Andrea Fuentes: Olympic Medals, Failure, Leadership & Finding Purpose | Shekhar Natarajan

Andrea Fuentes (0:00)

And I would change. Congrats for Curiosity. So many dimes.

Shekhar Natarajan (0:09)

The worst time to quit is when you're emotional.

Andrea Fuentes (0:19)

Fear to drown, to die in the water. It's our biggest fear.

Shekhar Natarajan (0:30)

You save lives, you've done amazing things for the country, beautiful human being, and more than that, like your fears compare to theirs.

Andrea Fuentes (0:42)

Pain is compulsory. You don't escape from pain, but suffering is optional.

Shekhar Natarajan (1:18)

So, we are going to start off Tomorrow, Today with Shekhar Natarajan.

It's my great honor to have a real champion here, and also a very beautiful person. She's very beautiful for many, many reasons, which I would love to unpack. You've saved lives, you've done amazing things for the country, beautiful human being, and more than that, like you're a fierce competitor. I don't know how you do all of that together. So, welcome to the show, Andrea Fuentes.

Andrea Fuentes (1:46)

Yes.

Shekhar Natarajan (1:47)

And you have to tell like, what does your last name really mean?

Andrea Fuentes (1:52)

It means, yes, it means fountain, but more than one, and generally a water one, which makes sense now, but yeah, it means this.

Shekhar Natarajan (2:07)

Yeah. So like, so you were born a water queen, and then you're a water queen.

Andrea Fuentes (2:12)

Yeah, I was meant to be, I guess. But now my job is to make other water queens.

Shekhar Natarajan (2:20)

Very good. So let's go back and try to unpack your early days of your life.

So you were born in Vals, Tarragona, and I saw your, is it your mom?

Andrea Fuentes (2:38)

No, she's my manager agent.

Shekhar Natarajan (2:42)

Got it. So tell me about your family, tell me about like, you know, your upbringing, the parents and so on and so forth.

Andrea Fuentes (2:49)

I was born in a family pretty different from what I'm used to see around me.

My father was a teacher, a philosophy teacher, and my mom, she's French, and she was a French teacher in Spain. So they met together and it was a pretty life based on, let's enjoy what we do and let's go deep. You know, like we don't do nothing without a reason. Sometimes yes, but mostly we do things for a reason and we go deep in everything, no? And conversations, I remember, they were always pretty intense and I thought it was normal. And then now that I'm being more grown up, I understand a lot of things of why a lot of people tells me, you see, you're a little bit different, your head and things differently. And I think it comes from this, from my education and my childhood.

Shekhar Natarajan (3:53)

So how would you characterize your mom and your dad? Like, you know, what is...

Andrea Fuentes (4:00)

My dad was extremely... I mean, he will never talk and like do small talk. He would always... Like, I don't speak if it's not to write a book, like too much sometimes, which was interesting. And that extremely smart, but non-social at all, or not seeing the point of just going a party or a dinner. Sometimes we're having dinner in silence, completely in silence.

And if somebody has to talk, it's because it's something important.

But also funny sometimes. And my mom was like extremely demanding, like a nine out of 10 is not enough. Like your scores at school have to be extremely high and very perfectionist, but more simple with life in this sense, which was also good to balance. And so that was more or less the pattern. Oh, very beautiful.

Shekhar Natarajan (5:05)

So you have, I know, we'll get to the to your siblings in the later half.

So as you think about, like, your formative years, how did you get into swimming? And what is I know that a lot of people know swimming, but like, you know, also, there's a flavor of swimming that you do, which is artistic. Yes, it's different.

Andrea Fuentes (5:33)

It's very different. And I have been always doing artistic sports. I thought with gymnastics, which is artistic also. I thought then I did, I don't know, it's not in the US., you don't see it that much. It's like rolling skater, but like in the ice, but with wheels in the floor. It's exactly the same as figure skating, but no ice. So which is also artistic.

And then artistic swimming. So I did all the artistic sports, but artistic swimming, when I saw it, my current coach, not now, but when I was a swimmer, came to all the schools around the club and she showed us a video about artistic swimming, which in that moment in Spain was absolutely non sense because it was so small that nobody knew what was it. So when I saw a sport, I was like, what's that? It's everything that I like. It's water, it's sport, it's dance also. And it's a team sport, which is everything that I wanted. So I started first just like leisure and just enjoying it. And then it became serious and more and more and more. It's a sport that you train a lot of hours, almost eight to 10 hours a day. Wow. Yeah, when you get serious in that, because it's very perfectionist. You have to synchronize every swimmer with a movement. Then you have to learn about expression. You need to choreograph. It's a long one, it's very difficult because water, if you think about it, it's crazy. You're upside down most of the time, not breathing. We're not water animals.