Angela Gargano (00:00)
Hello there and welcome back to What If It All Goes Right, the podcast where we take the lesson life has taught us, break them down and apply them in ways that make us stronger, more resilient, and of course unstoppable. Today I want to take you back to my roots, gymnastics. You see, when I was younger, my parents put me in every sport. But when it came to time to choose, because I couldn't do them all, gymnastics was an easy choice for me. I was a daredevil. I wanted to push my limits and I wasn't
afraid of trying new things, even when I wasn't ready. And sometimes that got me into trouble. Like the time my coach Cheryl was teaching us back handspring, she said, Angela, do not try this by yourself. I want you to do some drills with you first. So what did I do? I immediately went for it behind her back and I ate it like full faceplant straight to the ground, bloody lip and all. And she turned around, looked at me she said, did you just try it? And I straight up lied. I was like, nope.
as if my bloody lip wasn't a dead giveaway that I actually had done it. But that was who I was. I wanted to be the best. I looked at the higher level gymnasts and knew deep inside that I could do what they were doing. Fearless, I was persistent, obsessed with getting it right. But there was one problem. My parents wouldn't let me join that aggressive team. It was expensive. It was also a huge time commitment. And they didn't want me to give up my childhood for chasing this Olympic dream. And I get it.
But back then I wanted in. So I did the next best thing and I made the most of the three days a week that I did have there. And that's when something amazing happened. The coaches started noticing me. So one of the coaches I had in particular saw something in me that I didn't see in myself and his name was Coach Miguel. And I'll never forget the way he looked at me and said, Angela, you're going to be a star. And you know what? I believed him.
He gave me confidence. He made me feel like I could be on that higher level team. And he made me feel like I belonged. So I trained with him and I listened to everything he told me to do. I put in the work and that's when I learned one of the biggest lessons of my life.
The power of progress over perfection. So one day I told coach Miguel that I wanted to learn a vault. It's called Sukhara. And for those of you who don't know a Sukh is a big vault. It's a round off off the table and then you go right into a backflip. And I wanted to do it like literally yesterday, but Miguel, he wasn't about letting me just rush it. So instead he gave me drills. One drill for my takeoffs, one drills for my rotation, one drill for my landing.
And I did them over and over and over again for weeks. And there was one day out of nowhere, he looked at me and he said, you're ready. And I was like, wait, what? I'm ready? I didn't feel ready. I haven't even put all the pieces together. But when I went to do the vault, it all clicked. I landed it on the first try. And in that moment, I finally understood.
Sometimes when you're rushing towards a goal, it feels like you're not making progress. But if you trust the process, if you focus on building the foundations and those little steps, when the moment comes, you will literally be ready. So how does this apply to life and to pull-ups and pretty much everything else? This lesson doesn't just apply to gymnastics. It applies to literally everything. We all want things to happen now. We want to master a new skill immediately.
We want to be at the finish line before we've even started training. We want results without going through the process. But what if rushing actually slowed us down? What if the fastest way to reach our goals was actually to break things into pieces, gain confidence, and master each step? That's exactly how I train women to do their first pull-up. You don't just jump on the bar and hope for the best. You build the strength, the technique, and the confidence piece by piece. And then one day,
You literally pull yourself up and you realize you were ready all along. Now, gymnastics was an escape for me, right? It wasn't just about the sport. It literally was an escape from life. I had a good family. My parents loved me and did their best, but my home life was super chaotic. Constant drama, sibling, stress, tension. But when I walked into that gym, none of that mattered.
For those few hours, it was about me, my body, and the ability to push my limits. And that gym became my reset button. It was the one place I felt in control, the one place I found my flow. And even now, I realize how much that shaped me. Whenever life feels overwhelming, whenever I feel stuck, whenever I catch myself rushing, I go back to that lesson I learned in gymnastics, to take a breath, break it into steps, trust the process.
at the moment would come. And what's really exciting about this entire journey is I never thought it would even be possible for me to do college gymnastics because if you know how competitive it to get into college gymnastics, it's very tough. luckily, because of the support, because of this breakdown, because of this belief that this coach had in me that I didn't have in myself, this potential he saw in me that I didn't see in myself and him helping me break it down to those little pieces.
and him reminding myself that when I'm in those four walls, it's just about me, myself, my body, my goal, and I could really fully get into my flow state. I was able to get into college gymnastics and I was able to compete on an amazing team in Rhode Island called Rhode Island Gymnastics, AKA RIC. Now this is a small division three school, but I'm so happy I went to a small division three school. I felt like I...
had a small campus, I was able to really be a part of a team and a sisterhood, which is really powerful, even though it was sometimes a little bit crazy.
Yeah, there's just so much that I was able to do because of being able to get on that team and each coach throughout the life that I've had, not just Miguel, but from going from a coach named Sergio to Miguel to my coach Shannon, to my coach Bob, to going to all those pieces. I learned so much about myself from each of those different pieces. I learned how to really take my power and to do some incredible things. And believe it or not, my
assistant who I don't like to call my assistant cause she's pretty much my wing woman and I don't know what I would do without her. ⁓ her and I were actually the captains of the gymnastics team. And there was a season where they cut the team. They cut the team. said, you know, we don't have the funding, whatever it might be. And everyone else around us, since our team or division three team, our little old team, weren't winning by any chance, but I was just so grateful to be a part of it.
And most people were like, you know what, whatever. That's it. The team is done. Don't even try and get it back. But Sarah and I, we were not going to back down. We got a binder together. We put all the facts together as to why they should not cut the team. And we stamped in to the main office. And we would not stop until the day they came back and they said,
We're going to reinstate the team. And it was interesting because all those people around us who didn't believe that it was possible, all those people around us who were like, we're just going to accept fate and we're going to live our life by default. and Sarah were like, we're going to live by design and we're going to stand up for what we believe in and what we know can happen. And that utter belief you can get, we got her and I got that confidence from gymnastics. We got that confidence from saying, no, like we're going to do what we need to do. We're going to piece the pieces together and we're going to fight and we're going to.
make this reality and bring the team back. And I just had a call with her before recording this podcast. And she just said that like the team is now winning. Like they're doing an amazing job. They have an incredible culture. And imagine if her and I decided that whatever, that was the fate of the team. Imagine if we didn't stand up to the team. That would never be possible right now. There'd never be all those amazing women in there right now on the team, bringing it together, lifting it up and really creating something of it. So I think just think that's really, really powerful.
I just wanted to share that real quick with you on here. But there's something I want you to take away from this episode. And I want you to just stop rushing the process. The best results come from when you take the time to build a strong foundation. We talk about foundation so much. If you're ever in my Poll of Revolution program, if you're a leader and I'm helping you with pushing past challenges, It always starts at the base of having that strong foundation and really building up.
So find your coach Miguel, surround yourself with people who see something in you even before you do and create that reset space, whether it's in your gym, nature or something else, find that place where you can pause and reset and remind yourself of your power and reminder that you are capable of so much more than you think. So if this episode resonates with you, I know it was a short one. I want you to share it with someone who needs to hear it. And as always, keep asking yourself, what if it all goes right? Until next time, trust the process.
Take it one step at a time and know that your moment, your moment is coming. You got this.
