Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Olympic Gold Medalist Greg Louganis

I recently interviewed Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is an Olympic legend and the greatest diver in American history. Greg Louganis is a four-time Olympic gold medalist, a number one New York Times bestselling author, and a member of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame. Greg, thank you for joining us. 

Greg: Sure. My pleasure. 

Adam: You grew up in Southern California and you had anything but a conventional childhood. You were placed for adoption at eight months old. By 18 months old, you were taking dance, aerobics, and gymnastics classes.

Greg: I spent my first nine months in foster care. And so I was adopted by Peter and Frances Louganis. I grew up in El Cajon. And then I started dancing acrobatics like you said, when I was a year and a half because my sister was in it. And then I got a partner. That was my first performance on stage was when I was three. And so then we couldn't compete in talent contests until I turned six. We'd do recitals and do plays and stuff. And then once we started competing, we were winning everything. Then my partner went into gymnastics, followed her in gymnastics, and then we had a pool built in our backyard, and then it had a diving board, I was trying some of my gymnastics stunts off the diving board at home, and my mother didn't want me to kill myself, so she got me lessons. And then first they had two lessons, then they asked me if I would join the club team. So that's kind of a background of how I grew up. It, I guess, was unconventional. But it's just what my life was.

Adam: What are some of the lessons that you take away from those days that shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Greg: Well, early on, when I started school, a friend of mine was having a birthday party, a surprise birthday party, but I had a rehearsal that day and the day that the birthday was, and I wanted to go to the birthday party because everybody was going to the birthday party. And my mother said, well, you have to make a choice. So it was either go to the birthday party and stop doing the dance, acrobatics, and gymnastics. And because they weren't going to pay for lessons if that's what direction I wanted to go. And so I made the decision not to go to the birthday party. I went to rehearsal. And so that's one of the things that I learned very early that it's the choices that you make. It was my decision. And so my mother made it pretty clear that we're a product of the choices that we make.

Adam: There's a lot there in that story that we can all learn from looking at the story from your mom's perspective. If your mom would have made the decision for you, the outcome could have been completely different. You wouldn't have had ownership over the decision. And even if you ultimately would have done the same thing, you wouldn't have done it with the same attitude because the fact that you own the decision, the decision was yours, you approach it with a completely different perspective.

Greg: Yeah. I mean, another thing also happened when I went to my first junior Olympics, I was 11 years old and I wasn't diving up to what I knew my potential was. If there was a cut to 18, I was 18th. If there was a cut to 12, I was 12th. And I knew I wasn't performing up to what I was capable of. And so I felt like I was disappointing everybody and I was just really, really frustrated. So there was a break before the finals and we went out to lunch and I refused to eat. I was just in a really bad mood. I was disappointed. disappointed in myself and my father and my coach went in to have lunch. My mother stayed back with me and she said, okay, what's going on? What's up? And I just said I don't want to be here. And I said, I just don't want to be here. I feel like I'm letting everybody down and all that. I don't want to return to the pool. And she said, okay, we don't have to go back. And she meant it. So she made it very clear that that was my decision. We didn't have to go back to the pool. And so then I thought about it and it's like, well, we traveled all that way. It was in Colorado Springs. And so I said, okay, I'll go back. I think I had two more dives to finish up the competition. And she said, okay if we go back to the pool, you have to make me a promise. I said, when you get on that board, I want you to smile. And so when the finals started and I got on the board, I got the board set and then they announced my dive. And then I looked up to my mom and she was pointing at her mouth indicating for me to smile. And I smiled. I, it made me laugh. And I did my last two dives. I ended up tying for second. Hmm. at that competition. And she made it very clear that those were the decisions that I was making. I know a lot of people say, Oh, you gave up your childhood. You made so many sacrifices, all that. And I, you know what? I didn't. I did what I wanted to do. And as you said, it's a commitment. It is that mindset of this is what I'm doing and focusing on that and committing to it.

Adam: And ultimately, to your point, the choices that you make, it's on you to decide what to do. Every single day, we have the ability to decide how we spend our time. What are we going to do? When are we going to get out of bed? When we get out of bed, what direction are we going to go in? And in your case, you dedicated yourself to your craft and you didn't have to, but you did.

Greg: And also people make decisions for us sometimes, especially like if you have a tremendous amount of success, then it's like, oh, you have to do this. There's a certain progression that you need to follow. And those are choices and decisions. Oftentimes decisions are being made for you, but ultimately you have to take ownership of them.

Adam: Can you talk a little bit more about your path to greatness? How did you go from a young diver to becoming the greatest in the history of diving? How did you get to that place? And how can anyone attain greatness in whatever it is that they're pursuing?

Greg: I've seen many interviews with Michael Phelps. I mean, we're kind of on the same page with regard to that. In order to break world records, you have to be willing to do what nobody else in the world is willing to do. And how that happens, I know because we've chatted and for him, it was dedication, determination. For me, it was games. My coach, Ron O'Brien, he understood me. I'm not a competitor. I'm not competitive. I'll tell you how to beat me. I'll help you beat me. Because what ultimately that's going to do is elevate my performance. Because I'm a performer. I'm not a competitor. When you excel, then that inspires me to shoot higher, basically. And so my coach knew that I was a performer, not a competitor. So a lot of the games that we would play, everything had to be a game. It had to be fun. One of the games that he came up with was In order for me to break 700 on a 10-meter platform, which was a huge goal, never been done before, in order for me to break 700 on 10-meter platform, I had to average eight and a halves or better on all 10 dives that I executed. Then we had a 700 gain. And so in practice, he would periodically give me that challenge. One day we were training at the University of Miami and there was gale-force winds. The rain was coming in sideways, blowing into the platform. And he said, okay, I'm going to challenge you, 700 games. I said, okay. And so I got out there, warmed up, got ready to go, and started my list of dives. And I was going back and forth. over that eight-and-a-half mark. And then it came down to the last dive, horrible weather came down to the last dive, I needed eights on it. And I did my reverse three and a half and he gave me a nine. So I packed up my stuff, left, ran errands, and all went about my day. And then the next day, when I came to the pool, he said, Greg, you were the only one who got in the pool yesterday. You have to be willing to do something nobody else is willing to do in order to break world records, to be the best. It doesn't happen by magic. World records don't happen by magic. You do it in practice, oftentimes before you ever do it on the world stage. It's all in the training. podium placements in the Olympics happen before the opening ceremonies. It's all in how you train. And a lot of athletes don't understand that. I was a silver medalist at age 16. How did that happen? That was my first Olympic Games. Well, in a lot of situations, I was training with Dr. Sammy Lee, and he won two gold medals, 48 and 52. And then he coached Bobby Webster, who won two gold medals in men's platform, 60, 64. I was going up against Klaus DiBiase from Italy, who was going for his third Olympic gold medal. And so all of my training leading into the Olympics in Montreal was to beat Klaus. And Dr. Lee always said you have to be at least 20 points better than Klaus just because I'm an unknown. And so I had to prove myself. And a lot of the games were, okay, you're behind Klaus. You need nine on this dive. Sometimes I was successful. Sometimes I wasn't. So I had those imaginations in my head, so I had already performed all of that stuff before I even set foot on the world stage. It's all in how you prepare.

Adam: What you do when the lights are off dictates how you perform when the lights are on.

Greg: It's funny because when I was coaching, I had a young diver. I was talking to them that training really is 24-7. If you want to break a habit or you want to be successful, you just have to be mindful. And so this one diver, his chin would jut out. So I was getting on him about his posture, pull your chin in, pull your chin in. And then all of a sudden, his posture was right. And I was like, Oh my God, what did you do? And he said, Greg, what I did, he used to drive with his seat back. So kind of like a low rider jetting his chin forward and to look over the steering wheel. I said, I pulled my seat up. And just by pulling a seat up, correcting that posture. He was able to make that adjustment. You really have to be mindful of how you do things. If you want to change something, and really a good place to start is posture. Not every single day you're going to have incredible workouts. You're going to have workouts where you don't feel like being there, but you're going through anyway. And you may be muddling through. It may be low motivation. I used to play games with myself. when I was diving, like when I was low energy, we had been working out and were sore from weights or whatever, and low energy, then I would play a game with myself because I had really difficult dives, really challenging dives. And I would go through that training session, that workout, trying to use the least amount of energy in executing the dives. Now, how do you do that? How do you use the least amount of energy? It's all balance and rhythm. So if your balance is right and your rhythm is right, then it can be not effortless, but much easier. So it feels like it's more effortless.

Adam: And it really speaks to the importance of understanding what motivates you. And as a leader, as someone who's responsible for motivating others, recognizing that we're all motivated by different things. As you're describing what motivates you, what drives you, what gets you going, something you shared, which is really interesting, you're a performer, not a competitor. Your coach tried to motivate you by pushing you against the person you're competing against, pinning you against the next person, and using those kinds of tactics. That wouldn't have been as effective as the way that he and you ultimately approached it, which was gamifying practice. Coming up with all these different challenges that you just described made it fun for you that even on the days that you weren't necessarily as motivated to Get up and go at it. You were still able to figure out how to get to that place

Greg: Well, it's the meaning we give things, the meaning that we give things. I'm a performer, I'm not a competitor, but I can find fun in competing, if that makes sense. And you have to find what works for you. That's what works for me. But like when I was talking to Michael Johnson, a track athlete, he was a competitor, tough competitor. Like, I want the fastest guy right next to me so I can kick them, you know what? And that is what drove him. That's what sparked his flame for me. It's like, Oh, what a great challenge. It's wonderful, beautiful that the better they do. The better I'm going to need to do to top that. Also in breaking world records, you have to have the courage to leave everybody else behind. and be willing to do something nobody else in the world will do. So especially in diving, I always felt like if I looked at somebody as my competition, then I was limiting what I could do. I was limiting myself because chances are if they missed a dive, I would probably miss the dive. So I didn't look at others as my competition. It was my performance. It was up to me because that's the only thing I have control over is my performance. And if you think about diving, a dive takes less than three seconds. And in that, less than three seconds is total chaos. And in that total chaos is your creation. And that creation will never be created ever again. That's what I love about diving. I was able to practice peak performance over and over and over and over again. Every single dive is an opportunity to practice peak performance.

Adam: To what extent did you feel pressure in the big moments? And what advice do you have for anyone listening on how to perform under pressure?

Greg: Pressure only exists in your own head, in your own mind. Nobody's holding a gun to your head. It's the pressure that we put on ourselves. And as far as if I was in a tight spot, like my last dive, Seoul, Korea, Shunni was leading by three points, 14 years old. I was 28 and he was leading going into that last dive. He nails his last dive. And I had a higher degree of difficulty. The one thing that I would tell myself before those types of situations was that I was putting pressure on myself, okay, what's going to happen? I would tell myself, that no matter what happens, my mother is still going to love me. And so then I got this image of my mother sitting at home, watching me on TV because she wasn't there in Seoul. And I do this bomb of a dive. The splash goes all the way up to the 10-meter platform when we're not supposed to make a splash. And then my mother bouncing up and down on the couch and said, oh, wasn't that a pretty splash? Because that was who my mother was and I'm not supposed to make a splash. And it made me laugh. So in getting myself to that place to where I could laugh at it, it takes the fear, it dissolves the fear, it dissolves the pressure. And I knew whatever was going to happen was going to happen and just allowed it. Because otherwise, if you overthink something, performance is the right brain. Performance is right brain. So if you're analyzing that's left brain. So if you take off on a dive and you judge it, that's the left brain. By the time you're able to communicate to your right brain, you're already in the water. It's too late. So you have to stay in your right brain, whether that be music, rhythm, or feeling sensation. Tempo was a big one that I would incorporate. So if my balance was a little off, then I'd change the tempo to stay in my right brain to be able to execute those minute adjustments in less than three seconds.

Adam: You've obviously reached the pinnacle of success as an athlete. You've also experienced incredible lows that you've had to overcome. You contracted HIV at a time when That was considered to be a death sentence. You were in incredibly toxic, abusive relationships that you had to get out of and overcome and push past. You had serious physical injuries. How did you navigate the most difficult moments? And what advice do you have for anyone listening on how to overcome the obstacles, challenges, and setbacks that they face in their lives and in their careers?

Greg: Well, okay. So the HIV was challenging. There was a lot of stuff that I didn't know. And in some ways, ignorance is bliss because they put me on AZT right away and AZT was really toxic. And I've actually viewed my performance from 88 and there's a visible difference between what I did even a year before. to that performance in 88. I wasn't jumping as high. I wasn't spinning as fast, but I was just doing my best. But fortunately, I didn't know because then that would have been an excuse. It would have been a way out. But one of the side effects of ACT was low testosterone. So I was literally crawling from my bed in the morning when I was training in preparation for soul and they put me on AZT. I was literally crawling from my bed in the morning to the bath and pouring myself the hottest bath that I could stand and soak so that I could function so I could touch my toes and function. I just thought I was overtraining, but looking back, I realized I was low testosterone. So my muscles were eating themselves. It was really a harsh medication. It's a chemotherapy and definitely not a performance-enhancing drug, quite the opposite. But I didn't know, I didn't know any better. So in some ways, it was a good thing I didn't know because I would have had an easy out. What is the saying? Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Everything's going to change. So whatever that is. When I was diagnosed with HIV, my thought at the time when I was diagnosed was that I was training in Florida and my home was in California. And I was thinking, okay, if I was HIV positive, then I was going to do the honorable thing. pack my bags, go home, lock myself in my house, and wait to die. Because that's the way we thought of HIV at that time. And my doctor, who was also my cousin, he said, the healthiest thing for you is to continue training because we don't know how long you've been positive. And he said he'd take care of the medical side and then my coach, Ron O'Brien, would take care of the diving side and continue training. That was probably the healthiest thing. It was also a lot more positive for me to focus on diving because so many of my friends back then, would focus on the medications that are coming down the pipeline, their T cell count, all of these things, and be obsessed. And a lot of those people aren't around anymore. I had something positive to focus on and also physical activity. I think because I was so physically active, it probably helped me in metabolizing the AZT and dealing with that and also not knowing. how toxic that medication actually was. I mean, AZT killed a lot of people. People who were on AZT didn't tolerate it well if they tolerated it at all. And I won two gold medals. That's almost like understanding mind over matter. We're capable of doing so much more than what we believe ourselves to be able to accomplish.

Adam: Mind over matter. And on that topic, You wrote a number one New York Times bestselling book and a topic that you dove into. Despite the fact that you were one of the great athletes of our day, you struggled with self-doubt. How did you get to a place where you were able to develop a real level of comfort in your own skin? And how can anyone develop self-confidence and feel good about who they are?

Greg: Well, it's a challenge every day. You just never know. It's just exercising those courage muscles and it's a practice. Also, in diving, like I said, a dive takes less than three seconds. In those three seconds, that's when you have to be on. You can have all the doubts in the world. Stepping up to the board and all that, I learned that. But once you get on the board and set, Everything else you need to let go and just allow you're not gonna think your way through it I would say I wouldn't think myself through it.

Adam: I would feel myself through it Greg what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Greg: We get good at what we practice, what we practice we get good at, whatever that is, whether it's forgiveness, whether it's strength training, whether it's endurance, as long as we practice and are consistent, we get good at it.

Adam: Greg, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of 30 Minute Mentors. 

Greg: My pleasure. Thank you.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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