please consider supporting us directly by signing up for a monthly subscription. My guest this week is Sasha Cohen. For those of you who may not recognize her name, she's an American figure skating legend. In fact, the last female, I believe to win a medal in figure skating, she was a silver medalist in the 2006 Olympics. And I don't waste any time in this episode going straight to that moment because on some levels it is one of the most remarkable parts of her story, frankly, and I don't want to sort of spoil the story. But needless to say, if you only watch one video from all of the videos or anything we talk about in this talk, that's the one you want to see. And I actually, frankly, this might be one of those times where I recommend you before you even listen to the podcast, you go to the video of the final for the long program in the 2006 Olympics and you watch this six minute video, seven minute video, whatever it is, obviously it's linked to in the show notes. But for those of you who aren't subscribers and don't get the show notes, I still want you to be able to go see this video because that's exactly where I go to at the outset of this discussion. We then work our way a little bit backwards and talk about her life growing up and how she was able to channel and focus all of her insecurity into becoming such a great skater. But much more importantly, we talk about this life post skating for her. And I think in many ways, Sasha is kind of a remarkable example of how a person can remake themselves from being completely focused on one thing and having their entire identity tied up in one thing and moving past it. And again, I think what comes across here is the just maturity and wisdom of a person who is remarkably adept at understanding the hollowness, the shallowness of achievements. For me, certainly this is something that just really resonated to be, to be able to hear her talk about this. So even though, again, we're talking to a former world champion Olympian superstar, there's a lot in this episode for normal people like us who aren't that way. And again, we explore the depths of depression. You know, we talk about the statistics of how many Olympians go on to suffer depression. And I talk about her involvement in a project that's meant to bring a lot of awareness to this. We talk about a lot of other things as well. So without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Sacha Cohen. Sasha, thanks so much for coming over.

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited for this.

There's so much I want to talk with you about. And this, as I was saying, even before interviewing somebody, you get to know a lot more about them than you may have known before. It sort of accelerates your learning about a person in the weeks leading up to the interview. I mean, if you're sort of doing your homework, which you obviously want to be doing, you're learning so much more. And I think I Forgot, you know, 2006 is a long time ago. On some levels, it doesn't seem like that's that long ago. It's like, gosh, 2006, like, I sort of remember that, but. But you realize, oh, that's 13 years ago. And to go back and watch the footage of the Olympics, I sort of forgot a few things because I sort of remember watching that at the time. I mean, as every Olympic athlete knows, that's the time when the rest of the country Completely stops what they're doing to focus on sports that aren't football, basketball, baseball, hockey. But I was really blown away by what has to be one of the more challenging and yet remarkable achievements of your athletic career. And I say that because it's a small footnote to what I think will be the broader arc of your life, which we'll talk about. But I want to, for a moment, go right there and then back up and give people some context about the sport of figure skating. But take us to the 2006 Olympics. You were favored. What was the expectation for you after being a 17 year old almost making the podium? I think you were fourth in 2002, correct?

Correct. It was my second games and I was one of the favorites going in. There was strong competitors also from Japan and from Russia. And it's a moment in your life where it's rare as a figure skater or a gymnast or in certain sports to go to one Olympics, let alone two. And so you know that most likely this will be your last Games. And figure skating, the ladies competition, is at the very, very end of the Olympics. And so the whole two weeks before, you know, most everyone is gone, the Olympic Village has turned into just a party scene. And Sodom and Gomorrah. Exactly. So generally, the figure skaters are not staying in the village. We're isolated. Perhaps we're missing opening ceremonies to really focus in and hone on this one moment that we've spent our whole life, basically since we were toddlers, training for. It was difficult because six months before I was flying high, I was in the best physical shape, mental shape. I was very, very strong. And then over that winter, I had a series of injuries, equipment problems, and it was really tough because I was going into the Olympics and not feeling prepared. And I've said that it feels like you have to walk a pirate's plank. And you know that you kind of have to just jump into the sharks and you don't feel prepared or equipped to handle it. But. But the show must go on and you have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. So that was kind of the mental state that I was in. Even if you're in the best shape of your life, it's still the enormity of the Games. And this, these few minutes you have to fulfill a lifelong dream is just immense pressure.

Now, is that different from the pressure you feel in 2002 when nobody knows you and it's amazing that you're there? I mean, how much of what you just said is not Just the fact that you're going to the Olympics, but that you're going to the Olympics as.

A favorite, I think definitely going in as a favorite, you just. So a 17 year old brain and a 21 year old brain are a little bit different. And my first Olympics was actually my first huge international competition. I'd never been to a world championship, so I was thrilled to make the team. I was competing on my home soil in Utah and Salt Lake City and I went to opening ceremonies and I was just like a kid in a candy shop. And it was just incredible how Salt Lake was transformed. So it was pretty magical. And of course I was nervous in these moments, but the spotlight was really on these favorites and that were duking it out. And I was disappointed that I, you know, was close to a medal but didn't medal in Salt Lake. But really when it came to Italy, I felt, in 2006, I felt all eyes were on me. And this is, this is the moment that I've been waiting for to redeem myself from four years back. And I'm not at my best. I'm not ready. As an athlete, you're generally homeschooled and you're analyzing videos and you're training and you're spending your whole life planning like four years out. And so you're always analyzing every little thing you might have done wrong or how you could do something better. And I couldn't help thinking like, how am I here about to compete in the Olympics and I'm not prepared? What did I do wrong? And I think something that I've learned a lot about myself since then is that we can't control everything. And as athletes we think we can, that we can control and prevent any injury that might arise or any equipment problems. And it's very hard to admit to yourself that you can't control everything because that's what you've spent your whole life trying to do. That's what's up to you.

Does anybody else in your really inner circle, and I'm guessing at this point your mom and your coach are probably the two closest people to you when it comes to what you could be feeling. Is that a fair statement?

Yes. Mainly my mom. You know, she was the one that, that came with me to all my competitions, took me to the rink and physical therapy and off ice since I was 7 years old. So we really bonded and she was, she was probably the only one I was super vulnerable to to the outside world. It was, I'm fine. I've been training, I'm prepared. You don't want to admit weakness. It's like everyone's a shark and they can smell blood. And so you're always putting on this brave face, and it's kind of a fake it till you make it. Because if you show fear, you give others confidence and you undermine yourself.

When did the Olympic trials take place for figure skating?

They're usually in early to mid January, and then the Olympics are kind of the middle, like, kind of early to the end of February.

So it's very close to the Olympic Games.

Yeah, about a month.

So how did you do in the trials? I mean. I mean, how did you do in terms of what was your position? Obviously, we know you made it to the Olympic team, but how did you feel at the trials, and what did that do to your confidence?

I was going in with the flu, and I had a high fever. So I had missed a week of training going in. And so I was pretty weak and frail, but I managed to skate well. I won that national championship, but it wasn't this really strong at my height showing. And then after that, it proceeded not to get better, but to get worse in my training at home with other injuries going into the Games, where I was in physical therapy every day and had ionophoresis on my inner thighs. And it was just a tough place to be because you want to train harder, but then you push yourself and you become more injured and you set yourself back. And so it's just this delicate balance of trying to navigate.

So let's explain to folks how this program works. Most people sort of know there were a couple of different skates. There's a short and a long. The long is sometimes referred to as the free skate as well. What are the parameters involved?

The short program is usually 2 minutes and 50 seconds. There's three jumping passes. There's a footwork sequence, a spiral sequence, and 3 spins. And the long program is a little over 4 minutes, 4, 10. And the rules keep changing, but at the time that I was competing, I think you're allowed eight jumping passes, and you could do jumps in combination as well as requirements of 3 to 4 spins and then a footwork sequence and a spiral sequence as well. But there's more flexibility in terms of if you do a combination or you don't do a combination. And it's all about trying at the time that I was competing to aggregate.

More and more points at the end of a short program. So there are how many judges?

You're testing my memory now. So different competitions vary, but I Believe it's usually nine. And there's a backup judge got it.

And it's like some. It's. It up to six points. Is that the most?

It used to be a 6.0 system that shifted in the early, early 2000s. And by the time that I was competing, no one really knew what their score meant until they compared it to someone else's score because every competition would have new highs. And. And it was. It was all relative, but it was. There was no cap to how high you could go. And so you didn't know if your score was the best score until you compared it to others.

Got it at the end of the short program, which I assume is sort of done in reverse order of favorites, such that the. Which we don't get a sense of when you're watching this on TV because you're not actually watching every single person there. But how many women would have skated in the short program?

For example, they eliminate after the short program. So I believe it could have been up to 30 people in the short program, but it's a random draw for the short program only. The long program is done based on results in the short program and in groups of six. So it's not a complete reverse of order, but it's in six and you draw. And then after the short program, I think the people like the last six places are eliminated. So then when you go into the long program, it's more like 24 skaters. And this is. This is rough approximations.

It is still amazing. We'll come back to this in more detail. But it's sort of hard for mere mortals like me to even understand what it means to make an Olympic team or in a time sport, to even make an Olympic stand. You know, there are some countries in the U.S. we take this for granted, but there are many countries where you don't even have to. You just have to make the Olympic standard and you get to go like. There are so few athletes that could even do that in a given event, like a running event, for example. It is sort of hard to believe that all of the athletes in the world are winnowed down to 20, 24, 30, whatever it is, and then away you go. So going into this, would you say your strength was more on the short program than the long program or how did these differ? I mean, the difference in duration must obviously pos. A different physiologic stress. What are the other differences between them from the standpoint of the athlete? Either. Either it be mentally or physiologically.

I think the Short program, the margin for error is zero. There's fewer elements. And so if you make one mistake, you really drop in the ranks. And if you make two, it's just, you can put yourself out of the running for a medal. And the long program, it's definitely more for some people, it can be more mental, it's longer, there's more elements, but there's more of an opportunity to take risk, to try harder elements. And different athletes tend to favor different formats. I tended to like the short program format more. It was more condensed, more fiery. And I think it's just very different depending on what kind of athlete you are. Like you're saying there's more endurance and play in the long program, mentally and physically. And there's also a finality to it. Whereas in gymnastics, events are usually standalone, in figure skating, the short and long program are combined. So you're setting the stage with a short program, but it's by no means final. And it's not weighted as heavily as the long program is weighted. For some people, they see it as more pressure because you can't make a mistake. And in some ways it's less pressure because it doesn't count for as much as the long. And it's just, it's everyone kind of getting initiated and seeing where you rank.

You were first coming out of the short program in 2006. How did you feel? I mean, you're probably your own harshest critic. How did you judge your performance in that short program?

It certainly wasn't my strongest short program that I had done, but considering the level of preparation that I had going in my mental confidence, I was thrilled with it because I hadn't done a clean. And clean means making no mistakes. I hadn't done a clean short program in weeks. I had struggled to even do full run throughs because I was nursing injuries and just really struggling. So I think I skated towards the end, if not last, after my competitors had skated good programs. And there's this immensity that you feel in the air and knowing that this moment has arrived and you're not ready. And so when I went out there and ended up landing my three different jumping passes and making it to the end, I was just exuberant and thrilled and relieved. And then when I saw my name on the leaderboard and I was in first place, I couldn't believe it. It was a thrill. And it's a temporary victory, right? So you have one day off and then you're back to a long program. But in that moment, I was, I was triumphant.

So how did you spend that day between the short and the long program?

I had actually strained my, my leg during my performance. And so I had decided to take the day in between off in order to be fresher and to not continue to exasperate the injury in between the short and long programs, which really confused everyone because no one skips a practice. You get 40 minutes a day and people are used to training for hours at home. So people just jump all over that time.

Oh, I never even thought of that. So of course you now have whatever the 20, 24 skaters that now have one day to get ready for the long program. And you're not going to put them all on the ice at the same time. So Everybody gets their 40 minute block and you're not showing up for yours.

I'm not showing up for mine. And that certainly confused people. The idea was, is that your decision.

Or your coach's decision?

I think it was a joint decision. The physical therapist was coming to see me a few times a day. It seemed like a good decision. Again, I think you always second guess everything in hindsight, but considering where I was and how injured I was at the time, it did seem like the best decision because at a certain point you've done everything so many times that it's how you feel physically which really informs how you feel mentally in the moment that you step out to perform.

You step onto the ice. Now for the long program, you know, I've watched that video many times. It's hard because when you're watching it now on video, knowing the outcome, it's different than watching it live. And truthfully, I can't tell you that I see in your face any reduction in confidence. I can say I do because that's the narrative I'd place over it. What do you see when you go and watch yourself? First of all, do you go back and watch that?

It took me a very long time to watch it. I believe, I believe it took me a few years before I ever watched it. I was in an acting program and one of my classmates found out that I was a skater and watched my performance. And it was so dramatic and it's so great and we should watch it together. I'm like, I'm not watching it with you. So he finally convinced me to watch it with him. But even though I didn't do the warmup, the longer 40 minute warmup, there's a five or six minute warmup before you skate. And during that warmup, I fell on jumps that I usually don't fall on. And I fell on a triple flip in the warmup, and I fell on a triple lutz. And it just. I think it really shook me. Figure skating is a sport where you're jumping, and if you hesitate for a millisecond, you throw off a whole timing of a jump. And going into that program, I knew, wow, I just fell on things I don't normally fall on in my warmup. And now I'm going out, and this is it. Everything that I've prepared for. This is my second chance. This is my. This is my moment. And I don't know what's going to happen, and I'm not as prepared as I want to be. But again, you can't admit any of this to yourself. It's all gets buried and compacted deep within you. And so you go out and you just try to stay in the moment. So getting ready. All you need to do right now is put on makeup. All you need to do is put on your pants. All you need to do is get on the bus. All you need to do is jog around the arena and keep it simple. Because the enormity of the expectation and everything you need to do and the crowds cheering can really unravel you. And so I think that's a training and a skill set that you develop over years of competing. And when I went out and when I started, it was a surprise to me when I fell on my first jump. And you partially register it. And I partially register just this kind of hush from the arena.

This was the first one, the triple lutz.

The first one was the triple lutz combination that I thought.

Explain. For folks who haven't watched figure skating much, I don't know that I know I could recognize the lutz. I don't know how I would describe it.

So you're skating, usually taking most of the rink to prepare and gaining speed, skating backwards. And people jump both ways. But for me, I would be skating backwards on my left foot, on my outside edge with my right foot in the air. And then my right foot would reach behind me and tap kind of like a pole vault. And then I would begin. I would jump and begin to rotate counterclockwise. It's considered one of the harder triple jumps, and the triple axel is the hardest.

We'll come back to the triple axel because I don't think a woman has ever landed a quad axel. Has that ever been done yet?

I don't think a man has ever landed a quadrant.

Oh, I thought a Man has landed a quad axle. Well, maybe I'm thinking a man's done a triple, but a woman's not done a triple.

Midori Ito done a triple axel. And then I think in the team competition, Mirai Nagasu has done a triple axel. But I believe that was not in the ladies, not in the singles.

Okay, got it. But you're saying it's possible a man has never landed a quad axle either, then I don't know why I thought.

Not that I know of. They. They do all the other.

Elvis Stoico had done a quad, but.

Maybe he's done a quad, but not a quad axle.

Got it.

That would be four and a half.

Yeah.

Turns.

Well, we'll want to come back to all of that because, you know, growing up in Canada, figure skating is, you know, along with hockey, it is a sport we paid a lot of attention to growing up. And there were some great Canadian figure skaters.

Elvis and Kurt were icons.

Just to put this in context, like, I'm still struggling to understand how one trains for this because I can't imagine, like you go to a practice and you would do that whole 4 minute, 10 second routine by itself, Right? I mean, wouldn't you practice by breaking that down into short segments and doing those and working on the transitions as opposed to just going through the whole thing?

You would do both. There would be a lot of emphasis placed on the whole run through and then mocking competition conditions. So that might mean you go into a five minute warmup, you get off the ice at home and you wait and then you go out and no one else on the ice and you have to go. Someone's press presses play for you versus getting to restart or skating with everyone else and taking 30 minutes to warm up. And then you'll also just repeatedly train segments. And sometimes it could be the beginning and the end or maybe just at the beginning three times in a row to work on cardio and stamina. And so you're. You're trying to train yourself mentally, you're trying to train physically so that stamina isn't an issue when you're at the end and everyone's a little different. And that's. I think the thing that was always so tough for me is there's no. There was no formula. And with some people, more was better, and for other people, more means you break and then you ultimately set yourself back. And so it was always this tough push pull of am I being lazy or am I being smart? And sometimes that, you know, the person, something inside was just Like, I'm not sure, but I have to do this again and again and again, and then you end up injured, and then you feel like an idiot because now you have to take a week off. But that was a very hard balance for me because I did get injured easily.

One of the things that has always amazed me about figure skating, and again, your fall in that triple lutz at the outset of the long program was yet another remarkable example of it to me, is the ability that the skater has to immediately resume the choreography as though nothing happened. And that amazes me for two reasons. The first is physically, anthropometrically, meaning where you are in space can't be predicted by a fall. So it's one thing to go through a series of movements and do them perfectly every time, and therefore know exactly where you're going to be that next moment. It's quite another thing when you fall. And you're never going to fall exactly the same way twice. So every time you fall, you're going to land in a different position slightly or roll into a different position. And yet you have to be able to go from a first time being in a given position to right back into it. So that has always amazed me. The second thing that's amazed me amazes me, actually, a lot more, which is the sort of courage to be able to stand up when at that level, a fall of that nature almost guarantees you can't win, right? I mean, sure, as we'll see, in your case, you didn't miss by much a gold despite that fall. But who has the processing speed internally to do the math and go, well, technically, I could still be perfect the rest of this. I mean, in the end, it's just so crushing to your confidence in that moment. And yet it's that ability to. To stand up and go again that I. I find more moving, I think, frankly, than any aspect of the sport. And it's different from other sports, even individual sports, where it's crushing, like tennis. You know, you're out there all alone. You're, you know, there's no one to hide behind but you. You make the worst play in the world, the most, your damage is capped. It is finite loss. It is. It is not finite loss. In a sport like figure skating, when you make a mistake, it can be catastrophic and you can lose the entire competition, especially if you can't get up and get back into the zone. So is there anything going on in your head consciously as all that's happening, or is it that in practice, every time you fall the practice is getting up and going right back into it, as opposed to falling, thinking about why you fell, reflecting on it, and repractic it, if that makes sense.

Practice is certainly a component of it. And my coach always taught me, you don't fall, you bounce. So as soon as you hit the ice, you're up. Not only do you have to find physically where you go in space, but musically, it has to match. And a lot of times when you fall, especially if you're sliding or you hit the board, all of a sudden you're late and you're trying to make up time because you know on the next musical indication, you're supposed to be halfway across the ice and you're still trying to get yourself up. So there's certainly that element, but I think it's a combination of things. First of all, there's so much going on that you don't have time to sulk in it, to let it hit you. The implications of that fall, you have to block that as fast as you can because the firing is continuing. For me, it was like I felt myself hit the ice. I heard the audience just go, ugh. And that. It's not only your own disappointment, it's something I've always struggled with, is not wanting to disappoint others. And so now I have a stadium full of people that are just audibly groaning and disappointed, and you have to keep going on. And it's kind of being in this embarrassing, catastrophic nightmare where you can't hide. It's like someone's ripped off your clothes, but you can't run off and hide. You have to hold your chin up and keep going and pretend like you're fine. And then I go into the next jump, the triple flip. I didn't quite fall, but I had a very severe step out. And then I.

And both your hands hit the ice.

Yes. Yeah. It was pretty much as close to a fall as. As you can.

I mean, watching the video again, I've watched it now so much in the preceding few weeks, but I forgot. I mean, it's, like, amazing. You don't break your wrist sometimes the way you would put your arms down. And you're not the only skater I've seen do that, but that's a. That's a hard hit. You probably don't even recall it.

No, I don't know what to ascribe it to, other than, you know, I generally have loose ligaments. I fall all the time, and people look like, how did you not tear your ACL and everything?

I Would break my wrists if I fell into the position you did. But again, for the person who's. Anybody at this point, who's listening to this, is going to go back and watch this video, and it will do more justice to what I'm trying to articulate. But again, it hadn't even started. I mean, the music you chose for that piece, which I'd like to talk about all elements of this, we're focusing on sort of the most challenging parts of this. But in terms of, like, the music and the actual choreography and the performances, I don't think I'm alone in saying it's certainly one of the more beautiful performances in all of women's figure skating. And yet it hadn't even really started. You're sort of one, two, punch. And if I was amazed the first time that you got up, that says nothing about what it felt like to watch you get up. The second time, it's like, how is she doing this?

I think you get very good at denial as an athlete and at blocking things out because they would be too much to take. So if you actually process what's happening and where you are in space and time, because you have to understand, going into this, I saw the Olympics as this just huge looming, like the sun, like the horizon, and Henry. But I couldn't imagine anything beyond it. And it's the same way that we know that we one day will die, but we can't imagine that actually taking place and what's beyond it. And that's the same way I couldn't imagine March of 2006. Yeah, I know it's gonna come, but I don't understand that.

Let me pause for a moment, then, and ask you a question, which I'm gonna ask you to try to answer through the lens of February 2006. Cause you've heard. Heard all these surveys and questions where, you know, you walk into the Olympic Village and you ask all of the Olympians there, like, would you be willing to be dead in 10 years if it could guarantee you a gold medal at these Games? And I don't remember the numbers, but the numbers suggest that the answer to that question is yes, in a staggeringly high amount, which I think speaks to. Look, if you can't even picture March 2006, what the hell would March 2016 even mean? Do you understand? Or can you relate to that ethos of, like, you would die in 10 years to have been the best in the world, undisputed on that day?

It was never posed to me as. As making that type of trade, I think now, I can't imagine it, but, you know, who knows at the time? But it just. It was everything. It was an identity. It was your chance to prove yourself to the world. It was everything that you were. And so everything was riding on it. It was just so absolute. And failing was the worst thing. And the sad thing is, in a sport like figure skating, if you're a medal contender, failing is getting second. Very few people will say, oh, congratulations, you have an Olympic medal. It's more that you lost the gold. You just don't know what to do with yourself. You have your own disappointment. You have the disappointment of everyone around you, Team USA fans, your family, and the people that flew out. And it's. It is kind of sad in hindsight to see just the nature of the interviews that, you know, I had a string of interviews right after I competed, and it was just like, you know, your dreams are kind of dashed and you fell twice. Like, how could you do this? Like, how devastated are you? And that's what it's all about and reinforcing. And I think when you grow up in this bubble and your whole identity is as an athlete and as a figure skater, and all you want to do is prove to yourself and the world that you're good enough. But good enough means first, and that's a very hard game to play. And I think it's not something that you can fully realize at the time, you know, as a teenager or as a 21 year old. And I think it's something that takes years to deconstruct after. And something that I've always found so interesting is I've. I'm an overly analytical person and have thought, oh, if I had just skated perfectly on that day, and if I had. If I had won, then there would be nothing to resolve. There would be no searching. And what I found is even fellow athletes like Apolo Ono or Michael Phelps, who have won multiple Olympic gold medals and are heroes and icons, still struggle. Because I think so much of what we gear our lives and performance for is for a moment. And even if you win in that moment, that moment passes. And then you still need something new to define you, to prove that you're still good enough. Because now you're just last year's or last Olympics, and then you constantly need a vehicle to prove yourself.

That's such a great example. I mean, as you know, I'm really close friends with Apollo. I should be seeing him next week. We're going to play patty cakes together. But you Know, swimming is a sport I love, right? And it's a sport that from the standpoint of following it and knowing the metrics, there are few people who could rattle off more swimming statistics than me. So I followed Michael Phelps from 2000, actually, you know, even before most people knew who he was, when he was just a kid who made the Olympic team and managed to get fifth in the 200 fly, which was a huge deal in Sydney. And I was kind of amazed last month when his world records in the 200 fly and the 100 fly fell. So at the World Championships this year, 2019, I was amazed at how people were writing about him as though it weren't that impressive what he had done. And, I mean, I'm reading these things, and I'm like, these people have lost their mind. Like, they have no idea what he has accomplished in the water. And, yeah, these two incredible swimmers have come along and broken world records. In one case, he's held for 18 years, and it might even be the case now. I haven't checked in a while. It might be the case that the only world record Phelps still holds is in the 400 IM from Beijing. But the point is, as someone who doesn't know Michael, but just has always been a fan and knows I can tell you his place and time in every race he's ever done, I'm amazed at how quickly he. His greatness is also fading in the memory of the average person, right? Like, we will likely never see an Olympian like that again ever, ever, ever, ever in another hundred years. And yet, only three years after his last Olympics, he's sort of yesterday's news, which I think speaks to this point you're making, which is maybe the brighter that star is, the longer it takes to fade, but every one of these things fades. It's interesting what you're saying. It's almost like you're suggesting that you went through a period of time thinking, if only I had won, things would have been different. But it seems that you don't really buy that rhetoric.

Regardless, you lose an identity. So win, lose, or draw, so much is signified and held within a gold medal. And being number one, this absolute, this peak, it symbolizes that you didn't leave anything on the table. It symbolizes no regrets. It symbolizes that you accomplish what you set out for, and the world recognizes you as the victor. And all of a sudden, Silver just brings up all these questions, like, what went wrong? Was it you? Was someone better than you? How are you going to live with that? It just there's another element to it. But regardless, when you decide to retire or if an injury forces you to retire, you still lose the identity. And I think that is what is so challenging for so many Olympians, because you have sacrificed everything homeschooled, you have no balance. You generally don't have many other outside interests. And if you do, they're certainly not developed few friendships. And it's just this one thing. And so even if you win and then all of a sudden that identity is taken from you, it's like, I'm a figure skater. That's who I am. That's how everyone sees me. But once you stop figure skating, then who are you? And as someone in my mid-20s, trying to figure out who that was was very difficult because I didn't develop other interests or hobbies in middle school, in high school, I didn't develop close friendships. I didn't go to college at the age of 18. So you're kind of left on your own, somewhat isolated. And Olympians aren't really sharing this when they retire, because I think they're kind of with their. They're in their own heads. They're in their own sports, and they're dealing with this with their families or maybe with some of their close friends. And so you don't really realize this is normal. And everything about being an athlete is about projecting confidence and power and that you're fine, and you're always fine. You just kind of get in the habit of not portraying weakness, of not asking for help. And it's always you. It's always your fault. I think athletes are some of the most accountable people. We're generally not saying, oh, it was the ice or it was that or these outside influences. It's all you. My training wasn't good enough, or I mentally got distracted, or the pressure was too much. So we feel like we have to fix everything, you know, because it's. We've been told that it's all up to us, and it's our moment, and we're either going to make it or we're not. So I think that's something I'm trying to find a balance with life now is this balance of making life happen and allowing it to happen, allowing for serendipity and opportunity and all these things that happen in life, that as an athlete, you think you can control everything, but you can't.

When you finished that long program, which, again, is beautiful, right? I mean, if you take these first 30 seconds out of that program, I don't think I'm alone in saying this. I think many people have written, and certainly I've read many accounts of it, describing it as one of the greatest programs in all of women's figure skating. Were you proud of how you finished?

I was certainly proud of how I finished. And I think in that moment, after I had missed my second jump and I was heading 15 seconds later into my third jump, a difficult jump for me, you just kind of like, what's going to happen on the other side of this? But you have to go in and just remind yourself, okay, like, set the shoulders, like, pull back, snap, and just get back into the word by word guidance that you give yourself through the program. And I landed that jump, and it was kind of a relief. It's like, okay, now I have a second. And I had a spin and a few moments, and the music shifted. But at that moment, you're still kind of realizing, like, there went the gold. But you're just trying to keep your head back because your head wants to go all these places. But as an athlete, you've taught yourself to suppress emotions, feelings, and doubts, and especially when you still are on the line and you have to perform. And so as I ended up landing each consecutive jump, there was this sense of relief, and the music was very emotional. It was Romeo and Juliet from the movie, and I just loved it. And so I allowed myself to really kind of get into some of the pain and the expressiveness of the music. And, you know, I was relieved when I was done, but I was also crestfallen. And it was. It was still trying to process everything at once. And in some ways, it was kind of a messy night. A lot of girls were falling, and that usually doesn't happen at an Olympics. You know, at another Games, I would have been 8th or 10th, and I ended up second because the top three girls all made mistakes. So I can see that silver medal is just, wow. I was so lucky to medal, considering how I skated. But I think at the same time, you just know that this wasn't the state of preparation I wanted to be going in. This wasn't the performance that I wanted to give. And I don't know what I could have done differently. And I think that's the biggest thing for me, is I'm a perfectionist. I want to understand everything. Things should be rational, and I want to fix everything. And so when you don't really understand, sometimes it's hard to have closure and figure out what it means and what you could have done. If you could have done anything at.

All when you accept the medal, when you go back with your family that night and your coach, are you already in your mind starting to think about the next thing? Are you already thinking about the next World Championships or the next Olympics, God forbid, four years down the line, or are you able to, in this particular moment I'm referring to specifically able to take some comfort in what you've just achieved?

I would say usually if it's a national championship or a Grand Prix, you're thinking about the next thing because those are events going, gearing up to bigger events. But the Olympics is just.

Well, this one in particular, the bittersweet.

As soon as I was done competing, it was press conference, drug testing, and then media circuit hitting all the. I believe it was hitting all the morning shows. And then every time they put a microphone in my face and I could get through 30 or 40 seconds before I started to cry and have a hard time talking. And that was eight interviews. So you don't really have much time to process then. And then we have a show the next day. So all of a sudden it's okay now, what's your show program? Block it out with lights. And it's just go, go, go. And trying to keep everything together. You're kind of a porcelain doll that's shattered and glued yourself together to try to keep going for the next two days of the Olympics, which basically doing this exhibition closing ceremonies and leaving. And so you don't really have the time to process. You know, I was staying with my mom in. We'd rented an apartment, and you kind of just come home to silence at the end of it. It's too much to process at the time. And I think the most, the biggest concern is to keep yourself together in front of Team USA officials, in front of the media, in front of even family. It's like, it's fine. I'm all right. Like, it's okay. But certainly not thinking about the next competition, because after that, world is kind of like a throwaway. I ended up going, but different athletes handle it differently. But I think I tried to create a wide vacuum between skating and myself and a Persona just to get away from the pain of it again. I didn't watch the performance. I fully embraced all the fun opportunities I had post Games, which were going to the Oscars and, you know, all these different events. And skating, unlike other sports, you have a chance to tour. So, you know, you're busy doing shows and live TV events. So I kind of lost myself there and then put skating aside. I went to Acting school. I just.

But did you formally retire in 2006?

No, and I actually ended up competing in March at Worlds, and then I ended up touring for a few years while taking time away from competing and ultimately decided to come back and train in 2009. 10 season.

So it's interesting you sort of delayed that. I remember Apollo talking about how post 2010, I forget what he said. Something to the effect of, like, two weeks after the Olympics, it all sort of hit him that that was it. On the one hand, that seems like a very short period of time. Like, oh, my God, like, two weeks after, you know, the Olympics, it all sort of crushes down on you like a ton of bricks, like you're no longer a professional athlete. And on the other hand, that seems like a really short period of time. It seems like in your case, it was different. It seems like in your case, you were able to stretch that out more, partly because of the nature of your sport, I think. And when you mentioned that you were taking acting classes, was that in the spirit of making you a better skater, or was that really in the. In the spirit of thinking about your next career?

I think it was about exploring other opportunities. I guest starred on CSI New York and on Las Vegas, and I did a small indie film. I wanted to move to LA and take acting classes. And it was. It was a wonderful diversion from this intense world of pain and disappointment, which I think I didn't really want to process or look at. It was like, oh, here's all these fun, sparkly things for you, because right now you're cool and sexy because you just competed in the Olympics. And then this is kind of something that all Olympians go through, is you work really hard, you have tunnel vision, you spend your day between the gym, your home, and a training facility, and then all of a sudden, the whole world cares about you, and everyone wants to meet the Olympian right after the Olympics until the next Games. And then it's like, oh, who are you? So it's a very fun, amazing opportunity that some Olympians are fortunate enough to have. And I think for me, it was just a wonderful relief of the disappointment and pain of my Games.

And.

And then I was just busy working. So it was. You know, I went on tour for a few months, and you're doing shows every. Every other night.

And when you go and see a figure skating show, how much are you guys dialing back your athletic sort of movements to guarantee that you're not falling? Like, in other words, at the Olympics, you're at the Limit, obviously. And that's why you will see someone fall at the Olympics, because they're the best in the world, doing the hardest thing in the world. But when you're doing, like, Disney on Ice or whatever other show, they're obviously still amazing skaters. But is that such a step below? Are you skating at 25% of your capacity in those situations?

So, first of all, it's not Disney on Ice. That would be a. You'd be a character. If you're doing Disney on Ice, it's generally Stars on Ice or Champions on Ice at the time.

But the Disney on Ice people, I mean, they're obviously very good skaters, too. I'm using that as an example, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just clarifying. But no, it's certainly a much lower level of difficulty in terms of your technical elements. And a lot of times you may not have practice or time to prepare. You might be on a small ice and you're a skating with light bulbs around and no boards, and you've got spotlights on you and you might be taking a red eye. So people are definitely dialed down the level of performance, but it's more about entertaining. So at this point, the fans are there. They've watched you compete over the years. They're there to see you. And so people are skating to songs with words. And it's about entertaining and connecting with the audience. And you're still doing difficult triples, but it's not like you're packing your program every 15 seconds with a very difficult combination.

You mentioned already something that I think is lost on a lot of people, which is the relatively small window in which you can be at your best. And again, people like Apollo and Michael create, I think, a false sense of what the true longevity of an athlete looks like. It's very rare for someone to be the best in the world over three or four Olympics. In many ways, I think it's a lot more like horse racing. And if you look at thoroughbreds have one season in which they can be the best, and it's very early in their life, right. They're usually three year olds when they're at their absolute best. A horse might live 20 years, but it's going to race from ages 2 to 4, and it peaks at age 3. I don't know if you know these statistics, so I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I know how involved you are in helping Olympians as they think about this transition. I mean, do we even have a sense of how many people go to the Olympics, and what percentage of people get to only go to one Olympics, and what percentage of people even get to win a medal? And it might just be even in the United States, where you probably would have better access to those stats.

I don't have the stats, but I know that most people only go to one Olympics, and very, very few people medal. I was surprised just thinking about it, because I think the last Winter Olympics, Shaun White won the hundredth gold medal, Olympic gold medal, I believe, for the U.S. and you're thinking the Olympics went going back to the 20s and there were breaks in there, but you're just like, whoa. There's just very few people have actually won medals, and very few people get to go to an Olympic twice. And certain sports, I think, like swimming or speed skating, tend to allow for someone to go perhaps twice. But, you know, three times, four times is very, very rare. And in a sport like gymnastics or figure skating, especially as a woman, your body changes, and then it's this complicated window where you have to be 15. But some girls were peaking. Like, a lot of these Russian girls were peaking at 12 and 13 and 14. But then they couldn't go and compete. And by the time they were old enough to go, they were off their peak.

It's unbelievable to see that again. It's sort of like if you could really only peak for one to two years, it's like imagine the Kentucky Derby is only every four years, and yet three out of four horses wouldn't even get to peak in their thing. And again, it does create this, and it really breaks my heart. There's an amazing American female swimmer, Missy Franklin, who was an absolute phenom in 2012. I mean, just sort of knocked the socks off of people. You just couldn't believe how well she swam in 2012. Well, in 2016, she was obviously not the same swimmer. I just found it so heartbreaking to watch the reaction to this, as though somehow, she had failed, as though somehow, like, she had let us, as fans of us, swimming down. Which I actually found infuriating, truthfully, because I was able to sort of, in a moment, recognize that. Wait, like, it's okay to be sad for her. Like, I wish Missy was doing better here in Brazil, because she strikes me. I don't know her, but she strikes me as a beautiful human being and obviously a beautiful swimmer. But to think that I could be disappointed, like, she was somehow not living up to her potential, it's ridiculous. When you imagine, here's a girl who's already got world records and gold medals and Olympic titles to her name. It's almost like we as the fans create this awful expectation in this sort of toxic environment of expectation around. It's never enough. You're only as good as your last Olympics, right? You're only, you know, as you pointed out, by 2010, it doesn't really matter anymore what you did in 2006. It's, can you make this 2010 team?

And the media is a big part of it, too. It's a story, you know, will they live up to expectations and how will they do? And it's. You build people up and you tear them down. And I don't know why people do this. People are busy living their own lives, and then I think they just project everything, project failures. And they don't know these people, but they're somewhat public figures. And so it seems easy to kind of slash them at the ankles and just like, how could you disappoint your country? And, like, why weren't you prepared? And there's really no sensitivity to this person being a human being. We see athletes as resources, and you need to perform, you need to meet expectations. And there's not a lot of compassion for them as a human being just struggling on this global platform and just having their. Their heart ripped out.

Well, you're absolutely right. We just can't. We as fans, I'm saying now, we sometimes have a hard time believing you guys aren't machines. For example, like, you watch Djokovic win Wimbledon and then a month later have to pull out of the US Open, and people are booing him. I mean, I just can't believe it when I watch it. I really. It embarrasses me to be a member of the public when you realize, like, a guy whose shoulder is obviously in tremendous pain has to pull out of a tennis match and people are pissed about it. And look, maybe if I'm going to take the other side of that, I would say, well, maybe they paid a lot of money to come and see the Wimbledon champion at the U.S. open. It's funny. When I was growing up, I was. I guess I still am sort of a football fan. And I had this poster on my wall of Jerry Rice. I don't know if you know who that is, but a very famous wide receiver, arguably the greatest wide receiver to ever play the position. It's just a very famous. I think it's like a Nike poster. And he's in the end zone and he's holding the football up. He's just scored a touchdown, and there's a player. I think it's like a Cincinnati Bengal, you know, player. You don't even know who the player is because he's. He's on the ground with his feet trying to grab Rice's ankles. Obviously, he has failed to stop Jerry Rice from entering the end zone. And I remember one of my best friends in high school, Jeff Pajoni, made the most astute observation ever. We were, like, sitting in my room one day, you know, we're like seniors in high school. And he looks at that and he goes, isn't it amazing that that dude. And he points to the guy on the ground, is a better athlete than anyone we ever know. And I think people don't realize, like, we're so used to looking at Jerry Rice or Michael Phelps or whatever that one exception is that comes along and truly bends the arc of a sport that you forget. Even the people seven rungs beneath them are still doing something that most of us can't fathom. But it's almost like we've get. We get numb to it, I think. Like, we just. We get so used to seeing you guys be perfect that you make a mistake. And it's. Maybe there's a part of us that likes seeing it because we know you're not perfect. And maybe there's a, you know, a sense of, well, you failed, therefore I'm not so mediocre in my existence. I don't know, maybe that. Maybe that's sort of an overly skeptical view of it.

But human nature is complex. I think a lot of it is invisible, meaning the athlete, especially the Olympian's journey. We see him pop out of just nowhere for a month around the Games, and then he kind of goes back into obscurity. Whereas, you know, you're kind of seeing half the season. If you're, you know, watching the NBA or NFL, you're kind of constantly getting updates and what going on. And there's multiple games, so you're. You're part of the process a lot more. Whereas someone that is a skier or a swimmer, all of a sudden, they pop out of nowhere at the age of 14 or 15, and you see them for a month, and then they disappear again for four years. Unless you're following the world championships. But I think most people really just tune in for the Olympics, so we don't really know what their lives are like. And I think that's what these fluff pieces going into the Games try to do is track this person training in their rundown facility. The fact that they're homeschooled you see them at physical therapy, icing everything, taking, you know, 30 vitamins a day, trying to optimize their performance, and then also having to take painkillers because they're performing with a broken foot and humanizing the pain and the struggle behind it and the sacrifice. And I think when all those things are taken into account, all of a sudden this person becomes more human and someone that is overcome versus someone in kind of a shiny USA outfit, kind of going across your TV screen for 20 seconds, and then. And then they're just a racehorse to you, and they're a time. But I think once you know the human and you know the story and what it takes and that the four years in between, there's really kind of this nothingness for them. And there's. There's no glory for most Olympians, and there's no money for most Olympians, and they're working second jobs and they're in debt to pay for their training and the sacrifice that they go through, I think when you understand all those elements, it really, really humanizes the athlete.

Is the United States, I can't tell is it a good or a bad country to be an Olympian from, because I've seen, for example, like, in other countries where if you're even in the top five, top. Certainly the top three in the world as a swimmer, you could make an amazing living because it's so great. You know, there's so few athletes in that country that could do it. Whereas, you know, in the United States, if you want a bronze medal in the 200 IM in one Olympic year, like, you're not going to make that much off that. But at the same time, the US Seems to have a lot of great resources to help Olympians. But. But just on balance, you get the sense that it's great to be an American Olympian relative to other countries.

Well, it's certainly incredible to see the US Flag and the sense of camaraderie. And, you know, America still is this icon for so much of the world, and so there's this immense sense of pride representing the U.S. but I think the difference is the U.S. olympic and Paralympic Committee is solely responsible for funding the athletes. The government is not any part of it. And in a lot of other countries, I believe, like Russia and in China, the government is putting a lot of money into the athletes and paying for their training. And so they just have. The resources that they have to work with are at another level. You know, in Russia, if you. You reach a certain level of success, like you get an apartment and you get a car and you get a stipend where that, that doesn't happen. Because the purpose of the Olympic Committee is really to find young talent and support them leading up to their Olympic journey. But they don't have the resources that these other countries do. And for other countries, especially during the Soviet Union, it was all about how do we beat the US and everything and no expense is spared. And look at 5 year olds and do they have the right bone structure? It's like, okay, take them away, take these 55 year olds away, put them in camp and maybe one of them will make it. We don't care if we work them all to the bone because it's, it's about winning and it's, it's an Olympic machine.

Your mom's from Russia, right? She came to the US when she was what, a teenager?

16. And it was the Soviet Union at the time, but she was from Odessa.

She was from Odessa. Okay. Did Russian fans have a negative view of you? Did they want you to be competing as a Russian or were they just opposed to you? They seem to booed you disproportionately. Was it just because you were American or was there something more going on there?

I think it's because there was another Russian, Irina Slitskaya, that was a favorite as well. And so there was really no association with me being.

I see. It had nothing to do with you not competing as a Russian, though it was in your bloodline. It was purely just the fact that you were the competition to a Russian.

Yes. And I think in other competitions where there was no Russian favorite, then the Russians were supportive of me because I was closer to, to who they were. But, but I competed in Moscow against Irina and I was thoroughly booed. So it was really that it was kind of when I was ever up against one of their own that I certainly, you know, they were not rooting for me.

Let's go back a little bit because I still, I don't understand how a 7 year old girl decides I'm going to subject myself to this much practice and this much deliberate effort. I mean, you've talked about this before in other interviews I've heard where like many athletes, your parents are told you probably have attention deficit disorder. And was it framed as she should either probably take this pill or she needs to find something to do for three hours a day? I mean, was it sort of like that or.

I was a hyperactive kid. I was constantly climbing trees, just on rooftops, wild. And I would race the boys. I would do cartwheels. I would just kind of, I would wear this same neon stretch two piece suit because I, you know, I had no sense or care about fashion. I just wanted to be running, jumping, climbing at all times. And I went through three different elementary schools because I didn't know how to sit still in class or stand still during roll call. I would be off being cartwheels or if art was over, I wouldn't put my art project away because I wasn't done. So I had a very difficult time being in a group setting and listening to direction. One teacher thought I was deaf. Another teacher gave my mom a book on juvenile delinquents. And it was just kind of clear that I couldn't conform to a system. And my mom finally found a school that was mixed grades, no desks, mainly art that seemed to jive with me. This was in California, in Pasadena. Then I was put into gymnastics at the age of five because I just, I was bouncing all the time. It's so much energy. So I went to gymnastics for four hours a day and we were literally 100 V ups, you know, 300 jumping jacks, 100 push ups. And this was as a five year old. I looked like a little cut sumo wrestler.

Were there other 5 year olds there or were you with older kids?

No, I was with other 5 year olds. It was a very intense training center. And yes, you know, I was diagnosed with ADHD and my mom didn't want to medicate her five year old and so she thought, okay, well, we'll just get rid of her energy and gymnastics through that. A friend threw a skating birthday party and I found skating and this feeling of gliding and freedom and I could channel all this energy I had into something I loved and could focus on. And so then for me it was very easy. It didn't feel like a sacrifice because all I wanted to do was be on the rink and to be skating and learning new jumps. So I never really saw it as a sacrifice. Early on in my life it was, it was something that gave me clarity and purpose, whereas I didn't really fit in at school. I was a lot smaller than everyone else and I just had a very different. I think I didn't know how to socialize. I was climbing trees or I was painting pictures. Come sixth grade, when everyone's getting ready for dances and figuring out what they're wearing and figuring out what boys they should spend time with at the mall, I just complete, completely over my head. And skating gave me this channel to express myself, to work Hard to become something. And it just clicked.

Even by the standards of a figure skater, you would still be considered kind of an outlier in terms of your artistic ability. Again, the way your movement exceeds even that of your peers. You've now, even just in the time we've spoken, discussed this constantly as this sort of creative expression do all. I mean, I guess it's hard for me to ask you that question, but do you think that that's common as the thread towards getting somebody into figure skating, or are there different pads that get people there? So, in other words, you don't have to know much about physics to understand the strength and power that is required to jump the way you guys jump. I mean, it's a very explosive sport. So there's probably a very athletic component that's required to it in terms of those raw athletic inputs. But there's also this huge artistic component where I could imagine you take the most powerful female athlete on the planet, but if she doesn't have the ability to create lines and flow and spin in a certain way and dance in a certain way or choreograph in a certain way, it wouldn't be the same. And I think the same is true for men and women. I'm just using women as an example because we're talking about you. Did you start to figure out which of those was your leading edge?

It's interesting because on the spectrum of sports, I think figure skating is at the very end of sport, and then the next is ballet. And ballet is an art. And I think the physicality channeled my energy. But I think I've always been very expressive and creative, and I felt that the music was a way for me to channel my feelings. So I think I was always much more of the artistic skater. And while I definitely had physical talent and capabilities, that was by no means my strength. Like, some people were jumping machines. They were. They were robots, and they could do it the same jump over 20 times, just boom, boom, boom. And for me, I always struggle with that. It took me longer to learn my jumps. I would lose my jumps. And for me, I excelled at the expression and the line and the flexibility, which I'll thank my mom for, because she wouldn't let me watch TV unless I was sitting in the splits. And so growing up, I was either in the splits or practicing holding spirals. But everyone, I think, is very different in a sport like figure skating and even ballet, because you have the range of the more athletic and then the more emotive artistic. And you really need to Be a mix of both. Although the way that the system is evolving is with a heavy emphasis on the technical abilities, because that racks up points. And so you don't need to have as much personality or artistry because the points are really not captured there. Certainly it's part of it, but. But you can rack up so many points with technical capabilities that it outshines.

And that become in some ways a criticism, hasn't it, of women's figure skating? Which is, okay, I get it, we're going to add more and more points to these greater and greater degrees of staggeringly powerful jumps. But the critic would say, well, shouldn't we be subtracting points for the lack of beauty in this, for the lack of grace, for the lack of spin, for the lack of line, for the lack of choreographing as well, so that we do try to preserve that balance? I mean, I guess ultimately that's just so subjective though, right? It's very difficult to enforce that. The way you can say, look, you have to do a triple lutz. And it's very clear what is and what is not that jump, right?

Figure skating is very complicated, as is gymnastics, because it's not a race. Did you beat this other person? What was your time? It's really an art that's also a sport. And so it's a philosophical argument. Do you want to treat figure skating purely as a sport? And a sport is about technical ability and progressing and pushing the body to more rotations faster, and treat it purely as a sport because then what happens is you peak at 14, you get injured quickly, you can't sustain and evolve and have the kind of skaters you had in the 90s and early 2000s, like Surya Bonnelli and Kurt Browning and Michelle Kwan, where there were personalities that developed and people matured and became more like well rounded athletes and performers. Because we're now choosing to treat it just as a sport. We're not valuing the artistry, but who's to say that we should? That's subjective. Obviously, I appreciate the artistry. I couldn't. My skill set wouldn't have been conducive to competing in today's environment. And I think a lot of what the audience loves is the personality and the artistry of figure skating. But is that what makes it a space sport? And I think that's a very philosophical, subjective debate.

I don't feel qualified enough to weigh in the fact that I always have a very strong opinion. In swimming, for example, you know, the most dominant male swimmer before Phelps Was a guy named Tom Dolan. And I mean, not a beautiful swimmer to watch swim. I mean, he looked like he was beating the crap out of the water the whole time. And yet the fastest swim. I mean, back to back gold medals in the 400 IM in 96 and 2000. So amazing swimmer. But, you know, you've got to say, look, in swimming, it just matters how quickly you get to the wall. It shouldn't. You know, it's pretty clear in swimming or running, to your point, it doesn't matter if you look ugly doing it. Who cares if you're there first? But at what point in your figure skating career was it clear to you that you wanted to do this as your life's mission, at least for the foreseeable future? When do you make that decision? Which is okay. It's time to start homeschooling and living on the road and training six hours a day.

I was 12, I was going into seventh grade, my first day of school, and I just felt that it was such a waste. I was at a public high school in California. Everyone was focused on shopping and surfing, and it wasn't a very rigorous academic environment. And I just, I would often get heckled. It's like, oh, what are you doing here? Do you lose your way? The elementary school's down the street. Because I.

Because you're short.

Yeah, I was, I was short. I was little. I looked a few years younger than I was. Like, I looked like I was in third or fourth grade. I was tiny. When I was competing at the age of 15, I think I was 4, 9 and 70 pounds. So I was, I was, I was really, literally.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. You were 4 foot 9 and 70 pounds at 15? 16.

I was tiny.

You know, had you. I mean, if you don't mind me asking, I mean, had you even had your period yet?

No, not till much, much, much later.

Wow. Yeah. Which is not uncommon, obviously, for.

For female gymnast, figure skaters, ballerinas, I don't remember, but I had the tests where you're kind of submerged, Dunked underwater. Yeah, I think, you know, it was like 5% body fat, just. Just tiny.

It's kind of amazing to reflect on that for a moment. I mean, I think again, maybe even for you, it's hard to appreciate. Now, this is me getting to talk with some authority. Right. On what the implications are of totally arresting your endocrine system for six, seven years, literally a third of your life being fully stopped to prevent your body from developing. I mean, that speaks to what a Physiologic stress. It is for a young boy or a young girl. It's just the, the. I think there's a fundamental difference, right. Which is for boys, the training effect can actually sort of help puberty. But for women, it can be really suppressive, as it obviously was in your case, in the case of many others. That, that's.

And for me, it was pretty easy until I was 17. And then when I was 17, everything changed with, with diet and with training.

Meaning you got more dialed in at 17.

When I was 15, I could eat whatever I wanted.

I see.

And I was just tiny. I had a kid's metabolism and I was also working out hours and hours a day. But when I was 17, 16, 17, you know, things started to change. You started to get a little more pudgy, and all of a sudden there's this focus and your coach and everyone's just like, I, you know, I see you've, you know, they would pinch your stomach and it's like, we. That's not just skin, there's fat. And then as you get to know your body better and every. Because it fluctuates, you get down to a pretty low weight, but you can't really sustain that during the year. And so you'd gain £10 after the end of the season. And then you would try to get back on the ice and do a jump again. And just. You really feel the difference in terms of your spring and being able to rotate the rotational.

Inertia, for sure. How prevalent are eating disorders amongst figure skaters? They must be quite prevalent.

I'm sure they are, but it's something that everyone keeps pretty private. And even the men have their own versions of them. It's, yeah, I don't eat breakfast or lunch. I just have coffee and then I have dinner. But I don't have an eating disorder. I think everyone has found their own method for what works for them. And it's very difficult because it's not so much about the energy to train. It can be very much about what your body looks like and how you can propel it into the air. And every body type is very different and has its own kind of physics where you'll see a lot of the North American or European skaters being very, very, very muscular to vault themselves up into the air. And, and some of the Japanese skaters, like the Japanese men, you don't really see a lot of muscles on them, but they're just the most incredible light springy jumpers. And so everyone has to find their own dynamic and I think that's why you see a lot of girls kind of get sidelined when they go through puberty, is because their body really changes, their bones change. And no matter how they try to control what they eat or how they train, that time has passed them by.

It is a little bit of a. You talked at the outset about one of the challenges is you don't you think you're in control of everything, but you're not. Well, this must be one of the greatest example, right? Because a 15 year old girl who has yet to go through puberty has very little control over what her body is going to turn into. I mean, you don't know if your hips are going to do this, your breasts are going to do that, and that can be all the difference in the world. So are coaches at that age also sort of hedging? I mean, how are they communicating to the parent? Because I'm trying to put myself in a, the shoes of a parent whose child is 12 or 13, who's being told, your child has the potential to be an Olympian. But oh, by the way, when she goes through puberty, all bets could be off. Like, you know, her body could change in a way that's simply not conducive to the movements of the sport. Is that ever explicitly discussed or is that just always sort of. We just keep our fingers crossed and we just go for it.

Every model is different. If you're, you're in, in Russia or in a, in a different training environment, you know, you might, the coach will only take on a few students. It's much more intense. Whereas in the US it's like every skater has to pay for lessons. So a coach will teach someone that might never make the Olympics because they're getting paid. And it fills this hour. Later on there's, you know, as someone proceeds through the ranks and they're senior and they're close to making a world team, the coach gets more involved and there's more at stake. But, but ultimately it's on the athlete. Can you control your body? And it's again, this everything that we think we have to be able to control everything. And I think it is very dangerous because you get the validation from your coach and from the world. Like if you have a longer line and you look more balletic and at the same time it's easier to jump and you're also controlling something in your life which are kind of all these things that are tied into having an eating disorder. But then it's like, is that what's necessary for this sport.

When you look back at your entire career in figure skating. So from age, call it 5 or 7, until what, 20, 25 when you stopped, when was it the absolute most fun?

It was the most fun when I first started. And then probably When I was 14, 15 years old, I was just beginning to get really good to get national attention, go to my first international Grand Prix, burst on the onto the national stage and get second at nationals and then be invited to do tours. As this young kid, this whole world, this carpet unfolds before you. And now you're touring with your idols, with Christian Noguchi and Brian Boitano and people you've watched on tv and you're just this little kid. And all of a sudden the Olympics are two years away and it's just, it's all at once and it was this inundation. So I think that was probably the most exciting. I was still super motivated. It was all ahead of me. And I was young enough that I think the pressure, the immensity, like the enormity of where the level of pressure would go had not yet sunk in.

That is a response that I've heard from a number of athletes. Which is the best time in their life with respect to the sport was actually before they became the best. Do you think that's common? I mean, I, you probably have a much larger sampling of that than I do.

I think later on it just becomes about expectations. I think it's a matter of appreciation. So before you have it, it's just you idolize these, these athletes at the Olympics and it's a dream, just maybe one day I could get to go there. And then all of a sudden when you're going there, you're like, if I don't win, I am the biggest failure and my life is ruined. And so I think it's all about framing and lenses and when you're young, it's all ahead of you and you see things with rose colored glasses and you're doing something you love because you love it. And then later on it can change. And I had a very difficult time between 2002 and 2006. I moved across the country. I had different coaches, was dealing with like gaining weight and, you know, my body not cooperating with me and losing all my jumps and just being super, super devastated.

How much weight did you gain? Between 02 and 06. So in O2 you're 17 and obviously in 06 you're 21.

It would fluctuate a lot between off season and on season. But I had very low estrogen and low bone density. And so doctors wanted me to be on birth control to strengthen my bones. And that just completely put my body out of whack and completely didn't work for training. And so it's like all these things that your body is like this finely, finely tuned instrument and you do, you switch blades, you try birth control, and it just completely puts your body out of whack, let alone all the emotional repercussions. And it was really tough. But I knew the Olympics were two years away and I had to be there and I had to redeem myself and I had to win because this was everything my life was for. So despite how difficult it was and how hard it was, failure and quitting was, was never an option. There's just, you know, something inside that's propelling you. And I don't know if it's, there's so many different factors going in, but it's, it's something that, it's not pure joy and like the love of what you're doing that's driving you. It's the need to fulfill a quest. At points, it can be a lot more painful and difficult than it is exciting. And motivation is serving as your source.

In some athletes case, it's, it's usually obvious, at least if you're playing, I'm sure a psychologist, it's obvious what, what void is trying to be filled? You know, it's an athlete that's trying to, you know, win the approval of someone, you know, a parent that's not there, or a person that rejected them. Do you feel like, or do you see or sense looking back, any sort of motivation that could make you feel like you had, you know, everything you just said, I'm not going to repeat it because I can't, I won't do it justice. Everything you just said, was that in service of something, some void, you think, or is that just the inevitable fuel that one needs to turn to if they're going to compete at that level? In other words, can you win an Olympic gold purely, purely from the place of bliss, pure joy and love for the moment that you're there being a part of every bit of the training, win, lose or draw, have the same bliss? Is that even possible at that level?

I think it's certainly possible. I think you see it with kids just coming up, so they might be 15, go to their first games and they're so excited to be there and wow, they won't. I think it also happens towards the end of a career when people have had dealt with hardship and maybe it's their fourth Olympic Games, and they realize that this is the last one and how incredible it is, and that they're performing and they're competing with the appreciation of their legacy and that this kind of final punctuation on their career. But I think it's difficult, especially when you're. It's your second Games and you feel like there's so much pressure riding on this performance because it's no longer about your Olympic experience. It's about will you deliver in these few minutes. And that's what everyone's been. Been talking about and waiting for. So I think it is complicated, but I think it's possible. And it's not to say that even if you are using this kind of not negative motivation, but just this, you know, this certain drive that doesn't come from pure joy. Not to say that you don't have the most exhilarating moments when you. You find this piece of music and you choreograph a new program or you land a new jump combination for the first time. It's. You realize that the great things in life take hitting your head against a wall over and over and over and over and over for years, and you just don't give up, because giving up isn't an option. I think this sense of obstinacy is. It. It makes you great as an athlete, but then when you apply it to life, it's. It's kind of. You have to. It's like the Zumba in the room. It's like, no, that's a corner. We actually should move the zoom button, like, start banging against something else. But that's what it takes to be a great athlete, is not accepting failure. You keep showing up again and again and again. And I can tell you that two years out, one year out from the 2006 Olympics, I didn't even know if I was going to make it because I was struggling so much. The one season before the Olympic season.

I had to withdraw in 0405.

Yeah, I lost all my jumps that year. I pulled out of every Grand Prix. And I thought, I've stuck around this long and I'm not going to make it to 2006. How is this happening? But you don't give up. You just keep showing up every day. You keep showing up every day, and then things get better. And it kind of teaches you that if you don't give up, if you show up, that that has a lot of weight to it.

One other question I Just want to ask you about the actual Olympics, because it just blows my mind. How long does it take you to. To choreograph, say that the long program of 06. Right. So you do you pick the music first you say this. Everything is going to be built around this song, and then we're going to build it in. Or do you largely sketch out what you want to do movement wise, and then pair music to it?

I mean, especially for an Olympic season, you're listening and then you're taking music to the ice and you're seeing how you move to it. Does it inspire you? And then you might work for a few weeks with a choreographer, not only cutting the music, but trying different series of spiral sequences and jumping combinations and figuring out what really suits you. And you're really choosing music to suit your style. If you're more lyrical or if you're more of a power skater, you really want the music to serve you and your style of artistry or how you skate.

Was Romeo and Juliet, do you think, your best work in that sense?

It certainly was one of the pieces of music that I resonated with the most. And I always felt that I just melted into the music. And it's funny because I get nervous with public speaking, and for some reason it's when I'm in front of a microphone and I'm nervous and I speak. It's very different than getting out into the middle of the ice, being incredibly nervous and nauseous, but hearing music and then somehow you can melt into the music and moving your body. And I think Romeo and Juliet was a piece of music that I felt really at one with. It was a love story and had so much drama. And especially this, the movie version, I think it was the Prokofiev, that and Spanish music. I intended to skate to Malaguania and Carmen and these kind of fiery character pieces, which, you know, also suited another side of my personality.

You've described the feeling, I'm sort of paraphrasing, but profound nausea and the feeling of thousands of pounds crushing your chest or something to that effect. That's what it feels like when you go out there. And yet it's sort of amazing as I, you know, I think that's partly why as maybe as we get older, we find something different in watching the Olympics. You know, when you're young, you're watching it because it might just be all about the achievement. But I think as we age a little bit and we experience our own setbacks and we start to sort of understand what Our demons are all about. Part of what I think is amazing about it is trying to imagine how they feel, you know, trying to imagine whether it's, you know, the start of the 100 meter free. It's like there's eight people lined up on a starting block. One of them's going to win, one of them is going to finish last, right? One of them will finish last. There's no denying it. He or she will still be the 8th fastest runner in the world for that day. But what is the anxiety like in that moment? I don't know. There are a few sports, like figure skating, where the margin for error is so small because one, you're out there for so long, so the duration is long, the technical complexity is very high, and three, the aesthetic component matters, meaning how you present yourself matters. Again, you can be scowling when you jump in the pool or get on the bike. It doesn't really matter. You can't be scowling when you're standing there on the ice. It's always amazing to listen to the announcers as though they know what the person's thinking, try to project that. But presumably that's been a skill as well, right? I mean, is there anything in your current life that puts a fraction of that pressure on you in a moment?

Certainly not. And I think it's. It's something I was able to really describe because I stepped away for a few years and then came back to compete again at the age of 24 or 25, and. And I could finally articulate what it felt like. And it was like battery acid running through your chest with a thousand pounds of weight crushing you. You're like, how do I even move? And again, this is what really taps back into denial, is you can't really identify with your feelings. You have to shut them down. And I think that's why I found acting so appealing when I was done skating, was because there's a spectrum of humanity. And actors are on the far left and athletes are on the far right, and normal humans are in the middle, where, when, as an athlete, if you have fear, any feeling, you have to shut it down. You have to be impervious. You're always fine, you're a robot, you're projecting confidence. And as an actor, you have to take in every emotion from the outside, every vulnerability. You cultivate feeling because that's your paintbrush. That's how you live. And as a human, in the middle, you have places you feel safe to be, vulnerable and open, but you certainly aren't at work you don't cry when you see every homeless person and you learn the middle. But athletes are on the far, far end of the spectrum where we just learn to shut everything down because you're dealing with so much all the time and just this pressure. And I think it's hard to learn to be a normal, functioning human being after you're an athlete. I think it's almost in the same way you're a soldier. And I, you know, I hesitate in some ways to make the comparison because obviously we're not putting our lives on the line and this is sport. But the element of the human is shut down for the task and it's all about the task. And that's something. It takes time to learn how to be a human again after.

It's so interesting the way you explain that, which I guess I now see. It's after 2006 when you go and you take acting classes, as you say. That's a big part of, I think, what enabled you to maybe come back in 2010 with a different perspective, perhaps.

I mean, yeah, I think it was the break from it because I think a lot of it is habituation. So if you start competing from the age of five years old, you're nervous, but you're tiny little competitions and you know, kids are really nervous even when they're seven years old. You see them running to the bathroom to throw up before they skate and they're pacing and they're crying and they've got butterflies. And these are just 7 year olds at tiny little local competitions. And so you're kind of habituated at a young age and then you're. Your competitions get slowly bigger and then they're national and there's more people by the time you get to the Olympics. Even though this is the biggest stage you've ever been on, it's been this steady ramp up to that. And then I took three years away from it and then I came back and so I was just doing shows. And so I think I wasn't constantly stressing my nervous system with these kind of nerves and feelings. And so I think when I took a break and came back, I was just like, part of you is like, I'm never doing this again. This is. How could I ever subject myself to this? But then once you go out and you're performing, it's this most incredible high. And so as an athlete, I think you get used to these high highs and these low lows of these lonely, difficult moments where you're injured and you're dealing with so much psychological stress to these moments where you're out doing what you ultimately love to do and a crowd is cheering for you and you feel like, you know, you're paused in this most unique moment in time doing what you love. And after I retired, you know, life was just nice, and that was wonderful for a year. And then life just felt flat because everything had evened out. The high highs were gone, the low lows were gone. And then you're kind of learning how to live without that paradigm.

I've read that 80% of Olympians or former Olympians suffer or have at least experienced in some transient form, form of depression. Does that. I mean, does that sound believable to you, having been on the inside?

Certainly. And I'm sure that the number might even be higher, because, again, we don't, as athletes, we're taught not to admit weakness. And it's not only to the outside world, it's to yourself, because if you admit weakness to yourself, then you're undermining what you're capable of. And the biggest tragedy, there's a. You know, there's a multiple factors. One, mental health issues can be a stigma, and so people generally don't talk about them, and they should. And then on top of that, as an athlete, if you admit that you're struggling, it's going to undermine your own performance, and you don't want to admit that to yourself or let your competitors know. And then once you retire, you lose your identity and you lose your purpose. And something you've spent a decade or two, two decades, your whole team of support and everything you do and everything you wake up for, which is like this moment four years down the line. You imagine yourself on a podium and you've charted out this whole path to get there, and then all of a sudden, you don't have the goal anymore. You don't have the identity anymore. You're watching other people do what you did, but they're doing it better because they're the next generation. And you don't have a skill set that everyone else your age does who was actively pursuing an academic education and went to college and interned and really setting themselves up for the next 40 years of your life. It's all been. This rug has been pulled from underneath you. And so not only are you mourning your identity and have lost your sense of purpose, but now you see yourself as 10 years behind normal people and you don't even know what you want to do.

But there's this interesting thing I've observed, which is there is there are a subset of people, and you and Apollo would be great examples of it, where you seem to have made the transition so easily. Now you've made it look easy. I'm not suggesting it's easy, of course, but you were basically able to take the Roomba mentality of, I can go harder, I can go faster, I can go longer, I can go deeper than anybody. Just give me a new skill set. And, you know, you emerge at one of the best colleges in the country and you kick ass, and, you know, today you've got a great job in finance. There are a handful of athletes who just make this transition. And if you're saying it's hard, I mean, what's happening for most athletes? I mean. I mean, I'm not asking that rhetorically. Like, what does the graveyard look like for especially Olympic athletes? It's different if you've at least played five years in the NFL and you've managed to stash away seven figures. But most Olympians don't come close to scraping together that kind of money. So what are they. Do they go on to become coaches and, like, how many of them are able to resume where they would have been or get back on that same path if they had chosen something else? Because they're obviously very capable, but they. They're going to need new, you know, they're going to need to be retrained.

There's so many variables. I think the mindset of an individual athlete versus someone that was on a team sport.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And then is this something where they went to their first Olympics at 27 or 30, and they've kind of developed this identity and this group of friends, were they actually in. Were they. Did they actually go to college and were they playing a collegiate sport? Because I think you develop very differently than if you're a gymnast or a skater or a speed skater and you've been homeschooled since 7, and this is your world and it's myopic, and then your personality type, how neurotic are you? And what do you see as success? And what's your appetite for the unknown? I think some. Across all sports, some people continue to coach, they judge, they want to be in their sport, and they want to be the big fish in the small pond, and they continue to hold on to that identity as this greatest moment of their life and what define them. And then I think there's others that. That prefer to be the tadpole in the ocean, and you have to deal with this sense of Insignificance and feeling lost and realizing the more you learn about the world, the bigger you realize it is, and then the more confused you are, the more options. And I think I definitely chose the Tadpole and the ocean route and I moved to New York and I went to Columbia. And I'm still learning who I am and what it is I want to do and redefining success because I think at the age, you know, when I was competing and when I was 21, it's like, oh, well, what's the next thing that seems really competitive and athletic and I can define winning. And to me, that seemed like finance. You know, I got a liberal arts education. And you start to realize what's out there. You realize that success is what you define it to be, and that actually happiness starts to be more important to you than what society, quote, unquote, deems success. Because success is fleeting. And maybe success is a moment, but you're quickly replaced and what are you building your life around? And so I think there's a. There's definitely a value shift. Instead of just like this plug and play at first, it's like I'm going to take everything and all this intensity I had in my sport and put it towards something else and be the best and just like, show everyone. And this is. This is my new vehicle. It's like, just show me what to do and I'll get to the top. And then you realize, like, is this mountain worth climbing even? This is a formula that I knew before, but applying it somewhere else, this isn't actually what I want. And I think it takes a lot of time and reflection and kind of self growth to realize what's worth doing, what actually is winning in life.

What do you think enabled you to figure this out? Because honestly, talking with you, Sasha, it's blowing my mind that you are so wise beyond your years when you talk about that you have figured something out that most people never figure out in life, and yet you have two thirds of your life still ahead of you in terms of years. How do you think you made that transition? I mean, obviously there's some deliberate choices. So you made a decision in 2010, not just am I going to leave the sport, but I'm not going to wrap my identity around this sport either. I'm going to go beat the Tadpole. I'm going to go enroll at Columbia, where frankly, I'm going to suck because I'm competing with a bunch of whippersnappers that came out of high school and they're way better prepared than I am. And I'm going to be doing an internship in something with a bunch of kids that are 10 years younger than me and probably a bunch smarter than me when it comes to these tangible sets of facts and skills that one would have learned. And I totally appreciate what you're saying. That part of that was the challenge of this is my new Olympics. My new Olympics is going to be graduating first of my class and doing X, Y, and Z. But. But then what you described at the end, there was another transition, which is, wait a minute. Like, that's not even the way I want to live my life anymore, which is. It's not about being the best. Tell me how that realization and the application of that came to you.

I think it's in finding things to be hollow. It's going down a path that you think, oh, if I'm just the most successful in this, if I work my way up to the top, I'll find identity and fulfillment and I'll be good enough. And then you realize as you do it, these things look sexy from the outside, but once you're in them, it's really not what it appears to be. It's like, people do this so they can show you the country club and the car and the. The business card. And maybe some people really love what they do. And these are. These are side effects. But I think a lot of people do things for approval and for status in society. And I think at a very young age, I got used to being rewarded by the public for achieving. And so I felt that what I needed to do had to be publicly visible and needed to be appreciated and to be validated. And then I think as you get older, you know, I've spent a lot of time, become very, very interested in different Buddhist texts and in meditation and just understanding this bigger picture of life. Because I think we get so singularly absorbed in, like, what's in front of us in the moment, and we think it's the most important thing. And then the biggest struggle for me and something that I daily work on is what do I actually want to do versus what do I think other people will be impressed with? And again, I think this is like the resume versus the eulogy.

Are you a fan of the book by David Brooks, the Road to Character or the Second Mountain being the more recent one?

I actually haven't read the Road to Character, but I read the Second Mountain and found it very, very compelling and powerful. And I think that's the phase of life that I'm certainly in and I have a lot of questions and I'm exploring what makes a meaningful life and what actually brings me joy if I can peel away all the layers that my upbringing through sport and society have projected onto me. Because sometimes you don't really know the difference and you end up doing things that people around you do because that's what they respect. And ultimately we're social animals and we want to be respected by others, to have a sense of self worth. If you can really strip all those things away, then you can start to have the dialogue with yourself of what you actually like. And what if you really like something that the world doesn't validate, who's going to win? Like, are you going to do something for them or you can just think for you.

And this is still, there's still tension there.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah. Well, let's play a hypothetical game because what I'm not hearing you say, to be clear, is you regret the decade and a half you spent killing yourself to be the world's best figure skater. I'm not, I'm not hearing you say that, but I want to just play a thought experiment which is I'm going to put you in a time machine and I'm going to take you back and you're going to get to spend the next 10 years with 15 year old Sasha. So we're going to take you back to circa 1998. You're two years outside of your first Olympics, but now you. I'm going to change the way you look so that the 15 year old version doesn't realize this is the adult version of her. But you now get to become another coach, mentor to the girl and you know everything you know. So you know how the story ends if she stays the course, how would you counsel her?

That's such a hard question because it's going backwards and tweaking something. You don't know what's going to happen going forward.

Admittedly, yes, we, we run the risk of the butterfly effect here big time. Well, let me ask you then, I'll start with some broad themes. The more I think about this question, the more interesting it gets through the lens of if you only have knowledge through 2010 versus seeing where you are today, it might be different. Let me make it an easier question then, which is the question I didn't want to ask because it's such a common question, which is what advice would you give yourself? Let's take a hybrid of that basically, which is how much would you let her worry about what she's doing, even if alleviating some of that worry subjected her to the risk of not being as successful.

It's really an interesting question because I would want to go back and say enjoy this time, right? This is, enjoy being at the Olympics. Enjoy being on the ice and moving and having your body honed and trained to this, this, such, this, this incredible degree, right? It's, it's such a rare, fleeting moment later. You're going to be jogging and you're going to be winded. It's going to be very different. It really is incredible because ultimately it's like the, a piece of this incredible journey that it means to be human, right? And it's, it's a very extraordinary, exceptional piece that you can get to, you know, the top of a sport, that you can represent your country, that you can see the world like it's, it's such a gift. But at the same time, if you, if you tell this younger girl, there's so many things after you're going to go to college, like the world is so much bigger than this. Maybe you wouldn't stick it out. Maybe you wouldn't stick out those really difficult times. I remember a few Years before my second Olympics, 4th of July, everyone was barbecuing. I was training at a center in Connecticut. I had the key to the rink opened up, was just training by myself. And then I went with my off ice coach to the outdoor track and was doing sprints in 100 degree heat and just broke down crying. And I was like, I don't want to be here. I want to be with my family. I don't want to do this.

And this is like 09.

This probably would have been in like 2004. Oh, before the second one, just complete breakdown. And in that moment, if you're like, you know what? College is going to be amazing. You're going to find poetry and you know your philosophy and it's going to blow your mind. And Buddhism, you'd be like, why am I, what am I doing? Like, how many days am I gonna have Groundhog Day of doing the same thing over and over in this rink? And to this day I go to an ice rink and I smell that musty smell of rubber mats. And that's, there's, it's visceral.

I'm sure there's like some PTSD associated with it.

Certainly it's visceral. And I think if you know that there's more and I guess I'm a person that I've got so Many interests. And there's so much I want to do and I have so much fomo. I want to be in every country and I want to get a PhD in Buddhist studies and I want to do everything. So I think if I knew more about the world in those hard times, I think it would have been much harder to stick it out versus that being your only identity and your whole world.

Well, there's certainly a reason why they have to put blinders on racehorses. I don't know. I guess that's sort of the thing about it that feels. I've had this discussion with a number of my friends who are in your situation. Right. So people who were at one point the best in the world and now they're normal, quote, unquote. Right. Anything but normal.

Trying to be.

Yeah, but you know what I mean. There's a sadness. There's a very famous athlete who was incredibly well celebrated and decorated 20 years ago. He's really fallen on hard times now. Substance abuse, a whole bunch of other things. And sort of behind closed scenes, there have been a handful of people that have tried to help him, to really get him back from the edge of drugs, alcohol, all of the things that have sort of taken him to within about the inch of his life repeatedly. And it's hard to look at him because I still. I can't get the image out of my mind of him when he was the best in the world at what he did, and there was a whole country that viewed him as the most amazing thing they'd ever produced. And now this entire country would abandon him in a heartbeat out of pure disregard and shame for who he is and what he's become. And what seems unfair to me is that the same forces that lifted him up, he was a national champion at 17, you know, the greatest that that country had ever produced. The same forces that put the blinders on him to enable him to spend a decade of his life being the identity of a nation in a sport are the exact same forces that have abandoned him and given him nothing to cope with. The complete emptiness and bitterness of his existence and the shame that has followed it. If I had the ability to tell the whole story with all the details, it would be a more powerful story. But I think you get what I'm talking about, because even though this is an extreme example, it's not actually that extreme in terms of the emotions. It might be extreme in terms of the net effects, you know, the near death and the drug overdoses and stuff. But I think this is sort of the guilty. This is sort of the guilty part that we have as the spectators, right, Is we don't realize that the same thing that we throw on the athlete to sort of praise them is the very same gasoline that is to a bad fire as it is to a good campfire kind of thing, if that makes sense.

Athletes generally start young and so there's a conditioning that sets in early validation through performance and through, through winning. So it's Pavlovian and you're trained that that's how, that's how you're defined and that's how you're respected and adored. And so you very much try to prove yourself to the world to get this, this validation back. But I think something that's important to remember is like, you can be a healthy, functioning human being or you can be the best in the world at something, but you can't be both.

You believe that to be true.

I do, because I'm talking about sports at this point in time. But you have to sacrifice all these other things. You have to sacrifice your emotional well being, time with friends, like socializing in school, these other things that would make you well rounded and knowing. You know, someone telling you it's like, oh, it's okay if you fell or you want to take a week off. You're not defined by this. You are a full human being and that's not what we value you for. But that's not true. And I think what happens is in sport you become valued for what you do. And as soon as you stop doing it or stop doing it as well as you did, all your value is gone. And so it's like you spend, you know, it's like all blood, sweat and tears creating this social, cultural value by winning. And as soon as you stop winning, the value just like it just, it disintegrates so quickly.

Being versus doing is a very Eastern versus Western sort of mantra. Yet when it comes to sports, there seems to be no Eastern. It's all Western, isn't it? In other words, there's no Buddhist athletes in the sense of, it's just being like. Even if you're competing in the Olympics from eastern parts of the world, in the end, athleticism always comes down to what you're doing.

Nike's slogan, just do it. We don't care how you feel. It's about what you do. It's funny, I was recently reading an older version of the Art of War and 50 pages was the introduction. It went back to the genesis of Eastern and Western thought and Philosophy back to Confucius and back to Aristotle and Plato. And in the west, we always think that we do something, that there's a mover and a moved, a cause and an effect, that there's God and he created everything else. And you go into to Eastern culture and it's symbiotic. Everything is a relationship. God is everything. And it's about relationships. And the belief isn't that you cause something, but that you are part of something. And it's all interrelated. It doesn't apply to sports, but I think it really goes into the philosophies and the way that people in Eastern versus Western cultures have historically lived. And that really stuck with me because it's a lot of responsibility to feel that you cause everything, that it's all up to you to a certain extent. It's true in certain ways. But there's so much that we don't control and that we still don't understand and that how things are all interrelated. And I think that's important to remember. And I think it's helpful as an athlete to remove yourself from this cause and effect way of living to understand that you're also a part of something.

One of the exercises that I find really helpful when I really get in my head is, and it sounds morbid, but I just start imagining the world in my absence. It's a game you play if you go to enough funerals, but you realize the Earth wouldn't slow down by 1 millisecond on its axis if I cease to be here. Which is not to say that I can't make a difference or that I don't matter. I do matter. I matter to at least a small group of people. If nothing else, my family matters. But it's a way for me to get out of what you're describing, which is like taking on more sense of importance. It is really interesting. The number of people for whom their removal from this planet matters is really low. Now, of course, the flip side of that is how do you create meaning and purpose? Which as you've talked about, I mean, did you know Steve Holcomb?

I did not. You know, I heard many stories about him, and he's featured quite a bit in this documentary, the Weight of Gold.

Tell us a little bit about that. How did that come about?

So a friend of mine, Jeremy Bloom, had found the director. His name is Brett, and he was actually wanting to do a comeback story because Steven was, I think, coming back for a second or third games, had won multiple Olympic medals. He was living in a training center in Lake Placid, and he thought, oh, what a great comeback story. I'll kind of film him going into the games and had interviewed him 12 days before he actually died, before he committed suicide. And then all of a sudden, that changed the whole direction of the film. And then brought in all these other athletes, some other athletes who had committed suicide, and other athletes that had suicidal thoughts or really struggled with depression, and really put a voice to what it's like to lose that sense of identity. And for Stephen in particular, he was living in the training center, felt very isolated, was starting to lose his vision, was driving the bobsled car, and, you know, felt all this, the enormity of it, the pressure, and not really having an outlet for how to talk about it, and would say that after this Olympics, even if I win, I'm going to have to go live in my mom's basement because I don't have any money, and you don't make any money doing what I do in this sport. And I think it's just kind of the isolation and the pressure, starting to lose his vision and just the enormity of it. He really suffered with. With mental health issues. And there's a whole spectrum. You know, there's people like him and like Speedy Peterson, who ended up committing suicide as well, who might have had intrinsic mental health issues. But then there's all these things that are aggravated by the fact that you lose an identity when you're done competing. And even if you're still competing, just the enormity of the pressure and you're handling it alone. And I think it's so important that athletes. Michael Phelps is a part of this, so is Shaun White and Apolo Ohno are coming together and really talking about what the process of training is like and what the loss feels like on the other side of an Olympic Games and how they try to process it. And from the outside, it may look like they have everything and that they're this epitome of success, but the sense of hollowness they have on the inside, this loss of identity and where it takes them, because you have these really incredible Type A personalities that will do anything and sacrifice anything to achieve, and then all of a sudden, their whole platform for achieving has been erased. And I think it really leaves you like a fish out of water.

We want to say, well, all these people that have depressive tendencies or that have committed suicide have mental health issues, but we make it sound like that's a binary distinction or something like that. Like they have cancer or they don't have cancer or something like that. I mean, in the end, I think we're all quite susceptible to, quote, unquote, whatever mental health means. You know, I'm writing a book on longevity, and probably the reason the book is taking so long to be completed is because I just can't finish this chapter on emotional health. It's the final chapter. It's the 17th chapter in a book. But I feel strongly about writing it because through my own sort of journey, I've realized that none of this other stuff, like, it doesn't really matter how long you live if you're miserable. Longevity means nothing if it's married to misery. But it's very hard to do. And people keep asking me, oh, how's the chapter on mental health coming? And I keep. Keep saying, well, I'm not calling it mental health because it strikes me as just a bit of a loaded term. It's really emotional health. And it doesn't come with a diagnosis and it doesn't come with an ICD10 code. It doesn't have a chapter in the Diagnostic and statistical manual, the DSM 5, and all these other things. I don't know if it means that Steve had, quote, unquote, mental illness. I mean, the bottom line is it's just a tragedy in this sense, and it's just an extreme example, but it doesn't in any way it comes back to this point, which is maybe it's true. 80% of athletes may have this total loss of identity that can be coupled with some form of depression that follows this. And I guess the bigger point, because I imagine there are people listening to this who on some level might be saying, like, I can't even relate to what she's talking about. Like, I'm saying this as the listener, and it's true as myself. Like, I'm not even close to being the best at anything. Like, I'd give my left arm to be the best at something for one day. What would you say to that person?

It's fleeting. I think it's an incredible thrill, but I think ultimately it's complicated. We're driven by so many things, but it's the life that you build. It's the relationships. And I think where mental health can be exasperated is when there's a lack of relationships. Steven was living in a dorm in a training center. Maybe some people love that and have a sense of camaraderie, but maybe some people feel isolated from family and friends. And so I think we don't realize how social we are and how much we need each other and we need friendships and family in our lives. We've become such an individual society that it's all about me and how good am I and what am I doing versus the community. And I think that's why there's been such a spike in rates of depression, is this feeling of disconnection. And I think it's important to realize that the things that we see, people winning an Oscar or winning an Olympic gold medal or achieving some great feat, it's incredible, and it's a life's work, and it should be applauded. But that shouldn't take away anything from the value of a connected, loving life doing something that is fulfilling, no matter what that is. Because ultimately, that's something day in and day out that you have to hold on to. Because all these other things are moments. They're moments that pass by where you're quickly replaced by the next person that wins the Oscar, next person that wins the Olympic gold medal, and you're holding on to a memory. But that feeling is. It's something you've done that you'll always have, but you still have to step on to that next chapter and try to build those relationships and find satisfaction and fulfillment and build a life again. So it's like, be careful what you're trading for what.

How would you help somebody make that transition? I mean, obviously the first part of it, on some level, must be accepting what you've said. I mean, I accept it fully because I've seen it as well, right? I've. I've spent time with the people who have been the best in the world. And without exception, everything you say is entirely correct based on that experience. There is no sum of money, there is no number of trophies, there is no number of Oscar statues that can accommodate for or compensate for bad relationships or a bad sense of self. But the how question is hard, right? It's what do you do when you wake up in the morning to begin resetting your identity around these things that are less fleeting?

It takes a lot of work, and the work isn't easy because you are letting go of a whole system of values that have defined you to an extreme in your sport and to some extent define society as a whole. What we value, who we think, you know, it's the young, it's the thin, it's the beautiful, who we put on billboards and applaud and read about in magazines. And so you have to be willing to let go of what society is Projecting as this, they're selling thin, beautiful. You know, what are we selling as a society? And is that actually making anyone happy? You know, we think, oh, when we lose £10, we'll be happy. Or like, oh, when I'm in this relationship, I'll be happy. And then you start to realize that these are kind of mirages or false illusions because it's profitable for companies to sell you something. And it's easier than looking inside yourself and beginning to change the way that you relate to yourself and relate to the world. And I think that's just. There's many, many books to read, but it's a slow unfolding, it takes time and you have to kind of be curious and want to put in the work. But it's very difficult to let go of the only thing you've ever known of the way that you're supposed to live. And what everyone else applauds. It's much easier to just play the game the way everyone else is playing the game and then hold up the trophy and everyone applauds you. But then at the end of it, you go home, it's great for the day. And then it just kind of wears off and then it's just like this, this trophy. But what are you now, it's funny.

In some ways, athletes have it the worst and, and maybe that's why athletes become some of the most powerful examples. We have to talk about these things because I'm sure you've heard David Foster Wallace's this is Water.

So good.

Anybody who's listening to this podcast will hear me go on and on about it constantly. And I can't recommend it highly enough. Anyone who's hearing this at this point in time and don't know what I'm talking about, hit pause on your podcast player right now and then go to YouTube and then put in David Foster Wallace, this is Water. And about a 24 minute talk is going to come up and I want you to sit down, close your eyes and listen to it. And then I want you to do that every day for the next week, and then every week for the next three months and then every month thereafter. That's the doctor's prescription right now. But he talks about, not athletes specifically, but he talks about this idea of self of worship. We worship things, we worship our intellect, our bodies, our wealth, whatever. And to your point, they're all hollow. I think it's just that athletes figure this out quicker because the window in which you can be great is so much narrower than say, the window in which you could be rich, or the window in which you can be the smartest, or the window in which you can be the fill in the blank.

It's condensed.

It's so condensed. It's just a super amplified play on the same theme in some way.

I was actually just in Ireland and it would rain and then it'd be sunny for a little bit, and then it would rain and be sunny for a little bit. And every time it would rain, I would take it so personally, like, no, like the day is going to be ruined. And how did I plan a trip at this time? And it's a short summer and I should have figured this out, but then it'd be sunny five minutes later. And it just showed me how much we identify. It's all about grasping an aversion. We want to be successful, we don't want to be forgotten. And we usually things are on a longer timeline, so we can't really see it because we're in it. But the weather was changing so fast in Ireland that I could kind of just see the folly of it and the undulation of human emotions that aren't completely rational. It's only when it was that close together and tying over to being an athlete, it's at such a heightened extreme, such a short period of time where you're like this hero, you're on a Wheaties box, you're everything. And then you're forgotten. And you know, it's the next Olympian that they put on the Wheaties box and is going on a speaking tour and it's like, okay, you're just not that relevant to you.

I mean, I guess taking what I said a moment ago, Olympic athletes are literally the most extreme version of this, because even, you know, the average player in the NFL might have a tenure of three or four years, which is relatively short compared to baseball or basketball. But as you said, an Olympian on average is one Olympics, which means two weeks. Can you imagine being the best in the world at something where your entire pinnacle is two weeks? That is a real manifestation. And it's hard for me to imagine that that's just a coincidence. With this idea that 80% of Olympians post their career could experience depression. It's hard for me to believe that's just a coincidence.

The way that we identify the way we see ourselves is completely responsible for our sense of well being. And if you set impossible standards or you know that if you're second best in the world, that's the biggest failure and disappointment, you're making the margin for Feeling successful so narrow and that even if you meet it, it's only a temporary high.

It's irrelevant. You're going to pass through it before you experience it.

And it's a temporary high too. You know, it's like a chocolate cake. You eat the chocolate cake, you feel great, and then the chocolate cake is gone and you're like, I shouldn't have eaten the chocolate cake. Not exactly like that, but it passes by. And I think that we have to think about the way we set up and define success. And is success the same thing as happiness? Because I think in sports, being successful means perhaps sacrificing and being unhappy and enduring for a very, very long time to be successful and to be gratified for moments or days. But it's not the same thing as cultivating a sense of well, being and being content and loving your relationships and having meaningful work and what you do. That has been very much undervalued in our society. And I think we're seeing a little bit of a lash back in the sense that a lot of people are interested in meditation and in yoga and in of the sense, sense of community. And there's a little bit of lash back on this individual achiever as being the kind of wherewithal for success and joy. And the answer, because people get there, they're like, hello, this actually isn't it. Like, you know, turn around.

Although it doesn't show at all. You're expecting a little guy soon, huh?

I am.

It's a testament to how tiny you are that even when you're pregnant, you still look super tiny.

It's so exciting. And the idea of being a mother and moving into this next chapter of my life is, I guess there's not words, you know, I try to think about what it means. My whole life was so focused on myself and what I did that I think having the chance to live for someone else and to create a life for someone else is just again, it's part of the arc of the being human. And I'm so excited for all that it brings. And it's been a complete diversion from planning to see every country and to so many books that I wanted to read, which have now all been replaced with books on expecting and babies. And I'm just like, oh, this is putting me so behind in my reading. But it's such a joy and reminder that life is so much bigger than just you and the gift and wonder of creating life. You know, all these things that we consciously work so hard to do and create and yet the magnitude of what our bodies can unconsciously do and create and give life to is just so incredible if you stop to think about it. You know, it's just. It's a huge joy. And as I was telling you earlier, I would like my child to not play sports at a very high level, but I want to fulfill, you know, in a healthy way, all the fantasies that I never had in my childhood and, you know, the debate team and playing guitar and spending time in the, you know, wilderness classes. So. Well, I'm sure that there'll be a lot of detours and opinions of the child's own.

Is your Olympic medal somewhere in your apartment? Is it. Is it featured? Is it one of those things that sits in a sock drawer, or is it something that sits out there?

It's so funny. My mom actually has it, and it's. It's on top of her. It's kind of, like, mounted on top of her dresser.

It's as much hers as yours, isn't it?

Yeah. And I think when I moved to New York, I kind of left some of that stuff behind, and it was very important for me to split and create a new identity and not hold on to that. So I really. I really let it go and just focused on, you know, I adopted my legal name, Alexandra, and I was Alex at school, and I just really pushed forward. But when I wanted to take. I had two Olympic rings. I wanted to take them with me and wear them. My mom said I should get to keep one of them. She's like, I. You know, I put in a lot of time and work, and to be fair, I can't even imagine now, you know, as I'm expecting, just the sacrifice and dedication for, you know, over 15 years of her life was about me, with taking me to different ice rinks and physical therapists and. And I was like, you know what? I'll leave her both rings. You know, she. She deserves that. But it's. Again, you just realize the medal is a medal, and I'm not. Again, it's what it represents. And the journey of my life and how figure skating and sport define me is incredible. And I can't imagine who I would be today without that. But again, it's an object, so it's not something I feel compelled to have or put on a wall or have near me, but it is representative of this moment of my life.

You were really fortunate to have motherhood demonstrated for you, like, amazingly, right? When you think about what you learned from your mom and how you're going to write your own playbook that's going to look different, right? I mean, presumably your kid's not going to be figure skating 10 hours a day. So you, it's not going to be the way you train.

I spent enough time in an ice rink. It's like it's not allowed.

But what are the one, two or three things that you will take from the lessons your mom lived, the practice that you saw in her as a mother to your son and potentially other children down the line?

I think a sense of selflessness and commitment to the family and just what it means to be a mother and what a privilege it is. And I think in society we don't always honor and worship the mother in the way that she should be and that she gives life and, and it's, you know, it's kind of in the past, has been relegated to kind of like the home. But what we respect is what people do out in the world. It's just part of creating your own set of values and thinking for yourself of like what is actually valuable. And I think at the end of anyone's life they'll say it's like the time they spent with their kids and their loved ones, you know, even these little small moments. I think for me, having been homeschooled and had my, my whole, you know, a lot of the team around me focus on what I did, it created a self centered way of seeing the world. And so I think this opportunity to step back and have not life be, but like what am I going to do? Am I going to be good enough or what's the next thing or how are people perceiving me but giving the gift of life and having my, my son and you know, show me to kind of reawaken. You know, I think a lot of times when we get to a certain place in life, we, we're a little bit set in our ways of like what we expect, what disappoints us, how things should be. And I think what I've heard from, from friends and parents is that your child is your greatest teacher. Because when they see something for the first time or they ask you about something, it's the sense of play that you kind of forget about because you're worried about responsibilities or how things should be. I'm very much looking forward to that. And I think, you know, I want to expose my child to the world, to travel, to show him how big the world is and to really just explore it. And you know, life is this incredible adventure. And so it's not really about becoming anything like becoming a product or becoming really good at something. It's I think just having this huge life full of love and adventure.

Well, I mean, I can't see into the future, but my intuition tells me you will embrace and succeed. Succeeds may be the wrong word, but for lack of a better word, you will certainly embrace and succeed in motherhood in a way that you've done in everything else to date. And I suspect it will only enhance this journey that you're on. And I want to thank you so much for taking the time and being vulnerable with us to sort of share a lot of this stuff. I know it's hard sometimes for normal people like me to try to extract insights from the best people in the world at something, but I think you've done a great job of reminding us that whether you're the best at something that it seems, you know, like there can only be one best in the world. It is fleeting. There's probably no arena in which that fleeting nature of greatness is more evident than in the Olympic arena. I'm glad you've brought us along this journey. Thank you, Sasha.

Thank you for having me on and opportunity to go back and kind of reminisce. So thank you. I enjoyed it.

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