Olympic Gold Medalist LaShawn Merritt Reveals His Winning Mindset! | DSH #1201

Track and field is a contact sport.

The amount of force that we apply through the foot, I mean sometimes I leave practice and I feel like I got hit by a truck.

Damn.

Yeah.

With the lactic acid and the force application, it's a lot.

Did you accomplish everything you wanted to?

Truck?

All right, guys, got LaShawn Merritt here, Olympic champ.

Brought the medals.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Yes, sir.

I appreciate you for having me, Sean.

Absolutely.

Brought the 08 and the 16 gold medal.

Let's go.

I did.

I did.

I have the 08 here from Beijing with a little bit of

Chinese jade in it.

And I also have

the last one I got from Rio.

This was my 4x4, but the Beijing was my most special one.

That was my individual 400.

Oh, I love that, man.

Man, the Rio one's huge.

Yeah.

It's like double the size of the Beijing one.

It is.

More work.

put into that also.

Later in my career, people always say, man, this is heavy.

And then that was a lot of years, a lot of work put into that.

Yeah, did you feel like you lost a step in your later years?

You know, I didn't.

Well, I felt like I was more experienced, actually.

But the guy actually ran faster in 16 than I ran in my 08.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

So, this one, the

real goal was from the 4x4.

Got it.

And you kind of retired near your P because you retired the next year after getting gold.

I retired.

So, after 16,

17, I ended up having a foot injury.

And in 19, I ended up having toe surgery.

So I was training.

I was hurting.

I wasn't enjoying it anymore.

And then I retired.

That's the only job I've ever had.

I was a bagger at a grocery store in the 10th grade.

Wow.

But this has been the only thing I've ever done.

Wow.

So you were all in.

That transition must have been tough, though.

Really tough.

Because you're so used to having a coach every day, right?

Man, the discipline, the accountability, the purpose that I live for.

I was the guy who fell in love with the process.

And when I was finished,

I didn't have much to turn to.

No wife,

no kids, no daily responsibility and accountability.

And it got tough.

Right, because you probably had to sacrifice dating while you were an athlete, right?

Absolutely.

Because you're traveling everywhere.

Absolutely.

It was tough.

You were locked in on work.

Wow.

Yeah.

So how did you get through that time?

Did it take some years?

It took about two years.

It took about two years.

And I ended up calling my chiropractor, who I took around the world with me for 17 years.

He was the first guy I I would see off of a plane, last guy I would see before I ran a competition.

So I trusted him a lot, spent a lot of time with him.

And he suggested that I go into commentating.

Then I told him I don't, I'm not really an enthusiast of the sport of tracking field, so I don't really know the people.

But I understand chiropractic care, I understand

gratitude, humility, discipline, accountability.

So I started to talk and inspire chiropractors, let them know how important their work was and how the physical alignment mattered just as much to me as the holistic approach that I took, understanding that everything mattered on and off the track.

Wow.

I didn't know alignment played such a big role.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So a lot of runners use chiropractors?

Absolutely.

And then the nervous system controls everything.

Wow.

And if you're not sending that signal from the brain to that spot and you have glitches and the bones are out,

that's time that's delayed.

Dang, that's so interesting.

Is that a sprinter thing that they use chiropractors or do the distance guys use?

I think distance does also, because track and field is a contact sport.

The amount of force that

we apply through the foot, I mean, sometimes I leave practice and I feel like I got hit by a truck.

Damn.

Yeah.

With the lactic acid and the force application, it's a lot.

You said you were holistic earlier, so you ate a pretty clean diet, right?

I did.

I did.

Vegetarian vegetarian or was it?

No,

just the approach of

understanding everything mattered.

The peace, the rest and recovery,

your environment mattered outside of what you were doing in a training session.

Yeah.

That's something I think a lot of people take seriously these days, right?

Absolutely.

Diet part of things.

Absolutely.

Diet for me, I come from a family that has pretty good DNA.

So I never really counted calories.

I never really had to lose that much weight.

But I stayed disciplined in what I ate.

I mean, I knew what to eat before practice, after practice.

I ate a lot of the same things a lot, and I didn't mind.

Did you accomplish everything you wanted to in truck?

Sort of.

I didn't break the world record.

Oh.

That was your goal?

My approach was to bring my best self and maximize that sport.

And I knew that my runway in life was going to be a lot longer than the sport.

So I I wanted to get into the sport, dive in, stay in my bubble,

take as much of the mental approach as possible because I knew that would translate to life.

I love that.

So I was a runner in high school, and I attribute a lot of my success in business to the mindset from running.

800 meters was my event.

That's a tough one.

It's a tough one, man.

That's a tough one.

Have you ever run one of those?

I have.

And at 600, my mouth went numb, and my body went numb, and I haven't ran it since.

I tore my glute in the last 50 on one of them.

800.

You know, there's

people ask me all the time which event and which discipline is the hardest.

I had a conversation with the 800-meter world champion at one time, and he said the eight.

I mean, I respect the four and I run the four, but the eight is hard.

But I asked the coach.

The coach said the 400 by far.

Really?

If you ask anybody in the sport, they may say the 400.

Because you're on an island for so long, and the eight, the tempo is a little bit slower.

Some people say the 400 hurdles, but the 400 hurdles, you can get into a rhythm and boom, boom, boom, jump the hurdle.

Not 400, you get on that back stretch and

you're on this island, then this electrical fence hits you at 200.

Then you have 200 to go.

Then you're at 300, then the gorilla jumps on your back, and there's nothing in front of you to kind of

pace

or calculate jumping a hurdle or so on.

It's a lot.

The aerobic and anaerobic system is

fired up in the 400.

Yeah.

I wonder what Rye Benjamin would say because he does both.

He does the hurdles with four.

Hmm.

That's interesting.

He'd be the right person to ask.

He would.

And he can run a crazy 400.

Yeah.

Four is looking good for USA athletes, right?

We just got the gold at the last one.

Yes, we did.

That was the craziest 400 I've ever seen.

Man, and Quincy was the first American to win gold in the 400 since I won and no wait.

And won by a toe.

He was behind a lot coming into that last hundred and won it by a toe.

That was an amazing race.

It's hard to have a kick like that in the four.

Grit.

Pure grit.

Will to win.

Was he hitting you up for advice?

He wasn't.

He started as a distance runner, and he ran 400 hurdles, and he found that sweet spot.

He stayed patient.

He remained confident, and he wanted it.

You can tell he wanted it.

I love that.

Did you have someone in your corner before races you could text or hit up for some advice?

Like a mentor?

An old coach.

My first coach.

First coach.

I ended up going through three coaches in my career.

My first coach was more of that developmental coach.

So

I would get with coaches and I would buy into the program.

But before a world championship or a major competition, I would always go back to my first coach to just understand the basics of everything.

Before competition, the night before, I would always listen to interviews of Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather, Conor McGregor, Muhammad Ali, these athletes who competed in individual sports and just took a little bit of that mindset into my competition.

I love.

Is there any races you still think about?

You have Nightmares Over?

Yes.

2016,

200 meters.

Damn.

I was the only, I had run three rounds of the 400 at a day off,

and I had three rounds of the 200.

And I was the only American to make the 200-meter final.

And when I got there, I had

so many mouths already in my legs because of the 400.

And my coach didn't want to train me for the two.

He trained me just for the four.

So when I got into the 200-meter final, I didn't know how to execute it.

And

I really felt like I could have meddled that race, but I wasn't like championship mindset.

I didn't know how to really break it down with tired legs.

And that race still

haunts me a little bit because it's like, man, I could have got a medal in the Olympics in the four and the two.

But

life goes on.

I'm here now.

I'm making impact.

And I had an amazing career.

I love that.

Usain Bolt won that one, right?

He did.

Man, he had a long career.

He did.

An amazing guy, too.

Good friend of mine.

Yeah.

What was it like in the moment though?

You probably weren't friends like while you were competing.

We didn't compete much in the 200 together.

I was 400 meter specialist.

He was 1-2.

So at these A-caliber meets, Diamond League, Golden League, when I started, there's a series of meets.

You got the A-caliber, B-caliber, C-caliber.

Some call it the Chitman Circuit, but I've ran on that too to collect some money.

I mean, it's all competing and competition.

But these A caliber meets, we would go to the same meets.

And I'm talking Rome, Paris,

Stockholm, Zurich, like all over the world, all over Asia, all over Africa, all over Europe.

And one season, I would probably run 16 competitions, and three maybe in the U.S.

So at these eight-caliber meets, you and Hussein would be together all the time.

That makes sense.

Did you have any rivalries?

Anyone you actually had beef with?

I did.

When I started, Nike paid me to

beat Jeremy Warner.

Jeremy was the 2004 Olympic champion.

His coach, first his mentor was Michael Johnson.

Oh wow.

The 400 meter world record holder.

And his coach was Michael Johnson's coach.

So I turned pro at 18, having to crack the code of the history of the 400.

It took a little time, but he was a rival that I had early on.

Then I had another guy, Karani James, who

was young and then came on the scene.

So I had to figure him out.

And then later on in my career, it was wade van nieker who ended up breaking the world record so wow where you went through all you part of that race where you broke it i was that was real i got third in that oh wow but we won i anchored the four by four and got gold damn that's nuts all right guys ketone iq high performance energy shot natural supplement first time ever trying this let's see what happens no artificial flavors or colors 100 milligrams of natural caffeine from green tea and five grams of ketones and zero sugar All right.

Let's see what we got here.

Let me shake it first.

Actually, just in case.

Wow, it actually tastes pretty good.

Not gonna lie.

Shout out to ketone IQ.

Good stuff.

You think anyone will ever break 43?

Woo!

It's possible.

It's possible.

I feel like if I was still competing right now, knowing what I know and my toe wasn't an issue, I could put it together to try to run a fast time.

When I was competing, it was all about winning.

It was a business.

Win the race.

I wasn't getting paid more or less if I had won a race, a regular race throughout the season.

So my whole thing was this is a business, just win the race, get to the next race, win that.

So I never

focused on

world record.

Oh, wow.

But if I was running and I was healthy later on in my career, after I had won everything, I definitely would have trained to attack it.

I could see that.

There's a lot of records being broken lately.

There was just a meet last week where like six records got broken.

Yes, Mill Rose Indoor.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, there's technology, there's the shoes, there's

just over time, people get faster.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree, man.

I want to talk about the transition into business now and next level pros.

Okay.

So you met a guy named Chris Lee, mutual friend of ours.

Talk to me about that story.

Chris Lee.

I met Chris last year, and we did a podcast.

I was on his podcast.

And

I was just retired, moving in spaces of business entrepreneurs and business executives.

And not too long ago, he called me and said he was putting together next level pros.

And he wanted me to come on as a business development mindset coach.

because of how I handled my career.

I wasn't that run through the wall, no days off, super testosterone type of athlete.

I was a guy who brought my character,

discipline to the forefront, to the preparation.

And my core values really guided my success.

And

I would talk to a lot of young people

and he respected the message.

Pretty much.

He respected the message.

He understood how that could

make an impact or have value

to companies.

And his, with next level pros, they're scaling companies, non-figure companies.

And he brought me on board to be a mindset coach.

I love him, man.

That's something every business owner needs, in my opinion.

Yes.

Because the mindset is such an integral part of success.

Absolutely.

And I didn't, and I went into my own businesses and tried to do things after I retired and didn't have a coach.

And I understand how important a coach is in business and in life.

Yeah, I have all sorts of coaches.

Yeah, okay.

Got a mindset one, got a physical one obviously.

Right.

Got a spiritual one.

Got a business one.

It's important.

I mean it's just a way to save time and money in my opinion.

Yes.

You get your discipline.

They hold you accountable and I'm on board to push that winning mindset.

Yeah.

Would you ever want to coach some track athletes?

Yeah, right now I do a 400 meter masterclass.

Oh, no.

All over the country.

It's the why you're doing what you're doing.

So it's four hours.

I take high school kids, I pour into them, give them pearls to string along, and then the last hour I simulate a 400.

My strategy, I take them through it.

I'm not that far removed from the sport where I can't do the actual drills and show them exactly how it needs to be done.

I'm still emotionally attached.

So it's a big impact.

The parents love it.

The coaches love it.

I understand when I was in the sport, they called me the machine because of how I handled the last part of the race, the most difficult part.

But now retired and moving around in spaces, I understand how important the messenger is.

I talk to these kids.

The coaches are telling me, you know, half the battle is keeping these kids' attention.

And you're doing an amazing job at that.

So

it's from the machine to the messenger.

Yeah.

Yeah, attention is...

lacking these days.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

To say the least.

Absolutely.

I think social media played a role in that.

Absolutely.

And I didn't have that when I was competing.

Yeah, I want to talk about how you limited distractions.

I guess you didn't have technology back then, but there's still other distractions, right?

Your friends asking you to party or whatever.

So how did you stay so locked in?

You know what?

I had a brother who passed away before I started running track.

He got murdered his freshman year in college.

Damn.

And

he was the light of the family.

I had a mom who was an educator.

She's the high performer of the family.

I had a dad who was a singer, musician, actor.

He was the high achiever of the family.

And I had a brother that passed away.

So he became that inner voice and that why for me.

When times got hard, okay, Antoine, we got this.

My mom always told me to have fun with what I was doing, so not a lot of pressure.

My dad told me I was meant for something special.

So in these moments, these high caliber moments where a lot was on the line, I would second guess myself early on, like, what am I doing here?

I'm like in Rome.

But I can remember those positive affirmations that I've been hearing all my life that I was meant for something special.

It's bigger than me.

So when

I turned pro, I had friends, but I did a great job in choosing my friends.

They understood what I was doing, what I was in.

They let me focus.

They didn't bother me a lot.

And I have a lot of friends that I grew up with still to this day.

I love that, man.

How did your relationship with pressure change over time?

Did you used to fold to it when you were younger?

Never did.

I never did.

I was a middle child.

Was always good, never demanded attention, was always the patient one,

the guy who was always more

interested in things rather than wanting to be interesting.

So I was the one to get into a room and listen.

So the pressure for me, when I started running track, I didn't understand how important it was

or how my

life in music played a part.

I played the trumpet for eight years.

Oh, yeah.

Had a lot of solos, had to be on the moment, had to hit that note.

Trumpet's no joke, man.

No joke.

I used to play, and it was hard.

Yeah.

So, when I got into the sport of track and feel, I was used to that spotlight and just handling something for a certain amount of time.

And I understood how important the preparation was

when I was a musician.

So I took that same approach to the sport and pressure.

You would get butterflies.

And I had a million-dollar contract.

Plus, I had the nerves of butterflies, like everybody says.

But I would line those butterflies up and I would be the head butterfly.

Wow.

The butterflies flying around.

I would always remind myself I was present and intentional with my preparation.

And these competitions aren't life or death.

And I have parents who are going to love me unconditionally anyway.

So let's just go out, have fun.

I brought my shine to the grind.

So let's just dim the lights when they are on and execute.

I love that, man.

See, I've seen the opposite where parents put too much pressure on their kids and then they hate the sport.

I hate that.

I've seen that.

I've seen it.

I hate it.

I had a girl.

I was at a track meet not long ago.

A girl walked off the track.

She was probably 12 years old and was crying, but she won the race.

Wow.

And I just couldn't understand it.

She said she didn't run as fast as her dad wanted her to run, and she didn't even want to go back to the bleachers.

Damn.

I said, man, it can't be like that.

It can't be like that.

You're in that sport to have fun.

There's a lot of things that you learn in a sport of tracking field because it's an individual sport that translates to life.

And that's what I'm all about.

And I'm seeing that firsthand.

And it's not life or death.

You're just running in a circle.

I used to have a coach that said, man, y'all ain't doing nothing.

All y'all do is strip down and run in a circle.

I said, come on, man.

I put a lot of time in for this.

But yeah, yeah, the pressure

when you're young and the amount of pressure I see on some of these athletes, I don't like it at all.

Yeah, I agree.

Do you feel like track athletes get the respect they deserve?

No.

I feel like track athletes get the respect from other athletes because they've ran track probably in their life and understand how hard it is.

Right.

But

just

the general population,

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure because you can run, you can run.

You can move.

Some people feel like I'm just fast.

Like it's a lot more than that.

I am blessed with the DNA to move fast, but there's a lot that goes into it.

I'm like a machine.

I'm a like a car.

The bolts and screws have to be tightened up.

I have to understand the body.

And the 400, you use different muscle groups throughout the race.

Oh,

yeah, like on the back stretch, you're not using

as much as your arms that you are

on the final 100.

And energy systems are different.

It's about how to distribute 100% of energy throughout that whole race.

Wow.

And it's difficult.

I had a dad.

Well, I have a dad, my dad.

I love him to death.

Shout out to my pops.

He would say things when I was competing, like, man,

I don't know what I did if I was, I don't know what I would have done if I was blessed with that speed and this and that.

And when I used to hear that, I didn't say anything to him because I appreciated the DNA that he blessed me with.

But me knowing it was so much more than that that I had to put together from ear to ear,

I knew I had to put it together here and I ended up developing the merit mindset because like I said, I knew my runway in life was going to be a lot longer than sport and I was going to have to use what I put together here in life.

So

throughout my years of training, I paid attention to what was going on here because I knew I would have to use it again one day

to become a champion in life.

Right.

Yeah.

That's smart you were thinking that far ahead, actually, because a lot of athletes,

I don't think they think ahead like that.

I don't think so either.

Yeah.

I love how you break down the race scientifically, too.

Yeah,

it's a lot.

I was the most consistent in my years.

I ran fast, but I was known for being consistent.

You're like the LeBron of Security.

Because I knew what I was doing.

I wasn't a guy who just depended on reps for confidence.

And I was dialing it in the muscle memory, being present in the preparation to be able to execute.

And that made a big difference.

Yeah, man, I love that.

Merit mindset.

Is that something you coach?

Merit mindset.

Yeah, it's something I developed.

The big question I was asked after my career was, what made me me?

And

I had to do some deep diving, some reflection on how I handled things.

And

it came down to the duty, the responsibility, the discipline.

I was a guy who brought my best self.

I was focusing on bringing my best self.

to training into life every day, understanding the rest and recovery, being present, but also

just having merit, having integrity, doing things with integrity.

And that's important.

That's important for me to become a champion in life.

It's important for

humanity and society and to continue to have gratitude and those core values.

And my dad, when I was younger, people would ask him his name.

He would say Owen Merit, but he would spell it M-E-R-R.

No, he would say M-E-R-R-I-D-T.

Then when I retired,

I understand how things aligned, that I had a double dose of merit.

And I really embodied that and had integrity and stayed the course and was able to shine.

That's cool, man.

Sounds like your dad really played a big role in your life.

I love him.

I love that, man.

Yes.

Yeah, gratitude and integrity, that's so important for me.

Absolutely.

I have a gratitude journal every single morning.

Non-negotiable.

Beautiful.

And integrity, like that's everything.

In that 400-meter masterclass, the last 15 meters of that race, I pushed gratitude.

Wow.

Have to have gratitude.

Just

being grateful for being able to be in that moment and taking it all the way through the line.

Not slowing up, not overthinking it,

just dropping everything, having gratitude, and running past the line.

So that's important.

I love it.

Did you like the outdoor tracks more or the indoor?

Outdoor.

Outdoor.

Indoor, I'm a little tall.

First time I made the world indoor team was 2005 when I first turned pro.

And I was in Russia and got disqualified.

I stepped on the line twice and got disqualified.

My first international race as a professional, I got disqualified.

It was heartbreaking.

My dad was there, too.

I flew him all the way to Russia.

And I didn't do too much indoor after that.

I have a long stride.

I'm tall.

Indoor's a little tight.

So outdoor was my thing.

Yeah, it's hard to get quicker times indoors, right?

Because there's more turns.

So those turns really impact the time.

They do.

They

absolutely.

What was your favorite lane to run in?

Four or five.

Just because I would be in the middle of the track.

One was a tighter curve.

Eight, you couldn't see anybody.

Although back in the day, you couldn't run a world record out of lane eight because it was less of a curve and you were running straight more.

You didn't have to deal with so much of the centrifugal force on the curve.

But in my years, four and five are the preferred lanes.

You get to see who's outside of you.

You get to see or feel if they're coming up, but it was all about executing.

How much attention did you pay to the other runners during the race?

Oh, I was able to run and think and feel

my surroundings.

That was one thing that

made me

great.

I knew who was in which lane.

I studied my competitors before.

Before I would compete, I would walk around the track.

Tracks are built different.

Some have longer straightaways.

Some have

longer curves.

So I would mark the track the day before.

Wow.

We wouldn't just be running.

I knew my spots.

But I could feel

if somebody was

getting too far.

But that was just through experience.

Wow.

That's impressive.

sounds like you were like visualizing and manifesting the race absolutely

visible visualization I could cut that with yeah yeah well okay so visualization was very important and I would always

visualize myself winning that was part of it I would I knew how to execute I knew the spots Now I just had to go out and execute and I've always had that will to win.

Yeah, and now you can do that in business too.

I can't wait to see your business career, man.

I think you're going to crush it.

I appreciate it.

I definitely appreciate it.

I have a couple things going on uh with next level pros we're building they're gonna help me scale they see the value in me and

i'm gonna hold these uh business owners accountable that's god that's what i'm here for the integrity i'm gonna have that winning mindset that merit mindset let's go anything else you want to close off with man though it's fun oh man no uh

Right now, I'm retired.

I'm doing inspirational speaking.

I like to say inspirational more than motivational because I never had to be hyped.

I'm trying to change the mindset.

I'm trying to change the world almost, if you think about it, because

you change yourself.

You change the frequency that you put out, change others, and that ultimately have big impact to change the world.

I love it.

Well, if anyone's interested in hiring you, we'll link your social media channels so that they could get in touch with you, man.

Sean, thank you, brother.

Absolutely.

Thanks for watching, guys.

Check them out.

I'll see you next time.