125: Gracie Gold | Olympic Figure Skater

Gracie Gold
What do I need to be good at? To be great at something?

Carlea Milatzky
Hello, everyone. You are listening to. She leads with Carly, and in this show, we talk to the absolute best, brightest, and, yes, badass leaders. Tap into where your natural curiosity takes you, just making sure you're not your own roadblock. Even if you do fall, you're gonna fall and you're gonna lure.

Together, let's build a DNA of what it takes to rise to the top and truly make an impact.

I'm your host, Carlea Milatzky. Hello, everyone. I am so excited to welcome our guest today, Gracie Gold. Gracie is an american figure skater. She is a 2014 Olympic bronze medalist, a six time grand Prix medalist, and a two time us national champion, both in 2014 and 2016.

In 2017, Gracie stepped away from the ice to seek help for her mental health around depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and an eating disorder. She recently returned to the ice and has become a passionate mental health advocate, leading her to be featured in Sports Illustrated, the players Tribune, the New York Times HBO documentary, weight of gold, and countless other news sources. Given her experience, she's led countless mental health initiatives and was recognized with the 2022 Belle of Hope Award. She recently released her memoir, out of Shape, Worthless Loser, a memoir of figure skating, fucking up and figuring it out, a book in which she provides the most authentic and deep look into her journey from growing up to where she is today, navigating the world of being in the public eye as an elite figure skater. Gracie, it is such an honor to have you on.

She leads. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Of course.

So, Gracie, I want to just get started with this memoir, by the way, which I've read and I've absolutely loved. I want to say even off the bat, I don't even think of it as a skating book. It's almost everything around skating, and there are so many. There's so many elements that I think will resonate with different people, whether it's just being an athlete, a woman, a perfectionist, you know, the difficulty and the relationship you have with your parents, failing publicly. Like, there are all these different elements.

I just want to dive right into that aspect. And how was that process for you? How was writing it and almost, like, recounting your whole life, if you will, from such a young age? It was strange because most of my career in life, right, I've spoken about skating, and one of my goals, as you said, was to write a memoir, that it's not a skating memoir. It's not a skating story, right.

Gracie Gold
All of that information about my career is pretty readily available online or on Wikipedia already. NBC, ESPN, it's been covered. But it's really everything in my life around it, for better, for worse. And it was really interesting to focus in on those parts because typically with interviews for my whole life, everything's had to circle back to skating or to my career or to, like, an upcoming event. And to really have the focus be about everything from my childhood to my mental health crisis and everything in between was really cathartic in a lot of ways.

Carlea Milatzky
I imagine reliving that brings its own, you know, wealth of feelings back. Did you have that feeling too, of just like, shit, I went through that. Like, did you have kindness for yourself? I guess it depends on yes and no. I guess it does depend on which parts specifically.

Gracie Gold
Sometimes I still felt sad for that past version of me. Other times I was frustrated, like, why did I make those choices? Hindsight's 2020. But then other times I felt like, oh, wow, I really did that damn thing. Or that was really.

I didn't take that in the moment. If I didn't stop and appreciate how far I had come, blah, blah, blah. For the most part, though, overall, it was healing and in a lot of ways validating not all parts, but I would say for the most part, yeah. So, okay. When you think of the memoir, you actually divide it into four parts.

Carlea Milatzky
You have one when you were Grace Elizabeth, if you will, like, you have your different Personas, and then the next part is Gracie Gold. Then you have out of shape, worthless loser, and then the last one is almost how you're reconciling with all of that. So it's kind of perfect. So on this podcast, I love to just go. Go back to your childhood, who you were.

So I want to know, tell me a little bit about Grace Elizabeth. Who was she? What kind of. What kind of girl were you? I was very spirited as a child.

Gracie Gold
I know that I certainly, I think, was difficult to raise at times. And I don't mean that as a cop out for my parents. I truly mean, I think I was. I had a lot of opinions and I shared them freely. I had difficulty with authority, and I didn't understand social nuances probably until my teens, like later teens, I just said whatever came into my head, but I was fearless and extremely loyal and stubborn and a lot of these things that made me really high functioning but could also make me really difficult.

Carlea Milatzky
Right. I say in the book, I just had a lot of big feelings all the time. I care about everything too much. All the time. And so, in some ways, although that did make my story very interesting, it was full of emotional strife for large periods of it.

Yeah, totally. And I think that it comes out so clearly in your book, right. Is like you said, you didn't have a filter, and that could have been to teachers, to coaches. You were sharing everything on your mind to the point where your mom would probably step in and be like, okay, you know, grace, let's tone it down, or let's think before we talk. And that was, like, almost a normal aspect of your childhood.

Gracie Gold
Yeah. I just was constantly in trouble for something that I had said all the time. And it got worse when I realized, I guess, how to be funny, or at least a little bit, because I realized if I would say something shocking, I found that to be very fun, like, the reaction from adults around me. I found that to be hilarious. My mother, not so much.

So then it really just got worse there when I realized I could definitely make an impact. And I've always been a certified yapper, so, you know, my mouth was open and running 24 hours a day. So I know I kept my mom on her toes and my coaches as well. Just 24/7 yeah. And one beautiful aspect that really carries through probably your entire journey is the relationship you have with your twin sister, Carly bias.

Carlea Milatzky
Great name, but twin sister Carly, you guys. And one thing that I actually found there was even a bit of humor in it, maybe was the contrast between you two, like, underlying, beautiful relationship. But then you would say things where, you know, Carly would be the sunshine and you would be the storm cloud, for instance. Can you just talk me through a little bit, that dynamic, that relationship, and how important that relationship with Carly has been for you? Oh, I mean, fundamental to who I am as a person.

Gracie Gold
I always think it's so weird when I meet twins out in the world and they're not super close, because I cannot relate to that at all. Yeah. Like, you know, in the book, I say, like, she's the Artemis to my Nike, you know, maybe she's the watson to my Sherlock. And we just.

We've always. We either are exactly the same on something or opposite, but in the way that it's, you know, two sides of the same coin. Coin. Very much a yin and yang. You know, I tell people, like, I.

My sis, Carly Wright, was really shy. And so that's why I talk so much, because I learned how to talk for two at an early age, and we just fundamentally understand each other on a level that, you know, is always us against the world. Yeah. I love that. Yeah.

Like, I. Like, I never knew how to. I don't even know, like, the card game solitaire. Never learned how to play it. We were just attached at the hip for 22 years.

And then even now, you know, we're still thick as thieves in our adult lives. I love this. You mentioned one time how she's, like your emotional regulator, almost like she's that, that person you can always, like, recalibrate with, if you will. And I think that's beautiful. Even how you.

Carlea Milatzky
How you, like, coined it, I think, is so powerful. Yeah. She was always able to, like, bring me back down, but in the same way that I could do that for her, because our. A lot of times, like, our anxieties or our emotional strife will manifest in different ways. So Carly tends to have a little bit more anxiety about things that I might perceive as everyday things or just stuff, you know, just to not worry about.

Gracie Gold
And then she's more my, like, emotional regulator, because if I do feel something, I feel it very deeply, very intensely. I love it. So take me back to that age. I think you were around eight years old, where you first put on figure skate. You went on to the rink and, you know, you tried out figure skating, if you will.

Carlea Milatzky
Can you. Was it that initial click? Was it immediate where you just, like, I feel at home or how was that experience, like, for you? So, yeah, as soon as I was at that birthday party, right. So after cake and presents, you go on the ice for that hour, public skates.

Gracie Gold
And right away, I really was obsessed with it. And to be fair, I was, I wasn't, like, the most talented skater that's ever, you know, graced the ice. But I do think that it helped that I seemed to have a natural gift right away. Like, I didn't need to. I maybe spent half of the lab holding onto the wall, and then I was ready just to take off.

You know, I had this, like, innate sense of how to balance. And then I wanted to go forward, I wanted to go backward. I was flying around the ring. And so in some ways, I'm sure that that helps how much I liked it. I, you know, we tend to like things that we're good at, but I.

It just wasn't like any other sport that I had tried, and I. I was hooked. Like, I really felt, saying I felt, you know, at home, I'm not, but, I mean, I loved it right away. Maybe that is. It seems a little bit, like, esoteric, but I loved it.

Something about it really felt right from the jump. Yeah. Cause at the end of the day, you did experience all these different sports. You were just very active in general. And I liked a lot of them, but it was very easy for me to eventually hone down to the point where I was just skating.

It was not, you know, like ditching, swimming, not a huge problem. Just not signing up for soccer, you know, not doing dance company. Like, these were all things that it just skating one every time, and it wasn't that big of a deal. Yeah. So, Gracie, eventually, as you got older, you reached a point where there was actually a good amount of years, it seems like, where skating was still on the side, per se, like you weren't going to move and uproot your family to somewhere else just because of skating.

Carlea Milatzky
It was still like, school is very important. You are sounds like an excellent student. At what point do you think it became, you know, what? Like, we actually have to devote more and kind of uproot our family in order to pursue this dream that is now, you know, kind of becoming a reality. So it was a tough decision because it was no longer just about me.

Gracie Gold
Right. The whole family would have to move. And I think that my mom's sister and I agreed that we didn't want to split the three of us up, so they didn't want to just send me out to California or out to Colorado. And I think in some ways, we waited as long as we did because we wanted it to feel justified. Right.

My parents didn't come from really, like, athletic backgrounds, so the concept of uprooting one's family life and home, kind of, especially in the traditional midwest for ice skating, seems ridiculous. And at least in some level, my parents are like, yeah, we don't want to put that pressure. We're only doing this. And if you. It only is okay if you make it to the Olympics, because the concept of that happening, you know, my parents were aware, was, like, statistically improbable.

So eventually it was after I medaled at the US championships in 2010, a novice, and I had had all my triple jumps, and the coach that I was going to a few days a week up in Chicago was like, we really gotta commit here. And at that point, it was just taking a huge toll. Trying to balance public school and the drive from Springfield to Chicago was like three, three and a half hours and trying to make that work with an apartment there. It just was becoming so much that at that point, it actually might have just been easier to fully move to Chicago, which is what we did. When you look back at that that early days even before 2014, before going to the Olympics, what do you think was most feeding you?

Carlea Milatzky
Was it the competitiveness? Was it the, you know, the glamour of it all? Was it winning? Like, how, what was really giving you that energy of saying, oh, shit, like, this is fun, I need to stay in this? I mean, that's a great question.

Gracie Gold
I have always, there's that David Foster Wallace quote that says everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it. So in some ways, you know, if I commit to something, I really do commit to it. And I, I guess I just wanted to see, like, how far I could go in the sport on some level. You know, once I got all my single jumps and then it was double jumps and then it was your triple jumps and then it was triple, triple. How many can you do in a program?

And in one way that's, I think, why skating was a sport that I loved. It very much appealed to, like, my ADHD brain of, there's always something to do and there's always something to do better or differently and in conjunction with other stuff. It's not just, you know, I remember swimming or track. It's like, okay, so do you see the circle? You're just going to run around it for the rest of your life and you're just going to get faster?

Or once you learn the four strokes and swimming. Right, I thought, so. I just, this is it. I just go back and forth forever and I just get faster at it slowly was a little bit less appealing to me. But with skating and I guess that I liked, in some ways, most people see it as a character flaw.

If you're not into team sports, I really am not built for it. I'm not a team sport or like a team player. I can maybe work in a pair, maybe just being a twin. But the concept of, like soccer is like, very frustrating for me. I just like to have the responsibility, be my own, never be my thing in my sports.

And so I think just those little daily, weekly, monthly, and then yearly goals that were very, at times held very tangible is really easy for me just to keep chasing like that carrot, if you will. Yeah. And I will say this though, too, is there's a level of drive and competitiveness almost like your brain is rewired differently in a way, whether you're in an individual sport or a team sport. Because at the end of the day, you're competing for something, whether it's, you know, the position you're in, maintaining your spot, getting to a starting spot. Like there are similarities that come into it where even on a team sport, like, yes, of course the team success is your success, but at the end of the day, you also have to have that still, that voice in your head that's saying, like, I'm going to beat this teammate of mine to play outside defender or whatever it may be.

Carlea Milatzky
So there actually are similarities that come into it. I agree with you. There's different dynamics. But it is something to note, though, that I think is pretty similar across competitive athletes, if you will, as you continue down, eventually around 2013, 2014, the Olympics are in store. Right?

The Olympics are in sight. Take me through that feeling where, one, it became a reality that you're going to the Olympics. Like, what goes through your mind? What goes, you know, is that just pure relief? Is it pride or is it anxiety?

Gracie Gold
So, in the sport of skating, right, we don't really have Olympic trials, per se, but the national championships right before the Olympics serve as our Olympic trials, if you will. And they are anywhere from, like, mid to. They're typically, like, mid January, and then the Olympics start in February. So in skating, you don't know if you're going to the Olympics until literally right before. So I think from nationals in 2014, I think I went home for maybe a week, and then I was off to Munich for Olympic processing, where you get your gear and everything and check in, and then off to Sochi, a few practice days, opening ceremonies, team events.

So it just goes. But I think I remember, yeah, no, it's crazy. Like, we don't. I know some sports will know months out or they have their trials, maybe, like, the season before, not unscathing, and I wasn't totally written off, but I certainly, if I hadn't gone, it wouldn't have been this, like, huge shock. So two skates, you know, two almost.

Almost perfect programs at qualifiers. I knew when I finished my long program, and it went really well, that I do remember having a distinct feeling of, oh, I'm going to the Olympics. Like, I think I've done it. I think it's happening. And it was heavily relieved.

It was. The feeling of relief was overwhelming because, you know, it's all this build up for this, essentially, these two, you know, ones, about three minutes. One, it's like seven minutes of skating to determine if you go to the Olympics or not. In an Olympic sports, it's very key to go to the Olympics because you're either an Olympian or you're not. And so I remember feeling like that burden was taken off, like, now, no matter what happens, like, I'll be an Olympian forever.

You know, I'll be a national champion, and I will be an Olympian. And that's like, thank God. I mean, I was overjoyed, but I do remember the feeling of relief and just that this was such a life changing moment was profound. Yeah. And I remember you mentioned.

Carlea Milatzky
I think I read this in the book, but you mentioned how there was almost this unlock from a coach who said to you, it's not necessarily about the best skater, but the best skater that day, because it is, at the end of the day, it does come down to those few minutes on the ice rink, if you will, to prove to, you know, all of your years of work, come down to this performance in this routine. How did that. Did that change for you? Did that give you almost that new sense of ease or. Or no?

Was that just like, okay, fuck, like, I have to perform that day? A little bit of both, I guess. I think that, you know, that phrase or concept of, you know, this coach is like, why do you feel like it has to be not just perfect, but it has to, you know, like, you have to go out there and make a moment. He's like, you know, you could probably just go out there and, like, be fine. Like, what if we were just okay?

Gracie Gold
What if we were just pretty good? Because ultimately, you just have to be the best skater that day. And also, he's like, also, you know, it's amazing to win every single event, but he's like, you know, that's why we have a podium. He's like, are you telling me that you're going to be, you know, that if it's not first, you might as well not be there? He's like, what about second place?

You know, what about third place? And as a crippling perfectionist, that was an interesting concept of being like, oh, okay, I guess I could make a mistake. I could even maybe make two and still be on the podium. And that it's not this tragedy. That was, like, an interesting school of thought that I had not considered before and honestly hadn't really been brought to my attention in that way.

I feel like if anything, it had been worded, you know, if you just go out there and try your best, like, it'll be amazing. And I think being able to let go of it being result based, and I even tell my students that, like, stop trying. Stop trying to make the jump good. That's. That's a result.

That is, if we do everything correct on the takeoff and in the air, then it will be good. But to just go into a jump and say, like, I'm trying to make it good. What does that even mean? If we focus on, you know, same. If we're just staring at the target the whole time, we miss the actual process of how we get to the target.

Yeah, that was interesting, and that was helpful when it came to qualifying for the Olympics. I think that if we just were okay today, you're gonna go to the Olympics. And it was nice because I always felt before, like, you know, you're trained, Gracie, to be amazing. Like, you're trained to be perfect. Everything's gonna go great.

And if you just relax, like, it'll be perfect. I have never been relaxed a day in my life. So I thought, okay, if I just calm down, I'll make the Olympics. Like, that's not. That didn't feel very tangible.

Carlea Milatzky
Right. And, yeah, Frank was the one that's like, I. I think that maybe even if it just goes fine, like, not even close, if it just is 80%, like, we should be good. And the fact that he seemed fine with that and just that. Yeah, he's like, there's honestly a huge chance that you could be at 70% of your best and still win because we don't know what anyone else is going to do out there.

Exactly. So this kind of change in thought process was interesting and in some ways just providing me some perspective and also some relief. Yeah, I think it's even. There's almost like a life lesson in that. Right.

It's like, don't focus on the outcome. Like, enjoy the journey. And, yes, people say that, and it's hard to do because at the end of the day, a lot of us are, you know, very outcome driven. But I think just reminding ourselves of, you know, if you do the steps before, you will get an outcome that you are proud of or are happy to get. So I love that.

I'm glad you said that, too. So one thing that is fascinating to me with figure skating, and, yes, the sport that I often, you know, compare it to is soccer. So soccer, you win. It's very clear. You know, it's literally who scores more goals?

Whereas figure skating, it's so subjective, it's so reliant on the judges that day. And I want to just take me through that process and what lessons you've learned of, honestly, overall confidence and how relying on others kind of dictates your own confidence and how you've had to separate the two. Yeah. What does make skating one of the more, what makes it kind of unique in the world? Of sport is that the closest would be like, gymnastics is that you are judged.

Gracie Gold
And so it's these strangers kind of. You don't really know that tell you how you did. So, ultimately, that was a little bit difficult growing up. Right? Because it's like, oh, well, as long as you feel good, or if you just do your job, and it's like, no, actually who's on the podium is how these strangers, like, who they felt did the best.

And when skating in, I think, zero six, I guess maybe zero five, switched to the new system. That did help a little bit, right? So every jump, every spin, every element is point based, but there still is a goe, which is your grade of execution. So the judges can give it anywhere from a minus five to a plus five, and then you have your artistry scores, which are anywhere from zero to ten. So there's still this very subjective thing, right?

So even if it's. It's kind of like that quote, you know, you could be the best, like, ripest, most perfect mango in the world, and there's still people that don't like mangoes. Yeah. And, you know, so if you're a mango and your whole panel doesn't like mangoes, it can seem a little bit out of your control. And as a control freak, that was probably one of my, like, least favorite parts of the sports.

But I think realizing that just because you're judged on the ice, that it doesn't necessarily mean that you're judged everywhere, all the time. Right. Skating is a sport of perception, right? We try to do the most difficult things while making it look effortless. And even if something feels good in our body, it's about how it looks.

You know, even if you want to wear this color, how do you look in it? Is it a good cut for you? Is it a good color? And in a world of, like, body positivity and, you know, freeing ourselves from judgment, that doesn't always work with the sport of skating, but I have to remind myself that it can. Right.

Because things change, as well as just, you know, being on the ice while you're competing. That doesn't mean they have to live your life under those same rules. Yeah. Yeah. But it.

It's difficult, I guess I would say. It'S just been difficult throughout your journey, if you will. And in your memoir, you're incredibly open about your struggles with disordered eating, right? And it stems a lot from this. This picturesque, you know, image that you have to maintain.

Carlea Milatzky
Take me back to 2013. I believe it was 2013 where you first got that hint of, you know, I have to. I have to lose weight or I have to, you know, in order for me to make my jumps higher and better, there actually is a correlation between my appearance and my performance, because before, from my understanding before as a kid, like, you weren't thinking about that at all. And then it slowly became, you know, I think you wrote in the book, eating is calculus. Like, you were counting everything.

There was one point, you were taking laxatives very often in order to lose that weight. So if you can recall, like, what was that almost turning point that really did it for you, that kind of sent you in this. This whole new path? So this is, like, one of the hard things I would say about being in maybe, like, an endurance sport versus a power sport, is that there is a distinct, like. So the things that you do to maybe lose weight or to get in shape, like, not all of those are inherently bad for you or, you know, play into disordered eating.

Gracie Gold
Not necessarily. Right. Drinking more water, getting 8 hours of sleep. You know, what if we worked out a little bit more stuff like this? You know, what if we cross trained a little bit more?

Like, you don't. Just because you want to add pilates in your routine for, you know, core strength doesn't necessarily mean that you have any type of inappropriate relationship with food and exercise. So all those things that you do, though, to lose weight, those will also typically enhance your performance. Right. You're probably going to perform better athletically if we are hydrated, if we are, you know, running on carbs, fats, proteins, instead of just, you know, you're probably going to do better than if you just had, like, cheesecake factory the night before, right?

If we warmed up, if we did all of these things, you know what I mean? So you can. Things that will make your performance better can also a lot of times be the same, similar to things if you're looking to cut weight or to lean out. So I was doing those things to cut weight, and then my skating got better. And so instead of thinking, okay, you know, it's.

Maybe it is just that I'm a little bit lighter and a little bit leaner, and then that has assisted my skating, I ended up correlating it to the thinner I am, the better I'll skate. So then at competition, if I went to an event and I felt like it was my perception of being thin enough, then it would just inherently go well, which is crazy because that's not even counting, you know, that's just disregarding, like, all the training I did. I just was like, oh, if I'm skinny, I'll skate well. End of story. I, like, made that correlation mean way more than it needed to because I'm a control freak.

And people, if you're an athlete with control issues, you know, the eating disorder pipeline is right there, right there. So I fell into that. And especially, I think it was harder to spot in a sport like skating as well, because it's an aesthetic sport. And also being able to differentiate between times that I wanted to lose weight because I needed to, because I wanted to skate better, right? If I'm going to jump for four minutes, if I am a little bit lighter, it is a little bit easier to jump for four minutes with less weight, right?

Versus if you put on a ten pound vest and did the same thing. That logic is not inherently kind of fucked up. But then there was an aesthetic moment where they're like, well, you would look better if you were thinner. Like, performance aside, they're like, you're going to get better scores. Like, if you were thinner, like, you don't look the part of a skater.

And that's one of the things in skating. And, like, gymnastics, as well, with the. The aesthetic is something you're judged on. That can be very toxic, as well as society is still, like, very fatphobic. And if you're fat, it's associated with all these personality traits, as if you are lazy, you're not driven, you don't have self control.

Your self indulgence versus if you're thin, right? You have all those opposite things. You're a go getter, you have self control, you're diligent, you're determined. Like, wow, look at that. When, in fact, that's not inherently true.

You know, like, a lot of heroin addicts are very thin but are not living their best or healthiest lives. So there was a struggle there as well, where then, if I would put on weight, I felt that I wasn't a good athlete and didn't deserve to have success, that I had to, like, want it enough and that I had to. It wasn't just about training on the ice, that there was a sort of training off the ice, you know, if I can train a whole day without any food, that somehow gave me the superiority complex over other people and my competitors. This whole swirling cycle of terror that very much just started as. I don't want to say innocently, but I will say that coaches can certainly play a part in it.

But I do think, you know, saying, like, hey, Gracie can essentially, we get back on the training wagon, you know, I had done a series of shows, and I was absolutely, like, eating when I say everything I wanted. I mean, like, I would even tell I was sick because I was on tour and I didn't care and the food was good and the food was free. And what, I wasn't not going to eat the whole cake. You know, I was literally, I was like, 1617. So then when my coach was like, hey, we need to cut some weights, because I am an overachiever, you know, I couldn't just cut like, five pounds.

I sent it down. I fully sent it to having, like, really severe disordered eating. Yeah. And so, Gracie, a couple things. One is, what do you think fundamentally actually needs to change in sports like figure skating and gymnastics, where there is that aesthetic element to it, where they're watching everything and your physique actually directly correlates to maybe the points you get and your score.

Carlea Milatzky
What do you think needs to change in the system? I think that some of that is generational and some of that is, like, a societal issue. Right? The same with, like, remember when Jessica Simpson was considered obese in society because she was like a size, like six or eight? So as that is kind of changing, you know, slowly, but it is a little bit, I think that it will translate to other parts of society.

Gracie Gold
And in skating, I think just being aware the difference of, is this a performance based thing? I think that, hey, I think you would perform better if we were a little bit leaner. That is not inherently an offensive, at least in my opinion. I don't think that that's inherently offensive. I think that that can be more science based of, you know, again, I think that, you know, I know that a lot of long distance runners can really struggle with disordered eating because if you are going to run 26 miles, the less you have to carry for that duration, I have to imagine, is going to make that a little bit easier.

So saying, like, oh, it might be easier to run 26 miles over, a little bit lighter, or like, hey, I think that we need to be a little bit more athletic. I think that we need to work out more because you still need to be explosive at the end of your program, right? Like, we need to do some more plyo because you can't make it through your four minute long program with enough energy. Like, these things I don't think are inherently offensive and that they're performance based from an athletic standpoint. Other people might disagree with me, but that's my feeling.

And then in the sport of skating, though, I think being clear about, is this a performance based critique or. Or is this an aesthetic? Like, in my opinion, you don't look like a skater, or you don't look pretty enough because we're not thin enough, we're not wearing enough makeup, the dress, and some people in skating that I've had this conversation with feel like, well, if you can't hang or if you perceive that as rude, then this isn't the sport for you. So I don't know about that. I think that's a different conversation.

But I also think that there could be more research, and, like, there's very limited research right now about, if you do have an eating disorder, how do you go back? Like, once you are kind of in recovery, how do you go back? And, like, if you want to be an athlete again, what's your return to play from having an eating disorder? Right. We have them for concussions.

We have them for physical injuries. But right now, and I've been told this by, like, eating disorder counselors, is, like, we actually just recommend that you don't. That, like, you just don't try to diet or exercise anymore because you're just. You're essentially going to relapse. So I'd be interested in.

And maybe more research has come out since I was, like, first in investigating this. But I was like, oh, when I came back to skating, I thought, what's a healthy way that I can do this again? And honestly, the research was like, well, you just don't. It's like, once you're an alcoholic, like, you probably just, you just don't really drink again is, like, the thing, like, how do I. Okay, well, how do I party after recovering from alcoholism?

You know, there's, like, party, like, with liquor. You don't like that. For most people. You like, the research says and suggests that you don't at all. Some people maybe can.

Carlea Milatzky
It's different. Yeah. And being aware of, I also think the intensity of eating disorders, I think, is something that people don't talk about enough because they're classified as an addiction, but they are not taken seriously by society at all. Because one society, first off, there's, like, a bunch of different types of eating disorders. You don't have to be thin enough to qualify.

Gracie Gold
That's. I've heard that a lot of, well, there aren't that many anorexics. I don't see that many thin people. That's. You can be any size and, like, have an eating disorder.

As a society, we don't even acknowledge that men having disorders, they're still just for girls. And in a misogynistic society, if something's just for girls, it's not taken seriously. And also to be thin, it's to be valued more in society. So here's body disorders. But the.

Yeah, so they're just not. No one really cares. But the problem is that unlike other, like, you can cut out heroin, cut out crystal, you can cut out alcohol. You can't really cut out food and exercise. So you just have to live the rest of your life managing, you know, your addiction.

Carlea Milatzky
Yeah, right. So if you just had to have two. If an alcoholic had to have two drinks every day, you know, if some narcotics had to have just, like, two bumps every day and you can't have any more, but if you can't have any last. And you just have to manage that every single day of your life. So I think also valuing it more is that this could be a very potentially serious mental illness.

Gracie Gold
I think also, people would think two, three, four times before they make inappropriate comments or just treat it as if you're, again, like, so what? You get an eating disorder. Like, you'll be better for it. That's. Yeah.

Carlea Milatzky
Sorry for. Sorry for that monologue. I might just get, like, very intense about it. No, no, no. Understandably so.

I understand that so wholeheartedly. And, Gracie, another thing is what advice, essentially, to a young girl listening to this, I think one thing from reading your memoir is that, I mean, I can understand it, too. My own experience. It can be a very independent, insular process. Like, you would skip meals with friends and you would try it.

You would very much keep it to yourself in a way until it got to a point where, okay, it became noticeable. But what that means to say is, whether you're a competitive athlete or not, there's a lot of, you know, different signals that happen today that can spur this on, whether it's social media, you know, all of these different elements. What advice do you have? Two young boys and girls, actually, who are feeling this or at least going down this route. What is the best way to go about it, in your opinion?

Gracie Gold
That's a really good question. Am not a therapist or a psych. Right. So I. You know, something that maybe I would have done differently for my own journey is, again, to acknowledge again, what is performance based and then what is, like, me based.

So, like, do I need to lose weight? And it'll make me. And also being able to separate my self worth from that. So even if I. Because.

Right. I felt like I wasn't worthy in society. I felt like I wasn't worthy as an athlete, and I felt like I didn't fit in the sport if I didn't look a certain way. And now some of this is skating, right? Specifically.

But again, in a fat phobic society, this might resonate with a bunch of different people, but I felt like if I wasn't, then that there wasn't a place for me in the sport of skating, because there aren't a lot of bigger, like, not skinny or certainly plus size skaters. There just really aren't any, you know? So anyone listening, close your eyes, and if you picture a skater, they all look exactly the same. Almost no difference in terms of, like, a physical trait. And so, yeah, being able to separate that and also my self worth.

So even if, like, losing some weight might have made or just leaning out, being a better athlete would have helped my performance, it didn't mean that I was a piece of shit and that I was suddenly this, like, lazy loser, that when that started to become the correlation or that I didn't deserve to win this event because I was bigger. Like, that's not written anywhere. Like, it's not written rule anywhere, right? It's on your. You know, like, when they score your performance, there isn't, like, a specific thing that says, wait, right.

It's not like boxing. We don't get weight before events. So being able to separate that and keep a clear distinction there would have been very helpful. And knowing that even if I was the biggest girl on the ice, that I didn't. Yeah.

That it just didn't make me a loser. Like, it didn't make it less than. Because it's not an event to see who's the smallest. Right. That it is an athletic event, and that if I was the biggest, but I was the best, I was still the best.

Carlea Milatzky
Absolutely. And so, okay, so around the same time, around 2016, 2017, you were also suffering from depression. You were very depressed, sleeping all day, you know, almost again to yourself in your apartment. And I love this. This part actually, in the book where you're at Champs camp, and I'd love for you to just talk through this, but you got the urge almost that you were like, okay, I have to share what I'm going through.

And that's when Jen and Susie come into the picture, if you will. And you mentioned Jen, she's a team doctor, and she said she's one of the few that asked me how my life was outside of skating. And it's just so powerful. That little statement actually because it just shows how much you went through and how, again, people conflated you with the figure skater and that's it, you know, and, like, your success in figure skating was just how you were doing in life. So talk me through that process, which ultimately you ended up going to a treatment facility, but talk me through the importance of actually sharing that with someone, telling someone and, you know, someone else going through that, again, how important it is to kind of be outside of yourself and share it with someone because it feels really hard to do that.

Gracie Gold
Yeah. And sometimes there were some people along the journey that were like, oh, well, we did mention it, or maybe we felt like something wasn't going well. But, you know, asking if you ask someone kind of in passing or in, like, a semi, like, public space, or maybe if you just ask them once, like, oh, yeah. Hey, how's the fam? How's everything?

Okay, good. I'll see you later. That's, like, not creating a safer, comfortable space to give that answer if something isn't going correct, because it is weird. Like, it honestly would have been weird. The amount of people that maybe asked me how I was doing, but not in, like, the correct, interesting place or environment.

It would have been really weird for me just to, like, trauma dump on them. But again, not saying it was like, anyone's fault, but, yeah, with Jen and Susie and I think Brandon was there as well. You know, they, they asked in, like, a correct space. It was just us in the USOC kitchen just doing whatever. But there was a.

There was ample time for me to answer. And there's also. It was just really, like, the three or four of us. And so I think that's why I did. But, yeah, they had asked something like, oh, how's the family doing?

And I was like, I don't know. Like, we don't talk anymore. They're like, what? And I was like, oh, yeah. They're like, where's your dad?

I'm like, I don't know. Like, he sucks. What do you want me to say? And I think that was just, like, jarring. And the fact that they actually seem to care in what I received, like, a truly genuine way, not like a, oh, no, I'm sorry to hear that.

They also seemed just, like, genuinely shocked. And they had follow up questions. And then, yeah, a few days later, after the day or two later, and I hadn't showed up to any of the meetings or, like, the team building, whatever, no one had really seen me. Yeah, still sleeping all day in my room. I think that's when, you know, they mentioned it, like, hey, based on the behaviors that we're seeing and also when we talked with her, there's a chance that this isn't behavioral, meaning, like, I'm just out here to be lazy and annoy everyone.

But we think that we're having, like, a huge mental health crisis is what's happening, and that we actually need help for this, which then subsequently, ultimately changed the trajectory of my life because I didn't kill myself and I got help and was able to slowly climb my way out of that, you know, depression pits that I had dug for myself. But I think being able, the fact that they made a safe space where I could answer and that there was time for me to answer because, you know, when people ask how you're doing in passing, like, at work, and you're like, yeah, this would be good. Yeah, yeah. And later, that person's like, oh, I had no idea that they were going through that or going through that divorce. And it's like, you asked me to really ask.

Like, it would have been weird at the water cooler in the office if I told you about my divorce. It was, like, a weird place to do that. And I'm not saying that you have to take everyone out to dinner and have, like, heart to hearts, but at least being able to try and create a safe space where somebody can answer and it's appropriate for them to answer can really go a long way. Absolutely. And at one point, you even mentioned it got to a point where, if I wasn't a skater, why should I continue to exist like you very much?

Carlea Milatzky
You had that. You reached that point. How much unlearning did you have to do to separate Gracie gold, the human Grace Elizabeth, if you will, from Gracie Gold, the elite figure skater that you. That you became? Oh, I mean, a huge amount.

Gracie Gold
And I think that's pretty common for any type of, like, most mental health struggles, because to find who you are outside of your own addiction or mental health issue or trauma can be difficult, because in a lot of ways, it's all you've known. And there are those people that, I think we've all met them, the ones that just live in the trauma and, like, really stay there, because honestly, that's all they know. Like, if they don't know themselves outside of the trauma and that if the only relief that they can get from their existence is by, you know, being the victim like that, it is so difficult to leave, that it's like an uncomfortable comfort zone because that's all, you know, you know, I was. Who are you outside of? Like, who was I outside of skating and my eating disorder?

I don't know. Because, first off, both of those things had been with me longer than most people in my life. And secondly, I actually don't know because I'd spent every single day of my life just with one of those two things for the past 15 years. So I actually didn't know what I liked or what I wanted to do or what my normal whatever was. And so there is this refinding of yourself, like, who you are outside of that and outside of your self destructive behavior is because we, as humans, we do like routine, and we do like consistency and predictability a lot of times.

And to suddenly venture out of that and even though they're bad things, but to leave those behaviors and those cycles behind can still be very difficult and very scary. Absolutely. And so, Gracie, you talk a lot about quieting the inner critic, right? We all have an inner critic. I want to know, what does that look like for you today?

Carlea Milatzky
How do you quiet that inner critic? I think that quieting is the, like, really key phrase there because I think at first I thought that it would go away and that I would be able to turn it off or that it wouldn't exist at all. And instead, I found more success in more of, like, a harm reduction kind of management situation. So even if that critic is there, what if they were just a little bit less critical, you know? So, yes, maybe something isn't good, but it might not be the worst ever.

Gracie Gold
You know? Like, what if it was just fine? Then I'm like, maybe it just was a fine day. Maybe it was not very good, but, like, could have been worse, I guess, kind of like, thing. Because that was really difficult for me.

Because if it wasn't perfect, like, why do it? You know, the concept of you're not going to do something at 100%, don't do it at all, when, in fact, if you do 20% of something, you know, you're still 100% better off than you were if you hadn't done it at all. And sometimes that extreme of, if you're not going to do it 100%, don't do it at all. You know, that can be. You're either then at zero or 100%.

Carlea Milatzky
Yeah. So being like, okay, if I can't, if I don't have the emotional capacity or energy to clean my whole apartment, you know, maybe I will just pick up. Maybe I will just take the trash out, or maybe I will just at least put the clothes in the washer, hopefully transfer them over. But, like, you know, maybe we're not gonna do the entire house top to bottom until it's spotless, and maybe that's just fine. You know, maybe it doesn't make me a great person, but maybe it doesn't make me a loser, either.

Gracie Gold
Maybe it's just okay. So trying to meet maybe that little, like, inner critic in the middle and approaching it more as that harm reduction has been at least really helpful for me in terms of just also managing my day to day stability, you know? Oh, at least. Because instead of putting together four days a week that I'm the best ever, followed by three days where I'm the worst ever, you know, sometimes you just put together a week where everything was okay. Yeah.

Wasn't anything great. It wasn't anything bad. It just was, everything's okay. And then building upon all those okay weeks, I found easier to just continue on the way up. I love that.

Carlea Milatzky
I absolutely love that. And it reminds me even of, you know, some days, like you said, some days you only have 20% to give. So if you give that 20%, great, you gave, you know, that's 100% in a way, like, you gave your all. So, Gracie, I have two more questions for you. One is, where is Gracie today?

What are you up to? What does life look like right now? Pretty simple ish right now, I guess. I just. Obviously, my book came out in February, and so we're still doing some media and stuff for that.

Gracie Gold
And I had major hip surgery at the very end of December of last year. So I've actually been in Colorado Springs at the Olympic training center doing rehab and physical therapy and all that good stuff. And, yeah, just kind of seeing where the rest of the spring and summer takes me. Amazing. And my last, last question is, I asked this to every guest that comes on the podcast.

Carlea Milatzky
Is, what craft are you spending a lifetime honing? I'm a big crocheter, so I think that's why I literally was like, oh, I have a craft. I have a hobby. But I guess honing, I guess just trying to be, I guess, just the craft of stability. As somebody who really likes to oscillate between extremes, we're up, down, you know, sideways.

Gracie Gold
Honing the craft of stability in all meanings is probably what I'll be honing for a long time. I love it. Gracie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, sharing your story, and this book is so incredible. I really encourage everyone to go get it. Gives you such a raw look into you, who you are the journey, what it takes, everything.

Carlea Milatzky
So thank you for being that authentic with us. No thank you and thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening to the show this week. If you enjoyed, please spread the word.

Tell someone about she leads or post about it on social media and tag us if you want to contact us. Feel free to send over a message through the she leads Instagram page. If you want to follow us on Twitter, our account is she leads show and mine is arliemolatsky. This episode was produced and edited by Nick Firchau. Thank you also to our partner floodgate.

If you are passionate about startups and want to learn more about the starting journey of those who have built groundbreaking companies, I highly recommend listening to starting greatness with Mike Maples Junior, the founding partner of Floodgate. He has an incredible show that in my opinion is definitely worth your time. Thanks again.

125: Gracie Gold | Olympic Figure Skater

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1: Introduction

2: Career and Challenges

3: Writing the Memoir

4: Personal Growth

5: Advocacy and Future Plans

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