Natalie Coughlin - 12x Olympic Medalist, Vintner & Entrepreneur
Natalie Coughlin is one of the most successful swimmers in the history of the sport. She is a three-time Olympian, a twelve-time Olympic medalist - including three gold medals - a mom, an entrepreneur and the co-founder of Gaderian Wines.
In this episode we discuss creativity, focus, winemaking, entrepreneurship, competition, making music, rucking, lifting, jiu-jitsu and navigating big transitions in sport, life and work.
LISTEN NOW: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, Google Podcasts, Stitcher
Special thanks to the shining star of Lincolnville, Maine, Erin Cochran, co-founder of Iced Coffee Please, for suggesting Natalie as a guest and introducing us. Much appreciated, Erin!
You can find Gaderian wines at Gaderianwines.com and Natalie @nataliecoughlin on Instagram.
LISTEN NOW: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, Google Podcasts, Stitcher
Choose the Hard Way is a podcast where guests share stories about how hard things build stronger humans. Sign up for the newsletter to get the story behind these stories updates and more. If you’d like to suggest a guest or say hello, DM @hardwaypod on social or send an email to choosethehardway@gmail.com.
Host Andrew Vontz has spent more than 25 years telling and shaping the stories of the world’s top performers, brands and businesses. He has held executive and senior leadership roles at the social network for athletes Strava and the human performance company TRX. His byline has appeared in outlets like Rolling Stone, Outside magazine, The Los Angeles Times and more.
Today he advises and consults with businesses and nonprofits on high-impact storytelling strategies and coaches leaders to become high-performance communicators. Find him on LinkedIn or reach out to choosethehardway@gmail.com
In This Episode:
Natalie Coughlin LinkedIn
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Andrew Vontz LinkedIn
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Choose The Hard Way is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production
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Andrew Vontz 0:00
Okay, so we're buckled up here.
So you know, I used to live in the East Bay, and I lived in California for 25 years. So whereabouts I lived in Oakland, the last couple of years, I was there. And then I was in the city before that. And then I was in LA for a long time before that. And my younger brother was at Cal, I think in the exact same timeframe, you were maybe plus or minus your he was a captain on the rugby team. And, yeah, so I've got, you know, a handful of Cal slash, sports links, no Olympic gold medals in the family, but a few national championships that I didn't win.
Natalie Coughlin 0:47
Pretty darn good. The rugby team at Cal has always been pretty steadily.
Andrew Vontz 0:51
Yeah, they're, they're not bad. And I've listened to a lot of the other interviews that you've done, which are all very interesting. And I always like to try to get into some new terrain with people. So hopefully, hopefully, we explore some some new and different stuff. And if we don't, there's anything that you wanted to talk about that we don't get to feel free to jump in and steer us in a new or different direction. And, you know, one question that I have given, I mean, you've lived such a public life, you've done so many interviews, you've done a book, you've done a cookbook, you've been on TV, is there anything you ever wanted to talk about, that people just don't ask you about?
Natalie Coughlin 1:39
That's, I mean, that's a great question. Um, no, not really. It's, I have, like, especially now I have these, like different facets of my life. There's the mom, there's the vintner. And then there's the athlete. And in some ways, you know, those lives intersect, but in many ways, they're very, very different. So depending on what interview I'm doing, we're focusing on one of those, those parts of my life, when you know it, it's all in one giant bucket. And it's messy and complicated, but it's, you know, it's my life.
Andrew Vontz 2:17
In what ways is messy and complicated?
Natalie Coughlin 2:20
I have a problem. I say yes to a lot of things. You know, like that stupid like Jim Carrey movie? Like, yes, men, like I have kind of live my life in that way, where I say yes to opportunities. And so I overscheduled myself quite a bit and overcommit myself quite a bit. But fortunately, I I have a lot of redundancies with my calendar. So I mostly keep it on, I mostly stay on top of it, but there are times I've failed miserably.
Andrew Vontz 2:54
What are some of those failures look like?
Natalie Coughlin 2:56
Oh, man, I'm on like, various boards. And I've had a meeting scheduled when at the same time I had an emergency with, with my wine, and so a stuck in our vineyard dealing with an issue when I should have been on a board call. So and then, you know, coincidentally, there's never any service out in the vineyard. So, um, you know, just over scheduling and looking like an ass. And then I flopped myself for the next, like, two months. And, you know, because I'm very type A, I've always been a good student, I was, you know, I'm someone that is definitely the hardest on myself when I make those mistakes. So, yeah, I kick myself when I do those things.
Andrew Vontz 3:44
I'm so curious. Now, what does a wind emergency look like for event? Like, what have what happens?
Natalie Coughlin 3:51
Oh, gosh, I don't I don't even know. Lately, it's like if I mess up on the website, and then all of a sudden, there was one day we had a glitch, and it said, our wine was like $0. So like, luckily, no one placed an order then. But I called my partner in a pure panic. I wasn't sure what happened, but I fixed it.
Andrew Vontz 4:15
I've heard you talk about being a vendor and the wine business and a number of other spaces and places. But I'm curious. What did you have to learn that was new or different in order to move into that space and of those things? Which parts of it did you find to be the most challenging?
Natalie Coughlin 4:34
I mean, I had to learn everything about it. I knew I loved drinking wine and I was a fan of wine, but I really didn't know anything about the business. But I think because of athletics and my success and sport that has given me such a sense of confidence. And I feel like I'm capable of learning a lot of different things. I know I'm smart enough to handle it. It's just being willing to pivot when it's necessary and you know, just just learn as you go but I had to learn a lot like I learned the winemaking and I'm still learning the winemaking. From my business partner, Shana Harding. She's the winemaker. She has all the formal Viticulture and Enology background from UC Davis. I ended up taking some basic winemaking classes through Davis, just to get my base knowledge but fortunately, I went to Cal and because as a psychology major, I had to have some biology and plant biology background. So I knew like the mechanisms of you know, basic fermentation and things like that. But when making a lot of it is working as an apprentice, you know, and learning throughout the years, and I've learned quite a bit. But to go back to your initial question, like what appeals to me of winemaking is so many things. It's a combination of science and art. There's like the physical labor part of it. Were earlier this, this vintage, so vintage, 2022 Shana, and I were we are the entire business. And we hand sorted all of our fruits. So that was, I think, like 12 tonnes of fruit that the two of us are hand sorting. So there's the physical labor of literally, if you just go on our Instagram, of us picking up the bins, dumping it onto a table hand sorting it, of, you know, 20,000 pounds of fruit, doing that moving bins, moving barrels. So there's like that physical side that my athletes I loves. There is a science part that my brainless and then there's the artistic side of creating this beautiful product that you get to share with people and also marketing it and you know, design helped, like, you know, helping design with a bottle is going to look like so it appeals to so many different parts of my brain. And it's a really unique business in that way.
Andrew Vontz 7:14
Of all the things that you could have done. What else did you consider for the next phase of your life of your career before you moved in? I mean, wine being a very critical component of what you're doing now. But what else did you think about potentially doing
Natalie Coughlin 7:30
so many things, and not in like a flaky way. But I considered so many different things. Like when I went to school, when I went to Cal in the first place I didn't, I never considered that I would swim another 16 years, like when I came to Cal was 2000. And I just had I just missed making the Olympic team for the first time and 2000 and I had a horrible injury, I really hated swimming. So I thought I was gonna go to cow get my degree in probably biology. And I thought I was going to become a physical therapist, like I thought that's where my life path was gonna, was gonna go. And then just because I had physical therapists that were really important in my life as an athlete, and as a person, I always loved physiology. So that's kind of the path I saw myself going down. And then athletics happens. And I went to my first Olympics, and second and third. And I became this professional athlete. And so because of that, all these doors were opened up to me, and I tried my hand in broadcasting at one point, and that was fun, but I didn't necessarily love it, but I also but you know, something like that I tried. And then I started thinking, Oh, maybe I will open a swim school, you know, learn to swim programs for little kids. It makes sense. My husband coaches, swimming, I come from a swimming background, it makes good sense and, and then I thought about maybe becoming a dietician. i There's just so many things that I really, really love to do, and that interests me. And because I was a professional athlete for so many years, you have to occupy your mind when you're not training. And so I you know, intellectually pursued a lot of different things and learned about a lot of different things. And eventually, my now business partner texted me in 2017 and asked if I wanted to partner with her on a wine and I said yes, before even thinking what that meant. And you know, here we are on our sixth vintage, and we have a beautiful brand or beautiful wine on a small brand that is growing every year.
Andrew Vontz 9:54
And you started swimming competitively when you were six years old, correct? Yes. Correct. And that was really the total focus of your entire life for a very long time. And you mentioned that you have an artistic dimension to your personality, that's part of what you enjoy. With what you're doing with wine. It's such a young age being so focused on your sport, and I'm sure like everybody else, there's a lot of other stuff going on, but at the level at which you were doing it, and the intensity with which you were doing it, and the level of achievement that you were able to create, as a young person, how did you nurture that artistic side of yourself? Or were you in touch with it? Or what was it?
Natalie Coughlin 10:39
I was I wasn't at all. And I don't know if I would call myself an artistic person. Like, there's like that part that like, small, small, small part part of me. But, um, yeah, as a kid, I was very, very focused, like I was super competitive. And like, that's when people asked, like, what do you think made you into the champion that you became, and I think the biggest piece of it was, I was ultra competitive. And that was just something that I was born with, it was a personality, trait, or flaw, or whatever you want to call it. And I was able to channel that into swimming. And I checked, you know, I challenged that into my academics as well. And so between school and swimming, like those are my two major focuses from a young age. And as you know, school got harder, something got harder, and school got hurt. And so I got, you know, acclimated to the demands of both as I as I got older. But, yeah, I was pretty driven and pretty competitive from a young age.
Andrew Vontz 11:49
And with a competitive drive of that nature and magnitude. Did you always have control of that? Or did it ever manifest itself in ways that maybe had consequences you would have preferred to have avoided?
Natalie Coughlin 12:05
Yeah, I mean, socially, it socially, it can be hard being that competitive because you come off like such a jerk sometimes. And it you have a hard time letting things go, like I remember in high school and or college, just playing Ultimate Frisbee with my other super competitive friends. And you get in these stupid fights over a dumb Frisbee. And so I learned at some point to like, hey, tune down this competitiveness, when it really doesn't matter. And that was a practice and self control. But, but yeah, like, there are times you get so competitive over the dumbest thing, a pool game, like, who cares? If you're playing eight ball and you win or don't win? It's I'm not, you know, I'm not a billiards player. Who cares?
Andrew Vontz 12:58
And you talked a little bit about that transition and some of the different options you explored from a career point of view? Or what was next on the other side of swimming? How? How did you navigate what that was? Like, from an identity point of view? Did you have to rediscover who you were after having self identified as the world's best swimmer for such a long time? Or did you enjoy having a fresh start?
Natalie Coughlin 13:24
Like after I stopped after I stopped competing? You mean? Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's a very, very tough transition. There are several transitions that athletes go through and that summers in particular go through. So I remember as a kid, my first national team, I was 16 turned 17 at that major national trip, it was Pan Pacific Games, it was in Australia at the pool where they're going to host the Olympics in 2000. And that was my first time really around the top top swim team. And I remember a few of the athletes talking about this post Olympic depression and I had no idea what they're talking about made no sense to me I'm like, why would you be depressed after you win a gold medal? It makes no sense. And then so there's there's that post Olympic depression that a lot of people have gone through and then in if you then go on to college, after your four years of college and of those four years of eligibility there's kind of the death of that college summer right like after those four years are up you're no longer a part of of that Cal team anymore. You don't get to go to dual meets you don't get to go to NC two ways. And so there's that transition. It's really exciting because then now you get to hopefully earn some money. You know, the rules have changed since then. You could earn money now, I guess. But you know, there There's a transition. But you know, this, this college summer life of yours is now now done. And then when your professional swimming career or athletic career is over, then what? So yeah, there have been a bunch of transitions. And I've been always aware that they were going to come up, like I was never naive to the fact that I will stop swimming someday I will not be a professional athlete forever. So I always kind of thought about what was next how to set myself up for the future, both financially. And just like emotionally, you know, just emotionally prepare yourself. But when I stopped swimming, and 2016, it was really hard because I went from having a very, very clear focus laid out for me, like, from my coach, and from my team, and from my competition schedule. And I went from being around, you know, 40 teammates all day, every day joking, working our butts off, having so much fun to not being around those people every day. And that's, that's tough. And I'm saying this as someone who is such an introvert. Like, I, I don't, I am an introvert at heart, but I do like to be around my friends and the people around me. And so that that was hard. And, you know, makes me yearn for those those days in the weight room, where we're just, you know, trying to throw up like huge amounts of weight and be competitive with one another and joke around, like, that was so fun, and I miss it terribly. But, you know, doesn't last forever.
Andrew Vontz 16:55
What kind of plan or infrastructure did you put in place to help ease the transition into civilian or post swimming life? And what did it feel like to be back in the position, which maybe you hadn't been in? Since you were six years old, of being a total beginner? It all the things that you are now starting to do?
Natalie Coughlin 17:16
Yeah, no, that's, I mean, that's such a hard thing. Right? You know, I did have the leg up of having the social media platform. So when I did launch Guderian wines with my partner, you know, I had a following that was curious, of, of this new venture of mine, and was supportive. So I didn't have a leg up in that way. But yeah, it's it's hard starting anything new. And when you're starting in your 30s, you're like, Man, I'm a 30 something year old intern. But I think the way that people's career go now that that's more normal, like if it was 20 years ago, and someone starting fresh in their 30s, you think of that like as like really brave or are very different. And now it's it's more commonplace that people start new careers, new paths, maybe later in life, and that is more socially acceptable. What was your initial question? I started to answer it.
Andrew Vontz 18:24
Yeah. Just as you started to kind of explore civilian life, you're trying out different things, or you're experiencing being a beginner and for somebody who's so boring, goal oriented, competitive and do have achieved what you've achieved to kind of be okay, what am I doing now? Does this feel good or not? Do I like these people or not? Is this the right career?
Natalie Coughlin 18:45
Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was tough, but I will say where I set myself up for success was I made I was very frugal throughout my professional athletic career and I always you know, saved and saved and saved and like, I started my you know, SEP IRA when I was 21 years old, like I set myself up knowing that I wasn't going to make this you know, professional athlete money forever. And keep in mind, swimming professionally is not the same as NFL or NBA or some of these other sports. So it's smaller, but I'm always having that focus, like hey, this is going to end I should save now gave me a lot of freedom and a lot of time to really explore what I wanted to do next without the pressure of having to get a job right away. So it gave me the freedom to start this brand with my with a good friend and be okay and not making money the first few years. We weren't losing money, but we certainly weren't making a whole lot of money but we're building the sweat equity in this lovely brand. And had I not set myself up in that way? Through years of planning, I don't think I would have had the freedom and the time to explore this.
Andrew Vontz 20:09
What are the filters that you have used to determine who you spend time with who you trust? And who you get involved with? professionally?
Natalie Coughlin 20:20
That's a good question. Um, my circle is pretty small. I have, you know, a core group of very, very close friends, and that have been my friends for a very, very long time. You know, I've been with my now husband for many, many, many years, and he has a good compass, and my family is all close to me. So I have, you know, people that have been in my life for a very long time that I rely on, and I'm very loyal to my friends. And fortunately, they're, they're loyal as well.
Andrew Vontz 21:01
And you mentioned that you're an introverted person, and you've lived such an incredibly public life. And, you know, I've spent 25 years working with and telling the stories of the world's top performers, brands, and businesses, as a journalist, as a communications executive in another capacities. And it's not always the case, particularly with athletes, there are a lot of athletes who have what it takes to perform at the very highest level. But then once they get there, and they get all this stuff that comes with that, that a lot of people I think, who are not in that position, fantasize about or find to be highly motivating, that doesn't always feel good for everybody. How did it feel for you to have the level of success that you had, and to have such a public life and to navigate that?
Natalie Coughlin 21:51
It was, it was hard at first. And fortunately, social media, social media did not exist when I first got my major success. You know, my first Olympics was in 2004. And, you know, Facebook was created in 2005. So, and still there was only available like Harvard. But yeah, I was, it was tough, because I remember going walking down the street in Manhattan, and people recognizing me, and just being confused as to how people were recognizing me and stopping me on the street and like, like, yeah, that's kind of cool. But when you're a 22 year old, you know, female, sometimes that could be a little weird. And so yeah, it just, it was strange. And so I can, I could empathize with some of these athletes who get so so recognizable and famous. And you know, you tweet a picture, or you put a picture on Instagram, and people immediately know where you are like, you have to be really street smart. And you have to be savvy when you start to navigate that life. And, you know, now that I'm much older, and a mother, I think about that for the next generation of you have to teach them the skills that no one had to learn. But But now, it's, it's a necessity if if you are going to utilize, you know, the public and the platforms that are that are kind of thrust upon you.
Andrew Vontz 23:37
And as a mom with two kids, how do you approach or how do you think about your children and their relationship to sports now or in the future? And how do you present that to them and explore it?
Natalie Coughlin 23:51
Yeah, no, it's really fun. So my kids are very young, they're two and four, like just turned two just turned four. So obviously, we put both of them in the pool immediately, especially with my son Aziz to we'd like lied about is his age to get them into swim school because it was the height of COVID. And there was nothing to do so. We said our three month old was six months and he was he was huge. So it was fine. He passed. But we got him into the hole really, really young, so that they learn water safety and just kind of develop a love for the water. You know. So, last summer was the first time my daughter got experience swim team, which was the cutest thing I've ever seen. She was three, you know, and she competed in three different meats and you know, as a 25, three and a 25 back and it takes forever but it's adorable. So exposing her to swim team and then we just added on a little bit of gymnastics and jujitsu and My husband and I are kind of on the same page that we want to expose our kids to sports. And we want them to find their own passions, but we also want to, we don't want to overschedule them so much that they're trying like seven different sports in that, like, they just have these tiny little experiences, but they're not learning a whole lot. Like I've, I've, I've witnessed my daughter. She's been doing jujitsu now for about two months. And she's been going about three days a week for about two months. And if she wasn't doing it that many times a week, she wouldn't be learning and she wouldn't be gaining this confidence. And I think the confidence and the fun of sports happens if you do it consistently. So yeah, we're just trying all that is like to say that we're not trying to over schedule them. We're trying to expose them consistently to a few sports that they like, and let them grow from there.
Andrew Vontz 26:04
The guest on the episode that I just dropped this week is Hector Beltran, who's a jujitsu black belt. He has an academy in Downey, California, and he was a bronze medalist at the Masters NoGi worlds. How did you jujitsu, you know, very popular right now. I mean, I would almost expect you to say that you also have your daughter bow hunting, because that's another maybe you have maybe on an archery range in the backyard.
Natalie Coughlin 26:29
I just read and Dora so yeah, about like bow hunting. But yeah, no, we don't. Yeah, my my dad, he was his sport was martial arts. So he did come through his whole life as his sport, and he taught me when I was young, and we would spar all the time. And I always begged to do kung fu as well. But I always swam. And I think, you know, I think my dad didn't really want as little girl to do you know, Kung Fu. So I was always so jealous of people who did martial arts. And so one of my daughter's best friends was going to do martial arts. And I was like, Oh, we're going to do this too. And, and I was thinking along the lines of karate or kung fu. And the mom and I, we were looking and we found this jujitsu, and it makes so it's so much more sense for a child to do jujitsu. I think it's not, you're not striking other kids. So you're not encouraging them to attack their their brother, at least with like, a kick or a punch. And it's a lot more practical. And I think there's a lot of like, innate features to wrestling other kids that I think, is really good for a little kid. But I love the discipline. I love that in her class, she's exposed to not only other four year olds, but there are eight year olds and nine year olds that she gets to, you know, aspire to be these older cool kids. And these kids really take the little ones under their wing. It's just it's such a nice class, the end and that's swimming is is like that, too, like swimming is one of the few sports where the little kids are on the same team as the big kids. And so they get to aspire to be like the older kids and they're one team there. They're not too many sports that do that. And so that's what appeals to me about jujitsu. But yeah, it's it's hilarious. Watching four year olds try and wrestle and tap out and, and how they actually understand what they're doing. It's kind of amazing.
Andrew Vontz 28:36
My kids are not in jujitsu. Currently, I have a four year old daughter and a six year old son says spacing roughly the same as yours. And there is a lot of wrestling in my house. No jujitsu yet, but we have introduced both the verbal tap out and the physical tap. And it's actually like, really up leveled their enjoyment of just goofing around, because now everybody knows what the limit is and to actually stop at an appropriate time. Right. Children don't always know. Right?
Natalie Coughlin 29:08
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. When they were first introducing armbars and like, Oh, God, I don't know about this. But but the kids get it. It's amazing. They get it.
Andrew Vontz 29:18
And what's your relationship to physicality movement, sport, like now?
Natalie Coughlin 29:24
Yeah, that's evolved so much. Like after I stopped swimming competitively, I ran a ton. And that was really my main outlet. And then after I had my daughter and 2018, I got horrible plantar fasciitis. So I couldn't run like I used to. And so I started swimming and started doing a few things. And was like trying to stay fit doing cardio in the gym, never really enjoyed that. Then got pregnant with my son. Like literally I found out I was pregnant and then the world shut down with COVID. And I will say I became like a veal I did nothing, I was stuck in my house with a toddler. I was, like huge. My son was a very big boy. And so I did not work out really at all during 2020, which was mentally and physically very tough on me. And then I ended up getting a rowing machine, early 2021, which I'm obsessed with. I love it, I still row a bunch to this day. And recently, I started lifting very, very heavy again and doing essentially that the same workouts that I did when I was a professional athlete training for the Olympics. And it's, it's incredible. My strength is the same that that ever, ever was if not better. It's so fun. Like my body has adapted really well to it. Like this is what I need to be doing. So it's evolved quite a bit in the last six months, but I lift really heavy three days a week. I do some sort of cardio. I'm able to run again. My feet are fine now. I still row I tried to swim a little bit and then I just took up rocking.
Andrew Vontz 31:15
Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Oh, rock.
Natalie Coughlin 31:18
I have a go rock. I have a go rock. Yeah, I'm just I just started. So I'm doing 30 pounds. And I love it. I did it I did this morning before my meeting.
Andrew Vontz 31:29
That's great. I've had Jason McCarthy, the Greenbrae, founder of go rock on the show twice. I rock all the time as well. I'm actually looking out the window. I live in rural Maine, I could see hatchet mountain right out the window here, I often go rock up and down hatchet mountain. And I now start my day every day I go out with my rock with my dog. And I have high visibility stuff all over my rock because I don't want to get Stephen King to get run over by a van on the side of the road. What do you enjoy about rucking specifically,
Natalie Coughlin 32:02
I literally just started but I let what appeals to me is the flexibility of it, of being able to pack a bag, like if I am going on a work trip, for instance, taking this backpack using it as my as my carry on and then just throwing a bunch of weight in it wherever I am. And then just going for a walk. I like the flexibility of being able to work out anywhere. Like that's like such, the nice thing about running is you just put on a pair of shoes, you leave the house and you just go swimming is much more difficult in that you have to find a pool of Pool time, all this stuff, hair gets wet all this. I like the simplicity of the rock. But I and I always have had really strong legs and a strong core. So I feel like I'm built to do it. In a lot of ways. I mean, I've been toting my kids around for the last four years, and they're approximately 30 plus pounds. So it's kind of perfect. It's a little bit more urban on ergonomic than what I'm used to.
Andrew Vontz 33:05
The one thing that I've found gets a bit tricky when we go on family hikes, which we do pretty regularly is I'll wear my go rock, I'll often have 20 or 30 pounds in there. And my kids love to hike and they love to run on the trail. But especially with Eva, my daughter, it's changing as she gets older. But it used to be the case that, you know, we get 45 minutes into a two hour hike and it was Dad, I need you to carry me and then it's actually really got a serious load, which I don't mind going up the mountain but coming down gets gets a little tricky.
Natalie Coughlin 33:38
Yeah. And I like and I like that like you could go with people who aren't recovering and still get a really good workout. Like I like that flexibility if I wanted to meet a friend at you know, the local trail, and you know, he or she doesn't really want to get a workout in I could put on some weight and it's you know, it's a good, good flexibility piece.
Andrew Vontz 33:59
How did rucking come into your sphere of consciousness? How did you find out about it and how to get started?
Natalie Coughlin 34:05
I think I think I was listening to one of Peter A Tia's like podcast, and I think it was oh, it was the corporate crisis. It was i Yes, I was. I read his book just a couple of months ago. And he started talking about it. And yeah, I was like, This sounds so great. And so my husband and I ordered one my husband's been going like non stop. And he's actually going to do the 12 hour walk on Monday. So we'll see how he goes with that. Not with a rock but
Andrew Vontz 34:38
okay.
Natalie Coughlin 34:40
But But yeah, we're, we're into it.
Andrew Vontz 34:45
And when I hear you talk about cardio when I hear people use that word, I feel like the relationship to it is like I kind of I kind of don't want to do this whereas with weightlifting, it sounds like you really enjoy going in and banging heavyweight. Is that the case?
Natalie Coughlin 34:58
Right? Yes. I love I love it so much. I squat pretty much every day because I'm really good at squat and I love it. Yeah, I still do what I used to do in training. So I superset everything. As a swimmer, you use your body, you use your whole body all the time. So it's not unusual for me to do heavy squat, heavy pull ups and alternate. Several rounds, I've been having a lot of fun. Throwing up some really good weight, getting my pull ups back. Starting to do weighted pull ups again, like I really wasn't sure if I would ever be able to do pull ups like I once did. And it's coming back to me, and it feels really, really good. And it's just incredible how my body has responded to it. Because you know, I've had two kids, I haven't been training like this, and six, seven years. And yeah, like the strength has come back. Like I was insanely sore those first few weeks. But I got through it. And now I'm getting stronger every week.
Andrew Vontz 36:08
I just have this feeling that you may have set some goals for yourself and each of these lifts. Ups. Is that the case? Yeah, I
Natalie Coughlin 36:15
mean, I set a goal to be able to do 10 bodyweight pull ups and I I've been able to hit that again, which I was like, you know, that's pretty great. But yeah, I want to I want to be able to do pull ups with 25 pounds. Or I used to do 35 pounds for three pull ups. And not quite there yet. But slowly but surely getting there.
Andrew Vontz 36:41
In some of the podcasts that I was listening to when I was researching and getting ready for this interview, you addressed one of the questions that I had, so I already know the answer, but used to swim up to 60 miles a week, I think.
Natalie Coughlin 36:55
Yeah. Which is absurd. Like, that sounds like hyperbolic. But um, yeah, I there were weeks in high school that we would do 100,000 meters, which is roughly 60 something miles, you know, we did combination of meters and yards. So. But yeah, it was insane. Like, no wonder I had shoulder problems. And that's it's not That's not necessary. That's a very old school way of trading, like even Katie Ledecky is not putting up that type of yardage. So yeah, I used to do insane hours in the pool. And so the ability to focus is certainly there for me, because you're in your own head for hours and hours and hours of the day when you're swimming.
Andrew Vontz 37:42
I have a question about that. Specifically, this hadn't occurred to me, but was that super high volume methodology did that come from, like the Eastern Bloc, and migrate into the west or was Western. So that was like athletes on tons of performance enhancing drugs. In Eastern Europe, we're probably doing insane yardage that maybe the bobby body's not built for.
Natalie Coughlin 38:06
I think it was kind of that that like, Eastern Bloc mentality, performance enhancing or not, that's just, you know, that kind of like crazy strength and like toughness, that is like, just a part of their culture kind of seeped into a swimming culture, and especially swimming in American culture in the 70s and 80s. And so you have you had, you know, fortunately, it's getting replaced with the next generation. But for a very long time, you had all these little pockets have these old school programs where it was all about volume. And like, I remember hearing this quote, it's like, we take a dozen eggs and throw them against the wall, and the eggs that don't break are the great swimmers. And it's really just, yeah, how much can you take and if your body can handle it, and then you kind of like fall backwards into being the great swimmer because you survived this, right? It's training now for the most part. And you know, there are pockets of this older school mentality that still exists. But, but now training is much more performance oriented, it's training smarter, it's training so that we work with the physiology of the body. A lot of swimming, if you're not doing the right technique, you will tear up your shoulders and neck and back. And so people have gotten a lot smarter and and also incorporated cross training to supplement swimming, whereas before, you know, maybe you do some med ball throws and that was about it. Now, summers do a ton of weights, and pilates and all sorts of cross training.
Andrew Vontz 39:47
And you've talked about when you were doing that insane yardage is I believe that's the appropriate term of art, right? Yeah, yeah. So when you were doing that, that's super high volume, super high yardage I've heard you talk about how some athletes in swimming when they're younger, they really dissociate. And they just whatever they they daydream, they think about different stuff. But I've heard you talk about how you were focused the entire time on how can I get better with every stroke of every second of every minute that I'm in the pool. And I'm curious on the other side of swimming now, like in your professional life, day to day as a mom, whatever, when you're lifting weights, whatever, do you still go deeply into your experiences and deeply into presence?
Natalie Coughlin 40:36
Yes. And that's something that I it took a very long time to get good at that. And it was something that I just started to realize, like, every time I'm swimming, you sing a song and you like, like you said, you dissociate. So you could get through this three hour grueling workout. And that's a coping mechanism. But it's not necessarily helping you get better. So once I started getting more focused, I started getting better in each practice, and then getting faster in my meats. And it just became this positive cycle where I got better, and my meats got better. And training, training became easier. And those hours like just, they, they went by a lot quicker when I was that, that focus. And so that's something that I practiced for years and years and years and years and got really good at that where I could stay highly, highly focused for many hours. And now it's, it's funny, it's one of the things my husband kind of complaints about, sometimes, but it's all get very, very focused on a project. And I'll have zero idea how much time went by where it's like, oh, I just need to work on this one thing, it'll take me five minutes. And then an hour and a half later, I'm still working on it. And time kind of disappeared. So I have to set my timer a lot of times, just to keep myself on task. But yeah, I get focused, very, very focused on certain things, which I think is making me sound kind of add. But yeah, I'm very, very focused on the task at hand. And to the point where I just lose sense of time, sometimes.
Andrew Vontz 42:13
It sounds to me like you're entering a flow state, and you're able to do it with a variety of activities, because you've refined your capacity to be present and to be in this mental state from sweating.
Natalie Coughlin 42:27
Yeah, and it's just it's so funny, because as I learned more about meditation, as I got older, I was like, oh, that's kind of what I'm doing. You know, I'm doing this exercise, meditation and training. And I know a lot of people have such a difficulty staying present in meditation. And, you know, I do as well, but it once I started learning about meditation, I was like, oh, that's what I've been trying to work on for so long. And it makes sense. And, and now I could apply this to things outside of swimming.
Andrew Vontz 43:07
What in your life do you want to be doing that you're not currently doing, that you're struggling to make happen or to do
Natalie Coughlin 43:15
so many things I want to golf. I really want to golf. I want like, I want to have something competitive, and athletic that I could do from for many years. And I was I was realizing I got to I get invited to all these like golf tournaments all the time. And I love doing it, but I never practice. And so obviously, I'm not going to get better unless I practice. So I need to find some friends that will actually go golfing with me. Because that's not a solo sport. So that's one of the things I want to learn piano, I moved into a new house a year ago, and the former owners just left their piano. So I've been learning. It's It was amazing. Like, and actually Yeah, and I got it too. And and the guy's like, it's actually in pretty good shape. Like I thought it was a piece of junk. But it's it's in decent shape. So I've been learning online. And there's like some great programs online. So I've been doing that. Those are kind of like the goals that you know, I could do for the rest of my life. Those are two things that you could do well into, into old age. And I mean, yeah, I've been like toying with the idea of doing jujitsu myself, but I don't know if I really want to wrestle a bunch of strangers. So we'll see. I might I might try it. I get so jealous watching my daughter and like, it looks so much fun. And then I was telling one of my best friends about and she's like, do you really want to wrestle strangers? It's like, no, not really. So we'll see.
Andrew Vontz 44:49
That's hilarious. Yeah, I've never thought about it that way before. That's funny though. Yeah, she
Natalie Coughlin 44:53
knows she she knows me very well. And I was like, oh, yeah, good point. I don't know if I would like this.
Andrew Vontz 45:00
cuz that's awesome to loop back on the piano thing for a second. My kids go to music class, we have instruments all over the house. I wouldn't say that I'm particularly good at playing music, but I've always really enjoyed it. Has music always been a part of your life? Have you ever been like goofed around with instruments throughout your life? Or is this a new thing?
Natalie Coughlin 45:20
Yeah. Um, so my mother's side of the family is Filipino and Filipino culture, like music and singing and playing instruments is such a big, big piece of that. My grandma has got a million different brothers and sisters, and they all play so many different instruments. Like my grandma plays the baritone ukulele. She plays the banjo, she plays the guitar, she could play the piano, she could sing. And all my relatives have been like that. So yes, like I did choir in in middle school. And I went to a Catholic school in Vallejo, where, again, the kids in my class, they were all first generation Filipino American, like 95% of them. So singing was always a big piece of something that I wanted to do, and not a good singer. I love singing. I'm not a good singer, though. But yeah, like, so I always like would play on the piano. I never formally learned my parents when I was, I think, maybe 10 bought me this thing called the miracle I don't know if you ever heard about it is like this keyboard that hooked up to your computer. And then keep in mind, this is like a computer in the early 90s. And you would play Duck Hunt by like, you know, by playing the proper keys. And it's funny because I still have this keyboard and it still works. I let my daughter play with it until we got a real piano. But I always wanted to learn, but I never had time with slimming. And so now that I have this gorgeous piano just sitting there, I could force myself to at least practice 1015 minutes a day. And again, some days, it's a couple hours and some days, it's really five to 10 minutes.
Andrew Vontz 47:13
And when you were in the choir and middle school, I also grew up Catholic. I went to Catholic school through until college actually. Did you see where you sick was eagle's wings and the repertoire and the choir?
Natalie Coughlin 47:30
Were the like button or is it? Oh, it's
Andrew Vontz 47:33
not a bad Miller. Sorry. It's like a big, it's tough to go to a mass and not hear eagle's wings or a Catholic funeral. It's like,
Natalie Coughlin 47:41
I don't know, maybe maybe that's an East Coast thing. I don't know that one. Okay, maybe I do. And I'm just, I never called it that. I do remember, like, learning all the signs for a lot of different songs. And it was, it was fun. But But yeah, it wasn't the best singer.
Andrew Vontz 47:59
And when you sit down to play the piano, do you goof around a jam? Or is it always directed practice,
Natalie Coughlin 48:05
it's a little bit of both. So I will like warm up with my scales in the beginning and work on some drills work on a song. And then the the program that follows piano note, it's an online tutorial. It's like lessons. And you've just progressed as you get better. And they encourage improvisation at the very end of every practice. And so I try to I sometimes do it sometimes don't. That's not really. I'm someone who likes to just work at something. But I do try and play as much as I can.
Andrew Vontz 48:47
That's one of the things that I personally have really enjoyed about being a parent is getting to see. I mean, results may vary. It's probably different for everybody. But at least with my kids. It's been really powerful for me to see from when things started out. Like every kid is an athlete. Every kid is an artist. Every kid sings, every kid dances and then over time, I think people get feedback or get made fun of or whatever. And those things start to get pushed down and down and down. And then people have a different sense of who they are from where they started out. But with my son, for example, he really enjoys playing things that he's learned how to plays, learn how to read music now and like he'll actually I've tried to get him to go in the other direction of like, Hey, man, like, let's just jam music can be just goofing around on this keyboard or the guitar or whatever. I've showed him a few things and then he'll like, notate it and come up to me and be like, Dad, here's the mean, like I used to Student Yeah, you must have you know, that must be your mom's side of the family because you definitely didn't get that from me. But yeah, that's Part of what I love about music is just goofing around and improvising. Do you all play as a family at all?
Natalie Coughlin 50:05
No, my it's funny, my daughter she doesn't. She had doesn't seem to have any interest in music, which is really funny because my mom and grant and grandma and my mom's sister, throughout COVID, they learn that well, my mom and sister learned the ukulele and my grandma would play with them via zoom. And they did it for like a year and a half without missing a single day. And my daughter was present for a lot of that. And so she learned she learned so many really old songs like stuff from like burl lives and like tiny bubbles is one of her favorite song or like Elvira, like all these really, really old songs. And I'm like, I don't even know what these are. So she has a pretty eclectic tastes, but she, she doesn't really seem drawn to music the same. But my son, my son, does seem a lot more drawn to music like he plays on the piano. He dances a lot when he hears music. So I think the music side is like much more in my son than it is my daughter, which is funny because she has been exposed to more music.
Andrew Vontz 51:17
Hey, they're all different, right? Yeah, yeah. Are you still in the chicken game?
Natalie Coughlin 51:24
I am not. Sadly, when we moved last year, we saw I had my last house we were there. 15 years had this ridiculous beautiful edible garden. And we had love and chickens and especially throughout the pandemic, like that was fantastic. I grew a lot of food and had tons of eggs. And when we sold the house the people who bought it actually kept the chickens as well and they're alive and well and like kind of showed them how to take care of them and they're they're doing a great job with them and our new house I we just completed our edible garden. But it doesn't really have room for chicken sadly,
Andrew Vontz 52:09
what's going down in edible garden what have we got out there?
Natalie Coughlin 52:13
Right now and we have three citrus so we have a Morrow blood orange bears line and Meyer lemon. We have a bunch of the Hoyas like pineapple guava that grows really, really well here. And it's one of the few things that's very dear tolerant, because we do have quite a few deer. You have a pear tree, tons of greens, like a lot of salad greens and braising greens and herbs. And yeah, the fig. Yeah, we have a fig as well. And then our stone fruit, we're going to do a whole like orchard a stone fruit as well. Strong. Yeah, strong. Yeah, my old stone fruit orchard would put out like 100 pounds of fruit. And I'd make so much jam and preserves and eat just tons of plums throughout the summer. So I'm looking forward to that. The next few years,
Andrew Vontz 53:07
what do you get out of your relationship with your garden?
Natalie Coughlin 53:10
I, well, first of all, you get the best quality stuff that you could, that you like, you can't buy some of this stuff, like if you like those little like flashes and forgive my French like the first bra like the little Alpine berries, you can't buy those at the store because they're too delicate, but they are the most perfumey intense strawberry you'll ever have. You save a lot of money when you're, you're growing your own herbs, like you plant a few things of time, and it'll come back and stay there. At least in California, it stays there. Year after year it grows and grows and grows. So you do it once. So there's just something that's just so nice about going on to yard picking your salad, picking your herbs, picking some fruit, and knowing that's there. And for that, for my kids, I think it's really important for them to know where their food comes from. Like that's something I really miss not having the chickens anymore. Like I really enjoyed having my daughter helped me with the chickens and helping me catch the chickens when you needed to and then collect their eggs and and also, I mean with their immune systems. It's so good for them to be around farm animals like that. So I do miss that. But yeah, just being in touch with the soil. It does things to your brain like I mean, that's it's proven in science, like it's really good for you for you to get down in your hands in the soil. And yeah, just know where your food your food comes from.
Andrew Vontz 54:46
When we lived in Oakland before we moved to Maine, we had an orange tree in our backyard that had I mean, the oranges were so good.
Natalie Coughlin 54:55
Yeah. Nice. Yeah. And there's just something so nice about that.
Andrew Vontz 54:59
Yeah Like right now I'm looking at I can see my chicken coop. My chickens probably wish they lived in California.
Natalie Coughlin 55:09
So yeah, baby chickens live in California
Andrew Vontz 55:12
but they're they're happy chickens it's you know we kind of had a blizzard overnight slash today but they're still out there running around I was asking my son before I did this interview of confirming what varieties we have said dad there are too many for me to name right now but we do have some Dominic's we have some bantams and it is fun it's fun to go out and you know feed and water them collect the eggs watch them run around and you know we've had some valuable lessons Natalie about the circle of life because we of course we have foxes we have all kinds of animals and they're they're hungry. Those animals. Yes. And they like to eat chickens.
Natalie Coughlin 55:55
Yes, I lost one to a raccoon once that was in my coop. Like, like this stupid. This stupid chicken stuck its head out of the coop and then this raccoon like ripped off? was like the worst discovery happens.
Andrew Vontz 56:13
Yeah, it has. We've actually we had an incident with a raccoon recently. I don't know what the I don't know all the coupe terminology but we have a kind of a big coupe and the chickens have a ladder that they sleep on. And we went in there and there was a raccoon and there and you know they had all gone to like the highest rungs we got the raccoon out. So listeners rest assured there were no fatalities during that incident. It tends to be more during the season when foxes have babies that's typically when we start to see attacks and it's wild because I go out there typically at night to shut the coop down I take out you know my flashlight you look over and there's little eyes on the field just waiting for the moment to attack.
Natalie Coughlin 56:55
But yeah, they do. They get so fixated. It's truly amazing. The watch. So I miss I miss having that and but it was it was so nice to get those like beautifully colored eggs, the best tasting eggs we'll ever have. Giving all the kitchen scraps to the chickens was so nice, the manure that they would give us for compost like it's just I loved that like closed loop that we had. And it was a good learning experience for my daughter. So I'll just have to educate my son in a different way.
Andrew Vontz 57:27
There might be chickens in your future. Who knows, but I don't think
Natalie Coughlin 57:31
in this house I think my neighbors wouldn't approve. are much closer to our neighbors. Previously.
Andrew Vontz 57:39
I get it. I get it. I kind of asked you this before we started rolling today. But is there anything that you've always wanted to be asked about that no one ever asked you about?
Natalie Coughlin 57:51
Um, yeah, I mean, probably not. I don't know. Like I, like I said, it's usually focused on one area of my life. Like in this interview we did. We focused on a little bit of everything, which has been great. Yeah, like there's, I've been asked a lot of different things and I don't know. But that's a good question.
Andrew Vontz 58:16
It's, well, this is like the combo platter of interviews. And so that's, that's good to hear. So Natalie, if people want to learn more about you follow you check out your wines. Where should they go?
Natalie Coughlin 58:27
Yeah, so just Natalie Coughlin on Instagram and Darian wines on Instagram. I'm very well, I wouldn't say very active on active on Instagram on both those platforms. And then there's a link tree with both of them for cookbooks, for podcasts, such as this one for everything.
Andrew Vontz 58:48
Awesome. Natalie, thanks so much for joining me today and for what you shared and I wish you luck with the winds and with hitting new PRs and all of your lifts.
Natalie Coughlin 58:59
Thank you. Thank you. It's been really really fun. been really fun getting back at it and pretending like I'm a professional athlete again.
Andrew Vontz 59:09
Awesome, thanks, Natalie.