Mat Lock:
Felicity, welcome back. It’s great to have you back. Thank you very much. And today, we’re going to talk a little bit about life after your career as a professional swimmer, when you brought home two gold medals at the Olympics. And you corrected me last time, three world records, not two. Hey, you earned them, so I’d have done the same thing.
Mat Lock:
But before we kick on, just in case, for those who haven’t listened to the first episode with you, and if you haven’t, I suggest you do because you’ll get to hear the story up until this point and you’ll get to hear the background for Felicity. But nonetheless, just give us 30-60 seconds, Felicity, of … yeah, I guess your background and who you are.
Felicity Lemke:
Sure. So, I’m Felicity Lemke, formally known as Felicity Galvez. Used to be a professional swimmer for over 10 years. Went to two Olympics, 2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing Olympics where I won, like Mat said, two Olympic Gold Medals. And now I own my own gym here in Canberra and have a beautiful family with two little girls. So, that’s my new life.
Mat Lock:
Yeah, no, absolutely. Awesome. And today, we’re going to take a deep dive into when you took the plunge to starting your own business. Sorry, it’s appalling, isn’t it? Sorry.
Felicity Lemke:
I wasn’t going to say it was appalling but, I see what you’re doing here.
Mat Lock:
There we go. So, life after being a professional athlete. I mean, we heard last time quite what it involves. And I mean, it was really something, as it is for, I guess, all professional athletes. But nonetheless, how was it transitioning out of that? So, you obviously left on a high with your gold medals and world records. And how did you arrive at the decision to step away from your career in swimming at that level?
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah, well it’s quite an interesting one. I went to our 2008 Olympic Trials. We’ll backtrack. So, 2004, I went to that Olympics for an individual swim, so the 200 butterfly. And then, obviously four years later, you want to be able to hit that same event again and then hopefully come out with a medal. I went into that trials with the best prep I’d ever done. I’d never trained so hard. I hadn’t swum … I was swimming up to 70 km a week in the pool. I did everything.
Felicity Lemke:
Like, literally, some days I would get home and the only thing that didn’t hurt were my eyelashes. Like, I couldn’t put the handbrake down in the car some days because I was just … I was stuffed. But then, I went into our Olympic Trials in 2008 and I just put too much pressure on myself. You’re already going into these trials and there’s a lot of spotlights on everyone and there’s a lot of pressure as it is. I just over thought it and swum my 200 fly and came third. Third is normally a really good outcome, but not at our trials. Only top two qualify. So, that meant that I didn’t gain that spot for the 200 butterfly to the Olympics. But obviously I gave myself some other opportunities with adding some more events into our trials. So, hence why I then came third in the 100 butterfly, which I was really happy about. And that got me a spot to do the heats for the four by one medley relay and I also qualified for the four by two freestyle relay.
Felicity Lemke:
But coming out of that, there was a point where I was devastated and I didn’t think that I’d qualified and almost threw the towel in. So, there’s a good pun for you, Mat. You’d like that one.
Mat Lock:
I like it. I see what you did there.
Felicity Lemke:
See what I did there? But yeah, I almost gave it up and I’d started hating the sport, I think because of the workload. And I’m sure a lot of athletes that would be listening to this have been through a moment where they’ve done everything possible and they haven’t go the outcome that they would have wanted. And it’s devastating and it does make you rethink, “Do I actually want to do this anymore?” Do I want to put my body under this much strain all the time?
Felicity Lemke:
Anyway, they announced the team on the last day. And I was more surprised than everyone to have qualified. So, I had to re-change my mind frame because all of a sudden, I was going to an Olympics when I’d thought I’d missed. And then, I had a World Short Course coming up four weeks after our trials, which I was kind of excited about. I love short course. And I kind of said to my husband, I was like, “Do you know what? I haven’t trained this hard for nothing. I’m not going to just go and not care.” But I also changed my attitude with a lot of my racing post that Olympic Trials. I went in and I thought, “You know what? I’m going to have fun when I race.” Everything else, training isn’t fun. It’s hard work. The racing side of it needed to be fun.
Felicity Lemke:
So, that was one of the first meets. And this was towards the end of my career that I all of a sudden clicked. And I went over to Manchester and swum in World Short Course and came away with two individual world records, four gold medals, two silver, and a bronze. The best Australian swimmer that’s ever swum at a short course heat, only because I went out and I smiled before every one of my races. And I thought, “You know what? Fuck it. I’m just going to have fun.” I’d done the work, so I didn’t need to worry about that. It was just about letting it happen. And I know athletes that would be listening to this would be like, “I get what she’s saying. You’ve just sometimes got to …” You know? We’ve said it, just send it, just let it happen. But enjoy the process of letting it happen.
Felicity Lemke:
So, that carried me on after that meet because I swam so well and I had reignited that fire in me to keep going, and then swam for another two years. But then, I knew coming up to the end of 2010, I’d done Commonwealth Games in Delhi and swam okay, didn’t swim great. But then knew I had World Short Course in Dubai. And I loved it and I wanted to replicate the same kind of meet that I had in Manchester two years ago before that. And I knew that was … In my heart, I knew that was going to be my last meet. So, I said to my husband, “Fly over, watch me swim. This will be it. Promise, I won’t drag you through any more meets and any more anxiety.” So, yeah. Look, I left there. And I did say to him, “I will not leave here until I have one of those gold medals individually around my neck.” So, thank god I did because otherwise I probably wouldn’t be here.
Felicity Lemke:
So, that was it for me. I just knew I didn’t have the passion for it anymore. I had the ability. I was swimming the fastest I’d ever swam up to the day I retired. But setting the alarm clock, getting out of bed, and doing the hard work, I resented it. I didn’t love it. I made it harder for my coach than anything, just asking why we had to do it, whinging and moaning, a bit like my kids do to me now.
Mat Lock:
Is that your penance?
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah, so I just thought, “Well, I’m going to give that opportunity to someone that actually really wants it,” because there was one moment. A lot of the time in my career, where I really wanted it, and I had the opportunity to do what I loved. So, that was the moment I gave back.
Mat Lock:
Sure. So, it was just time. You just knew it was time. Yeah, sure.
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah.
Mat Lock:
And of course, you’ve gone on to, as we’ve mentioned already, you’ve opened your own gym in Canberra called Galvanised Fitness. How’s that been? I mean, going from being a professional athlete to opening and starting your own business? Yeah, talk us through it. Enjoying it so far?
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah, you know, look, the biggest transition for me wasn’t starting my own business. For me, it was going from … You know, athletes are super selfish, and you have to be. You have to devote 90% of your life to doing everything you possibly can to be the best athlete or the best whatever on the day. And then, for me, transitioning from being an athlete to then being a mom, where you have to be the most unselfish, everything is about this child, you know?
Mat Lock:
Polar opposites.
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah, it’s just a total role reversal. So, I had my firstborn, Sophia. And everyone would be ringing going, “How’s the baby?” And I was like, “What about me? Why is no one asking about me?” I went from everyone going, “How are you? How’s your prep? How are you feeling?” Everyone asked about me, to then no one really gave a shit about me, and it was all about this baby that was just crying all the time. So, it was a huge transition from athlete to mom life.
Felicity Lemke:
So, then transitioning into opening up my own business was almost not too bad. It was almost going back into an athlete life where I could afford to be a little bit more selfish and put my heart and soul into something that I really wanted to make work. A lot of time has gone into it. But I love it. I love that I can now give back and find amazing things in people that they don’t believe that they could have done. That gives me such job satisfaction every single day.
Mat Lock:
Yeah, I can imagine. And having met a number of your members and competed alongside them and trained alongside them, it is clear that they are very, very fond of you. And it’s clear that you absolutely just get the best … I was going to say drag the best out of people. But I don’t think you do drag it out, you naturally bring it to the surface by virtue of who you are and how you approach training. So, how would you describe your gym? It’s not a CrossFit gym, but functional fitness oriented?
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah, look, it is. It’s definitely not CrossFit. It’s functional. So, our motto is making people stronger. So, stronger for some people is just being able to lift their shopping from the boot of their car into their house. Someone might be, they want to be strong because they want to be able to do 10 chin ups in a row. Everyone’s got their goals. But it is functional. So, the average age for our clientele using our gym space is probably mid-40s. And they’re not elite athletes, we’ve got some-
Mat Lock:
Are you having a poke at me at this point? Is that aimed at me?
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah, like you. No.
Mat Lock:
You’ll have to speak up, I can’t hear you very well. I’m mid-40s, you know?
Felicity Lemke:
But you know, it’s not about being the best in the gym. We don’t have any egos in the gym. One of the biggest things is we’re just trying to build a community that support each other through our fitness goals. And it’s something that I’m really, really proud of because I’ve had so many people come through our doors going, “Wow, this is something that we haven’t ever experienced.” So, I’m proud of that. I’m proud that I am different to what else is out there.
Mat Lock:
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, and you are. And you certainly put me through my paces when I was there. And so, certainly, again, we’re recording this at a time when COVID-19 is upon us. As you mentioned already, that’s changed nearly everything for most of us. How has that been for you? How have you transitioned so far? It’s still only, what? Three or four weeks in. And of course, we don’t know how long the new norm will be the new norm. But anyway, we deal with it one day at a time. But how has that been for you?
Felicity Lemke:
It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. And I think most people would agree. But it’s kind of gone … It’s been quite funny. We kind of knew it was coming on. And so, I was cleaning the gym more than I clean my own house. Like, I would have eaten off the floor at the gym, but I wouldn’t eat off the floor in my own house. So, I went through a phase of cleaning everything, being really diligent more so than ever, just so clients would feel really comfortable still coming to the gym because there wasn’t any bans at that point on doors closing or what you could do.
Felicity Lemke:
So, that was a really big thing. We stopped doing partner workouts, so that people were spaced. And then we got told the news of closing the doors. So, that was fine because we could still train in groups, smaller groups and outside. I had a great space outside, so we comfortably kind of transferred into that. And then, within a week, that all got turned on its head. And then we could only go to one on one training. So, I think I’m blessed in the fact that I’ve got amazing support in clients that have got my back through this and they actually want to see me come out the other side, and they want to see Galvanised Fitness past COVID-19.
Felicity Lemke:
So, I quickly transitioned into taking on one on one clients. And then, I desperately wrote to you going, “Help me. I need you to teach me Zoom. I need to set this up. How do I do it?” And I was frantic. And this was past the point of when I had my mini-meltdown. I think, and I’m sure men need to do it too, but as females, I think we need a moment where we just lose our shit, we cry, we have that hour or two to really let it go. And then I felt like I had a clearer head and I could just sort out what I had in front of me. And as much as it looked like chaos, because I had all my clients going, “What are we going to do? How are we going to train?” And they were anxious about it too. And I felt like I was just being strong for everyone and going, “It’ll be fine. I’ll sort it. I’ll get back to you. I’ll let you know.”
Felicity Lemke:
Telling my kids that I’m now home schooling, which is totally out of control. But that’s okay and we’ll be fine. And trying to juggle working from home with my husband as well. And this is where I just flipped it because I got the timetable from the girls’ school going, “And from 9:00 until this is when … And this is when maths is on.” And I was like, “What? This is not … How am I meant to work and teach my kids everything they need to know?” So, I think that’s what really … That was like the needle in the haystack that really broke me. But we’ve kind of got into a little routine. You’ve taught me Zoom, so we’re Zooming all over the place now. I’ve got a good little setup in the garage.
Mat Lock:
You have. You’ve got a great setup in the garage, yeah, absolutely.
Felicity Lemke:
And it’s working well. And it’s quite beautiful. I’ve got a big screen TV there where I’ve hooked everyone … You know, they’re all up there. And it’s quite nice before we start class. They’re all like, “Hi Daryl, hi Richard.” And they’re all saying hi to each other. And they have this little moment where they all talk. And then I’m like, “Righto. We’ve got 40 minutes. Let’s get this done.” And they’re great. And the feedback’s been so positive.
Mat Lock:
Yeah, absolutely. When I was chatting with Alethea earlier, again we both came to the conclusion that we can’t help but feel that actually this has caused an even greater connection, by being … because it’s more deliberate. It has to be.
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah.
Mat Lock:
I think we’ve become perhaps a little bit complacent when we all rock up at the gym. And we had taken that for granted. And it requires a bit more thought and determination to maintain those connections. And in some way, that makes it even more valuable, even closer, even though it’s digital, if that makes sense. And it certainly sounds like that’s a similar experience to yourself with your members.
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah, absolutely. It has brought everyone together. And I’ve been doing little posts on our Instagram with me in front of the screen or whatever. And the people that haven’t been involved all of a sudden want to be involved because they almost, I think, feel that they’re missing out on an opportunity to not only do a workout which helps physically and mentally, but be in touch with that network that they were in touch with daily, you know? They feel part of this family that we’ve created. And they don’t want to miss out.
Mat Lock:
Yeah, absolutely. And certainly, I’ve had a few comments certainly across at Jervis Bay, where they had night training. Same story, it’s Zoom and so on. And yeah, a couple of people have said quite clearly to me that they appreciate it because that time at the gym with their gym mates, that’s what sets them up for the day and keeps them sane. And actually, one of the guys actually said, “When I train on my own at home,” he said, “After a while, it feels like the walls of the garage are just closing in a little bit.” And certainly, we’re all making a really conscious effort around the topic of mental health to make sure that everyone’s all good.
Mat Lock:
And I guess, certainly you may have heard or read the phrase I’ve been using more recently on it, “Leave no one behind.” And I think that’s the point. And really paying attention to who’s not on the Zoom call. Who’s suddenly just stopped turning up? And being deliberate in then reaching out to them, just to make sure they’re okay. There may be a reason. Well, there will be a reason, but it might not be a great reason. But it doesn’t take a lot. But it takes a determination to be conscious of that and to be aware of that. So yeah, I find it fascinating. It’s like a massive social experiment, isn’t it?
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah.
Mat Lock:
And I wonder how much of what we’re now doing digitally, how much of that will either stick and become part of the new business model, or whether everyone will just revert to business as usual, which might be okay as well. But I can’t help but feel that some opportunities will come up out of this.
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah, no, I agree. It’s something I’ve actually thought of. It’s maybe just … And you know, it’s probably opened the eyes up to your clients as well that are now doing this, going, “Actually, I’ve got a little bit more time in my life. So, if I don’t want to turn up to the gym every day, maybe I can do some gym sessions where I’m there. And then, some of it can be done online in my own backyard, involve my kids,” you know? Whatever it is. So, it’s definitely something I’ve thought of as well. And it’s just trying to find the time then. If you go back to your normal ways, how do you then continue and implement all of it?
Mat Lock:
Yeah, no, absolutely. And yeah, I think right now, for me, I find there’s less white noise. I find I’ve got more time to contemplate my navel and ponder different aspects of the business that I’m involved in. And actually, I quite appreciate that. I’ve grown to cherish that, even in just a few weeks. I’m determined to not simply return to all of that noise and buzz that’s going on, and to make the most of that breathing space I think we’re all being afforded. Admittedly, I’m not home schooling, so yeah.
Mat Lock:
Well, we have got the cats and the dogs, so it’s similar, hey?
Felicity Lemke:
When your seven year old’s like, “So, I don’t understand this maths question.” I’m like, “Neither do I.”
Mat Lock:
That’s right. Hang on, I’ll Google. Hey, Siri.
Felicity Lemke:
Oh dear. Yep, that’s why she misses school.
Mat Lock:
There’s no shame in that. Well, certainly, it seems like … I mean, you seem to, knowing you reasonably well these days, you look much more relaxed than you did a week or so ago. You’ve obviously got into the swing of it all with your members and so on. So, that’s awesome. And well done to you. It’s such a challenging time. But you’ve obviously found your groove, and that’s good. And I guess, yeah, we look forward to both yourself and Jess being at one of the live announcements for the Grand Slam 2020. Of course, the likelihood of that is it means you’ll be doing it remotely via Zoom, unfortunately. I can’t believe restrictions will be lifted before then. But nonetheless, we look forward to yourself and Jess going up against … I don’t know, Alethea and Khan maybe. I don’t know.
Felicity Lemke:
No, that’s not fair.
Mat Lock:
No, no, no, wouldn’t do that to you. We’ll find a similar pairing for you to go up against. So no, it’s a pleasure, it’s a joy to have you in our lives. It’s a joy to have you involved in the Bay Games. I say that quite sincerely, you know that. And very much appreciate your time again today for this episode of the podcast. And it might not be your last, because I can imagine, like Ned and I and everyone else that we know, just being naturally attracted to you and appreciating who you are. So, thank you very much for being you. And if people want to reach out to you and get in touch, how would they do that?
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah, so just on Instagram is the best way. So, swim fit chick is my personal one. And then, if you just also look up Galvanised Fitness is my business. And then, I can write back.
Mat Lock:
And that’s Galvanised with a Z, right? Because that’s the American spelling?
Felicity Lemke:
Yeah. Yeah.
Mat Lock:
Because of your maiden name, as I was quite rightly corrected earlier. No, Felicity, thank you ever so much, and look forward to chatting again in the future.
Felicity Lemke:
Awesome. Thank you.
