- 2 days ago
Olympic dreams cost more than anyone tells you, and the price is paid long before the podium.
Every episode takes a lot of research and writing. Drop your next video idea in the comments. I read them all.
Subscribe so you don't miss the next one! 🔔
VIDEO TOPICS/TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 The Curious Kid
1:30 The Local Prodigy
3:37 The Regional Contender
5:57 The National Prospect
8:39 The Breakthrough
11:03 The National Team
13:47 The Olympic Qualifier
16:17 The Olympian
19:16 The Medalist
21:44 The Icon
Every episode takes a lot of research and writing. Drop your next video idea in the comments. I read them all.
Subscribe so you don't miss the next one! 🔔
VIDEO TOPICS/TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 The Curious Kid
1:30 The Local Prodigy
3:37 The Regional Contender
5:57 The National Prospect
8:39 The Breakthrough
11:03 The National Team
13:47 The Olympic Qualifier
16:17 The Olympian
19:16 The Medalist
21:44 The Icon
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Level 1. The curious kid. You are 6 years old. You see something on television that changes you.
00:07Maybe it's a gymnast spinning through the air. Maybe it's a swimmer touching the wall.
00:12Maybe it's a sprinter crossing a finish line with their arms raised.
00:16Whatever it is, you feel it in your chest. You point at the screen.
00:20You tell your mother that you want to do that. She smiles.
00:25She doesn't take you seriously. Most parents don't. Most kids forget about it by Tuesday.
00:31You don't forget. You ask again the next day, and the day after that.
00:36Your mother finally drives you to a local gym, a local pool, a local track.
00:42She fills out a form. She writes a check for $80 a month.
00:46She has no idea what she just signed up for.
00:49You walk into a building that smells like chalk or chlorine or sweat.
00:54A coach looks down at you. The coach has seen a thousand kids like you.
00:59The coach is not impressed.
01:01You don't care. You feel something the moment you step on the mat, into the water, onto the track.
01:07You feel like you've come home.
01:10You don't have the words for it yet.
01:12You will spend the next 20 years chasing that feeling.
01:15The first practice ends.
01:17Your mother asks if you want to come back tomorrow.
01:20You say yes before she finishes the question.
01:22You come back the next day, and the day after that, and every day after that for the rest of
01:28your childhood.
01:30Level 2. The local prodigy.
01:33You're 9 years old now. 3 years of training. 5 days a week.
01:37You're better than the other kids in your group.
01:39Not a little better. A lot better.
01:42You move differently.
01:43The coaches whisper about you to each other when they think you can't hear.
01:47They use words like talent and natural and special.
01:51Your mother starts driving you to a better gym 45 minutes away.
01:55You wake up at 5 a.m. for morning practice before school.
01:59You eat breakfast in the car.
02:00You do your homework in the car.
02:02You fall asleep in the car on the way home.
02:05Your friends at school don't really understand what you do.
02:08They invite you to birthday parties on Saturday afternoons.
02:11You can't go.
02:12You have practice.
02:13They invite you to sleepovers.
02:15You can't go.
02:17You have a competition.
02:18They stop inviting you eventually.
02:20Your real friends are the kids you train with.
02:23You see them more than you see your own family.
02:25You compete in your first state-level meet.
02:28You win your event.
02:29Your coach hugs you.
02:31Your mother cries in the bleachers.
02:33You stand on a small podium, and someone hangs a medal around your neck.
02:37The medal is cheap medal.
02:39It weighs almost nothing.
02:40But you hold it on the drive home like it's made of gold.
02:43You sleep with it on your pillow.
02:45You decide that night that you want more of these.
02:48You don't know it yet, but this is when the obsession truly begins.
02:52Your parents start budgeting differently.
02:55Equipment costs money.
02:56Travel costs money.
02:58Private coaching costs money.
02:59Your father picks up extra shifts.
03:02Your mother stops buying new clothes.
03:04Nobody complains.
03:05This is just what families do when they have a kid like you.
03:08You don't fully understand the sacrifice yet.
03:11You won't understand it for another 15 years.
03:14You just know that you are getting better at something faster than anyone you've ever met.
03:18You just know that the medals are getting bigger.
03:20You just know that the coaches are taking you more seriously each month.
03:24The local newspaper writes a small article about you with a photo of you holding your medal.
03:29Your grandmother cuts it out and tapes it to her refrigerator door.
03:32She tells everyone at her church about you for the next two years.
03:36Level 3.
03:38The regional contender.
03:39You're 12.
03:41You train 25 hours a week.
03:43Your body is changing in ways the other kids in your class don't understand.
03:47Your shoulders are wider.
03:49Your legs are denser.
03:51Your hands are calloused.
03:53You eat more than anyone in your family.
03:55You're constantly hungry.
03:57You're constantly tired.
03:59You're constantly a little injured.
04:01Something always hurts.
04:03A wrist.
04:04A knee.
04:05An ankle.
04:06Your lower back.
04:07You learn to ignore it.
04:09You learn that pain is information, not an emergency.
04:14Your coach has been training elite athletes for 30 years.
04:17He has connections.
04:18He makes a phone call.
04:20You are invited to a regional development camp.
04:23Your mother drives you four hours to a training center you've only seen in magazines.
04:27You walk through the doors and you see kids who look like you.
04:32The same hungry eyes.
04:34The same calloused hands.
04:36The same body that doesn't quite fit into normal childhood.
04:40For the first time in your life, you are not the best in the room.
04:44You are not even in the top half.
04:47The realization hits you like a punch to the stomach.
04:51You go back to your hotel that night and cry into a pillow so your roommate can't hear you.
04:56The next morning, you wake up before everyone else.
05:00You're in the gym 30 minutes before the first session starts.
05:03The head coach notices.
05:05He doesn't say anything, but he notices.
05:09Within six months, you've moved up the rankings.
05:12You're not the best in the camp, but you're not the worst anymore.
05:16You're climbing.
05:17Your school becomes a logistical problem.
05:20Your parents look into homeschooling.
05:22Other parents at the gym recommend it.
05:25You start studying online while traveling to competitions.
05:28Your social life is now entirely athletic.
05:31The people you used to know are strangers.
05:34You don't miss them.
05:36You don't have time to miss anything.
05:39You compete in your first national age group championship.
05:43You finish fourth.
05:44Fourth place hurts more than anything you have ever felt.
05:48You stand off the podium watching three other kids get medals.
05:52You promise yourself this will never happen again.
05:57Level 4.
05:58The National Prospect.
05:59You're 15.
06:01The national team coaches know your name.
06:03You've been on their radar for two years.
06:05You attend selection camps three times a year.
06:08You compete at junior nationals.
06:09You finish in the top eight, then top five, then top three.
06:14The Federation invites you to relocate to the National Training Center.
06:17Your parents have a conversation that takes three weeks.
06:20You sit in the kitchen and listen to them weigh everything.
06:23The cost, the distance, your education, your siblings.
06:27Your father has a job he can't leave.
06:30Your mother would have to move with you.
06:31You would live in athlete housing 800 miles from home.
06:34You would see your father twice a year.
06:36Your younger sister cries when she hears about it.
06:39She doesn't want you to leave.
06:41Your parents make the decision together.
06:43You go.
06:44You move in February.
06:46The training center sits on 200 acres in a place where nothing else exists.
06:50There's a cafeteria, a dormitory, training facilities, a small medical wing, and an administrative building.
06:57That's it.
06:58The nearest town is 20 minutes away.
07:00There's nothing to do there either.
07:02The athletes who live here range from 14 to 28.
07:04They come from everywhere.
07:06Some of them barely speak English.
07:08They all share one thing.
07:10They are completely consumed by their sport.
07:12The training is harder than anything you've done.
07:15Six hours a day in the gym, the pool, on the track.
07:19Two more hours of strength and conditioning.
07:21Physiotherapy in the evenings.
07:23Nutrition meetings with a sports dietician who weighs your food.
07:26You're tested constantly.
07:28Blood tests.
07:29Body composition scans.
07:31Sleep monitoring.
07:32Hormone panels.
07:33Your body is being optimized like a machine.
07:36You learn that you are no longer a person with a sport.
07:39You are a sport that happens to have a person attached to it.
07:42The line between athlete and human gets blurry.
07:45You stop knowing where one ends and the other begins.
07:47You miss your father's 50th birthday because you have a training camp.
07:51You miss your sister's middle school graduation because you have a meet.
07:54You miss everything.
07:56Your mother sends you photos.
07:57You look at them on your phone in the dormitory hallway.
08:00You feel something distant and small.
08:02You put the phone away.
08:04You eat the same meal in the same cafeteria 21 times a week for 9 months a year.
08:09You sleep in a single bed in a small room shared with a kid from another country.
08:13He snores.
08:14You can't say anything because his event is more prestigious than yours.
08:18The hierarchy at the training center is invisible but absolute.
08:21The boxers eat at one table.
08:23The swimmers eat at another.
08:25The gymnasts eat by themselves.
08:27The track athletes have their own corner.
08:29Nobody crosses the lines without permission.
08:32You learn the politics of the place quickly.
08:34You learn who matters and who doesn't.
08:36And you learn to never be in the second category.
08:39Level 5.
08:40The Breakthrough.
08:41You're 17.
08:42You qualify for your first senior international competition, a World Cup event in Europe.
08:49You fly across the ocean for the first time.
08:53You sit on the plane next to a teammate who has done this 30 times.
08:57He sleeps through the flight.
08:59You don't sleep at all.
09:00You arrive in a country where you don't speak the language and walk into a venue that holds
09:0615,000 people.
09:08You see flags from 60 countries.
09:11You see athletes you've only watched on YouTube.
09:14They walk past you in the hallway like it's nothing.
09:18To them, it is nothing.
09:21The competition starts.
09:22You compete in the qualifying round.
09:25You make the finals.
09:26You don't expect to make the finals.
09:29Nobody on the team expected you to make the finals.
09:32The coaches huddle in a corner and rewrite the strategy.
09:36You go back to your room that night, and you can't eat.
09:39Your stomach is in knots.
09:41You try to call your mother.
09:43The time zones are wrong.
09:44She doesn't pick up.
09:46You sit alone on the edge of a hotel bed, in a country you can't pronounce.
09:51You wonder what you're doing here.
09:54The next day, you compete in the finals.
09:56You finish 11th.
09:59It's the worst performance of your week, and the best result of your career.
10:04You walk out of the arena, and a journalist puts a microphone in your face.
10:08He asks you questions in accented English.
10:11You answer them.
10:13You sound like a robot.
10:15You don't remember what you said.
10:16The video shows up online the next day.
10:20Someone in your hometown sees it.
10:22They share it.
10:24Within a week, the local newspaper writes an article about you.
10:27People at your old school read it.
10:30Kids who used to ignore you suddenly remember your name.
10:33You don't care.
10:35You're already focused on the next competition.
10:37The breakthrough wasn't the result.
10:40The breakthrough was the moment you realized you belonged in that arena.
10:44You come home and walk into the training center differently.
10:47The other athletes notice.
10:49The coaches notice.
10:51You stand a little taller.
10:53You eat with the older athletes now.
10:55They include you in their conversations.
10:57You've crossed a line.
10:59There is no going back.
11:02Level 6.
11:04The national team.
11:05You're 19.
11:06You make the senior national team.
11:08There's a ceremony.
11:09They give you a jacket with your country's flag on the chest.
11:12You put it on for a photograph.
11:14Your mother frames the photograph.
11:16Your father shows it to everyone who comes to the house.
11:19You wear the jacket on flights.
11:21In airports.
11:22In foreign cafeterias.
11:23People look at you differently now.
11:25You represent something larger than yourself.
11:28Strangers approach you.
11:29They ask for photos.
11:31They wish you luck.
11:32They tell you their kids do gymnastics.
11:34Swimming.
11:35Track.
11:36They tell you their kids look up to you.
11:38You smile.
11:39You sign napkins and notebooks and ticket stubs.
11:41You don't feel like a hero.
11:43You feel like a person who is very, very tired.
11:46The pressure changes when you wear the national colors.
11:49Every competition is now a measurement of your country's athletic program.
11:53Every loss is analyzed by federation officials who control your funding.
11:57Every win is splashed across the sports section.
12:00You learn to manage the media.
12:02You take media training.
12:32You're taught what to say and what not to say.
12:33During a routine training session.
12:35You spend three months in rehabilitation.
12:37You watch your teammates train without you.
12:39You feel yourself getting weaker.
12:41You panic some nights.
12:43You wake up at 4 a.m. convinced your career is over.
12:46The team doctor reassures you.
12:48The physiotherapist and your coach reassure you too.
12:51You return to training.
12:52You compete again.
12:53You win a medal at a continental championship.
12:56You realize you are mortal in a way you never were before.
12:59The career has a clock now.
13:01You can hear it ticking.
13:02The first sponsor reaches out.
13:04A small deal.
13:05A few thousand dollars to wear their logo.
13:08You sign it.
13:09You buy your parents a new dishwasher.
13:11It's the first real money you've ever earned.
13:13You stare at the deposit in your account for an hour.
13:16You finally feel like a professional.
13:18You finally feel like the sacrifice was worth something.
13:21The feeling lasts about three days.
13:23Then you go back to training and forget about money completely.
13:26There is no time to think about anything except the next competition.
13:30The world outside the gym does not exist for you anymore.
13:33Friends from high school get married.
13:35You can't go.
13:36They have children.
13:37You send a card.
13:38They stop inviting you because they know what the answer will be.
13:41You are 19 years old and your life is already smaller than most adults will ever experience.
13:46Level 7.
13:48The Olympic Qualifier.
13:50You're 21.
13:51The games are 18 months away.
13:54Everything in your life is now organized around qualification.
13:57Your training.
13:58Your competition schedule.
14:00Your nutrition.
14:01Your sleep.
14:02Your relationships.
14:04All of it organized around one date on a calendar.
14:07You break up with the person you've been dating for two years.
14:10You can't give them what they need.
14:12They understand.
14:13They cry.
14:15You cry too.
14:16But you're not really crying about them.
14:18You're crying because you don't have time to feel anything else.
14:22You compete in a series of qualifying events.
14:25The pressure is unlike anything you've experienced.
14:28One bad performance and the dream is over for four more years.
14:32Maybe forever depending on your sport and your age.
14:36You see athletes around you crack.
14:38A teammate who is favored to qualify finishes 14th at a critical meet.
14:42She doesn't make the team.
14:44Her career is over at 23.
14:47She walks out of the venue and gets in a car.
14:50You don't see her again for a year.
14:52You qualify by 0.4 seconds or two hundredths of a point or one place.
14:59Whatever the margin, it's terrifyingly small.
15:02You think about all the training sessions where you took a shortcut.
15:06All the meals where you ate something you shouldn't have.
15:09All the nights you went out when you should have slept.
15:12Each one of those moments could have been the difference.
15:14You promise yourself you will never take another shortcut again.
15:18You will pay any price to be ready.
15:21The team is announced at a press conference.
15:24Your name is read aloud.
15:25Your mother watches the live stream from the kitchen.
15:28She screams when she hears your name.
15:31Your father, the most stoic man you've ever known, has tears running down his face.
15:36Your sister calls you from college.
15:38She tells you she's proud of you.
15:40She tells you the whole dorm is proud of you.
15:43You are going to the Olympics.
15:45You hang up the phone and sit alone in your apartment and you stare at the wall.
15:49You should feel something enormous.
15:52Instead, you feel scared.
15:54The games are eight months away.
15:57The hardest part is just beginning.
15:59You start working with a sports psychologist twice a week.
16:02You talk about fear.
16:04You talk about visualization.
16:06You talk about the version of yourself you need to become.
16:09You write a letter to your future self.
16:11You seal it in an envelope.
16:13You will open it after the games.
16:17Level 8.
16:18The Olympian.
16:19You arrive in the Olympic Village two weeks before your event.
16:23You walk through the gates and your credential is scanned.
16:25The volunteer welcomes you in three languages.
16:28You are surrounded by 11,000 athletes from 200 countries.
16:33The cafeteria is bigger than three football fields.
16:36It serves food from every continent 24 hours a day.
16:40The dining hall is the only place on earth where a sumo wrestler, a Kenyan marathoner, and
16:46a Norwegian curler share a table.
16:48Nobody asks for autographs in here.
16:51Everyone is somebody in their own country.
16:54Inside the village, everyone is the same.
16:56You see athletes you've watched on television since you were a kid.
17:00They walk past you in flip-flops.
17:02They look smaller in person.
17:04Or taller.
17:05Or older.
17:06Or younger.
17:07They are humans now, not posters on your bedroom wall.
17:11You meet some of them.
17:12They are kind.
17:14Some of them are not kind.
17:16Some of them are exactly what you imagined.
17:19Some of them are completely different.
17:22You learn that being an Olympian is not a personality type.
17:25It's a profession.
17:27You are issued team uniforms, opening ceremony outfits, processional gear, training kits, and
17:34dozens of pieces of branded equipment.
17:36The boxes fill your dorm room.
17:38You find out your gear is worth $15,000.
17:42You will never wear most of it again after these games.
17:45The opening ceremony is overwhelming.
17:48You stand in a tunnel for three hours waiting to march into the stadium.
17:51When you finally walk out, the wall of sound hits you like a physical force.
17:5780,000 people.
17:58Cameras flashing like lightning.
18:01You wave at strangers who scream your country's name.
18:04Your face hurts from smiling.
18:06Your feet hurt from standing.
18:07You don't sleep that night.
18:10Your event is in six days.
18:12You spend those six days in a fog of nerves and training.
18:16You try to eat enough.
18:17You try to sleep enough.
18:19You try not to think about what's coming.
18:21The day of competition, you wake up before your alarm.
18:25The bus to the venue is silent.
18:27Nobody talks.
18:29Everyone has earphones in.
18:31Some athletes pray.
18:33Some stare out the window.
18:34You stare at your hands.
18:36You can't believe these hands are about to do what they're about to do.
18:41You walk into the warm-up area.
18:43You hear the crowd through the walls.
18:45The sound is enormous.
18:46You feel it in your sternum.
18:48You close your eyes.
18:50You think about the six-year-old at the television.
18:53You do this for them.
18:55You open your eyes.
18:56You walk out into the arena.
18:58The lights are blinding.
19:01The crowd is a single living organism with a million eyes.
19:04You find your starting position.
19:07You take your first breath as an Olympian about to compete.
19:10Time slows down.
19:12You can feel every single heartbeat.
19:16Level nine, the medalist.
19:18You compete.
19:20The world narrows down to a small, bright space in front of you.
19:23The crowd disappears.
19:25The cameras disappear.
19:26The other competitors disappear.
19:28There is only the task.
19:30The race.
19:31The routine.
19:32The throw.
19:34The lift.
19:35The moment you have rehearsed 100,000 times in your life.
19:39You execute it.
19:40You don't think about it.
19:42Thinking would ruin it.
19:43Your body knows what to do because you have spent 15 years teaching it.
19:47The moment ends.
19:49You stand up.
19:50You look at the scoreboard.
19:52Or you wait for the time.
19:53Or you wait for the judges.
19:55There is a pause that feels like hours.
19:57The number appears.
19:59You have won a medal.
20:00You don't know what color yet.
20:02You will know in a few minutes when the rest of the field finishes.
20:05But you have won something.
20:07Your hand goes to your mouth.
20:09Your knees buckle slightly.
20:11A teammate runs across the floor and tackles you.
20:13You realize you're crying.
20:15You don't remember starting to cry.
20:17The medal ceremony happens hours later.
20:20You stand on a platform in front of the world.
20:23They play your national anthem.
20:24Or someone else's anthem.
20:26Either way, you stand at attention.
20:29The medal goes around your neck.
20:31It is heavier than you expected.
20:33It is heavier than any medal you have ever worn.
20:36Your mother is somewhere in the crowd.
20:38You can't see her, but you know she's there.
20:41Your father is next to her.
20:42Your sister is next to him.
20:44They flew across the world for this moment.
20:46You will never forget what their faces looked like
20:49when you finally found them after the ceremony.
20:52You will replay that moment in your head for the rest of your life.
20:55You do interviews.
20:57So many interviews.
20:58You say the right things.
21:00You thank everyone.
21:01You hold up the medal for the cameras.
21:03The next morning, the photograph is on the front page of newspapers in your country.
21:08Your face.
21:09Your medal.
21:10Your name on the front page in letters larger than the headline.
21:14Strangers tell their children about you.
21:16You become a verb in your hometown.
21:18People watch your event for the first time in their lives because you are in it.
21:22You are 23 years old.
21:24You have become the dream you had at 6.
21:27You call your first coach that night.
21:29The man who looked down at you 17 years ago and was not impressed.
21:33He picks up on the second ring.
21:35He doesn't say much.
21:36Neither do you.
21:38You both cry on the phone for a long time.
21:40He started something.
21:42You finished it.
21:43Level 10.
21:45The Icon.
21:46The games end.
21:48You fly home.
21:50The airport is filled with people.
21:52Strangers hold signs with your name on them.
21:54A band plays.
21:55The mayor is there.
21:57The governor sends a representative.
21:59You shake hands until your fingers ache.
22:01You don't fully understand what is happening.
22:04You are no longer just an athlete.
22:06You have become a symbol.
22:08The next year is a blur.
22:10You appear on talk shows.
22:12You ring the bell at the stock exchange.
22:14You meet the president.
22:15You meet movie stars who tell you they're your fans.
22:18The world has been flipped upside down.
22:21You sign sponsorship deals.
22:23The numbers on the contracts shock you.
22:26You make more money in 12 months than your parents made in their entire careers combined.
22:30You buy your parents a house.
22:33You buy your sister a car.
22:35You don't know what to do with the rest of it.
22:37You hire an accountant.
22:39You hire a manager and a lawyer.
22:41People you've never met send you long emails about investment opportunities.
22:45You ignore most of them.
22:47You try to keep training.
22:49You try to focus on the next games.
22:51But everything is harder now.
22:53There is always somewhere you have to be.
22:55A photo shoot.
22:57A charity event.
22:58A corporate appearance.
22:59A speaking engagement somewhere far away.
23:02Your training time gets eaten by your fame.
23:05Younger athletes start beating you at the events that used to be easy.
23:09They are 17 and hungry and have nothing to lose.
23:13You remember being them.
23:14You go to the next games four years later.
23:17You don't meddle.
23:19You finish sixth.
23:20The media is gentle.
23:22But the truth is in the headlines.
23:24You are no longer the future.
23:25You are the past.
23:27You retire two years after that.
23:29There is a press conference.
23:31Your federation thanks you for your service.
23:34Your sponsors take you to dinner.
23:35They give you a watch that costs more than a car.
23:38It will sit in a drawer because you have nowhere to wear it.
23:41The first year of retirement is the hardest year of your life.
23:45Harder than any training camp.
23:47Any injury.
23:48Any defeat you ever experienced as an athlete.
23:51You wake up every morning with nothing to chase.
23:54You don't know who you are if you're not an athlete.
23:57You spent 25 years becoming someone.
24:00That someone no longer exists.
24:02Your phone stops ringing as much.
24:05The world has moved on.
24:06There are new athletes now.
24:08Younger and faster and hungrier than you ever were.
24:12Sometimes they reach out.
24:14They want advice.
24:15They want mentorship.
24:16They want to absorb whatever it was that made you what you were.
24:20You give them what you can.
24:22You eventually find your footing.
24:24You start a foundation for young athletes.
24:27You buy a small gym near where you grew up.
24:29You coach kids who remind you of yourself at six.
24:33You watch them point at the television.
24:35You watch them tell their mothers what they want to do.
24:38You see the obsession start in their eyes.
24:41You know exactly what they're feeling.
24:43You know exactly what it will cost them.
24:46You don't tell them.
24:47You can't tell them.
24:48They have to learn it themselves.
24:50The metal hangs in a glass case in your office.
24:53And most days, you barely look at it.
24:55You look at the kids instead.
24:58Somewhere right now, a six-year-old is watching a screen.
25:01They are watching someone like you.
25:03Someone winning.
25:05Someone crying.
25:06Someone holding a medal aloft on the highest step of a podium in front of the entire world.
25:11They are pointing at the screen.
25:13Their mother is smiling but not really listening.
25:16The child is feeling something they don't have words for yet.
25:19They are about to spend the rest of their lives chasing it.
25:23They will give up their childhood.
25:25They will give up their friends, their relationships, their bodies,
25:28their certainty about who they are.
25:31They will become someone their younger self could not have imagined,
25:34for better or worse.
25:36Most of them will never reach the podium.
25:39A handful will.
25:40A few will become legends.
25:42All of them will pay the price.
25:44The price is the same whether you medal or not.
25:47The cycle continues.
25:49The cycle continues.
25:50The cycle continues.
25:50The cycle continues.
25:52You
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