Justin Gatlin, Winning an Olympic Gold Medal, Wanting to Quit the Sport, and how he came back to beat Usain Bolt

This week on The BURN Podcast we are coming to you from our 2023 Las Vegas BOOT CAMP Stage. On day 2 Ben sat down with Justin Gatlin to talk about "The Championship Mindset."

Justin Gatlin is a three-time Olympian, Winner of the Gold Medal in the 2004 100 meters, and a constant figure in the World Championships... Justin KNOWS success at the highest level. Gatlin's personal best of 9.74 seconds ranks fifth on the all-time list of male 100-meter athletes.

In this conversation we get REAL. Justin opened up to the crowd on what it was like facing worldwide adversity, finding his alter-ego "J-GAT", and beating Usain Bolt.

Listen here: https://bennewman.net/theburn/

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You got to realize you train for the, just for the Olympics. You train for years for that moment and that moment is not even a moment, it's nine seconds.

Speaker 2: 0:20

This week on the burn. We're taking you to Las Vegas Boot Camp, where Ben had a very transparent and eye-opening conversation with Olympic gold medalist Justin Gatlin. Justin shares the extreme ups and downs he faced, what it was like to race against the fastest humans on earth and how he discovered his alter ego, jgat. All that and more starting.

Speaker 3: 1:10

So many accolades, so many medals, so much recognition. But if you could really start there, I think it'll help people understand who you are, how you were raised, the man that you are, that foundation of success. Take us there.

Speaker 1: 1:23

I learned at an early age that I can sit here and tell you that athlete that it was a God-given talent. Don't know where it came from. I'm just running fast, I practice hard and I run as hard as I can when the gun goes off. If you do that, you're going to lose every race. You're going to lose every game. You're going to lose every championship because you're not a pain.

Speaker 1: 1:46

I always paid attention to the details in the discipline. I started at a young age that way because there was guys who were better than me and I want to say, hey, how'd you become better than me? I started looking at what their attributes were, what they brought to the table, what their flaws were, and I sat down and made a system that was going to help me out the fast system. So the fast stands for focus, accountability, structure and timing, and I put all those things together and that's what helped make me successful throughout my career. I didn't try to achieve goals. I tried to make a standard and I tried to live to that standard. And when I got to a point where I felt I was hungry and full, I'd been another standard and I lived to that standard.

Speaker 1: 2:33

So through my career in college I won six NCAA titles. I won two team NCAA titles within two years. All that within two years. Then I turned pro and then from there, 2003 became indoor world champion, 2004 became Olympic champion. 2005 became double gold champion. 2006 became world record holder because I stuck to what my standard was and I lived by what my system was.

Speaker 3: 3:05

How much of that system, foundation and mindset came from a tough mom who grew up in the Bronx and a military dad. It was a great combination.

Speaker 1: 3:15

My mom would always make sure that she was poking me and making sure, hey, you got to get it done. My dad was always the quiet one. He would say, kind of like how you were saying earlier yesterday about your father, where I always wanted to make sure he was happy. And towards the end of my career and I've never seen my dad cry, ever until I became an adult and I've achieved all my accolades and I have a picture of him that's on my wall in my house, of him crying because in 2017, it was a mark of me winning a very pivotal race for me and he said you did it. You did it. All the things that you've accomplished paying bills, having your own home those are things that adults do, but you, going through your whole career, you're ups and you're downs and you stayed who you were. That was the sign of a man and that's what made him happy and I'm glad I was able to do that for him.

Speaker 3: 4:09

How powerful is that? We're going to talk a little bit more about that adversity, but before we get there, there's a conversation that you and I had, and I want to talk about this and then talk about what it's actually like. I'd love for everybody to understand the experience of being in front of 100,000 people going crazy, sometimes booing, sometimes cheering, more cheers and booze, though, to do what you've done. But we had a conversation one time and we were talking about finding the edge in the details that you and I really talked a lot about, and everybody wants to advance so fast to get the result, to win the medal, but they don't want to do the work, and you shared with me that when you were really locked in on your training, just on your start alone, there would be periods of time. Everybody imagine this Just on your start and your hands, you would spend two hours getting out of the block and on the exchange of your hands, two straight hours doing that one thing.

Speaker 3: 5:06

Can you tell us? Why the attention to detail in every single area? Because here's what's fascinating, what people don't realize. Some people they'll go to work for 12 hours at a time, 8 hours at a time. They'll do all this. Justin's goal is to run like 9.7 seconds, like that's the experience. So if you imagine breaking down, as he explained to me, that 9.7 seconds, every single detail matters, so that hand exchange and coming out of the block two hours, tell us why every single detail mattered so much.

Speaker 1: 5:36

So I came back into the sport in about 2011, 2010.

Speaker 1: 5:41

And I came back into the sport where there was like five or six guys who were top dogs and they were running times that were more that was comparable to mine or better. So you had Usain Bolt, johann Blake, you had Tyson Gay, you had Asafa Powell, you had Nesta Carter. All of them were in 9.7 or better 9.5, 9.6. And I remember reading an article and the article was it was a dual interview with Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay and they asked a question about me and they said do you think Justin Gadlin can ever be able to compete against you guys again? And they said at the level that we're running at, no, we're not worried about Justin Gadlin. I took that article, I posted on my mirror in my bathroom and I made sure every day I woke up I read exactly what my opponents thought about me, because that's what mattered to me. It matters because, at the end of the day, those details that I had to go through to get there, those two hours almost every day of practicing my hand movements, because I need to make sure that I evolved, they evolved, they got to a different point than I was If I came back to a sport as Justin Gadlin from 2006,. I wasn't going to get the job done. I was going to be just Justin Gadlin in 2006, and I was going to get fourth, fifth, sixth place. You know what I mean. I'm not built like that. I'm built to be a champion. I know what my standards are.

Speaker 1: 7:05

So I had to humble myself, put my ego to the side and said what's going to make sure I am at that top of that podium?

Speaker 1: 7:13

And I had to work on my start. And so I asked my coach coach, let's stay back, let's focus on my start getting into the race. Because he said the way you're going to beat these guys is you have to become the fastest start of the world has ever seen. And that's what I did. I practiced two hours and it was almost like karate kid and Mr Miyagi or Rocky and I would go through the movements and the phases and he'd be like no, do it again, no, do it again, no, do it again. And I was, after already of practicing an intense practice of already two hours of just running around the track and doing gym, I came back to do all those kind of workouts because that detailed matter. And when I got out there on the track. I was able to lean back on that and rely into those details, because I was so confident that I worked on them and I made sure that those details were going to be there for me when it's time for me to execute my phases of my races.

Speaker 3: 8:07

So every single one of those details is what it takes to become a champion, just like for everybody, when we're challenging and attacking and asking them to look at the details when you become a champion, because I want them to hear this experience before we actually go into something that you mentioned we could talk about that. You haven't spent a lot of time or shared very often, which I think is a reflection of our relationship, and I appreciate your willingness to go there today. But before we go there, what is it like to win gold? Can you take us into the stadium and help us better understand what that feeling is like and the emotion and that experience?

Speaker 1: 8:39

Alright, I'm going to take you to 2004, athens, greece, my first Olympics. And I was a young guy, maybe 20 years old, and I remember coming out warming up for my race and then we came through the tunnel we came onto the track and once we came onto the track, we were there already like 15 minutes before time, and that's usually unheard of. They run a tight ship when it comes to the Olympics. So you're out there, let's go, let's go. So I got onto that track. I had a teammate named Sean Crawford who I trained with that whole season. So we had blood, sweat and tears together and we knew that. We always said to each other before we went out there, we gave each other a fist bump and said, hey, ain't nobody between us. If you get first, I'm getting second, if you get in seventh, I'm getting eighth, but it's no one that's gonna come between us. We're gonna win together or we're gonna lose together, and that's the mentality that we went out to the track with. So I already was energized to be there and it was at the peak of what it is to be a track and field athlete. The Olympics that's what you dreamed about. Little kids watching television and saying that's what I wanna be one day, and I'm standing there at that starting line now, 15 minutes before time, though, so you start doing your warmups, you start kind of popping out the blocks, and then you realize, okay, I'm warmed up, but now I still have another whole 10 minutes before I have to go out and really compete. And the stadium's full Over 100,000 people inside the stadium and the next thing you know, they start playing Greek music and the stadium is just loving it. They're going crazy. So the energy started going from a moment that's only gonna last for nine seconds to it felt like you were getting ready to watch a heavyweight match. You're about to see Titans that were going to battle each other who is going to be the best in the world. That race was going to determine who was the fastest human alive.

Speaker 1: 10:42

So me stepping onto that track, when we got down in the blocks, the whole place was quiet. You can hear a pin drop. You can feel the heat of the opponents next to you Lane three and lane five and you just feel the heat coming off their shoulders, cause you're this close to each other and all you hear is set. And then, when you hear set, you knew after that gun goes off. History is going to be made and I don't realize if anybody in the audience. If you ever been a part of history, you'd realize history is about to be made, like when the first astronaut stepped on the moon, he knew before he stepped. This is about to be history. That's exactly what it felt like when the gun goes off.

Speaker 1: 11:30

The stadium is full of lights and flashes. From photographs and cameras you can hear cheers and roars, and the craziest thing is to run that fast. You feel like you're in the matrix. You feel like everything is moving slow. You feel like all your opponents around you are moving slow, but you're running like 27 to 30 miles per hour on your feet. I remember coming across 10 meters before the finish line and at that point in time I was just maybe a hair in front of the whole field and I remember in my mind thinking I'm about to win the Olympics. Oh my God. And it was a little version of myself on my head jumping up and down Like what the win this? So I come across the line. I win it in 985. Second place was 96,. Third place was 987. Fourth place was 988. So it was that close. So you can imagine what it felt like in a situation like that, winning by that swim of a margin, but fourth place, losing at that swim of a margin as well, and that's what it makes up.

Speaker 1: 12:39

You gotta realize you train just for the Olympics. You train four years for that moment and that moment's not even a moment. It's nine seconds well under emitted, and that moment is going to. That moment is going to be a little bit more. That moment is going to. That moment is going to define what happens to your career going forward.

Speaker 1: 13:00

Are you a champion? Because if you're a champion now you're on top of that podium. You get sponsors throwing at you, you get so much love coming up from all different directions, but those people who don't make it to that top. It's almost back to the drawing board and I had the most mature moment in that time when, before the gun went off, I looked up and I said, god, I worked so hard for this. I've never been in a situation before, but please let me use every bit of fiber, every bit of faith that I have in this race and if I don't win, I'm more than happy. Going back to the drawing board. Gun went off and rest was history. It was amazing, felt amazing.

Speaker 1: 13:43

But you have to ask what I do with the medal after I got the medal. So once I went through the whole stadium and celebrated in my victory lap and once I got my medal around my neck and I had the reef around my head, this most beautiful moment I've ever experienced Be able to look up at that flag, national Anthems playing for you, and the people in the stadium who are Americans. They have a tear in their eye for you Because all the hard work that you put in. I go back to that Olympic Village. I go back to that Olympic Village, I take that medal off on my neck, I look at it, I wrap the ribbon around it and I tuck it in a side pocket of my carry-on bag and I said the work's not finished. I have 200 meters, I have four by one to go back out there and do. I can't be. I can't go out there and say my job is done because I have some more to give. And that's what I did.

Speaker 3: 14:38

So let me ask you a question here. I remember, and I think this is important for people to hear, to understand you talk about the seduction of success there's the drive to just do it again and again and not set right that never finished mindset. I remember being in the hotel the night after we won the national championship and I remember texting the strength coach for Alabama.

Speaker 2: 15:03

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Speaker 3: 15:47

I remember texting the strength coach for Alabama and he texted he's like man, I can't wait for workouts to start. I'm like man, I can't wait to get back to campus and attack this thing again. And a lot of people would read that and be like man, there's something wrong with these guys, like they got some screws loose, like what is wrong with these guys? And you realize you almost expect to win when you prepare, but then you have this desire to keep doing it again. So I think a lot of people I want you to go just a touch deeper for me on this, because a lot of people would say how is that possible to take a gold medal that you've waited your whole life for and to tuck it in a bag to go back to work? What more can you tell us about that mindset of never finished and no seduction of success, and how do you get yourself to recommit back to the work and to focus on that next race? I think it was natural for me, to be honest.

Speaker 1: 16:31

I mean, once I looked at that medal and I saw that I still was hungry for more, because usually you just want a gold medal. You're the best in the world. Mission accomplished, you're done. Right, I'm good. I can have a celebration, they can have a parade for me when I get home, but I don't want none of that.

Speaker 1: 16:50

I was obsessed with the process. I love the process. It would be times where I had to make sure that I would trick myself to be even more excited for the process. I would fly to different meets and I would make sure that I would never leave the room. I would get room service all the time. The only time I left the room was to prepare for my race. I would go to the track, warm up and do whatever I needed to do with my coach, and I would go directly back to the hotel, go into my room. I had to envision myself locked in a cell, a prison, right Like a caged tiger, and the only time I could let myself out is when I'm ready and prepared for that race. So it made me antsy to even just get out the room again just to go back to the track. I didn't want anything to distract me. I loved the process and I loved the result that it gave me, and that's what I really wanted to keep doing over and over again.

Speaker 1: 17:37

When you think about athletes who have transcended to a different level, you think about, like Tom Brady's, you think about the Michael Jordan thing, about the Kobe Bryant's, and you hear them speak. They don't speak about. Oh, when I got my fifth ring or when I got my sixth ring, it was always about the process. It was always about breaking down what mattered the most, which was getting better. How can I get better? That one ring had proved that you were good. You were better than the whole field. But what about another ring? Is that going to make me a better athlete? Another ring what is that going to make me Another ring? What is that going to make me?

Speaker 1: 18:13

So now you become in love with the process and it's almost like an adrenaline rush. You want more, and even to the point when I retired my body and my mind was like I want more, I love this, I want to keep going. So the process is actually where the secret of success really is. You got to be able to love the process of what you're doing and you can be able to take that into any walk of life. You can't go from saying I want to be the best track runner and then, all of a sudden, now I'm going to jump forward and be, I'm going to be the Olympic champion, super Bowl champion, nba finals champion. You have to have a process to get you there and if you're not in love with that process, you're not going to be a champion.

Speaker 3: 18:57

Let's go to a tough place. I think people can feel your passion for the process. I think people can feel your energy around, what it took, all the hard work that goes into making that happen. You and I sat before we went to go meet Kennedy for the first time, when you were breaking down exactly how you were going to push her and challenge her and what I was fascinated with. You said we're going to get into her mind. It's not just going to be the physical. And you brought all these contraptions and it was amazing watching it all. But when we sat there at lunch and we talked about today and you said I'm willing to go to a place I don't really go to with you, Ben, and I want to have a real conversation with everybody because as great as it is to become a champion, we're also met with adversity and challenge and we go through dark periods in life. Walk us through that dark period so.

Speaker 1: 19:48

I'll let you all know exactly my accolades back to back, year to year to year to year. Right, I was in 2003, over to 2006. In 2006, I tested positive. Now in second grade I was diagnosed with ADHD. I was that kid when and that was a year when Adderall, adhd, ritalin, all this kind of stuff was kind of like I was a guinea pig generation, like they didn't know exactly what to give us. So I even took Zoloft was an anti-depressive, so they were just throwing stuff at us, right. I was that kid and my teacher noticed that my attention was elsewhere. I'm not saying I had bad attention, but a bird flew by the window and it was just whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop and all the kids in the class would look at the bird while we were taking a test. And then they looked back down, they registered bird. That's all they did and they started kept writing and doing their tests. Not Justin. Justin kept looking at that bird and said I wonder what kind of bird that is. I wonder where that bird lives. One of that bird has babies. I'm thinking all these things all at once and that was the start of figuring out if I had ADHD.

Speaker 1: 21:03

And from second grade on I took medication. Like I said, they evolved from Zoloft to Ritalin, to Adderall, and it was something for me that it shrunk me, and what I mean shrunk me. I wasn't proud because I felt like I had something that held me back, a weakness. So I hid it from the world. And once I went on, become a high school phenom and I went to college, I still was well off taking my Adderall. And then when you're in college, you're a student first and then you're an athlete. So Adderall was never on their ban list. The first time I ran a USA Track and Field Sanction Ranks, that's where it showed up, because the chemical makeup of the Adderall was the banned substance. It was never on the Adderall. The fact is, me and my parents, we always did our due diligence. I looked at myself as the good guy. I looked at myself as the guy that really wanted to be able to inspire the next generation, inspire the people around me. That's how I thrived. Never wanted to get the advantage over anybody, never wanted to cheat or be a bad guy, you know. So I remember when I got the letter in the mail it was almost like I couldn't understand it. It was an envelope that was like this thick and it was almost like reading Mandarin. I didn't understand what you meant. How did I test positive? It was my new traces of amphetamines in my system and all I remember is laying my head down on my mom's lap and just crying like a baby, because I know that wasn't me and I wanted to figure out how I can be better. I wanted to figure out how we can solve this issue and from that moment on I had to wait for the B sample to come back and the B sample obviously was going to be positive as well. Because I did. I fessed up, I took the medication I had to and I was third.

Speaker 1: 23:06

Four years, not two games. Were you seeing the NBA or an NFL? I served four years away from something I loved to do, four, almost half a decade and I wasn't getting paid. I lost everything. I lost my contracts. I lost a lot of friends. It was a very dark place for me.

Speaker 1: 23:22

In that time I remember my mom was like and I lived in North Carolina at that time my mom was like you know what no-transcript. I was like mom, I'm a grown man, I can't come back home. Why does it look like me coming back home. I'm an Olympic gold medalist, I'm a world champion. At that point in time, I'm a world record holder. I had to humble myself again. I came back home. I came back home to Pensacola, florida, and which is known to be a military town, but also a beach town as well, and I met some friends and those friends took me in. They didn't look at me as Justin Gatlin, looked at me as Justin, and I was able to mask my hurt and pain very well because I was always in front of televisions, reporters and the news.

Speaker 1: 24:06

But my outlet to be able to let that pain go was drinking, partying. I was partying and drinking like every day of the week, and the thing that really turned me around was there's a three-mile bridge that connects the mainland of Pensacola to the beach, pensacola Beach and one night it was probably like 2 o'clock in the morning the clubs were shutting down. It was done. I had a lot of Yeager bombs. Remember those days, right, and I was in my car. I had a Porsche Carrera and I remember I thought it was a brown paper bag and I remember driving and I hit it and it actually was a big rock, this big. Now, mind you, I'm from Pensacola, everyone loves me from there. And a cop came over to my car and he was like are you OK? Is your car OK? And I know I reeked of alcohol. There's the only reason why you're on the beach at 2 o'clock in the morning. You're partying. He let me go.

Speaker 1: 25:06

I remember driving across that bridge in almost pitch black, drunk, blurry vision. It scared me into changing my life Because I knew that if anything happened and this car went over into the water, no one would know where I was. They wouldn't even know I was missing a word to find me at. And that changed everything for me Because in that time I was so hurt I didn't care about my life. I don't think I was suicidal, but I didn't value my life enough to where I was like be safe, be careful.

Speaker 1: 25:44

And when I got on the other side of that bridge I realized the damage I could do to myself would have been 10 times worse for my parents. My mother would have cried. My dad would have been depressed, even more depressed Because when we went through that whole situation, I had to go through trials and procedures, I had to go through cast, I had to go through arbitration. My mom lost hair from depression and stress. My dad didn't speak much. It was a very dark place for us. So I realized no one's going to come save me.

Speaker 1: 26:20

I had to save myself, and that's what I did, no matter how deep I felt I was every day, I started working on becoming more disciplined again. Every day I weaned myself up party. Hey guys, I can't go out and party with you anymore. Hey guys, I can't drink like that anymore. I was training and I was training for nothing. I didn't have any races coming up. I still was kind of midway into my sentence. I was still two years deep. But I told myself, if you want to be disciplined, discipline is not going to turn on. Tomorrow I'm not going to. This band's not going to be lifted. And all of a sudden I'm going to run tomorrow and I'm going to be Justin Gatlin again. I had to prep myself. I had to give myself discipline again. I had to be able to drive and be hungry for it to be successful again, and that process took me about three years to even get back to what was a shell of Justin and then I can work from there.

Speaker 1: 27:17

But when I got back, I got on my knees and I thank God, I asked God. I said God, don't allow me to be on top of the world off top. I'm not asking for that. All I'm asking for you to do is give me a great place to train, keep me healthy and give me the tools that I need to be successful and I can take care of the rest. And that's what I'm asking for. I'm going to be successful and I can take care of the rest. And that's what he gave me and that's what I worked with. I stuck true to what the plan was. I stuck true to what the promise was. He delivered for me, so I delivered for him.

Speaker 3: 28:01

We all go through periods of time in our life where we question can we do it again? You get met with that challenge. You get met with the adversity. The amazing parts of your story is what happened after what you just shared, because many people would have given up, many people would have lost their faith, many people would have gone back to racing just to get a contractor to try to make a little money, because you didn't have that for so long. But you actually leaned in and became better than you had ever been at something that you had loved so much. You actually, in 2015, recorded six, nine sevens. So explain to us how unheard of it is to run six, nine sevens in 2015. But what I would also love for you to share about that is, even though you were able to do something that was that significant, what you actually found about the difference of running mechanically versus learning to run with your heart again.

Speaker 1: 29:01

Absolutely. My return back into sport showed me the worth of success. I think that when you're super talented and everything's going your way, you kind of take success for granted because that's all you know. I'm successful If I just get out there and I'm ready to run. I make sure I don't pull a hamstring, I'm hydrated, my mind's focused, I'm going to win. The success rate is high.

Speaker 1: 29:29

But when everything was taken away from me and then I had to work to get all of it back, it put me in a situation where I realized that once I made that climb back up, I saw teammates who had it worst in me. I had one teammate who was homeless. He lived in his car, you know. It made me realize that I wasn't just doing it for myself anymore. I was doing it for people who really were truly rooting for me and being away from the sport it separated the people who really cared about me and wanted to see me be a better person and a better athlete and the ones who were just on the bandwagon. So when I stepped back on that track, I did it for them. I did it for the people who really cared and really wanted to see me do well, because I was doing it for them. But, with that being said, it turned me into something different. It made me become hungry. It made me say, ok, I have to get out here and I can't waste not one second of training. I cannot waste losing one race. Because now it meant something different to me. These other guys who had been in the sport and they were still running. They were running races and they would lose races and be like, ah, you know what? I got another race in three days. I couldn't have that same mindset.

Speaker 1: 30:48

Remember, I came back and I didn't get paid for four years, I didn't have an income for four years and I was coming back into a sport where I was being blackballed. Now I served four years and now I'm blackballed. So I'm getting double. I'm getting double punishment. Now I can be in races where it was a Diamond League and I could make better money, good money, income, right, I had to go race in these one-off races in the middle of nowhere in Europe, where I was winning money that was less than my plane ticket that got me there, you know. But at the end of the day I understood that there was a process that I needed to go through to get to where I wanted to be, and that was my process. I turned off the emotional aspect of things and I looked at it from a strategy. If I worked my way up to get there, at some point they're gonna have to let me in, because results is what matters, effort is what matters, and that's exactly what happened. There was one, there was one meat promoter that said you know what you're running. Very well, I'm gonna go against all the other meat promoters who have blackballed you and will give you opportunity and shot. And from that moment on, he gave me that shot and I never looked back.

Speaker 1: 31:58

So when I came back into the sport 2015, when I ran those nine sevens, it was a fact that I wanted to make nine seven feel normal, because there's only like 10 people on this face of the planet who's ever ran nine, seven or better. So I ran six, nine sevens in one season, back to back to back to back. My coach had to say slow down. Usually, coaches are telling you speed up, you're doing it wrong, do this better. He had to tell me slow down. I was like I can't because I'm on a mission. I have to get this done and by doing so, you're saying Bull has never ran and never ran that many nine sevens. I'm south of Powell. No one in history has ever ran that many nine sevens, so I credit the fact that I wanted to come back stronger.

Speaker 3: 32:51

So you run all those nine sevens.

Speaker 1: 32:54

I ran all those nine sevens, and I was so enchanted by running those nine sevens that it got me to the world championship of 2015. And this was going to be the big showdown between me and Usain Bolt. I beat Usain Bolt in 2013 in a one off race in Rome and from that point on, he never raced me again in a one off race. The only time I've ever seen Usain Bolt after 2013 was at a finals in a world championships. He was smart. His coach was smart. They realized that I'm the kind of person that if I challenge you and I'm competing against you, I'm going to figure you out very quickly and if I have to race you again, I'm going to get better. I'm going to get stronger and I'm going to exploit your weaknesses. That's a natural thing about me. So he never raced me. He only gave me the opportunity. If I made the finals, that's the only opportunity I was going to have. And that's when he was at his best. That's when the world knew who Usain was. In the finals he was Usain Bolt.

Speaker 1: 33:58

I remember walking into the stage in 2015 with coming off all those nine sevens and something was missing. I gave so much into the preparation, mechanically getting me to those nine sevens. That emotionally I didn't go into that race. I didn't feel like the champion, I just felt like the fast guy and when the gun went off I'm usually having no one to contest me, especially halfway through the race. Here comes Usain Bolt.

Speaker 1: 34:38

Usain Bolt beat me by 1,100 of a second to win that world title. It was probably the most painful defeat I've ever had in my life because I knew I was ready. I ran nine seven five in the semis, literally 45 minutes before the finals. He won with a 980. So if I just would have had that preparation I had in the semis and that mental focus I had in the semis, and if I would have brought it into the finals, it would have been a different story. So that point after losing, I remember coming off the track and you had to do a lot of press conferences and you got to kind of walk this whole gauntlet and you got to talk to all these different reporters from USA Today, the BBC, everywhere, abc, and I'm just going through this whole process and I'm just smiling the whole time like, yeah, yeah, you know he was better than me that day, you know, ha ha, yeah, yeah yeah, Inside.

Speaker 1: 35:42

I am dying inside, because nothing hurts more than when you let your own self down. I beat myself out there. He didn't beat me. I beat myself out there and once we got out of the press conference, I got into the service car to take me back to the hotel and I remember just being on the phone and I was just crying to my mom and dad. I was like man, I can't believe I let that happen. It's like scoring the winning touchdown or about to score the winning touchdown, and the ball is thrown to you and you, clear of all defenders, and you drop the ball on national television. It made me, it put me in a depressed state going into 16, even though I won to the Olympics. I won the Olympic trials, I went on to get a medal in the Olympics. It just didn't feel right. Didn't feel right until I got back into 2017, which was the next world championships.

Speaker 3: 36:47

I want to frame something, and then there's something that happened when we were in St Louis that unfolded in my eyes, which was as I watched. It was just amazing. When you were just talking about attacking Usain Bolt, that was Usain Bolt's last race ever. So you talk about like Usain Bolt people say is the king of racing in history, and you took him down in his final race ever, when you were just talking about attacking every detail, being that champion, and then you made a choice to bring your heart back into your racing. And then you made a choice to not accept what those results were in 2015, and to go back to training and bring your heart back into it. When I saw that in your eyes, I could feel your energy change. I don't know if anybody else was. I'm the closest one to your eyes. I don't know if everybody else could see that or feel that, but when we were in St Louis, you had Kennedy on what do they call it? When you had her strapped in and then you let her go. What do they call that? Rip Court, the RIP Court. So he's got this RIP Court around Kennedy's waist and he tells Kennedy to take off and then, all of a sudden she takes off and he lets her go and bang, she's just gone. And I remember he looks back and he's like bro, she has it and he goes. She has something that you just can't teach. And you then proceeded to. And it was a really good thing, because in our house, believe it or not, I don't stand on the dining room table and give motivational speeches during dinner and the kids don't come to me to lock in mentally, they go to mama. So it was awesome for me that you brought out in her. You said, kennedy, you had something here and you actually it was amazing watching you train her physically. But when you started training her mentally, I was blown away and you encouraged her to find her alter ego, to find that little extra edge. That nasty, you're like Kennedy. When you did that there was something like what was that? And we talked about her finding Rosie. So she's Kennedy Rose and it's like Rosie, go to that place, you can control your mind like that. And then you started to tell her about your alter ego and when you just looked at me with those eyes, I felt that alter ego.

Speaker 3: 39:26

When you see that race and you go down to the ground first off, does anybody pay attention? I mean, one of the things about Justin Gatlin this is one of the most humble, like human beings, like when you hear him talk, when you hear what he went through. He's just a special human being. That's why I love our interactions. Most guys are running around the track. What did he do? He just beat Usain Bolt and he went and bowed to him. Just how you go about things is amazing, but you went to, even though you respected him that much, the bow to that man. You said not again and you turned on Jay Gat that day. And I think this is really interesting because Kennedy and we're continuing to work on it always remind her of it from you helping her with it.

Speaker 3: 40:13

But every single one of you can go to a place where you think differently. You may have to do that every single day until you get to December the 25th, just like Justin had to do that, not getting the resulting one in 2015. The crazy thing about racing and I've been blessed to work with a handful of Olympians the crazy thing about racing is you go these long periods of time where you don't get that next shot, like world championships. It's another two years and then there's the Olympics and things in between, but you had to go to Jay Gat every day. Can you tell us and help people understand the importance of containing your mindset and really understanding that alter ego, becoming that person who's willing to go into that hotel room to mentally get yourself to believe I'm locked in this cage and when I come out you're gonna watch me? Can you take us and help us understand the importance of Jay Gat and how Jay Gat is different than the Justin Gatlin that sits here right now?

Speaker 1: 41:11

I think Jay Gat was always there. I just didn't recognize that he was there Every time it was time for me to compete. I just felt a tingle in my body. I felt like energy in my body. I was excited to compete. I can't remember a time when I've ever been nervous competing. I think the only times I've ever been nervous probably was if I felt like I was in 100% prepared, which is a rare situation at all.

Speaker 1: 41:41

I learned throughout my ups and downs later in my career that Jay Gat has always been there and Jay Gat was needed because Justin, who I am today Justin couldn't get that done. That's not Justin up there. Justin is the kind of guy that you've met in the last couple of days, who's kind of just low key, soft tone. Thank you so much. I appreciate you all. Jay Gat Jay Gat's a beast, jay Gat's a monster. Jay Gat's that guy who's gonna nudge Justin and say nah, we ain't sleeping in the day, we gotta get that work done. This guy's out there trying to take your head. We gotta fill them bags up that you have over there with heads. We gotta get it done. And I think that if Jay Gat was never around, I don't think I would be on the stage today. I had to live Jay Gat. I couldn't turn Jay Gat on and off and I realized that and Jay Gat started bleeding into my real life. I became really aggy and snippy and I would be really aggressive to people. That was unnecessary. And then I realized okay, jay Gat, you gotta tone the back man. All right, you gotta just stay on the track. That's where you gotta pee at. But for everyone here, you gotta find who you are. You gotta find what your alter ego is, because sometimes there's not gonna be just somebody there to push you. Your boss not gonna push you. Your coworkers are not gonna push you. You have to push yourself. You have to be able to stay aligned and be accountable for your own standards and your own goals that you wanna reach. And that's what I had to do. I came. We have a situation where it's called a non-cultureable moment. That's when your coaches coach you all the way up to a certain point. You're going through practice every day and then when you go into that warm up area and they call you into that call room to go out onto that track, your coach is not there with you anymore. So who are you gonna bring with you. I had to bring Jay Gat. Jay Gat was gonna stick to the plan. Jay Gat was gonna make sure that he went out there. He executed, he made sure that everyone was gone and that's what I had to do. That was my Jay Gat and that's what Kennedy needed.

Speaker 1: 43:58

She has to realize that who her alter ego is. Unleash it, cause when you sit on that bench and be like man, I could have did this, but when you cross that finish line, you lose. And be like man. I know I'm better than that person. I know I can do this. That's your alter ego talking. That's your standard. That's talking. Your standard is telling you right now. You know you're better than that. Why did you do that? Why did you let those individuals beat you? You know that they're not better than you. Why did you fault her? Why did you let yourself fault her? So listen to what you're inner, listen to what you're inner voice, listen to that alter ego talk to you, cause that's what's going to drive you to what your success is. That's where your hunger is going to lie. And I thank God that Jay Gat was around, because if he wasn't, I wouldn't be here, man, I wouldn't be with you, appreciate it. Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3: 44:47

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for being an example of what it means to live with a champion's mindset and to go through adversity and to let us know. Sometimes people can point fingers and try to tell you who you are, but you always have a choice to dig down deep, surround yourself with the people who love you, believe in you and who know the real story and know who you are, and to keep fighting and attacking Bootcamp family. This is one of the greatest champions to ever run the face of the earth. Give it up for Justin Gatman. Thank you, thank you, yes.