Episode #62: Brad Stulberg, Author and Performance Coach

08/16/20 • 51 min

"If there was ever a time for mass-market doping to become even more widespread, for an 'anything goes' mechanistic mindset to take hold, this is it. Sport needs not to add fuel to this trend but to buck it; to serve as a strong counter-balancing force. To be a final frontier that reminds people what humans—not super-humans—are capable of."

Those are the words of author, performance coach, and Clean Sport Collective contributor Brad Stulberg. Brad is co-author of Peak Performance and The Passion Paradox with episode #26 guest Steve Magness.

Through his writing and his one-on-one performance coaching practice, he has made it his life's work to help people become better versions of themselves - the clean way. In addition to his books, you can also learn more about his principles for clean performance enhancement on his podcast with Steve Magness called The Growth Equation.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Shanna and Chris talk to Brad about his journey to helping people in this way and how it exposed him to the dark sides of enhancing performance, particularly in environments outside of sport such as the workplace. Brad provides great perspective on big clean-sport questions from the seemingly obvious - "Why is doping wrong?" - to the more complex - "Why not just make doping legal for all to level the playing field?"

Brad talks about his conversations with elite athletes like Shalane Flanagan on how they might deal with their thoughts and frustrations on doping in sport, and he gives us some outside-the-box, yet practical, solutions to the problem. As a bonus, we get some really helpful tips from Brad on dealing with the stress and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We appreciate Brad's perspective because he has a magical way of bringing simplicity to complex topics. This is a fascinating and provocative discussion that we think you will enjoy. Thank you to Brad for joining us!

Previous Episode

Episode #61: Jon Rankin, US Junior Champion in the 1500m and Founder of Go Be More Apparel

Jon Rankin is a self-described dreamer, and his story is one that is packed with equal doses of heartbreak and inspiration. In this conversation with Kara and Chris, you will hear about how he fell in love with the sport at the age of 14 watching Michael Johnson earn double golds in the 200 and 400 in Atlanta in 1996 and promptly announced to his parents that he would be an Olympian some day.

You will hear about his up-and-down high school career where he overcame a performance plateau his senior year to receive just enough attention from UCLA to make the team as a walk-on.

You will hear about his breakthrough performance to win the US Junior Championship in the 1500m his freshman year only to suffer 7 stress fractures over the next 2 years pushing him to nearly quit the team. You will hear about him learning to fall in love with the sport again and how that led him to break 4 minutes in the mile and run 17 straight PRs in his final outdoor track season at UCLA, which earned him a contract to continue his dream as a professional.

You will hear about him finishing 6th at the Olympic Trials in 2008 only to find out shortly thereafter that he had a terminal kidney disease and might only have months to live. You will hear the gut-wrenching emotion in his voice as he talks about how that news ended his career, contrasted with the joy he experienced when an experimental stem cell treatment miraculously cured the disease.

And of course, you will hear about his perspective on clean sport and why he has become an advocate for it since his time on the track including why he believes that the culture must be changed by the athletes from within.

Jon is now the founder of the apparel company Go Be More, and he's made it his mission to inspire others to pursue their dreams just like he did. We appreciate him sharing his story with us.

Next Episode

Episode #63: Summer Sanders, Olympic Gold Medalist in Swimming and Sports Commentator

"I really need athletes and coaches and executives within national governing bodies to understand... there is no gray area." - Summer Sanders.

We agree. There is no gray area when it comes to clean sport. There is also no gray area when it comes to how much we loved this conversation with Summer Sanders. She is exactly the person you hope she would be - real, funny, relatable, and an absolute inspiration in sport and in life. She also happens to be a 4-time Olympic medalist (including 2 golds) and has an equally impressive career in sports commentating.

Kara and Shanna lead this conversation and cover many aspect's of Summer's story from her childhood growing up in California, splitting time between divorced parents who both shaped her as a person, to her meteoric rise to multiple Olympic gold medals by the age of 19 and to her extensive resume in sports broadcasting.

Summer shares so many great stories in this episode. She talks about how barely missing an Olympic team at the age of 15 was exactly the failure she needed at the time. She describes every detail of her final gold-medal winning race in Barcelona and what it was like standing on the podium while the Star Spangled Banner played.

She discusses her life-long dream of being on TV and how that led to her career in broadcasting after the 1992 Olympics. Summer gets emotional talking about her experiences as a runner including her first marathon in NYC and running Boston in 2013, where she left the finish line just 15 minutes before the first bomb went off on Boylston.

Of course, we also ask her about the clean sport culture in swimming, when she became aware of doping herself, and how she dealt with it during her career. Then, we close with her hopes for the future of sport which are as black and white as they can be when it comes to this very important topic.

Summer is a hero to many in the pool and in front of the camera. We were absolutely honored to have her join us.