Justin Gatlin, welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you for having me. What goes through the mind of the fastest man alive?(…) Everything, very fast.(…) It’s a unique thing to be dubbed the fastest man on the planet because what happens is anywhere you go you know that you’re beating anybody in that room, right? But also when you measure yourself up against other elite athletes they still give you so much more respect. Like I can walk into a room with Tom Brady, Michael Jordan and they’ll look over like that’s the fast guy though. That’s the guy who can get it done really quickly. So it’s a badge to have and you care with honor and pride. But I can imagine that that is not an easy accomplishment nor an easy road to get to. I’d love to hear about your career as an Olympian and how you fell into the sports. Probably didn’t fall into the sports of track that you fell into but your career has been astounding. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.(…) What do you want to start at? What you want to know? Yeah, well I want to know. I want to know where you started. How does one become Justin Gallon? How does one become the Olympian and the athlete that you have? Doc, I actually stumbled into it. Not what I was expecting. You’re right?

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Well what happened was is the fact that at a young age my parents they allowed me to try everything, right? They was like oh you want to try swimming? You want to try baseball? You want to try football? I even played saxophone, piano, trumpet. They let me try everything. How old?(…) I started probably doing everything at six all the way to about when I got to middle school, right? So by the time I got to middle school that’s when I found track on my own. Wow. And I remember coming home with the jersey to show my parents like I made the track team. Now mind you I was very slow and lazy around the house. My nickname was Lounge Lizard.

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You know so when I came to that door with a big smile on my face I was like I made the track team. They looked at each other and then they laughed. They bust out laughing. Hahaha you you made the track team? No, no way. Fast forward they came to my first meet and they saw me run for the first time and they saw a whole different mindset in me. They saw how serious I took it. They saw that I was hungry for it and I wasn’t backing down. I was brave in my attempt to go out there and really compete at a high level and ever since then they became my circle. My biggest fans and as I grew to learn what track and field was they grew too. Now I came from a family that didn’t play sports at all so it wasn’t like a legacy passed on like from my mom or my dad. It was we were learning on the fly together. And that’s unusual right? It’s very unusual. You think that a parent’s fitness level transfers in some regard over to their children?(…) Yeah you you would think so but I discovered and they allowed me just to wonder and just discover who I was what I wanted to be and the love that they had was saying be you do what you want to do and we’re gonna if you really want to do it we’re gonna back you 100% and I had the opportunity to take my parents around the world multiple times at different venues. They’ve been to every Olympics I’ve been to. They’ve been to every World Championships I’ve been to. I think I got to a point of my the end of my career there was like I retired of traveling so you could retire now if you like so I mean I’m just the Olympics here so we have I just want to preface everyone so they understand who they’re listening to. So basically career accomplishments include not limited to numerous international titles including an Olympic gold medal in 2004 for outdoor World Championship gold medals to indoor World Championship gold medals to world athletic relay golf gold is it gold medals gold medals and the winner of the diamond league in the 100 meter for three years so you’ve had you have nine gold medals I do nine silver medals yes and two bronze medals I have I’m the most decorated sprinter male sprinter of all time so just let that sink in my producer is here and I’m the oldest has been on the podium so there’s(…) so many questions that I have you know we were talking a bit offline oftentimes this podcast is around medicine and yes I love medicine I love health and wellness but I also really love extraordinary people and you cannot be physically extraordinary without being mentally have mental extraordinary capacity I appreciate that I mean but it’s true it is it’s a hundred percent it’s a hundred percent true it’s times where I’m mentally tuned in and I don’t feel I feel almost outer body I’m like oh oh you’re a tough sob I was like yeah I’m built for this because it becomes almost natural it’s almost like that fight-or-flight feeling that you have where it’s like you’re gonna fight for this it’s instinctual or either you’re gonna run from it you got to soup your self up to fight for something I’ve always fought for it and that’s that’s the first thing I always lean towards do you remember she started running how old were you were probably well I started middle school okay I loved it didn’t keep my grades up so up enough to where it was up to my mom’s standard so she pulled me off the track team and then when I really got focused and really took it serious was high school so I’ll say probably my freshman year so I was like 14 years old what goes I mean at 14 you can’t even drive no what is the the mindset of a 14 and were you good at 14 were you good I was good I remember beating all the seniors and juniors in districts in the hundred without with little training because the first school I was at I wasn’t getting trained it was just one of the it was one of the football coaches that would come out there in his folding chair his crossword puzzle and he’d be like all right guys go out there and just run around a little bit and exercise and we’ll be done for today so I went out there just competing gun goes off I’m running like a bat out of hell and I went out there and beat all these guys with no technique no nothing so when I moved to the second high school that I went to I learned technique I learned like how to be more precise with my angles and things like that so it made me even a more formidable opponent but

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the funny thing is when I started my when I started running track in high school and got to that second high school the coach was looking at numbers because track and field when you’re looking at a team perspective it’s all about it’s all about points so if this kid over here does it does the throws he can score 10 points for us this guy in the hurdles could score 10 points for us this guy’s just sprinting could score 10 points for us so we’re beating other teams so I was a more talented in the other sprinters we had eight sprinters all together I could hurdle as well so I became a hurdler because I can score points so a lot of people didn’t know I could even spray anymore Wow yeah and and then you started competing so at 14 you were competing in track and field yeah the was there a moment again you’ve had such a decorated career what was the next moment where you said you know what this is this is gonna be something that I’m gonna do I always looked at my career in stages of like one to two years you know they always tell you you should have a five-year plan or what are you gonna be doing in ten years for me I guess my mental capacity couldn’t even think at that age like what am I doing five years what am I doing in ten years I don’t know but what I want to do today or what I want to do this year is I want to become state champion so I want to be the fast kid in the state and then I want to be the fast kid in the nation and then I want to go to the next level and you were thinking that I was thinking that that was my always my goal my goal was something that I know that if I worked hard at it it’s obtainable tomorrow quote-unquote you know what I mean that’s what I’m worked on but that’s unusual right there’s a nature versus nurture how much do you think is natural talent versus how much is just sheer will and tenacity I think all track athletes start up with nature which is natural talent and then over time is the ones who really want to get to that next level that nurture steps in that coach is teaching you and whatever you retain is gonna make you a better athlete now what that coach teaches sometimes it becomes uncomfortable because now you got to change your form now you got it you got to work harder now you got to push yourself more past the threshold what your talent really is to get to that new level a lot of athletes don’t want to go that far they think this is what got me here is gonna take me even further and I learned at an early age I was like no if if I need a coach I’m gonna use a coach if I don’t need a coach why are there coaches even exist then you could do it on your own so I relied on my coaches to be my gurus to be my mentors to take me to that next level and then I also learned that these coaches been around the block a while you know I mean they could become my mentors as well and teach me and help me watch out for certain pitfalls so then my mind and my nature and nurture start to become balanced and then that’s why I looked at sports at a different level it wasn’t any more about winning championships it was being obsessed with the process I fell in love with the process of becoming fast I love that when sprinting why did you pursue a career in sprinting because you were doing other track and field events yeah yeah and then there was this carrot dangling of sprinting I remember having a conversation with a gold medalist decathlete named Brian Clay and he we were sitting there both getting worked on on the massage table we was at like world championships in 2005 and I said man you know what I think I could do the kathalon he was like really you think so I was like well let’s look back at my old numbers I could hurdle very well that’s what got me to college that’s jumping over over over the obstacles so it’s ten barriers right I said I could hurdle very well that’s what got me to college where’d you go to college University of Tennessee okay and I could long jump 24 24 feet 10 inches I can high jump six feet eight inches and I could I’m pretty strong I could throw a shot of need be and the only thing I got in my way was the pole vault part right so I think over time I’ll I’ll be competitive enough I can do it if I need to right so he’s like wow the numbers you probably go out there break the world record and decathlon if you tried I was like oh cool but my love was sprinting always I loved it because when you’re in shape and you’re at your best you feel like a superhero it’s like you can call on the will of speed when you want to and it’s almost like you just flowing and as I was saying earlier when you at the start line of the Olympics and that gun goes off it’s almost like being in the matrix everything around you slows down but you’re running like 27 26 miles per hour on foot my husband doesn’t even drive that fast you know when you got to college you decided that you were gonna focus on sprinting I did yeah well my coach decided that actually he was at I had to beg the high school national meat promoter to allow me to sprint because I was known as a hurdler and he said all right I’ll let you sprint went through the whole rounds prelim semis finals I made over to the finals I guess I get third in nation I get third in nation and I wasn’t even supposed to be in the event and I remember the coach who recruited me for Tennessee was there other recruiting other athletes he leaned over the rail he looked at me and says I did not know you can sprint like that in the moment I got to Tennessee we had a private practice he pulled me to the side one of the other fast guys who were already there he was a junior and they told me get in the blocks do some starts and then they whisper to each other do again so they knew they had something so now we have a dynamic duo and you knew you had something I did but I didn’t know to what magnitude right so as a kid you become naive to process right and you’re kind of this 18 at the time right 18 at the time I’m not thinking about where I can take this to I’m thinking about any time I give effort I give all my effort is that always still yeah this day absolutely absolutely I think that that’s what your pride lies in the effort that you do give you know it means a lot and in track and field and you can speak on other sports there’s always somebody watching you and usually they’re little eyes meaning like smaller people younger people they’re watching the effort that you give and they may not be judging you but they’re gonna be emulating you subconsciously so if you’re the one that’s giving up or slowing down or sandbagging on the workouts they’re gonna do the same thing so now you’re creating the next generation to be sub par when you could have gave your full effort and fought for it you know and then now they’re gonna be fighters so they’re gonna carry your legacy and I tell you people all the time I was like what do you feel how do you feel after you finish running like what are you gonna do I was like I’m gonna just pour back into the next generation that comes behind me because they’re the one that’s gonna keep my fire going they’re the ones that are gonna keep my name going that’s just like tall tales or the legends that you hear about you know they speak on you but respect and that’s what I want to do so from the Olympics the Olympics world championships how long has your career span been 20 years(…) 20 years how does someone have that much longevity I just love the process the process kept going and I just kept going with the process but I mean that’s a lot of physical burden it is you also travel you’ve also I mean I’m sure not every moment of the journey was easy I’m sure you’ve had challenges absolutely love to hear all about that but how does someone maintain that kind of longevity in the sport I learned to micromanage my process and micromanage has such a bad vibe around it right but think about if you’re doing the same routine year in year out I’m training nine to five literally I’m going to practice at 9 a.m. I go train on the track then I go to one gym for about another two hours then I go to another gym for another two hours by the time I’m finished I’m doing therapy it’s five o’clock right and what how old were you when you started that process so you went to college went to college for two years okay for physically track and field and then I turned pro so after my sophomore year I turned pro so I was able to go out there and run so I was

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19 20 years old when I started professionally running and all the way to the point where I was 39 finished yeah it was a long time and it was parts where I had to grow as a man and grow as a human being and realize that you know track and field wasn’t my life but it’s what gave me life hmm and especially starting so young yeah I mean 18 years old you’re just figure I mean probably takes another two decades to figure life out to that kind of responsibility at 18 now you’re running professionally mm-hmm what about the physical training in terms of were you thinking about longevity because there is you know there’s peak performance which typically doesn’t align with longevity and what I mean by that is when you’re operating at the highest capacity your body pays a price yeah it’s not you know there’s this this kind of ramp up to okay you’re in good shape and then you hit peak performance and you’re asking your body thing you know to do things that are extraordinarily difficult absolutely at 18 how are you eating how are you recovering how are you thinking about all those things are you just thinking be fast I don’t even want to tell you I was horrible I was a I was an average 18 18 year olds probably eating I was eating junk hamburgers pizzas hot dogs anything I get my hand on that tasted good right and also the fact of playing video games I’m staying up at three o’clock in the morning so a lot of my nature came into effect instead of my nurture in those situations but I learned like I said to micromanage my obsession which was instead of thinking about the long days or a long season I have that’s gonna be day in day out year in year out I lurked I kind of focused on aspects of my craft like one year I would just work on my start that’s what I would focus on another year I work on my top end speed and then I’ll start sewing them together as long as I kept my competitiveness that fire inside of me I was still able to kind of go out there compete at a high level but I wasn’t being that same Justin each time right I was evolving I was changing I was still in that same environment but I was growing so it never stunted me I loved the process throughout the whole time even to the end hmm and how would you could you take us through something like that where you know when you say that you’re working on your start would that be you wake up in the morning you’re thinking about the start you’re doing it for hours and hours and hours every day that you’re just gonna get this thing done I mean what what is that what is that even like so I started it started back in 2011 2012 actually and I moved to the coach named Dennis Mitchell and I came back to the sport and I said coach you know I want to get my start better he said you’re gonna have to get your start better you run against guys like Usain Bolt, Johan Blake, Tyson Gaye these guys are running nine seven nine sixes so for you to get into the party you’re gonna have to get out in front of these guys out the starting blocks so we literally would work on my start for two hours straight. Did you doubt yourself?

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No I’ve always felt like there’s a will is away it was one time I doubted myself and I remember I was I got fifth at a race somewhere in Berlin and I was like this is not you and I remember just sitting in the tub and the shower just running on me and I was like bro this is not you right -(…) this is not you getting fifth and this is not you sitting in the tub with the water running on you and you soaking never happening again and it never happened again I never got to that point ever again because I made sure that I competed at high level and for me to compete at high level I had to check off a lot of boxes to make sure I was stayed at that level. And before you hear that gun go off

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what is going through your head?(…) I’m about to tear these guys up.(…) Every time? Is it every time? Is it the same thing every time? Yeah I had to create a different persona a whole different me.(…) The Justin I’m talking right now like I’m very casual chill but then JGAT. JGAT is that monster. JGAT is that ferocious individual that says you think that you’re gonna take money out of my pocket food off my table you know I’m saying my family’s trying to eat I’m coming out here trying to win this is what I train for each and every day for you do too but I train harder and I’m stronger than you I’m faster than you and I go out there and I believe a hundred percent of what I’m thinking and it’s like the moment I wake up that morning for that race and usually when we’re in Europe the races are in the evening so throughout that whole day I’m pacing back and forth like a caged tiger like I’m just ready I know what I’m here for I’m not here for a vacation and going to see the leaning tallop he’s a and Raywall China I’m here to get the job done I’m here to handle business so that’s the mentality I would go into so once I I would micromanage my time like to the point where it’s like alright coach we got two minutes to get on this bus alright we get off this bus alright coach we got one minute before I start warming up I would make sure that all I would allocate all my time to something that’s gonna prepare me for that moment so when they call you into that call room that’s the last point before you go out into that track and I want to be prepared I don’t want to go into that car and think like man I should have did one more stride out man I should have did this no I’m ready let’s go do this did you ever have to go to a dark place to maintain that kind of motivation and focus funny I feel like the dark place was all around me you know me being away from the sport and then having to come back into the sport and then having to deal with the juggernaut like Usain Bolt and the media was always like white hat black hatting us because I was his rival you know like by the time I came back he was winning by far no one wanted to challenge him he was out there just having a great time you know is that why you came back into the sport I was so inspired I saw him break the world record in 2008 and people in the sport were like so scared like a lot of a lot of sprinters like stopped sprinting and went into other events or they just didn’t didn’t compete at all anymore you know for me it was different I looked up at that screen I remember I was sitting in a bar and I looked up at the screen I was like I want to race that guy and that’s what got me really inspired to come back into the sport more hmm what had you been doing take me through a little bit about where your career was at the time and how you decided to come back I mean you saw him you were inspired by greatness I will say that the best of the best individuals are always inspired by greatness they are not afraid of it they’re not intimidated by it but they’re inspired by the greatness of others yeah you smell it it’s like it’s a different energy it’s greatness and when another person recognized that greatness is like it’s an energy you feel so watching that I was attracted to that energy and it made me more relentless like I was like I could come back into the sport and I can compete but now it’s like I come back to the sport and have a goal hmm I want to I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with this guy at the starting line and I made that happen so take me to where you had been in your career when you decided to get back in the game so you started racing professionally your first big win was what before when I came back into the game no before but the initial part because again you’ve had a career you know 2001 you won gold at the outdoor championships so my first part of my career was a fairy tale within itself okay so I turned pro in 2003 I went to indoor worlds and I won indoor worlds probably like two months after turning pro right so that’s my first gold medal 2004 is the Olympics so I make the Olympic team I win the gold medal there 2005 is a world championship year I win not only one goal but two goals 200 and the 200 then 2006 I break the world record in the hundred meters so it was it was constantly like like I said I had a list of things I wanted to do I was checking off the boxes of what I exactly what I wanted to do what I wanted to achieve and I was relentless in my attempts of doing so and I never inundated myself with multiple goals at once right so if it was an Olympic year that’s what we focusing on I’m not focusing on breaking the world record and getting the Olympic gold I wanted to focus I have laser focus on that moment which respect the moment which was let’s win this Olympic gold and then we can mature ourselves to go out and break a world record and I mean that’s not very insightful and how old were you then so 2006 21 I believe yeah so I was just legal enough to celebrate my win isn’t crazy looking back it is and the change in the man that you’ve become did you have any challenges with that first leg of your career no not really I mean one thing I saw other athletes and greatness is observant very observant the people who have possessed greatness they’re aware of everything around like Tom Brady he understands every aspect of defense that he plays against usually you’re thinking like oh he doesn’t sense his offense that’s all you need to understand no he understands the whole game it’s the same thing for me I understand the whole game I know each and every one of my competitors what their attributes are what their flaws are how their season is going how they’re running what their PRs are what so I know that I can be able to eliminate certain variables so when you go out there and compete against them I know exactly how I’m going to fare against them I only get nine seconds I don’t get four quarters I don’t get two halves I don’t get 90 minutes I get nine seconds to go out there and show the world what I’m made of and we have to go out there and beat seven other of the elite world athletes so I have to know all the variables that’s in play did you ever try to get into their head could you I

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I mental warfare yeah that’s exactly what I’m getting at mental warfare because it’s not I can’t imagine you guys are all hanging out together so mental warfare is way different in track and field than other sports so I’ll take you through a mental warfare looks like so let’s just say we at the Olympic trials right and me and your competing gets each other we’re the top dogs so what I’ll do is I have a prelims semis and finals so do you we probably are not in the any any of the rounds together we’ll see each other at the finals so what happens is I’ll run my prelims I’ll try to conserve as much energy as possible but but still dominate that race so what that look like is I’ll get out hard and then I’ll command the race halfway through the race and then as I’m running I look around make sure no one’s beside me and then I’ll shut down and I’ll start to like trot across the line that’ll show my dominance that’s the mental warfare so anybody’s watching in the warm-up area or at home or your competitors getting ready to come onto the track to they see how fast you are and you’re holding back so when you go into the semis you do the same thing if I gave 50% in the prelims I’m giving you about 75% in the in the semis right so then I do the same thing I get out hard I dominate the race I might have someone to be able to go against me like at 65 meters and then I dominate them and then I come across the line and then I look at time I’m unimpressed even though it’s a fast time and then I walk off the track right mental warfare is that an unspoken it is it’s very unspoken unspoken very unspoken so that’s the way that you get into your competitors head without directly walking out there good days or bad days and one of my competitors always told me is I’ve been I hated go against you because I could never read you you always have a poker face on if I was fast at that point in time I would still have that same face even if I wasn’t ready you got to have a poker face because we’re all sitting in a room like a room we’re sitting now so imagine five other individuals in this room that getting ready to go run and try to beat you they’re looking at you they’re eyeing you they’re trying to see if you’re sweating too much or if you’re looking away or if you’re like intimidated like you same will walk back and forward in the room as if like he’s hosting a party hey how you feeling you good how’s everything going huh he will start trying to have like banter one of the guys to take him out his mindset now Usain’s mindset was to relax and have fun that’s where his superpower lied mine was to dial in and stay focused stay hungry so he never would approach me on that matter because he understood where I was but that’s that’s how mental warfare in our sport is just like that you got to know who you are and you got to play that game very very well at 21 years old you’re kind of thinking about this yeah yeah 21 yeah then what happens after 2006 so I tried out for football – no big deal try out for football and it wasn’t a fit for me it wasn’t my life but before then I was away from the sport because I had to serve a band and within that band it took me away for four years right how did you deal with that mentally it was tough and it came at a time when I was crossing that threshold from being a young boy into turning into a man or a young man turning into a man so at that age of 25 26 27 you know that that changed right so it was a gift and a curse in a way because it allowed me to find myself I had to slow down and realize who I was and realize that track wasn’t my life track gave me life but track wasn’t my only thing you know I helped contribute to track and make it successful as well so it was it was a tough moment for me I’d ever thought suicide but I questioned the worth of me right and with me questioning my worth I started doing things that were definitely out of my character I was drinking every day I was partying every day I was hanging out I think when I hit rock bottom is when in Pensacola we have in the summertime we party on the beach there’s a three-mile bridge that connects the mainland to the beach and when you party you party to about two o’clock in the morning on the beach and then everyone drives home crazy right so yeah that’s a really bad idea right so I remember it was about to be two o’clock in the morning I’m leaving and my vision is blurry and I’m driving in a Porsche Carrera so it’s already like terrible and I hit a rock I thought the rock was like a paper bag I shouldn’t even hit it in the first place and then I remember there was a police officer who helped control traffic he was like hey man you didn’t see that rock you know I know I reeked of alcohol and he gave me a pass he let me go he even questioned me right because he knew who I was he was like just get home safe man you’ll be right get home safe I started driving across that bridge and I felt like I was the only car on that bridge and in that moment I thought if I lose control of this car and I flipped into this to this water this dark water no one’s gonna find me it’s gonna be gone you know and in that moment I started thinking not about myself but the people who are my circle who love me your family my family who would miss me right and who would go into deep depression so that’s what snapped me out of my depression realizing that my actions would cause their depression and I didn’t want to bring that on them so the moment I crossed that bridge I got myself out of that and I started working to get better working to come back stop drinking stop partying and that’s when I started going into the into the football realm and you weren’t a fan no I’m a fan and I respect football so much meaning it wasn’t for you it wasn’t for me because I’m the kind of person like I always in track and field whatever you put out is what you get right and it was a lot of politics that comes with football you can work very hard and you still can lose with your team you can have the best day of your career you still can lose with your team you can have the worst day and you can win with your team so and on top of that you could be the best player in your position and your coach or the coaching staff can sit you for whatever reason they want to sit you they didn’t sit well with me because I felt like the best should always play the best should always compete and that was always been my ethos and ideology so that’s what I live for and I respect what football players bring to the table and how hard they work and what their grind is but I remember when I was at minicamp with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and I was going out for wide receiver they gave me 10 plays to remember right now I’m looking at it physically I can move like a wide receiver I can catch I can go in and out of routes but no one taught me to replays so it looked like hieroglyphics I’m looking out there like okay all right I’m gonna remember five of these plays and then tomorrow I’m gonna have 50 50 percent chance of being good right that hopefully that’ll keep me in the threshold so went out there and that’s exactly what happened five plays I did well five other plays I didn’t do well so it was like great job or it was what are you doing Gatlin you know so then I was like I’ll remember the other five the next night right they put another ten in front of us so then I realized from there I was like all right as I laid in bed and my roommate was sound asleep and it’s like two o’clock in the morning we got to get up at six I was like do I stay in the sport where I have to learn everything over again and the notion of the fact that I’m a runner is isn’t always welcomed in track in a football yeah because they always think that linear speed is all you can do like and it was thinking like oh you’re a sprinter runner can you even catch you know some things like that so I was like do I do I prove them wrong or do I go back to a sport while once was a king and that’s what I work towards and was it because you just love competing I do I do I wish I could compete now I know we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna compete now see we’re gonna we’re gonna find you something what is competing like with you I know I’d have to ask your it’s intertwined my essence is who is part of me like I I never thought I’ll be one of those kind of people I always thought like oh you know I’m not one of obnoxious people who compete like if we’re playing ping pong I’m like I’m beating you up but for whatever reason like when it’s time for me to compete I just I just dial in I lock in I everything slows down around me and I take it really serious and that’s something that once I retired I miss it’s a part of me and I gotta find that again hmm do you feel like that is I(…) mean is that cultivated or is that are you is that a talent or is that just what you’re meant to do I think it’s a part of me but also winning is addictive you can see it in other things gambling and everything else people people want to win they love the feeling of winning so I think for me was like doing a victory lap after winning a major race and staying there a whole extra hour just signing autographs taking pictures with people I loved it because these people paid their hard-earned money to come out and watch me for a moment somewhere in another country you know what I mean and that’s what really wanted me I wanted to bring the best out of people and inspire them by showing them what I could do how long did you celebrate each one I always will have a thing with my agent or my coach whoever was there with me and before I went into the call room I’ll tell them all right if I win you can go back to the hotel because I’m about to be here for like an hour I’m gonna be signing autographs I’m be taking pictures do a victory lap so they know if I win they just packed their stuff up Nicole to the hotel so I will stay I will sign an autograph I’ll take every picture I can and whoever wants to be next to me and and be inspired I’m there for it but after after that hour after that two hours and you go back to the hotel room are you focused on that win or is it what’s the next race usually is what’s the next race if I’m on the phone with my parents and tell I kind of debrief them on exactly how everything went how the race unfolded if they’re not there after I get off that phone call I’m usually done with that race I’m usually on to the next race now if my coach has some words at dinner and play man you did good you did this and this and that you could do better in that part and he ran this part well and we got it we got this strategy for the next part next time next race right after that it’s over I’ll give you a perfect example when I won my Olympic gold in 2004 I remember receiving it get on the podium had the reef on my head

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gold around my neck and I came back to the Olympic village right and I came back to my room I looked at the metal and I wrapped the ribbon around it and I put in the side pocket of my carry-on and I kept on competing I wasn’t it didn’t the metal the hardware didn’t move me it was living in the moment making history what did that feel like amazing I mean amazing when you’re standing at that line and you can like it’s eight other guys standing there and y’all almost shoulder to shoulder to the point where you can feel their body heat coming off of them and when the announcer says run this to your mark the whole stadium gets quiet a hundred thousand people and then you hear set we lift our we lift our hips up the gun goes off when the gun goes off it’s like almost like a supernova exploding crowd goes crazy lights and everything flashing like Lily the world stands still for Olympic hundred meters we had LeBron James Kobe Bryant KD all these basketball players run into the stadium in 2012 to watch the Olympic finals and then run out the stadium right so Lily the world watches for this moment and it’s such a exhilarating moment for real it’s it’s addictive it’s like you want to go back to the Olympics again yeah so you’re at the starting block you hear start and then is your heart just pounding out of your chest it is home there’s sweaty are you know thinking about your child I mean what do you what is going through your head aside from I’m gonna crush them it’s one moment where you have self-reflection is when you’re down in the blocks and then you get your feet set into the pedals and then instead of looking up down the track you look down at the track right so your head’s looking down you’re right here looking at the track in front of you in that moment right there because all you can see so then when you all this is you can see you start thinking you start thinking like man I’m really at the Olympics or man like this is crazy or I’m gonna win this race what do I have to do in the moment a gun goes off everything’s instinctual after that like you gun goes off and you’re just running just you’re thinking about executing your race pattern going through your phases remember your cues and then you get to a point of the race where you get to your top-end speed and then you start to like so you start to consciously start to compete against the other athletes around you and how fast I mean the whole thing is over in 10 seconds 9 seconds 9 seconds yeah yeah yeah but so you all of these things are going through your head in two seconds yeah how long does it take to get to the top-end speed it usually takes you about maybe seven seconds to get to top-end speed and is that moment what separates the person who wins yeah yeah it’s a combination because you got to think that we just ran three rounds to get to the finals right or we just ran two rounds to get to the finals that round that finals is the third round and you’re tired you know you had a you had a prelims the day before but then now you had the semis where you have to run some athletes have to run almost close to their PR and then maybe an hour later after that you got to run the finals which is could change your life so you gotta run the fastest you ever in your life in that finals so it’s really it’s really mind-blowing it’s all actually all about attrition you know I mean like when you get to that finals it’s about who’s in shape enough who’s battle-tested who’s ready for this battle-tested exactly yeah and then you hit your top speed and then what do you think because you beat who’s in bowl yeah in that race when I beat you saying his last in 2017 it was his last hundred meters his last world championships and I was working on something so different with my race strategy but I was working on it in secret remember I told you earlier how you have to evolve because if you don’t evolve I know exactly what you’re gonna do when you get out there each you each elite runner if they’re smart enough they know exactly what that other athletes attributes are what they bring to the table so I guarantee you Usain and his coach says oh Justin Gown is a great starter so we’re capitalized on being a great finisher so we’ll be able to beat him at the end of the races that’s what counts the most so then I got injured at the beginning of 2017 and I had a hip flexor issue so I couldn’t get that fast start I usually get so that I worked on my top end speed I worked on a secrecy with my coach and so we didn’t want no one to know because if you give them a look meaning like if they can see you do something like different than what you do then now they can counter it now they can be his coach can be like watch out for gatlin he has top end speed right now but how is it you mean at the time because how how is it gonna make a difference if if they know kind of your strategy so it’s not just get out there and run as fast as you can it’s not that at all no no and so people it would seem so but no it’s not that it’s much more methodical than someone else would understand who doesn’t run that yeah it’s so much that goes into it it’s methodical it’s very it’s very science-based like we train and we and your coach clocks you for every 10 meter segment so you know if you’re on war record pace you know if you’re running 9-7 you know if you’re running 9-8 so it doesn’t like well I’m gonna get on here and then when the gun goes off I’m gonna see where I am it’s never like that it’s a fact of when you’re ready and you’re on point you know what you can do but are you going to do it that’s the really what counts the most what’s gonna separate you know you’d mentioned being battle ready being trained up having got to a level of training where you’re not thinking you are executing mm-hmm so when it comes to the moment of are you willing to do it versus are you not gonna do it is it a pain tolerance is it a what is it it’s mine over matter when you know that you’re ready that’s what you mean yeah I mean because there’s a moment where you’ve done all this technical training mm-hmm but is that technical training enough to become the most decorated runner ever it’s not no so there’s something else there yeah that has to kick in your your want but you’re you’re forty two you’re want to do it you know I trained with athletes who kicked my ass at practice beat me they should be running nine eights and then we’ll get into a race and they run ten seconds because practice is a place where you can make mistakes and it’s not costly and you have multiple times because you have reps to do things over and over again right so it’s a environment that you can control but when you go out there onto the track is organized chaos well that’s what it seems to be organized chaos but it’s not it’s actually a system and it’s a rhythm to it it’s still ones and zeros zeros and ones whatever you want to call it because I’m still racing against the same people we’re still running the same length we’re usually in the same same shape we usually are day in year in year out so everything is relative to each other don’t you think everybody wants it everyone at that level you’re the top you want it everybody wants it but there’s athletes who are scared to go through the process of obtaining it you know I saw on your Twitter you said everything you want is on the other side of your fear yes so what does that mean it’s the fact that a lot of athletes doubt themselves when they get to that pinnacle when they get to that point where their life could change by just giving a little more effort they fear failure but the crazy in the world is you’re constantly failing because you fear it you’re constantly failing so why don’t you just omit that from your vocabulary in your mind and just say I’m just gonna go do it just do it and that’s what I did I got to a point I was like I’m just gonna do it what can it where is it gonna take me I’m gonna win or I’m gonna lose that’s it I mean if you look at it there’s always one winner right and seven losers that’s the hard truth of track and field and sprinting and everything exactly when they say if you’re not first you’re last there you go Ricky Bobby baby yeah but at that moment you don’t have to pull from a dark place or a dark and I say that because you are racing you are putting yourself in an extreme situation that nobody I mean how many people get to even be in that moment I don’t know nine people a year yeah nine people a year yeah you’re putting yourself in a moment where you have to kick in that gear everybody is trained everybody is capable you’re hoping everyone at that point is a professional they’re dialed in yeah what’s the difference between the one that can push to to win the gold versus not I mean it’s got to be more than a want it’s got to be there has to be I mean maybe maybe not but in my mind there has to be something like this is life or death or this is yeah you have to think that way you have to think that is life or death you have to because and it comes down to that sometimes because what happens is you know in a regular season if you don’t run well at one race you may not get you may not get an invite to the next race so that’s death your season gonna get cut short so it’s life or death I have to beat you guys have to slay you because I need to keep moving forward progressing forward and and there’s also a sense of entitlement I work I worked hard I worked very hard to get to where I’m at and I think that you sane or any other lead athletes feel the same way but those those athletes who don’t want to cross that threshold because they don’t they’re not entitled they feel like they’re not entitled to that victory they think that I’m just happy to be here and I hope that everything works out the way I desire to work out(…) you can’t hope in those situations you have to go and take it and when I retire before I retired someone said well who’s the next sprinter is gonna come behind you I said I don’t know whoever takes it from me because in the sprinting world that torch that is given to the next elite sprinter is taken it’s never given it’s never blessed to somebody you have to earn it you have to take it I took it from our screen and then it had to be taken from me you know so it’s a sense of entitlement that comes with that hard work that dedication that discipline that yearn that hunger that you I’m the fastest ain’t nobody out there fastened to me and if you are let’s line up to see if you can get it done intense yeah intense amazing yeah amazing do you think that that translates over to life it does that’s what one thing I loved about track and field it’s life it’s life this there’s you sometimes people look and say man I want to be right up there where they’re at but there’s a trajectory you can watch where I started and how I got there it’s no secrecy it’s open you know I mean hard work dedication same thing with any other athlete you can watch how they got there that’s one thing I like about sports it kind of parallels to life you got to but the difference between those that become extraordinary and the legacy runners like yourself is that ability to reach in and pull something out yeah well you recognize that special moment that happened like I recognized in 2004 when I got into the blocks the last thing I said is here we go God I hope that I’m ready for this I worked hard for this I trained for this moment I’m gonna give it my all and if I’m not back to the drawing board I gotta work harder so happened I won that race but then I remember that moment throughout the rest of my career give it my all when the gun goes off give it my all and that was my secret recipe giving it my all got me to everything I got my accolades my celebrations my gold medals my awards cuz I gave him my all the lot people out there feel like why don’t you give them all or some people even know but they’re all is probably most people probably most they don’t know they’re all is how do you think you know how do you think you know if you’re if you’re scratching the surface of your all because it’s I mean I guess in running and sprinting you’re physically you have to put it on the line but there’s how does someone know because it seems as if there’s always something left in the tank right as an elite sprinter you always in your mind you always say there’s always something left in the tank even when you think that(…) mutual out we have a mutual best friend just getting started yeah Justin you won the the Olympic gold just getting started yeah Ben Newman shout out brother shout out to Ben man for sure just getting started yep so when you are sprinting you know that there’s a place that that that is your all can you say that for sure though that I’ve reached my all that you’ve given it your all I never like saying that until until I retired okay and then even when I retired I was like I don’t believe that you know to me I tell myself I don’t believe that it’s true yeah because I always feel like there’s more there’s more left in a tank the funny thing is in the irony of that situation with Ben him saying that when people were riding like amazing oh man I always write just getting started and that’s years ago because it’s it always reminded me don’t settle what are you selling for because you did a great job you got a couple of congratulations what are you selling for you know you got more left in the tank find it tap into that tank go see where it is because sometimes you’re driven by physical 20-15 I worked so hard I double my workload I worked so hard to reach a different level and then that was gonna that that’s what it was gonna take that would that’s what it was gonna take in 2017 I upped my mental gain how

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my understanding strategy like as in a sense of like almost like mental warfare having more clarity looking at it from a bird’s-eye view how I can be able to strategize better one thing that athletes don’t like to do they become superstitious or they say well you know what I don’t want to do that maybe make my legs tired for staying too long maybe so they’re so in this box and that’s where athletes live but then I realized I was like why am I putting myself in this box I’m labeling myself in this box I was like I need to spread out mentally start thinking about how to strategize better how to be able to counter better and I looked at it I looked at track and field at point time as almost like a war game how I’m gonna strategize this what I do for like the last 17 years of my career was predictable now I had to figure out how to pivot how to be able to flank how to be able to get around surprise my enemy and be able to catch them off guard because if I if I tried to meet him head on it wasn’t working for me so I had to figure out a whole new strategy and when you’re thinking about the strategy it’s not just about the strategy right I mean so again I don’t know I’m not a sprinter or at least I used to be but not very fast now you’re thinking about all of the tactical type things but in your mind were you cultivating not motivation but were you cultivating mental durability were you cultivating things that were above and beyond strategy I mean you probably had to be so dialed in and so on top of any kind of internal dialogue you know I’m just making assumptions here but there’s this humanness this human animal that has to be tamed absolutely that’s exactly what it would be like a switch on and off almost or I would turn into like you watch the transformation of a Hulk that’s exactly what it felt like it was just like I transformed into like this animal animalistic version of myself that understood sprinting and running mechanics but I was so aggressive like I lived for the aggression of everything I was about the fight I love that I love that the fight you know yes yeah yeah and it got to a point where you know I had to realize like that that individual J GATT was seeping into my real life away from the track I was becoming more aggressive more snappy at home you know I mean so I don’t like I dial it back dial it back you know I mean so I don’t learn how to tame it but that is what you’re talking about exactly what lived in me and I had to regular I had to like name it I had to give it a personality I had to tell people like don’t be offended especially on race day this is who I am this is in some days when I can get practice this is who I am like this is what gets the job done for me how are you thinking about cultivating that were you reading yeah were you listening to speeches how were you thinking about and taking action to facilitate that reading what were you reading Sun – yeah yeah the art of war the art of war I’ve read that like three times we have that yeah I’m married to a warrior it’s just not very it there’s a lot of similarities so I like when you said that I didn’t never I never thought of myself as a sprinter always thought of myself as a warrior so that’s how I looked at myself and there’ll be times where I’m like I Justin if if a marine can stay in the bush for three days with no with little water no food and still get his mission done you damn sure you can get your mission done for nine seconds that’s how I look at it exactly how I look at it and that’s what made me go out there and push harder if that person can go out there and understand how to be able to get his job done through the toughest of times I think that I can run on a rubberized track with spandex you know I had to look at it like that because we as athletes especially in the Olympic realm we make the moment bigger than us yes when we are the moment right and I’m like why are we doing this that yes of course it’s gonna come every four years we get it but you earn that spot to line up like you are part of this moment now don’t glorify just the Olympic finals like glorify your presence of being at the Olympics and give it your all because there’s so many times you come across that line you like I didn’t give them all that’s a that’s the thought it’s a lot of these athletes have like I could have ran faster but why didn’t you why didn’t you tap that tank before the when the gun went off I gotta be a hard internal conversation oh a hundred percent I I had a I had a race in 20 2015 where it was more physical to mental and that’s when I had to like start making that shift because more physical than mental exactly I’m looking at so I’ve got two pages here of your career highlights here’s the thing I try to condition for you when I sit the bio though my team does a great job helping me but what’s not on here are the races that you lost yeah yeah mm-hmm and I have all of them right here that’s what I want to know I want to know when you cross that finish line and you didn’t win uh-huh what happened the most the most painful race that I had to have to run was 2015 World Championships Beijing it was arguably probably the best best season of my career when it came to effort running I ran the most nine sevens by anybody so that’s nine that’s a hundred meters weight so 2015 mm-hmm so is that 200 meter or you’re talking about the hundred meter I ran both that yeah but I’m talking about the hundred meter I ran nine point seven seconds five or six times in that season usually is an athlete even someone like you saying they’re gonna run maybe once or twice they’re gonna run maybe like at a one-off meet somewhere and then they’re running like at a finals but I ran it five or six times within that season my coach was like bro you have to slow down like you just because there’s a rhythm it felt good like once you understand the rhythm and your power output you just you’re just riding that rhythm it’s a beat boom boom boom and then when the gun goes off I could just it just tap into that beat boom boom boom boom boom and just go but I slacked on the mental part so when I got to the finals before I even was able to get to the starting blocks when I got to more barrier people were coming up to me and like you’re an amazing shape you’re gonna win this race now mind you you saying hasn’t been beat in the world championship stage since he became a rival of Usain Bolt so people were beside themselves waiting for this moment to happen it was almost like wait landing on the moon so people are like oh you’re gonna win today you’re gonna win and I haven’t felt that same feeling of being the winner like outright winner since like 2005 this is 2015 so it was a year so it’s ten years later it was an eerie feeling right so I was like man this is crazy and when you when you know that you’re the winner and you really don’t have to fight for it like your mindset is different it’s different it’s so different and I went out there with the intent the time I ran the semis the race before the finals would have won the finals I got into that finals I was running strive for strive with Usain and the finish line couldn’t come any faster I started stumbling to the finish line trying to finish before him cuz I thought it’s gonna blow his doors off right and he’s a competitor just like I’m a competitor he rose to the occasion we went with stride and strive for stride and just like that he ran nine seven nine I ran nine point eighty so seventy nine to eight gosh quicker than this right so a hundredth of a second and I remember coming across that finish line and then he went into his iconic pose and he looked back at me and the look on his face was like bro this was yours to win and I remember I had to go through that whole like it felt like a bad dream I had to go to that whole gauntlet of media headed to the post race press conference and I’m sitting here just like I’m sitting here with you just like yeah you know he just went on the day and everything but you knew that wasn’t true I beat myself and no look the way he looked at me is like you beat yourself how come you didn’t talk about it in the press conference I wasn’t ready because I was ready to cry I was I was I was so emotional by the time I got back into that that car that was gonna take me back to my hotel I I was on the phone my mom and I just balled and crying how many hours and weeks and years of training went into that I mean you could say it was the whole career but for that race how much time went into training for that so you’re looking at almost like nine months of training I mean mostly every day mostly every day hours of training we only would have sometimes Sundays off so we would train Saturdays all the whole weekdays hours right this is ours nine to five like a real work job just for that one nine months for that moment nine a second moment not even a moment seconds just for those second you beat yourself I beat myself I would say he didn’t even beat you yeah yeah how do you recover from that I know I’m better than that so how long did it take you to get to that place the season not 16 but 17 so 16 so took a year mentally it did recover from that moment it took it took a whole not the world championship because world championships every two years right so 16 was Olympics and I still competed very well right even with injury I had everything like that is that your hip injury I’m actually fractured my ankle I stepped in a hole while I was jogging and are you like I cannot believe this right now right exactly exactly and I never broke anything before then so I was like oh my foot’s broke it has to be broke when was this and the fall(…) 16 2015 November of 2015 could we do our fall training going into the new season into the new year calendar year so I I was a bonehead I didn’t go get checked by a doctor like all my patients yeah okay and my coach was a taskmaster he was like if it ain’t broken don’t fix it don’t fix it now mind you my foot blew up to like the size of like a softball right my ankle so what happened to it was it was fractured it wasn’t I think I had a hairline fracture but I like tendons were obviously like real jacked up because I was literally running on one foot which caused compensation which made my flexor hurt I see two years later yeah so the race that you lost was 2015 15 world championships then you introduced yourself mm-hmm and it took you a year to mentally recover you needed to win that world championship in 2017 I think I think the injury kind of offset my mindset to give back because after that race I was like all right I got the blueprint I know how to run nine sevens consistently I just need to get my mind right and so I started training the fall training like a madman right so I started going my jogs and things like that stepped in a hole set me back so

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2017 what would you tell the people listening you know you do a lot of good work for the world I think that you are very servant oriented what would you tell people that have a setback because the setbacks are ugly I mean they are they are they are ugly internally there’s a lot of information you know a lot of people talk about motivation and all of this stuff out in the space but you know a failure that’s caused by yourself is different than trying something giving your best and failing yeah the internal failure is that’s tough it is what advice would you give someone who’s listening to this that has failed and maybe it’s because they’ve gotten in their own way maybe it’s because they didn’t feel worthy of the opportunity or worthy of the metal or worthy of whatever what would you tell them if they’re in the right mindset that think they are they know that that failure doesn’t define who they are it’s not you every great story that we’ve known has had a setback has had the hero of the story had some kind of failure and he risen from that or she’s risen from that to be to show that she’s better than what that setback was and they’ve gone on to do better things and we always love to emulate these stories so for people who are listening in those situations there’s a blueprint right in front of you that setback doesn’t define you it’s testing you that’s what’s happening right now you’re being tested it’s your bounce back gonna be stronger than that failure it should be because you wouldn’t be put in this situation unless you are ready for it and you’re now you’re ready for it so bounce back get your mind right get everything that you need in place and show the world that you’re ready and show yourself that you’re ready for a comeback I love that(…) do you put things in a structure for yourself so you read a lot you read a

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Sun Tzu the art of war did you have other strategies where maybe you meditated maybe you prayed a lot were there certain strategies that you put into place to get your mind back to where it needed to be I meditated with the help of my dad he’s definitely into that and you’re still very close with your parents oh yeah yeah and are they where do they live are they in Florida they’re in Florida yeah I just would take myself into situations to make my stronger from make me stronger from my situation so like I would think of myself being in prison I would not allow myself when I go to meats I would not allow myself to come out the room only to eat and while I’m in my room I’m doing my push-ups and my setups constantly make myself stronger make myself hungry so I always will have a mindset to take myself somewhere and to put myself in a position other people would get strong from and from watching movies and documentaries where you know it kind of tells those athletes or whoever those individuals are it within that storyline how do they become strong because they had their discipline for it I could easily just come into my hotel room and look around like oh this amazing look at this sweet and just lay across the bed and get on social media and just just say I’m here for my race or go out and hang out and go sightseeing things like that I wasn’t I wasn’t built for that champions don’t do that we don’t do that no no not distracted by the luxury yeah I tell I tell young athletes all the time I was like if you’re gonna if you’re gonna drink how are you going to drink are you gonna drink your sorrows away or you’re gonna drink from celebrating your victories how are you just don’t drink at all you don’t drink at all how are you stay dialed in right get off(…) Justin’s like not exactly what I was hoping for but you know I think I’m curious as to what your thoughts are you know many athletes face setbacks throughout their career some come back some some don’t do you think there is a defining character trait that allows someone to push through versus not yes

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that was a fast answer yes what is it that’s because I’ve been a sport longer than that should have been usually a sprinters lifespan is two cycles which is like eight years two Olympics eight years I watch athletes come and go I watch athletes fall and they couldn’t recover because of they allowed whatever the media or other people around them what they thought of them they allowed that to define them and using them situations you don’t even think about what defines you until you are putting that kind of situation tell me more I know I’m fast I know I’m strong you know I know that I’m built to go out there and I’m God given talent so anything that I’ve been doing my life didn’t define who I was that’s not me and I think it gave me such a great opportunity to show the world that’s not me all that stuff that you feel that’s written about me or the haters and things like that nasty articles that’s not who I am but I’m gonna show you who I am I’m gonna come back into the sport I’m gonna run hard I’m gonna stay focused I’m say Dalton and I’m a costly win and when if you turn the TV on you’re gonna keep on seeing me and that’s that’s what made me who I am it naturally came to me now you that I have mentors and coaches along the way cuz you know you’re a young person and traumatic situations are just that it’s traumatic right hurt you for the moment but how you deal with it is how you really are going to evolve so I had coaches telling me hey you know that’s not you but we’re gonna get you where you need to get to so realizing that those people out there who really believed in who I was and could see me from a different perspective gave me that power to say okay cool all right I know I know this they see who I am I know who I am that’s confirmation for me let’s get it done so would you say that having the right people in your corner is critical absolutely and mitigating external negative input not even I was listening to one of your interviews where you said God you didn’t even know when these negative when negative things were being said about you you had no idea I had no idea I had no idea I didn’t read about it I didn’t watch any videos or articles I just was tuned into what I had to be tuned into and you think that’s what separates those that can overcome a setback versus those that don’t absolutely and that’s the ability to tune out any other noise yeah do you think that focusing on a competitor or competition is relevant in that way versus because I know there’s a tactical aspect of running you need to know what your competition is doing so you know to outmaneuver them and isn’t it really just about how you are doing or no it’s really who you are in relationship to your competitors it’s about what you’re doing you know you’d be obsessed with the process now obviously part of the process is going to understand your competitors but you’re not obsessed with your competitors okay you find a lot of athletes from other sports not just in track and field who become obsessed with certain competitors and it stunts their growth because they’re so worried about that other competitors success that they they’re already just giving themselves to silver medal because you have so much I mean was a hate but you have so much like attention given to that person who’s not even focusing on you you know you giving yourself to silver medal I’ve seen it happen so many times yeah so you have to really focus on becoming the best version of yourself know what competition is out there but truly dialing in to your own potential yeah it probably allowed you to get creative with your comebacks and your training didn’t it because you weren’t so focused on what the standard of the other athlete was doing I felt like Rocky I would train I mean and that’s one thing I loved about my coach is like each year it was never the same kind of preparation it always would change in some kind of variation it would keep the core of what we have to do but it would change in different variations one time we’re doing hills another time we’re doing sleds but it’s a fact of we’re progressing getting stronger getting smarter getting faster and we’re learning together as well and you have so then 2017 you that was when you beat Usain Bolt right did you ever talk to him after that I did so I beat him in 13 in a one-off in Rome and after the press conference it was already shocking to the world but once again I studied my opponents so a week before it’s time for me to go race Usain right and this is the first race I really had with him so I was excited about this race so excited and you were excited not afraid you were excited I was so excited I was studying his races because his training partner beat him at the Olympic trials right and I watched his I watched his training partners race strategy how did he beat him I broke it down and I will watch it all the way till the day before it’s time to go to race Usain and then I would I implemented that’s seen lots of footage of you exactly I implement that same strategy and I beat him in 2013 believable and then we went to the press conference and mind you get that how do you get that footage just from yeah being on TV just be on TV YouTube just watching over and over again and I hope your watch history is private right so he he handled himself through the whole press conference and said hey just wasn’t my day you know went out there but I remember us walking away from the press conference I was behind him and he was talking to his agent and I can hear him he says that was embarrassing it’ll never happen again and from that moment off from 2013 on he never raced me in a one-off race anywhere the only time I ever raced him was at a World Championships finals or the Olympic finals but in 2017 it was a little bit different right because obviously he was aware that I was a direct do you know how old was 30 and how old were you I was

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37 37 yeah so it was it was different but and you know I use everything around me like I said in that moment I’ll strategize I was more I was had more clarity you Sam was worried about the young guy who was coming in named Christian Coleman who was fast I beat Christian Coleman in you weren’t worried about him you were just focused on what you saying well I realized that when you saying came over and talked to me he made comments about Christian like who is this young guy so then I let me know that you focus on him instead of focus on us so then I’m gonna use that to my advantage and while he focused on him running strive for trial with Christian I just slipped in on this side and just won the race from over here so and I laid out my whole strategy my top-end speed I wasn’t worried about being a starter at 50 meters I was in fifth place from 50 on to 100 I searched the first place unbelievable unbelievable we’ve got to pull up footage of that put up some footage of that then after that what happened I mean you’d now in what part I mean you beat them yeah you won yeah were you on to the next oh so was there a moment where you like okay I’m gonna go to McDonald’s now you know this you know the crazy thing is not for me I’m gonna take up I don’t know underwater basket weaving well you know what it was his last race it was his last world championships it was his last hundred meters he was ever going to run he retired after that race he came over to me in the warm area afterwards and we traded jerseys because he wanted to trade jerseys and he signed it to me and I guess I had one for him because you know throughout our competition our career we wasn’t like chummy you know I mean like we recognize each other we respected each other I see each other that events we were talking like that but it never was to the point where it was like we’re buddies you know I mean he’s your competition he’s my competition exactly too much talking give you too much and he knows that and I knew that right you guys were professionals were professionals so after that for him doing that gesture was like for me it was amazing because it took me all the way back to that point when I saw him break the war record in that bar and all I want to do is line up next to him and race him to see out how good I could be next to him and it took me all the way back to that point it was pretty cool yeah it was almost like a full circle moment it was it was a full circle

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after that what happened did you I mean continue to race decide yeah we’re I went into 18 was off season it was like a non-championship year ran that season and then 2019 we had yeah 2019 you won a gold silver so you did the outdoor championships 2019 you won a gold medal silver medal and then silver medal in we were really slackin I just yeah you know kind of like couch potato you know here’s a crazy thing though in 2019 in Doha which was in October I got had Covid I ran with Covid like every symptom possible like I had a hundred and one fever and at that point time we didn’t know what Covid was remember Covid like came and now it’s like January or something like that the next year so when I look back all the symptoms when they had it I was like whoa I remember because I thought I had upper respiratory infection and I remember having a fever 101 and I was getting ready for the relay in 2019 and I told myself my body told me I said if you don’t get up now to go to the track get on the bus to go to the track you’re not getting up so I got I left I left a whole hour earlier than all my teammates and I went to the track and I laid on side of the warm-up track in fetal position put my book bag as a pillow until they came and then I got up I warmed up as best I could and then I gave it all I had and I ran the relay with Covid not knowing that I had Covid and then 29 2020 came and but after that were you thinking I mean did you have a plan to continue or were you thinking like as a retirement people are like are you gonna retire now you just you just won 2017 you should retire I mean you’d now been running for a long time so I thought about it normal span is what eight years of running yeah I thought about it but it was fun but then my agent was like you just won like enjoy the spoils that come with winning allow people to come up to you and celebrate you you know so I did from 2018 2019 and then Covid really in 2020 so which was so hard because it was like we didn’t know what was gonna happen like the world didn’t know what’s gonna happen right so we were like they shut down all parks they shut down all like tracks gyms everything we found ourselves and my coach was a taskmaster so we didn’t know what was gonna happen he’s always that kind of person like they can they can lift this whole thing tomorrow so we got to be ready so we were training so you were prepared to to run even through I mean you were ready yeah so we were running on patches of grass around retention ponds like that was the crazy part you know I mean yes but I also feel like at the stage I was at winning in 17 and joined it from 18 and 19 then 20 happened and it just was like if anything made me feel like depressed it was that like not able to do what I know I could do I couldn’t go outside couldn’t run couldn’t have fun couldn’t enjoy my teammates it was at times we were in mass we were trying to run how you do that I don’t know you know I mean we either run like six feet away from each other how do you do that I don’t know you know I mean so it just made track not fun for me anymore you know so then 20 2021 came around and that was my last year I was like I’m gonna learn I’m gonna end on an Olympic year and made it all the way to the finals of Olympic trials and pull my hamstring then the semis and try to make it to the to the podium but I could but to be fair you’d already won a whole bunch of medals I did so you know yeah I mean not I’d have nothing to prove anymore I didn’t I didn’t you didn’t yeah were you already thinking about what you were gonna do after that I mean because you after running yeah I mean you’ve spent your entire adult life training to be a competitor I didn’t know I had no idea what I was gonna do after that not a clue because every day I focused on being the runner being the warrior you know going for the going in there to fight so now the fight was done the war was over I won what do I do now so I had to like take time to like find myself and that was extremely hard for me because for 20 years of my life my whole adult life up to that point was was given to going out there and fighting battling sprinting what else could I bring to the table but that was all I mean to be as good as you are obsession isn’t even the right word I mean it is am I right yeah in your it was by that time was in my DNA it was not even well do I think about running today yeah right I mean it was fully I mean to be the best in the world yeah that’s a whole other level it was in the way I thought about running it you can’t you can’t take that into into normal society you’re making really good points like you are making really I think that that’s probably why you have so much respect for the operators I do you I mean you can’t take war into real life it’s just there some people are built differently I would emulate them like seriously I would I would have a go bag by my door yeah with my spikes everything in it just in case I need to go to a meter something like that just cuz I could you know I mean it put me in that my mind frame yeah so once I finish and retired I didn’t know where to go I didn’t know what was for me you know I mean like how can I use these same tools into in transition into something else do the moment you decide you’re gonna retire did you feel like maybe a little bit of depression sit in oh yeah that in oh yeah a hundred percent I think was more or less confusion you know my wife would be like I wouldn’t know what to do so I just would it wasn’t like I sat at home was like lazy or anything like that I always was busy like I would just get in the car and just go because I always was gone I always was working moving going going going and I realized what am I going to what am I going for now so I had to like kind of rewire myself to start thinking differently what you do I mean that’s a hard transition whether it’s military or again athletics we you know you hear that from NFL players other Olympians but again I do think that you’re in a very unique spot having been as decorated as you are I mean that’s how did you how did you did you lean back on the things that had gotten you through the challenges before did it feel familiar because there’s that limbo state that’s uncomfortable and actually essentially the first time you’ve been in that it felt similar what felt different is that I knew the story was complete that story was complete so it had a sense of like it did good you know I mean but now it’s like what are you doing next though like that’s why I was like oh what am I doing next I don’t know that’s what it was that’s really special yeah you know throughout the training you’re very young when you started and again probably eating a lot of junk but probably as you advanced throughout your career and to now you’re super fit were there certain things that you did certain nutrition strategies certain refueling were there very I don’t know supplements what what was kind of the progression for you the progression that really stuck out for me was when I came back into the sport I was overweight what yeah now are we talking about Justin’s idea of overweight or were you actually overweight a little bit of both okay right so let’s just say in 2004 I competed I was at the start line of Olympic finals at 183 pounds so you’re 100 in 2004 this one you came back yeah 83 pounds so I was like 21 years old at that time right what do you normally race on so I would hover around there that’s what I’ll hover around by the time I came back into this is a 2012 right that’s when I really started acknowledging that I had to do something about this weight I was 210 pounds oh my gosh yeah what percent body fat were you I don’t know maybe 15 or something like that that is high for a sprinter very high very high they had a nickname for me at some other camps I trained at before I got to my coach in 2012 they called me fat because because you know if I’m wearing street clothes I look good you know I mean I still was muscular I just was bigger I was beefier bulkier but once I went out there and ran you could tell it was taxing on my body I was fatigued quicker it was bad you know I mean I remember my coach telling me we got a drop weight I was like well how much we got a drop he said well how much did you weigh when you won the Olympic gold I was like 183 pounds he said that’s what we need to get to outside of a coach I’m like 20 27 years old now like he’s like we can get there so we’re just eating bad what what happened absolutely even bad but I was enabling myself eating bad I’ll give you a perfect example I will call him at 11 o’clock at night and say coach I’m hungry he’s like why you’re not asleep I said I don’t know but this apple pie is here and has apples so it has to be good right he’s like don’t eat the apple pie and go to sleep those are the things I would do I would trick myself thinking I can do this I can eat this I has antioxidant don’t it you know what you’re saying there’s a huge dichotomy with what you’re saying because you I mean you have a champion mind no matter how you want to slice it no pun intended my mom jokes are good like the apple pie slicing everything you had a champion mindset uh-huh and you had already won the gold 183 pounds you knew you had to be fit and then you were probably obsessed with winning I was but you were still willing to eat that up so from the four years away from the sport what happens is because you this is after the ban and it’s after the band so that exactly that probably took a huge emotional toll oh a huge emotional toll from one people often eat emotions oh that’s me all day so what happens is and and taking consideration that from college through my first half of my professional career from 2006 you’re training every day you’re burning high levels of calories right so now in 2004 it all stops so as a young athlete I was eating whatever I wanted because I was already burning all those calories at a high rate but then when my four years in that four years I was still eating whatever I wanted to eat but I wasn’t burning those calories the same way I was burning those calories so then now the weight started coming creeping up on me so then now I had to figure out how to get it off of me so then I changed my whole perspective of diet and I turned it into a lifestyle tell me what’d you do I got this book that was called diet for your blood type oh sure yeah yeah so

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then I started kind of reading and researching more about what would be better for me and I started just eating better like in taking better proteins smaller amounts of carbs regulating how I eat throughout the day intermittent fasting early in the mornings and then eating a nice sized lunch drinking more water than snacks between meals dinner would be proteins again and smaller carbs so I wanted to sleep on them eating at a reasonable hour before it’s time for bed you know those kind of things did you do the traditional things and then on top of that me starting to work out again man it made such a difference in my life I think to be honest me changing the way I ate my habits and turning into a lifestyle that is what gave my career such longevity that’s cool yeah that’s cool and then do you still have those dietary habits so before I ask you that did you have to count your macros did you need did you know how many carbohydrates you needed for refueling was it that scientific or was the science really in the cadence and the start and all the other things versus the individuals that say okay well you eat so that you feel fueled or was that very defined as well it all evolved so it started off me not even on what macros were to the point of like later on my career as I became an older athlete more seasoned athlete understanding the macros are just a chair exactly more mature and from that point on like I felt better I felt stronger I fatigued less like I felt better when I had a healthier lifestyle than I even did when I was a younger athlete at 21 years old was there anything in particular that you think was there something like that you do now that you know this is what you do maybe not that you have your breakfast of x y and z and you put in some magic berry powder and this is the thing that you know is anything like that so I always have

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dehydrated like vegetables right ground up super greens basically and I would take that in the morning I would intermittent fast in the morning even do it through my workouts I may have like a protein shake or something like that and this is when you were sprinting this is when I was sprinting and this is what I do now too because it just my body’s just used to it you know like of course I can get up in the morning like I got pancakes I want them but I don’t know be hard to sprint on pancake I know right it would be very hard to sprint on pancakes like I said and remember it’s all going to show you got to get out there on that track and you got to wear a spandex suit so everyone’s gonna see if you’re in shape or not so I had to make sure aesthetically I looked apart but I also felt apart and that’s what was important to me because if you look good you feel good if you feel good you’re gonna do good right that’s right so you pretty much moved to a whole food more whole foods diet would you say that the the carbohydrates were lower for you where were they when you were training again as a more mature athlete you probably have to be more attentive to what you were eating carbs are like an addiction for me really even now yeah if I if I have like a piece of bread or like pizza or it’s all downhill yeah like I want more like even if I start eating sweets I have another and I have another and I have another it just it does something to my brain it just switches on that I want more and more and more and more of it so if I stay away from it or if I kind of substitute it for something else it helps me kind of regulate my body that’s interesting and I think that that there’s evidence to support that in terms of balancing your macronutrients you I mean do you balance it with protein you balance it with fat or you just know not to eat carbs by yourself otherwise or carbs by themselves and by yourself so more proteins and but now I’m trying to figure out and maybe you can help me with that my pleasure I’m bound I’m trying to figure out do I want to go pescatarian do I want to go vegan do I want to try something definitely or not going vegan okay cool we’re not doing that we’re not going vegan not for you friends but what we will do you know what I we will do is(…) I am going to connect you with the head our head nutritionist Julia Mitchell and we’ll put together a nutrition plan for you that’s awesome and we would love to do that for you and what we could do is we’ll get your baseline blood work and then you got some and then we’ll put you on nutrition plan and follow it up sounds good I would love to do that for you okay sounds all longevity um I do think you know again adding in a balanced whole food diet will be great but for your muscle mass and what I think that you want to accomplish and who knows you might be competing again I know right that we want to maintain healthy skeletal muscle for you let’s go uh did you supplement I know there’s certain supplements that were approved I think Crete wasn’t Creteine is Crete approved there’s certain supplements that you loved or was it very much the simpler the better

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um um yeah I liked the protein shakes but the at that point in time I think I was doing maybe whey proteins back then yeah um I liked the pre-workout powders same I use pre-workout powders to this day do you have a favorite I I use a handful that’s what it’s called no I mean I use a different I’ve been using um so I use first form makes a great pre-workout first what’s it got first form first one okay I’ve heard of them I also use 110 percent okay amazing iced tea it’s like it tastes like I’ll give you some um it’s amazing (…)iced tea flavor those are the two that I’ve been cycling through right now for pre-workout so I use uh a brand called NutriFit right I’ve never heard of them yeah they’re they’re a small group company they’re growing um they have some international arm links too um what I love about it is that they help you go in there and kind of formulate what you want into your pre-workout that’s cool so that’s what I love about it it’s like because you know sometimes it could be some workouts can get a little too jittery and then sometimes you’re like workouts definitely make me jittery uh but you know I like that but you get to the right time right because you get the workout in like yeah I’m gonna time this so my kids are going to school now and just you know scoop it in it’s the same way yeah yeah they’re amazing that’s cool so they allow you to formulate it so if you like beta alanine or whatever it is yes exactly so I have some that are that’s cool stimulants and non-stimulants in them and then I can go out there do the workout if I want to get a workout at night I could do a non-stimulant and still work out at night sometimes I get in when I can get in when I can that’s admirable um because it’s tough it’s tough to train at night it is you know when I was competing I was doing push-ups and sit-ups to put myself to bed because my mind was thinking so much so I would just get a hundred push-ups 200 sit-ups and I’d be like all right I’m good lay down go to sleep so is that what helped you calm your mind yeah physical attacks my body will calm my mind isn’t that interesting people will try all these different things and you know that’s why I asked you about meditation meditation is is great but at the end of the day if you are physically pushing yourself you cannot do anything else yeah you can’t be I mean at some point you’re so exhausted mm-hmm that yeah you’re good yeah that’s it that’s exactly what it is I’m done yeah um

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so uh any other supplements the whey protein shake you just kept it simple no fish oil anything like that fish oil yep still taking fish oil now to this day good um I would go on this site called metabolic right and they’re all like natural ingredients pressed into the these pills but the pills were like so big you know what I mean like you gotta take five of these pills yeah so it’s been times where I did choke like I had to get a pat on my back off but it um

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you know trying to stay natural as possible in those situations because when you deal with uh like a water or a soda it’s so tough it’s so tough yeah so what Justin is talking about is these professional organizations for um athletes but it’s so and I have some professional athletes in my in my practice and even to put them on progesterone which is you know you show a low progesterone and a woman or even low testosterone it’s it’s nearly impossible to get that and there’s it is and there’s stigmas if they’re on it even though they need it exactly it’s very difficult it’s very hard and then sometimes you got a request for a TUE and then within that TUE they can deny it and then you still can’t use it right and TUE is uh it’s it’s a form that says I would like to use this to treat yes to treat me for this reason um it’s it’s it’s scary because there’s even certain over the kind of medications that you can’t use because they can mask other drugs so like let’s say like NyQuil like which is something you can just get right now yeah(…) you can’t use that it’s it’s bad right so it’s gotta be really careful gotta be really real careful Claritin D really careful isn’t that unbelievable it is and I think it’s because it it’s scary because they they give no recommendations they just tell you what you can’t right so that when you’re you’re stuck and you don’t know what to use yeah you know um

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I I really like your twitter anyone who’s listening you guys should check out your twitter you use your platform to really speak up for people and when I say people I saw on twitter that you had posted about how Olympians should be paid yeah and I just wanted to mention that because uh while there’s probably only a handful of Olympians I think it it brings a point up that’s really important and the point is from my perspective taking young individuals and I don’t want to say exploiting them we love the Olympics but there’s a lot of money that comes in and when individuals are young they don’t necessarily know yeah I’d love for you to to chat a little bit about that well let’s take it back a little bit further so the Olympics came around and they kind of like co-existed with AAU amateur you know athletics so they all took that same ideology back then which was you know race and compete for the glory because you can’t get paid right so the legacy will live on now we’re in a in an era where that doesn’t really exist anymore you know like yeah you’re gonna you’re gonna get the the prestige of winning a gold medal but these kids gotta pay their bills they gotta pay doc they gotta pay not their doctors their coaches their agents they gotta do all these things and they’re not making a dime from the Olympic organization the Olympic organizations make a lot of money they make a lot of money and yeah so so on top of that now they announced that you know track and field is one of the first sports Olympic sports is going to get paid right now mind you track and field is probably more of the most successful glamorous Olympic sports you have so many of the Olympic sports and um

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they want to pay them fifty thousand dollars for a gold medal in my mind I’m thinking all the hard work the blood sweat and tears these young athletes put in sacrifice the sacrifice(…) exactly if they don’t have a decent sponsorship that’s backing them and they make this team

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and they want to go metal they can’t even they can’t even afford a home they say you know what they can’t afford a home a car you know what is that going to do for them you at least had to put it in a in a way to that moment in time that they worked so hard for it should help change their life in a trajectory where I can say okay here you are you won the Olympic gold you sacrifice so much for this moment in time we’re going to celebrate by giving you allotment of money that would help get you a car help get you a home help but should it make a quality life but why why shouldn’t individuals be paid if they’re training for the Olympics or going to that why you know I understand what the tradition is is they’re training for the glory but couldn’t it be a paid position it should be a paid position something like meaningful so what happens is session track and field the Olympic organization relies on let’s say Nikes the Adidas the Reeboks the Brooks the hookahs all them all them companies that are shoe companies to contract these athletes so what happens is within their contract let’s just say you’re with Nike Nike will pay you an allotment of money if you go out and win the Olympic gold medal right so that’s what the Olympics is is banking on that you already have a contract that’s going to get you this far so why do we have to pay you right but I feel like such a such a sham like yeah these athletes sacrifice so much they’ve taken away from their families their own kids they put their body to the test for this moment to happen and they can show nothing for it and I mean look at they can’t even take the Olympic gold medal and go take it somewhere and swap it out for money the percentage of gold that’s even in the Olympic gold medal now it’s so small in my new now refund exactly right I had no idea yeah yeah before back in the day that’s what I thought it was gold they back in the day it was gold but now they have taken it down so far that it doesn’t it’s the money you get for that gold medal is because of the prestige of that gold medal that’s really it that’s it but it’s worth it isn’t it it’s so worth it it’s so worth it it is spoken like a true competitor it is what’s next for you like you said just I think I want to activate my humanitarian side more inspire young athletes I’ve been doing a podcast podcast called ready set go that kind of caters towards the track and field world to get get my voice out there tell the stories of young athletes also and

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doing speaking engagements as you know which you are phenomenal I appreciate that you are a phenomenal at natural I asked him so he was so I’ve seen Justin speak before and also you’re a really good storyteller thank you and I asked you if you had been trained and you weren’t professionally trained but you are extraordinary thank you thank you you know we are having a summit or forever strong summit I would love to have you speak there it’s gonna be here in Houston let’s do it yeah Ben will be there let’s do it yeah I would love to have it okay love to have you there so you’re speaking what else is what else is on the horizon for Justin Gallon um getting acclimated to the city of Houston yep happy to have you working on some investments cool so yeah and just living life right now those things I’m really just really trying to focus on and not trying to become a jack of all trades but a king you know I’m saying in certain realms that I’m working on right now do you think it’s easy to get dialed in when you pick something yes(…) yeah it does I just have to pick the right thing yeah but listen uh do you believe that there’s

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that you get a sense of where the direction is that you should be going yes like if it should be writing if it should be speaking do you feel drawn to any of those things working with people like you and Ben you give me clarity to understand the environment that I could potentially be really good in you know um that helps me always that’s that’s exactly how track and field was for me when someone laid out track and field and said this is track and field x y and z I can look at and say okay cool so if I do this this and this this will make me successful yes do that if I do this and this it’ll make me unsuccessful yes so now I know what my threshold is now I know what my borders are now I can be able to work within that realm and then I will give my all to it that’s how that’s how I operate and it’s extraordinary it’s extraordinary I’m really excited to see what’s to come for you and all the things that you’re doing um with the speaking and also you’re very active on instagram and I think the podcast is is really great thank you even though I’m not necessarily in track and field but you guys have a very good dynamic and there’s a lot of good just information and insight I try to I try to help it to relate to an audience who’s not really into the track and field space too so we did just this new episode with a guy named Matthew Hudson Smith who’s from uh great Britain and he was a child phenom right he ran very fast 44 seconds is amazingly fast for any 400 meter runner but he did it at the age of like 18 years old right young and as any young athlete who doesn’t have a mentor or people around him like he crashed and burned right because he had so much success and he thought he was untouchable and then he got to a point where he thought about taking his life like he really tried to take his life you know he said if I had a gun around that probably would have been my choice but I took pills and the moment he did that he actually said it wasn’t because I didn’t like who I was or I was sad he said because I was lonely and when you win you’re lonely at the top and when you’re losing you’re lonely at the bottom so he said he all the people around him family girlfriends he said none of them could understand what he was going through he made him feel alone and then when he had everything that was ripped away from him shoe sponsorships deals his coach that he was with now he has control of his destiny and now he’s back on pace he just won the silver medal at the last world championships now he’s gunning for the gold so like stories like that can transcend track and field yeah those are stories that teach you about how to be able to stay committed and diligent in life and help you become strong and that’s what I try to put out there for the young athletes like because our sports such an individual sport and we don’t talk about certain things in our sport and we kind of like make it taboo about how much this person’s getting paid or how much you know how many races this person is going for you know I mean

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if those stories were put out there more these athletes would learn that you’re not alone there’s so many other people that are going through the same thing you’re going through good or bad you’re not alone I love that Justin Gatlin thank you so much for being a guest on the show you are a phenomenal human and I cannot wait for the world to get more of you thank you so much thank you for having me