You're Too Old To Make an Olympic Team - Matt Hemingway

[00:00:05] Speaker A: Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got. I'm your host, Sean Taylor, along with my producer, jb and today our guest is Matt Hemingway. Since college, Matt has been a proven leader in the sales and operations management field. But today we're going to talk to him about his career as an athlete starring in track and field. He was a five time All American and used his impressive 6, 7 frame to take a shot at joining the US Olympic team. I don't want to spoil anything for our audience here today, so let's get right into it with Matt. [00:00:38] Speaker B: Hey Matt, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Matt. We like to jump right in. So just tell us what was the worst advice you ever got? [00:00:47] Speaker C: I think the worst advice I probably ever got was I was too old to make an Olympic team. [00:00:50] Speaker B: Okay, so athlete, obviously give us a little backdrop about how this advice came about. [00:00:58] Speaker C: Yeah, so I, I started high jumping when I was in junior high, you know, field day, you know, junior high track. Um, and then I went on and did that in high school and had a pretty successful high school career. Was a two time state champion in the high jump. And then my senior year of high school, I had the number one high jump in the United States, um, and actually held the state record in Colorado until just this year. But I ended up going to the University of Arkansas, which for those that don't know, is the most successful athletic program in NCAA history. My coach, the head coach at Arkansas, ended up winning over 40 national titles. I was on seven national championship teams, had five Olympians in my training group. And so I think that decision really kind of paid off. But it really laid the groundwork for, you know, wanting to be an elite athlete. And then my senior year of college, was an alternate on the 1996 Olympic team. Then, you know, when you, when you become an alternate on the US Olympic team, you know, the, I guess the colloquial phrase is like kissing your sister. Like you can say it, but nothing, nothing good really happens. So I didn't make the team. And then the next year I got hurt. And, you know, candidly, I was kind of burned out. Like, it's a lot of work being part of a group where there's five Olympians just in your training group. Like, you gotta bring it to practice every day. And so I was pretty fried. Um, and so about that time I decided to put the shoes away and said, hey, I gotta, I gotta grow up. So I quit the sport. I got married the next year and I ended up taking a job at a telecommunications company. And, you know, I. There's a divine plan in that somehow. But I was playing basketball in my lunch hour, and so I'm sort of 20, 27, 28 at this time. Figured I could still jump. I could dunk two hands from the free throw line. Um, and I was like, oh, you know, maybe high jump could be fun and I could enjoy it like I did at some point earlier in my life. So I did, like, this corporate challenge thing. I showed up to a practice, and, you know, first day I jumped, I hadn't jumped in or trained in three years, and I jumped 7ft two days later, jumped 7 2. Next day, jumped 7 4. And so 74 and a half is what you have to jump or had to jump at the time to qualify for the US National Championships. And it would be considered an Olympic B standard. My prior best was seven, six and a half. So better context for seven, six and a half is six inches below a standard ceiling in a house. So. So it's. It's up there. [00:03:25] Speaker B: Wow. [00:03:26] Speaker D: For those who don't know, tell us how tall you are. [00:03:28] Speaker C: I'm six foot seven. Oh, wow. [00:03:31] Speaker B: So you're six foot seven and you're jumping seven foot six. That's. Yeah, that's quite. [00:03:36] Speaker D: Is being tall helpful in a high jump? [00:03:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So your center of gravity is a little bit higher. So you sort of. You have. You have a little bit of an advantage. But, you know, as we all know, us tall guys are a little bit gangly and goofy, and we have struggle. Struggle with coordination at times this year. So. But, yeah, so seven six and a half was sort of the. Was. Was my prior best. And then the fourth meet, I went to the US Indoor National Championships and jumped 7, 9 and 3 quarters and broke the US Indoor Championship record, which I still hold today 24 years later. And, you know, I remember talking to the guys at espn and they were like, what do you do? Like, what's your training? What's the plan? And I'm like, I play basketball with a bunch of old guys. [00:04:17] Speaker B: I'm in sales. [00:04:19] Speaker C: Yeah. I have a sales team of 18 people. I work, like 70 hours a week. And, like, I eat McDonald's because I keep forgetting to eat because I'm so busy. And they're like, yeah, we don't really know if we can print that. That just doesn't really work. It doesn't work with a Nike like Jesse McDonald. Yeah. So. So, you know, things really took off and I. I wasn't Expecting it. But the biggest thing was I sort of had this renewed joy and fun with this gift that, you know, I think I was born with them, and I won the genetic lottery in that sense. Like high jumpers, there's, you know, different types of muscle and how you. You know, how your body responds to stuff like, you know, stress and overload. [00:04:57] Speaker B: So, Matt, just for a second for me. So when you set this record, when I. When you're clowning around and doing some of these meets, and it's sort of more in your spare time versus training for it day in, day out, right? [00:05:10] Speaker C: It's funny because my wife, she had never seen me high jump till we had been married. And, you know, she. Her. Her comment was, I jumped 7, 9, 3 quarters. Chris was that good? And I'm like, yeah, well, it's number one in the world, so this is pretty good. But, you know, personally, I was just trying to be in as normal as I could be, and it was a bit chaotic. I mean, when ESPN shows up at your work and Sports Illustrated shows up at your work and you get drug tested all the time, and you're sort of like, you weren't expecting this. Like, you're just kind of trying to roll with it and figure out what's happening. [00:05:40] Speaker B: So I want to get back to, you know, you said the worst advice you ever got was, you know, basically, you're too old to be an Olympian. So tell me when. I got a feeling. We're getting right around the point where you start thinking I should, you know, see about the Olympics. And maybe the advice comes. Tell. Tell me about that. [00:06:00] Speaker C: It really came in a couple of different, you know, I think versions is. One of them was my. One of my sales reps. Who's my best guy, Dave. [00:06:07] Speaker D: And. [00:06:07] Speaker C: And I come in and I'm sort of like, you know, I think. I think I'll try out for the Olympics. And he just turned around, he was leaning back in his chair, and he just started laughing at me. Um, you know, and he just was like, whatever. You know, like, that's just not real. And then so sort of, kind of what happens after that is I didn't have a great Olympic trials. I went to the Olympic trials that year and completely fell flat on my face. The following year, I ended up getting hurt. And so you start doing the calculus on this, and you're like, okay, so I'm 29. I gotta wait three more years, basically, to make an Olympic team. Looking at different career opportunities, I'm making great money. Um, at that point, Adidas comes to me and says, hey, we'd love you to jump for us. And I said, I'd love to, except for I'm making twice what you can pay me, so I'm going to keep you in anyway. So I. After I get well again after getting hurt in 2001, I'm like, you know, I'm. I'm going to take a shot and at least try to do this. [00:07:06] Speaker D: If people are laughing at your face when you're 28, telling them you want. [00:07:09] Speaker C: To join the Olympic. What. [00:07:11] Speaker D: How are people acting when you're 31 saying, well, I can make an Olympic team? [00:07:16] Speaker C: I think because I kept working and I was so busy during that window, I sort of had this goal. I had three goals. Make an Olympic team, pay the mortgage, and stay married. Those. Those were sort of. That was it. Um, and if you really. If you didn't sort of fit in those buckets, you just didn't get any of my time. Um, and it's really hard. I mean, there's a lot of really good talent out there. Um, and so people, I think, thought, you know, oh, yeah, sure, you know, that. That's a pipe dream. [00:07:42] Speaker B: Did it ever make you think, yeah, maybe they're right? [00:07:46] Speaker C: Yeah. I think lots of people, it's like, hey, that's cool. But nobody, I don't think, really believes it until you actually go make the team. And they're like, can you believe it? And then there, everybody's like, oh, I always knew you could do it. I mean, the head high jump's a head game sport because you're jumping over. I'm 6, 7, and my best jump is 14 inches over my head. I think the average person thought, this cat's crazy. Yeah. [00:08:08] Speaker B: So, Matt, you know, the. The podcast, you know, the worst advice ever gotten? You thought of this as the worst. So when did this advice become bad for you? [00:08:18] Speaker C: You know, I think it became, you know, bad advice because, you know, there's. Everybody likes to think of success as this linear path, and it just really isn't. It's. There's lots of ups and downs, you know, where you. There's stress involved. There's people. I. I had worked with a coach one time, and it was like, well, you have to do this if you're going to jump this high. And then you begin to question yourself and go, I'm never going to be able to get here if I don't do this, if I don't do all these things. [00:08:43] Speaker B: Right? [00:08:44] Speaker C: And. And there's just all these. It's it's not one thing. It's lots of little sort of pieces where, you know, you look at the best advice and you go, gosh, maybe that person was right. Maybe I'm not going to actually make it happen. Um, or, you know, I remember a couple weeks before the Olympic trials, I was having a practice, not a bad practice. Like, normally I would jump seven, two or three in practice, and I would. Couldn't jump six, eight. And like, then you go, gosh, have I invested all of this time? The word completely fall apart. You know, you. You question yourself. And I think that's where you have to learn to. To dig deep and say, I have to say no to the advice that I got. You know, the advice that. That, you know, is in the back of my head. And I have to learn to tune that out and sort of refocus on something more positive. Because there was a point in which I believed this, and I. And I have to see that, hey, the advice that somebody gave me, that was bad advice. I don't really care what they say. I've got to continue on towards this goal. [00:09:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. There were inflection points. Like, so you had that bad, you know, meat, and it's a new inflection point. Maybe they had, you know, some merit to that being, you know, their advice, but it was an inflection point and you had to overcome it. So you went through series of those, of those points in time. [00:09:59] Speaker C: Absolutely. And I mean, I think, look, the high jump's a really interesting event, and the high jump and the. And the pole vault are the only two events in which you are guaranteed to fail every time you play because the bar falls off three times. And so you have to get comfortable with failing and learning to sort of retool mentally. I think that has been the greatest gift to me, is knowing that I can fail in a day, in a practice, and learn to sort of reset that expectation. Because if you live in the negative, it's so hard to, like, you just. You can't move past it if you allow other people to tell you that you can't. And so you can get that advice and you can either decide to listen to bad advice, you know, you know, listen to the worst advice you can think of in the moment, or you can choose to make some different decisions along the way to drive the outcomes that you're. You're really. That you really want. [00:10:52] Speaker B: I gotta think for the general public, though, to be told you're too old for something or you can't do something if they don't have years of, you know, overcoming, you know, obstacles like you did, it's gotta be so easy to just quit. You're a rare breed. I mean, being an Olympian is a rare breed, but being someone who can overcome bad advice again is a rarity. [00:11:14] Speaker C: I agree. I mean, and you could even go back to like, I grew up in a really small town. I mean, my graduating class was 44 kids. We had very few resources growing up. That's an obstacle in itself. Oh, you're going to go to a Division 1 school and do well. Oh, yeah, right, Whatever. But I think one of the greatest gifts of sort of what you're talking about is you have to learn to reframe failure. Failure is something you want to reframe as, what can I learn from this? And I leverage this all the time with our sales teams is, hey, we're going to listen to calls. We're going to find out what was good and then what was bad, and then if it falls apart, then okay, great. Because it's typically, I use a high jump analogy and joke, say, you're all cursed to have me as a high jumper, as your manager or leader is. Look, it's not what you did when you knocked the bar off. It's typically something you did three steps up. And so we try to go back and say, what do we learn from things? So most of the time we have failures or problems in life. It's not about the decision that we made where we saw the consequence of the problem. It's something. It's decisions we made three steps upstream that got us to that place in the first, got us there. We have a culture that wants to always be successful. We always gotta be perfect on this degree. And we always gotta do this like, look, man, life just for drudgery and hard stuff a lot of the times. And success happens really towards the end. [00:12:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. That's exactly right. We. I mean, certainly you fail more than you succeed really, in any sport or in anything in life. I know you made the analogy to, you know, high jump and pole vault. You ultimately eventually fail, and then you're done with your meet or you're done with the event. [00:12:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:52] Speaker B: Just gotta keep overcoming you. And, you know, how do you think failure actually leads you to success? Failure on the field, failure in other parts of life has led you to success in your workplace. [00:13:05] Speaker C: You know, nobody goes on their deathbed and says, I wish I'd have taken less risk. If you have to in order to succeed, you have to take risk. It's really important that, you know, as leaders, we encourage people to say, hey, it's okay. You know, it's okay if you fail or if you screw up. You made a decision. You made a choice. I'm an empath, you know, And. And what did you learn from it? If it, if it blows up? Okay, like, how do I. How do we work together to solve that problem? Um, and it's. It's only when we stop taking risks, I think, is when we really fail. And, I mean, when you guys started this podcast, it was a risk. Is this gonna thing into. Gonna be any good? I have no idea. Um, but you gotta do it. [00:13:45] Speaker B: Let. Let's circle back to your story. So, um, Olympic trials. You know what? Tell our listening audience what happened. [00:13:54] Speaker C: So I went to the Olympic trials when I was 31, but there was a lot of nerves because my prior Olympic trials, despite having the highest jump in the world, I jumped like 7:1 and got like 11. Um, and so I. I finally made the Olympic team, and it was like this. Finally got the. The monkey off my back. Um, and I was not picked to do anything. I'm, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm past my expiration date. The guy who is the US Champion is younger. You know, I'm this guy from. Who trains running hills with his dogs in the mountains. And I'm the last guy to make the final. I. I'm like, I have a couple misses, and I just remember I literally was at the back of the apron, and I said, I'm going over this bar. If I break my leg when I put it down, I'm going to at least sort of technically make the final. Um, and I'm just sort of this periphery, like, oh, wow, like, Matt made the final. He was good when he was 24. And so I came in the first height, the second height, then I skipped the bar, and I jumped 2 meters 32, which is 7. Seven and a quarter. And at that point, I was, you know, the old guy who wasn't supposed to be there, and I was in the gold medal spot. And then we went to the next bar at 2:34. And I cleared 2:34 in my first attempt, and I was in the gold medal spot. And then we went to 2:36, and the guy who was in fourth, who was really ranked number one in the world, he cleared his first attempt, and none of the rest of us cleared it. And so I ended up with a silver medal. And, you know, as the. The old Guy who was literally a month and some change away from, from 32 years old. And I'm in shock. You can train and you can anticipate that, but you just can't really. Like, I'm going to win Olympic medal, I'll get Mark Phelps, but not me. [00:15:34] Speaker B: I love it. I love it. So the first call you make or the second call you make after you talk to your family is your coworker who said sales guy. [00:15:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I got lots of messages from folks along the way. I mean, there's some really cool experiences. I mean, I mean, I think this is one of those things we talk about sort of success is I remember going through the press pool and I never thought about this, but they asked me this question, like, how you're really upset that you lost the gold. I just said, look, you win a gold, you win a silver and you win a bronze, and if you have a problem with winning an Olympic medal, you have issues. And they were like, you know. And then my next favorite memory is the person from USA Track and field who was there as we get through the press pool. I'd known her, she was actually at the University of Arkansas. She'll remain nameless to protect the innocent. But I remember walking out and she goes, that's awesome. You won a silver. We weren't expecting anything from you. So I typically. That was like one of those, like just another thing, like people just don't expect it. And, um, and it worked out with lots of hard work and sacrifice and all those things. [00:16:38] Speaker B: Clearly, Matt, you, you overcame what was bad advice to achieve the ultimate success, a medal in the Olympics. What do you think about giving advice or giving advice in general? [00:16:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I have to reflect on. There was some advice that my dad gave me as a high jumper. I mean, you're always trying to see be, you know, really lean and really strong. I mean, I'm 67 at 2:40 now, and my high jump weight is 185 pounds at like 3% body fat. Um, and so it's a power to weight ratio game. And, and you know, the advice that my dad gave me, he said, look, Matt, if it's not motor, it's luggage. And I sort of frame a lot of things in life like that is if you have good advice, it's motor and it, and it, it, it, it inspires you and it drives you and it pushes you forward. Um, bad advice is like luggage. It hauls you around. You're, you're hauling stuff that you don't need. And I Think that's a lot of sort of how I began to sort of look at the world. Is, is this thing that I'm doing or is this activity, is this motor? Is this helping me get to where I need to be? Is this relationship helping me get to where I need to be? Or is this luggage, is this slowing me down from what I'm trying to get accomplished? And I think that advice is a lot like that. Like, is it good advice? It should be motivating and should push you forward. Um, if it's bad advice, it's gonna slow you down and you're gonna have doubt. And it's really hard to sprint when you've got, you know, a weight you're hauling around. [00:18:00] Speaker B: So. Sure. Surely people come to you at times and they ask for advice or they say, what are your thoughts on this? And you have a preconceived notion like, that's impossible or that's crazy. [00:18:12] Speaker C: Um, I do. I mean, like, I think it depends on the situation. It's very situational. Um, I'll give you maybe some better context for that. Is if somebody who's six foot seven came to me and said, I want to be a gymnast at the Olympics, I'd say, you know, that's probably not where your strengths are. So I try to frame all that sort of advice in, hey, where are your natural gifts and talents? Try to find those things and really encourage people to pursue the things that they have a desire for, that are challenging, that they have some gifts and natural talents for, and then work like crazy to get great at it. [00:18:43] Speaker B: I think that's great advice, you know, telling people to, you know, pursue, you know, what you're gifted for, what you're best at. Right. And, you know, if there's a passion behind it, even better. But I think you're a prime example of somebody following their. Their passions. You know, JB and I are passionate about this podcast. We've been investing a lot of time and energy into this because we get the chance to talk to passionate, great people like you who tell their stories and overcoming terrible advice to ultimately, you know, get to success and, you know, winning a silver medal, you know, in the Olympics. I don't care if you were 22, you know, that's a great accomplishment. You know, Matt, I can't thank you enough for joining us today and sharing your story. I think it's going to help a lot of people overcome doubts that people seed in their minds about what they can and can't do. So thanks so much for joining Us today. [00:19:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Thank you for having me. I mean, I love this idea of empowering people and, you know, trying to get the best and, you know, don't listen to people that you don't think maybe have. Have the experience that really can help you along the way. Listen to people that really care about you, and we'll tell you the truth. [00:19:54] Speaker A: Well, jb, I never thought in my life I would be talking to or interviewing medal winners from the Olympics. It's hard not to walk away really feeling positive about Matt's story. [00:20:07] Speaker D: Absolutely. The guests we get on this show are always from every single walk of life. But speaking of positive, we started to get a little too positive in there for a second, and you did a good job of reeling them back in. This is the worst advice podcast. Not the kind of bad advice, but it's fine, because that name is too long, and it's not a good idea for a podcast. [00:20:26] Speaker A: No, I agree. Yeah. [00:20:27] Speaker B: You know, he won a medal, so. [00:20:29] Speaker A: It'S always good to go back to saying, you know, I overcame all the odds and won a medal. But it was important to really get in there because people were sowing seeds of doubt in his mind. And even though I think he did a pretty good job of not listening to the advice, it was always there. Like, he made one comment that the only thing he had time for, I think, was, you know, work, trying to stay married and making the Olympics, and he had no time for anything else. So bad advice can really seep into your life, even if you defend it pretty well. [00:20:57] Speaker D: Right. And he was saying that, you know, high jump in particular is a headspace game, like the difference between a gold medal and not even qualifying for the Games. It's just a couple of inches, and so you have to be able to kind of push that out and forget about it. It's the worst advice that he ever got because he's a human, and you can't just ignore what people say, even if you don't listen to it, even if you don't agree with it, or it's still going to sit back there and say, you know, I'm not going to let this control my whole life. But when things start to go wrong, maybe they were right. I don't know. [00:21:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Look, it's easy to say, you told me I was too old to be an Olympian, and not only did I make the Olympics, but I won a silver medal. So that makes it easier to say, well, your advice was the worst. But I get the feeling that even if he hadn't made the Olympics or won a medal, he'd still say it was the worst advice. It. It didn't need to end the way it ended for it to be bad advice. Did you get that sentence? [00:21:51] Speaker D: Oh, absolutely. Just because you have a goal accomplished at the end doesn't mean that you shouldn't have gone along the journey. You know, he said everything that he learned from, you know, taking that fear and using it as a life lesson and loss and all these things and taking that into his job and professional life has been so helpful for him. So I think, yeah, like you said, no matter what, I think this was going to be the worst advice he ever got. [00:22:13] Speaker A: I agree. I hope that, you know, hearing Matt's story of the worst advice he ever got, you know, it helps our listeners reflect on some of the advice they've been hearing and listening to, and maybe they realize that all it's doing is sowing seeds of doubt. I'd like to know some of the worst advice you've ever heard on some of our social channels. So the next time you're out on our Instagram page or our LinkedIn page, if you just want to jot out there what you think the worst advice you ever got was, feel free to share it. We'd love to see those stories. Until next time, this has been another episode of the worst advice I ever got. Bye, everybody.