156: How to Effectively Evolve as an Athlete, with Lachlan Morton

If you consider yourself an athlete—and presumably you do since you’re visiting this site and listening to this podcast—then your definition of what that means has likely evolved through the years.

Think about your lifestyle, your mental health, your training routine—even your friends and community. To what extent are feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment connected to your definition?

Think about the arc of your involvement in sports, the positive and negative aspects of what that has meant for you as a person, and the place athletics has, and hopefully continues to hold, in the greater context of your life. Are you aware of the fortune it brings, or do you take it for granted?

Lachlan Morton, who currently rides for the Education First-Nippo WorldTour team, has been fortunate throughout his career to have something most of us don’t have: immense talent. Yet, that talent hasn’t always been enough to make him happy or fulfilled by his career. It hasn’t always gone smoothly, or been comfortable.

Lachlan has gone through a very public and well-documented evolution as an athlete: He started long ago as a young kid with huge potential, then quickly became depressed and disillusioned at the pro level, ultimately turning into a bit of a rogue vagabond.

Next, he rode across the Australian Outback and was able to rekindle the fire, returning to the sport at an entirely different level, but one that afforded him the chance to do things he couldn’t do before, and therefore express things he needed to express.

His career has only gone up from there, and now he balances WorldTour racing with other feats of endurance, like ultra-endurance racing and FKT attempts.

In essence, he has gone through significant, you might even say, massive changes in the 15 years since he started racing a bike. And while it may not be entirely explicit in this conversation, his evolution as an athlete holds valuable lessons, because it contains a universal truth: Ultimately, being an athlete is about loving what you do, and doing what you love. Hopefully, this episode will help you find even more love.

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