Pushkin hay Slight Changers. So I love the Olympics. Every two years, I get totally obsessed, and then I experience at least a month of withdrawal when the games are over. As a cognitive scientist, I'm particularly fascinated by the mindset of Olympians. I'm curious about their psychological journeys, from the moment they pick up the sport to the final push out of the race gate, to the aftermath of their careers when they can no longer compete at the highest levels.
Not long ago, I had the honor of speaking with five time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Missy Franklin, who competed in both the twenty twelve and twenty sixteen Summer Olympics. When Missy returns for her second Olympics, things felt markedly different. Rather than having nothing to prove, she now had everything to prove and the pool felt like a pressure cooker. In our conversation, Missy spoke bravely about how her mental health suffered behind the scenes and how she began to heal.
With the Olympics in full swing right now, it felt like the perfect time to share this episode with you. I hope you enjoy it.
I remember sitting behind the wheel just crying the entire way to practice and just knowing that I was gonna go, and that I was about to jump into a freezing cold pool and swim for two hours and be disappointed with how I did.
Swimmer Missy Franklin won four Olympic gold medals as a teenager, but as she trained for her second Olympics, she found her self unexpectedly struggling with so much to defend. The pool suddenly felt like a pressure cooker.
This is not just a swim mate, this is who I am. And if I don't do this, why am I here? What is my worth? I have none? If I can't do this and do it well.
On today's episode, when the loss of an identity threatens your self worth, I'm maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become in the face of a big change. At just seventeen years old, Missy Franklin was laser focused on qualifying for the twenty twelve Olympics in London. This dream was years in the making. From the time Missy was a little kid, swimming had been at the center of her life.
I got into the water because my mom never learned how to swim, and she didn't want to pass that fear down onto me, and she signed us up for a mommy and me class at our local YMCA when I was six months old, and I was that baby that was getting dunked under and coming back up, just
laughing and loving every second of it. And so even though to some it seems crazy to be training for an Olympics at seventeen, to me, I was just doing what I loved every single day, and there was hard work, but I never saw anything I did as sacrifice because it was my goal and it was my dream. I wasn't concerned about other people's expectations. I wasn't concerned about what other people wanted me to achieve. I had my own dreams, my own goals, and I was focused on those.
So in twenty twelve, that's just what I was working towards every single day.
You mentioned that you never thought of your commitment as sacrifice because you loved it so much. Share a bit more about what that commitment looked like. What was your everyday life like in the lead up to twenty twelve?
We'd practice Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so that means swimming twice, once in the morning, once in the afternoon, each for about two hours. And then we'd have single swim sessions on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. But I don't think people can sometimes totally comprehend the fact that it is a twenty four to seven job because everything needs to be supported by everything you're doing outside of that space as well. So it's your sleep, it's your nutrition, it's your recovery.
And then also I was seventeen years old, right, so I was going to high school.
I was still in school every.
Single day, and then traveling and doing different promos for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and NBC and traveling for different meats preparing leading up to that summer.
But it sounds like a lot. It was also all that I knew, So to me, that was just life.
Yeah, tell me a bit more about where your head was at as you were you were prepping for London, and it's wow, like maybe these big dreams of mine can actually come true.
Yeah, So I think heading into London, my goal truly was to make the team. Like that was really all that I had set on myself. And if you talk to any swimmer, they will tell you that Olympic trials is infinitely more intense and more pressure filled than the actual Olympics themselves, because once you made the team, you made it right, You're an Olympian, Like you get to
be an Olympian for the rest of your life. But our races come down to hundreds of a second, and so there's no room for mistake, there's no room for air. You might get sick, you might get injured, like if you have a bad sleep the night before, Like there's so many variables that could impact these singular eight days that you have to make an Olympic team.
M hm. You had mentioned to me that you you didn't feel the pressure, the weight of other people's expectations at this stage, and so was that partly why you were able to be cool and collected during those trials.
I think a lot of it was just the.
Fact that I was seventeen and I was naive, and that just absolutely played to my advantage of again, I was just out there doing what I loved.
So, I mean, Missy, your performance in those games was just absolutely unreal. Do you mind sharing your accomplishments.
So after Olympic Trials, I had qualified for my first Olympic Games and seven events, and then actually arriving in London, being in the village and getting to walk onto the Olympic pool deck for the first time, all of it was just so surreal. I ended up walking away from those games with four gold medals, one bronze, and two world records.
Oh my gosh, sorry, so astonishing to hear those words, like I know that, I know that, but just to like hear that is insane. It's like, oh, yeah, I forgot about the bronze ones as well, and like the world records, And is there any specific memory you have from those games and your celebrations.
Yeah, oh my gosh, And it has nothing to do with a single one of those medals. The night that I had won my first gold medal, I was still writing such a high from that whole evening and just everything that came with it. And we were at the warm up pool in the village and I checked my phone and I had a tweet from Justin Bieber and I.
Lost my mind.
Like if you can just imagine like seventeen year old Missy like running circles around the pool in the middle of the Olympic village, just like screaming like a little girl that she'd gotten a tweet from Justin Bieber. Like it just was like the perfect example of again. Yes, I was so happy to be there. I couldn't believe I was accomplishing those things. But I was also just a seventeen year old girl.
Wow. So I want to talk about the aftermath of your success, because sometimes we don't pay enough attention to what follows these massive, epic, life changing wins. You know, you come back to the US and your four time gold medalist, Missy Franklin, you immediately go back to training and preparing for now the twenty sixteen Olympic Games. And as you started to train for those, you began to face some new challenges. Do you mind telling me a bit about those?
Yeah, that's funnily enough.
What a lot of people don't understand is that as soon as an Olympic Games is over, we might take a couple of weeks off, but the next summer for US as World Championships, and so we get right back into training because we have a really serious meet again
next summer. And so I remember particularly coming back from London and thinking that I wanted to prove that I wasn't just a one hit wonder, that I wanted to go to Worlds in twenty thirteen and have an unbelievable performance almost to back London up in a way, to kind of prove that I can do this again. And so I worked so hard that year, which was my senior year of high school, ended up going to Worlds. I won six gold medals at World Championships and it was just like again a dream experience.
And then I went to college.
So I swam for two years at the University of California, Berkeley, and then I turned professional in twenty fifteen, leading up to the twenty sixteen Olympic Games in Rio, and I would say that that was when things really changed for me. I was at that point twenty years old, so I was still very young, but I was no longer naive. I was no longer a rookie. It's so hard getting
to the top, but it's even harder staying there. And now I did have those expectations and that pressure, and then you add new sponsors on top of that, and swimming now becoming my job as opposed to just something that I love and enjoy, and I think that for me is what completely changed my mindset and I lost all sense of balance during that time. I think I got in the mindset for Rio that in order for me to be the best I'd ever been, I needed to just commit and devote myself fully to my sport.
I think for some athletes.
It works to completely devote themselves to their sport and to not have balance in their life just to be They live and they breathe their sport, and that is what works for them. I learned in that period that that is not something that worked for me. When swimming became my whole world, it also became my whole identity, and so bad practices, bad races, I began equation with bad sense of self and self worth and self esteem, and so it was such a hard time for me.
I was very, very lonely, and.
I started to feel the world's pressure on me as well, that not only was I expected to make the team, but I was expected to go back to Rio and have an even better performance there than I did in London.
What was it now like day to day as your training?
It was so hard for me Maya because there were days that I was so confused because I had never felt like this before.
So there were.
Mornings where my alarm would go off at four forty five. I'd be getting up on my way to practice, but I remember sitting behind the wheel just crying the entire way to practice and just knowing that I was going to go, and that I was about to jump into a freezing cold pool and swim for two hours and be disappointed with how I did, but I was going to do it anyway because I felt like I had no choice.
I've read that when people had asked young this, like seventeen year old missy, what advice do you have for people who don't want to go to practice or a struggling with their motivation, you would cheepishly feel like, I've never really had that problem. Yeah, but I just love going to the pool, and I actually don't face those motivational challenges because this is the thing that I'm so passionate about.
It was so funny to me that I was put in those situations, and I would always feel so horrible when I would have young athletes come up and ask what to do in periods of plateau or when they weren't feeling motivated, and I would have nothing to say.
I had truly just always been so happy and enjoyed the sports so much, And the amount of other swimmers that would come up to me after they had gotten to know me that told me we thought it was an act, like we thought that it was all for the media, that it was all like that you just love like we didn't believe that someone could actually love this sport that much. And now that we know you, we see that it's real and authentic and you actually love swimming as much as you say you do about that,
and that completely disappeared. Leading up to Rio, I think I became so focused on the expectation and I put so much pressure on myself that swimming very very quickly became not fun for me.
What was what was happening to your mental health around this time?
So I don't think I really realized what was happening because I had never experienced anything like this, and so it was months and months and months before I think it finally hit me that this is something bigger, like something much deeper is going on here that I don't know how to name. I don't know how to diagnose. All I know is that I am deeply, deeply unhappy
and feel very alone and very sad. And so it wasn't until I think around March or April of twenty sixteen, so that is, I mean months before, months before Olympic trials, where I finally called a meeting with my swim coach and my strength and conditioning coach and I just looked at them and I said, something is wrong, like something is very wrong. And I had been trying to push through it. I had been trying to pretend that it
wasn't there. And that's why I'm not a fan of the phrase fake it till you make it, because I think that can lead to tendencies of repressing things as opposed to truly addressing them. And I was trying to fake it at practice. I was trying to fake it at competitions that I was confident, that I was calm, that everything was going to be okay, but my mind knew, and if your mind knows, your body knows.
And I was just.
Fighting it constantly, and the exhaustion was unlike anything I had ever felt before in my life, and of course that was inhibiting my performance, and so I sat down with them, and they immediately got me into a primary care doctor to a sports psychologist, and I got immediate diagnosed with depression, insomnia, anxiety, and an eating disorder as well, which was something that I knew I had been battling for several months, but to actually put a name to it,
I think was really really tough, and it was so overwhelming, Maya, to get all of that at one time, and to think that I literally had months when people were expecting me to be the best I had ever been, and I had never felt further from that.
I wonder, was there ever a script that was playing in your mind or a certain kind of rumination pattern that you felt yourself falling into.
Yeah, I mean I think that rumination and that pattern was just negative self talk. It kind of dawned on me that I hadn't said something kind to myself in months, that I hadn't said something encouraging to myself and those that know me. I am the most positive, optimistic person that you will ever meet, and that person was gone. And it's so crazy to think that she fully disappeared before I even realized she was fading.
You know.
It was just such a stark contrast, and I think it's that double edged sword of the elite athlete mentality of you just keep going and you just figure it out, like we're just we have that mindset to keep pushing and to keep moving forward. But when that comes to mental health, I think that that can be so damaging because if you're pushing through that and not addressing it, it's only going to get harder to deal with as time goes on, because in my case, the problems were just getting more severe.
And what kinds of things would you say to yourself?
I think my berating of myself really came down to not believing I had any worth outside of what I could do in a pool. So if I wasn't capable of breaking world records and winning gold medals, why was I here? You know, what other purpose did I serve other than to do what I was put on this earth to do, which in my mind was to swim, Like that was it. That's all I had ever known since I was so young, and all I had ever
known was that success. So I think it really just came down to not understanding or not knowing what my worth was if it wasn't in the pool.
What do you think gave rise to the eating disorder in particular? Tell me a bit more about that.
So I think, with my self worth being the lowest it had ever been, and again, feeling so out of control, I turned to the one thing I felt like I could control, which was my nutrition and my body. And so, of course it's a tough scenario as an adolescent female to be in anyway, right, being in a swimsuit in front of so many people and trying to deal with that.
And I think when I was younger and growing up, I really had this respect for my body that I couldn't do what I did in the water without my body, without my broad shoulders, without being six' to, two without having size twelve. Feet it allowed me to accomplish the things THAT i. Accomplished but then WHEN i stopped accomplishing, those it was, like, well then what is this body. Worth it's not helping, me it's not aiding, Me so
it doesn't have to be like. This SO i got so restrictive in my intake, calorically AND i think it had a huge impact on my. Performance and HERE i am training two to four hours a, day eating barely enough. CALORIES i, MEAN i don't know HOW i was doing, it and so all those diagnoses were just so hard because we didn't have time to go to the foundation and systemically fix the. Problem we were trying to put a band aid over a gaping wound that needed.
Staples you're a few months away from needing to compete In, rio and not just, compete defend your, titles defend your, ranking your reputation in the world of. Swimming what did that version of band aiding look?
Like? Yeah so, well the other piece of all of this is THAT i actually did sustain a physical injury In. April SO i injured my shoulder In, april and again that was something that we didn't have time to.
Fix and so.
At that, Point i'm just, distraught Like i'm now emotionally and physically so far away from WHERE i need to. Be so my band aid solution was immediately getting in with a sports, psychologist a, nutritionist and a physical, therapist and those three were there to just do what they. Could Before olympic, trials we, had you, know eight to twelve weeks of time to work with to try and
get me in the best position. Possible AND i think we all knew going into it THAT i was nowhere near one hundred, percent BUT i was at the PERCENTAGE i was, at and that was all THAT i was going to have to. Give AND i remember going Into olympic trials just being absolutely.
Terrified did you find yourself having to do some of these hacky fake it till you make it type strategies have to get by during that? Time? Yes and what did that look?
Like it was just the big old miss you, smile and it was the first time in my life that it wasn't. Genuine BUT i was trying to put that smile on for everyone. ELSE i was trying to be that, happy bubbly seventeen year old that they all remembered and were expecting me to, be even THOUGH i had probably never felt further from her in my. Life AND i
just didn't want to let people. Down and SO i remember going into trials out of joy or excitement and love for the, sport but just being absolutely terrified THAT i wasn't going to do what was expected of.
Me and how did the trials?
Go, yeah so definitely off to a rocky start for trials For. RIO i failed to make the team in the event THAT i was the Reigning olympic champion in from twenty, twelve and not even. THAT i MEAN i got, seventh so there's only eight people in a, heat SO i almost got dead.
Last in my.
Heat AND i remember going back to my hotel room that night and, sobbing like just ABSOLUTELY i felt, embarrassed LIKE i felt. ASHAMED i was just holding so, much AND i kind of just gave myself this talk in the hotel room of you, know you can pack up and leave right, now like you can get on a flight and you can go, home but you will never forgive, yourself like you can do, that or you can go out and you can finish this swim meet and it
may continue to be. Embarrassing you may not make This olympic. Team you may be more heartbroken and disappointed than you've ever, been but it would be nothing compared to if you didn't.
Try we'll be back in a moment with a slight change of. Plans despite a disappointing performance at the twenty Sixteen Olympic, Trials missy still qualified to compete for THE. Us she would swim in three events In. Rio the night before her first, Event missy and her teammates celebrated at the opening, ceremony but when she returned back to her room in The olympic, village she was hit with an overwhelming sense of.
DREAD i remember calling my parents the night before the meat, started AND i was crying so HARD i could barely. BREATHE i remember my, dad in, particular are just repeating over and over. Again he was, like, honey it is just a swim. Meet it is just a swim Meat AND, i, LIKE i just couldn't like comprehend what he was. Saying AND i knew what he was trying to, do but in my, mind like it was so much more than.
That What i'm hearing from you is that your dad's telling, You, missy this is just a swim, meet and you're, thinking, no this is my opportunity to defend my existence on the Planet. Earth.
Exactly, Yes i'm, like this is not just a swim. Meet this is WHO i. Am and IF i don't do, this why AM i?
Here what is my?
WORTH i have none IF i can't do this and do it. Well and so the next eight days were so. TOUGH i didn't make the top eight in any of my individual. EVENTS i swam on the morning prelim's relay of the eight hundred freestyle, relay and my time was not fast enough to put me on the finals. Relay but that swimming works is if you are a prelim swimmer on a, relay even if you aren't in the group of four that wins the medal in, finals you
still get that. Medal SO i still won a gold medal because my amazing teammates were able to bring home the golds in the eight hundred freestyle relay In. RIO i watched them do it in a beam bag chair ON tv from the, village and that was HOW i won my fifth gold.
Medal that whole competition for, me truly was just.
Survival i've looked back at footage And i've read interviews from that, time And, MISSIE i feel like you could hold a masterclass in the art of graciousness and evasive defeat and failure and. Lost it was so inspiring for me to see how you engaged with your, teammates with the, press with everyone that. WEEK i, mean like we all aspires human beings to act like that when we.
Lose that means so much to, me, truly that is the highest COMPLIMENT i CAN i could ever ask to, receive and that was WHAT i decided to. Do there IS i realized very quickly THAT i was not going to be an inspiration LIKE i was In london by winning gold medals and breaking world. RECORDS i had always talked about the kind of PERSON i wanted to be in, defeat and now was my chance to prove it and
to actually be that. Person and if there was ANYTHING i could walk away being proud of from those eight, DAYS i wanted it to be HOW i handled myself outside of the.
Pool so you wrap up a very challenging week In rio and you fly. Home what were the days and weeks like?
AFTER i, mean it's hard to put into.
WORDS i was feeling so many different emotions and just ultimately just sadness and. Disappointment we got home and we landed back in THE us and back In, colorado and we were driving home and as we pulled into my neighborhood and pulled up to my, house all the kids of the neighborhood were standing there with signs and they had made cut out hearts and they had all written ways THAT i had inspired them In, rio and they had put them all over my.
Yard AND i remember.
Just like completely breaking down in that moment and realizing who you are and what you do outside of the competition space can actually have a significantly bigger impact than
what you do inside of. It AND i think that was step one of the healing, process BECAUSE i don't THINK i believed that at the time of, myself but just to know that other people did and to be surrounded by that much love and grace and compassion was just, like it was so beautiful and So moving back to, COLLEGE i immediately got bilateral shoulder surgery and then started working with a, therapist immediately started meeting once a, week
super regular in. PERSON i wanted it to be true therapy and not just sports psychology BECAUSE i knew that my issues kind of stemmed deeper than just sports and how it had rooted into every aspect of my.
Life and by the, way what an important realization.
Today thank you you.
Know, YEAH i think that reflects something like even, symbolically which is so, important which is given again that your identity had been so tether to being a. Swimmer what that tells me is that you are interested in treating not Just missy the athlete for the sake of improved, performance But missy the.
Person that's a beautiful way of putting.
IT i don't Think i've ever looked at it that, way BUT i did understand that it Was missy the person that was the most. Broken and so it was a, long long. PROCESS i emotion and, mentally over, time was able to heal and learn and grow and get into a place, where maybe for the first time in my, LIFE i understood that WHAT i could do in a pool has nothing to do with WHO i am as a person and my self worth and my value and
WHAT i have to. Offer AND i began to see myself as more than just the swimmer and everything that came along with. That and it was so incredibly freeing and powerful to experience.
That and THEN i dreamed.
Of this, amazing, epic incredible, comeback and unfortunately the physical injuries just wouldn't let it it. Happen getting to that place from the mental standpoint and then physically not being able to continue to compete WHEN i felt LIKE i was, ready LIKE i could and LIKE i wanted to was.
Devastating.
Yeah, YEAH i can feel the intoxication of an epic, comeback and what a satisfying narrative that would, be how did you handle the disappointment of because What i'm hearing from you is that you put in all the mental labor to get yourself back to a healthier, place that your body wasn't cooperating, right your shoulder injury was not, improving and so how did you handle that frustration.
As an elite?
Athlete AND i just think as a, PERSON i, mean you don't even have to be an. Athlete when your body is inhibiting you from doing. Something you feel, Trapped you feel, angry you feel frustrated because in my, mind there was nothing from a physical standpoint THAT i couldn't push. Through AND i tried so hard AND i did everything.
Possible and it was a conversation THAT i had with my now husband at the, time and he, said, HONEY i want you to be able to throw our kids up in the air one day without pain Like that's what he was thinking, of and he knew those were
myorities as. WELL i truly just came to that realization that even IF i went through everything that my surgeons were, SUGGESTING i didn't THINK i was going to be at the PLACE i needed to be to compete at my best and represent my country in a way THAT i was truly proud, of BECAUSE i knew that IF i continued to go down this, road which was going to be more, surgeries more, recoveries more intensity with An olympics right around the, corner THAT i was going to start
to lose that mental and emotional state THAT i had worked so hard to.
Gain, yeah and catch me up on life. TODAY i, mean you have so many identities that you. Carry you're a, wife you're a, mother you're a, podcaster you're an. Advocate what is your relationship with swimming like?
Today SO i do have a beautiful relationship with swimming, now Which i'm very thankful. FOR i still work heavily with THE Usa Swimming, foundation which is the philanthropic side OF Usa. Swimming so giving back to the sport is incredibly important to me because it gave me so, much and so being able to give back working with the foundation providing free and low costs from lessons to communities that need is just a huge piece of WHAT i
do to stay involved in the. SPORT i also recently started a podcast with My olympic Teammate Katie hoff and we are so thankful to be involved in the sport in that way and to have these amazing conversations with not just swimmers but athletes about the true vulnerable moments of what it is that we do and what we've learned from, it and how we can share that with one another to help each other. Grow so that's been
a beautiful way to stay. Involved and my coach would always say that swimming is the only sport that will save your life and that you can do for the rest of your. LIFE i just know it's just like a very old. Friend even IF i go a while without talking to, IT i know that the SECOND i get back, in it's going to be like no time at all has.
Passed, hey thanks so much for. Listening if you enjoyed this, EPISODE i hope you'll consider sharing it with a, friend maybe someone you know who also has a bit Of olympic. Fever right now and check out my new, Book The Other side Of, change which features stories of change from people you've never heard on the. Podcast you can find the link in the episode. Description we'll be back next week with another episode OF A Slight change Of. Plans
i'll see you. THEN A Slight change Of plans is, created, written and executive produced by Me Maya. Schunker The Slight change family includes our Showrunner Alexandra, garratin our Editor Daphne, chen our lead Producer Megan, lubin our associate Producer Sonia, gerwit and our sound Engineer Erica. Hwang Louis scara wrote our delightful theme, song And Ginger smith helped arrange the.
VOCALS A Slight change Of plans is a production Of Pushkin, industries so big thanks to everyone, there and of course a very special thanks To Jimmy lee
Do