Rebecca Rose Payne 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome to Life's Work. I am joined today by Mikel Thomas, a three-time Olympian who has taken the mindset that powered his athletic career into the world of sports business, athletic advocacy, and entrepreneurship. Today we're gonna explore the experiences that shaped him, the psychology behind competing at the highest level, and how he has redefined success beyond the track. Thank you so much for being here today, Mikhail.

Mikel Thomas 0:27

Great to be here. Looking forward to the conversation.

Rebecca Rose Payne 0:30

Yes. Okay, so like to get started, can you just tell me a little bit about what your childhood was like and where the drive that you have to become so exceptional comes from?

Mikel Thomas 0:40

Wow, um, that's such an honor to even say that in a sentence to think of that. I mean, to be an Olympian towards the end, I just feel like I just represent the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of a people, nation, and culture. I am not the exception. I am one of. And so coming up on a beautiful Twin Islands of Trinidad and Tobago, you know, part of my whole dream was planted by, you know, Otto Bolden and being able to see someone from Trinidad and Tobago compete against the world in the 1996 Olympics. And I think that's very important for the next generations just to see examples of. I didn't know I was necessarily going to be an Olympian, but it's just really from humble beginnings, just the idea that we could compete against giants and then later on discovering that I can be one of them.

Rebecca Rose Payne 1:28

Yeah, totally. And so you grew up in Trinidad. What was your childhood like?

Mikel Thomas 1:34

I grew up in a place we would call it a ghetto for most. Um, literally was there a few weeks ago just to give back to the community for, you know, back to school getting ready. But we didn't have much. I mean, I remember racing barefoot on the street on concrete and glass, but just a pure exhilaration just being a kid. Um, you couldn't tell me I didn't have or we were poor. We didn't know. It felt so fruitful to just have life and opportunity. And so I think I definitely want to give credit to my family and my grandparents that raised me. A typical immigrant story where we were left by our grandparents and our mom and dad went away to kind of set up a new life in the United States. But, you know, life on the island is such a beautiful place. I mean, I call it paradise home. You know, so that's just something that I could all I could never take for granted.

Rebecca Rose Payne 2:23

Nice. And so how old were you when you moved to the United States?

Mikel Thomas 2:27

Yeah, we immigrated. I was about seven, eight years old. And so luckily back on the island, we had a really good school system. So when I actually came over to the States, I was actually put up a level. So I was actually advanced. So I graduated like high school at 16, 17 years old and was on my own since then. But it was uh a little bit of a culture shock, to say the least. Yeah, you can imagine from a warm island to the big bustle in New York City. Um, very contrast. But the cool part is New York City is so diverse and there's such a vibrant community, especially in the Caribbean, that has a very strong staple there. So over time it became second home. So Trinidad Tobago birthed me, but birth definitely New York City raised me.

Rebecca Rose Payne 3:14

Yeah, I can imagine how drastic that was. And did your grandparents come with you?

Mikel Thomas 3:20

No, unfortunately, the passing of my grandmother accelerated our presence in the United States. Um, but again, it's a very common story for many immigrants where the parents would leave and grandparents would kind of hold down the 4-4 period of time. But it definitely meant a lot to know that I'm carrying on her legacy, carrying on my grandfather's legacy and being a part of something greater by what I was able to do, not just as an athlete, but what I'm hoping to do and continuing to do now as a father and as a contributor back to my nation.

Rebecca Rose Payne 3:52

That's beautiful that you're able to do that. And I'm sorry about your grandparents, but it does sound like you're making them proud here. So can you tell me a little bit about what it was like to go from doing running, as you said, barefoot on concrete and glass in Trinidad to continuing that training in the US?

Mikel Thomas 4:14

Yeah, I would say I was almost more of a late bloomer. Because even, especially nowadays, to say that you started competitive sports in high school, many would consider that late, let alone my event I didn't do until the Olympic the year of the Olympics while in college. So, I mean, I really started running in the always as just a knucklehead kid, you know, trying to have fun. But the dean grabbed me and gave me a choice between detention and track practice. Uh, and spoiler alert, you could probably tell what I chose that day. But it's it's powerful when you give kids options, especially in inner city areas like that. I didn't know that my feet would allow me to get educated twice, having a master's degree from Switzerland and the University of Kentucky to travel the world representing my nation. But New York City was definitely a better structure for me at the time. It gave me, coach used to say, we were a product of our expectations, not just of our environment. And so because we had almost direction of what we were capable of doing, it brought the world at our forefront. And so it was a very, very great place for me to be able to just discover what the sport had to offer and to be able to take it up. Getting a scholarship again, being amongst a bunch of men and women who all graduated from high school, colleges, and have successful careers, not what people would have expected of on paper, but we were very fortunate that we keep writing our stories.

Rebecca Rose Payne 5:42

Wow, that's amazing. And what a good principle to say you can do detention or track practice.

Mikel Thomas 5:51

Um I think it's just all about directing someone's energy and attention, and especially when you're talking to the youth, right? Um, I think they mean well, but we just don't know what we mean. And so when you have someone to kind of come into your life and be a part of that pivotal decisions, I can clearly say in mind, it literally changed a trajectory of it. Uh, it gave me a mindset and a set of principles that I still live by today. And I can't be more grateful to Coach McIntosh.

Rebecca Rose Payne 6:20

And so when did going to the Olympics go from feeling like a dream to something that was genuinely achievable?

Mikel Thomas 6:30

That is a really good question because I I wish I could say that I knew all along since I started running that I was going to be an Olympian. Honestly and truly, the year of the Olympics, like I had mentioned before, was the first time I actually did the event. So I'm 5'9 in the hurdles. That's really short. It's like uh trying to be a center as a point guard. Like you just camera pans along and goes down to me and then it goes back up to all of the other athletes that are six feet.

Rebecca Rose Payne 6:59

How tall are they generally? Six feet? Sorry to interrupt.

Mikel Thomas 7:02

Six feet, six two. The the world record holder is six three, six, four. So it's it's it makes sense because you're talking about a barrier that reaches most people at their naval. Um, height will obviously kind of come in. But again, I I grew up just wondering why not me, and and having this kind of stubborn relentlessness that just got redirected with sport. And so even making the Olympic team, although I enjoyed running, to me, it was just about getting an education. Once I learned that there was an opportunity to represent my nation, it was great just to wear the colors at that international competition. But the Olympic Games, like again, it was something that I added an event the year of just to help score points for my university. And I literally remember the moment at the SEC Championships because I went to the University of Kentucky and I qualified for both hurdles event finals, so 400 hurdles and the 110-meter hurdles. And then the time that I ran into 110-meter hurdles, win aided at the time, was enough to qualify for the Olympics. Then it became something real. Even though it was with a little bit of help from the win, it just made me feel like, wow, I could run with these people. Because in track and field, it's all about the tying. And you're not at the opinion of other people. After that, we really made it a head-down pursuit. And I still remember the feeling of getting the letter when I would made the Olympic Games being named on the team with tears that kind of flew down my eyes, just realizing like that too was possible for me. And by far, it was my most favorite games. Beijing. I had nothing to lose, everything to gain. And every time I stepped on the track, I literally set a personal record. I think that's just the best mentality to be as an athlete and something that I remember for the rest of my life.

Rebecca Rose Payne 8:51

Yeah, absolutely. That sounds amazing. Um, what did you feel like you had to learn mentally in doing this that having the talent alone could never teach you?

Mikel Thomas 9:02

That's a really good question as well. I've always considered myself a little bit of an analytical dream off. And so I remember while I was at Kentucky, I literally proved to myself that my height wasn't an issue because I was a projectile motion. And anything given the right amount of force at the appropriate angles can clear any opposition. And so, because I was able to prove it by science, I was able to kind of validate it in the real world. And so I think that's the thing where it's nice to have a dream, but a dream without a goal and a goal without a date and a date without action steps is just an idea. And so that's what allowed it to be real for me. I had, again, great coaches. Aaron Tuckerwall at the University of Kentucky took a gamble on me, being a shorter guy. Um, to this day, I'm still in a group chat with the guys that were there with at Kentucky, like real relationships and people who see the ethics and what you have and not just the physical. And so that allowed me to take whatever ounce of talent that I did have, my mentality, and then how we just chose to pursue it on a daily basis, that success was inevitable. For me, however, that turned out to be an Olympic game. But I think I regardless, you know, being able to become a better athlete, becoming a better person, or of the principles and values that I feel sports adds to you as a person from a character perspective, like that makes me a champion no matter what arena that I'm in. And then continually really joyful for sports are giving me.

Rebecca Rose Payne 10:34

Yeah. What about what was the hardest moment of your athletic career?

Mikel Thomas 10:40

The hardest moment, I would say two comes to mind. Definitely after making an Olympic Games while in college, your head gets a little big. I'm not gonna lie. I I definitely was one who felt like, what's the NCAA after I've run amongst, you know, Olympians? That definitely came with a humbling experience. To this day, I have a plate in my chest and fracture in my collarbone my senior year, and all hopes of going pro or continuing to rise the rankings kind of just disappeared. I think it just gave me a moment to reflex on not just what you do, but how you do it. Again, that lesson was a hard one to learn. People love the idea of being resilient, but don't understand that in order to grow the muscle of being resilient, you have to go through things that allow you to be able to gain that skill. And it took years. So I made the Olympic Game in 2008, got injured in 2009, and from all that time, I was stuck in the matrix, you would say, not professional, not in college anymore, trying to figure it out almost like free agency for four years for the next Olympic Games where I had to coach and train myself while coaching other athletes to make the 2012 Olympic team, PR in by two tenths of a second. Yeah, it's nice to pat me on my back and say I'm resilient now, but in it, uh, it didn't feel that nice. And so that was definitely, again, a hard challenge to really see. Well, how bad do you want it? How much do you truly believe when it's not given to you, even when you had it? Like I tasted the Olympic Games before, but the route the second time was a lot more difficult, but so rewarding because I was able to not just show that my dream is possible for me, because I was coaching as well. And so I think that made it really sweet because there's nothing like every athlete can say it's tough workouts they get from coach, but it's different when you see coach actually puking because he did it five minutes before you walked onto the track. And so like I had that validation back to the athletes who entrusted me with their own dream. And then so when I made that games in 2012, it wasn't just a victory for myself. It was just also validation of how I would continue to advance my career and those whose other visions I was also stupid in.

Rebecca Rose Payne 13:03

Yeah. And so, how did that experience, both with that like difficult period and also coaching, change your relationship with failure?

Mikel Thomas 13:13

There's no failure, there's only lessons, like there's no losses. Like there's only an opportunity for you to learn. Because even in that scenario, I literally was preparing for the Olympic Games in Kansas, uh, Concordia, Kansas, to be exact, in the junior college system. I went from the University of Kentucky in 2008, qualified for the Olympic Games in the SAC, a big powerful, like you get it. Anything you ask, we probably have it. To go to a junior college where we had to probably jog a mile and a half just to get to a high school cinder track. Like, if you want it, make it happen. And I qualified for an Olympic Games with less. And so it showed me, like, whether you think you can or you can't, absolutely right. It showed me that I had to truly become innovative. And I think innovation is not just the idea of when you have everything, but how do you work with what do you have? Like to be able to create workouts when I don't have a full gym or to be able to manipulate the environment that would still allow me to get the most ideal outcome. I truly had to become a student of the sport and the craft because I already have a handicap in a sense, like in golf. Like I'm shorter than the era, the other athletes. I don't have the same facilities as I used to have in the past. I don't have funding to kind of fund the dream. I'm working for $15,000 as a coach. Yeah. That's how much I was making a year. And I still was able to run faster than I ever did before. Um hard work, consistency, and persistence doesn't work.

Rebecca Rose Payne 14:49

Yeah, I mean, that's I think any one of those obstacles would deter most people from continuing. And you ended up going to the Olympics three times, correct? That's correct. And then what happened kind of psychologically once competing was no longer the center of your life?

Mikel Thomas 15:12

I'm fortunate to where I was actually able to decide my exit. That's not always the case for many athletes. So and part of the reason for that is as amazing as the mountaintop is in sport, the values are super, super low. And one minute you could be a national hero, and the other minute you can be told that you're a failure because you finish fourth at a major event. That's a hard place to rest your identity. So after 2016, I knew I had to start defining who else I was away from the sport. And I wanted to ask myself what else I was capable of doing. So I was kind of executing my way out of the sport in the meantime. You know, I was able to ask what is it that I always wanted to do as a kid, and I became a firefighter. I was able to ask myself, what's the frustrating things around the sport and how can we do something about it? And so I got my master's degrees from the University of Lausanne and EFPF, EPFL in Switzerland. And so it's like being willing to ask myself what I was capable of doing, because sport validated what I can do with hard work, kind of opened up the possibilities of what else I was truly able to do. And so I was actually more prepared than most to kind of transition out to sport to the point where I was actually called to help the Winter Olympic team when I was fully retired, and I used my sporting platform to help them qualify, recruit some athletes. And I was actually on my way to becoming a four-time Olympian in two different sports, but I tragically what took up a medical injury and wasn't able to actually make the team. But I knew who I was and what I was capable of away from the sport that made it easy for me to find fulfillment in life after.

Rebecca Rose Payne 17:08

Yeah. And so what did you study for your master's degree?

Mikel Thomas 17:12

Yeah, so I got my master's degree in sport administration and technology from AISDS in Lausanne, Switzerland, in the heart of the Olympic movement. That gave me a chance to see sport at our old new global fascist. And I'm super grateful because again, that was another pivotal moment in life's journey.

Rebecca Rose Payne 17:32

Yeah, so I mean, it seems like you were even in the midst of your Olympic career kind of preparing for what you were gonna do after.

Mikel Thomas 17:40

100%. Because even while I was competing, I would tell different stories when social media was first coming out that allowed me to work with different brands. And I would ask, you know, why are you even working with athletes? So I understood that sponsorship is part of marketing and marketing is part of sales. I was I've always been, again, very inquisitive and open to ask these different types of questions, which created these small pockets of opportunities even while I was competing in the sport. That when I did transition out, it was just a follow-up conversation. You know, I was blessed to work with some of my own sponsors on the other side of sport. And so that's a really cool thing that I think more athletes should be willing to take up.

Rebecca Rose Payne 18:25

Yeah. And so can you just tell us a little bit about what your work with athletes consists of now?

Mikel Thomas 18:32

Yeah, so now I wear a few hats. One, really trying to drive the athletes' voice globally. I do this a lot with, you know, the Commonwealth Sport, a major multi-sport organization. We just had the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, um, at the end of July, early August, and just helping the athletes' voice become more part of such a global movement, working with Athletes Commission, driving more athlete-centered programs and initiatives, helping one of the first leading athlete advocacy guiding policies, which allows athletes to have positive advocacy moments within the major sporting events, unlike what you would normally hear across the globe, where athletes are told to kind of shh and just play your sport. We actually create a platform to help athletes understand that you're still tuning too and finding ways to possibly express what's happening in your life. And so that's really a big part of work that had the honor of working with many properties and brands on the sponsorship side, understanding how the commercialization and the monetization of sport really works, to now being able to transition that and give athletes power to their own story and helping them understand of how to be able to serve your community that you organically have, and then also attract the right partners that I'll bring sustainability to your efforts.

Rebecca Rose Payne 19:56

Yeah. And did your own experience of being an unpaid college athlete kind of shape how you think about that?

Mikel Thomas 20:05

Absolutely. I'm definitely not a part of the NIL era, that's for sure. But on top of that, like it's already been documented. I've been homeless in my pursuit of my athletic career. You know, I have given everything to the sport. And even in trying to get my master's degree, I fundraised my way and paid my tuition that way. So I've kind of learned the lessons of storytelling by force, of how do this as an immigrant boy resonate to somebody completely on the opposite side of the table. But finding the humanity that kind of connects us all, and how sport is just the inspiration that all of us who have the privilege of moving have the opportunity to connect with. I think sport, music, and food are probably the only things that you can go anywhere in the world and connect with a complete stranger. And I've lived it. You know, like we will celebrate with a complete stranger when our team wins together. All the time with good food, music, and beers along the way. So like being able to learn that and see how it has shaped my own dream. It's an honor now to be able to fit other athletes' properties and organizations with better ways to bring sustainability to that effort.

Rebecca Rose Payne 21:25

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so final question is given your like the spanse of your career and the transition of it, how has all of that impacted the way that you view success today?

Mikel Thomas 21:42

Yeah. Another good question for sure. I think success should be one that each individual needs to really be careful how they define. For me, to success, especially nowadays, is being able to say what you're going to do, what you say you're going to do. That's success. Because half of the time, I don't think we have a shortage of information out there. Everybody has an opinion. We can Google or ChatGPT, almost anything. But the ability to execute against it is one of the biggest things. And sometimes you may not have the ability to always control the results, but you do have the ability to control your attitude and your effort. And to me, just being able to do that is success. And the more time you do that, the more you get momentum along the way. And then it goes back to the earlier principle where consistency, hard work, determination, and effort will breed success. And I have so sometimes it's also a letting go of what the outcome may be and just really connecting to who I become in the process. And so again, if you do the thing enough times, it will shape you, where that itself is the reward. And I can say that about my own athletic career. Because if you were asking me what's on my scoreboard, I was supposed to be the Olympic world record holder, world champion, all of that. But those things don't make me a champion. Me getting up after falling at the world championships when I was an expected medal, that made me a champion. Me being able to fund my dream after being homeless, that made me a champion. Me now being able to help, after helping million-dollar organizations build commercial partnerships, now being able to help someone who's struggling because the average Olympian is below the poverty line, being able to monetize their own brand, that is successful. And so sometimes it's a moving target, but it gives me a lot of lessons along the way that hopefully I can share in my notes to help someone else have a better experience.

Rebecca Rose Payne 23:41

Thank you so much. I didn't realize that the average Olympian is below the poverty line.

Mikel Thomas 23:48

Globally speaking, we're not talking about just those with an NIL. We're talking about those who are competing in most major sports in the Olympic Games, are actually non-league sports. Badminton, wrestling, sailing, weightlifting. These individuals still have to fund their way to represent their nation. I think we forget about they're also part of the conversation. And we cannot forget our Paralympians as well, who have another challenge and hurdle that they will also have to face because they're just heroes in life to be able to kind of overcome, to then also pursue athletic excellence. These individuals constantly get forget about, but their stories are still powerful and still inspire us all. And that's who I'm really targeting to help enable.

Rebecca Rose Payne 24:32

That's amazing work. Thank you so much for sharing it with us and coming on today.

Mikel Thomas 24:37

Absolutely. Thank you for taking the time.