Adam Rippon on Persistence, Failure, and Spinning

class athlete an Olympian figure skater. He won the bronze medal in the two thousand eighteen Olympic Winner Games and was the first openly gay man to qualify for the U. S team. Since retiring from competitive skating, he's been on Dancing with the Stars and co host a comedy show with none other than Snooky. Without further delay, let's get into my conversation with Adam Rippon. Jeffrey. This is my honor and my pleasure. The only thing that I'm mad about is that I can't have a cigar with you.

You like cigars, no, but I would. I would still have one with you. Are you kidding? For a first course, I wanted to ask Adam about overcoming some serious challenges as a kid. He was born nearly deaf at birth, his appendix burst when he was just five, and he struggled with a severe respiratory condition. I wanted to know how in the world did he turn all that into an incredible skating career. So I had to ask you.

I was reading about your mom and your upbringing, and I was, you know, I always think about like, I'm very much in a nutrition and health and obviously this we we talked food too on the show, but you know, you had some really serious challenges as as a kid growing up with your health, and then you got into the most why. I was just watching at two thousand and eight Olympics. I watched it a couple of times, and we'll come in on that later, but I was

watching the physicality. I'm like, how in God's name did you go from how you started to be in such shape? You know, you're already thirty one, so there's not like I mean, at the point where you were skating. You were skating that could probably like you know, in your early teens, a late teens, and this how did that? How did you recover all those things? I mean, that's

just amazing. Well, I think, um, when I was young, like when I was super young, I was always sick, and um, I was in and out of the hospital. I mean for a really young kid, it felt pretty often. So like I remember like missing chunks of preschool in kindergarten because I was in the hospital. But like a good Irish immigrant from Scranton, Pennsylvania, I was resilient. And I said no, I said, listen, those freeze dried potatoes I've been eating for the past five years. They are

going to kind of get me through this. And they did. And I actually, by the time I was six, I was a body made of canned green beans and fish sticks. And that's kind of what really got me through to where I am today. And is that why your mom, Kelly was was that because of all the travel you did to practice what was dining like, I mean, what what happened in the kitchen at your house? I mean, so Okay, by the time I was fifteen, I wasn't living at home anymore. I was living with like different

families and stuff. So I mean, I think it's funny to think about like what dinners were like in the early nineties when I was like growing up, because you know, they we had like a lot of Hamburger helper and so many of the like iconic nineties dinners stuff. I'm one of six, I'm the oldest, so like they were always like young babies around when I was growing up. So my mom it was like truly like getting a

cafeteria together when we would have dinner. And then when I started moving around, I lived with a lot of different families and got to kind of experience what their cuisine was like. And then I lived with my Russian coach for a while. Also I lived with her for a few years, and so then I was really having a lot of like different like Russian dishes that like now when I see them, I get that like, oh my god, those are my childhood dishes. So which ones

which dishes? And stuffed cabbage, yeah, stuffed cabbage, the parogis and then all of these. A lot of soups and I think that like good, yes, and like every soup had like a grain or something in it and to make it heavier, and you could tell like this is like Soviet, like we need to make it all, they have the biggest punch, and so there's so many different like vegetable soups. There's one vegetable soup. I can't remember

what it was. It was my favorite. So like that's a tragedy for me that I can't remember, but it's how I realized that beats are good because I would have borsh My mom was Polish and Russian, and I remember the soup shues to make, and she made beats soup. She made barley soup. And I also remember that they were just as good cold as they were hot, so if the thing ever cooled down, there was no problem. It would just so like it would fill you up.

And I imagine when you were having practice that Elena would like, you need, you need my soup. You have practice four hours she would There was a time, and I think that you will appreciate this that I was making this effort that like Elena, my first big coach, she made this one soup. I can't remember what it was, but it was delicious, and I was watching very carefully how she did it, and I was like, when I

go home, I'm going to make it for everyone. So I started boiling, like the vegetables and I was like making a stock and I just kind of came to this crossroads of like I couldn't remember if I was just supposed to boil the vegetables because like they just needed to get softer or like what I just I blinked and I well, you know, I'll say I cracked and I couldn't handle the pressure of making this soup because I took the vegetables and I was like, okay,

the vegetables, they were just supposed to be soft. So I took the whole stock and just dumped the whole stock out, which I think I needed it, because when I tasted the soup it was bad. I'll be honest. But you're hearing great shape now. So something worked, right? Something work? Yes, yea? So from from from TV dinners to Russian staples to what is your favorite right now? So you're like, what is your grab and go? What is your dinner? When you go out? Where do you go?

I mean it's endless, right l A as greatest food? Yes, it does. I think here in l A like fish is so good, it's always so fresh. But like I think also like I never liked fish growing up, but you know when you eat fish, like from the Midwest, and it's just like it's it's basically fish sticks or it's like jerking. You're like, how is this? This is? This is really tough. And when you have really good fish for the first time, it's it's really good. So

that's always my favorite thing to like. If I if I'm like, oh, we don't know what to go or where to get food, always get fish. And I think wherever you live, you end up staying in like that pocket for like when you want to go out and stuff. So I used to live on the West Side, but now I live on the East side live. I live in Pasadena. Now, I obviously like I love Hilstone restaurants, so like I live right near Houston's. I can't I can't beat it. It's so good. I went the first

time I ever went to Houston's. I went, oh my god, this is like adult version of out Back Steakhouse. This is adult yes, because like he knows, out Back Steakhouse is the Scranton to Los Angeles. Wow, right, that is perfect. Get a pen right, I have one right here, right, I write in pencilone lay. We come from similar backgrounds. I think a little eater in life, obviously, But Scranton, Pennsylvania and Worcester, Massachusetts really sort of have the same,

you know, vowelistic ring to them. Don't you think? I agree? And they think? I think they both give me the same visceral reaction. Yeah, so what is your reaction? Okay, well, I know that this isn't a visual medium, but when you said, yeah, I just want to paint a picture for the viewer that you're all of your teeth all perfectly white, We're gritting against each other, and I could hear it in my microphone and that's the same visceral

reaction that I have, like ah, like an ouch ouch. Yeah, Worster wester was you know, I guess it's good because right, I think it was so limiting, and I think baby Scranton was for you too. I don't know, but it was so limiting. It was limitless and kind of a funny way. Yeah, and was sure is because this is a cooking podcast. Is a great sauce to sauce. We don't even say Shire anymore, which is not Worcester sauce. No, we dropped it, and we collectively the cooking community that

I'm a part of now. I mean it's so you're like, well, you have the Houston's thing, but the Houston is probably the Americana part of it. So that you have it's a Scranton in you to your Scranton l A, but Scranton with an asterisk, which is Houston over the Scranton. Yeah, exactly. In our second course, I had to understand how Adam managed to become a world class figure skater as a

kid growing up in a small town Scranton. He told me about the sacrifices that he, his mother, and his siblings all made and the personal growth that came as a result. So I was right. I was like, I was trying to imagine your mom cooking for you and driving you all those miles and hours with your other siblings to go to practice. Why may I ask that

you take all the siblings? Was to set an example for the siblings in your in your determination and your your practice or was it because she had to Well, it's like not everyone all at once, so it would be like everything needed to be coordinated with everyone's schedule. So sometimes it would be like two of my siblings would come to this practice because they would need to

do something right after or one or none. And when I was like training a lot when I was young and still at home and going between Scranton and Philadelphia, which is like a two hour drive. Like, yeah, so my mom had just had a baby, so she was bringing like my newborn brother and one of the younger siblings under that who wasn't old enough to be in school. So it wasn't everybody, but like there was a lot. I mean, there was like three of us. So how

do you that's so much work? It is so much where I mean went in retrospect when I like think back at it, what one I'm thirty one, and so my mom was like when she had me, and I'm like, I could not imagine having two kids, Jeffrey, No, I'd be it'd be over for me. I had three and over fifty I had them. Wow. Yeah, okay, young gun, Wow, I said, it's just amazing. But I I know what it takes. And you know, obviously she was a coach, so she knew too. She knew like, all right, this

is this is the game plan. Everybody, Just get out of the way. We need to figure this out. I've got it figured out. This is how you're going to be great because she noticed one sort of natural pivot or balanced that you must have had that she said, something's here. I think that. Like I was always like a smaller kid and so every and I did a little bit of everything, and I liked everything, but there was just always a point where I just completely lost

interest in it. But I really liked skating. And I realized I really liked skating because I was taking tennis lessons at the same time, and our ten this coach was like, who's the best tennis player in the world? And I was like, you are, and he was like, know who really is? And I was like, I have no idea. And he said this thing where he was like, if you really love something, you'll learn all about it. You'll know everything, You'll know all the people who play it.

And I remembered that and I was like, I have no clue who plays tennis. And then when I started skating, I wanted to know everything about it. And that's when it really clicked for me. I was like, oh my god,

what my tennis coach said. He was right, when you love something, like, you'll be so entranced by it that you'll want to learn everything, and that's when I really knew that I loved skating, and um, you know, my mom was always like if there was something that we really liked, we had to show her and prove that we would do like whatever it took to make that happen. Like I remember to go to the rink in the morning, you know, my mom was like, everybody needs to get

ready for school. I can't just take you. So I would wake everyone up at like four thirty in the morning. Um, but I would like panic them and be like, you're late for school, and like I would make everybody get up and like get them all dressed to make sure all their lunches were made, so that it would be like five o'clock five fifteen, and I'd wake my mom up and be like, can you take me to the rink? Everybody's already ready for school, and they were just like

watching TV. Everybody's ready, but like can we go? So I would do like things like that all the time, just to make sure that there was no reason why I wouldn't be able to go to the rink. And then by the time I was like twelve or thirteen, I was taking the Greyhound bus because I needed to go to Philadelphia for the entire week instead of for just like a day or two when my mom would drive me, like on a Tuesday or Thursday, and so

you know, my mom couldn't just leave everyone. So I would take the Greyhound bus in downtown Scranton and then I would take it all the way to Philadelphia and someone would pick me up where I would like walk to a rink and then um, I would like be with the family for the rest of the week. So it was just like if you wanted to do it, you needed to you know, be brave and like do these things. So yeah, it was always kind of instilled.

You know, you have to make it work. Can you describe this sort of temperament you have to have to skate at that hour and so many hours in the stamina and the cold, and just describe sort of what it's like and how it's so easy just to say, you know, it's just just just too cold. I don't want to do this. It is. Listen, if I were to describe it, it sounds like something I would never

want to do, because like you're you're tired. Like there were little tricks that I would do, like every morning where it was like somehow, like if you would go out to the rink and you'd have to skip for at least five minutes, and then you could get off of the ice and go back into the lobby where it was warm and just sit for five minutes. Somehow, when you got back out there, it didn't feel as

cold cold, So that would be the first trick. Next trick would be, once I'm like halfway through, get off the ice and like run my hands into like hot water, then like put your gloves back on, go back out and you feel a little bit warmer. But it was horrible, Like it's horrible, but like at the end of the day, you love it. It's something that's fun, it's enjoyable, but there's like a lot and when you're young, it's always in the morning because you have to go before school

and after school. But when I started to become more serious and like a higher level, usually I would practice during the day. So it was I'll tell you, being tired and cold is the worst combination on planet Earth. It really is. And so when did you know? What was that moment that you said you knew that, like, I'm really good at this. I think there's there might be a little you know, they were like I called tragic moments, were like, all right, I didn't I missed that,

but my miss was much better than most people's hit. Yeah. I think that there were like little moments where I'm like, oh, I might be good at this. And I think it was like when I first started, I was like doing things that everybody else was kind of doing, only I had just started and I was like, oh, I I

might be kind of good at this. And then I think I really didn't have like a moment of oh, I'm really good until maybe I was like maybe once when I was like fifteen, when I started to land some triple jumps, and then maybe when again when I was like eighteen, when I won a world junior title, and I think that's when I was like, Okay, wait,

I might actually be able to like do this. And I think that's when everything started to feel a little bit more real rather than just like we were you try training with rough I at that time, your your coach. So from Philadelphia, there were a few years of like where I was in Toronto, and then I was in Detroit,

and then I was with Rafael. The last six years of my career, so I wasn't with Rafael at this point yet, but you know Rafael, he kind of I started working with him at like a interesting time in my career because things weren't going great. And he is this like Armenian guy. He's very funny in he's one of my favorite people on the earth. But he always says like these skaters always come to me like it's the e er like emergency, they need help before before

they die. And I'm like, yeah, that's how I came to you, like like e R level before I died. Well, who recommended him to you? It was a friend of mine. How do you get how do you get a coach? How do you just and you if you literally the craziest thing about skating, which is why I think sometimes the parents can be really intense and all of that.

Well they have to be because it's like you're asking somebody who has no experience in a field to be an expert, and to not only be an expert, to like manage somebody's entire career, so like an emotion and emotions right, Oh yes, So if you wanted to like work with Raphael, you yourself, I could give you his phone number, and you could be like I want a lesson and he would see if he has time and

just schedule you. It's like that. It's and sometimes it's like building the connections to other people to get that contact or like meeting them or doing a seminar or something. But it can be as like unceremonious, as like Hi, I found your number. Do you have to? But so I'm looking at all these practices and all this roadwork and changes in cold and sort of barbaric, you know, workouts.

How do you have a social life? How did your social life sort of interacting and how did you sort of bring that to like and I watch you skate, and you're so expressive, and it looks like you've been around people your entire life all the time. Looks like you've done nothing but like socialized. But here you are a product of like hours in a cold rink completely alone, or on a bus or driving for six or eight

hours a day. How does that happen? I think that it was like life experience because I think one of the things that was so helpful is that and something that is so isolating, I needed to put myself out there all the time. If you're on the bus and you fall asleep and you're on the gray Hund bus, you need to walk up to the driver and go like what stop are we at? Or like you have to get on the bus and hey, is that seat taken? Can I sit there with like all your bags on

your seat? And or like there's a lot of like little things. And then like when I got older and I was living in California, I was, you know, trying to pay for all of my skating. They're really uncomfortable conversations that I needed to have with people I was working with, like, hey, do you mind if I pay this bill later? I will prove to you that like I'm worth my word and everything, like is there something we can do? Like can I work something out with

you or something? So there are a lot of like really uncomfortable conversations, but I think that you grow a lot from those of being put in those really odd and sometimes really uncomfortable places that they really help you to like firmly stand on your own two feet of like Okay, I have to just like suck it up and do this right now. Yeah, And it's really it's a great life experience. I tell people like fail and go through chaos and confront chaos head on. Yes, And

and somehow confronting reality gives you a mastery of reality. Right. You can't confront reality from sitting at home on your Instagram. You gotta ask you go out there and get and get pelted and figure out reality. And then you get really good at figuring out reality. And guess what, you get better at going through life and you don't be afraid anymore, and then guess what, it brings stuff to

you from the universe. Totally, yes. I even think in sports were very often and commonly asked like, what's a defining moment in your career? And I have two of them, and the both of them are like times where I was the worst and I just skated so bad and I felt so embarrassed and so at my lowest in those moments, but like they were my career defining moments of like when I changed my perspective. I grew from them.

And there was one where I was like sixteen and I did really badly at the nationals, and then the other really defining moment was like missing an Olympic team for the second time. Those two moments really changed my whole perspective of who I was, not immediately obviously, because like in the moment, I'm like this is terrible, But in hindsight, like I look back and I'm like, the reason I like am who I am today is because of those moments where I failed absolutely and I was,

you know, watching his skate. I'm like, wow, every single people sixty thousand eyeballs and they're all looking for flaws. You're all waiting. No, that's all. It's like, okay, I'm out here, pick me, apart, destroy me. It's just I watch it. I'm like, oh my good lord, you must have such a constitution just says saying I'm going to lay it all that you doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. At some point, I think it's important to just think.

It's like, it's okay, I just doesn't matter. It's tough. I think like there's I think the closest sport I can think. I think gymnastics is a bit like it, and I think golf is a lot like it, where it's like it's going to say that it's so much like golf, where it's like everybody is just watching you and you're doing this one thing. That takes less than half a second, and you have to be like smart enough to know what's going on and dumb enough to

not care. And it's that perfect balance of being reckless and being brave. Yeah, no, you're getting chaos in order, but in a way that it seems that it's workable. And I think I don't think a lot of people understand the amount of time and hours that people have to work at getting good at their craft. And once you get good at getting good at your craft, it's it's it gets in you and you can't let it go.

And I think that even if the craft is even, you're changing your craft and you're doing acting and doing all this other stuff now, but it's the same craft. You notice, what you're doing is the crafting of your crafting from the past. Well, it's all like, it's interesting how I feel everything from like my skating career and my like from being an athlete. Everything has translated, and it's taken me a while to figure out how it has,

but everything's translated. So like when I do things that are like more in the comedy space, I think, like the being able to perform is so vital, and I think like the one thing about skating where it's like you you like start in your position and you just if you go and if you feel awful, like you'll

be awful. But like if you're talking in front of people, I think that that can be a little bit more like living and breathing, where you can change course, you can change you know the way that things are going. You can kind of feel the energy around you and

how people are responding to things. Like when you're skating, it's like you have what you have planned and you know it's just like sometimes you're just like the three violinists on the Titanic and you're just like, I guess this is how we're going down for our third course. I got to ask Adam about his amazing performance at the two thousand eighteen Olympics. I wanted to know how he managed to make figure skating looks so elegant and yet so powerful, and hear what it takes to compete

at that elite level. I read your I read a lot about you, and then I went and I watched the eighteen performance and what I saw it. Obviously, you get colored when you read stuff, but I I wanted to just express this because I think it's really important for the story. First of all, Part one is that five or six minute performance you did was so choreographed,

yet it looked so natural. And people don't realize that the hours that every single second has a different motion to it a and how you have to practice that and do it over and over again. It's almost that you must be so sick of that song hearing this so are you're never gonna listen to it again. It's like Frank. It's like Frank Sinatra singing My Way. He used to hate. He said he hated this song because he had to sing it, but everybody loved that song,

so he had to keep singing it. That was number one. Number two was I was profoundly affected by how you got out of those turns without getting dizzy. And I'm like, how does he go from being dizzy to this graceful sort of other movement without like spinning in his brain? How does that happen? So, Jeffrey, let me teach you about this. So because I know that when I drink

too much, the next time, spinning a different. Sometimes when you drink too much, you get less dizzy if you think about it, I do, for one so how does that happen? I I don't know. So the reason that a skater can spin so fast and then you like get out of it and they look not dizzy, You are dizzy. Like the speed at which somebody who has repeatedly this is true, repeatedly put their brain through the trauma of the spin. The brain can recover faster. And

it's the same training that they put astronauts through. So it's like the g for us with the face like, yes, it is completely that. So like if you like there's a this training thing where like you know, you've seen it where they put the astronaut in the chair and

they spin the chair around. Yes, if they do it with someone who isn't like trained, and there's like a camera right in front of them, the astronaut, their eyes will just go like back and forth like this, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and then they'll settle quickly. And if it's somebody who isn't trained and does is not used to that like trauma, their eyes like jet all over the place trying to find balance.

But it's something try. Yes, the body naturally will learn how to find its balance faster, and that's how a skater can spin and they don't look dizzy. You are dizzy and you don't know, Yes, you don't know where you are, but you're balanced. And when you're when you can have you, you don't lose your balance, and that's the biggest thing. So it's like I if I would get out of something and it like looks really nice,

about three seconds later, I'm not dizzy at all anymore. Wow, But I am immediately after Yes, wow, I mean, and now I'm noticing that with everything, Like now that you're going to say that, I'm noticing it. It's sort of the same thing when you're on a boat and you don't want to get seasick, and they said, never look at an object and try to try to stop it. You just gotta keep going with it. If you look at the horizon and try to stop the boat, you're

gonna get seasick right away. Because we also don't we like in skating, we don't spot so a lot of like, which is basically like if you have have one focal point and you always like turn your head to find that because like we do so many rotations, So like a trick that I would always do is like you find something that's like stationary, which if you're spinning would be like maybe a hand in front of you or like your knee, so you don't focus on like everything

being every day around you. Yes, and then like when you get out of it, you look for some really key thing that's also around you, like a sign on the dasherboards or like a specific like judge in the corner. But you do it so that you can adjust really

quickly and you're never liked disorients it. So the third out of part three, out of the four things that I reckon, I saw was the physicality and the strength of your your legs, in your your core, which is everything now is core, right, It's a whole world talks about core. What did you do? Did you work out every day, did you do legs, did you lift weights? How did you keep that core and those and your legs so strong? So so much of the training is

like on the ice um. That being said, like everything that we do is like one direction. So if we we land and we do all of these jumps and everything will like land on the right side. So like a typical skater, if like they were working with a therapist, their whole for me because like I would I was right. If you were like right handed or right side dominant, you'll jump one direction and left side vice versa. So I was right side dominant, so I would land on

my right legs. So when I would work with a therapist who had never worked with me before, it would always be like, huh, this is interesting, where like the whole right side of my body is like over developed

and more developed than the left. So a big important thing to do when we were off the ice would be too Yes, we would lift and do all of that stuff to like you know, gain you know, just more strength, but we would also do a lot of things that were just to do our best to equal out because when there is a big imbalance, you are more prone to injury, which is crazy because it's like our whole we spend our whole life as a skater over developing one side and so then you have to

kind of go off the ice and try to find that balance. So it is it is interesting, like like in that respect that everything was. So you noticed that Rafael nidel Is left side of his arm is like this, He's like the Hulk and his other arm is like and I'm like, how does that happen? You know, and

then you notice what happened. It's really obvious. Yes, And so another thing for like us is that like we're so like bottom heavy that like our legs are really developed, but we need to be so slight and so like as light as possible. That like our upper bodies are like dried out raisins and it looks like all the juice just went down. So you still need you still

need this this structure to support. Basically you need the core, but like your upper body, like as a skater, when I was skating, it was like no chest, no arms. Arms do not help you. They're like directional. They can put it, they can put move your shoulders, they can like help you tilt and lean, but like arms strength doesn't serve you at all. So it's sort of like a ballerina. The digolottage is beautiful and it's like this, but it's really it's the waist down that is really

controlling everything. Yes, because like we can use our arms to help us and move us and gain momentum. But like they're like an exercise that people would do, like on the ice would be like you would do things and you'd like cross your arms and not move them at all or not even use them, and you can still do elements. It's much harder because like that momentum is still helpful, but like they aren't. The biggest thing

is like don't let them get in your way. So the last part of this is when I watched that was the first This is the last part that I'm going to talk about what it was. The first thing that I noticed, and this is, I guess a reverse compliment. I didn't notice that technique it was flawless. I didn't notice the workout or the practice it was flaw with all this. What I noticed was the incredible symmetry with the music and the and the the dance. It was

extraordinarily theatrical and dance like versus a skating. I didn't even I didn't notice she was skating until halfway in that when you started the twirl. So it was like I really saw this uh sort of entertainment, theat theatrical dance part of it, more than I've ever seen, and a lot of dancers, and it seems to me that it's something that you're doing right now, which seems very

exciting to you. There's a sense of like this theatricality, this entertainment, this lifestyle, this sort of like really loving It's almost like you're you're dancing for us instead of skating for us. And that's what I noticed right off the bat. Does that make any sense? It makes total sense. I think, like I I as a competitor, I needed to figure out like what made me feel comfortable in like that space, and I am I'm really competitive, but like I needed to find which how that served me.

So I would be really competitive if I knew that I could put on like the best performance. So I always focused on everything that like everything was like a show.

It was all entertainment, and my main focus always had to be like I had to entertain everyone, which when the things that I do now has translated very well and it's helped me a lot and all of these other things, because like that's always my main focus of like, and when I was at home and practice, I would make sure that I was like performing full out every day so that like when I went to a competition, it was just normal. It was like the way that I had just done it. It wasn't like I needed

to do anything special. And I think doing that every day is really exhausting, but it creates this muscle of being able to like be there when you need to be there and like turn it on right away and or or you know, be able to do things where it looks like it's full of emotion when really you're just like dead inside, which I am. I I hardly think that, but I I just thought it was such a reserved I was so wonderful you. I could tell you a holding back in a way that really made

it so powerfully interesting. It was like, wow, this this is like he's on six, this is not even ten, but the dancing and the entertainment is like on twelve. And I was like, wow, this is like real, like a real entertainer. And I don't mean that in any way other than like that is brilliant entertaining. And it was almost like the skating was secondary. It was almost

like you're inhabiting two bodies. Well, that's very sweet of you, thank you, And but I do want to compliment you and say that that's a very great analyzation of the way that I truly felt like I would because like if I tried to go out of ten, it was too like I felt like I don't think anyone can. But like it was just being like present enough to be like at because Okay, when I would train at home and not everybody is like this, I would have

to train at one percent. So that like if when I went to competition, for me to feel in control, I would compete at But if you're going a hundred every day, what your version of eight five is is so much higher than it would be if you were training at seventy every day. So I always needed to take it down a notch because I would get really

into it or like overcompensate in different ways. So like when I was at home, it was like balls to the wall, but when I'd be in competition, it needed to just be a little bit more coy and a little bit more like in on myself of like okay, you've got it, like you this is it was. It becomes like a little bit more fun. It's also you know when you when you I guess are doing anything.

When you run a restaurant and you walk into the restaurant, the lighting is great, the music is beautiful, the person at the desk is great, takes care of you, You get your drink for us. Everything's grown great, and the food is really good. It's not the best food you've ever had, but the whole experience is like I'm coming back here again, and it's like it's that it's like you can't be perfect at everything. It's just not possible and it's not human and real and people don't respond

to it. Those people responded to your your the words. You know, it's sort almost there's almost cinematography, cinematography and in a and how you danced that was so captivating, right, And it wasn't that we're waiting for this big twill and will you make it? Will you make it? Will you fall? I wasn't thinking that. I was like, this

is just fantastic to watch. It was like so it was so connected and it was like it made so much sense, and I was like, wow, I've noticed difference between other skaters who it's like hit hit this, hit two, hit six, hit five hits. It's rinse and repeat more music, bring it up, crescendo down, Hello, And that's what I'm used to because it's it's what's fed a lot of the the unequaistic sort of performance skating. Yeah, I mean,

we should get you on a judging panel. And it's a shame and mine at the Olympics because I really could have used some of this hype twelve and whatever the hell it has, there's a twelve. I would have put it up. And this guy's good. Everybody come over here, this guy is. Look at this guy. I would have loved that. I would have loved that, and I could have used that. But hindsight, everything, everything is going as it should be. The universe agreed right place for you

right now. For our fourth and final core, I caught up with anim about life in l A with competitive skating officially in his rear view mirror, he seems to have traditioned well into life outside the rink, with a published memoir, to new TV shows, and a finished fiance. You're so busy, So tell me you're you're newly engaged, you have a show on MTV, you wrote a book. Is there anything you're not doing? Did I miss something? No,

that's that's everything. Yeah, let us in on all this a little bit, just a little bit, you know, have to say a lot. Okay, I I'm engaged. My fiance he's so great, so funny. Like listen, one day when I come and I visit you in Florida because now I'm going to do it. You gotta come. Yeah, I'm gonna come. You'll meet JP. You'll love JP. I'm sure I can already tell. So how do you pronounce his name? I was trying to pronounce what I decided, not making myself an idiot and just trying to say it. Let

me go, I'm gonna try. Okay, please, yes, And I think you're going to be right. You're cee pekaala. That's very that's very close. So his like his it would just be like you see peca okay. So, so it's I was questioning because sometimes the U was silent or sharp in different countries. Yes, you know what I'm saying, and they put two us to say you see and this one they put two s s. So you see peca color ka ka kayala kayala. So what is this?

Is it? J K? Is that his nickname? Come on? Yeah, I just call him JP because that you see, it's like that's like if it were like an English name, it'd be like Mary Teresa, Like it's like it's a full name. First names. Okay. So let's go So Finland, and how are you are you in this l a together. So okay, this is so. We met when I was at a competition I think almost like five years ago at this point, and I was on Tinder, so I

was obviously very focused on the competition at hand. Yeah, and so we were looking for Houston's to go to dinner. I needed to go to Houston's in Helsinki, which I still haven't been, yeah, exactly. And so we we matched, but we never met talked for months and then he came and he visited me. We hit it off, um really well, and so, uh, we were planning to get married last summer. We're also just like going to a courthouse, like I know that, Like I'm in this like room

with like a mug shop behind me. But uh, we just wanted to just go to a courthouse. And then with the pandemic and everything, I didn't pan out. So we applied for k one visa for him because he's finished. Uh, and so that process usually takes about like nine to nine months to a year, but with everything, it's been about a year and a half. Um, so I've seen

him twice in the last year and a half. It's been you know, it's been difficult at times, but like we've both really have stayed focused on like one, I think like knowing that like this will come to an end soon, and like there's a light at the end of the tunnel for our like him living far that like we've that's been really helpful. And like we've all we both like have really focused on like our own careers and things so that like when we're able to

like live together, it'll be really nice. And we've put a lot of time into ourselves, which has been great. And yeah, and I guess the other big thing was that, like I have the show on MTV. It's called Messiness. I Try. I asked my producer. I'm like, okay, so what's what's tell me what it is? He said, well, it was like, right, show ridiculous And I'm like, well, what was that. I was like, come on, I'm gonna

let him tell me. Okay, So okay. So Messiness is a spinoff of Ridiculousness, which was a show where like they would play these clips and there's just kind of like a back and forth of the panelists. I think what makes Messiness a little bit different is that on the show, it's me Nicole Polizzi, who's famously known as Snooky is the host, Tori Spelling. And then there's a comedian his name is Teddy Ray, who is one of the funniest people I've ever met. Where do you film it?

We film it here in Los Angeles at haven Hurst Studios and Van Eyes and uh so we we film it out there. And basically it's it's sort of it was started out as like the brainchild of ridiculousness, but because it's the four of us up there were like four complete idiots and we just go back and forth and we just like have tell really great stories and we like make each other laugh the whole time. So we have so much fun filming it. And um, we had our first ten episodes come out a little while ago.

We'll have the next ten come out soon. But like we it's I've I've even enjoyed watching it, which like I don't sometimes sometimes sometimes I'm like I don't know if I can watch myself. But like sometimes I'll watch the show and I'll be like, it is actually fun. So that's my endorsement of my own show. It's actually fun. It's so the first season is it out? It's come out, Yes, it's half out. So it's twenty episodes, so like our our first tenor out in our second ten will be

out in probably a month or two. Congratulations on that. That's incredible. Uh, And you're hosting there, you're a host with Snookie. Yes, she's our main host, she's our president basically, and we will do whatever she says, for better or worse, which I think sometimes it is worse. I mean, I you know, I remember Snooky from a long time ago, and everyone said that show is never gonna last, and look what happens, you know. Just I mean, I will

say she's exactly who you think she is. And with that, I'll say she is one of the I'm dead serious. She's one of the most professional people I've ever worked with on time shows up to do like the job, she does it really well. She's fully present, she's so nice to everyone. I mean, it makes sense. Listen, if you can be like arrested on the beach as a twenty one year old girl and you can make a career out of it, like you've had to have done a few things like to like grow up and like

really like do well for yourself. And she is, I dead serious, one of the most professional people ever ever worked with. Couldn't I could say enough good things about her. I call people like that conscious because they're very few people are actually conscious about life. They just not. And when they beat them, they like they they come down the street and they're like shining because they're like, this is a conscious person. I would like this person, we're

gonna get along. So tell me about the book Beautiful on the Outside. So I wrote this book right after the Olympics, and I think I knew that I wanted to write it because it felt like the only way I was going to sit down and really process what had happened. Because the Olympics is like whiplash. It's something that you like wait your entire life for and then

in the course of two weeks it happens. It's over, and then all of a sudden, like you feel like that big, what have I've been doing for two years exactly? Like it's so crazy. So I um had this opportunity to write the book, and I was like, I have to do it because I think it will be like the only way I actually, like really think about everything that's happened in my whole career and life to this point.

How was you gonna say until the next book exactly, because it's going to be a series of memoirs, has to be at thirty one. I think you route at twenty nine. I think get thirty one. There's at least two or three more books, at least at least, So you're sitting at home in l A and Pasadena. So how are you maintaining yours? I know, how you're maintaining your psychic health by making shows with Snooky, that's obvious. How are you maintaining your physically your physical being? How

are you working on your body and your nutrition? And you cooking at home yourself or do you strictly go out or you do a balanced balance of that? Are you? Are you? You know what? How do you come up with a regiment that you started basically at thirty? I mean at thirty like people are just like in their normal life and it's it's it's you're like, stop doing one thing that was very specific, and now how do you continue while keeping your your your your head together?

I mean physically. This is totally a great point because what I did was so specific to what I was doing at the time, So like, I mean, it was just like be really slight. What I ate was super limited, and I was working out all the time, and so from the time this is a little bit nuts to think about, but from what I weighed at the Olympics too, now I'm twenty pounds heavier, even though I'm still like you really might not be able to like see it

on me. It's just how quickly, like not quite. I mean it took it was like three years, but I was like very light and then probably too thin at that at that for that for a normal yes, it's existent. I think, like to be really elite, there are a lot of crazy things that aren't very healthy that you end up that end up feeling like very normal to you.

So like eating and things like that, Like really I needed to relearn it, and I'm still like relearning it and finding things that I like and trying things, and so it's been like kind of rediscovering what that is. And also like I did not work out for like two years, Like I could not go to the gym because it was like I didn't know how to just like go and just feel good about myself and the gym because it was like I couldn't go there and not feel like I was like training for the Olympics. Yeah,

so now you go, Now I go. And I think the best thing was was that like I worked with I've been really lucky because there there's this like little private gym at the rink that I used to train at. So I don't skate very often anymore, but I'll go down to the rink and work with like one of the trainers. And I think what's been so great is like I've never been able to do like upper body stuff.

It's always been like lower lower legs. So it's like I've been learning a lot more about that and it's been I've I've I've learned to really love being in the gym, and I think getting back into it and like learning more about like the switching up my nutrition has like really been great. And I would say it only got into it, and like in this last year. This last year is probably the first time I feel like, Okay,

I have like my feet more on the ground. Because once you get into it and you get into the nutrition and then working it's like addictive. Then you're like, oh my god, this is fantastic, and then your brain sort of clears up and ways that it didn't before doing something you probably will never ever do. You might actually take up golf or something like that, because that might mirror the skating, but without that stress in that like you know, yeah, and spinning, the constant spinning, the trauma.

That trauma is trauma. I think the biggest thing is just like I think, like from being an athlete to like working in entertainment, the biggest difference is that, like as an athlete, like if if you and myself were to sit down and you're like, Okay, we're going to get ready for the next Olympics, I could say okay, and I would let you know every event you were going to be doing, and I would let you know your whole entire schedule for the next four years. You

would know everything. You'd be able to plan out every vacation, every day off and um. An entertainment, you can be doing nothing for four months and then you can be working every day for three weeks, and then after that three weeks, it's like more chunks of time. So it was like learning yes, and and learning how to like manage your time and learning how to like fill those spaces of like how am I because I'm still an athlete, like at heart, like how do how do I keep

improving without knowing that those things are coming? So it was just like learning how to do that, which it's fun and I feel like now more prepared for when I do anything. Wow, what's an incredible story. Thank you for sharing with me. I mean, I we could go on and on, but that that's that's one book. You got at least three more books. I mean, I'll tell the publisher, I'll give you something too. I mean, these shows are incredible. I can't I can't wait to watch

one of them. And I'm glad I learned that this one. Did I miss anything? And is there another show you're doing as well? Or is it just uh, it's the messiness, it's messiness. And then I I sold a scripted comedy to NBC that we're working on with them, and I wrote it with two other really fabulous like writers. It was it was really great. When I wrote the book,

I really fell in love with like writing. I always have loved like being funny with everyone, but like, I didn't know what I was going to how to write a book. So I worked with a ghost writer at first because I was like, Okay, I'll talk with them

and they'll help me write it. And then I basically I think it was it turned into like a course on how to write, where like they would help me like like set up how to build the story, and then I would go and I would like basically like rewrite everything and then send it back to them and they'd be like, change these few things. And it was like, honestly was like going to school and it was the

best thing, and and it really helped me. So like when we wanted to write this show, I felt like very confident that I was able to like write and and be funny like in written word on paper. So like that it was. It was great. I loved it. I writing is a lot of fun too. I want to thank you so much. She was great, great talking to you. Have a wonderful day there in Pasadena. Thank you, and I'll come visit soon. Thank you Jeffrey so much.

Thanks very much for listening to Four Courses with Jeffreys Z Carrion, a production of I Heart Radio and Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created by Jeffers Z Carrion, Margaret Secarrion, Jared Kelly, and Tara Helper, our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis. Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Hawes Dressler. Our research is conducted by Jescelyn Shields. Our talent booking

is by Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was edited and written by Priya Mahadevan and mixed by Joe Tistle. Special thanks to Katie Fellman and Adam Rippon for help as recording engineers. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.