Motivation Daily by Motiversity - AGAINST ALL ODDS - Best Motivational Speech (Featuring Chaunte Lowe)

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

AGAINST ALL ODDS! When things get tough, know that you can get through anything. Even against all odds. A powerful motivational speech and Exclusive Motiversity interview with four-time Olympian Chaunte Lowe.We recently had the opportunity to interview Chaunte Lowe on our show The Icons! Chaunte is a 4-time Olympian, Olympic medalist, high jumper, and World Champion. Not only that but she holds the American record for high jump and is a 12 time US National champion.In the interview, Chaunte shares advice on creating a life without limits, how to be your best self, and how to accept yourself for who you are.Speaker:Chaunte Lowe: https://www.chauntelowespeaks.com/Music:Really Slow Motion: http://bit.ly/1r3lPvN Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello listeners, Motivosity is excited to share that we have launched a new podcast called Morning Motivation by Motivore. If you are looking to start your day with positivity and the most uplifting motivational audio, this is the show for you. For today's episode of Motivation Daily by Motivority Podcast, we are sharing a recent episode from the Morning Motivation Podcasts. If you like it, go follow the show. New episodes are being released every week. The link is in the description. To you, to the person who's feeling like there's no hope, that you can't see a way out of your current situation or circumstance.

I want to say first that I'm sorry that you're going through whatever trial it is that you're going through right now. It's not fair and you don't deserve it. but there is hope on the other side of this trial. I want you to think about those feelings, those times where you felt happiness, where you felt joy, where you experienced love in a way that you never thought you'd be able to experience. And I want you to hold on to those moments and think about your future. And think about having those moments of love and joy and laughter and peace again.

And I want you to know that right now, it's just a true. trial, it's just a test, the things that seem to hurt you and make you feel like you can't put one step in front of the other, it's just something that's going to happen to make you stronger. You don't have to get from how you're feeling right now to immediate joy and laughter. It might take time. But all I'm asking you to do is put one foot in front of the other and grasp onto that hope with everything that you have and know that this two shall. I'm rooting for you. When you think about, you know, what you want out of life, where you want to make your mark,

you have to start figuring out who you are. And so my first step is always to figure out who you are, where can you be great. And when you do that, you have to put the blinders on. Don't look at anyone else. Because nobody else can tell you how to be you. I dealt with homelessness and poverty growing up, domestic violence, growing up in a home with a lot of drug abuse. a lot of drug abuse and alcoholism, but I had that vision of going to the Olympics and I had that skill of jumping. I put those two things together and it was really the thing that pulled me

through those difficult times. And I think that when people have those difficult times, you have to have something that brings hope and joy and has the power to compel you through difficult situations because each and every one of us has them, but we have to be able to see outside of it and when we lose hope that's when we feel like giving up people are losing hope and they can't see beyond their current circumstances and they feel like like their runway is too short but um i want to bring the fact that there is hope there was a time period in my life where i decided that i didn't want to live anymore and just to see all the amazing and beautiful things that were waiting for me in life on the other side of that moment.

I want people that are living in their 20-year-old devastation to know that there's life on the other side of it and to hold on to hope. The final three Olympics, every time you competed, you had just had a baby. What was that like? I mean, it blows my mind to even think about it. I love what that journey in life looks like and what it takes, but I can only imagine what it takes as an athlete. Can you walk us into what it was like your body preparing after just giving birth?

So your body completely changed. Changes after you have kids. I remember after having my first child, my ankles were so weak, and I needed to be able to put a tremendous amount of torque and force into the ground to be able to high jump. And I remember having to take it one step at a time. And I think that whenever we're at a certain level, and for whatever reason, we get a lot, get knocked down. We just want to get back to that level so quickly. But we forget the process of being patient with ourselves and being very meticulous and strategic towards getting back,

towards where we want to go, that we can injure ourselves or we put ourselves through a lot of mental anguish. And so for me, it was no different. I wanted to put myself through that mental anguish. And I had just jumped one of the best jumps in American history. And yet now I'm struggling to jump a height that I cleared my freshman year of high school. But I realized that I had to put one step in front of the other, and I had to take it one day at a time. And by being consistent, I eventually was able to jump higher and get to the point where I qualified for the Olympic trials, and then I qualified for the Olympic Games. But I learned throughout that process. And a lot of people say hindsight is 20-20 vision. And they say it in a negative way. Like, oh,

hindsight is 20-20 vision but it's the reality that you could take that 2020 vision apply it to the next time and do it again without falling into the bear traps and that's what I did from one Olympics to the next I figured out a process that worked another saying that I love is that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and over again and expecting a different result but they also say that quote in a negative connotation the reality is there's a positive aspect to it. If you're doing things right, you get amazing results, you put in that recipe time and time again, it'll be insanity to expect to get anything less than success. And so once I figured out what works, I keep doing it. My weight sheet is exactly

the same as it was when I was in college, my training. I kept everything the same because I know it works. Flipping that insanity quote and using that, you know, as almost a formula to success, That is cool. If I, if I fast forward, so you've been to four Olympics, you're preparing for 2020. 2019, you get a devastating diagnosis and it changes your world. Can you let us know about what that diagnosis was? Yes, so in 2018, I found an itsy-bid-sie tiny rice-sized lump from doing a self-breast exam. And the reason why I even decided to do self-breast exams, I was only 30, 34 at the time was because another athlete shared her story and her journey with breast cancer so I really wanted to be proactive.

Unfortunately when I went to the doctor, I was dismissed and I was told not to come back for six years and that what I was experiencing was a swollen lymph node. Well the doctor was completely wrong. It turned out to be breast cancer, a very aggressive, fast-growing form of breast cancer that predominantly impacts African American women. And when I started learning the statistics of about breast cancer and how impactful it is that it could be as much as one in eight here within the States that will be impacted with breast cancer in their lifetime.

I was shocked and I was devastated and, you know, being a mother that I thought that I had my whole life in front of me now facing a diagnosis where I could die soon, my heart broke. But I realized that that tenacity that was built over years of watching the Olympics, enduring poverty, enduring domestic violence, figuring out ways to come back from pregnancy, to be at the top of the world, to break American records. I could take that same mindset and mental state and apply it to this breast cancer journey. And I started making a list of all of the things that I did to become successful as an athlete,

but before that I said, no. I decided that I was going to be defiant and that I wanted to live. that my life was worth fighting for. And so, you know, I did the same things. When you're an athlete, you look for a great coach, you look for a great nutritional plan, you look for, you know, a great training program. I did the same thing.

I looked for an amazing oncologist, amazing surgeon. I looked for an amazing medical team so that I could make sure that I could be here and watch my kids grow up. Shantae, my mom went through breast cancer and I remember the fear of that as a child. I remember the strength in her, the resilience, the tenacity. And I remember the family conversation because it does start to look at, you zoom out and you recognize there's a lot of life ahead of us and how do we rally as a family.

At the same time, you were having that family conversation, though, you were still training. You were training through chemo for an Olympics. You weren't just talking about, you know, how do we rally as a family? you were still rallying as an athlete, how did you juggle both those pieces? And did it help work through it or was it actually, you know, too much to take on? When I first was diagnosed, I didn't know if I was going to train for a fifth Olympic Games. It was something that, you know, I put myself in a great position just in case I wanted to, but it wasn't something that I had yet committed to.

When I found out those statistics and how prevalent breast cancer was in the lives of so many women and children and fathers, mother, sisters all around the world, I felt like I had to do something. I didn't have a lot that I perceived as resources to be able to make it impactful change, but I did know I knew how to train. I knew how to compete. I knew how to make Olympic Games.

And I figured if that's my lot, if that's what I had in my hands to be able to contribute to the world, I realized that the Olympic Games is a huge media conglomerate. people are interested in the stories and the storylines and that I could take that story and raise awareness about breast cancer and help change my platform into a platform that disseminates information, supports people, and most importantly provides hope to the hopeless. And I felt like it was my responsibility. So training for my fifth Olympics was solidified by the fact that I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And, you know, once I found out that my treatment would be chemotherapy,

and it would be a double mastectomy, I didn't care. That wasn't going to stop me because I was fueled by love and compassion for other people. In a world where we're told to take selfies and care so much about ourselves, I felt strength from taking on the burdens of other people and acting out of compassion and love for them, it felt like a labor of love. And it was my honor to do it, and I would continue to do it, And I would do it a thousand times over if I could. What would you tell yourself as a 20-year-old?

To not worry so much. I worry so much and paid so much attention to things that were not important. Family, love, friendships, experiences, and being able to be of service to one another, I would continue to tell myself to have faith, never, never not for one second to give up faith because everything works out exactly the way that it's supposed to. I think that those are the bits of information that would have kept me from a lot of days of crying and fighting with myself and being upset because in the end it always worked out. You know what, it's funny.

It was an older lady who told me not to make mountains out of molehills. And I think sometimes we have this situation right in front of us, and it seems so big. And we feel it's just a huge stumbling block of us being who we want to be or being a contributor to society as a whole. And I think that if we stop making small, minute issues into monumental mountains in our life, we will live a more fulfilled, more happy life. Excuses are the patches that we sew on the garment of failure. We talked a lot about kind of hidden strengths, things that people can't see, work ethic, discipline. Where do you think that switch went for you to say, I'm not going to perpetuate the cycle?

break the cycle. What was that skill within you to see that, recognize it, and actually be able to do it? It's funny. I think when I was young, I had a strong sense of mind, body, and spirit. And I realized that nobody could influence my thoughts in my own mind. And I have this thing that says, you grow the seeds and kill the weeds. And so the things that brought me joy or brought me peace or brought me a sense of normalcy that that sparked hope inside of me, I would feel those things with the things that I said, the books that I read, the movies that I watched, I would really find ways to fuel those. But then when there was that negativity where people would say, you know, do you know the odds of making it to the Olympics?

Do you know the odds of this and the odds of that? I would immediately take that information that I had and refute that in my own mind. And, you know, faith was a huge part of my upbringing, you know, just being able to go to church with my grandmother and feel like there's something bigger than myself that would help lead and guide me out of some turbulent, situations, I realized that all three of those areas of my life had to be good in order for me to be good. And I think that, you know, with everything that we've went through with the COVID-19 pandemic, it's it's shined a huge light on the people that are living in households of domestic violence and

abuse. It's made it inherently clear that there is a huge gap in the wealth distribution amongst people and that some people are falling behind. And I think that it takes, education and learning how to strengthen yourself, mind, body, and spirit to be able to weather these turbulent times. And so I think that's why I feel like it's important for me to share my story because some people don't automatically have that hope or have that know-how and being an athlete coming through my own turbulent situations. I feel like I have like 20, 30 years of experience in this realm that could really help people. And I feel like, I feel like, It's my duty to do so.