When we bring guests onto the #WeGotGoals podcast, we know they aren't just inspiring individuals because of what they've accomplished, but because they have a unique perspective on goal setting that we can't wait to unpack.

Lee Kemp, seven-time wrestling national champion with three gold medals in the World Championships, four in the Wrestling World Cup and two in the Pan-American Championships, might just have the most fascinating outlook on setting goals we've ever had the privilege of sharing on the podcast.

In 1980, Kemp was headed to the Summer Olympic Games in Moscow when he heard the news on television: President Carter announced America's boycott of the Olympics. This news, which may have sounded like a disappointment to avid sports fans at home, changed the course of Kemp's life forever.

"That was going to be the launching pad for my success," he told me during our interview. "Well, that launching pad wasn't there. That flight had took off and I wasn't on it."

Kemp is one of the most decorated athletes we've interviewed, but this defining moment in his career, which he describes as akin to a death in the family, propelled us into a deeper conversation about setting goals - how you respond when the one thing you're fighting for doesn't come to fruition.

Although many of us don't face literal Olympic-size disappointments, Kemp's story is relatable to every up and down we experience in our careers, relationships, dreams and goals.

"Sometimes life throws you something that you can't really understand, like a death, like a sickness, but you still have to, to move on," he says.

That's just what Kemp did. Two phrases that Kemp's role model and fellow wrestler told him in a high school wrestling camp fueled his fire throughout his wrestling career: "anyone can be beaten" and "anyone could be a champion." He took those two pieces of advice to heart at this inflection point in his career and created a fresh pathway to becoming a champion, even if his view of what "champion" meant changed.

"I went to graduate school ... I got an MBA and I went to work in New York City in marketing and start[ed] to focus on just developing other skills."

Kemp describes owning his own car dealership for 14 years like being in the ring.

"I felt like I was in a wrestling match every day trying to tackle all the things you tackle [owning a business]."

Although Kemp is grateful that wrestling made its way back into his life - he coached at the 2008 Olympics and now helps out coaching his son - he recognizes the lessons he was forced to learn may be more valuable for life than what any Olympic victory could have done for him.

"I'm kind of almost glad that things didn't go the way I thought, because I would have just been very satisfied in all my success in wrestling ... I wouldn't have [had] to really venture out to gain other skills to learn how to do other things."

Kemp's unique perspective in the professional, corporate world and as a professional athlete allowed him to see that across every industry, there are days when you have to dig deep, pull yourself together and make it through something tough.

"I realize is that every industry and discipline - sports, business, anything - there is this overwhelming drive on how can we be successful no matter what discipline that we're in," as Kemp puts it.

The 1980 Olympics were, of course, a disappointment and an unfair turn of events for Kemp. But his story of resilience is far more impactful, far more resounding, to the rest of the world than any gold medal.

Listen to how this Olympic athlete's goal setting mindset changed based on one life event, and how he's taken success into his own hands for the present and the future. And if you like what you hear, subscribe where ever you get your podcasts and leave us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts.

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Transcript:

JAC: Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatlife.com. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen, and with me you have Kristen Geil and Maggie Umberger.

KG: Hi Jeana.

MU: Hi Jeana.

JAC: Hi Ladies. How are you?

MU: Doing well

JAC: And Maggie, you interviewed Lee Kemp this week, right?

MU: I did, I interviewed Lee Kemp. He's a world champion wrestler who has a story unlike any we've ever heard from an athlete before, and it was not only eye opening, but really inspiring to talk to him this week.

KG: One of the things with Lee is, unlike every other guest that we've had here on aSweatlife where we focus on goals that they've achieved. But with Lee the conversation, always has to include a goal that he actually missed out on, not through any fault of his own. Can you give the reader a little background of what goal he had to miss, not because of anything that he did, and maybe how that's still affecting him today?

MU: Lee is an incredibly decorated athlete. He has won so many titles as a world champion wrestler and so he has so many accomplishments that he can speak to and that are really inspiring to hear as someone who would be a guest on our, on our podcast anyway. But the main story that we ended up talking about is one that was defining for him because it was a goal he missed out on. He did not get to go to the 1980 Moscow Olympics because of the US boycott. And that was a goal for him and just hearing him outline it from his perspective of being such a world-class athlete and having the chance to go, to compete at an Olympic level and he didn't get to go and it wasn't his fault and so the aftermath of that was what we ended up talking about as a story of resilience, a story of finding a new path to success when what you thought was going to be your launching pad and envisioning some goal, having to rewrite the script and find success in another way.

JAC: And to hear Lee speak—it’s sort of interesting because this is such a defining moment for him and it is a defining topic when he speaks to young athletes when he speaks to athletes who are adult age. Maggie, do you think, do you get the sense from him that he ever got over it?

MU: I'm not sure that he did and I don't even know how I would either, like putting myself in those shoes to be at that level of athleticism and be deprived of the opportunity to compete is a huge loss, and he talks about it as such as a loss for him because he never—it wasn't like he competed and lost the Games, he just never got the chance to go. And so I don't think he's gotten over it, but where he's pivoted and the things he's done since then have truly proven that he doesn't take no for an answer and that he's going to write his own success story no matter what, and I think that was the most inspiring piece of this talk. And so hearing that he went to grad school, hearing that he started his own business and that now he helps coach his son in wrestling. He's been to the 2008 Olympics as a coach and he's written a book. He will have a movie produced about him. There are so many avenues that he can still say are success stories for him. But I think the biggest takeaway really isn't even in a tangible goal, but it's the way that you have to respond to failure. And we all in our lives deal with that on a small scale and on a huge scale. We don't always talk about the things that go wrong. We talk about the big success stories and just looking at that as holding it up as this amazing accomplishment. And sometimes it's those moments of falling down that are way more defining and way more empowering to an individual. And so that was what I was so grateful to talk to Lee about so openly.

JAC: And it sounds like he learned a lot from that. And so did you. So here is Maggie with Lee Kemp.

MU: So I'm here today on the #WeGotGoals podcast with Lee Kemp, and Lee, I'm going to try to say all your titles, but I might get it wrong, so please correct me if I am, but you're a seven-time national champion who won three gold medals in the World Championships and four in the World Cup of Wrestling as well as two in the Pan American Games. So you're a champion wrestler.

LK: Yes, I got that down.

MU: So how did you find that sport and when did you realize that you might have the potential to be very good at it?

LK: You know, that's a good question because I started out playing basketball, you know, in seventh and eighth grade and I started wrestling really late by today's standards. You know, most athletes or even people that are good at anything, you know, they start when they're six, seven, you know, four or five if, if, whatever, you know, whatever sport, gymnastics, swimming, wrestling. But I started only in ninth grade. Prior to that, I played basketball and the reason why I got into wrestling because I wasn't very good at basketball and I made a good choice. I didn't grow, didn't get any taller, and maybe I wasn't, uh, I just wasn't very good. And so I found wrestling through some friends in high school who were wrestlers and the high school gym coach, he was the wrestling coach, so he was recruiting people to come out for the wrestling team. And back then we had wrestling in gym class. I don't think they do that anymore. I got in and the one lure that got me in is that the coach needed 138-pounder and I weighed 138. So he threw me out there right away on the freshman team. So that's how I got started.

MU: The magic number 138. So usually on #WeGotGoals, we ask two big questions, one of them being, what's a big goal that you accomplished and how did you get there? Your story is very interesting because at the point where you earned your spot at the Olympics in the 1980 Games, you couldn't go to those Games. They were boycotted. So I think that this is a really interesting point to talk about a, the achievement of getting to that level and B, how did you handle and how did you deal with that shift in your plans that totally wasn't your fault.

LK: You know, that's a complex question because of the boycott. The boycott just changed everything. I’m still not totally over that. But anyway, when I got into wrestling, I was an average wrestler, as you can imagine. I just started, so I was just average. I had a 500 season the next year on varsity and that summer I met Dan Gable and Dan Gable was like the Michael Jordan of wrestling. He was, he was just, you know, he was the best wrestler in the world and the unique thing of that meeting him, it was the summer of 1972. That summer he went on to win an Olympic gold medal and I had the chance to meet him when I was just my summer after my 10th grade year in high school. And he was so good that the Russians had made a declaration that they would find a Russian to beat him cause they were the best in the world at wrestling and here this American was beating them and that was a big deal, that they were going to find a Russian restaurant to beat Dan Gable. And I was at this wrestling camp and there was Dan Gable and that was one of, I was like 14 or 15 years old and he talked about that a little bit. The pressure about that. And the thing he said that stuck with me, he said that anyone could be beaten. Doesn't matter if it's the Russian or not, you know, anyone could be beaten. So I'm setting my goals to beat this Russian and to win an Olympic gold medal. Doesn't matter if they're scouring their entire country to find a person to beat me. So that stuck with me. And the other thing that stuck with me was that he said to all the wrestlers there, any one of you could be champions and so I’m like, even me? Wow. I mean we all hear that, when we go to listen to motivational speakers or whatever, you know, they always say, if I could do it, you could do it right? It sounds like a cliché now. But there's always one or two people in the audience that will actually believe it.

LK: And I was one of those people and it's like, I could be a champion, Dan Gable said it. And the second thing he said is anybody can be beaten. And the reason why that's important is because right then I set my goal to be like him, like Dan Gable. So I went home after the camp, it was just a week-long camp and so I watched him win his gold medal on TV, on ABC. He was over in Munich, Germany. He beat that Russian and he won the gold medal. No one scored a point on him, so he was just invincible in my mind, so I said, I want to be like him. I don't want to lose any more matches. I’m going to be just like Dan Gable. That was my goal and the next two years I went undefeated in high school and won the state title and when I talked to wrestlers and when I give speeches and stuff, I talk to people.

LK: It's like, it's not. I didn't find a Superman cape in my closet when I got home, you know, it just didn't suddenly discover I was Superman. What happened was my thought process changed. My attitude changed. I started to act like Dan Gable, but when you do that, there's a lot of work that goes along with trying to be like him. There's a lot of wrestlers I coach and I try to show them what they need to do to be a champion and they look at me and go like, well, I don't want to do that. I just don't want to commit that much to it. That's fine. We all pick our place in life where we want to be. Dan held nothing back in his training. I had a chance to watch him train at the camp too. That's by the way, too. I watched him run, lift, while the other kids after the session they would go to lunch or whatever.

LK: I said, forget lunch. I just wanted to watch this man train and so I took in all that just, I don't know what you would call it, but it's just by watching him train and I, I started to understand the intensity that it took because I watched him. I could see his face, I could see the sweat, I could see the toil. I just started to understand what it was going to take to be as good as him. So when I went back right away, right when I got back from that camp I started training, I started running lifting and doing everything that I saw him do it and it allowed me to win and go undefeated the next two years, get a scholarship to college and all that. But the important part of this story is that I wrestled Dan Gable less than four years after I met him as a sophomore in high school.

LK: We fast forward to the 76 Olympics. Uh, I was in college then, Dan had won it four years earlier in the 72 Olympics. He had retired but he's making a comeback and he entered this college tournament that I was in and it was in November, so at the very start of my sophomore year and Dan Gable is in my weight class. It was like a David and Goliath type of scenario. He was 26 or 27 and I was 18 and um, I wrestled him. And I used those two statements he made at that camp through my whole life after I met him and I used those statements to beat him. He said, anyone can be beaten. It doesn't matter if it's Dan Gable, and he said Lee Kemp, he didn't use my name, but he was telling all of us campers, any one of you could be champions, any one of you could be just like me. So, so I, I approached that match with that mindset.

MU: And then going on to earn your spot at the Olympics when something seemingly unthinkable happen and President Jimmy Carter decided to boycott the 1980 Olympics. So how did you find out about that and how did you react to that moment?

LK: I mentioned Dan Gable again because he was the coach of that Olympic team, so Dan had the opportunity and I had the opportunity to be coached by him to be mentored by him. That one match was just what it was. It was just one match. We became really good friends. He didn't wrestle anymore after that. He coached me a lot after that, but after I met Dan Gable, I wanted to be Olympic champion, so at that moment I knew I was going to be an Olympic gold medalist. Everything else was just stepping stones along the way, so I had a successful college career and all that and Dan coached me to two world titles prior to the Olympic Games in 1978 the year, my senior year in college, Dan was our USA coach and I made our world team and our national team that competed in the world and I won the World Championship.

LK: I was the youngest American to ever win, I was 21 when I won the world championships then and so for over 30 years it took someone to win as a younger person. Kyle Snyder was that individual, so he's one of our phenoms in wrestling today. And I want it the next year. Dan coached me. He was in my corner. I trained with him every day so 80, he was the coach and we were focused. I was focused. It was before the Internet obviously, and all that, so just heard about it on, on the news and Dan reached out to all of us and said, don't watch the news, we're, we're, we're going to Moscow. Don’t—just focus, stay training. So I listened to him and I said, OK, I just stayed focused on stayed training and um, I couldn't in my wildest imagination think we were not going to go to the Olympic Games.

LK: That's unprecedented. I mean, even during one of the World Wars we had the Olympic Games, even when Hitler was doing, you know, all those horrible things. We still had the Olympic Games in Germany, you know, so with all that knowledge and Gable kind of informed us that, hey, we're, we're, we'll, we'll find a way to get there, just keep training. And um, and so I did. Eventually the inevitable happened. Our country, through public statements that Jimmy Carter made, I watched it and it was incredible. I mean, it was a big deal because he convinced not just, you know, America and the U.S. Olympic Committee because there was a vote that was taken, but he convinced like 20 or 30 other countries to not go to the Olympic Games. So one of my competitors, a West German, I had won it and he was second in the world championships.

LK: He was a very formidable opponent and he couldn't go either as an example in my particular weight class. It was a lot, just was, it affected a lot of people. It was just horrible. But, and you know, I equated, I guess there's a lot of analogies you can make, but probably one of the strongest ones that I use and it's pretty strong, it’s pretty harsh, because I have children. You know, it's like losing a child, losing a loved one or I mean it's even stronger than a divorce because at least a divorce, that person is still alive and they're physically there. When there's a death, when you lose a child or lose a spouse or lose a loved one, they're no longer there. Well, the Olympics was no longer there. It was gone. There was no getting it back. You can't get the time back.

LK: You can’t get the years back. You can't get the training back in. And the Olympics is gone. I missed my opportunity. In my mind, I think of it as a loss. I have people, they have to remind me, Lee, you didn't lose the Olympics, you just didn't go. And I still say why I wasn't an Olympic champion. There's times I'm in groups of other athletes that are Olympic champions and you know, and there’s photo, photo, you know, let's take some pictures, all of us Olympic champions get a picture together. And I'm there and I, and everybody kinda goes and I'm just, I can't go because I'm not Olympic champion. And sometimes they say, oh Lee come on, you can get in the picture too. I’m like, nope, I’m—it just circumstance, circumstance could've been, I could've got hurt and couldn't have gone. Or I could've got beat, which was hard for me to conceptualize at that time because I just felt I was ready and all that.

LK: But, uh, sometimes life throws you something that you can't really understand, like a death, like a sickness, like any of the things I've just mentioned, but you still have to, to move on. I would say I've learned more from that. Obviously it sounds corny, but by that huge disappointment because it forced me to have to figure out what to do and go on. And what I did is I trained for another four years and at that time there wasn't any way to support yourself. We were true amateurs. When I was competing, Michael Jordan wasn't playing in the Olympic Games and Serena Williams wasn't. And I'm not criticizing that, but that just didn't exist. The tennis players were the college players, the basketball, Olympic basketball team were the top basketball players. The moment you became a professional, you could compete in the Olympic Games or any amateur—I mean, the Olympic Games is for amateur athletes. But I guess when America started to lose in basketball, they decided. we've got to recruit some of our star athletes to play. But, but anyway, that, that was, um, you know, it, I just can't even … well, you never get over a death. You never get over a loss like that, but you just still move on.

MU: Well, and the lesson that you had to learn, that you were forced to learn that because you were presented with a scenario that was totally out of your control, probably carries over into every other aspect of your life I imagine. And so I think about how we all have to deal with all these struggles in life. Like nothing is constant but change and how you can have goals, you can set goals but things will change and you'll have to navigate those waters when they do. And so if you were to give some kind of advice to others who have wrenches thrown in their plans on route to their goals, what would you share with them based on what you learned?

LK: Well, the first thing is you can't quit. And when I say quit, I mean it's a pretty broad term. I've seen people quit in the main thing they were trying to achieve, but they quit like in everything. You know, it's like, just because you didn't win that Olympic gold medal doesn't mean you can't go on and maybe go to graduate school or maybe go set another goal or maybe, I mean, you can think of, you know, maybe start your career, whatever it is. And it's not all about making money. I've got some really good friends and good mentors that were great high school coaches. I mean they mentored young men and women through lots of different things. So the thing I had to figure out was that I needed to be successful still, I thought of myself as a successful person. The hard part was, is that my image was this wrestler that was going to be an Olympic champion.

LK: That's how I envisioned my success story was going to start and not there, but not stop there. But that was going to be the, the launching pad for my success. Well that launching pad wasn't there. That flight had took off and I wasn't on it. So I had to figure out another place that I could be successful. And I went to graduate school. I worked hard at that. And school wasn't really something that I worked hard at when I was an undergrad. So I, I got an MBA and I went to work in New York City in marketing and start to focus on just developing other skills. I was a business owner. I owned a car dealership for 14 years and I used wrestling a lot to tackle those challenges. All the employees there knew I was a wrestler and I was an athlete, I was a former wrestler. And just some relationships that I made when I was in the car business was pretty, pretty amazing.

LK: I felt like I was in a wrestling match every day trying to tackle all the things you tackle, trying to be successful in, in, in the auto industry. It’s a really tough business and I kind of have come full circle because I was in the car business for 14 years, never thought I'd ever come back to wrestling. I kind of walked away from wrestling and the thing I left out probably conveniently was when I trained for those four more years in 84, I didn't make the team. I got beat by David Schultz, another great American wrestler who's younger than me. I lost and I couldn't fulfill that dream even though that was, that was. So I lost twice kind of in my mind. Dave went on to win a gold medal. I watched him win his gold medal in L.A. The boycott screwed up two Olympic Games because in 84 the Games were going to be in Los Angeles and guess who boycotted. The Soviet Union or Russia and all their allied nations. But, but still, I mean it was like a double disappointment that it didn't make the team. So I had to go forward still in my life and that's, you know, where I previously talked about getting my MBA and working in business and having the auto dealership and all that.

MU: So when you did go to the Olympics to coach years later, what did it mean to you and how could you use your experiences to help other individuals go after their goals?

LK: Well, you know, it was 38 years later actually from the 80 games I think something like that, to 2008. Quite a lot of years later. That all came about through another disappointment, I guess you could say. The auto industry took, was taking a huge downturn in 2007. In 2008 when Obama took office, he bailed out the auto industry. That's how bad things were getting. I went through a horrible divorce then. I mean it was just a lot of things were crashing in my life at that time and a good friend reached out to me and said, Lee, why don't you come to the National World Team Trials? And it was kind of a homecoming when I went to the World team trials and I, you know, I kind of got that fire back, I guess have that feeling that I had when I wrestled.

LK: I connected with all the athletes, they remembered who I was, even though I was older, so I got back on the national coaching staff. I coached the junior team that went to China and competed, some of those wrestlers are current stars now. I coached one of our senior teams and then I, um, I got to be the Olympic coach in 2008. So that was an amazing experience. I got to march in the opening ceremonies 38 years after I missed my opportunity. And I've kind of been around wrestling ever since, you know, I do clinics and coaching and I try to motivate young men and women, you know, women are wresting now and they're doing an amazing, amazing job. And now my son is wrestling. So that was another thing. My son's a senior in high school, so I'm trying to mentor him and guide him a little bit. He's a good writer too. He's a good, uh, a very good in English, very good in storytelling and story writing and all that.

MU: So these points in your life that you're sharing that you say are disappointments, but. You know, you'll, you'll start saying this was a disappointment, but then—it shows to me like this overwhelming sense of resilience and moving forward, which is a quality I think we're all working towards and so I can only imagine that there are great things in your future. So the second piece of this equation of our podcast is asking you what is next? What's a goal that you're working towards? How do you want to get there?

LK: That's a great question because I have had to think about ,what, what am I going to do with my life now? And I'm kind of almost glad in a way that things didn't go the way I thought because I would have just been very satisfied in all my success in wrestling and there would've been some avenues maybe there that I could have earned some money, would’ve been because of that success that I wouldn't have to really venture out to gain other skills to learn how to do other things. I never would have went into the business world as I had to. I worked in New York City for four years and that was pretty competitive for a major consumer packaged goods company, forced me to learn new skills. But right now what I realize is that every industry and discipline, sports, business, anything—there is this overwhelming drive on how can we be successful no matter what discipline that we're in?

LK: So a person like myself, I've found a way to motivate people, not just in athletics. I can motivate people in business. I can people that are maybe in music because it all, it all revolves around talent, but once you have talent, you've got to do something with that talent, and it requires the ability to be motivated. So the area that I am moving into now is motivational speaking. I find that that's an area that that I think I could be very good at. I've listened to and studied and still study, just like I studied Dan Gable, I study a lot of great speakers. I love their messages and I think I could be a good motivational speaker. I've got a lot, a lot of experiences, not only as an athlete but in business because I can remember some pretty tough days in business, in the auto industry of trying to, you know, keep that business afloat over those 14 years.

LK: You know, there's, it just reminds me of the toughest day I had in the wrestling room, you know, and even in school, I remember some of those days where you have to pull yourself up. I can remember, you know, when I went through my divorce it was, you know, I mean, what divorce is a good divorce I guess? And my kids were small at the time and it was about a five year period I wasn't with my kids, so that was very difficult to have my daughter and son. My older son was—he didn't come live with me, but my younger son and daughter came to live with me when they were 10 and 16. And now my son now is wrestling. The last thing I thought ever that I would be coaching and being around my son as a wrestler. So we, we were developing that relationship together.

LK: Uh, we've got a trip planned to the UK where I'm going to be doing some speaking and coaching, wrestling, so I'm kind of moving that whole direction in my life now being able to motivate other people based on my life experiences. And there's a, there's a science to it as well to success and there's a common thread to all of it. And, you know—I wrote a book called Winning Gold and it's just a book of 75 messages, motivational messages. And in the very beginning of the book. I have a quote by Michael Jordan and you know, he talks about, you know, practice like you've never won but play like you've never lost. And that's a quote that, that opens my book. So I have quotes from myself that I kind of thought of based on my career, other things that motivated me. And so I feel like no matter what setting I'm in, the conversation always leads to how can I be more successful?

LK: And then when I hear, when I hear the conversations moving in that direction, I'm like, well, I can help you with that because I know what it takes. And I've been there. I've been, I've been at the top and I've been struggling too, and I've kind of been able to figure out how to get myself moving back up toward the top again. And you’re never there permanently. It's just a constant—it’s like paying your rent, you know, if you don't pay your rent, you're going to get evicted. Just because you have the rent money this month doesn't mean you're going to have it next month. So it's a constant battle really to stay where you want to be. And that's hopefully on top.

MU: So how can people find you and learn more about your background and your current work or speaking engagements now?

LK: My website just leekemp.com and all the information is there. I try to, um, when I, when I do speak in venues, I mean I try to promote them on Facebook and Twitter and my Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all that is on my main webpage. You can find links to those from leekemp.com.

Mu: Well, it's been an honor to hear your story. I'm by no means any kind of athlete, but the lessons that you've learned and that you shared resonate with me, I think they'll resonate with all of our listeners, so thank you so much for joining me, Lee.

LK: Oh, awesome being here. I appreciate it.

CK: This podcast was produced by me, Cindy Kuzma, and it's another thing that's better with friends, so please share it with yours. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and if you have a chance to leave us a rating or view an Apple Podcasts or iTunes, we would be really grateful. Special thanks to J. Mano for our theme music; to our guest this week, Lee Kemp; and to Tech Nexus for the recording studio.