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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert.
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I m Dan Rather and I m joined by the Duchess of Duluth.
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Where you ll soon be.
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You ll be gracing Duluth with your royal presence.
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Are you watching the new Crown, by the way?
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Not yet.
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I need to get on it.
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You know what s fun is I watch that with Lincoln.
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Oh, so fun.
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And I m so into the fact that at 10 she likes it so much.
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Yeah, because it s slow.
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It s slow and historical, and everyone s old on it, and she loves it, it s so exciting.
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Today s guest is Maria Sharapova.
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She is a five-time Grand Slam winning former professional tennis player, an investor, and an entrepreneur, and she has a book entitled Unstoppable, My Life So Far.
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She s a beast.
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It s so cool.
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It s fun when we have athletes on, because we just,
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pale in comparison to them.
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He feels immortal around them, right?
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Well, let s just start with the fact she arrived and we re the same size.
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And I was like, oh damn.
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Because one of my questions was going to be, or was, and I did ask, the showdowns with Serena when she s a 17-year-old.
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That must be so intimidating.
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That s what I think the whole time.
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And then I meet her in person, I m like,
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I doubt she s intimidated by much.
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Yeah.
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You know?
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Yeah.
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Powerhouse.
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Powerhouse.
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Totally enjoyed it.
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I hope everyone else does as well.
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Please enjoy Maria Sharapova.
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Oh my God, did they tell you?
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That the toilet is without a door, no.
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Yeah, it s not.
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Well, let s see how tall you are.
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Oh, this is wonderful.
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We re like eye to eye.
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How could I have not read that in my research?
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How tall are you?
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I m 6 2 .
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There we go.
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Nice.
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You know what s crazy?
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I didn t even clock it when we shook hands, how tall you were.
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I guess everyone s taller than me, so I don t.
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I kind of get away with being super tall, but when I wear heels, it s like... It s too much.
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It s too much.
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Were you offered stuff to drink?
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I m fine.
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We can stop at any time if you decide you want.
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If you want to go into the house for 10 minutes and sit down and relax.
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We only have like an hour left of light out.
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I hate it.
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Is that true?
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No, but kind of.
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Is someone going to change these rules?
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It s worse than that.
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We voted and we said, we don t want to have it anymore.
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And then they told us, oh, it starts next year.
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So for two years we thought, and then we were like, well, this is the year.
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And then come to find out that vote was just to allow them to overturn it.
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So is it coming into effect?
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I don t think it ever is.
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I don t think that vote we did means anything.
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That was three years ago that passed.
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I know we ve been just waiting.
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You re in Manhattan beach.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So the commute for you here, miserable, be honest.
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I usually like to drive, but I looked at the map and I was like, there s no fucking driving today.
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Yeah, that s fair.
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Also going back to- I don t remember the last time I went this far.
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Yeah, you should plan an entire weekend out of it, now that you re here.
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Well, I planned an entire late afternoon out of this.
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Oh, good.
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So yeah, I scheduled a couple meetings after.
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My friend is opening a store tonight, so I m just gonna do the whole thing.
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Can we recommend that you try a fun restaurant while you re over here, or that s too much?
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I would have said yes, but I don t have time.
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Now you ve packed it so tight.
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That would have been the only thing I would have liked to do, is go eat and perhaps drink, because I have a driver.
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Oh yeah, we should have had some wine for you here.
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Oh no, that s fine.
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Do you like wine, or what s your drink?
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I mean, who doesn t?
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Well, yeah.
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Even if you don t drink it, you do like it.
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Yeah, it s the experience.
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But you have a 15 month old?
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Yeah, I think he s 60 now.
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I can t keep track.
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We re just speaking with Monica about how quickly it all goes.
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Yes.
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And do you feel, though, when you get to leave that house and come here that even though normally it d be a drag, it s like a spring break?
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I was just saying the guilt that you feel like leaving the house as a newer mom going through my teens and my 20s and my early 30s.
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I was like, oh, I got this down.
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I m this tough girl.
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I m going to be OK leaving my child.
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Oh, no.
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I leave the house and I think twice about it.
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Like, what s the purpose of my trip?
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Is it really important?
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Your thought perspective just completely changes.
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But do you find this paradox you re stuck in?
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I forget who just posted about this, but whatever, it s well-worn, but someone I like and respect.
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It was like, when I m at work, I feel guilty I m not with my child.
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When I m with my child, I feel guilty I m not pursuing my work.
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Absolutely.
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100% true.
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You cannot win, no matter what.
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You can t win.
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No, it s like this balance.
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When was the last time we felt?
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Yes.
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It s so gendered.
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If I m at work, I m like, woo, this is great.
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And then I m being a dad.
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I m like, I m a great dad.
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I don t, there s no point.
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Don t you think if you re out of town for some days, you miss them, but also don t you feel like I should be back?
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Well, yes, I was stuck on a TV show.
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The hours were way too long and I was having a crisis.
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Like if this thing keeps going, I m going to miss my kid s childhood.
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I did have the panic of that, but it wasn t the guilt that I think moms experience.
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It s not like I had done something.
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It was just, I m providing in a way, I got to figure out a different way to provide.
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Yeah.
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My whole perspective on work on this sense of understanding what s more important than other things, like I retired, we went into lockdown of COVID, then I was pregnant.
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And so, you know, I envisioned post-retirement traveling around the world.
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world and experiencing these amazing cities from a different perspective.
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And then I gave birth to Theo and then my world just revolves around him and work and yeah, and I don t know when I m going on vacation.
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I don t think I connected the dots between you retiring in 2020 and that of course we went right into quarantine.
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Do you think in some way I could imagine that helping a lot because you were probably so used to the routine and the training and the traveling and all that busyness.
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Yes.
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And then when you retire, it stops on a dime.
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It could have been overwhelming, but luckily everyone stopped on a dime.
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That s kind of true.
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Do you think that helped?
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Sure.
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I think there s always a part of your body and your mind that has to process a big change like that.
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And so whether it happens in light of a pandemic or whether it just happens because that s where life takes you, there s definitely a moment of reflection, of consideration, whether that was the right choice.
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I d played this one sport for over 25 years of my life.
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So I was committed.
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I was in it.
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It was my passion.
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It s where I found and searched for some of my greatest moments in life.
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It had to be most of your identity.
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Oh, yeah.
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Absolutely.
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And when someone would ask whether I wanted to have dinner that evening, that thought of, well, how late is my dinner?
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Am I going to be as fresh the next morning if I didn t attend that dinner?
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You re constantly pushing your body and your mind to this next level.
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And so one of the nice privileges in retirement is that
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You don t have to go there with your body.
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You don t have to go there with your mind, but you can still apply the knowledge that you have of how far is it that you can take your body to without pushing it over the limit.
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Because as a professional athlete, that s always on.
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You re constantly pushing it and pushing it.
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And so it s nice to just have a cold and be like, well, today I m just going to do some emails from bed.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And not have to go perform in front of thousands of people.
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So that s been a nice change.
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But yes, you re absolutely right.
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The identity, understanding that you ve had this platform for 10 months out of the year, you had a voice and beyond just being an athlete, you attended a press conferences and
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you had so many different things going on, it dies down a little bit.
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And so what s that next version?
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It was very real for me.
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And I also appreciate that it s very real for someone that perhaps is coming off of school and finding their big next step in life and job, or it s someone that s done one thing in their life and after several years decides that that s no longer their passion.
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So I could feel other people s dilemma and pain and reflection in my decision.
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I think there s a lot of contributing factors to why so many professional athletes get very depressed post-career, but I would imagine one of them is
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You didn t have the capacity to be pursuing a bunch of other hobbies.
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It s so all-consuming what you were doing.
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I imagine when it s over, there s the obvious stuff, but then there s also like, well, I haven t been pursuing all this other stuff that I m going to fall back on.
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What s interesting about that is you only have so much time to dedicate to one craft.
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It was a single focus.
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It was the one thing that I just wanted to achieve and be great at every single day.
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but I also realized that it was only several hours of my day.
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How long am I able to go on the court and just give it all out?
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And probably three, four hours, right?
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Then I d go in the gym and then I d have recovery and then I d be in my hotel room.
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And so for those moments, when you are just dedicated to one thing, and particularly in sports, it was so important to recover.
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And that s the one thing that this transition, finding the balance of what recovery looks like.
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Like if I played a night match at the US Open,
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take a nap come, you know, 1 p.m.
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just before heading out to the courts, like 20-30 minute nap.
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That was a must.
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Now, if I now, I mean, I don t tell anyone.
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You re ashamed of it, right?
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You re almost like, wait, I m not supposed to be doing this.
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I m supposed to be having lunch while on a Zoom call.
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So it s interesting the perception that people have of a packed schedule now in order for you to look like you re busy.
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And the productivity is certainly not the same, but I had a lot of downtime.
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And as an athlete, you have a lot of downtime to spend with yourself and your mind.
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And so what can you do with that extra time?
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You ask yourself questions on what are these other passions or interests?
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I was very curious as a young girl and I learned that sport was more than just being a tennis player and having a racket and having a sponsor.
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It was about having a voice and actually inspiring people and bringing a message to the forefront.
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But it always came down to what I wanted to say with my racket.
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And the more that I was able to say and the tougher that I was able to perform and the more that I won, the bigger my platform and the bigger my voice.
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And so that s why my focus onto this one sport was so important.
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Okay, another thing I d imagine I would have a hard time saying goodbye to, and this will be a very strange analogy, but I will say one of the great things about being an addict is you have a singular priority.
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And there s something very comforting about that, that everything else gets downsized.
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Because I think so much of the anxiety of being alive is exactly what you described this morning.
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Like, I m going to be with the kid for this long and I ll be gone for that long.
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The anxiety of like making sure you re turning your focus into all the places you should and trying to decide that.
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Whereas when you have something like you were doing, it does give you a great excuse that just like, hey, this isn t what I m doing.
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For 10 months, like if I didn t return your call, like we all know what I m doing.
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I would imagine that s kind of a nice luxury.
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And fortunately, in many ways, the sport found me.
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You know, my dad was a fan.
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Like, no one in my family had any strong sporting genes.
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Right.
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And I was just a little girl that would go with my dad as he had fun with his friends and played doubles on a public park court.
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And it wasn t that I had many other interests and this just happened, like, to flourish.
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It was, I just picked up a racket.
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You were three when you first picked up a racket.
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Yeah, I started playing at four.
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Three sounds a little young.
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Well, in fairness, it said just you hit a tennis ball for the first time.
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At four, you took maybe a lesson for the first time.
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Maybe I sat my eyes on the ball.
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Okay, so you just went with your dad?
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Yeah, casually.
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My dad was a fan and I d show up on the courts with him.
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And my mom was very young when she had me, so she was still in university.
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So as she was studying, I d go with my father.
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I never went to kindergarten.
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So I was always around them and I was an only child.
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So all their eyes were on me and I was very well looked after.
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And they had just left their home, right?
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Because while your mom was pregnant with you, Chernobyl happened and they were at that time within 30 kilometers of Chernobyl.
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Yes.
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That s its own unique childhood when you re growing up with parents that aren t at home.
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It was a very different upbringing.
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I was born in Siberia because of Chernobyl explosion, because my mom was pregnant with me.
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They were living 30 kilometers from the explosion in Belarus at the time.
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Have you considered this is why you re so tall?
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I mean, it s been mentioned a few times.
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Is your dad really tall or your mom?
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No one is as tall as I am.
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So it s definitely been a consideration.
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Like a superhero movie.
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You got the good gamma rays.
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And we fled to Siberia and that s where I was born.
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And then two years later, we moved down South to a little warmer town on the Black Sea.
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And then that s where I started.
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And then at the age of five, my father and I flew to Florida and have lived in the U.S.
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since.
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Okay, so there s so much there.
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There s a lot.
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And there has to be so much there.
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Ultimately, did you leave Sochi to go to Florida?
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Yes.
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You were in Sochi right before you left for Florida.
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Yes, so I went from palm trees to palm trees.
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The visa your dad was able to obtain for you to go pursue tennis.
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Again, Wikipedia is wrong.
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You were five, not seven.
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I have read seven, whatever.
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It only allowed for you two to go.
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So mom couldn t join you for two years.
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My mom didn t join me for the first two years.
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I didn t see her for two years.
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How do we feel?
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What are the residual?
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Yeah.
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Like what does one pick up from that?
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That s pretty traumatic for a little girl to not have mom for a couple of years.
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It s very interesting looking back at it because I m now a mother of a 16-month-old and I cannot imagine that type of separation.
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It was a world of unknown simply because visas were so difficult to get at that time, as they are now by the way, but it just put so much emphasis on the fact that what an amazing gift that her husband and her daughter had the chance to go pursue
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a sport in the United States.
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So I think she looked at it from that perspective.
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And there s like a part of me that also thinks that we didn t have that direct connection with FaceTime and my dad didn t have a cell phone.
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I didn t have a cell phone.
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So it was letters, like physical letters of writing to my mother.
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And not that it makes it easier or OK, but I think there was a sense of we will see each other.
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We don t know when that is.
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But I think if we had that daily seeing each other on video, it almost forms a closer bond and you constantly think, when am I going to see each other?
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So it feels like it could have been helpful, but it was challenging for my mother.
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There s something really profound about having children in re-examining your own life.
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Oh, absolutely.
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Especially for trauma.
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Yeah.
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Being an only child and constantly being around them and seeing how supportive they were in all aspects of my life.
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We grew an incredible bond and also like interest levels.
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My father was very influential in sport and he pushed me to a certain extent and he was tough but very fair.
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And my mother just came from a point of education and culture and
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any chance she got, even if it was in Sarasota, Florida, she would take me to the ballet there.
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May have not been the best at the time, but she exposed me to different things in life that weren t just hitting a tennis ball.
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That was one of her greatest gifts is she didn t really care if I was number one or
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300 in the world.
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She wanted me to stay curious and to stay humble and to understand that hype is not real.
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Don t believe in it and work hard and the fruits of your label will eventually be seen in different forms and it s not about being just number one in the world.
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Right.
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There s about three different stories happening in your life already at nine that are worthy of its own book.
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One would just be the life of a child prodigy tennis star, right?
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But the other one is immigrant family from the USSR going to Florida, mom arriving two years later.
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What culturally was happening when you guys got there?
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Was there excitement?
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Was there apprehension?
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Completely different worldviews at that time.
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Yeah, I wrote an autobiography several years ago and it was for exactly that reason, because I felt like this relationship to my father, especially in the first two years as an immigrant, was such a unique and special story.
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And we were lost, but we found comforts in our daily routines.
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And because we had a goal and we had a vision and I had a passion, I would wake up, the first thing I do is
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go get my racket and dad, let s eat breakfast fast so we can go out on the court at 6am.
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That s all I wanted to do.
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And so to have his guidance while we weren t financially stable at all with $700 in our pocket as we landed in the United States,
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Neither one speaking English.
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We didn t speak English.
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I knew how to say my name in English.
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And my name in Russian is Masha.
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And when I came to the United States, they all called me Marsha, which I said, no, thank you.
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I ll do Maria.
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Wow.
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So your real name is Masha?
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Masha.
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Yeah.
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Oh, I like Masha.
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And I knew the basics.
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SPEAKER_01
Uh oh, where s this going?
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The big breakthrough in my life was no girls like me in elementary school.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then when I got to junior high, my brother gave me a cool punk rock haircut, put me in the right clothes.
1
SPEAKER_01
Gave you a new name?
1
SPEAKER_00
My name was already Dax, so I was already there.
1
SPEAKER_00
But Sasha.
1
SPEAKER_00
The most popular eighth grader liked me and asked me out and it changed my whole life and Sasha.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I had this really, it s a very, oh, it s very important.
1
SPEAKER_00
This is almost it.
1
SPEAKER_01
I feel your energy.
1
SPEAKER_01
By the way, this setup is very unique.
1
SPEAKER_01
You have over here.
1
SPEAKER_01
I use the toilet just before starting this and Matt Damon s in the shower.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean a life-size cutout of Matt Damon.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t know where else I m going to find that again.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think this is a once in a lifetime.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a unique space.
1
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re so welcome.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s like a weird clubhouse, isn t it?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
There s some non-alcoholic beer.
1
SPEAKER_00
Off topic.
1
SPEAKER_01
Totally off topic.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, that s exactly why I wanted to share that story of my life and my career on paper because it really was an amazing, beautiful chapter of my life that many of my fans, they didn t know all the details and the difficulties and how many
1
SPEAKER_01
people helped us along the way and how many people thought that we wouldn t make it and try to make it extremely difficult for myself and how did we go through all those red lights and how did we find another path to keep going and the inspiration?
1
SPEAKER_01
That s why I loved writing it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Do you have memories of things being exciting when you got here?
1
SPEAKER_00
Like, I don t know, Burger King, the beach.
1
SPEAKER_01
Everything was larger.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay, right.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like a cookie jar was just larger, which I appreciated because I have a huge sweet tooth.
1
SPEAKER_01
I just remember this large jar of animal cookies.
1
SPEAKER_01
It just came, it was probably from Costco or something.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, big box stores, those didn t exist.
1
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
And even the dollar stores were probably
2
SPEAKER_01
my father s shop.
2
SPEAKER_01
Everything just came in XXL size.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Totally.
2
SPEAKER_02
We were in Cuba not terribly long ago.
2
SPEAKER_02
I guess eight years ago we were in Cuba and we befriended this young woman and she had only left Cuba one time.
2
SPEAKER_02
I said, where did you go?
2
SPEAKER_02
And she said, I went to Russia.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I go, what did you think?
2
SPEAKER_02
And she goes, I just couldn t believe how well everything worked.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I go, you need to come to the U.S.
2
SPEAKER_02
Well, that s what a state of disrepair Cuba s in.
2
SPEAKER_02
The electricity is going out nonstop.
2
SPEAKER_02
The elevators don t work.
2
SPEAKER_02
Buildings are crumbling.
2
SPEAKER_02
So she went there and she was like, this place is like a Swiss clock.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, everything felt cleaner.
2
SPEAKER_01
Just the roads, having five lanes on a freeway.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was huge.
2
SPEAKER_02
And what d your mom think?
2
SPEAKER_01
So my mom arrived and she just thought I had a really bad haircut and that was only because my father just... He was handling that?
2
SPEAKER_01
Wasn t very skillful.
2
SPEAKER_01
He was handling everything and all the clothes I were wearing were completely mismatched.
2
SPEAKER_01
So she was like, I got to get my daughter back on track here.
2
SPEAKER_01
What did he do job wise out here?
2
SPEAKER_01
Just a bunch of jobs, very random, piecing it together, finding a few dollars here and a few dollars there.
2
SPEAKER_02
Could you feel the stress of it?
2
SPEAKER_01
Not at all.
2
SPEAKER_02
Well, because this is my hunch, and I don t want it to sound derogatory at all to Russia, but I would imagine even a low income lifestyle in Florida might be still kind of more bells and whistles than it was back in Russia.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, we were comfortable back home.
2
SPEAKER_01
We didn t have much, but we had enough.
2
SPEAKER_01
When I look back at my childhood and the first five, six years there, I didn t see anything wrong with it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was a kid and I had a great upbringing and I was with my parents and I ate yummy food and I had a few friends and I played a sport.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t look back at it and think, oh, I desperately needed to get out of that situation.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think the idea of going back to what we had wasn t so bad.
2
SPEAKER_01
When I think about the pressure that I most certainly must have had at some type of level or age, maybe I managed it better than others because I appreciated that if I go back to the beginnings that I had, that I would be okay and that I would be comfortable.
2
SPEAKER_01
My parents and particularly my father, who was my coach for many years,
2
SPEAKER_01
He didn t establish what success was or what level of success I needed to achieve in order for us to feel like we had made it.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s the greatest gift that he gave me is that it was about piecing a few days together of great practices and improvements and perhaps, you know, playing a tournament one weekend, losing to someone and then
2
SPEAKER_01
going to another tournament and beating that same person.
2
SPEAKER_01
He saw those as victories and he taught me those lessons.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I would put all those scenarios in a bag and I d hope that one day they would help me and that I d pull those few tricks out and my improvements and my hard work and it would help me in a match scenario.
2
SPEAKER_02
Did school feel innately frivolous to you?
2
SPEAKER_01
I loved school.
2
SPEAKER_02
You loved it.
2
SPEAKER_02
And how did you get on in school?
2
SPEAKER_02
Cause you re obviously learning the language.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was mostly homeschooled.
2
SPEAKER_01
I attended a school at an Academy in Florida.
2
SPEAKER_01
Is this part of IMG?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
They had a school system.
2
SPEAKER_01
So they had a school system for athletes that travel.
2
SPEAKER_02
Quickly.
2
SPEAKER_02
This is where Andre Agassi trained.
2
SPEAKER_02
And that was the goal.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s why they went to Florida is to go to this incredible place.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, it was just a training factory and it had school and several other sports.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the greatest part about that academy is that you had so many kids that you could compete with.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you just immediately understood your level.
2
SPEAKER_01
You had girls and boys from all around the world that you were testing yourself against.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wait, why is Florida, is it just cause of this IMG?
2
SPEAKER_00
Now I m remembering.
2
SPEAKER_01
That was the epicenter of academies of the sport.
2
SPEAKER_01
When someone says Florida and a tennis academy, that s immediately where everyone s mind goes.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like Serena and Venus were also there.
2
SPEAKER_00
Exactly, yes, Andre.
2
SPEAKER_00
Coco is there currently, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
No, I believe she trained or trains in France, but I could be wrong.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, okay, okay.
2
SPEAKER_02
You know, you guys are the exact same age.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know, we sat on set before.
2
SPEAKER_00
We did, yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know, you ve lived many more lives than me, so I feel a bit intimidated.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, well on the height and yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay, well you don t need to put your own spin on it.
2
SPEAKER_02
I love that you re the same age.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know.
2
SPEAKER_02
Because I m thinking of your life at seven.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was learning how to ride a bike in my garage.
2
SPEAKER_01
I still don t know how to ride a bike, by the way.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I love that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m not very good.
2
SPEAKER_01
So on my way here, I had a call with one of your dear friends, Adam Grant.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, no kidding.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
He s doing a book tour shortly, so we re discussing something about that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he always laughs at me when I tell him that I m not very sporty.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s hilarious.
2
SPEAKER_01
He finds that very funny.
2
SPEAKER_01
He s like, what do you mean you re not sporty?
2
SPEAKER_01
I was like, you do not want to see me ride a bicycle.
2
SPEAKER_02
How do you do with swimming?
2
SPEAKER_02
Because Monica also struggles with swimming.
2
SPEAKER_01
I swim okay, but like more in the Mediterranean than the pool.
2
SPEAKER_01
So with a glass of rosé.
2
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_02
Were there any boyfriends along the way in this Florida?
2
SPEAKER_01
Not many.
2
SPEAKER_01
No.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, I was still really young.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I started coming out to LA at like 11, 12.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I was still young.
2
SPEAKER_01
There was a coach here that I started coming out to see and I d come out every few months.
2
SPEAKER_01
I remember my father actually found this coach and he was making a little bit more money and he said, and just collecting a few extra dollars and saying, when I have enough, we re going to buy a plane ticket to Los Angeles because you re going to go see this coach.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I turn on the TV and I d see like news of, I don t know, shootings.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I d be like, oh no, that s in Hollywood somewhere.
2
SPEAKER_01
And is that where we re going to?
2
SPEAKER_01
And he s like, yes, but we re just going to see a tennis coach.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just remember being like, are you sure we want to go to Los Angeles?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s scary there.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I love.
2
SPEAKER_01
Ever since 12 years old, I ve been
2
SPEAKER_01
basically living in California.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, really?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
I thought you were in Florida for the bulk of all this.
2
SPEAKER_01
I would still go back and forth.
2
SPEAKER_02
But you re at a camp and there s co-eds and they re away from a lot of supervision.
2
SPEAKER_02
I would imagine that there would be so many cute crushes happening now.
2
SPEAKER_02
Everyone s too focused.
2
SPEAKER_02
Is that it?
2
SPEAKER_01
We had a little apartment with my father.
2
SPEAKER_01
I did stay for like six months or something and it was with other girls and they were much older than I was.
2
SPEAKER_01
That was actually quite a difficult period of my stays there because they didn t accept that I was good at one thing and that I was super focused and I wasn t part of the friends group.
2
SPEAKER_02
Okay, so this came as a great shock to us.
2
SPEAKER_02
But when we interviewed Sean White, we would have imagined everyone in the snowboard world loved him and the skateboard world where he was a champion in both worlds.
2
SPEAKER_02
And he s like, no, nobody liked me.
2
SPEAKER_02
They hated that I was at the competition because I won them all the time.
2
SPEAKER_02
I see these other guys, they all seem to be friends.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it was a very isolating experience for him.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s exactly how it felt when I was in the dorm.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was young.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was there on a scholarship.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we could not afford.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was 35 grand a year, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
And now it s, I think, like three times as much.
2
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, at the time, it was probably that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And my parents could definitely not afford that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I was so lucky that I had that scholarship and that I was able.
2
SPEAKER_01
to board there for some time, but also just to be able to train.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I knew everyone that boarded there paid the fees and everyone that boarded there also knew that I didn t pay the fees.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so it s kind of a sticky subject, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Because you know, you re there with a purpose and a goal and you re so young, but I definitely felt that I was following a different road and that my path was different and that I had to stay focused.
2
SPEAKER_01
And as I look back,
2
SPEAKER_01
I think that was my strength because I was talented at the sport, but I was never the strongest physically.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, tennis is a very physical sport.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was lanky.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t super coordinated.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s probably where my bike skills come in.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I had this ability to do this one thing over and over and not lose my focus and not lose my concentration.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the mental stability and resilience when things weren t working well.
2
SPEAKER_01
acceptance of a bad day or a bad match at that age, I think really helped me move forward and move quicker than some of the rest of my dorm mates.
2
SPEAKER_02
You re a wunderkind, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
At 13, you start competing in the 16 year old class.
2
SPEAKER_02
So your first kind of touch of glory is 13 and winning in a 16 year old division and then deciding to go professional after that at 14?
2
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_02
Have you met a 14-year-old lately?
2
SPEAKER_02
I know in your own mind you probably think you were so old, but have you talked to a 14-year-old lately?
2
SPEAKER_01
No, I appreciate that.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re babies.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
So there was a limit on how many tournaments you could play.
2
SPEAKER_01
So when you say I turned professional, it wasn t that I was playing like 20 tournaments a year, but I was playing girls that were in their 20s.
2
SPEAKER_02
She turned pro on her 14th birthday.
2
SPEAKER_01
And lost badly.
2
SPEAKER_01
I remember that better than my birthday party.
2
SPEAKER_02
How did you take both the winning and the losing?
2
SPEAKER_01
Back then or in general?
2
SPEAKER_01
Back then.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was tough on myself.
2
SPEAKER_02
Can I argue, from what you ve told me about your life, it s not like you have 25 friends.
2
SPEAKER_02
that you re also celebrated in that world and you re gonna go out to a pizza place and have a blast.
2
SPEAKER_02
This is what you do.
2
SPEAKER_02
This is virtually all you do, I m imagining.
2
SPEAKER_02
So when you lose and you ve dedicated, you ve really sacrificed the whole rest of your life for this thing, I have to imagine it s worse than when I would have lost.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have always thought that losing, and perhaps that s a lesson that my dad taught me, perhaps it s something that I learned along the way, but I think losing sets you up for winning.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think the lessons that you learn when you are not at your best is when you re doing your best work.
2
SPEAKER_01
I never thought that I was playing my best tennis when I was at the top of my sport or number one in the world, and mostly because those times,
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a sense of confidence and fearlessness that when you re performing at that level, things are automatic in a way.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when you win a match, you high five your team and you kind of move on to the next.
3
SPEAKER_00
But it s when you lose that you go back to the drawing board.
3
SPEAKER_00
You huddle with your team, you have the tough conversations, you re in a vulnerable moment, particularly after losing, say, first round of a Grand Slam or even the final, which is one of the toughest moments for an athlete in tennis because you re out there getting a runner-up trophy.
3
SPEAKER_00
What other sport is the losing team out there or the losing individual getting a runner s up trophy while tens of thousands of people are watching you as you re crying and upset and sad and you ve gone that far.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s the silver medal complex.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
3
SPEAKER_02
The people that get bronze are happier.
3
SPEAKER_01
In tennis though, it s not silver medal.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s you lost or you won and that s worse.
3
SPEAKER_02
Zero sum.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that s to say that losing as tough as it was, I appreciated the lessons that losing.
3
SPEAKER_02
There s nothing to learn from a win virtually.
3
SPEAKER_00
Winnings, I don t want to say it s easy because it s not, but there were moments in my career when I would play so well and I would win a tournament, maybe two in a row, and I d be on this winning streak that in a sense, I forgot how to lose.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s very dangerous to forget how to lose because losing is an emotion that you have to go through on your own, but also
3
SPEAKER_00
It s an acceptance with your team to tell them, I played like crap and I lost for these reasons.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like you have to be honest.
3
SPEAKER_00
You have to be so raw.
3
SPEAKER_00
And are you ready for that?
3
SPEAKER_00
And so when you haven t had that feeling of losing, you ve been on this winning streak.
3
SPEAKER_02
You lose the ability to walk through that gracefully.
3
SPEAKER_00
My theory on players that do really well for a big tournament, then perhaps another one, and then lose early, then it s very difficult to kind of get back on track, because it takes a lot more work.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like the self-examination.
3
SPEAKER_00
That makes sense.
3
SPEAKER_02
Will you consult tape?
3
SPEAKER_02
Like, is it that detailed?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s as detailed as you want it to be.
3
SPEAKER_00
You have to decide for yourself what team member you want, and you also have to pay for them.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, do you need a physical therapist?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you need a fitness coach?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you need a hitting partner?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you need a mental coach?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you need a chef?
3
SPEAKER_00
Those are your choices.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Whereas a team provides those and has those on hand and you tap into them.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
3
SPEAKER_02
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
3
SPEAKER_02
Would it be fair to say, though, that when you re looking at a winner, you re looking at somebody that has to have been honest with themselves, that it would be impossible to reach that height if you didn t have the ability?
3
SPEAKER_02
to be critical and honest with yourself.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s got to be prerequisite.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s the best test of character.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s not just about the athlete themselves, but also the team.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want to win with a coach that knows how to lose with me.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want to know that I can be in their presence and they can accept a tougher version of Maria that s upset and perhaps not happy with how training has gone in the past few months or wants to see change.
3
SPEAKER_00
Whatever it is, like having a difficult conversation, I want to choose a partner and a coach that is honest about it and accepts it and gives it back to me.
3
SPEAKER_02
Do you think that this ability to take an honest and thorough inventory of your play has transferred into your interpersonal relationships?
3
SPEAKER_02
Do you think you re good at acknowledging when you and your partner have a fight?
3
SPEAKER_02
Are you able to apply that same skill?
3
SPEAKER_00
Now we re getting into relationships.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s what this show s all about, Maria.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s just a conversation.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not someone that says a lot.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t speak all the time just to speak.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think I m more thoughtful.
3
SPEAKER_02
That feels very Russian of you.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is that a kind of Russian characteristic?
3
SPEAKER_00
Probably.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a great characteristic.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m more of an observer, and then when I m confident in what I want to say or I feel like I ve done enough research about something and I have conviction in my thoughts, then I say it.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s why I didn t think that I could be a good commentator, because I don t just like to fill up
3
SPEAKER_00
the oxygen with words.
3
SPEAKER_02
I would say in America, it s so valued that you have an opinion and a point of view that you often just start expressing opinion, hoping you will know what your opinion is by midway through.
3
SPEAKER_01
You don t even know what it is, you re just saying stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
It is so American.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right now, I think it s the problem with the world is that everyone feels that they have to have an opinion on absolutely everything and they have to say it loudly.
3
SPEAKER_01
and everyone has to hear it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s a huge problem.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s not interesting how you have to have, that s what I m finding, I don t know if challenging, but there s definitely this extra weight on everyone where you re put in a position to have something to say without really having the time to figure out what it is that you want to convey.
3
SPEAKER_02
Everyone has willingly become publishers of a newspaper, which is they have to fill their timeline, be it on Twitter or Instagram or wherever.
3
SPEAKER_02
They ve got to fill it with content as if they re a magazine, but they don t have the time or a staff to actually put out the content.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a skill.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, they re running on an algorithm.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then it starts running your life.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s my beef with social media.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s an external pressure of constantly having to show up for it so that there s relevance in this digital universe of your presence.
3
SPEAKER_01
Made up thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
The thing we made up.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s crazy.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I never had anyone help with any things that I ve done on social, but I ve definitely faced that pressure of, oh, if I don t post for a week, then no one s ever going to see my post when I do make that post.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
But then you have to stay true to who you are and you have to beat to your own drum.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is that the saying?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
Walk to the beat of your own drum.
3
SPEAKER_02
Dance to the beat of your own drum.
3
SPEAKER_01
Sure, it s all in there.
3
SPEAKER_02
Beat your own drum, I think, is the common denominator.
3
SPEAKER_01
Of course I got it wrong.
3
SPEAKER_01
Wait, relationships?
3
SPEAKER_01
We left that dangling.
3
SPEAKER_01
We left that dangling.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everyone has a different way of approaching conflict and conversations.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you re right.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have the same approach as I had in my career where it s thoughtful.
3
SPEAKER_00
I give it some time, but I m not very patient and I m very stubborn.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, me too.
3
SPEAKER_01
Me too.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want to get to the chase.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I want to get there.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I can t imagine you re terribly afraid of confrontation because again, I don t think you could have gotten where you ve gotten without having to have very difficult conversations with coaches and colleagues.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, I m okay with it.
3
SPEAKER_02
You are, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes, exactly.
3
SPEAKER_02
This is a high octane combo.
3
SPEAKER_02
I have the same one.
3
SPEAKER_02
Don t mind confrontation.
3
SPEAKER_02
Very impatient.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think stubbornness leads you to several good things in life, like persistence and resilience.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when you have some type of feedback that s difficult, but you just get through it, you take it as it is and then just keep going.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I think it served me well, but in some instances in my career, I think was the deficit.
3
SPEAKER_02
There s so many highlights we could go through, but one I want to jump to is Oh four.
3
SPEAKER_02
So at 17 years old, you win your first grand slam Wimbledon, 17 years old against Serena.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now that I ve seen how tall you are, I have a little less of this question, but I can t imagine a more intimidating opponent at 17 in the finals at Wimbledon.
3
SPEAKER_02
I need to know what was happening mentally.
3
SPEAKER_02
How were you regulating yourself?
3
SPEAKER_02
Were you intimidated?
3
SPEAKER_02
Do you have a zone you go to?
3
SPEAKER_02
How the fuck do you navigate that moment?
3
SPEAKER_00
There was so much on the line in that match.
3
SPEAKER_00
One of the biggest reasons was because it was Wimbledon.
3
SPEAKER_00
I actually had just played Serena a few months back at a tournament in Miami, and she easily won that match in two sets.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was the moment itself where I really felt the weight.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was the fact that Wimbledon in my eyes growing up was the event, the tournament, the place where as a professional you want to end up, you want those fringe doors to open to center court.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it did, and it just happened to be the final for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s interesting, it was one of the first few times in my career as a young girl that I felt what it was like to be in the zone.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know when athletes speak about being in the flow and in the zone.
3
SPEAKER_00
I had that moment in the middle of the tournament and it was in the fourth round.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s not that I had that much experience in these Grand Slam tournaments.
3
SPEAKER_00
Just two weeks before that was my first time getting to a quarterfinal at the French Open.
3
SPEAKER_00
Even though I lost, it was a huge victory.
3
SPEAKER_02
If the season had ended, that would have been enormous.
3
SPEAKER_00
Great, right.
3
SPEAKER_00
I found myself in this flow state in the middle of the event playing against someone that also should have beaten me.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I won that match so confidently and so routinely.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it felt like I was letting go of all the repetition that I put.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was letting go of any fear that I had.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I just allowed the moment and my skill to shine through.
3
SPEAKER_02
Would you say there s a bit of magic involved?
3
SPEAKER_02
Like why it hits you when it hits you?
3
SPEAKER_02
You could prepare in the same way I d imagine for a thousand matches.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it never works the same way.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
3
SPEAKER_02
So there is some bizarre ethereal magic that takes over, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_00
To think how many things have to align and work for you to get to that moment.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
And what a big, big deal it is.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think it was also a gift that I d never been in that position.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so as a 17-year-old, I was fearless because I didn t have any experience.
4
SPEAKER_01
I didn t have like, oh, I ve been in this moment.
4
SPEAKER_01
All I had was just, I m playing a phenomenal opponent that s achieved so much.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I m playing in one of the biggest stages in sport.
4
SPEAKER_01
I forget about tennis, in sport.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I ve been, because I was so young, on the cover of every paper every day since the fourth round of this tournament.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the British media adds like everything.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was like the story of boiling to this moment.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if you can just only win this match, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I had horse blinders on.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was just me is just my opponent.
4
SPEAKER_01
And even though all those external factors that I just mentioned were present in every way, I didn t think about them at all.
4
SPEAKER_00
They were deep in the deep background.
4
SPEAKER_01
I woke up that morning, we stayed at a family s house.
4
SPEAKER_01
We rented the upper floor.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was like, I want to say bed and breakfast, but they didn t even give us breakfast.
4
SPEAKER_01
We rented two bedrooms.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I remember I woke up with a bit of a cold and I was so upset because I didn t have a strong immune system.
4
SPEAKER_01
So of course I called my mom and I was like so upset.
4
SPEAKER_01
My dad s like, just have your oatmeal, have your strawberries.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, you ll get to the courts, you ll have your warmup, and you ll be completely fine.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I was completely fine.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
You are.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
So every time I ve had a cold since, I look back to that moment, I think of my father s words, you re going to be fine.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
Do you think maybe it was manifested, the cold, a little bit?
4
SPEAKER_02
Because there s so much fear of- The body showed a way to tell.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like a way out, almost.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, probably.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was like, get me out of this.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
The body s like, this is so stressful, we re going to give you an excuse.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, no, I m still showing up.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
win.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you know?
4
SPEAKER_01
You don t.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you don t have a moment where you go, I m going to win.
4
SPEAKER_01
No.
4
SPEAKER_00
You don t.
4
SPEAKER_01
Tennis isn t like that though.
4
SPEAKER_01
Cause I feel like it could change.
4
SPEAKER_00
Too many opportunities.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s so many momentum swings.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s also that feeling everyone functions differently in those moments and scenarios.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I was never a player that wanted to feel overly confident.
4
SPEAKER_01
I liked when my preparation wasn t exactly going according to plan or when I wasn t my best physically because I d get on the stage in like that first round match and I knew I had to put an extra.
4
SPEAKER_01
I didn t like that feeling of content, of feeling like, oh, things are going well.
4
SPEAKER_01
My chances are good.
4
SPEAKER_01
No.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was like, actually, no, I ve had a pretty crap week, you know, and I got to bring it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And maybe it was just my defensive mechanism of functioning with opportunity like that.
4
SPEAKER_01
But it s really how I went about almost every single event.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was very rare that I showed up and said, I m feeling fantastic.
4
SPEAKER_01
I would never say that to my coach.
4
SPEAKER_00
When you walk out and it s about to start, do you at any point think, I m going to win or I m going to lose or I m scared or I m not scared?
4
SPEAKER_00
Or is that not there?
4
SPEAKER_01
In preparation, you definitely put a few scenarios through your mind because you compare yourself to different matches against that opponent.
4
SPEAKER_01
Also, I d like to do video analysis.
4
SPEAKER_01
So the older I got, the more video I had to watch and the more times I d face these opponents.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s very rare that you had like a 6-0 win to loss record.
4
SPEAKER_01
So there are definitely times where you lost to those opponents.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I d love to look at those matches because those are real.
4
SPEAKER_01
Those were moments that could happen and they could happen again.
4
SPEAKER_01
And also like my body language, I like to examine
4
SPEAKER_01
Did I show my opponent that this wasn t my day?
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay, maybe I wouldn t win today, but am I gonna be there until the very last point so they know and they feel that pressure that the match isn t over till they win the very last point.
4
SPEAKER_01
I love that tennis show on Netflix so much.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re on it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Breakpoint.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes, Breakpoint.
4
SPEAKER_01
So good.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s fun seeing everyone s feedback on it because I think it s the first time that a show has been done on the sport.
4
SPEAKER_01
And there are times where it s quite dark.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then one piece of feedback I ve received is people hadn t really appreciated how dark and lonely it is.
4
SPEAKER_00
If I had to list in order the most mental games, you know, if it s not number one, I feel like it s tied maybe with like golf too.
4
SPEAKER_00
I see golfers, what golfers go through over those three days and like they re ahead, they re ahead, they re ahead.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then something just,
4
SPEAKER_01
clicks the wrong way.
4
SPEAKER_00
They don t not have the ability to do it.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s so clearly a hundred percent mental.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you think tennis is number one as far as being just mental, mental, mental?
4
SPEAKER_01
I think you may have more opportunity because both golf and tennis, the schedules are so long and this idea of constantly having to show up and having a responsibility and an average amount is probably like 19 to 20 tournaments a year.
4
SPEAKER_01
And when you re not playing a tournament, you re training.
4
SPEAKER_01
So the pressure of constantly having to perform at a high level and everything that comes with just being an athlete at an event, the sponsor responsibilities
4
SPEAKER_01
The interviews, the press, you have a schedule of things at Formula One.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, what Lewis is doing ahead of a race.
4
SPEAKER_01
I actually was in Miami and I saw some of his sponsor responsibilities and I just couldn t believe the amount of events and interviews.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the teams hosting parties that the sponsors are there and you got to be there at night and you got to be there in the morning.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then how do you wake up and want to do your job, beat someone when so much of your energy is drained?
4
SPEAKER_01
I think it also just shows you when there is that individual and that star, right, that wins over and over how special it is because of everything else that they ve also had to be responsible for.
4
SPEAKER_01
Not just the tennis part.
4
SPEAKER_00
Can we wrap up, Serena?
4
SPEAKER_00
Is that the greatest victory?
4
SPEAKER_00
Is that the most relief you ve ever felt?
4
SPEAKER_00
It s the most memorable.
4
SPEAKER_00
I can t believe this happened.
4
SPEAKER_01
It wasn t even relief.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was like, you re so young.
4
SPEAKER_00
You don t really even know the stakes of what you re doing in a weird way.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s strange being an athlete in the midst of their sport, because as much as you realize how special it is to hold the big trophies, it s almost like an artist that has to pass away or become older.
4
SPEAKER_01
for everyone else and for themselves to acknowledge and realize what weight they had in that field.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s hard to be present in it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because it s a cycle that just constantly continues.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I m not saying that s great.
4
SPEAKER_01
It is what it is.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you can t get ahead of yourself.
4
SPEAKER_01
You can t think, oh, I m just the Wimbledon champion.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, like the barista still making coffee at your local coffee shop and you can t believe the hype.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but that must be hard.
4
SPEAKER_00
Especially with your favorite approach, which is I need to feel a little bit off, a little bit underdoggy, a little chaotic.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like I m on the cliff.
4
SPEAKER_01
But when all the calls are coming in and they re asking you to be on the cover of this, that must be hard.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s where your team comes in.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s where the no s are so important.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s when you need a bulldog at the gate saying, hey, I m protecting.
4
SPEAKER_01
You have to say no in order for better opportunities and for a powerful yes to come about.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is a subject that comes up often being a retired athlete is around female empowerment and what does that mean.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you have to establish what is it that you re passionate about from a young age because you do have a platform and you do have a voice that you cannot take for granted when you re young.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, Billie Jean King came up to me, I was about 14 years old and she said,
4
SPEAKER_01
What you do today, tomorrow, in 10 years ultimately sets up a path for the next generation, which is so powerful.
4
SPEAKER_01
I didn t realize the power of that message then.
4
SPEAKER_01
I certainly do now.
4
SPEAKER_01
But it s really important to also find other lanes because as a female athlete, there will be a point in your career where you will have to make decisions whether you want to continue or not.
4
SPEAKER_01
your body may be breaking down or you want to start a family or you just lose passion, whatever the reason.
4
SPEAKER_01
What is it in your life that you re also curious and passionate about and that you want to know more and that you want to grow on?
4
SPEAKER_01
And so you do have to say yes to opportunities, like whether they are sponsors that can help grow you in another dimension.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think that s really valuable.
4
SPEAKER_01
It just has to be the right one and it s very difficult to determine what the right partner is for you.
4
SPEAKER_01
when you were talking about your dad, he was your coach for a while, was it complicated?
4
SPEAKER_01
It s always complicated when dad s involved.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I bet, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Of course.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, you just said Lewis, like Lewis at some point had to fire his father.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I did too.
4
SPEAKER_01
At 21 years old.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s what I wanted to ask about.
4
SPEAKER_01
So my father was my coach from the very beginning for one reason, because we didn t have money for another option.
4
SPEAKER_01
The longer he was my coach, the more he knew about me and my game and knew what was best for me.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so that is what I appreciated, is that there was no one else that knew my struggles and my challenges and my game and the belief that he had in me was exceptional.
4
SPEAKER_01
But he also knew how to challenge me in the right ways, which in the dynamic of a father-daughter is very hard.
4
SPEAKER_01
How much do you push your child so that they get the most out of this, but they re not in a year or two saying, no, dad, you pushed me so much that I want to leave.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s such a fine line.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m already thinking about it as a parent.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, like how tough are you in order to be in line and to be right, but also to
5
SPEAKER_02
make sure that they have a chance to make their own decisions.
5
SPEAKER_02
I still have an amazing relationship with my father, and I value it because we went through this journey together, and it was so unique.
5
SPEAKER_00
I imagine what would be hard about that is it s working.
5
SPEAKER_00
Even up till 21, like, it s working.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re yielding results.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re ranked number one at 18.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, you win the U.S.
5
SPEAKER_00
Open, then you win the Australian Open.
5
SPEAKER_00
All this happens before you have to fire him.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I would imagine, it s not like you have the best case to make.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, this isn t working.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s that I wanted to do it on my own.
5
SPEAKER_02
He spent 20 years working and grinding and bringing in the best talent to help me grow and just being by my side all the time.
5
SPEAKER_02
And there was like a part of me that just wanted to repay him in a way that money doesn t.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I wanted him to have some freedom in his life.
5
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, he s like an adventure.
5
SPEAKER_02
He loves to bike and to hike.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, go the mountain somewhere.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
He was fine with it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think some part of me would also be like, hey, just be my dad now.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, let me just be your daughter, you be my dad.
5
SPEAKER_02
I don t think I thought that that would ever be an issue for him.
5
SPEAKER_02
I knew that he would always be there as a dad.
5
SPEAKER_02
It was actually because I made that decision after winning my third Grand Slam that I said, now is when I want to make the change.
5
SPEAKER_02
I was taking a huge chance.
5
SPEAKER_02
I wanted to prove something that was for me.
5
SPEAKER_02
And it was an ego check, I think, for both of us.
5
SPEAKER_02
For my father to be like, okay, I ll step away from my position as the leader of the team.
5
SPEAKER_02
And also for me, it s quite ballsy to be like, oh, everything s working, but I just want to do it my way now, Dad.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, let me fix something that s not broken at all.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
We just want time to make a change.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, that happens all the time now, by the way.
5
SPEAKER_00
It does.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, I had a global question for you because we all watch these docs.
5
SPEAKER_00
You watch Tiger and you find out what his dad did.
5
SPEAKER_00
Verstappen and his father, Serena and Venus, their father.
5
SPEAKER_00
Do you think a kid can become a champion without that parent?
5
SPEAKER_00
A friend of ours, Charlie, he was a college football player.
5
SPEAKER_00
That was his life.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s got two boys.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s like, I just don t really think I have it in him to stay on them.
5
SPEAKER_00
Enough to make them champions and then we were just thinking like yeah, can you become one without that?
5
SPEAKER_00
what s interesting is there are many examples in the world of alternative sports snowboarding skateboarding BMX all this and my hunch there is that Those kids all had to do it on their own because their parents weren t trying to fulfill any of their own Fantasy of being in those roles, so they didn t even care.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you re gonna do that thing So we see it there, but we don t see it really in other sports do you think you can get a champion without being that kind of parent or
5
SPEAKER_02
I think you need somebody in your corner that is pushing you and protecting you, and they are very different roles.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I think when you are not perhaps connected to the child as a parent, the protection element is difficult to achieve at that level as a parent.
5
SPEAKER_02
I felt very much since becoming a mother this wanting to be and wanting to do anything I could to be there for my son because I want him to be under my wing and feel that he s safe and secure and happy.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I don t know if it s not someone that was with you from a young age and that has seen you grow up and that is just invested in you as a human being.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s, I think, hard to build a skill of being like a protective parent and playing that role.
5
SPEAKER_02
I haven t seen it often.
5
SPEAKER_00
Did you know, did you have any peers?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like we just watched the Beckham documentary too.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like the dad s like over and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you wonder could he have ever done it on his own gumption without the again and again.
5
SPEAKER_03
And his dad loved soccer so much.
5
SPEAKER_03
So there s something vicarious that s happening with a lot of these parental figures where it works.
5
SPEAKER_00
Tiger s dad.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
But what s so interesting about these parent characters is it s not that they knew what success looked like because they themselves have never reached it at that level.
5
SPEAKER_02
And so it s so interesting to watch them go through their son s or their daughter s journey and how do they handle it and how do they keep their egos in check?
5
SPEAKER_02
It s like a big...
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
So complicated.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s very, very complex.
5
SPEAKER_00
Your boy isn t old enough yet, but already ours are eight and 10 and anything spectacular that they do, you have to check yourself.
5
SPEAKER_00
Your first thought is like,
5
SPEAKER_00
Yep, I m doing a great job, I got him to do that.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then the other brother s like, you didn t have anything to do with this, the genetic layer this way, and you re not stuck fucking high-fiving yourself.
5
SPEAKER_02
My son made an owl sound.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, oh, I mean, genius.
5
SPEAKER_02
Genius, he s gotta be, that came from me.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then you go, and it s because I read to him and I look him in the eye, you take some ownership over their stuff.
5
SPEAKER_02
I love that feeling though.
5
SPEAKER_02
I was joking from the beginning because as I was cleaning like milk bottles, I just looked back at my career and thinking of all the sports drink bottles that I would clean after a day of practice.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, it is as if my previous life has set me up for success.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ve got this down.
5
SPEAKER_00
Repetition, how many diapers have you changed?
5
SPEAKER_00
It s all more.
5
SPEAKER_01
More than Alexander.
5
SPEAKER_01
Putting him under the bus.
5
SPEAKER_00
So your career is spectacular.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re a career Grand Slam winner.
5
SPEAKER_03
That sounds very fancy.
5
SPEAKER_03
It is very fancy.
5
SPEAKER_03
For people who don t maybe know that much about tennis,
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so right, there s a bunch of tournaments throughout the year.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s four majors.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if you were to win all of them in your career, that s called a career grand slam.
5
SPEAKER_03
If you win all of those- It could be a glam slam too.
5
SPEAKER_03
That d be cool.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, you know, I was already starting to say the next thing, which is a fun one, which is a golden grand slam, which is if you win an Olympic gold and a grand slam, it can be a golden grand.
5
SPEAKER_02
There s a lot of different- There s a lot of variety.
5
SPEAKER_02
Pick your own little holiday basket.
5
SPEAKER_00
But your career is spectacular.
5
SPEAKER_00
I am curious, because you won silver in the London Olympics 2012.
5
SPEAKER_00
And there s been all this wonderful social science about the plague of silver.
5
SPEAKER_00
People enjoy bronze.
5
SPEAKER_00
They like winning a bronze.
5
SPEAKER_00
They got to be up on the podium.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I like bronze too.
5
SPEAKER_02
For my house fixtures.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
You have some nice waterworks bronze.
5
SPEAKER_00
Were you bummed that you won a silver in the Olympics?
5
SPEAKER_00
I guess that s my question.
5
SPEAKER_02
It was the only Olympics that I competed in.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, because you couldn t go to Beijing because you had your rotator cuff.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_02
And the first one after one was too late or too young.
5
SPEAKER_02
So one of those, I don t even remember.
5
SPEAKER_02
I, of course, as an athlete, you want gold.
5
SPEAKER_02
You want gold.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I don t know.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s no other way to say it.
5
SPEAKER_00
A lay person would assume, myself included, if I won a silver in the Olympics, I would be on top of the world.
5
SPEAKER_00
But that s not the case.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s very well documented.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, like in tennis, it s either the champion s trophy or it s as if you weren t there.
5
SPEAKER_02
But there was huge significance in that the feeling of being part of, like for a tennis player that plays so many events, it does
5
SPEAKER_02
almost take away the meaning of what the Olympics is because you re just constantly going from one event to another.
5
SPEAKER_02
And although the majors are where you want to perform the best, the Olympics is at that level, but it s once in four years.
5
SPEAKER_02
So you move on to the next one.
5
SPEAKER_02
I won that silver medal and I think I had to fly somewhere in the US to play another tournament.
5
SPEAKER_02
So it s such a quick, I know it sounds crazy.
5
SPEAKER_00
You don t have time to wallow.
5
SPEAKER_02
You don t have time.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s kind of a blessing, yeah?
5
SPEAKER_02
In some ways.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
In other ways, it burbles up because you never processed it.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re like arguing with your husband, all of a sudden the silver medal s burbling.
5
SPEAKER_02
Somewhere there, dangling, dangling.
5
SPEAKER_00
Is it on display anywhere?
5
SPEAKER_02
No.
5
SPEAKER_02
If you come to my home, you wouldn t even know I play tennis.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s nice, I m not tacky.
5
SPEAKER_02
Her home was in Architectural Digest, it s gorgeous.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you saw her house.
5
SPEAKER_03
That s very sweet, thank you.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m mad I didn t see it.
5
SPEAKER_03
You can see it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna check it out.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m nosy as a motherfucker.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, you did do your homework, you ve got the stats right.
5
SPEAKER_00
But you can imagine where someone who does have a trophy case at home, you can imagine someone not putting their silver medal in it, because it would remind them that they were mad.
5
SPEAKER_03
I guess.
5
SPEAKER_03
But tennis, I guess, like you said, it s sort of like basketball.
5
SPEAKER_03
The U.S.
5
SPEAKER_03
basketball team, they just pop into the Olympics, it seems like.
5
SPEAKER_03
Then they pop out, they re back to their normal.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they d certainly rather win the NBA final.
5
SPEAKER_02
They just add a little extra weight to their suitcase.
5
SPEAKER_03
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_03
It s just an added thing.
5
SPEAKER_03
It s not the most important thing.
5
SPEAKER_02
It is special, but you do move on very quickly.
5
SPEAKER_00
Just really quick, if I had the silver medal, that s how you d have to knock on my front door.
5
SPEAKER_00
It would be strapped to the front door and you d have to use it to climb, climb, climb, climb.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s the knocker?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it d be the knocker.
5
SPEAKER_01
Or a door stopper.
5
SPEAKER_00
That would be also good.
5
SPEAKER_00
You should dig it up and use it as a doorstop.
5
SPEAKER_01
Sure, I mean, be my guest.
5
SPEAKER_01
You can borrow it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I would love to rent it off you and put it on.
5
SPEAKER_01
Put it in here with all our knickknacks.
5
SPEAKER_00
It would look so good.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, also interesting about your career, it s not new, but the level at which you did it was novel in that you were very, very busy with lots of business as well.
5
SPEAKER_00
You were the spokesperson.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think people always had racket contracts and stuff.
6
SPEAKER_01
sneakers, but you were doing fashion.
6
SPEAKER_01
You were doing products.
6
SPEAKER_01
You had what would otherwise be a very full-time job as a ambassador for brands.
6
SPEAKER_01
Did you enjoy all that?
6
SPEAKER_00
I loved it.
6
SPEAKER_01
I could see if you were shy, it might be uncomfortable.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I was eager to learn.
6
SPEAKER_00
The amazing part about being in a room with big brands is that these are individuals that are very smart.
6
SPEAKER_00
They re the best of the best in marketing and advertisement, CFOs to CEOs.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it was like a free education on my day job.
6
SPEAKER_00
And there was a choice just to be the face of a brand and to show up to a Tiffany shoot or to a Porsche shoot.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I worked with incredible brands and I would say to myself, why not use this opportunity to learn about the process?
6
SPEAKER_00
Like what does it take to put together a fashion shoot?
6
SPEAKER_00
Who s putting this together?
6
SPEAKER_00
What are the pieces?
6
SPEAKER_00
What are the responsibilities?
6
SPEAKER_00
So when you show up to a shoot after knowing all this, you re not just clocking your time.
6
SPEAKER_00
You are understanding everything that goes on behind the scenes.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s what makes great events.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s what makes great products.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s what I appreciated about those partnerships.
6
SPEAKER_01
But clearly it interested you, the business aspect.
6
SPEAKER_00
I acknowledge that tennis wouldn t be my entire life.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it s really hard to do that as an athlete because it is your universe and it s such a big part of your identity.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so you re afraid to realize that is a part of your life, but it s not all of you.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it would feel dangerous to acknowledge that, like you might lose your mojo.
6
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
6
SPEAKER_00
I love the idea.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, when I would travel and they would still have those forms that you d fill out, like your name and what s your occupation, handwriting that I was an athlete brought so much joy to me.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like that was my identity.
6
SPEAKER_00
But everything else that came with it, like meetings with the C-suite of Nike and incredible brands that made me want to get in the weeds of a business.
6
SPEAKER_00
I was fascinating.
6
SPEAKER_00
And when I d have time and I would be injured and that would happen a lot just because constantly an athlete and you re, you know, getting injured.
6
SPEAKER_00
You have free time besides the rehab and getting yourself back and staying in shape.
6
SPEAKER_00
You have time to learn.
6
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to get in the weeds of businesses because for some reason I realized that this would be like my life.
6
SPEAKER_00
Moving forward.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m so fascinated.
6
SPEAKER_01
The ultimate rags to riches story.
6
SPEAKER_01
If you come from the Soviet Union with $700 and then you become the highest paid female athlete for 11 years in a row, what s the family s relationship with that abundance?
6
SPEAKER_00
It s so funny.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t spend a lot on things that you think I spend on, like shoes.
6
SPEAKER_00
I like shoes, but you go into my closet and you re like, what were the rest of the shoes?
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t have a lot of things in my house because aesthetically I just appreciate less.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so when I do buy, I don t buy cheaply.
6
SPEAKER_00
I would definitely say that.
6
SPEAKER_00
but I buy well in a way that I will live with these things.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like I will wear these shoes for a long time and I will rinse and repeat them and then I will buy a sofa that I m going to reupholster in five years and I m going to keep that sofa because I made a conscious decision that this was the right one for me and it s going to live with me.
6
SPEAKER_00
So decisions that I make around
6
SPEAKER_00
Money are around useful things.
6
SPEAKER_00
I love to travel.
6
SPEAKER_00
I genuinely love to explore and be uncomfortable and be comfortable.
6
SPEAKER_00
I like to stay.
6
SPEAKER_00
I like to be comfortable.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I love like going down an alley and unexpectedly coming into an antique shop and finding that silver spoon that I m never going to use.
6
SPEAKER_00
But it s just like you are really preaching to the choir.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, those little shops.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I love taking my friends on those journeys.
6
SPEAKER_00
I would only have two weeks of vacation every year, maybe 10 days.
6
SPEAKER_00
So one week a year, I promised to my mom and to my friends that every November off season, I take them to an extravagant vacation.
6
SPEAKER_00
Nice.
6
SPEAKER_00
So when I started making money, I remember the first big moment holiday moment was I went to the Amman in Phuket.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
I must have gained so- I mean, all I ate was like sticky rice and white rice and this rice, mango rice.
6
SPEAKER_01
How ironic you also worked with Amon, no?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I ve become a wellness ambassador, as they call me, which is a funny title, but I am curating retreats.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m bringing in talent that I used to work with in my- Amazing.
6
SPEAKER_00
career, everything from recovery to breath work to performance, working out, just like a holistic approach for their clients for three days.
6
SPEAKER_00
So that s why I mentioned Phuket because our first one is going to be in Phuket.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it is?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, in February, which is very exciting.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you re taking Monica and I. Are these just athletes or are we...
6
SPEAKER_00
No, they re inner athletes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Could definitely be.
6
SPEAKER_01
But you have cute stories of like you won Wimbledon and you had been to California so many times, as you already said.
6
SPEAKER_01
And after Wimbledon, you went to California, but you stayed in a very nice hotel.
6
SPEAKER_00
It actually wasn t that it was so nice.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was definitely an upgrade from where we were staying before.
6
SPEAKER_00
I went back to my coach for training week after winning Wimbledon, after taking a couple of days off.
6
SPEAKER_00
And my manager booked us into a different hotel and we show up at this hotel and it s
6
SPEAKER_00
very close to the ocean, you could hear the waves.
6
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t an ocean view.
6
SPEAKER_00
Hadn t made that much money yet.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I could hear the ocean.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I went to the bathroom and there s a bath and there s like a yellow rubber duck.
6
SPEAKER_00
I called my manager and I said, I made it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I really made it.
6
SPEAKER_00
But this is what I m talking about.
6
SPEAKER_01
So this is the cute part of your story and I hope you re grateful for it because a lot of the kids you were playing tennis with at IMG, they were already rich.
6
SPEAKER_01
The parents were already sending them this $35,000.
6
SPEAKER_01
So when they made it, they like bought a house next to the house they already grew up in.
6
SPEAKER_01
There s really no sense of like, God damn it, there s rubber ducks in the tub.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I just want to know, did mom and dad, I mean, really came from very modest background.
6
SPEAKER_00
Money is a very interesting dynamic when you go from having a little to a lot in a very quick turn.
6
SPEAKER_01
No middle ground.
6
SPEAKER_01
You don t learn to manage it slowly.
6
SPEAKER_00
No middle ground.
6
SPEAKER_00
And not only the relationship with money, but the dynamic of the relationship between your parents and yourself as a youngster and money.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you re giving your parents money.
6
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s a unique dynamic for a child and parent.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I have to say it is one of the greatest gifts that my parents gave me was they never had the desire to extravagantly spend the money that I provided for them.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, they probably have the same fear of it that I do or anyone else.
6
SPEAKER_00
Perhaps.
6
SPEAKER_00
But it s so easy to spend.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s so easy to be like, oh, that s a shiny car.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I m not personally fascinated by those things, but I do appreciate like a great vacation with my friends.
6
SPEAKER_01
I love shiny cars.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I love treating them.
6
SPEAKER_00
Vacations are the place to spend.
6
SPEAKER_00
They re the experiences.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s what they say.
6
SPEAKER_00
You leave your everyday world, your responsibilities.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s very rare that we get to slow down and reflect.
6
SPEAKER_01
yeah stay tuned for more armchair expert if you re dead
6
SPEAKER_01
Were you lonely on tour?
6
SPEAKER_01
It s a coin, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
On one side of the coin, if you re on a team sport, you share the losses together, which is helpful.
6
SPEAKER_01
You share the victories together, which is less rewarding ego-wise, because it s also shared.
6
SPEAKER_01
But probably for me, all comes out in the wash.
6
SPEAKER_01
I guess I d prefer the team experience.
6
SPEAKER_01
But it s such a solitary sport.
6
SPEAKER_01
On that tour, are people friends?
6
SPEAKER_01
Or is the competition so tough?
6
SPEAKER_00
It s hard to make deep friendships.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s coming from my own experience of being in it and being a part of it on a daily basis.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s just hard to say, let s go have a shrimp cocktail and then tomorrow I just want to rip you apart.
6
SPEAKER_01
You need to protect your competitive edge.
6
SPEAKER_00
To have that mentality, I had difficulty with.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I realized that I had difficulty with that from a very early age.
6
SPEAKER_00
When I would go to the courts, like that was my office.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was the world where I would show up, I would perform and win or lose.
6
SPEAKER_00
I d go home and I had my friends to call and my parents were there.
6
SPEAKER_00
That was enough and that was okay.
6
SPEAKER_00
But everyone is very different.
6
SPEAKER_01
So there are people on tour that are palling around other players.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t know how, you know, is it an acquaintance?
6
SPEAKER_00
Is it a friend?
6
SPEAKER_00
Is this someone that you re going to see when you retire?
6
SPEAKER_01
I have a fantasy for you that in retirement, these people who have the same shared bizarre experience that really only they can relate to what you went through.
6
SPEAKER_01
I have a fantasy of you having friends like post career that were also in it.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t know why that seems appealing to me for you.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but we kind of forget it so quickly.
6
SPEAKER_00
When people remind me about the daily grinds and the responsibilities that I had when I was in it every single day, it seems like a long time ago because life takes you to new places and you have to show up for a new set of people and for now a child and new responsibilities.
6
SPEAKER_00
You adjust and you get into that role and you just go with it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think it s hard, though, because I understand why you have that dream.
6
SPEAKER_00
for her.
6
SPEAKER_00
If that does happen, I ll call you and let you know.
6
SPEAKER_01
Look, everyone s fine.
6
SPEAKER_01
They don t need to do anything I m saying.
6
SPEAKER_01
But what I m saying is like, in the same way I get enormous comfort from sitting in a room with other alcoholics that know exactly what the experience is, you don t have a ton of girlfriends you can sit down with and go like, it s fucking hard to be me and have a relationship.
7
SPEAKER_00
What s interesting is I feel like you can.
7
SPEAKER_00
Perhaps not on that level and intensity, but we all, wherever we are in our lives, at different stages, we go through similar things.
7
SPEAKER_00
I never felt that I would sit down with my girlfriend and that they wouldn t get it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like, that s not a girlfriend.
7
SPEAKER_01
I mean, your best friend is not someone who s been through many of your life experiences post being a kid.
7
SPEAKER_01
And he gets it.
7
SPEAKER_02
But those are the key ones.
7
SPEAKER_02
Like, I definitely need my best friend to know what that childhood was like.
7
SPEAKER_02
I guess.
7
SPEAKER_02
Maybe it s just me and my limitations.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_02
Last question I want to ask you is, as we said, 19 years you played professionally, you have a week off a year where you go to Phuket.
7
SPEAKER_02
What an enormous fucking hole is left in your life afterwards.
7
SPEAKER_02
Now, we know you filled it with the baby and you had COVID.
7
SPEAKER_02
Do you think your entrepreneurship is what s there to take up that enormous focus and ambition?
7
SPEAKER_02
Is that what we ve turned this dedication to?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I think the weaving thread is a mindset that I carried as an athlete.
7
SPEAKER_00
It got me to some of the greatest moments of my career and now tapping into those experiences and applying that mindset to the endeavors that I m a part of now.
7
SPEAKER_00
One of the things I ve learned in the last couple of years is
7
SPEAKER_00
As I ve met founders, particularly female founders, is if you look at some of the stats, like Fortune 500 companies, 80% of the executive females have had a sporting background.
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh, really?
7
SPEAKER_00
Competitive sporting background.
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh, interesting.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so, you know, when someone says, oh, you ve done one thing, how are you going to do it?
7
SPEAKER_00
It s not that.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s how do I apply the lessons that I learned and make them relative to what I m doing now?
7
SPEAKER_00
And so my mindset and the world of performance mindset, something that I m
7
SPEAKER_00
tapping into that I m increasingly interested in because so many of the female entrepreneurs that I meet have had those backgrounds.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you re very engaged with other female entrepreneurs.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I m getting a chance to learn about them and establishing what those ideas are and passing them on to others, especially younger females.
7
SPEAKER_02
Your previous life had such specific goals.
7
SPEAKER_02
They were given to you.
7
SPEAKER_02
Here s what the goal is.
7
SPEAKER_02
How do you define what your goals are now in business?
7
SPEAKER_00
It s a great question.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s different.
7
SPEAKER_00
When someone asked me what my five or 10 year plan was as an athlete, I was like, well, I just want to win more grand slams.
7
SPEAKER_00
I want to be number one in the world.
7
SPEAKER_00
And in business, it s slightly different.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s also slightly different being in my mid-30s and being a mom and juggling several things.
7
SPEAKER_00
When I was tennis, like, although you could say I had a lot of things on my plate, tennis was that one thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
And now there s several.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the goal is not about just one thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s having a healthy balance between those things, being present, giving myself time, being a little bit more relaxed and not constantly on.
7
SPEAKER_00
having to expect these high things for my body and for myself, but growing.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I ve been deeply curious since a young age.
7
SPEAKER_00
I love to learn.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m a sponge when it comes to process and grind and getting inside of something in order to achieve greatness.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so business is something that I continue to work on.
7
SPEAKER_00
And there s so many things in business that
7
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I m smart in a few and less so in others.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so I want to improve the things that I m not yet well established in.
7
SPEAKER_02
There are much more abstract goals to set.
7
SPEAKER_02
Like, I guess you could go, I want to be number one in this market.
7
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_02
That could be a goal.
7
SPEAKER_02
That s pretty hard, but you re probably not going to go like, Oh, I want to make this amount of money.
7
SPEAKER_02
Or I want the value of the company to be this amount.
7
SPEAKER_02
Like your goals now are going to get a lot more opaque.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and that s okay.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m okay with that.
7
SPEAKER_02
You are.
7
SPEAKER_02
Because it s such a 180 from what you had.
7
SPEAKER_00
It is.
7
SPEAKER_02
Again, you could visualize so easily.
7
SPEAKER_02
It was so prescriptive.
7
SPEAKER_02
And this is up to you to decide.
7
SPEAKER_00
What I like about this chapter is that you have time to form those goals.
7
SPEAKER_00
Whereas when you re started something from a young age, that is the goal.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s what you re going to.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s almost determined for you.
7
SPEAKER_00
And now I feel like I m in a position to shape what that is.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I would love to be able to mentor and touch and be part of young females.
7
SPEAKER_00
lives to help them grow from school or their academic to their first job or helping them decide what is the next chapter, emphasizing their great qualities and potential.
7
SPEAKER_00
There s so many female athletes that are at this junction in sport where they want to do more, but they don t know how, they don t know where, what resources are they tapping into?
7
SPEAKER_00
What s the team?
7
SPEAKER_00
I would love to be part of those individuals journeys.
7
SPEAKER_02
That s lovely.
7
SPEAKER_00
Did you watch the Beckham doc?
7
SPEAKER_01
I have.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_01
I love documentaries.
7
SPEAKER_01
So good.
7
SPEAKER_01
We loved it.
7
SPEAKER_01
But towards the end, one of the other players said that athletes are addicts and that s their addiction.
7
SPEAKER_01
And then when that ends, like when it s retired, I mean, then you, you see, like, we keep talking about Beckham with one mushroom at a time and it s like so crazy.
7
SPEAKER_02
Fucking grill for an hour and a half.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_01
I appreciated that quality by the way.
7
SPEAKER_02
Of course.
7
SPEAKER_01
I looked over to Alexander, I was like, what?
7
SPEAKER_01
Do you see how his closet is organized?
7
SPEAKER_02
You don t dress as cool, you don t have the tattoos, at least you can fucking clean like him.
7
SPEAKER_02
He s British at least, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
He is British.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s halfway there.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, there s still many things, like I put my left shoe on first, little quirks, all these quirky little things.
7
SPEAKER_02
What s the most preposterous part of your old routine?
7
SPEAKER_02
Could you tell us the most embarrassing one?
7
SPEAKER_02
Did you have to turn a faucet on and off three times or anything weird?
7
SPEAKER_00
I didn t step on lines like when I could avoid them.
7
SPEAKER_00
I had my little routine in between points where I d look at my strings, kind of like get my strings together.
7
SPEAKER_00
It was always, I did it 10 times or 10 strings or something.
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I want to go back and watch this.
7
SPEAKER_00
It was like my little routine in between the points, but I think a routine like then becomes a habit and then just becomes, I can t live without doing this.
7
SPEAKER_00
But did you have like... I m gonna lose a match if I don t.
7
SPEAKER_02
Putting your left shoe on first is very specific.
7
SPEAKER_02
That s the kind of thing I like.
7
SPEAKER_01
You appreciated that one?
7
SPEAKER_02
I did.
7
SPEAKER_02
The weirder the better.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think that addiction thing...
7
SPEAKER_01
was very accurate.
7
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
7
SPEAKER_02
Well, and most specifically, I think if you look at what an addiction is, it s using something externally to regulate how you feel internally.
7
SPEAKER_02
And that is the ultimate display of that.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
In your case, like I m going to control this stupid fucking ball.
7
SPEAKER_02
And that is how I will regulate everything emotional and internally.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but there s been a lot of letting go, which I think is a good, I mean, at least that s what I keep telling myself.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s a good thing.
7
SPEAKER_01
It ll probably come back up.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m sure.
7
SPEAKER_02
When there s a bully in your kid s school, the old competitor will come up.
7
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_02
Then the last thing I m going to say is in your many entrepreneurial endeavors, the one that I don t know how you had the foresight to get involved with in 2014 is super goop.
7
SPEAKER_02
Superglue is the greatest sunblock of all time.
7
SPEAKER_01
I agree, it s fantastic.
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh right, we can t call it sunblock, sunscreen.
7
SPEAKER_02
I can t tell you, I enjoy putting it on more than like a moisturizer.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s the only one I ve ever wanted to use.
7
SPEAKER_00
What a great plug for them.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I have nothing to do with them, I don t own stock in it.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s a funny story.
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh, tell me.
7
SPEAKER_00
It was the first investment I ever made.
7
SPEAKER_00
Really?
7
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_00
All the previous brand partnerships, it was just like an annual deal, you know, you get your check at the end of the year.
7
SPEAKER_00
But you took equity.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, this is the first time I had equity in the company at the time when they had less than 10 employees.
7
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
7
SPEAKER_00
I almost knocked on Holly Thagard s door, who s the founder, and I just said, this is the only sunscreen that just doesn t get in the way of my sweat and I don t have to rub my eyes and my eyes don t itch.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I said, listen, I don t know what position you re in financially.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t want any money from you.
7
SPEAKER_00
I want to help you grow.
7
SPEAKER_00
I love your product.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve worn it for almost a year now.
7
SPEAKER_00
And if there s any way I can help grow this message.
7
SPEAKER_00
And she said, the only message I want to grow is that skin cancer is preventable.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s the one cancer that is preventable.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the way she positioned it was that imagine that we had a cream to prevent breast cancer.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, that s so true.
7
SPEAKER_00
And it completely changed my perception and we got into business together.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s awesome.
7
SPEAKER_00
It is such a good product.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s the only one I m really willing to wear repeatedly.
7
SPEAKER_02
I fucking love it.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s so silky.
7
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know.
7
SPEAKER_02
Here s what s confusing about it.
7
SPEAKER_00
She said silky.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s silky.
7
SPEAKER_00
It goes on smooth.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think it s silky.
7
SPEAKER_00
I just didn t think that I d hear that from you.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, very silky.
7
SPEAKER_02
Ironically, I m also kind of obsessed with Victoria Beckham s face moisturizer that has a tint in it.
7
SPEAKER_02
These are these little flavors of me that I have.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay, I m learning a lot more.
7
SPEAKER_02
But I m gonna go even further with Supergoop.
7
SPEAKER_02
They should give me some equity.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_02
If you look at the top toothpastes, personally, I m a Crest 3D white guy.
7
SPEAKER_02
I like it.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s my preferred toothpaste.
7
SPEAKER_02
Do I think it s...
7
SPEAKER_02
three standard deviations above the next best one?
7
SPEAKER_02
I don t.
7
SPEAKER_02
I think it might be a half standard deviation above.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we don t even know what s in it probably.
7
SPEAKER_02
I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I don t care.
7
SPEAKER_02
My teeth are.
8
SPEAKER_03
Proof that it works, but I would say this super goop.
8
SPEAKER_03
It s like four standard deviations above second place, right?
8
SPEAKER_02
I don t even know what second place would be, but yes, but it s astronomically better.
8
SPEAKER_03
It s like Sean White s old runs in the half pipe.
8
SPEAKER_03
You re like, well, these guys aren t even doing the same sport.
8
SPEAKER_02
Are you sure they re not paying you for this?
8
SPEAKER_02
They re going to send you a nice gift package.
8
SPEAKER_03
I am so passionate about super goop.
8
SPEAKER_03
You know this about me though, right?
8
SPEAKER_01
I m gonna tell Holly after this chat.
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t think I knew you loved it so much.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I love it.
8
SPEAKER_03
I ordered like five at a time.
8
SPEAKER_01
Whoa.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I hide them because my family likes them.
8
SPEAKER_01
I like the big, you know they have the big ones with the pump.
8
SPEAKER_01
They have a family pack.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that one s great.
8
SPEAKER_01
Daddy Long Legs.
8
SPEAKER_03
Can we rename it?
8
SPEAKER_03
Can I have my own line there called Daddy Long Legs?
8
SPEAKER_01
You kept bringing up Colgate, or what are you, Crest?
8
SPEAKER_03
Crest 3D White.
8
SPEAKER_01
You re Crest 3D White.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I do think there s a toothpaste that s four standard deviations above.
8
SPEAKER_03
And it s so funny, the toothpaste she likes.
8
SPEAKER_03
I don t want to be disparaging about any brand.
8
SPEAKER_01
You shouldn t even get to toothpaste.
8
SPEAKER_03
Because I had to give an example of
8
SPEAKER_01
Right, a little.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and I couldn t not then think about the toothpaste.
8
SPEAKER_01
Take it somewhere else.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_03
I don t wanna say anything disparaging.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s the best toothpaste.
8
SPEAKER_01
I may have just looked over to the sink.
8
SPEAKER_01
You re gonna have to cut it out.
8
SPEAKER_01
Because it s like literally inside the room to see what toothpaste is in there.
8
SPEAKER_01
What it is.
8
SPEAKER_03
This is fucking baking soda toothpaste.
8
SPEAKER_01
Arm and hammer, Grant.
8
SPEAKER_01
Stop laughing!
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, her teeth look pretty good.
8
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
8
SPEAKER_03
That s because your skin s brown and your white teeth pop.
8
SPEAKER_03
You know you re getting a bump from your darkness.
8
SPEAKER_01
Do you want, I mean, sorry to all other toothpastes, and this is gross for all of you guys using other toothpastes.
8
SPEAKER_01
Every time I use other toothpastes, I get sometimes this weird stringy stuff in my mouth.
8
SPEAKER_03
What?
8
SPEAKER_01
And also I get mouth ulcers.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s the only toothpaste that does that because it has baking soda.
8
SPEAKER_03
Right.
8
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, give it a try.
8
SPEAKER_01
Report back.
8
SPEAKER_01
Maybe that ll be your next investment.
8
SPEAKER_00
Sounds like it.
8
SPEAKER_03
They ve been in the market for quite a while.
8
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_03
Well, this has been a blast.
8
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for this session.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, this was fun.
8
SPEAKER_03
It s so fun.
8
SPEAKER_03
I would have never in my wildest dreams when watching you play tennis think, I will one day probably chat with you about toothpaste and super glue.
8
SPEAKER_00
I did not think we d go there either.
8
SPEAKER_00
I appreciate the curve ball.
8
SPEAKER_01
We take it all over.
8
SPEAKER_03
Is there any product you don t represent that you think is just stunning?
8
SPEAKER_01
What outfit are you wearing?
8
SPEAKER_01
Because you look really nice.
8
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
8
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
8
SPEAKER_01
Is it the row?
8
SPEAKER_01
My God, you re so right.
8
SPEAKER_01
Shoes are the row.
8
SPEAKER_01
I know the row.
8
SPEAKER_01
This is actually the row.
8
SPEAKER_01
I really dressed it down today.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s the minimal.
8
SPEAKER_03
Mixed messages.
8
SPEAKER_00
Were they calling it now quiet luxury?
8
SPEAKER_00
Quiet luxury.
8
SPEAKER_01
I actually hate that phrase.
8
SPEAKER_03
I liked it because Kristen just told me I was accomplishing it in New York.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it was my Burberry sweatshirt.
8
SPEAKER_01
I have my Burberry sweatshirt.
8
SPEAKER_03
I love her so much, that s actually the opposite, because... I m now remembering she didn t say I had it, she was explaining her outfit.
8
SPEAKER_01
That makes way more sense, because yours is so clearly Burberry, and the whole point is that you don t necessarily know the brand, it s quiet.
8
SPEAKER_00
Subtle details.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, okay.
8
SPEAKER_00
All right.
8
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, we did it.
8
SPEAKER_00
This has been a blast.
8
SPEAKER_03
I hope you have a really fun evening.
8
SPEAKER_03
Thank you for having me.
8
SPEAKER_03
Away from your child and a driver.
8
SPEAKER_03
Go get a drink, find your way to a drink.
8
SPEAKER_02
Get six or seven drinks.
8
SPEAKER_02
Who knows?
8
SPEAKER_02
All right, be well, thank you so much.
8
SPEAKER_02
Thank you.
8
SPEAKER_03
Next up is the fact check.
8
SPEAKER_03
I don t even care about facts, I just wanna get into your pants.
8
SPEAKER_03
All right, let s start.
8
SPEAKER_03
Okay, we re in.
8
SPEAKER_01
Happy birthday.
8
SPEAKER_03
We were gossiping.
8
SPEAKER_03
I don t wanna make anyone feel like they missed out.
8
SPEAKER_03
But believe it or not, there is even stuff that can t be said on here.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s true.
8
SPEAKER_03
We even have another layer of gossip.
8
SPEAKER_01
Who could believe it?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Because we re so open.
8
SPEAKER_03
Sure.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s almost your birthday.
8
SPEAKER_03
Okay, well, hold on.
8
SPEAKER_03
We have stuff to go over.
8
SPEAKER_03
We had eventful weekends.
8
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_03
Right?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yep.
8
SPEAKER_03
Let s start with a trip.
8
SPEAKER_03
A best girlfriend s trip to the desert.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_01
I took a trip with Callie.
8
SPEAKER_01
We did a- Did you drive in your- No, Callie drove.
8
SPEAKER_03
She did.
8
SPEAKER_03
What kind of car does she have?
8
SPEAKER_01
She has a hybrid, electric hybrid Volvo.
8
SPEAKER_03
Okay, you should have taken her car.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s a really nice.
8
SPEAKER_01
I know it s a nice.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s a really nice car.
8
SPEAKER_03
It is a nice car, but it is not a C43.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, well, she wanted to drive, I think.
8
SPEAKER_03
Okay, well, yeah, she s getting away from that baby.
8
SPEAKER_03
She wants to feel independent.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Well, yeah, so Hallie was trying a first night out.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
From her little one.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
And so we did a one night trip to Palm Springs.
8
SPEAKER_01
We stayed at a fun hotel and on the way there we went to the outlet mall.
8
SPEAKER_03
Which I cannot believe there s a Burberry outlet.
8
SPEAKER_03
I didn t think those brands had outlets.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s really rare.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, the legacy, whatever we, what do we call it?
8
SPEAKER_03
Luxury.
8
SPEAKER_01
Luxury brand.
8
SPEAKER_03
LVN.
8
SPEAKER_03
What are the other conglomerates?
8
SPEAKER_01
I m impressed you knew that.
8
SPEAKER_03
Well, what one does Francois own?
8
SPEAKER_03
Does he own LVN?
8
SPEAKER_01
Francois Selma s Francois?
8
SPEAKER_01
He owns that?
8
SPEAKER_03
Oh, he owns the whole group, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
No.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, and I think he s accumulated more than that.
8
SPEAKER_01
What s it called?
8
SPEAKER_01
It s not LVN.
8
SPEAKER_02
YSL?
8
SPEAKER_02
No, no, that s what you say more often.
8
SPEAKER_01
LVN fashion.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think there s another letter in it.
8
SPEAKER_03
Oh, maybe.
8
SPEAKER_03
See what you see.
8
SPEAKER_01
NBC and now it s good.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s getting confused because it thinks I m talking about Louis Vuitton.
8
SPEAKER_02
You re talking about Salma Hayek s husband?
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_02
Francois what?
8
SPEAKER_02
Kiering.
8
SPEAKER_03
And what s he on?
8
SPEAKER_01
LVMH.
8
SPEAKER_03
LVMH.
8
SPEAKER_03
There we go.
8
SPEAKER_01
LVMH.
8
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_03
Hermes.
8
SPEAKER_03
Louis Vuitton.
8
SPEAKER_03
Pion Celine.
8
SPEAKER_01
Wait, it s him?
8
SPEAKER_01
I can t believe.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, he owns the biggest luxury brand conglomerate in the world.
8
SPEAKER_01
Ultra Horses.
8
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_02
He s the CEO of K-Ring.
8
SPEAKER_02
K-Ring?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t see his name.
8
SPEAKER_02
K-Ring s also a luxury company.
8
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so he s not LVMH.
8
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_02
So K-Ring owns Gucci.
8
SPEAKER_02
Ooh.
8
SPEAKER_02
Balenciaga.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh.
8
SPEAKER_02
Bottega Veneta.
8
SPEAKER_01
Bottega, yes.
8
SPEAKER_02
YSL.
8
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
8
SPEAKER_02
Reed and Alexander McQueen.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I think Celine.
8
SPEAKER_01
Don t make him look up more stuff.
8
SPEAKER_02
I can t pronounce any of these words.
8
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so he owns another, wow.
8
SPEAKER_02
Gucci.
8
SPEAKER_02
Keurig.
8
SPEAKER_02
Keurig.
8
SPEAKER_02
Keurig.
8
SPEAKER_02
Keurig.
8
SPEAKER_01
How do you spell it?
8
SPEAKER_02
K-E-R-I-N-G.
8
SPEAKER_01
Keurig.
8
SPEAKER_01
Celine is owned by LVMH, I just saw that.
8
SPEAKER_01
Anywho, yes, luxury brands galore.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, and what percentage would you say the savings are?
8
SPEAKER_03
Is it half price?
8
SPEAKER_03
Is it 10%, is it 30?
8
SPEAKER_01
It depends on, like these shoes, so I m wearing new shoes.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
They re Prada, there s a Prada outlet there.
8
SPEAKER_01
Wow, the sky s the limit.
8
SPEAKER_01
LVMH, LVMH.
8
SPEAKER_01
Actually, I don t think it is.
8
SPEAKER_03
I m gonna tell Francois to buy Prada.
8
SPEAKER_01
Oh.
8
SPEAKER_03
He s gotta buy Burberry so I can get a discount.
8
SPEAKER_01
Wow, you guys are that close?
8
SPEAKER_03
No, but I did hang out with him in Paris and he did offer, he s like, any store you wanna go to of mine, I ll give you a code and you can get, it was a significant percentage off.
8
SPEAKER_01
Wait, then yeah, you need that.
8
SPEAKER_03
So he needs to own Burberry so I can get the code for Burberry.
8
SPEAKER_01
Well Gucci, I have shoes, ugh.
8
SPEAKER_01
I could have had so much savings.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I have yet to find an item at Gucci that s like calls my name yet.
8
SPEAKER_03
They don t have much like street wear.
8
SPEAKER_01
Loafers.
8
SPEAKER_03
Loafers.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I don t like loafers.
8
SPEAKER_03
I like clunkier stuff.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah Okay.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yes, it has Burberry and a lot of it is like last season stuff Oh, I wouldn t know or other season same other previous seasons So it s it s discounted and then sometimes there s additional savings.
8
SPEAKER_01
Look it s all still expensive because it s expensive brands Yes, yes, but it is much cheaper than buying it off
8
SPEAKER_03
I wish they did this with cars and motorcycles, because that s my thing.
8
SPEAKER_03
I wish there was an outlet mall and you can go like, oh yeah, they re selling Ford Raptor Rs for 45 grand over there.
8
SPEAKER_03
It s like a used car dealerships.
8
SPEAKER_03
That doesn t do it for me.
8
SPEAKER_03
No.
8
SPEAKER_01
But that s kind of similar.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s not, because it s brand new.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, you re right.
8
SPEAKER_03
The used market s the used market.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you re right, because there s a used market for clothes as well.
8
SPEAKER_03
Real, real.
8
SPEAKER_01
Real Real, that s right.
8
SPEAKER_01
Wow, you know so much.
8
SPEAKER_01
You knew kind of LVMH and you do know Real Real.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I know Francois.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
This is kind of a ding ding ding because Maria Sharapova, that s who this is for.
8
SPEAKER_03
Oh, perfect.
8
SPEAKER_03
Is a fashionista.
8
SPEAKER_01
She was wearing... Head to toe.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think she s wearing all the row or she was at least wearing... Head to row.
8
SPEAKER_03
She was adorned in head to row.
8
SPEAKER_01
Speaking of, that s why I m kind of like, is Francois going to give you a discount?
8
SPEAKER_01
Cause like you dated Ashley and she doesn t get a discount.
8
SPEAKER_03
That s probably more reason to not get a discount.
8
SPEAKER_03
Although no, not all my previous, you re like if Carrie owned the row, we would have a discount.
8
SPEAKER_03
And if Brie owned the row, we d have a discount.
8
SPEAKER_03
We would own officially a discount.
9
SPEAKER_00
Wait, fuck, that s really true.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like I wish Carrie or Brie owned the robe.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that would be, I d be so excited for either of them.
9
SPEAKER_01
They both deserve it.
9
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Maybe they ll start a fashion.
9
SPEAKER_01
Carrie would be great at it.
9
SPEAKER_01
She s very entrepreneurial.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
She owns an insurance company and she s on it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
She even hit me up, she s like, Ted Seegers, let me know what insurance needs you.
9
SPEAKER_00
She got right on it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m like, I don t have any employees or anything, so, but.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s great.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Unfortunately, I don t need her services.
9
SPEAKER_01
I know, for insurance.
9
SPEAKER_00
It sucks.
9
SPEAKER_00
I know, I know.
9
SPEAKER_01
Anywho, you get to Palm Springs, you do some shopping, and are you guys shopping soulmates in that you both wanna be in the store the exact same amount of time?
9
SPEAKER_01
Because I feel like inevitably some person wants to be there longer than another person.
9
SPEAKER_00
We re really good at it.
9
SPEAKER_01
You are.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
We ve been doing it, I mean.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s what you do.
9
SPEAKER_00
10,000 hours plus.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Together.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s your hobby.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s your me in the sand dunes.
9
SPEAKER_00
Man, I wish I had dated in the time of like the peak of my mall era.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I could just walk around with my boyfriend at the mall.
9
SPEAKER_01
My favorite thing was going to the 12 Oaks Mall with five boyfriends and cruising around and meeting a group of girls and then like eating at Burger King.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like I made out with a girl in the Burger King bathroom once at the mall.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was so fun.
9
SPEAKER_00
But I mean more like I had a boyfriend then and then that s how we hung out.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like I guess what I m saying is I wish I could go to the mall now on a date.
9
SPEAKER_01
With a partner.
9
SPEAKER_00
on a date.
9
SPEAKER_01
You should suggest that.
9
SPEAKER_00
It feels like they d be like, you re a kid.
9
SPEAKER_01
That ship sailed.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
And then now like what we go into Hollister and then he s waiting outside like my dad.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you think he was waiting in the car to pick you up?
9
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s not much of a date as much as a ride to the mall.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s what you re looking for.
9
SPEAKER_00
Can we go on a date to the mall?
9
SPEAKER_00
And you don t have to come in.
9
SPEAKER_00
Don t come in.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m just going to end up annoying you because I m going to be in there forever.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you just sit in the car and enjoy.
9
SPEAKER_01
Watch something on your iPhone.
9
SPEAKER_01
You like to watch movies on your iPhone?
9
SPEAKER_01
Maybe that s how you start the whole conversation.
9
SPEAKER_01
Hey Mark, do you like watching movies on your iPhone?
9
SPEAKER_01
No, but you will?
9
SPEAKER_01
Perfect.
9
SPEAKER_00
That sounds great.
9
SPEAKER_01
Let s go to the mall on a date.
9
SPEAKER_01
You drop me off.
9
SPEAKER_01
I go shopping.
9
SPEAKER_01
I get so horny when I m shopping.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then I come out and I m yours.
9
SPEAKER_01
Seven hours later.
9
SPEAKER_00
Maybe I ll try it out.
9
SPEAKER_01
Tell me how it goes.
9
SPEAKER_01
But nothing we want to say, chit chat.
9
SPEAKER_01
I feel like that ride.
9
SPEAKER_00
You want, you, I know you want us, but that s okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
There was none.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I don t think so.
9
SPEAKER_00
So, I mean, we actually talked, we talked a ton about family stuff because I m, I m, I m, I have a family thing happening right now.
9
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if I m ready to talk about it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, I don t know.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m more, I m afraid to talk about it cause I don t know if they want me talking about it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Totally fair.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh but I do want to give you credit.
9
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_00
Fine, I ll say.
9
SPEAKER_00
My grandfather s in the hospital.
9
SPEAKER_00
He broke his hip and he had surgery and it s been a whole- It was really scary for everyone.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he hit his head and so there was blood everywhere and like the ambulance had to come and
9
SPEAKER_00
And he s, you know, he s really old and he s already, like, he has dementia.
9
SPEAKER_00
And it s kind of like any day, you know, we re already like, I don t know, any day.
9
SPEAKER_00
And then this feels like, oh, it s definitely the end.
9
SPEAKER_01
This is the insane cruelty of all this, right?
9
SPEAKER_01
So like Barton, you ll remember this story.
9
SPEAKER_01
Listener advisory, what s coming next?
9
SPEAKER_01
So you might want to skip forward 30 seconds.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ll try to wrap it up in 30 seconds.
9
SPEAKER_01
So he s dying, he is in hospice.
9
SPEAKER_01
He is in a hospital bed in their room, my mom in his room.
9
SPEAKER_01
And my mom s making them breakfast in the kitchen and she hears, hun, hun, you re gonna wanna come in here.
9
SPEAKER_01
And up to that point his testicles had swelled up so huge.
9
SPEAKER_01
She said they were like grapefruit.
9
SPEAKER_01
And somehow they just ruptured and there was blood spurting from the bed all the way up and hitting the ceiling.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you re like, well, what do we do?
9
SPEAKER_01
You re in hospice.
9
SPEAKER_01
So technically you re not allowed to get any medical service at that point that prolongs your, you ve already declared it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like, what should we do?
9
SPEAKER_01
They end up same thing, you know, ambulance home.
9
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s, well, now we re probably have to pay for it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I don t know about insurance cause it s hospice.
9
SPEAKER_00
We have to ask Carrie.
9
SPEAKER_01
You will have to ask her.
9
SPEAKER_01
Let s get her on the phone.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then get rushed there and end up getting this procedure to stop the bleeding and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
9
SPEAKER_01
In retrospect, she and I both thought out loud like that might have been the time to just let, because apparently bleeding out s kind of a peaceful way to go.
9
SPEAKER_00
Really?
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
From your balls into the ceiling though?
9
SPEAKER_01
Sure, you re seeing your virility right before you die.
9
SPEAKER_01
Wow, it s hitting the ceiling, that s impressive.
9
SPEAKER_00
No, you can t.
9
SPEAKER_00
I know, I know.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s the thing.
9
SPEAKER_01
If it was somewhere else, maybe.
9
SPEAKER_00
No, but you can t.
9
SPEAKER_00
You can t, as a loved one, see that happening.
9
SPEAKER_01
And not stop it.
9
SPEAKER_00
You can t.
9
SPEAKER_01
I know, and you think you re prepared.
9
SPEAKER_01
You ve already said we re in hospice.
9
SPEAKER_01
We already know we re counting down the days until you die, but then this weird thing pops up, and then you re kind of like, well, now what?
9
SPEAKER_01
What s the game plan?
9
SPEAKER_01
As I ve said in the past,
9
SPEAKER_01
The part that s the most uncomfortable for me, other than losing a loved one, is just the anxiety of what is the right course of action?
9
SPEAKER_01
What s the most responsible thing?
9
SPEAKER_01
What s the most humane thing?
9
SPEAKER_01
What s all these things?
9
SPEAKER_01
And you just, it s so unknown.
9
SPEAKER_00
I know.
9
SPEAKER_01
And the hits keep on coming.
9
SPEAKER_01
But we both concluded, because it got worse after that, it became less pleasant for him.
9
SPEAKER_01
He was rotating through these, you know, positions and stuff.
9
SPEAKER_01
So we were both like, huh, that might ve been, you know, in retrospect.
9
SPEAKER_00
So my dad sent me a text and said, call me when you can.
9
SPEAKER_00
And we were about to start Flightless Bird and I was like, oh God, okay.
9
SPEAKER_00
And of course, that to me is bad news.
9
SPEAKER_00
And so when I called, I was expecting just he died.
9
SPEAKER_00
And there s so many feelings of guilt, so much guilt mixed in with all this because.
9
SPEAKER_01
Also a hard one I think for people to say out loud is also sometimes relief.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, exactly.
9
SPEAKER_00
So when the phone was ringing, I had already established like, okay, he s calling to tell me that grandpa died.
9
SPEAKER_00
So I m like waiting for him to pick up.
9
SPEAKER_00
And all of a sudden I got this like crazy rush of fear.
9
SPEAKER_00
What if he s calling me to tell me somebody else has died?
9
SPEAKER_00
Like what if something else really bad happened?
9
SPEAKER_00
And so when he said, hey, so grandpa fell down and I was relieved.
9
SPEAKER_01
Sure, that it wasn t your mom or your brother.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yes, yes.
9
SPEAKER_00
Or him with a bad.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I was like, oh my God.
9
SPEAKER_01
Well, there s naturally a priority list.
9
SPEAKER_00
But oh, like it s just, it s just so much to hold.
9
SPEAKER_00
Now he s in all this pain and they can t give him too much pain medication because of his blood pressure.
9
SPEAKER_01
He had a surgery.
9
SPEAKER_00
So then that was another piece.
9
SPEAKER_00
My dad was like, I guess he s going to have surgery tomorrow.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I said,
9
SPEAKER_00
What?
9
SPEAKER_00
But for them it was the same thing.
9
SPEAKER_00
He s in so much pain.
9
SPEAKER_00
I guess we gotta do a surgery that will try to help that.
9
SPEAKER_01
And probably he s committing to never standing up again before he dies if he doesn t get the operation, but he has some hope of being able to walk.
9
SPEAKER_00
I guess, it s just that everyone is, yeah, forced to make these kind of crazy decisions.
9
SPEAKER_00
So then I was like, well, he s not gonna make it through the surgery.
9
SPEAKER_00
And so then the next morning, I m waiting to hear that call.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I m about to go to Palm Springs with Callie, and I m also thinking, I m like, what do I do?
9
SPEAKER_00
Do I come home right now?
9
SPEAKER_00
If I do come home right now,
9
SPEAKER_00
What does it do?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
How s that helping anything?
9
SPEAKER_00
Ugh.
9
SPEAKER_00
And so then my mom called and said he had the surgery.
9
SPEAKER_00
He s healthy as a horse.
9
SPEAKER_01
He s fine.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
I mean, he wasn t healthy as a horse.
9
SPEAKER_00
I guess I kind of took it as that when she said it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Then at like 8 p.m.
9
SPEAKER_00
she...
9
SPEAKER_00
She was like, he still isn t woken up from anesthesia and he has 101 degree fever.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was like, okay, this sounds really bad again, like what?
9
SPEAKER_00
But then now, I mean, he is awake and he s okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
Healthy as a horse, they re saying.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think the medical term they used was healthy as a e-corn.
9
SPEAKER_00
He s okay, but they re eventually like, he ll come home and it will be hospice, I think.
9
SPEAKER_01
Or, this is a hack, this is an insurance hack, but this is weirdly how I got my father s palliative care paid for was he had, in addition to the heart disease and the cancer that was all over his body, he also had gout bad enough that his feet were swelled up and he couldn t walk.
9
SPEAKER_01
So I got him in a longer term physical rehab place where he had his own room and like this dream scenario he would have never had elsewhere with the lie that he s undergoing some rehabilitation for his feet.
9
SPEAKER_01
So in a weird way, this might end up being a way to buy yourself time where you re not committing to hospice but you re getting some in-house care for the rehabilitation.
9
SPEAKER_00
Originally my mom was first breaking down the surgery.
9
SPEAKER_00
She was she was like, well, he won t be home for a while because After the surgery, he ll have to go to this rehab place.
9
SPEAKER_00
So that was part of the plan again in my
10
SPEAKER_01
In my head, I was thinking, for what?
10
SPEAKER_01
He s gonna go to a rehab place?
10
SPEAKER_01
For what?
10
SPEAKER_01
But then, when I talked to them yesterday, I think they are scratching that plan.
10
SPEAKER_01
He doesn t, he can t, he doesn t know, he can t speak English anymore.
10
SPEAKER_01
No, he only speaks Malayalam, he only knows my grandmother, really?
10
SPEAKER_01
And he just screams, it s not a good situation.
10
SPEAKER_00
He s not to be out in a different environment other than his own.
10
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
10
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, all to say, it s been a kind of,
10
SPEAKER_01
Emotional couple days and weekend, but then you did something very sweet You sent my mom texted me and said that you sent them flowers my mom flowers, which was really kind
10
SPEAKER_00
Did she like that I called her Nermy?
10
SPEAKER_00
Did she mention that?
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, it s funny.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s my name.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s my name for you.
10
SPEAKER_01
You said it wrong.
10
SPEAKER_01
And now that s your name.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, mine is Nermy.
10
SPEAKER_00
So his is Nermy.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, great.
10
SPEAKER_00
So he and I both have a name.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
Okay, good.
10
SPEAKER_00
There s no overlap.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, I, I first,
10
SPEAKER_00
I needed their address.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I hit Neil up, but then I was like using my worst case estimate for what Neil might be so busy and when will he get back to me and I want to send these flowers.
10
SPEAKER_00
So then I just did a Google search and I got their address.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then, you know, so, so then I just, I wanted to get them there Saturday, which was not possible.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I put in a rush order and everything, but it ended up being Sunday.
10
SPEAKER_00
But regardless,
10
SPEAKER_00
I then wrote Neil back because I wanted to alleviate him.
10
SPEAKER_00
So then I was just like, hopefully it s this, because I committed to what I found on the internet.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then to my relief, he said, yeah, that s the right address.
10
SPEAKER_01
That was very sweet.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, I was thinking about how sad you were.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then I thought, well, that s Nurmi s dad.
10
SPEAKER_00
She s the daughter.
10
SPEAKER_00
She s probably, however, much more sad.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
And you can t do anything.
10
SPEAKER_00
You can t do anything.
10
SPEAKER_00
All you can do is let people know like, hey, I see what you re going through in life, and I m sorry that s what s happening.
10
SPEAKER_01
Well, it was the right thing, because I think it really- It gave her a little spring in her step?
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think it made her feel better.
10
SPEAKER_00
Best money I ve spent in a year, then.
10
SPEAKER_00
She wanna take me to Lubbies?
10
SPEAKER_00
As a thank you?
10
SPEAKER_00
Even more.
10
SPEAKER_01
Lubbies?
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Lubbies are Lubbies.
10
SPEAKER_00
Lubricants?
10
SPEAKER_01
My family s not good at that.
10
SPEAKER_00
Receiving.
10
SPEAKER_01
No, we re not good at, we re just not good at emotions.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, by the way, that crossed my mind, like, is this something she would prefer not to receive?
10
SPEAKER_01
Like, is this gonna break her or something?
10
SPEAKER_00
Not even break, just like, mm, again, I only know what I know.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
Where I m from, anyone would like,
10
SPEAKER_00
to know someone was thinking about you.
10
SPEAKER_00
But I don t know if, there was, you know, 6% of my brain that was like, she might feel like her privacy has been invaded, that it s none of my business, or that now she s self-conscious of this thing that s private she s going, I don t, those are all options.
10
SPEAKER_00
And you re just, you re trying to make a calculated gamble that it s the right thing.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yes, well it was.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s good, even though it was not conventional.
10
SPEAKER_01
I think that s why it had such an impact, because people don t do that.
10
SPEAKER_01
Like, no one else is doing that.
10
SPEAKER_01
No one else is, I didn t do it.
10
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s why I m affected.
10
SPEAKER_00
You re all suffering, right?
10
SPEAKER_00
So it s not like her sister s gonna do it to her, her mom s not gonna do it to her.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s just whatever lay, whoever s out of the Padman circle that still cares about her.
10
SPEAKER_01
I know, it s just really, really nice.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I bet a lot of people struggle with this, like, I don t really know what to do.
10
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if I need to go.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right.
10
SPEAKER_01
I m already going home in a couple weeks.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it seems a little crazy to go that far.
10
SPEAKER_01
I know, but I guess it would be for me.
10
SPEAKER_00
Right.
10
SPEAKER_01
But then what am I getting?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s hard.
10
SPEAKER_00
It is.
10
SPEAKER_00
You ll be able to go see him as he s recovering in a couple weeks.
10
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s my hope.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
But like things take, what if they take a crazy turn?
10
SPEAKER_01
I, again, yeah, I guess it s more for me.
10
SPEAKER_00
You just decide what you re going to want to live with and you decide whether that s going to haunt you or not.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I, I don t know why it would given you re going to go see him in a couple of weeks.
10
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s only gonna haunt me.
10
SPEAKER_00
If he dies.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
But even at that point, he won t know.
10
SPEAKER_00
I know.
10
SPEAKER_00
So it s just whatever weight you decide to put on yourself.
10
SPEAKER_00
I know.
10
SPEAKER_00
About it.
10
SPEAKER_01
I m like, do I already have closure or not?
10
SPEAKER_00
You don t have a great longing to see him right now, do you?
10
SPEAKER_01
I have a confusing feeling.
10
SPEAKER_01
There is a sense of.
10
SPEAKER_00
Familial piety?
10
SPEAKER_00
Like this is what you re supposed to do?
10
SPEAKER_01
I guess a little bit of that, but it s actually more, I mean, we were so close.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
That if I m there, like he ll know.
10
SPEAKER_00
He ll feel.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I do want him to have that.
10
SPEAKER_00
And he s gonna.
10
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, so that s that, but what about your weekend?
10
SPEAKER_00
Wait, hold on.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, my life has ended because we finished couples therapy.
10
SPEAKER_01
I know.
10
SPEAKER_00
So life s over, but.
10
SPEAKER_00
Luckily, Jet again, and then Jackie independently both said you need to watch Love Has Won.
10
SPEAKER_00
Have you heard of this doc?
10
SPEAKER_01
Elizabeth and Andy have talked about it.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s wild.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s a cult thing too, right?
10
SPEAKER_00
It s a cult doc about Mother God.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and it is so out there already.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s pretty wild.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we re hooked.
10
SPEAKER_00
I love, you know me and cult docs.
10
SPEAKER_00
I ve yet to see a cult doc I didn t, I wasn t grateful I spent the time on.
10
SPEAKER_00
Even when they re not great, I love them.
10
SPEAKER_00
I love them.
10
SPEAKER_01
I agree.
10
SPEAKER_01
I started The Curse.
10
SPEAKER_01
Have you started that?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I ve started that one.
10
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_00
What s that?
10
SPEAKER_01
It s Nathan Fielder.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, right.
10
SPEAKER_00
The trailers look incredible.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_01
This is also so bizarre.
10
SPEAKER_01
I haven t finished the first episode, so no spoilers.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s really fascinating.
10
SPEAKER_00
Is it reality or scripted?
10
SPEAKER_01
It s scripted, but it s shot.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s like a satire about reality show.
10
SPEAKER_01
Kind of, and white saviors.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s really, it s good, I think.
10
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I m not that far in.
10
SPEAKER_01
Recommend.
10
SPEAKER_00
Okay, I m on it.
10
SPEAKER_01
All right, well this is for Maria, great style.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna give you a couple more, I didn t do any updates.
10
SPEAKER_00
One is I went to Sphere on Friday.
10
SPEAKER_01
Huge update.
10
SPEAKER_00
With Eric, Molly, Jen, and Larry trilling.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh fun.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s lovely.
10
SPEAKER_00
Larry and Jan boy.
10
SPEAKER_00
What a special couple.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
I feel so lucky to be spending time with them now.
10
SPEAKER_00
Um, it was extraordinary.
10
SPEAKER_00
That place is extraordinary.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s tell me everything.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, I just was thinking like, what s cool about it is it s not something you would go to once.
10
SPEAKER_00
the programming inside is going to change every time there s a concert there.
10
SPEAKER_00
And the programming is so interesting and exciting.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like I ll want to keep going.
10
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s wild.
10
SPEAKER_00
There s points where like they make the whole
10
SPEAKER_00
You re sitting where you d be sitting if there was no sphere, and it s all of Vegas around you, but it s really Vegas and there s cars moving, so you feel like you re completely outside in a parking lot watching YouTube play for a minute, and then you re in the desert, and you re in the prettiest part of the Vegas desert, and it s everywhere, and it s bright all of a sudden.
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I was thinking if you re on drugs, that s probably a rough part of it.
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Where it s like you re jamming to U2 and it s dark and trippy and then all of a sudden you re it s like High noon in the desert.
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SPEAKER_00
You re probably like, oh fuck.
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SPEAKER_00
I m supposed to be asleep.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, I don t know Also, there was a couple on clearly on Mandy MDMA.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, that s what Jethro calls it in England.
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SPEAKER_00
They call it Mandy And it makes more sense Mandy
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, this couple was on hundreds of hits of Mandy, I guess.
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SPEAKER_00
They were standing the entire show, making out for two hours.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t know how they didn t fuck.
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SPEAKER_00
Like I m blown away, their clothes didn t come off.
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SPEAKER_00
They were passionately standing and making out the whole time.
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SPEAKER_01
But is it unsettling?
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SPEAKER_00
No, I loved it.
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SPEAKER_01
No, not them.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, the experience.
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SPEAKER_00
No, no.
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SPEAKER_00
There were some, some more, I guess, aggressive kind of poppy type things that were Niani.
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SPEAKER_01
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
Those weren t my favorite ones, but then there was just like, at the end there was this incredible,
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SPEAKER_00
You are underwater.
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SPEAKER_00
The illusions they can create because it s completely a dome, they make it look dead square.
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SPEAKER_00
Like all of a sudden now you re in a rectangle room and the dimensions, they ve got it all worked out.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t know how everywhere you sit,
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SPEAKER_00
the illusions working work is clearly the letters have to be different shapes and complying with that point of view.
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SPEAKER_00
So the math of it is like mind boggling that they can make.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then of course they can do it where you re looking up to almost infinity and you can t tell that it s not going to infinity.
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SPEAKER_01
Did you feel nauseous at all?
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SPEAKER_00
No.
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SPEAKER_01
Did anyone?
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SPEAKER_00
No.
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SPEAKER_00
And like Jen and Kristen were both nervous it was going to be too much stimulation for them, but it wasn t.
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SPEAKER_00
Everyone was cool.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, fuck.
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SPEAKER_00
You want me to name drop?
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, sure.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, remember, did you end up watching?
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watching the models doc?
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah, loved, yeah.
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And do you remember who I said my favorite was?
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SPEAKER_01
No.
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There was such a clear favorite for me.
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SPEAKER_03
Chrissy Turlington?
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SPEAKER_01
Yep.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah, she s great.
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SPEAKER_01
We went down to the floor for the last third of it.
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SPEAKER_01
I was dancing right next to her the whole time.
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SPEAKER_03
Wow, that s exciting.
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SPEAKER_01
She was there.
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SPEAKER_03
Fun.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, great dancer.
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SPEAKER_03
Oh, great.
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SPEAKER_01
She was living up to what you wanted her to be from the doc.
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SPEAKER_03
Okay, great.
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SPEAKER_01
It was great.
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SPEAKER_03
Fun.
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SPEAKER_01
Those people on the floor are fucking out of their mind.
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SPEAKER_03
And could anyone just go down to the floor, or you had passengers?
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know how that worked.
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SPEAKER_01
We had some help from the folks at the sphere.
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They were very, very nice and helpful to us.
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SPEAKER_01
That s nice.
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SPEAKER_01
Yes, we were very spoiled.
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SPEAKER_03
I wonder who else is gonna play there.
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I know, I can t wait to go back.
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It s so cool.
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And the fact that there s 18,000 people in there is crazy.
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SPEAKER_01
That s like the staple center.
11
SPEAKER_02
Why do you think my epilepsy would have held up?
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SPEAKER_01
I think it would have been fine.
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SPEAKER_01
Okay.
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I do, I do.
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SPEAKER_01
They must be semi-conscious of the strobing-ness, but there were some practical strobing-ness at any concert.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
There were some light strobes at some point.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
And then, yeah, it was great.
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It would have worked out great for me, as all my favorite songs happen to be at the end.
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And it was while we were on the floor for dancing and stuff.
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And it was great, it was so much fun.
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SPEAKER_01
And then, that s not even the highlight of the musical weekend.
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SPEAKER_01
So then last night was Lily s birthday party at karaoke.
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And they should rename karaoke to Taylor Swift.
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SPEAKER_02
That s it.
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Because it was a 14 year old s birthday party.
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SPEAKER_01
So there was like, I don t know, a dozen or 15 teenage girls.
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SPEAKER_01
And every single song that was played
11
SPEAKER_01
was T-Swift.
11
SPEAKER_03
Did you sing?
11
SPEAKER_01
No.
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SPEAKER_01
I wanted to.
11
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
And I was saying, this is not your time.
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SPEAKER_02
Oh, that s nice.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
Of course, first song is Lily singing, Taylor Swift.
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Uh-huh.
11
SPEAKER_01
And I start reflecting on the fact that I met her when she was a seven-year-old little girl.
11
SPEAKER_02
I know, it s crazy.
11
SPEAKER_01
And then I m crying.
11
SPEAKER_02
She s 14.
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SPEAKER_02
Oh, wow, okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
Crying, first song, crying, Taylor Swift.
11
SPEAKER_01
Seeing how excited these girls are again about Taylor.
11
SPEAKER_01
It was eras all over again.
11
SPEAKER_03
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_01
And Lincoln and Dahlia sang a Taylor Swift song, so of course now I m crying about that.
11
SPEAKER_03
Oh, wow.
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SPEAKER_01
And then Delta and Kristen sang a Frozen song.
11
SPEAKER_03
Oh, sweet, and you cried then.
11
SPEAKER_01
Of course, because I m like, I m just so happy for Kristen that she got to sing that thing with her little girl.
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What could be sweeter?
11
SPEAKER_02
So special.
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I did not want to go.
11
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I don t want to go to a teenage birthday party in Koreatown on a Sunday night at 6 p.m.
11
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to do karaoke.
11
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And by God, immediately I was having a great time.
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And it was so fun and heartwarming.
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SPEAKER_03
Great.
11
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Great weekend for you.
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SPEAKER_01
Great weekend.
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SPEAKER_01
Really great weekend.
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Okay, Maria.
11
SPEAKER_01
Maria.
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SPEAKER_03
I only have one fact.
11
SPEAKER_03
Okay, great.
11
SPEAKER_03
But it is a really important one.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s a whopper.
11
SPEAKER_03
It s the one that everyone in Los Angeles can t stop talking about, including us, which is why do we still have daylight savings?
11
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when we all voted years ago to get rid of it.
11
SPEAKER_03
Now, this is from NBCSanDiego.com.
11
SPEAKER_03
Why are we still changing our clocks for daylight saving time in the U.S.?
11
SPEAKER_03
Back in March 2022, the U.S.
11
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Senate unanimously passed the Sunshine Protection Act that would have made daylight savings time permanent starting in November 2023, which means Americans would stop switching their clocks back or forward twice a year.
11
SPEAKER_03
The bill was stalled in the House and it expired.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, fuck.
11
SPEAKER_03
However, Senator Rubio reintroduced the Sunshine Protection Act of 2023 on March 2nd to make daylight savings time permanent across the nation.
11
SPEAKER_03
Okay, didn t Californians vote to remove daylight savings time in 2020?
11
SPEAKER_03
Yes, Californians did.
11
SPEAKER_03
So why are we still changing our clocks then?
11
SPEAKER_03
Prop 7, 2018, that prop passed by nearly 60% of the vote, giving the California legislator the ability to change daylight savings time.
11
SPEAKER_01
So that s the weird trick.
11
SPEAKER_01
We passed it, but all it did was give the legislator the ability to change it.
11
SPEAKER_03
Exactly, that s what it says.
11
SPEAKER_03
Prop 7 didn t actually change daylight savings time.
11
SPEAKER_03
It just gave the state legislator the ability to actually change it if they earn a two-thirds vote on it and if the federal government already allows it.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, fuck.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s dependent on the federal government?
11
SPEAKER_01
Yep.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, jeez.
11
SPEAKER_01
Why is Arizona able to just do it?
11
SPEAKER_01
You know, Arizona hasn t had it for decades.
11
SPEAKER_01
I don t get it.
11
SPEAKER_03
I hate it.
11
SPEAKER_03
It is dark at 4.15.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I will say, though, I ve been enjoying, because I wake up kind of early to meditate, and I really appreciate if there s some sunlight I can stare at.
11
SPEAKER_01
You re my enemy.
11
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I don t want it, but I have been finding the silver lining of it, which is when I meditate, it s not dark out.
11
SPEAKER_03
Oof, boy, do I hate it.
11
SPEAKER_03
Anyway, that s the fact.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s the fact.
11
SPEAKER_01
And it s really- Tune in for the fact check.
11
SPEAKER_01
The fact check.
11
SPEAKER_01
I m glad you read that.
11
SPEAKER_01
So now my expectations will be in the toilet where they should have been for the last three years.
11
SPEAKER_03
Exactly.
11
SPEAKER_03
We were living on hope and it was wrong.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, entirely.
11
SPEAKER_03
Well, we have one more week of regular episodes and then we have some fun end of year stuff coming your way.
11
SPEAKER_01
Making it fun at the end of the year.
11
SPEAKER_03
And then we have a week off and then we re back in jam.
11
SPEAKER_01
for a whole new, a whole new year.
11
SPEAKER_03
A whole new year.
11
SPEAKER_01
With some resolutions.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_01
Some commitments, some new commitments, some reflecting on the old ones.
11
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, we need to write down what, or we guess we could just listen to what we said.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, whatever we achieved anyway.
11
SPEAKER_03
Actually, that s kind of fun.
11
SPEAKER_03
Maybe we should play it.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_03
On our first episode back.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
11
SPEAKER_03
What?
11
SPEAKER_01
Let s go out with this.
11
SPEAKER_01
The first one s gonna make you jealous.
11
SPEAKER_02
Oh man.
11
SPEAKER_01
But I need you to rest assured that you ll be taken care of, okay?
11
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, Dax!
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, oh yeah, Dax!
11
SPEAKER_00
We listening to At Last, man.
11
SPEAKER_00
I m so glad we got a chance to chop it up.
11
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna hit you up when I m back.
11
SPEAKER_00
Whoa, dad!
11
SPEAKER_03
That s incredible.
11
SPEAKER_01
I can t tell you how smiley I was when I got that.
11
SPEAKER_01
Now here s part two.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh my god.
11
SPEAKER_02
Here s part two.
11
Oh
11
SPEAKER_01
Wow, how do I move in with him?
11
SPEAKER_01
I just need to know how I immediately move in with him He s actually doing exactly what I d hoped someone with that superpower would do which is just like let it rip all the time about nothing just send people messages
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, man.
11
SPEAKER_03
Love it.
11
SPEAKER_03
Oh, John.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, John.
11
SPEAKER_01
You changed our lives.
11
SPEAKER_03
He really did.
11
SPEAKER_03
He s a life-changing person.
11
SPEAKER_03
Oh, my God.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s true.
11
SPEAKER_03
All right, well, I love you.
11
SPEAKER_03
All right, love you.