Michael Johnson: The Truth Behind 4 Olympic Golds, Doping & Team USA (E274)

0:00Watch it early on the High Performance App. Available now, Roman Kemp, the broadcaster, opens up a powerful conversation on success and mental health. I got more speed in my little finger than most people have in their whole body. And I was just born that way. It's not easy to become Olympic champion. It's not easy to become the best in the world. It's not easy to even become a professional. Not everybody can have it. There are only a few of us at the very, very top that get to be there. When I had my stroke, it was a crazy experience. I know my body and this is not right. Arm, fingers, leg, barely can move them.

0:38It's done. And that's the motivation to come back tomorrow and keep trying to give back. That is Michael Johnson. This is High Performance, the show that unlocks the minds of the most fascinating people on the planet. I'm Jake Humphrey. And on this show, we learn from the stories, struggles and successes of our guests, allowing us all to find our own version of high performance. and today we welcome a sporting legend to the show. One of the greatest and most recognisable athletes to ever compete. He remains the only man to win gold in the 200 and 400 metres at the same Olympic Games. But as you're about to hear, it's been far from a smooth journey.

1:19Let's do it and welcome MJ, Michael Johnson, to High Performance.

1:28Michael, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's good to be here. Nice to see you. Yeah. What does high performance mean to you? You know, high performance for me is all about sustained excellence and consistency around performance as opposed to, you know, sort of the spike, you know, or, you know, the one time great performance. When I was an athlete, for me, it was all about just sustained performance, consistency. Once I established a level of high performance in a race, then my expectation was that I'm going to always sort of hit that point consistently again and again and again or better. But, you know, there was no tolerance for, you know, sort of dips in performance that are dramatic.

2:24You know, that was not acceptable for me. So I look for that in everything. It's all about consistent, sustained, high performance. So should we talk about how you get to the peak first? Or should we talk about how you sustain it? Where should we begin? I think the common mistake is, you know, people think that, you know, getting to the top is hard. It's the hardest. And it is. It's really hard. There's no doubt about it. But once you get to the top, you know, you have the benefit at that point of knowing that, okay, I can do this. Now I've accomplished a significant, you know, feat in getting to the top.

3:00staying there is a whole different set of challenges. You know, when I first started in my career, and Carl Lewis and those sort of folks, you know, the big names, I had to knock them off in order for me to be on top. And that was extremely difficult. But no one knew who I was. No one was scrutinizing my performances. No one was, you know, questioning my choices of how I train and where I race and how I race. If I made a mistake, I was given the benefit of the doubt. That was on the journey to get to the top. But obviously, I wasn't on top yet, and I'm not as confident that I can actually ever get to the top because I've never done it before.

3:42I've got to beat guys like Carl Lewis. I've got to beat some of the best in order to get there, and I hadn't done that yet. So sometimes am I sort of doubting myself? Absolutely. And things go wrong, and you have a setback. You don't sort of have the confidence to fall back on a, well, I've already gotten to the top, so I know that I can get back there after a setback. You haven't even been to the top and you have a setback. And so you're like, am I ever going to get there? So that's the journey getting to the top. There's positives and negatives around that. Once you get to the top, now you got to stay there.

4:16Everybody's scrutinizing you. Everyone knows you. Everybody's watching your every move. Everybody's got an opinion. Fortunately, when I was competing, there was no social media. So they could make their opinion about me known to their friend, but they couldn't just post it to the world. You know, now they can. That's very difficult. But you're going to have injuries. You're going to have some losses. You're going to have some setbacks. But then you have the benefit of, well, I've already been on top. I know what it's like to be there. I have that confidence to fall back on. So those are the sort of positives and sort of negatives of being on top.

4:51But when you're there, you can't do the same things that got you to the top to just stay there. You have to do something different. You have to figure out now, okay, I spent years trying to get to the top, figuring out what it takes for me to get there. Now I've got to spend years figuring out what I have to do to stay here because just doing the same things that got me here aren't going to keep me here. So we know what you did. You got there and you stayed there. How you did it is fascinating. So what were the behaviors that you think got you to the top in the first place? Yeah, I think it absolutely goes beyond just sort of the cliche, just believe in yourself.

5:30When you're getting your ass handed to you, it's hard to believe in yourself, right? And you're not going to believe in yourself every day. So the question is, what do you do, to your point, it's the how. So what do you do when you're not believing anymore? And that's having good people around you who can pick up the slack and say, you know what? I do believe in you and you should continue to believe in yourself. And then it's the, you know, for me, it was always about the why. Why should I believe in myself? There are some significant proof points that I can, but I should believe in myself. I'm running the same sort of times that the people who are winning the medals are running.

6:08I need to do it now against them. I need to do it in those races. It's having proven to yourself that you are capable and having evidence to back that up. If all of the evidence points to that you're not going to get there because you haven't actually delivered those performances, then it's really going to be difficult for you to believe in yourself if the evidence shows otherwise. Hey, apologies for the interruption on this conversation with Michael. I just want to take a quick moment to tell you about some of the amazing partners we're working with, but stick around to find out what Michael was talking about when he said this.

6:45I'm shocked. I'm like, what is going on? The left side of my body is literally being paralyzed. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. Hey, hate to do this. Could we reschedule? Our morning hike.

7:29I was just about to ask the same. Next week? Yes, it's Dunkin' Original Blend Time. Staying at home with Dunkin'? Don't mind if I do. The Home with Dunkin' is where you want to be. This episode is brought to you by Opera Air, the first browser with mindfulness at its core. Now, most of us spend hours every day online, but how often do we pause to take care of ourselves whilst we're doing it? And that's where Opera Air comes in. It's a lightweight, fast, secure browser built not just for productivity, but for your well-being. With Opera Air, mindfulness is built right in. You'll find free breathing exercises, guided meditations, and soundscapes with ambient sounds, lo-fi music, and binaural beats, all designed to help you focus, relax, and even spark creativity while you browse.

8:21And before you had the first gold medal hanging around your neck, what was the why at this point? Because I think that, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, because I've not done it and you have, but you go through almost a lonely period where you haven't got the success and the accolades. But you also haven't got the nights out with your mates and the relationships that other people have got because you have this single-minded desire to be the fastest man on the planet. What's that period like and what keeps you going in that lonely period? There's a lonely period. There certainly was for me, but it was, you know, I was going out with my mates.

8:56I was having, you know, I had that balance from the very beginning, which I always felt was very important. And I was fortunate to have a coach who believed that as well. Like, you know, you got to get out and just go and have some fun, you know, and just, you know, have that balance. I did throughout my entire career. So, you know, that's not to say that there weren't sacrifices. There certainly were. It's funny because I was writing my book, Gold Rush. I interviewed all of these serial champions and I interviewed Daly, who's a good friend of mine, Daly Thompson, who's a good friend of mine. And we were talking and we were talking about sacrifice.

9:31We talk about this sort of stuff all the time. And so we were talking about, everybody always says, you know, about sacrifice. And he's like, I don't feel like I sacrifice anything to you. And I was like, no. And so we keep talking about it. And the next thing you know, we're talking about birthday parties that we missed. We talked about it. And both of us were like, it just didn't feel like a sacrifice because I'd rather be there, training, pursuing my goals than doing these other things, right? So it just didn't feel like a sacrifice. But there were sacrifices. So I had that balance. So that's not where the loneliness came from for me.

10:00The loneliness comes from when you're sort of alone with yourself, dreaming about that success, thinking about that success, and you're not there yet. Like you said, you haven't won the gold medals yet. You haven't won any medals yet. And you're wondering if you're ever going to get there. No one else, regardless of how many people you have around you that are supportive, they're not you. They're not the one with this talent and this belief in the talent. And also knowing that everyone else believes in me as well, but I have to be the one to go out there and do it. And that is a bit lonely when you have people around you who get that and understand that so that they're there to sort of try to fill in those gaps in those moments and be that support for you in those moments.

10:45That helps a lot. And what have you learned about the people around you? How to pick the right people? For me, I was really fortunate having parents and I come from a large family. There's five of us. I'm the youngest. And so I always had the support of my brother and my sisters and my parents. And so I look for people, you know, it was just kind of automatic for me to look for people like them. So my coach and my dad are very similar people. You know, high standards around excellence, but also very understanding, you know. And also, they both have that ability to sort of allow you to go out there and make the mistakes.

11:30Like my dad was very much a sort of disciplinarian, sort of military background. But at the same time, it's always like, you know, I'm going to give you the ability to go out there and make your own mistakes. I'm going to trust you until you show me that you can't be trusted. and that was for me as a young kid growing up was was very sort of liberating and and um like oh he trusts me you know so you don't want to like i didn't have like when i was growing up like other kids had you know like um you know curfew i didn't have one my dad was like you know you know what to do you know when you should be here you know and gave me just all sorts of freedoms of you know you know who i wanted to hang out with and trusted that i could you know take care of myself and that I would, you know, he knew he set the standard.

12:17Absolutely. Like, this is what I expect. And if you disappoint me, there's going to be a little bit of hell to pay. It was a very effective strategy. I didn't want to suffer that wrath for one thing. And, but I think he was very sort of crafty in the way of, you know, I'm going to set the standard where you don't want to disappoint me. And I didn't want to disappoint my dad. So you've got a coach that you also don't want to disappoint because he has similar attributes your dad. What was your coach like if you ever missed a training session or something? I never missed a training session. Never missed a training session.

12:49Come on, man. What, in your life? No. Never missed a training session. There was no reason to miss a training session. There was literally no reason to miss a training session. You could have been tired? You could have not fancied it that day? You could have been a bit down or not interested? I wanted it too bad. There was never a reason I missed a training session. What I did do, so I had two training sessions every day. Training on the track for our running sessions and then training in the weight room for our strength training. And I was always in the weight room. Never missed any of those either.

13:20But I wasn't really there. I didn't like it. So I wasn't really into it. And of course, as a sprinter, the running session is the bulk of the training. That's the most important part. And I was really good at it. And I loved running. That's another reason why I never missed a training session. I loved to run ever since I was a kid. So you're not going to miss what you love. You know, you're not going to just, there is no such thing as tired, you know, because this is fun. I love it. Love running. I mean, the training sessions are hard, but I love that, that part about it as well. I didn't like the strength training.

13:52Never liked it. So I was there, but I wasn't really, you know, committed to it. And my coach, you know, similar to my dad, you know, he would tell me, you know, if you really want this, you know, you need to get in that weight room, you know, and really give it, you know, everything. yeah coach and um so i was i had a lot of injuries in my four years um at university and college when i was competing to a point where every year when it came to championship time and i had the potential to be ncaa champion and um i was injured at the end of every year so my final year and in the u.s collegiate system it's kind of like you know you got really four years to prove yourself and you the best of training, the best of support.

14:37If you can't prove yourself then and then have that sort of catapult into a professional career, you're not worth it. You don't have it. So going into my final year, I was sort of in jeopardy of actually not having a professional or Olympic career because of all of the injuries. I had shown the potential. I absolutely had the potential, but the injuries were holding me back. So I go to my coach and I said, look, we got to do something about these injuries. And he said, yeah, I know. And he says, I believe in you. I believe in your talent. I'll do whatever I can to help you. And he said, let me give it some thought.

15:13Give me a few days. Figure out what we can do to try to eliminate this injury problem. I said, okay. And he says, you give it some thought too. I said, all right, I will do. Come back in a couple of days. I said, okay. Just as I'm walking out of his office, he says, oh, and Michael, let's think about anything that we haven't been doing that maybe we can start doing to try to mitigate or eliminate this injury issue. problem. I said, okay. I'm walking out of the office, walking to my car, and it just dawned on me I know exactly what he's talking about. What am I not doing that I could be doing better?

15:46And it's strength training. I always knew that, you know, every world-class sprinter is in the weight room getting strong. And I realized that, yeah, I have been trying very hard to avoid the thing that I don't like because I'd rather just do the thing I do like and trying to make this, you know, sort of excuse and trying really hard to become the first world-class sprinter ever to do so without weights and i committed to it and and yeah and finished that year without any injuries and and ended that year the first person ever in the world to be ranked number one in the world in the 200 and 400 meters and it was a it was a tremendous lesson that you know the fundamentals matter it takes what it takes this this illusion of you know that there's choices when you want to be world class.

16:31There are very few choices that you can make. You have to just do what you got to do. Takes what it takes. I love that. There's very few choices. The fundamentals matter and there are no choices around the fundamentals. Now, there are choices in terms of, you know, how you might actually, you know, start to push boundaries and do things that may be a little bit different than everyone else has done in order to actually excel and go beyond. And of course, I did that. And that's how I was able to make history multiple times in my career. But the fundamentals come first, and you cannot, you absolutely have no choice there.

17:03Those are critical. And you'd be surprised just in life how many times people try to avoid the fundamentals when that part is hard or that part they're not necessarily as good at. And we want to do the things we're good at. We want to do the things we like. And we'll sort of try to create and weave a path that avoids the hard things sometimes. and perhaps a great lesson as well as it was for you that the one thing that you want most is often on the other side of the thing that you're not doing exactly yeah yeah no no doubt so we talk often about the the difference between the mental and the physical aspects of of sport you know Dame Kelly Holmes has sat where you're sitting and said her success was 80 percent mental 20 percent physical where would you put that because you know when you weren't in the weight room you were still there mentally but it was the physical element that was letting you down and that was stopping you from achieving the thing you really wanted so where do you put the balance 100 and 100 my perspective is that everything i'm not going to spend time trying to figure out you know what percent is mental and what percent is physical because then i'm going to be focused on you know i'm going to i'm going to disperse my energy or focus on those things in that way.

18:18And other things, recovery, that balance that I was talking about, you know, the mental aspect of racing, the physical aspect, the emotional state that I need to be in to go out there and deliver my best. All of those things impact on performance. Anything that impacts on performance, I want to be 100 % proficient and as good as I can be in that particular area. If this impacts performance, how good can I be in this area? My focus is not about the split, but how good am I? What percentage of 100 % am I at and how much more can I improve? And I was at much closer to 100 % in terms of my physical preparation for races way before I got up to that point mentally.

19:09And so I was focused at the very beginning of my career, my professional career, on trying to level up that mental part because the pressure is there. You know, I know that physically I'm ready. Training-wise, I've done everything that I could possibly do to be ready physically to go out here and deliver a great performance. But in the moment, dealing with the pressure, I hadn't figured out yet, you know, how do I actually navigate this particular part of racing? being in that space where I'm, you know, able to control the nerves and I'm able to, you know, sort of deal with the pressure of the moment in a way where I can go out here and deliver my best performance as opposed to being, you know, a nervous wreck and now unfocused and going out here and, you know, and executing the race in a way that is extremely poor, riddled with mistakes, and then coming out of it and not knowing what the hell happened.

20:04I had to really work on that part of it. And I did at the very beginning of my career. I recognized that, you know, as opposed to, you know, being this percentage of physical, this percentage of mental, I knew that physically I'm there. I got to get there mentally. And I knew that mentally I'm not anywhere close to 100 % where I need to be. So what do I, so I worked on that from that perspective. What did you do? I visualized a lot. I studied a lot of why and a lot of sort of self-awareness of, okay, what is it about this moment that has actually got me so nervous? I knew even then when I didn't feel like I was as masterful around the mental part and dealing with the pressures, I wanted it to be that I actually enjoyed being nervous.

20:53I knew that I enjoyed it, but I hadn't figured out yet how to control it. I like the feeling to this day. That's the one part that I miss most about racing is that moment before the race begins. And I know that I can win, but I don't know if I'm going to win. I know that everybody out here is world-class and all of us are at our best and it's an Olympic final and I want this really bad. That feeling of just that nervous energy, I love it. I miss that. I loved it then, but I hadn't figured out and I knew I hadn't figured out yet how to actually control those nerves. So I worked on it and figured out what works for me.

21:32And what works for me was just being absolutely focused, no distractions, and focusing only in those moments, focusing only on and thinking only about the things that I can control, which is how I'm going to run this race. So I spent that entire time visualizing how I'm going to run this race, what might happen, and how I'm going to react to those things during the race. and getting really, really skilled at recognizing when my thoughts may actually drift off to something that actually I can't control. So, for example, what one of my competitors is doing are, you know, we're all in the same warm-up area prior to going out onto the track for the race.

22:13You know, I might see that athlete and he looks really good in warm-up. And I start thinking about, oh, yeah, I know he ran last week and wherever and ran a really fast time. If you say to yourself, I don't need to be thinking about that, you're going to think about that. So the process for me was, you know, once I recognized that I'm starting to think about that, I immediately start visualizing the race again. It was just almost like automatically, bang, gun goes off, and I'm running the race. And that was the process for me. When you visualized the race, what did you see? Was it the perfect race?

22:46No, not the perfect race. It was how I think this race is going to unfold, given who's in it and how they typically run. and maybe sometimes it's even a variation because I'd probably run that race just in the, you know, 20 minutes or so from the time I finish my warm-up to when we actually get on the track and race. I'd probably run that race 10 times. So sometimes there may be a variation where, you know, an athlete that I'm running against, that I've run against many times is in that race and maybe I'm visualizing them doing something now that I didn't really expect. And now how would I react to that if they're doing that?

23:22so that I'm just prepared for all of the different things that may happen in that race and how I need to react. Because the thing is, even in a 43-second, 400-meter race, you're constantly taking in all of this information about your own performance as well as the competitors, and you're making decisions in real time. You don't have time to sort of ruminate on that decision. Should I make an adjustment? I mean, the race is going to be over. You have to make that decision right now, It may be the right decision. It may be the wrong decision. The wrong decision can be a chain of wrong decisions that then causes you to lose the race.

24:01So, you know, visualizing it and being able to react quickly, you know, because you visualize it and you're now not surprised by those things is a tremendous help. That is so interesting for me because, as you know, I grew up watching you in your prime. And did you wear a chain when you ran? I have this image of, you know, the camera that's at the end watching you come down the back straight, right? And you're upright as you were. Your face is so relaxed, like your jaw is, like your lips are going up and down, your jaw is going up and down. The chain is bouncing around. I remember watching that as a teenager thinking, that guy's so in flow, he's not even thinking about anything else other than running.

24:45But what you've just explained is that over that 20-odd seconds, a million thoughts are coming into your head. you're reacting constantly. Yeah, I don't think we do a very good job in our sport of explaining to people the intricacies of racing. And that's another thing. We don't call it racing. We call it running. Well, everybody runs, and what do people do when they run? It's sort of mindless, right? But you're not running. You're actually racing. And you're having to balance in the race between producing the fastest performance you can but also racing against the other people and making adjustments based on what they do.

25:25You'd be surprised that just even of a 100-meter race, less than 10 seconds, you're executing a strategy and you're racing against other people and making decisions and taking in a tremendous amount of information and executing based on that. How would you be mentally walking to the blocks for something that's going to last 20 or 40 seconds that's taken four years of preparation? What's the final thing that you're thinking about in that moment that so much work is determined in such a minuscule amount of time? Well, first I'm thinking, if this race takes 20 seconds, I'm going to be done. I'm last.

26:00Okay, yeah, all right. There are people in the race that did finish it in 20 seconds, but it wasn't me. No. Ever the competitor. So, yeah, going to the blocks, I'm thinking only about the race. Nothing else. Only about the race. So the weakest part of my race was always my start. My start was not great. Never was great. And as a 200 meter sprinter, I was typically in the 200 meters competing against 100 meter sprinters who are 100 meter specialists, 100, 200. I was 200, 400. They are amazing starters. So that was always going to be my weak part. I was never going to be the fastest out of the blocks, but I couldn't give up too much ground.

26:45I was always focused at that point as I'm walking to the blocks thinking about reaction to the gun. How well I can react to the gun. So I'm constantly just thinking, trying to get my nervous system really hyperactive and trying to really focus on this reaction, reaction. Again, a lot of visualization. But this time it's more auditory. So just kind of thinking, just like imagining that I hear a gun go and just react. Hearing the gun go and react. Hearing the gun go and react. your tendency, your natural tendency, is to listen for the gun. But if you listen for it, it's too late. Sometimes, you know, there's a false start, and, you know, the person, of course, is going to act like, oh, what did I do?

27:31You know, and they'll start, you know, pointing at somebody in the stands, or, oh, I heard something or I saw something, because that's a legitimate excuse. You know, you should be out of the blocks and gone. Once the starter says, take your marks, and you get into the set position, the next thing should be the gun. So if anything, a camera clicking or something goes up, you should be gone. Because you're just so hyper aware to that sound or anything close to it should set you off. So what I was trying to do is, yeah, just kind of get that nervous system up to a point where I'm so reactionary that I can actually get out and not give up too much ground to my competitors.

28:12It is absolutely fascinating. Everyone, in truth, is looking to be the best they can be in their own world. And everyone suffers and gets derailed by setbacks and disappointments, right? Yours is just on a global scale, at the elite top of the sporting world. but I'd be really interested in what those difficult moments taught you how you dealt with them that would be valuable for people who aren't in your world but actually would still benefit from hearing you talk about it yeah so first it was that's biggest disappointment of my career full stop I had gotten food poisoning so I was world champion ranked number one in the world for two years undefeated and huge favorite to win the 200 meters at the at the Olympics and And a month or so, six weeks or so before, I had just missed that on the world record, just barely missed it at our Olympic trials.

29:04So I was in the best shape of my life. And when I got to food poisoning, it was about a week or so before I was competing. So at that point, you're not really doing any sort of strenuous work. You're in a taper mode where you're basically just working on starts and very technical things. had we done any training that was sort of a strenuous type of training, I would have known that, yeah, there's something going on. I've lost a lot of strength. So I fully expect it, even though, because by the time my first race at the Olympics came on, I was over the food poisoning, felt fine. But that first race, I went out, gun goes off.

29:50Usually in a first round, I can just sort of, I'm going to run the first 100 meters of that 200 meters, and then I'm just going to have a huge gap. And then I'm just going to, because it's the first round, and most of the athletes there, they're not going to be in the final. But I find myself just in an absolute battle of a race in the first round. This has never happened to me before. Like, what is going on? I feel like I'm running in someone else's body. I don't feel like I'm running in my own body. I'm extremely weak. And it takes everything. I win that race, but just barely. And it took everything in me.

30:19And I knew immediately something's wrong. And it got worse in the next round. And then I ultimately didn't make the final. So very disappointing and embarrassing. You know, one of the biggest favorites, you know, in front of the entire world. Now I'm out. And that's all everybody's talking about. What happened? What's going on with Michael? And I knew of athletes who were world record holders, world champions, that had the butt, never won an Olympic gold medal. And I never wanted to be that. And that was the one thing missing at that point. I'd done all of the other things already in my young career.

30:58One thing you know as an Olympic athlete, because the Olympics, it's every four years, not every year, it's every four years, you may never get back there. Most people make one Olympics. I was fortunate to go to three, but that's rare. So is there some fear at that point? Yeah, absolutely. There's fear of, you know, that I may not get back here. This may have been my one shot. What does this mean for my career going forward? There were some moments where I started to question myself, question my talent. Because if you look at it from one perspective, you know, it's I was a world champion. I was the best in the world.

31:33It's all I've known my professional career. From the moment I left college and became a professional, I was the best, not only in the 200 meters, in the 400 meters and making history right away. This was my third year as a professional for that three years and up to that point. my whole reputation was I just win everything and I went big and I'm unbeatable that was my reputation so now that I'm no longer the champion I'm no longer the best I'm no longer you know this unbeatable and then what am I the aura has gone yeah I've always been a realist like brutally real with myself and as I started thinking I was just at home by myself one day and I was thinking about, okay, well, next year, next season, you know, what's that going to look like?

32:24World championships coming up and, you know, full season next year, what's that going to look like? And the reality, you know, as I started thinking about what's that going to look like is I'm going to be racing against all of those guys that won the medals. These are the same guys I've been racing against for the last two years. Every time I race them, I beat them except this one time because I had food poisoning. The reality is if I can avoid getting food poisoning next year when I race against these guys, I'm going to most likely do the same thing that I was doing for the last three years. I'm going to be winning.

33:01And that's the reality. And sometimes the wins seem bigger than they are. The losses and the setbacks seem bigger than they are. And just sort of being grounded in that reality absolutely helps. And it certainly helped me in that moment to sort of put things in real perspective. But it helped to also allow myself to go through that period of being really disappointed and sad and scared and angry and all of those things to then get to the point where, all right, you know, let's get on with it. I like the description you have of you're brutally realistic with yourself. I am really honest with myself.

33:38I am very much evidence-based in everything that I do, believing in myself. I believed in myself because I had evidence to prove that. And I think I have the benefit of also believing that hard things are going to be hard. It's not easy to become Olympic champion. It's not easy to become the best in the world. It's not easy to even become a professional. One of the things that makes it so great and so desirable is that not everybody can have it. There are only a few of us. at the very, very top that get to be there. So just because I want it, I certainly didn't grow up in a household where everything I wanted, I got, or there weren't people from my neighborhood who went on to just achieve amazing things.

34:24Everything was hard. And you didn't just get what you believed that you deserved. You got what you worked for. That's just the reality of the situation. And I think I benefited from that. I didn't expect any of these things to be easier. I expect them to be hard. So that sort of being real with yourself is looking for evidence to, you know, beyond just the emotional sort of, well, you know, I want it, you know, and I believe that I should be there. I believe I deserve it. Doesn't matter. Success doesn't really care about what you believe you deserve. And it's hard. So, you know, for me, being really brutally honest and realistic with myself is, you know, asking those hard questions around, you know, why do you believe that?

35:14Why do you deserve this? More so than anyone else. You know, try that. Why you? You know, I would ask myself a lot of times as when I was having all of my success even, why me? Because I had a lot of friends who wanted to be in this position. We all ran. We all dreamed of being professionals, going to the Olympics, and they didn't get there, and I did. Why was it you then? I got more speed in my little finger than most people have in their whole body. And I was just born that way. And I'm very fortunate in that way. Now, once you get to, you know, the elite level, now everybody's got a lot of speed.

35:54But I still was born with more than them, you know, and an ability, you know. So that, you know, but how much more? Now it's marginal. We talked about, you know, in the 200 meters as an example. I'm running against guys that are much quicker than me in terms of just absolute foot speed. They've got more than me. They've got more speed than I have, but they don't have the ability to hold that speed as long as I do. So I have to find the advantages that I have, train those, and that's the other reason why me. I had a great coach. We were a great team. we found things in me that were advantages that most people never knew existed in an athlete.

36:35The ability to hold my speed longer than most people, the ability to run more upright and run with a different style than other people do, that may not be something that needs to be changed just because it doesn't look like everyone else. That may be an advantage, and it turns out that it was. I remember people saying, if he changed his running style, he'd be even quicker. And you just wonder. And again, and that's, so, you know, again, one of the why me is because I had a great coach and we took a very scientific, but also a very practical approach to things. And that, you know, instead of assuming very simply that if everyone else runs this way, Michael will run faster if he runs that same way.

37:23We didn't make that assumption. Even when I wasn't winning, my coach didn't make that assumption. He took a look at me from a biomechanical standpoint and thought, I think that, you know, there's something there. And there was. And so those are the reasons why me is because we were able to, on top of me being, you know, very, very blessed with a tremendous amount of natural talent, we were able to also figure out, you know, how to get the most from that talent. And then just from a personal standpoint, the athletes who thrive and have the sort of talent that I have and those who don't comes down to just how you make decisions, your decision making.

38:05You know, the decisions you make impact everything you do. And I was fortunate to make mostly the right decisions most of the time.

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40:06You based your life on evidence, not really on emotion. And you voluntarily handed back a gold medal. Before we talk about why you did that and what you did, all these years later, how does it feel when I say, MJ, four-time Olympic gold medalist? I'm used to it now. So I won my last, the fifth of my five Olympic gold medals. That was the last one in Sydney, four by 400 meter relay. I retired after that. I retired a five-time Olympic gold medalist. Never thought I would end up going backwards. That never thought, never even entered my mind. And so then it is, I believe, seven years, six or seven years later, Antonio Pettigrew, who was on the 4x400 meter relay with me in Sydney, had also retired.

40:59But admitted in a grand jury investigation into the Balco drug scandal that he had actually been cheating and using performance enhancing drugs during that time. He never tested positive, which tells you just how intricate that process was then where people were actually cheating and never even got caught, had retired from the sport. Had he not admitted it, no one would have ever known. And so when he admitted it, I was obviously very disappointed because I was associated with that relay as one of the four team members. And I was really pissed. I was really upset because we could, with all due respect to you, Jake, you know, we could have won that relay with you on there.

41:43We didn't need Antonio on there. We could have run. We were so far ahead. We could have had anyone on there. He was on there, and he was cheating, and so for that, you know, I just, I didn't, I had always been outspoken about doping in our sport and still am and just didn't want to have my name associated with that medal. So I gave it back. Hard decision. It wasn't a hard decision. I gave it back knowing that this is the right thing to do. I don't want to have anything to do with it. A little bit harder, I guess, in the sense that I knew that they were going to come after that medal. And I knew that the U.S.

42:20Olympic Committee was going to fight it. And they would have had a better chance fighting it if I was there with them on that fight. And so when I chose not to go in that fight, that meant the other two relay members on there who probably wanted to fight it. probably weren't going to have a very good chance at that point. But it was not that hard for me. It was disappointing. I was very angry for a while. Because, yeah, now I'm a four-time Olympic gold medalist, not a five-time Olympic gold medalist, through no fault of my own. I didn't know Antonio Pettigrew that well. We were competitors first because he was, for many years, the number one ranked 400-meter runner in the world.

42:59Or number two, rather, behind me. And we were sort of battling. He was world champion in 1991. and so we were always competing against one another. So, you know, I didn't know him that well, but I thought I knew him well enough. I was a little bit surprised, but I was very disappointed and I was very angry about that. And then, yeah, then it even got sadder because he ended up taking his life, which was just, the whole thing is just, it's bad. It's just, but it's one of those things where, you know, doping in our sport is something that is always talked about. I think our sport does a much better job than most in policing and anti-doping, but our sport is more susceptible to it because there's such a low barrier to entry to get into the sport, and it's worth it for a lot of people who grow up in countries and situations where they don't have a lot, and this could be their ticket out.

43:56But I think that people often think that it's easy for people to go and make that choice, And I think that his whole situation proves that it's not that easy. And it ended up, you know, just devastating an entire family. And I don't think we talk enough about that. And that is particularly difficult. You know, I've got family experience of suicide. And it leaves a very strange emotion, doesn't it, in everyone connected to the whole thing. Antonio had a wife and a young son at the time. And, you know, I think about my own family. You know, if that were me, you know, if I had made that choice. you know in my life and yeah everyone's proud of you you know and what you've accomplished and you're representing your country and then for it to all you know you're carrying this secret and that's got to be difficult it's got to be really hard and then they find out that you know this thing that they were so proud of wasn't really real and that it was you know as a result of cheating that's one thing and then you know um for him to feel you know for whatever reason to to take his own life you know i'm sure that was very difficult again for that family just you know and and having to live with that and deal with that that's got to be devastating absolutely um well let's talk about a big a big challenge that you've faced since you retired which was your stroke how hard was it for you to mentally come to terms with the fact that this amazing body you've already said you had more speed in your little finger than most people have in their entire bodies you know your body gave you so much and then suddenly was letting you down how did you deal with that that has probably been the most unbelievable unexpected experience of my life when i had my stroke it was a crazy experience i didn't i didn't feel any major discomfort i didn't feel any you know pain i just had this strange sensation where I was struggling to move my fingers.

45:57I was struggling to coordinate my left leg. And this was right after I finished a workout in my gym. So really just out of an abundance of caution, decided I'll just go to the emergency room and have them check this out. So how long have these symptoms been there for? 30 minutes. Okay. But I know my body and this is not right. Again, out of an abundance of caution. Like an hour later after these, you know, they're checking me out, running some tests, and it's just getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. It's just getting worse. Now I can't move my fingers at all. My left leg, I can't stand on it.

46:38I can't walk. And I can't move my arm. I was trying to move it. It's very scary. This is, this is, it's shocking. I'm shocked. I'm like, what is going on? The left side of my body is literally being paralyzed. So they tell me that, yeah, you have suffered a stroke. And I'm just like, this is not even, this is not happening. This is impossible. I'm scared to death. My wife is there with me. And we are just like, what is happening? So, of course, my immediate question then is, how long will it take me to recover? and there's a team of doctors there and they said look you know that is that's the question that is the right question the answer is going to depend on the next you know few weeks if you'll make a full recovery how much you'll recover some people don't recover some people make a partial recovery some people make a full recovery you're probably the candidate for full recovery given that you're in good shape, but can't guarantee anything.

47:44And it's going to depend on the next few weeks. And I had one doctor who told me primarily it's going to depend on you. So I bet you quite liked hearing that though. Yeah. I mean, it was - That plays into everything that you've told us so far. Yeah, no doubt about it. But, you know, he's one of a group of doctors who have said, and all of this continues to come with, you know, no one has any concrete answers for me. So in this situation, I have no evidence, right? So the reality right now is that I'm sitting here, laying here, and I can't stand and I can't walk. And I need help doing everything.

48:24The symptoms get worse and worse. They get worse. They then stop getting worse? They stop getting worse at that point. After treatment? No, so there's no treatment. So what I had was an ischemic stroke, which means that there was a blockage deep in the right side of my brain. And by the time I got to the hospital, the first thing, if you've suffered a stroke, the first thing that happens is they'll do a scan. And you may see some blockage. And if there is blockage there, that means that the blood is obviously not getting out to all of the places it needs to get to. They will give you a medication that's basically called a clot buster.

49:05And it just dissolves that clot so the blood flow can continue going. So now that stops, you know, that, you know, so whatever damage is done to that point is done, but it doesn't continue. So that's why you hear nothing else. If you're experiencing any sort of, you know, discomfort, weirdness, you know, and lack of movement, face drooping, slurred speech, that sort of stuff, get to the hospital as quickly as you possibly can. When they did the scan for me, they didn't see anything. and the doctor said to me at that point we think you may have had a stroke but we're not seeing any clots or any blockage and I was thinking you're not seeing any blockage because there's no way I had a stroke that's my thinking but then you're fearing what else could this be though if there's not a stroke but the next step was then doing an MRI get in the MRI and I've had lots of MRIs from pulled hamstrings and things and I always just fall asleep in the MRI machine.

50:03Get in there, roll me in, fall asleep. Wake up, roll me out, try to get off. Now, I can't. Now, it's done. Left side, arm, fingers, leg, barely can move them. And that was it. So that was the pinnacle. That was where, okay, now this is worse. I mean, it couldn't get any worse than that. And that was, so it never affected any of the right side of my body. Never affected my speech. Never affected my face or anything. it was just my left arm and leg. I could have very well just tried to sleep it off and I probably wouldn't be here today. And then recovery. You know, recovery is hard. Yeah, many people give up because the recovery is really hard.

50:45A lot of days you don't see any improvement. For me, I was very fortunate having been an Olympic athlete who, you know, my daily routine was, you know, tiny little, mostly unrecognizable gains on a daily basis. Some days when you're training at such a high level, you'll have a really hard training session and you'll feel like, I didn't get any better today. I just wasted all of that time. But you know as an athlete that I did get better. And that's the case for stroke victims. You'll go through not just a day. Sometimes there's a period where you're trying to get better because you're trying to regain movement.

51:27and some days you feel really good. And that's the motivation to come back tomorrow and keep trying to get back. So a lot of people who don't recognize those, they haven't been trained like I was to recognize those little tiny gains and improvements, don't recognize them and they feel like they're getting worse. So they stop and think this is it. This is as good as it's going to get. Why keep putting myself through this? I mean, just get on with my life and accept that, you know, this is my life. So I was very fortunate to have been experienced in that world. And so I took it on and felt confident.

52:05And I was, you know, and I was getting proof, you know, every day that, yeah, I'm going to make a full recovery. So how soon did the recovery begin? I had to wait about a week before I could actually start doing anything and they would let me even just get up and get out of, you know. So how does it begin? if you can't use your left hand side and can't walk how do you even begin the process yeah so the good thing is also is that i was in very good shape you know before i had the stroke so my right side is pretty strong so i could use that and and and just compensate for what i couldn't do on the left side so it starts with just getting up and starting to try to walk and i had a physical therapist he got me out with a walker and we you know we started working and he said, I guarantee you, you're going to make a full recovery.

52:54And he just saw, you know, you know, the type of shape I was in, the type of person I was and my drive. And I felt it as well. I knew that, you know, I can make a full recovery. So I started on that journey and just kind of threw myself into it, shut out everything else, work, you know, all of my ventures, sort of left that to other people and just focused. I was training three times a day and just back into the same sort of mindset that I was in as when I was competing. And that was familiar to me. And I know that I was very fortunate that I had that familiarity. What a humbling experience though.

53:35The fastest man in the world is suddenly walking using a walker. Yeah. How much has it changed your outlook? It hasn't. It hasn't really much. When I was, you know, a lot of people talk about, you know, how that type of experience sort of makes them appreciate things more. And for me, I literally had this conversation with my wife. We were in the hospital and she said, you know, I don't understand why this happened to us. and I said to her, you know, think of all of the things that I've accomplished, all of the things that we have. This happens to people, so why not me? And she said, you're the only person that would ever say something like that.

54:22And that's just, you know, that's the way I look at things. You know, like I said, when I was having all of my success, my perspective was, you know, why me? You know, there are so many other people out there and I know that, you know, there are people who suffer from a stroke and they've already had a horrible life. Everything has been just stacked against them. Never got to accomplish their goals. Maybe they were discriminated against. Maybe they were, who knows? You know, just, I didn't have that experience. I've had an amazing life. I was 50 when I had my stroke, about to be 51, and I'd had an amazing life to that point.

54:56That's not to say that I was, you know, wasn't scared of what the future might hold, but first and foremost, I was happy that I was just still there. So for me, you know, it was, why not me? The only thing it did do is, you know, I have always been really good at handling pressure. So whether that's the pressure of competing or the pressure of, you know, my goals now, you know, and performing under pressure. And I was always that person that, yeah, when the pressure comes, you know, I'll handle it and take it on. I never figured out why I had a stroke. Nothing in my, we ran multiple tests after that and during and never figured out why I had a stroke.

55:38And the best I can come up with is just the fact that because I'm good at handling stress, I felt like, you know, I can take it on and it probably wasn't good for me. Every year I go through my full, you know, very extensive two-day medical exam, high-level executive medical exam. And one of the things that I would say is rate your stress level. And I would always put my stress level at sort of from zero to four, I think like one or something like that. When in actuality, that was probably three. But because I'm good at it and I actually enjoy it, taking on stressful situations because I know how to manage it well, it probably was having a different effect on my body.

56:27it's the best I can come up with. Lots of people that listen to this exist in the world that you're now in, in the world of business, in the world of entrepreneurship. Because we know about the gold medals. We know about the Olympic Games and we know about the punditry and all the elite work you've done. What do you think makes you a successful founder, CEO, entrepreneur? I think the biggest factor in my success as an entrepreneur has been the lessons I learned as an athlete. It's been invaluable. But also, you know, this was a passion as well. I mean, when I was at university, I did not think I was going to be an Olympic athlete.

57:04I thought I'd be an entrepreneur. And I was very fortunate. I loved being an athlete and I was very fortunate to be able to have a professional career in it. But I always knew once that's over, this is what I'm going to do. And I was in a much better position to do it, you know, when I stopped my athletic career and was able to, you know, enter the entrepreneurial world as an Olympic champion. A lot of the things that I learned as an athlete, just how to get the best from myself from a performance standpoint, learning that in the environment I did, in the sports environment where every hundredth, tenth of a second counts and where you have these amazing one-time opportunities, an Olympic Games, a world championship where you've got to deliver in the moment and there's no do-overs.

57:51you know that that's an amazing environment to learn how to to do to be your best and having major major setbacks and downfalls like i had and been having to overcome those and come back that was a great environment for me to learn how to deliver my best and how to get the best for myself and as a manager of people you know i was able to learn early on that you know my ability to help them lies and my ability to help them understand how to get the best from themselves and how to figure that out the same way I did as opposed to, hey, here's how I do it. Just do it the way I do it because everybody's different.

58:27So in managing people, I understood that my role is to, I'm in a unique position to be able to share with them. This is how I figured out how to get the best for myself and what I respond to best and how I emotionally and mentally get myself in a space where I can be my best. Now, that was my process, and I'm going to share that process with you. And now you figure out how to apply that to your own life. Would you share the key elements with us for people who are looking to be their best? It's a lot of self-awareness and understanding sort of yourself and how you tick. I know when I was just nervous and the nerves are controlling me instead of me controlling them before a race, you know, like, why is this happening?

59:11Why am I so nervous before this race? And the point about the nervousness was it's extraordinarily uncomfortable. And the question I had then was, can I actually get comfortable with this? And yeah, I can by controlling the nerves instead of allowing them to control me. Brilliant. Time for some quickfire questions if you're happy. Sure. The three non-negotiable behaviors that you and the people around you ideally should buy into. Excellence should always be the goal. You don't want to just settle for short of excellence. You might fall short of excellence, but that should be the goal. Teamwork makes the dream work.

59:56Silly, goofy phrase, but absolutely. Team is everything. And a team that isn't cohesive and doesn't work together is an absolute disaster. I've seen it. Third, no shortcuts. If you could go back to one moment in your life, where would you go and why? It's going to sound weird. I'd go back to 1992 in Barcelona when I had food poisoning. I don't remember a lot of that. I don't remember a lot of that experience. I think I buried it so much after I was done with it, kind of once I got over it, because it was a horrible experience. So in that situation, I didn't win the gold medal as a 200 meter. So I want to go medal at that Olympics in a four by 400 meter relay.

1:00:43It's one of my four. I barely remember it. I remember all the other three like yesterday. I barely remember that one because it was in such a cloud of sadness and anger. And, you know, I was out there and I was just like, I'm just doing my part as part of this team. And, you know, I didn't really care much about it at the time. Now I cherish that medal because it was under a really difficult circumstance. So I'd go back there. What's your biggest strength and what's your greatest weakness? I think my biggest strength is being just a realist. Part of that is just also understanding myself. I think I understand myself really, really well.

1:01:20It's an ongoing journey that I've been on since I've been a teenager, trying to understand myself to get the best for myself. I think that's probably my biggest strength. I understand how to get the best for myself because I understand myself so well. Up until recently, my biggest weakness was just, you know, not relying as much as I need to on others. But I've corrected that, probably overcorrected it, and I'm happy about that. I enjoy, you know, now just, you know, sitting around, you know, conference table and team meetings. And, you know, somebody's got to, you know, take on that challenge.

1:01:59and me just sitting on my hands, making sure that I don't raise my hand and take that on and letting somebody else do it. Prime Michael Johnson. Prime Usain Bolt. Who wins? Look, if you asked any athlete at that level, they're going to only have one answer. It's going to be themselves. I've asked Usain that question and his answer was predictably him. And my answer is predictably me. The good thing for me and for him is that we don't actually have to ever do that.

1:02:33Why would you win? Just, you know, look, I did not go into any race, and I had some major competitors during my time, 200 meters and 400 meters, and sometimes I went into one of those races at a disadvantage because I was just coming out of the other one. And I just always, I didn't get into any races. I didn't think I could win. I thought, I think, you know, I could rise to whatever occasion. You know, Usain's an amazing athlete, and he would have had an advantage on me a little bit out of the blocks. But, you know, when he's slowing down at the end, he's not the most efficient at the end of the race.

1:03:08I'm extraordinarily efficient. I would have beaten him on speed, endurance, ability to hold my speed, and my ability to be more efficient. And I'm just going to stick to that to the day I go to my grave. Perfect answer. No one will ever know. No one will ever know. So I have that advantage. No one will ever know. Brilliant. The final question, the thing you'd like to leave people ruminating on, thinking about, reflecting on your one golden rule for living a high-performance life. Balance. It's all about balance. High performance to me is sustained, consistent high performance, and you have to have balance in order to do that.

1:03:49You can't, you know, just sort of be all in on everything and just, you know, and sort of, you know, no balance and just all in on this one thing and sustain it it's not it's not sustainable Michael thank you very much I absolutely enjoyed it man me too I love that

1:04:06and that's it Michael I can't thank you enough for coming on the show and sharing things that I've never heard you speak about and you know let me just say that I worked with Michael right at the start of my broadcasting career and it was an honor to sit alongside him then as a legend of the sport and it's an honour now to have a conversation with him that I enjoyed so much. Don't forget, there's only one thing I ask from you and that's to follow us. Please hit follow. It totally changes the game for us on high performance and it means we can keep on inviting global stars to this show to help you.

1:04:38Thanks very much for listening and we'll see you again soon.

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