291: Bryan Fogel

First up - you may know I like to ride bikes.

Bikes are freedom machines. Freedom from your physical location, freedom from a sedentary life and for me, freedom from unhelpful thinking - I love to ride because it gets me from place to place, clears my head and helps my body and mind work well while I’m at it. 

I am not a competitive cyclist. 

However right now the biggest competition in world cycling is happening every night on the telly - the Tour De France is upon us.

And while every sport has dealt with it, it’s hard to find a sport where doping has been dealt with in a higher profile than Cycling. 

Bryan Fogel won an Oscar for his incredible Documentary Icarus - which you can watch on Netflix in between Stranger Things 3 episodes. 

He was also nominated for a BAFTA for the film - which is extraordinary. 

Bryan set out to make a film about what happens when an incredibly fast and fit amateur cyclist competes in the hardest non-professional race in the world clean, and then while doping - just like the pros were doing at the time. 

What happened next is something that ended up blowing the lid off of a systemic international doping system which had implications in no small part playing a role in the entire Russian national team being banned from participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

This is a conversation that’s about more than cycling, doping, and international espionage - this is also a conversation about holding fast to your truth, and what happens when you powerfully tell a story in an authentic way. 

And, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like having to rent out your place on AirBNB to make the mortgage and then winning an Oscar a short time later - you’re about to find out. 

Bryan and I caught up over Skype from his place in LA, and I’m so grateful he took the time to do so.

I promise you this conversation will inspire you even you haven’t ridden a bike since you were a kid. 

I hope you get as much out of this as I did. 

Enjoy this conversation with Bryan Fogel.

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X OG