EP7 Kris Burley - Gymnastics - Olympian

This is the Empowered Athlete Podcast, episode seven. Today on the Empowered Athlete Podcast, we're talking to an influencer, a change maker, someone who's been opening doors for athletes in every single sport in Canada for the last 20 years.

We're here with Chris Burley today. Can you imagine starting your sport at 4 years old and taking it all the way to the Olympics, having done no other sport and not really being able to be who you really are? And that's what we're going to dive into today with Chris Burley. Typically in gym clothes, I find it such a treat to get dressed up and go out.

Paul says I clean up well.

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Enjoy.

Welcome to the Empowered Athlete Podcast. Created to support athletes in their pursuit of excellence and inspire others toward their best lives. Hosted by Kari Schneider, coach to top performers in sport and life, and Paul Durden, former national and professional volleyball player.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Empowered Athlete Podcast. My name is Paul Durden. I'm joined by my lovely better half, Kari Schneider. We're your hosts and we are beyond excited for today's conversation. We have Olympic gymnast Chris Burley joining us. Chris, how are you doing?

I'm well, thanks Paul.

Thanks so much for coming on. You've got quite an amazing competitive background. You've been competitive for 10 years, from 89 to 99. And you're an Olympian, you're a four time national champion, you've got all kinds of other major games in your repertoire and we're so excited to have you with us. Can you kind of give the audience a little bit of a how you got into your sport and what your, what your start, what your background was like?

Definitely. Thanks, Kari. So I originally I was born and raised in Nova Scotia in a small town called Truro, Nova Scotia. But my sport was artistic gymnastics. But when I started in artistic gymnastics in my area of the country, there wasn't actually any boys programs available. So I actually joined at the age of 4 years old. The only club in the, in the town of Truro, which was a girls club. And so I started it when I was the age of four and, you know, basically discovered at the ymca. My mom used to take me to work when she was working part time there, and I used to drive her crazy. And she sent me one day into an after school tumbling class because I was driving her crazy. And the coach came running up to her afterwards and said, you got to put this kid in gymnastics. And so I did. And about a year later, when I was about five years old, they started a boys program, the very first boys program in my area. And I was in that first group of boys. And you know, from that point on, I was hooked.

That's right.

Go ahead.

Were your parents athletic, Chris? I mean, I know Kari and I have five kids between us, blended family. And we, we love gymnastics for a number of reasons. We love sport number one and just to appreciate the things that gymnasts can do. Having trained seriously, not being able to come close to it, personally, I'm blown away by what gymnasts can do. But more we, we also love it just in terms of it building a complete athlete. And so we want our kids to have a little exposure to it when they're young and then, you know, decide what route they want to go sport wise. But get that initial contact with gymnastics. Were your parents athletic and, or how did you get that little push into it beyond just, well, gymnastics.

Yeah, gymnastics was an accident. It was an accident of fate when I went in and because I was high energy and drove my mom crazy. But I come from a family of jocks. My dad was a hockey player. My mom did volleyball in track and field in university in high school, and my brother played varsity volleyball, believe it or not.

So are they, are they, are they tall?

My brother's just shy of six feet. So he was the backboard specialist for Daha University for about five years back in the day before Libero was there.

So how tall are you?

That's a personal question.

You said there was no off limits.

No off limits. I think on my passport it says I'm five foot six. So that I'm going to stick with that. Stick with it.

Perfect. We like that. Yeah.

But when it comes to sport, I mean, like, nobody, guys, I come from a hockey, hockey province, really. I mean, the province of Sidney Crosby. I mean, hockey is huge in Nova Scotia and gymnastics was relatively unknown. And like I said, I was in the first group of four or five boys that actually even did men's gymnastics in my whole town. So it was a, it was a very small community and a very tight knit community, but it was also a community that was, that didn't have a lot of opportunity when I was, when I was younger. So I, Nova Scotia was sort of fledgling at that point in its, you know, gymnastics development. So I actually went to the Canada Games having just turned nine years old.

Oh my gosh. In 1983 with all these teenagers. Right?

Yeah. And my, I was actually competing against Curtis Hibbert who ended up becoming one of my idols as a, as a young gymnast who was a, I think three time world medalist. And he was just, he was incredible during the late 80s and early 90s in gymnastics. And so I liked him, but he was 17 and I think he won the competition. But I had just turned nine years old and was at the Canada Games at a young age. So I started a little bit young.

That's incredible. That's incredible. But so the, the girls club that you were at, was it competitive and did you start to get competitive with that club or did you have to move somewhere else or get coached somewhere else? How did that work for you from that time? You're four to nine years old.

Right. I think what happened was, and, and I was 4 years old. So forgive me if I don't know for sure. But yeah, I thought, I think the girls club, the coaches moved out. So then they switched it and called it another club and switched to a, what we call the Truro Spartans or at the time was called the Spartans. So they created a new club and reinvented that club and had a boys, had a coach come in that was out of province and then was familiar coaching boys and girls and they started a boys program there. So it was, that was how it all sort of started. And incidentally the, when I was about nine, my main coach when I was young was a gentleman by the name of Takikuchi. And what's interesting is his son went to the Olympics following me in artistic gymnastics and he's now the coach of Ellie Black. Wow. So there's this long lineage and Nova Scotia has a long history of that. But I had, I was with him for about 13 years, but then. And also his, my old coach Tack his, one of his best friends was Mitsugu Ikeda, Richard Ikeda's father. So Richard Ikeda and I started together at night as eight or nine years old in Nova Scotia, training in a small club in a small town and both of us went to the olympics together in 1996.

It's those incredible Stories of the most unlikely scenario that you just, you know, it. I think people need to hear that because it fosters that thought of, okay, anything is possible. You can't have the excuse of my town's too small or I don't have a coach or whatever, because it can happen. And you see it all the time, the kid who comes out of somewhere in nowhere, that they thrive and they succeed. And so it just goes to show it doesn't have to be this huge club in Toronto or this huge, the most reputable place in the country to still foster talent and nurture that talent.

I agree. I think that there's lots of talented athletes, but to reach the highest levels, you need more than just talent. But, you know, growing up in a, in a. In an area like Nova Scotia as a young athlete, it was, I can tell you that it was an uphill battle for a few reasons. Number one, I didn't have the athletes to train with and compete with in the local level to learn. And gymnastics is a sport you learn a lot by, you know, watching other athletes and being around other athletes. So. And the other, the other thing that I always experienced at a very young age is that once I started to get a little bit of success locally, I had to start competing, like I said, at Canada Games. I was competing nationally at the age of nine, and all of a sudden I was on a much, much bigger stage with athletes from Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia and other provinces that had huge, big clubs and coaches and systems. And so it was a really uphill battle. And I remember when I started to get some success at 11:12 in what we call the age group categories, I remember my coach sat me down and said, you know, we're a judge sport. And because you're from Nova Scotia and because we don't have. There's never been another national team athlete before me. I was the first. And so you have to do better than everybody else. If you want to score a 9.4, you have to do a 9.6. If an Ontario kid doesn't wants to score 9.4, they have to do a 9.4. They will get the benefit of the doubt because you come without a reputation, without that provincial background and, you know, coming from a small town and, you know, it's interesting because I reconnected this year with, at the National Championships with some of the old athletes and coaches that I know, and I heard stories of how Ellie Black had to overcome the same thing.

Yeah, it was just. It's so unfortunate because you think of the judged sports. And then there's this bias still, still existing for the better, bigger clubs or that kind of thing. But at the same time, that one line became likely such a gift for you because you're being told that you just have to do that much better. It's got to be slightly more. Slightly cleaner, slightly more crisp, just that much more. And that seed was planted for you. And it likely fostered that work ethic that you speak of, which Paul and I are. That's near and dear to our hearts in terms of, you know, it's been clear in my entire career that it's not the talented ones that make it to that top level. It's the talented ones who decide to work that much harder. And for you, it's. It's almost like that little seed was planted. Would you. Would you say that was, you know, did that become a blessing or a curse when that coach said that to you?

Well, I think it's both, because in high performance sport, it's a blessing because I knew I was never. I never expected the benefit of the doubt. And little did I know that this little kid that you know from Nova Scotia, to try to get. To try to get some credibility on the national level, Once you made the national. Once I made the national team at 15, I was a little bit younger. And once I became national champion, guess what? Once. Once Canada goes and competes in the rest of the world, it's the same scenario.

Yeah. Yeah, it's just Canada.

It's just Canada.

Little old Canada.

Little old Canada. So, again, in a way, so it really, really helped me because I did actually see a lot of frustration along among some teammates. For example, we'd go to Pan American Games. And Paul, that's where you and I met was at the 95 Pan American Games in Marta Plata. That's right. We had a really good team. Our Canadian team was there and we were really strong, and we were third a lot because the Americans and the Cubans were fighting with each other, 1, 2, and the judges, you know, and there's all this politics around judges. And so once again, I remember the team, some of my teammates that were from Ontario were really, really frustrated. And it was funny because I actually had experienced that my whole career, right. Being a kid from Nova Scotia going, why do we have to do that much better than the Cubans and the Americans to get the same score or to get. Why are we always third? Well, it did set me up to understand on the international level, and I think that was a really, really, really helpful thing from a high performance perspective. But I can tell you now that I'm retired, it's one of the things that I struggle with. Right. Because you know, as a lot of the skills that we have as high performance athletes, that intense drive and focus and that perfectionism and that. I've got to go to that even beyond what everybody else is doing. Because I mean, you know, as a trainer, if you want to have your athlete go and beat other athletes, they need to do more. They need to do that little bit more. And at the high performance level, it's only fractions of a point or fractions of a second that can make the difference between a final and a not final or a medal and a finalist. And, and so all of that is really, really important in terms of high performance sport. But it's also, can be really tough when you transition out of sport. Yeah. And into real life. So.

And, and it's also that fine line for that athlete that, that they don't necessarily know they can do that much better that fraction more. They are trying to have faith in what they've been told by a coach or by someone else that, or what they think they're supposed to do, but they've never done it. And they don't necessarily know that they can. They just have to have this unknowing faith that, okay, maybe I can, or they say I can, and then keep pushing and keep pushing for that goal. You've, you've, you made it to that Atlanta Olympics. Was that a highlight? What would you say would have been the biggest highlight? That kind of euphoric moment that you can think of in your career?

Yeah. It's really funny you asked because I was on the phone with Scott Russell the other day because he's writing a piece. I'm being inducted into the Nova Scotia Sport hall of Fame of this year.

Congratulations.

That's fantastic.

Thank you. And what's interesting is he asked me that same question because he covered my career for many, many years. And, and he's, he's, he's a, obviously a great supporter of amateur sport. And I remembered and I, and I thought back to the 1994 Commonwealth Games, and I believe he was covering the sport then. And our team, Canada had never lost the gold medal. And we came into the final rotation in third place and our team was seated third. We had basically been written off by everybody going in because the British had a world medalist and the Australian team was incredibly strong as a group. And, but, but the games were in Victoria, bc, and you know, Paul, you know, it's very rare that Canadian athletes get an opportunity to compete in their own country in front of their home crowd. And, you know, I'm going into the last event, Team Canada was in third place. And I know there was our team. We felt like we had done the best that we could. And we went in thinking, okay, we're third. And I was last up on the last event, which also happened to be floor exercise, my best event. And I remember to this day the situation. All the other apparatus had finished competing because there was a judging conference on my teammate before me. So I was the last up. Every other. Everybody else was finished. And so all I could think about was doing my routine like, this was it. This was my chance to, you know, sort of be the anchor leg for Team Canada. Anyway, I did one of the best routines of my entire life. And I remember coming down off the podium and the team and I looked at each other and said, you know, where the best. And the coach came over and said, you know, we won by two tenths.

Of a point because, oh, my gosh.

I had like, basically our whole team had come together. And anyway, so that was, to me, one of that moment in Canada.

Yeah, it's movie worthy. That's movie worthy. You know, you just. You can. You can visualize it all and. And just the team erupting and.

Yeah, yeah, it's the classic.

This is what it all comes down to. And on that big stage, you're able to deliver it for the team, for the win. It doesn't get any better than that.

It was one of the highlights of my career, because the reality is we didn't. It wasn't like I knew what we knew. We were in third place at that point. We weren't performing for a medal. We were performing for pride and to represent our country. And in doing so, the best of we were able to win. And it was one of the most important moments. But you talked about Carrie, about, you have to believe that you can do something. And so coming back to this conversation with Scott, he asked me what was important. And from a very young age, I was always made very aware that I was from Nova Scotia, that I had a responsibility and an obligation. And so I take that very seriously. And so when I look at being the first athlete from my province to make the national team, the first national champion, the first, you know, Pan Am medalist, and then I look at what that helped do, and I knew that there was a responsibility because without. Without hope and without dreams, there's no potential and, and before I wasn't, I always dreamed of going to the Olympics. And so when I was able to achieve that as a Nova Scotia kid, I think I also felt a huge amount of responsibility for the other athletes on this coast to feel like they could do it, too. And, you know, I'm just so proud, too, because we've had other athletes that have come and then. And I look at Ellie Black and what she's been able to accomplish, and I don't think anybody from the, from Nova Scotia or the east coast or some smaller towns would ever have to sort of question what's possible, as she's the best gymnast that we've ever produced. So that, I think is important when you.

And to speak to your success and the legacy that it brings. And I've seen this with Paul, and he would probably. This is something that's hard for him, I think, to acknowledge, but this is the kind of thing that you don't even realize because you're so focused on your sport for so long, but you don't realize the effect it has on other young up and comers and how you're actually influencing them unknowingly. And years later, maybe at the time that you get inducted, there's going to be people who approach you and quite literally say, I got into that sport because I saw you perform or I saw you compete, or I saw, you know, I was amazed by how you looked on the, you know, on the bars or whatever. But it's. It's that legacy that you don't even realize is happening, and you don't realize how you're influencing other people that ends up affecting your whole province. And it's. It's a pretty cool thing.

I had that happen actually, in the last year and for a very different reason, but not any less powerful. I was asked about a year and a half ago because I work as an out Olympian, I work with the Canadian Olympic Committee's One Team program to work on diversity and LGBTQI2s inclusion in sport. So about a year and a half ago, I was asked by the Sport Inclusion Task Force people to would I work with Gymnastics Canada on the development of a task force and Strategy to address LGBTQI2s phobia or homophobia in gymnastics. And what came out of that, and to make a long story short, was I had an athlete contact me during that process where I was engaged in helping do some environmental scan and research and planning, who wrote me a long letter and said that I changed his life because he saw me as a young athlete and saw himself and he was able to see someone that looked like him, but also wasn't. That was. What's the word? I don't know. He was able to see the same traits in himself, in me, and it hugely inspired him to continue in his sport. He actually came out. I never, I was never out as during, during my competitive career, but he came out during his competitive career and is still involved in coaching. And I, he wrote me a long letter after, you know, in the last year to explain the impact and the visibility that my visibility has had even subsequent to my retirement. So that was really quite powerful for me.

Pause there for just one moment. Okay, first, because this is really important, we're getting just a little bit of static, I think, from your end, and I want to make sure that this is all heard because I think this is very important. So if there's a little, if there's a little move or something that you can do with your phone, perhaps.

Yeah, just picking up.

But that's better now, I think. Yep. Okay.

Oh, I'm not doing. I'm barely moving.

Okay, that's much better than. We are much clearer. Okay, let's, let's dive back in here and I'm going to pause for just a moment.

Okay.

Okay. Chris, can you explain to people exactly the entire. So exactly what you, what your role is when it comes to kind of bridging that gap between the understanding in the community and I'm not going to get all the letters right. Can you explain all the letters and can you explain, can you explain, you know, the, the motivation behind it? Because I am positive here that there's probably going to be some challenges that you can tell us about that you've overcome in your career because you weren't out when you were competing. And that in and of itself, I can't even imagine not being, being so, so focused on such a massive. Like people don't truly understand what it's like to train in a quad and train that hard and that focus and that fine tuned for that kind of performance on a world stage. And then at the same time, all at the same time, you're not being who you truly, truly are. So first explain a little bit about what you're doing, but then if you can as well explain some of the challenges you've had to overcome.

Yeah, sure. So in 2014, I believe it was 2014, the Canadian Olympic Committee launched what they called their One Team program, One Team initiative, which basically was the Canadian Olympic Committee standing up and saying, we are one team. You know, it doesn't matter who you love. And that they were focused on diversity as a key platform for what Canadian athletes and the Canadian Olympic ideals stand for. So as part of that, I'm a one team ambassador, but part of my role is to. So, you know, basically to promote diversity and inclusion within sport and sometimes outside of sport. And what we call. I mean, I know the letters kind of can be daunting. LGBTQI2s. It's lesbian, gay. I always. I always gay, lesbian, gay, bisexual, bisexual, transgender, queer. Two is. Is two spirited intersex. And there's probably one more I'm missing. Most of us in the community can. Are comfortable just saying gay or queer, but that you can tell. I've worked on a few task force, though it rolls off my tongue.

What does two spirited mean?

Two spirit is the indigenous people's identification that you have both male and female spirit.

Perfect. Okay.

So it. It's that and. Which was quite celebrated back before colonialism came in. And so we've. Our indigenous friends would call themselves, in many cases, two spirited.

Okay, that's good. That. That helps me understand. That's perfect.

And most people are comfortable saying lgbtq. Yeah.

And that's what we're familiar with. We're familiar with the tail end of it. Yeah.

Yeah. The i2s and I intersects with someone like a caster spaniel in athletics and. And people like that that share characteristics and other kinds of things. But anyway, the point of the whole process for me was I hadn't. I had nothing to do, pretty much nothing to do with gymnastics since I retired in 1999. And part of the reason for that was because I. Near the end of my career, as I got a little bit older, 18, 20, you know, 22, 25 years old, I had a very difficult time conforming to. To the rest of what. The expectations around what I should be on the team. I identified very early that I was different, but there wasn't a whole lot of safety in terms of how this space was set up. There was never any talk about diversity or whether it's gender identity or sexual preference or any of those things. And so I was very much tightly in the closet. And I was also in a sport where, as a judge, sport, the international level is there was a lot of Eastern European power that, you know, there was Germans and Russians, and my coach was Russian. So the idea. And I also saw other athletes that had come out in some way or another and had been mercilessly, mercilessly persecuted. And it actually really hurt their career. So there was no way that I felt that it was number one safe and number two, that it would actually, you know, it could actually hurt my career. So I never came out as an athlete. So it's a regret. But when you talk about the impact of a high performance athlete, that be able to bring your whole self to what you're doing and is really, really important. And we talked a little bit in a conversation, we were about identity and about your self identity. So I feel like part of my role now is as having not at the time in the 90s, not feeling comfortable and able to come out. I think times have changed and the momentum has shifted the other way where there's a tremendous number of Canadian athletes, both active and retired, that both LGBTQ and allies. And so everybody is supporting this because it's, you know, a diverse environment is good for everybody and athletes should be able to have an maintain their own identity because that fosters and improves performance and happiness. Because I mean, also a little bit of time after I retired also, I mean, you know, the number one purpose about sport is to make great Canadians, not necessarily to make Olympic medalists. So I sometimes struggle with that, the focus on the medal count, because I know, Paul, you never went to the Olympics, but it wasn't because you weren't one of the top volleyball players in the world. And rub it in, Chris, it's all right. You and I talked about this, that I had to go to the Olympics to realize that I didn't have to go to the Olympics. Right. It's more than that. And I think that's what high performance sport and nobody even remembers me as an athlete anyway these days outside of my family and friends and colleagues. And you know what, that's okay with because I had an impact. And now my job is to try to come back and give back. And when I started giving back with the task force with Gymnastics Canada, for example, I was shocked at the impact that I had at the time because that I'm hearing back finally now 15, 18, 20 years later, that I impacted people that were kids at the time when they saw someone that was not the most masculine, butch guy doing gymnastics and still being successful. And they thought, you know what? There's someone that has characteristics like I do and still successful. So now I look at the opportunity to give back. See, can we take things even farther? In part because sport has a long, long way to come still.

It's incredible what you're doing and you know, in the context of thinking about the Olympics and Things that are important in our lives or what we think are important. The work that you're doing to provide freedom of expression and inclusion and just showing how diversity is strength is the most important thing you can be doing. It's, you know, it's bringing happiness and comfort to people who may not have that. And a common theme that's come up in our discussions working on the podcast thus far is athletes, regardless of the sport, can feel trapped or powerless in that they fear showing any type of weakness. And it could be your sexual orientation, it could be an injury, it could be mental health, it could be anything that you personally feel may be perceived or interpreted, interpreted by your coach or those with power in your sport. You're afraid to share because it's so competitive. It's so difficult to hold a spot on a national team and so, so many athletes out there are carrying these burdens that they can't share. It was a huge motivator for Kari and I to get this podcast going to let everyone know that everyone's dealing with these things and it's okay and there are people to talk to. And it may not be in your sport, but your example of what you're doing now is a perfect transition, a perfect way to give back to those who need it most.

Well, you know what's really funny is that athletes. Have you ever walked in and talked athletes, you go, oh, yeah, they get it, right. When high performance athletes talk to other high performance athletes, you don't talk about all that stuff kind of intuitively get it. Yeah. I was really fortunate to spend a week in Japan in February with a group of eight young baby Olympians, I'll call them, and future Olympians. Eight athletes from Canada, some of whom are already Olympians, some who are hoping to go to 2020. It was like the hopefuls. So I did a little work to help the Japanese consulate set some programs up and connected them with the Olympic. Anyway, I was able to go as the team captain to this group of young, these young eight athletes from a diverse sport from all over the place. And we got this group together. We're still a tight knit group. Every athlete went from synchronized swimming to archery to taekwondo to canoeing. Everybody got along so well because we had that feeling that, ah, we get it. And with high performance athletes, so much of their of your time spent in isolation with your team or your coach that you think, oh, this is just me. This is only me. And my big revelation was in the 1996 Olympics, the assistant chef to Michion Silvia Sweeney, who was an Olympian.

She.

And she befriended me. And I remember sitting in a room of athletes and there was divers and there was gymnasts and there was rowers and there was all kinds of people. And we were just doing what your podcast is doing. We were just talking and going, oh my God, you feel that too? Or oh my gosh, you go through that too. And what quickly dawned on me is like, we're all, we all have the same issues, which is why athletes, when they get together, they get each other. Right? Yeah. And so I really applaud what you're doing with the podcast. But what's hilarious is that we're trained as high performance athletes not to go there, to not talk about it for those reasons, Paul, that you were talking about. Right.

And that's, and that's exactly what happens in my realm in that, say I'd have a handful of high performance athletes, but I'd be putting them together in a training session because they can't afford to train individually with me. Their sport body won't cover that. And so I'm putting a rugby player with a figure skater, with a diver with a female hockey player, all of them in a training group together, but they're all training on their individual work, but they're at the same time. And over time, when you're training month after month in these same groups of athletes, that's what happens is they start to learn from each other and realize that, oh, that's what happens in your sport bodies. And yours is an aesthetic sport or yours is a team sport or whatever. And it's exactly that. And, and it's that conversation that almost needs to be had across the board on a regular basis. So that at that down in the trenches where the athletes are, they just don't realize that they have support perhaps from other athletes out there. And that's what we're trying to create here. But going back to, for you specifically, what was the biggest challenge you would say that you had in your, in your sporting career?

The biggest challenge? Well, biggest challenge. Well, there's always challenges around funding and that kind of thing, but I think.

That'S, that's a given.

It's given. It's Canada. Most athletes don't.

It's only hockey that has better funding than the other sports.

That's it. Yeah, Hockey, Hockey is one of them, but funding is always a critical one. But I guess one of the challenges that I always, that I look back now and I think was that so much of the focus and attention and expectation was solely around my performance, that there wasn't an understanding or an appreciation of identity, growth and development. Now, keep in mind, gymnastics is a sport of children. I started at the age of four and then I grew up my entire life in sport until I was 25, right from being basically almost like a toddler right up to being a full adult and in some sports, you know. You know, so that growth and development. So for me it was a real identity shift. And so I really struggled with the challenge of that. I was only as good as my performance. And in gymnastics, it's an individual sport versus volleyball, where you need six guys in the court. But still there was that intense competition on your own team because the way the structure was that, you know, the more, the higher your ranking on the team, the more international assignments, more opportunity to travel, the more your funding was on and on and on. So you're not only competing against your own teammates, you're competing in your club, you're competing. Everything was about competition. And all the focus when I was young was on performance. And I remember that the year it happened, it was the year I went to the Canada Games. I realized. And I associated. Oh, because I was a little kid and I was a little bullied when I was a little kid. And all of a sudden I went to Canada Games and made TV in Nova and carried the flag for Team Nova Scotia closing ceremonies. All of a sudden things changed for me because all I had a little recognition and success and all of a sudden it was like, oh, the better you do, the more people like you.

There's a carrot now.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I learned that lesson really well because if you keep winning, people will like you. You will still keep getting what you want. You will progress.

And that's so primal. That's so primal.

So primal. And it is. Can be incre. Difficult to realize because that's. It's not real. It's an illusion. Yeah. Because they're not looking at it.

It's not real love.

It's not real love.

Yeah, it's.

It's all about. And then it's adoration. Right. And then the sports system breeds that. And then the high performance community endorses and supports that. Performance, Performance, performance. And I think what we're seeing now in this day and age, particularly when athletes retire, is they go, who am I if I'm not the team captain and national champion of the gymnastics? Well, who am I really? Who. Who is Chris or. Or who is Paul? But I'm. You're more than a volleyball player. So that's the real question. So I think the biggest struggle for me was looking back and not really knowing who I was beyond being, you know, you know, a relatively talented gymnast.

Yeah.

You know, and. And then looking at. So, sure, we all give up and sacrifice and there was great benefit from being an Olympic athlete, but to me, that was the hardest point and it's taken to get to really know who I am and like myself and be comfortable and understand that my identity and performance. Because honestly, again, when you get athletes in the room, we don't, you know, we don't care how many medals each other's won or whatever. We all just kind of support each other intuitively. Yeah. At the same point, you know, we're all people. And some of the best relationships with athletes have come after we've retired when not really competitive environment. So identity, to me has been one of the most important formative things that I. Hopefully things like the one team are going to start to change. And this podcast is another example. Athletes talk to athletes now talking to other athletes to share that. But, you know, that isolation and that focus on performance above all else, you know, I think that was probably the biggest struggle that I had.

And did you have a particular low point around that? Grappling with discovering your identity? Did you have a particular low point that really was tough to overcome? Well, go there. Go there.

There, right there. So, yes, I did. And it was because when I was, you know, in my early 20s and late. Well, actually late teens, early 20s, and I was discovering my sexual orientation or coming to grips with it, I knew it earlier, but I wasn't comfortable with it. I also became. I was very, very focused, again, focused on performance because I was incredibly afraid of what people might think or what kind of situation I would be in if I was more open about my sexuality. But basically, on the gay scale, I'm not the butchest guy and the most masculine guy. So everybody assumed national team.

Is this gay? Is this gay scale somewhere online?

But let's just say that the men's and women's team had bets on when I was coming out.

Oh.

And that was all the conversation you see, that was going in the background. And, you know, it came to a head at one point when I was attacked by a teammate and put in the hospital briefly. I was assaulted by a teammate. And what the horrible part of that was horrible in and of itself. But the worst part was after the incident, I came. Wanted to come back to training. I was the one that was ostracized, attacked. Yeah. And. And so, because I was different, because I wasn't following what I was supposed to, because they felt uncomfortable, and you're the problem, I'm the problem. And. And so I became. I didn't feel like I was in a very safe space. And it got to the point where I actually had to call the police to feel safe in my own gym and a variety of other things. But what happened was that the team, most of the team, not all of them, but a lot of the team at the time kind of turned on me and said, too bad. Suck it up. Like, it was like, you're being. You're being a pussy, right? Like. Like, it was like, it was just even worse. And then. So it created an incredibly hostile environment the last couple years of my career, which made, I guess that part of. Contributed to having a little bit of a chip on my shoulder. But I also. It was a very difficult time in my life where, I'm not sure, looking back, it was amazing that I kept training and kept staying in that environment 24 7. But that was probably one of the most horrible points in my life because it, you know, we were preparing for competition and trying to qualify for the 2000 Olympics. And, you know, I had raised a bunch of money and centralized a lot of the national team athletes, and we were working together, and I had, you know, worked intensively on trying to raise money to help not only me, but four or five other athletes, which we did. And. And to go through that, it was. That was probably one of the hardest points in my life. And then. Which is one reason why, as I told you before, I had almost nothing to do with NASICS for the last 20 years, because I felt that it was turned on.

Yeah, I was just gonna say it turned your back on you. And did you have anybody to turn to in that time?

Absolutely. I, you know, I call her my angel. But the sports psychologist that I had brought in to help with my group and team at the time we lived in town, and, you know, I told her what happened, and she gave me the keys to her house for a week. And then my family came up and was. My family's always been very, very supportive. And they came up and I had. Because all the athletes, believe it or not, I had. We got a house donated, so I had. I coordinated a house. We were all living. So I couldn't live there anymore. So, you know, on and on, you know, I had my family and I had some friends there to support. Support me through that. But it created an incredibly hostile, I guess, Training environment. And so it really made me quite bitter at the time and quite angry about, you know, this isn't what sports meant to be. This isn't what team. Teams are supposed to be. And I, I didn't quite understand at the time why all of this was happening to me, but I knew it was, it was. It was pretty devastating.

Were you depressed?

Depressed and anxious and angry and, you know, and I think again, as I talked about before, when I learned when I was a kid, that the more. The better your performance, the more people liked you. I thought. I sort of. I guess I redoubled my efforts.

Yeah.

To train hard.

We hear that so much from athletes. Like, I'll show them. I can prove it. I'll show them via what I can do and it'll be in their face, you know.

Yep. And I wasn't going to let somebody else derail my career because, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, come on, you're tough, you're tough, you're tough. And, you know, competing at the international level in any sport, you've got to be tough and focused. But, I mean, that was one of the reasons why I've now come full circle and agreed to work on the diversity space. And I think the time is right. And I've also come to understand and accept myself a lot because I. That environment was. And I, And I'm. And I'm not saying all. You know, not everybody was awful to me, but the environment was so toxic at a time that whether, Whether it was me and my sexuality or another athlete and their other issues. I mean, it just wasn't working. It wasn't working. And people weren't concerned about anybody other than what they, what performance they could have, you know, in the gym. And, And I think that was. That was a big lesson for me going, they really don't give a shit about who I am as an individual. As an individual. This isn't about the growth and development of me as a human, better person and a teammate and all those wonderful things. This was about. It's about a score. It's about a score. Can you get us to the Olympics or not?

Yeah.

And the reason they put up with me, full stop. I know full well, because I had the conversation, I said, if you want to qualify for the Olympics, you need to. I'm the top.

Yeah. And at the. Go ahead.

No, that's. I was going to say performance trumps it.

Yeah. It's so true. And at the same time, you can see now how toxic. Toxic it Was. And when you're in it, though, it's. It's like the forest for the trees. You can't necessarily see what's going on or why it's dysfunctional, but it just feels so bad and it's just not working. And you, you know, you know that everything in you wants to be away from those people, but at the same time, everything in you wants to prove to them. And it's just. It's so unhealthy. Did coming out of that, you know, that brings a lot of trauma. That type of thing can cause post traumatic stress syndrome. Did you get help after you retired or before? Like, I imagine it's a long process, because for most people it is. But is that a process you went through in order to kind of be able to come full circle and go, okay, true forgiveness or true, you know, growth or progression really means being able to face all of the things that your life composes of?

Well, to answer your question, I'm still dealing with it. But yes, I have. I do have help. And I had. I had tremendous support from friends and family throughout. All throughout that. And then, and then since then. But, you know, there's a certain amount, I guess, of maturity and stepping away from sport in general lately. I stepped away from sport for many years and said, I've had enough of this. This is not a good environment. And then now I can come back and look at it with a little bit of a different lens and think, well, there are really good things, and come to grips with a few things. Like, I was. I was a good gymnast. You know, Ellie Black's certainly much at a higher level than I was. And I can actually. I can actually watch the Olympics and cheer my ass off and be a total fan. I couldn't watch the olympics for over 10 years. Yeah, that's when I retired.

That's so sad.

Yeah, because it caused anger and sadness and frustration and isolation and anger. So I did get help from that, and I've had help and I still get help for it. And. And that's enabled me to do that. And I recommend every athlete get help because I remember the week I retired, it was awful because all of a sudden I get a note that, you know, you're funding. My carding funding was cut off. Like, everything that I was comfortable and knew and how it worked stopped. I was no longer a member of the national team. I was no longer captain of the national Team. I wasn't a gymnast anymore. I was a quote, unquote, normal person. And I had no Idea how to be.

Exactly.

Nobody teaches you how to be a normal person because high performance athletes are not normal.

No.

And they're not trained to be normal. Because all the traits that make us high performance athletes are traits that are outside the norm, which is why, you know, they're Olympic athletes. So. But I, you know, for me, it was important to accept and help and. And I think every athlete. And one of the big things about that, I think, is talking to other athletes and other. I had some retired athletes that mentored me. I had people like Margie Schuett, who's an incredible. She volunteer and she does a lot of work with aquatics. She was vice president of Commonwealth Games for years. And she's just an incredible. She was an incredible mentor for me and support system. So, you know, coming out, there's a lot of people there that can help. But, yeah, it's been a. It's an ongoing battle. And, you know, it's funny because I look at it and I go, yeah, I was good at. Okay, great. And the honor, for example, with the Nova Scotia hall of Fame is important, and it reminds me of the impact and it reminds me of all of that. But I'm able to now put sport and my sport career as a Just one facet or one part of my. Part of my life, as opposed to.

Saying, that's who you are. Yes.

Yeah, it's. You know, I was a good athlete, you know, and I was really proud of representing Canada, and I had some good success and I had some great experience that are really unusual. And, you know, I'm really grateful for that. Now I can look back and be grateful for the opportunities that I had. And sometimes I look back and think I was crazy for going through a lot of the things I went through, going, what was I thinking? But then, you know, that's the one good thing about that, is being able to set a dream and then get through it and. And then have a little. But now it's. For me, it's about generating and finding that balance. So.

Yeah, and even the work with one team, you're in that place where you have perspective and you have a healthier mindset. But working with one team can become cathartic in being able to go full circle and, like you say, be able to appreciate and look back with fondness instead of only, you know, the bitterness or the challenges and the hard things that happened. The fear.

Absolutely. Really, I mean, it's like, no matter what coming up for any LGBTQ person, you're afraid because you never really know how people are. But in sport, it was even worse. And for some people, in my experience, I had some, you know, some people don't feel safe. And, you know, sometimes it's for very good reasons. And, you know, the work with one team and the work and times have changed and it's, you know, what, what I. But what is so inspiring to me is a lot of the LGBT young athletes that are coming out and like Rosie Kosser, who works with coc, rhythmic gymnast, the only rhythmic gymnast, LGBT lesbian rhythmic gymnast that's ever been out in public. What a. You know, what an incredible story. She came out before the 2012 Olympics as captain of the women's rhythmic team. First group to ever make the Olympics and to do so under incredible pressure, but to do so that I look at that and I admire these young people. And I also think, well, you have.

To remember you blazed this trail.

Yeah, you paved the way.

It's so important to remember that although you didn't come out as an athlete, you did after and you've spoke about it and you've created change and opened these doors for others to. To expand this horizon. That's. It's something I can't. I can't understand or even pretend to be able to relate to what you've had to go through.

It's.

Well, for me, it's just me incredibly hard.

Well, but I mean, what's. What's equally as inspiring is all the allies that of respite. Because you know what? Most the community and the sport community and the high performance community has progressed so much since then. And I think what the reality is, by connecting athletes like we talked about earlier, from multiple sports and connecting them like the athletes that I went to Japan with, all eight sport. All high performance from different sports. Oh, my God. The team building and understanding and support structure that was generated with just one week of being together is incredible. But for me, it was like seeing how the allies and how the sport community has changed. There's a lot of work to do, but how the allies come forth to support and say, hey, no, no, if you can play, you can play, right?

You can play.

Work with that. And it's that that really has shifted the momentum as well. So I'm really inspired by the young people that are coming out and doing great things and doing so with the full capacity of being who they are and. And owning up to that. And I think that that's just better for everybody.

Chris, what would you say are your greatest fears now getting old?

Well, my greatest fear no, that's a good question. You know, now that I have sort of a normal life, it's like I have a small company, and I do consulting and all that kind of thing. But my biggest fear now is. That's a really difficult question. Being forgotten, maybe.

I was gonna try to help spur you by saying those exact words. I think throughout my career, my. My legacy and my. My track record, my. My stats, what I did, again, because it was who I tied myself to being. And, you know, if I was a good person, I was a good volleyball player, that kind of thing, that my legacy was everything. And so for that to be forgotten would be devastating to me. I think at the stage I'm at now, I need to obviously learn and get beyond that. But for me, I would agree there, that it'd be being forgotten for the sacrifices that went in.

Yeah. The Nova Scotia Sport hall of Fame is very, very important to me, and it touched me a lot because I know, you know, it's been almost 20 years, and I was always so worried that I would, you know, Although I had, you know, great results and that my old home gymnastics community didn't remember or that there was nothing. And also, I mean, you guys have five kids. I don't know how you.

We don't either.

And so now I'm able to look back and say, yeah, I was a good athlete. I wouldn't. You know, I mean, I can now, you know, I'm not an Olympic champion. I'm not Olympic medalist and not a world medalist. And you know what? Frankly, I'm okay with that now. I'm really good saying, yeah, that's okay. But sometimes I think at that moment, I thought, ah, you know, all of that thing. There's no one to remember that and to be forgotten in my legacy in sport. And then. Then I. Then I get a call that I'm in the hall of Fame, and then that makes me go, oh. And then, you know, and I think that also motivates me to help the younger athletes. I mean, Mark Tewksbury is a good role model, too, and, like, that, you know, especially in the LGBTQ community. But, I mean, I prefer not to do it for the. You know, for, like, public recognition. Public recognition. You know, I feel like it's that athlete that sent me that message saying that I was the person when he was a little kid that said, I want to be like him, even though. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Do you think that long after you've left this earth that that is what you want? Your legacy to be is being that person who helped pave the way for the next generation of being able to be comfortable with who they are, with their sexuality in any circumstance.

Yeah, I think it's not even the sexuality that I would love to be remembered for. Someone who really pushed the need for a holistic approach to sport. I worked with Athletes can for four and a half years. I was vice chair of Athletes Can. I was on the Canadian Olympic Committee's Athletes Council. I was on the Commonwealth Games Board of Directors. I was on the Atlantic Canadian Sports Center Atlantic first year as the Board of directors. I was heavily involved in athlete leadership because I wanted to make a difference for the next generation of athletes. I wanted to.

That's your legacy. That's your legacy right there.

I knew that all the athletes had experienced the same thing, and I wanted athletes in, you know, whether you're in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or in B.C. to go for whatever they could go or feel that they could do that. And so I think bigger than the. The LGBTQI diversity piece, I think that's really what the underlying message is from that, is that, you know, you know, I want. I want sport to build community and build great people, and I can do that through high performance, but high performance shouldn't be the be all and end all. And I think as I get a little older, I look at, oh, okay, that's really what sport meant to do, right?

Yeah. To tie the world together.

There's nothing that builds community as well as sport. Exactly. Doesn't build that team. Teamwork and working. Nothing. You know, and. And I had some really fantastic teams in my time. And, you know, I had some tough ones, too, but I had some really. And, And I, you know, it was really formative in terms of teaching me a lot. And. And I've met some really incredible people in sport that I really, really admire that changed and shaped my life simply just because they are who they are. And, you know, and I think that's what the power of sport can do. And I think. I think all high performance athletes are a little idealistic sometimes. Right. Because we're dreamers. But, yeah, I think that's. That's ultimately what's.

That's okay. We're not going to thwart those dreams. So I've got a few. Few questions here for you that are just a little shorter, a little more specific. If you have. If you had, like, one really small thing or action that has had a really big impact on your sport or life or relationships, what would that really small thing be?

Wow, that's a difficult question. So, you know, you.

A little something that might have had a big impact. It might have been earlier in your life, it might be now, and it has that big impact. And it could be any area. It could be sport, could be life, could be relationships.

Wow. There's a lot. There's a lot to choose from. I don't. I. You can.

You can skip it. That's okay.

We can skip that one. I don't really know how to answer that one.

What. What do you want people to know about you that most people don't know about you? Could be something quirky, could be something uni. Just something that you know if. If you're an open book, what do you want someone to know about you that most people wouldn't know about you?

What most people wouldn't know about me? While you think.

While you think about it, Chris, I've got one that you told me about yourself that you said it was a weird experience to have to buy your first pair of shoes and you retired.

And luggage, because people.

People don't know that about athletes. There's certain things that you just take for granted when you're on a team or in a sport that you get certain gear, and then all of a sudden, you got to buy it yourself. And shoes are expensive.

Well, I never bought running shoes ever until I was 26.

Yeah, they just know your size and you get your new gear, your kit.

Everybody from the age of 8 or 9 when your parents buy your stuff. I had, you know, I had team gear from Canada Games right through to the national team to, you know, I was on the age group, national team, age of 12.

So you got to learn to buy clothes. You got to learn to buy clothes, too, because you've been in.

Yeah.

Gym gear all the time as well.

Yeah. You know, I think. I think one of the. The most important things that impacted me was, you know, when I. When I was at the Olympics and I. I had somebody say to me, well, I said, well, you know, we. I've got to make a change. I've got to do something. I've got to do something for athletes. And they turned to me and said, so do it. Mm.

It's something small. It just takes small actions to make.

A big impact, because it wasn't about performance at that time. And, well, what can an athlete do outside that? Well, and that. And then I remember. I remember what happened after that is I went to this person who was a mentor, became a mentor, and I met them in their office and they were a successful business person. And I came in and said, well, I've got to make a difference. I've got to make change. I've got to help these athletes. You know, we're struggling and we don't. Shouldn't be struggling so much. And so. And then they sat down and they were gracious about it, took the meeting and said, well, what do you want to do? And I told them my idea and they said, okay. And they said, okay, let's do. You know, here's what you got to do. And I then about two weeks later, I booked another meeting and came back and I said, well, here's what I've done. And they laughed and they smiled and I said, why are you smiling? And then later on I found out, they said, do you know why you got the second meeting? And I said, no. She said, because most people come in and ask for something, but they really want them to do it for them. You came in and said, here's what I want to do. Teach me how to do it. I want to learn how to do it. And you went away and did it. And she said that was the difference. And fundamentally that changed my whole perspective in terms of empowering my own, myself.

If everybody did that, the world would be a different place.

But they took a chance. Right. I didn't know that I was being tested. And, you know, I do remember one of the most formative moments of my adult life after I retired was I also after I retired from gymnastics, I took a year off, worked in Toronto, but then I joined Cirque du Soleil for three years. So I joined the touring company of Alegria for two years as an artist and then was an assistant artistic director for Draliel. But they have this thing called Formation where they basically take high performance athletes from all over the world and bring you to Montreal for four to six months and they basically train you in circus arts. But what they're really doing is detraining the athletes and creating artists.

Yeah, reprogram.

Reprogram.

It's. I just. This is so, you know, cosmic. I don't know what it is, but I just did an assessment on a Cirque du Soleil athlete today.

Wow.

Yeah. You know, and so what you're saying and just her describing some of the. The artistic nature of it and all of this. Yeah, it's. And that's. That's exactly what I was hearing from her is just they're artists. That's what they do. They create art.

Right. And that's Very different than a high performance athlete that does hold and focuses on themselves. So we had this thing where we. My training group was eight athletes. We were on something called power track. And we were, you know, you're training eight hours a day on various things and they used to basically put you in improv and they used a lot of theater tools. But basically they had to detrain that high performance athlete. Two months into this training process, I was about. I was beating my head against the wall. And I remember driving there, I had a car at the time and another athlete and I, who was in a different group. He was the world famous gymnast from Hungary and world famous and he had won world medals and the whole bit. And we were both at this training and we both. They were making us do silly things, like we had to be dogs and cats and chickens and this and that. All kinds of really crazy, embarrassing things. At the time, we thought they were embarrassing. And I remember I was driving him to the drugstore and he said, chris, what are we doing? And I said, I don't know, man. Like, what is this all worth it? Like, why are we. We're not learning any skills. The reality was they were changing training us. But I remember he looked at me and he said, well, we have one of two choices. We either go home or we. We just go with it. And I remember the next day there was one girl that I worked particularly well, and they make you work in pairs. And there was a middle of this gym and there was 50 people around and we had to do this weird exercise. And I remember working on it. I said, I'm gonna give up. I'm just gonna go for it. I did it. And what happened was we were in this doing this exercise for like minutes after minutes after minutes. And my partner and I kind of looked at each other and we said, gotta stop. We looked up and both the coat. We had two coaches, an artistic and an acrobatic coach. Both had tears streaming down their face looking at me. And the gym sort of stopped. And I was like, holy shit, I'm gonna get fired. And they came running over to me and hugged me with tears down their eyes and said, this is the first time we've seen the real you. And I will never forget that moment. It was the first time I had taken off the waves of fear and shame and the masks, and I just was. And probably one of the most pivotal moments in my life in terms of that aha moment. Because what it really was was an authentic moment. I was authentically myself and that's what Cirque du Soleil pulled out of me through that training. And that's that moment where I realized that all that training and being closed off and protecting myself, whether it's from my sexuality or from training or from just being under the gun all the time, under performance, that all broke down at that one moment. And it was actually so visible that everybody in the entire. Could see it, Paul could see it. And I realized, oh, that was the. That was a huge moment for me. And.

And what a gift for you to have that experience and have that moment while still practicing your craft versus, you know, having it never happen in a sort of gymnastics sort of way. Yeah, it never would have happened ever. Exactly, exactly. It just never would have been there. And that was the gift that you were able to receive from that experience.

Well, that was what it was, an opportunity to be me and be an artist and still be excellent and still do that all because what. What the Cirque du Soleil wants to do was they. They kept saying to me all the time, who are you? Where's your personality? And I would show them performance because that's what I was trained.

Robot, robot, robot.

You know. You know, I'm going to hit it. I'm going to hit routine. And they're like, we don't care about your technical. Everybody here is technically brilliant. You're all Olympians. And who are you? Yeah, and that's what makes.

That's what makes Cirque du Soleil so world famous in what they do, because it touches people.

Well, that's. And that's exactly it. And you touch people by sharing energy and not being closed off. And so that was. And you can only do that by being different variations of yourself. And so when you're on stage, you're actually sharing with the audience and you have a tremendous amount of power. But it was that authentic moment when I realized all of that training when I was little, about, you know, perform, win, win, win, and people will like, you all of a sudden broke down and saying, we don't care if you win, because there's nothing to win here. This is life and performance. Who are you? And I couldn't answer the question. And then I just sort of. Once you start to break down those walls, all of a sudden, it allowed the other things to kind of come out. And, oh, guess what? You know, I still had friends and I still did well, and, yeah, and I was able to move on. And I think that was the beginning of the healing from that high performance mentality.

Yeah, that's an incredible story.

Yeah, that's fantastic. It's transformational is what it is. And that's the kind of thing that people need to experience to overcome the hardest things.

Because otherwise, how do athletes know? Right? I mean, you retire, you then go back to school, or you get a job and you've got the regular pressures of life where you've got a family, too, and you've got to make money.

You become miserable. You become miserable.

What am I doing? Who am I? And so I was fortunate from a creative perspective to have an opportunity to break down some of those barriers, to kickstart that. So, again, I think that's part of the reason why, I think now giving back from a. From a. I can give back through one team in various ways, but that's a way for me to help engage the authentic selves of younger athletes, to empower them not only for their sport, but for their life. And it sounds kind of cheesy, I guess, but that's, I think, what it can do. And sometimes I had these experiences. I had these retired athletes give me an opportunity and give me some attention and give me some guidance, and so sometimes that's all young athletes need.

Yes. That's fantastic. On a lighter note, what is maybe a favorite food or dessert or both?

You know what? I made a career out of not eating as a gymnast, but I'm a huge fan. I've passed that. There's a great restaurant here in Toronto called Manji and Bevy, and they. Great pasta. I love pasta, so. But I'm from the east coast, so I do like seafood, too. My family's from.

Yeah, yeah.

My family's from Yarmouth. I have a little cottage there, family cottage. And my uncles and aunts were fishermen, and so seafood's good. Lobster's great.

Favorite movie.

So the people I work with are constantly telling me that I need to stop quoting the Devil Wears Prada. That's a bit of a stereotype. I could quote the entire movie, and I probably shouldn't do it in a work environment. But, yeah, I like a variety. Everything from Star wars right up. But that's the movie I'd probably quote.

Well, our family loves Star wars, and I can probably quote way too much Dumb and Dumber, so don't worry. So, okay, how about. Do you still work out?

You know what? I do, and I used to work out a lot more. I'm 45 this year, so, you know.

Can you still do an iron cross?

Are you kidding? I think I couldn't do an Iron Cross six months after I retired. And I became a personal trainer for a while and I trained just to keep fit. But I did find that a career in sport like gymnastics, the witches uses the entire body so brutally sometimes that keeping in shape is absolutely critical to my mental and social and physical well being. So I, I do go to the gym. I try to go at least three times a week. It gets harder because I run my own company and I, and I'm really busy sometimes.

So you got to do self care. Self care is important for your optimal performance in your company.

You've been talking to my therapist.

This is what I do. I coach, I coach top performers. So this is my job.

Yeah. So again that high performance work, you can't substitute high performance sport for high performance work as well. But it's sort of a natural trend for us. But yeah, self care and that kind of thing. So now I force myself to take time off and I go to the gym and try to keep healthy. And you know, as former athletes, we need to keep that up because that's where our DNA comes from. My stress, my best thinking comes in.

The gym and it wards off depression. It keeps you functional. You know, there's so many, so many things.

Yeah. And it's what you know. Right, exactly. Being in good shape is important and being, having that physical intelligence because it's hard. It's hard when you're in your 40s and your body starts to not do because your brain. I still think I can do triple flips.

Yeah.

And I know that if I tried I'd be in a wheelchair. So you know, I get, I get that.

I really do. I don't do triple flips, but I do, I think that my body is my 20 year old body and I'm like, wait a second, why does that hurt?

What did I do? I picked up groceries. What? Yeah, I play volleyball actually once in a while. I played on Sunday, believe it or not. Paul. So I picked that up as a social thing.

But you know, that's why I emailed you, I emailed you Paul's cartwheel. So you can see that. Yeah, I can see that. Do you have a favorite book?

The Way of the Peaceful Warrior is one of my favorites.

That's sitting on my night table. I read it a few months ago.

Yeah. Dan Millman, because he was a gymnast and a trampolinist and that was one of the most impactful books. I read it after I retired.

Fantastic.

Fantastic and really powerful. And you know, I normally read for entertainment, but that was A book that had, you know, I mean, Eckhart Tolle and things like that are good and I've read some of that stuff. But the Way of the Peaceful Warrior was. Had a huge impact on my, my life.

That's excellent. Lastly, do you have any tip to young upcomers in the sport? Any advice?

One of them is to ask for help. Yeah, because you know, I. There I. What I. What I realized looking back and having talked to people, I had a lot of people that were actually very, very close to me that I had no idea what I was actually going through when I was going through a lot of the, the horrible hard times.

Isolate yourself.

Yeah, it's isolated. High performance sport can be super isolating.

Yeah.

And if, and they look back and say, I had one person come up to me and say, oh my God, if only. I didn't know all of that. I didn't know it was that bad. Like there was, there was support and guidance and all that good stuff around me. I just didn't know how to access it. So, you know, breaking down some of those barriers and that, I mean like again, back to that trip to Japan, I was able to interact with these young athletes at the peak of their career, you know, you know, most of whom are going to qualify for 2020. And it was just so inspiring to that. But it was kind of cool to be able to come back and say, you know, hey, I'm here. And hey, if you need anything, I'm here, I am here for you. Doesn't matter what it is. And one of the athletes had a. Had their team had issues and I just happened to know someone that was on the board of directors. So I was able to give them a call and just give some insight and say, hey, are you aware that the athletes are going through this, that led to them working together with the athletes to help change the situation. So like I was like, I felt so good about being able to just simply connect two people but because they were willing to talk to me and knew that I was there and you know, we're all still there, you know, supporting. So that's one of the things. And you know, I wish more athletes were able to do that, like, especially retired athletes like me. But there's honestly very little, there's very few ways that we can connect back and it's very difficult for competing athletes to connect with older athletes like me. But you know, whatever opportunity we can would be helpful.

That's excellent. We really, really, really appreciate this time with you, your insights, your story Your advice is so valuable for us hearing it, but more importantly for other people who are in sport who need to hear your story to understand that they're not alone and understand that there are ways of. Of being who they are and dealing with what they're going through. And help is there. And we really appreciate everything that you've done and who you are and yeah. Thank you so much for coming on our podcast with us.

Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you so much, Chris. It's been wonderful to reconnect and looking forward to talking to you more in the future. And you got to promise to come back on because I really want to delve into life after sport. I know you've got a lot to share, some opinions on that and the path of finding your identity. It's something I've struggled with personally and just look forward to discussing it more with you in the future.

Yeah, as long as you promise to come play volleyball with my group of guys one time. I'll look like a rock star if you're on my team, so. All right.

Got a deal?

You got a deal.

Well, thank you again so much and we will connect with you soon because we would love to do a second. A second show with you. Thank you, Chris.

Okay, thank you so much.

Bye.

Bye, Chris.

Thank you so much for listening. To get more support in living your best life, find us in our free Facebook community empowered top performers. We're on Instagram, at Paul Durden and at Empower Conditioning. Please share this podcast and rate us. A five star review would mean the world to us. That is how we connect with and support more people to excel in sport and life. Take what you learned today and try it. Progress is perfection.