A master-class in personal and professional development, ultra-athlete, wellness evangelist and bestselling author Rich Roll delves deep with the world's brightest and most thought provoking thought leaders to educate, inspire and empower you to unleash your best, most authentic self. More at: https://richroll.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Olympian Katie Hoff On Embracing The Suck & Alchemizing Pain Into Gratitude
We all create imagined blueprints for how we want our lives to unfold—but what happens when things don’t go according to plan?
Today’s guest knows a thing or two about managing pressure, prioritizing intention over expectation, and transforming disappointment into gratitude.
Meet Olympic swimmer Katie Hoff.
Dubbed, for better or worse, ‘the female Michael Phelps’ Katie is an 8x world champion that made her first Olympic Team at the ripe age of 15, the youngest member of the 2004 USA Swimming Team. She won 5 first place Olympic berths at the 2008 Olympic Trials, took home 3 medals in Beijing, and over the course of her career toppled more than a few American & international records, accruing 8 world championship titles along the way.
But Katie’s story isn’t what you think it is. It’s not some totally unrelatable Olympic fairy tale, filled with empty platitudes and cliché mottos.
It’s a story about not living up to the expectations the world set for you.
What’s most interesting about Katie is that she’s an athlete that should have had a far more decorated career.
So what happened?
Today we explore her storied career, covering the complicated mental and emotional implications of elite performance, as well as the external forces beyond an athlete’s control.
We dissect the vertigo-inducing success Katie experienced at such a young age. The insane pressure she faced that accompanied high highs, the bitter disappointment she experienced by failing to live up to unreal and unfair expectations, and the process of picking up the pieces and moving forward with life in the wake of dreams unrealized. And of course, the valuable and applicable life lessons extrapolated along the way, which she chronicles in her book, Blueprint: An Olympian’s Story of Striving, Adapting, and Embracing The Suck.
Katie is an absolute delight and our exchange is littered with gems—big ideas on managing stress, expectations, and knowing when and how to push your limits.
To read more click here. You can also watch our exchange on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
This was a fun one. I learned a ton, and I know you will too.
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- Connect with Katie: Website | Twitter | Instagram
- Book: Blueprint: An Olympian’s Story of Striving, Adapting, and Embracing the Suck
- Team USA: Katie Hoff
- Team USA: Olympic swimmer Katie Hoff shares successes and struggles in new memoir
- TED: Finding Your Relentless Spirit | Katie Hoff
- Swimming World: Champion’s Mojo: Digging Deep with Olympian Katie Hoff
- Swimming World: Katie Hoff Inside ‘Blueprint’ and ‘Embracing the Suck’
- Swimming World: The Many Seasons of Katie Hoff
- NBC: Katie Hoff shares ‘Blueprint’ for a unique swimming career in memoir
- Forbes: What’s Next For Super Olympian Katie Ledecky?
- Baltimore Sun: Out of the pool, Katie Hoff has perspective
- PR Newswire: National Blood Clot Alliance Introduces Olympic Medalist Katie Hoff as the First Ambassador for its Sports & Wellness Institute
- YouTube: Is 3x Olympic Medalist Katie Hoff Stronger Now Than When She Swam?
- YouTube: Katie Hoff Dives Deep with New Book “Blueprint”
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Thank The Team: I do not do this alone. Send your love to Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production and show notes and interstitial music, Margo Lubin and Blake Curtis for video, editing and graphics; portraits by Ali Rogers & Davy Greenberg; copywriting by Georgia Whaley; and theme music by Tyler Piatt, Trapper Piatt & Hari Mathis.
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