June 16, 2022 • 23 mins
In this episode of the PlayBooked Podcast, Chloe and Kristi switch roles. Kristi, Forbes sports business journalist and owner of Business of College Sports, is the host and interviews Chloe about her experience as an entrepreneurial athlete, being a founder of PlayBooked while maintaining her job as a TikTok influencer, how to best monetize your NIL while on social media, and if she is happy she chose the life of a college athlete!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Playbooked is a production of I Heart Radio and the
College Athletes Network. Hey everybody, this is the Playbook Podcast
and you are listening to clobe Vie Mitchell, your host
on the College Athletes Network. Please subscribe to the podcast
so you never miss a new episode, and this can
(00:21):
easily be done via the I Heart Radio app. In
this episode of the Playbook Podcast, Christie takes my job
as the host and we switch rules and she gets
to interview me about my experience as the first college
athlete in history to be paid off of my name,
image and likeness. I also talked about how my experience
went with founding Playbooked, my company, while maintaining my job
(00:43):
as a TikTok influencer. We also touch on the best
ways to monetize your nil while on social media. Okay, everybody,
I am here with Christy, my dear friend, my mentor,
and like I mentioned, she is going to be our
beautiful host today, so I'm gonna let her take it away. Chris,
do you want to you want to introduce yourself to
our listeners? Yes, thank you for having me Chloe and
(01:05):
letting me come interview you. We've we've done this before,
so we're old pros at this together. Now. I am
a sports business reporter for Forbes and have been for
gosh eleven years now. I took a two year break
where I was the sports business reporter at ESPN, and
also during all that time, I have owned a site
(01:27):
called Business of College Sports. And so I've actually been
writing about and talking about name image and likeness for
about a decade now and knew that this day would come,
just didn't know when it would happen. But I've been
preparing for it for a long time and it has
been so interesting and so much fun to see it
play out, kind of this first full school year that
(01:48):
we've had name image and likeness, and it's led me
to meet student athletes like you. And you were the
first student athlete to monetize your name image, Like now
you're gonna be like the answer to a trivia question
one day. Oh my goodness, I would love to be. Wow. Okay,
So what was that first deal? What was the first
thing you got paid to use your name, image and
likeness for? I love it. My first deal was with
(02:14):
a golf company too, golf companies I got connected with
through Delta Put and Bloodline putter through. Actually my company
playbooked and it happened with a very very fast paced
timeline all of a sudden, the n A I A,
which will delve into later, really breaking that down for
our listeners. The n ai A, which is where I play,
(02:34):
who I play for. They passed the legislation just randomly
one day and I got a call from my dad.
I remember exactly where I was in the dorm parking lot,
and he was like, Chloe, they passed legislation. Oh my goodness,
this is insane. We need to get you to be
the first athlete. And I was like, I I completely agree.
I need to be the first athlete. This is what
we've been working for. So we got in contact with
(02:57):
those with the golf company. I made a cute little
mini golf course inside for Father's Day in my living room.
You can even watch it on my Instagram if you're interested.
And I posted it and we didn't hear back anything
for three days, no, no media, no nothing. And then
at that third day it just blew up and everybody
(03:18):
was talking about it. And that's you know how I
can in contact with you and I I wouldn't take
it back for the world but one thing I would
do differently is I would have drawn out that that
little mini golf course video because I don't think it
was my best content. But yeah, that was the first
That was the first deal. It's a sign that you're
(03:41):
getting better, though, when you look back at your old
work and you're horrified, because that's HOWEL about my writing
in the early years, and it means that you're progressing
and growing. So that's okay. I mean, I sure hope
so because I look back at that video and I
just I just cringe, But it's it's a constant theme
in my life to look back at the content I'm
reading and be like, oh, that was terrible, Chloe, that
(04:02):
was terrible, But like you said, it to sign a growth,
like you, I was caught a little off guard when
I got the press released from the n A I
A that they were instituting new name, image and likeness
rules because as reporters, we were all very focused on
what the n C double A was doing. We knew
that they were going to vote on it July, which
by the I'm sorry January, which then they didn't. It
(04:25):
took them until uh late June. But we were so
focused on that January date for the n C double
A that I remember getting that n ai A press
release October of and being like, wait a second, what
so you mentioned that you founded this company playbooked. What
did that timeline look like though, in terms of sort
(04:48):
of being aware that name, image and likeness might happen,
and then it actually happened and you managed to get
a business started pretty quickly in all of that, What
did that look like from your point of view? I
love that question because the answer is so simple. For me,
it was a problem. It was a problem that I
was going into my freshman year of college and I
(05:10):
was making money already as an influencer, and I knew
that I could lose my eligibility the second I step
on campus and the second I mentioned I'm a college
athlete and I'm making money. It was that simple. And
so I went to my dad with this problem, and
I'm like, I'm freaking out and making this great money.
I'm really excited about it, but I'm not going to
be allowed to in a few months once I step
(05:30):
on that volleyball court and start promoting myself as the
college athlete I've always dreamed to be. And so months
prior to that legislation passing for the n A I A.
My dad and I came up with the idea of
playbooked and he's the mastermind. Honestly, he's He's the most
fantastic business partner father, He's everything, and he really helped
(05:53):
build this business from the ground up. And so we
already had a board in place, we already had a
president in place, a CEO, CFO, everything when the n
AI legislation passed. So we are a year ahead of
everybody else in the industry. And that's what I think
(06:13):
makes us so special, not just as a company but
as people to We literally have a year, three hundred
sixty five days headstart. Jump on everything you need to
know about NIL, everything you need to know about conducting
these brand deals, getting in contact with brands, um learning
(06:34):
from trial and error. I mean, I'm the test bunny, right,
I know, I know the ins and outs of this
entire um NIL situation, you could say, but yeah, that's
pretty much the timeline. Do your teammates look to you
to learn more about N I L and how you're
doing things? I feel like they do. But I feel
(06:58):
like my teammates, my teammates we're a freakishly close team.
We are a full blown family, freakishly close. And this
year I forgot to tell you Christie offline, Um, I'm
a captain. I'm a captain. Know what kind of congratulations?
I'm sure they're so sweet, thank you. I'm really excited
about it and honored to be trusted by my teams
(07:20):
and my teammates and my coach that much. Um. But anyways,
we're really close, so I feel like instead of looking
up to me about it, they just kind of make
fun of me about it, um, because they think it's
great what I'm doing. But it's not really a lot
of them, it's not really their scene. I have a
few teammates who actually worked with playbooks and done deals
and they're fantastic. But they could say they look up
(07:45):
to me, but at the end of the day, they're
always poking fun of me, and I love them for that.
They keep me humbled for sure. Yeah, that kind of
tough question for you. So being both a lawyer and
a journalist is tough because as a lawyer, were taught
that you never asked a question you don't know the
answer or two, And then as a journalist were taught
to like, ask all the questions you don't know the
answers to. So this is what I don't know the
(08:06):
answer to you and I have never talked about this before.
If the n ai A had not changed their n
I L rules, were you willing to give up playing
collegiately to follow what you were doing as an influencer. Wow,
that's a killer question. That's a killer question, and that's
the decision people had to make for decades, forever, forever.
(08:27):
I'm going to answer that question once we come back
from this break. Everybody, you are listening to the Playbooks podcast.
I am Chloe Vie Mitchell and this is the College
Athletes Network. Welcome back to the Playbook pod cast on
(09:00):
the College Athletes Network. This is College Mitchell, your host,
but today Christie Josh has taken over and choose your host.
So subscribe to my podcast so you don't miss a
show like this one. Christie. Answering your question about if
I would have given up my lifelong dream to play
collegiate volleyball an order to pursue my career as an influencer,
(09:20):
That's a hard one for me because people have to
make that decision. They have been a number of student
athletes over the years who have given up playing collegiately
in order to do sponsorships and make money in other
ways that they weren't allowed to buy the n C
double A or the n A I A. Oh, and
I remember reading that story about um the the collegiate athlete.
(09:42):
He was a male, and he was a YouTuber, and
I remember seeing that he was quitting as a college
athlete to keep doing YouTube and thinking, Oh, I'd never
be put in that position. And here I was. Here,
I was in the middle of a pandemic, questioning if
all of the blood, sweat and tears that I had
put in my sport was for nothing, because I was
(10:03):
making great money and I deserved to earn that money
and I didn't want to give that up. I don't
think I would have given it up back then. No,
I don't think I knew the potential. I don't think
I knew. I didn't know what I didn't know. And
I think that is really what's happening across the board
with a lot of student athletes. You don't know what
(10:23):
you don't know when it comes to know. And now
that I'm the most three years in two years in,
I would have quitten a heartbeat. If I knew what
I did now, I would have quitten a heartbeat. You
would have quit playing, yes, because ah no, I know
it's hard, right and to the force people to make
that decision at seventeen eighteen, nineteen twenty years old, to
(10:50):
a major life decision. I mean, honestly, if you stopped
what you were doing on the influencer front and you
went and played collegiately for four years and you weren't
able to do anything with that at the end of
those four years, would you be able to pick right
back up where you left off. Probably not. I mean,
you know, it kind of depends on how much you
kept up with your social media and that kind of stuff.
(11:10):
But how many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands
or millions in those four years would you have passed
up to play college volleyball? Yeah, but people had to
make those decisions. They had to, and I guess I
completely take my answer back. I am playing volleyball one
because I love it, but it's a means to an end.
It's helping me pay for my school, it's it's a job.
(11:34):
It quite frankly, is a full blown job. It's getting
my degree. I guess I would have had to quit influencing.
I don't know. I love that you asked that question
because now I'm gonna be thinking about it forever. That is,
you didn't have to make that the same end, which
leads us to, how on earth are you doing everything
that you're doing? Because you're excelling academically. You had a
(11:56):
fantastic volleyball season. Playbooked is growing, your personal brand is growing,
now you've got a podcast. How does Chloe Mitchell schedule
herself and at the same time protect time with your time,
time with your friends and family and other people. You're
so cute. I When people ask me this, I always
(12:17):
giggle because when you put everything I'm doing on paper,
it's like, oh, my goodness, how's this girl doing this?
She doesn't sleep at night at the end of the day.
At first, it was really hard for me to organize everything.
Get used to putting my sleep in a Google calendar.
You know, really you understand, really segmenting my day with
(12:38):
what I need to do. That was difficult at first.
But now it's like second nature. And I love the
routine and I love how strict it is, and I
love that it happens to do. And I think that
that's something that is really natural for a college athlete
or somebody who is in the sports world. You have practice,
you have training, you have left, you have pt you
have you have everything, and so just adding on that
(13:02):
extra layer of rigorous schedule it was natural for me.
I know that sounds really weird, but it was natural.
And I know you and I talked about it before
we hit record, and I was telling you that when
I went to college, I decided not to play my sport,
and the freshman year I was like a drift because
I was so used to being overscheduled with you know,
high school classes and my sport and I worked a
(13:24):
part time job at the end of high school and
juggling all those things. When I got to college and
I wasn't juggling anything. All I had with school, I
had no job, I had no sport, I had no
idea what to do with myself, and I wasn't doing
as well in school as I did when I was
overscheduled because I would put things off. But when something
(13:44):
has to be done in the time slot I made
for it on my calendar, it gets done. And so
I am better overscheduled and like you. I mean, the
number one thing people say to me is, I don't
know how you do. Everything you do, you must not sleep,
And they're always surprised when I tell them I get
eight hours of sleep every night and I require sleep.
I am not someone who thrives on like going on
(14:07):
four or five hours and like getting up at you know,
four thirty am to like work out and start my
That is not my life. That is not how I
air at all. I get eight hours every night, and
then from the time I wake up till the time
I go to bed, I am scheduled, like down to
the minute most days. But that works for me. And
you just have to know what works for you, totally do.
And I really want to drive this point home. Actually
(14:31):
before I say that point, I do want to say.
I think when you peel back the layers of being
over scheduled, it's that self discipline piece that college athletes
all have. You have to be a little crazy, you
have got to have an insane amount of self discipline,
and most college athletes, I should say, but the point
that I was going to make is disclaimer of sorts.
(14:54):
It's that overbooking myself is awesome until it's lot and
being really conscious, what I've learned this year is if
I feel like I'm too busy or need a day
of rest or need a mental health day, that is
also completely fine as well. You know, and I'm sure
you have those days as well. But being super overscheduled
(15:17):
is awesome until it's not. And if I need a
day to take off, I do that. I just I
just wanted to say that as well, because its athletes
we're taught. Victoria Garrett talked about this in a TED
talk and she was a former volleyball player, and she
talks about how athletes are always told to push through,
to push through, to push through the pain, to push
through the tiredness, and sometimes to push through the mental
(15:38):
health struggles. And breaking that stigma and being like you
don't have to push through you can openly talk about
it is really important, especially when you're an athlete like
me that is always overbooked. So I just wanted to
include that piece. No, And I think the mental health
piece is so important, especially unfortunately this school year and
not just this school year, it happens every school year. Uh,
(15:59):
you know, we have seen student athletes who have really
struggled with their mental health, sometimes with tragic consequences, and
so I do think it's important, especially with the kind
of one more thing getting added on people's plates with
n I l to figure out what you need for
your mental health. What what you need, Chloe might be
different than what I need. And you mentioned before we
(16:20):
started recording that you have been trying more to put
your phone down at sort of the end of your day,
tell people what you're trying to do and what's working
for you right now. Of course, I love that we're
talking about this. We I don't know why I said
we we mean my phone. I am really trying to
be conscious of when I work, how many hours I
(16:43):
put in, and when to put my day phone down
so our listeners know that I work online exclusively and
not exclusively, but everything I do go through my phone,
whether it's personal or whether it's professional, and putting a
boundary with the professional side and only doing personal stuff
(17:05):
is really hard for me, and I'm really working on
it and really being conscious of it. So lately I've
been putting my phone on do not Stir, where sometimes
I even have to put into my closet and just
shut the door and just not have it on me, because,
like you said, figuring out what works for me, creating
those personal boundaries, those healthy boundaries with my phone and
(17:26):
with my work is is my new goal. That And
this is gonna sound really odd. That and eating more vegetables.
I know college affine can be saying that, but I'm
really trying to eat more veggies. But you'll have to
teach me your trick because I am also not good
at putting my phone down and not good at eating
my veggies. So you do it together, Christie me and
(17:47):
you might have gotta hide your spinach in your smoothies.
That kind That's how I get by all of those things.
When you come to Michigan, I'm gonna take you to
this um this place called Fruition. This is a shameless promo.
They're not they're not I'm saying this at all, but
Fruition is the best and they're like super healthy and
you can't even taste it. Now, you take this episode
to them and say, look, I talked about you in
that episode exactly. Hey, you want to, you know, do
(18:10):
some collaboration. Okay, we are heading into our second break
you're listening to the Playbook podcast. I am your host,
Clovie Mitchell and this is the College Athletes Network. Welcome
(18:42):
back to the Playbooks podcast on the College Athletes Network.
This is your host Cloevie Mitchell, and today our host
is actually Christie Josh. So subscribe to my podcast so
you don't miss an episode, especially like this fun one. Okay,
what I want to know is what's next for Chloe
mitch amper playbooked And we're going into summer, and I
(19:03):
think for me as a reporter, this is gonna be
a really interesting time period for me because student athletes
have largely had to juggle in I L and classes.
Now they're going to have a whole summer to maybe
focus on things that they want to start or they
want to grow. And so every student athlete I've been
talking to recently, I've been asking, how are you planning
to spend your summer in terms of things you're gonna
(19:26):
do to propel your personal brand and your n I
L efforts forward. Oh I'm so excited to answer this. Well,
like I was mentioned earlier, because I had a year
jump because the n A I A is not the
n C double A not D want, not D two,
not D three for our listeners. Uh Vanna. I is
(19:46):
a completely separate entity. And this head start with playbooked
and with myself has opened up doors that I never
thought would be opened. I got the amazing opportunity to
work with an agency UM D b A out of California,
and they really taught me how to negotiate. They taught
(20:08):
me how to demand a seat at the table with
men and experienced businesswomen. And like I said, that has
opened up doors for twenty year old little Chloe that
I never thought would be open. For example, I just
signed and I can talk about this openly. I'm so
excited about it. I just signed my biggest ever deal
(20:30):
with Fabletics. It's a three month long deal and it's
all throughout the summer, and they send me their incredible
clothes and they obviously pay me that baseline rate UM
and I get to post about them and I get
to work closely with their marketing team. And the best
part about this, Christie, was I negotiated this entire deal
(20:50):
my manager, who's also my mom. By the way, I'm
really he's fabulous. He's fabulous. Her and Christie are my
favorite people on the planet. Um, she had no partner.
She had no partner. I would like send things to
my mom, my manager, and she would copy and paste
them and send them. Just just to have that little
professional piece that go between person right and seeing myself
(21:15):
do that has instilled this sense of confidence in me
and going forward this summer. I got off the phone
this morning with a brand that wants to talk about
compensation as well as an equity piece, and I'm talking
to obviously Playbooked is what I'm gonna be doing the
entire summer, but brands that want to work with me
(21:36):
and Playbooked, which has been my dream almost. I also
just bought in nineteen holiday Rambler travel trailer. Oh my gosh. Yeah,
just that there's something random. So on top of all
these brand deals, I'm gonna be doing a passion project
for me. Um it was the most expensive thing I've
ever bought, minus my car, and I just bought it
(22:00):
and I drove it home and now I'm going to
be renovating it on my TikTok as well as so
like getting brands to collaborate with that. Um, that project is,
I don't know, it's a it's a big summer. There's
a lot going on. I could ramble on and on
and on about it, but I just I just wanted
to talk about how although the summer is busy, and
although work is going to be awesome and fun and crazy,
(22:21):
I'm just I'm just proud of myself. I'm gonna go
into this summer with I'm really proud of myself, and
I'm really grateful for the relationships we've created, especially with you,
and I just want to use this gratitude, in this
attitude to help other athletes, not not help other athletes.
Let me take that back, empower other athletes. I'm so
sick of hearing let's help the athlete. Let's let's help
(22:44):
them do this, Let's make them into who they're No,
we're going to empower them. We're going to teach them,
and we're going to enable them to be the best
student athlete, collegiate athlete they could possibly be. One example
I give people all the time of the ways and
which I have worked with student athletes. I have not
taken a dime from any student athlete for anything. It's
(23:05):
just people who reach out by email or d M
and they ask me questions and I one of the
examples I give is that I talked to you about
some deals that you've looked at. Playbooked is a production
of I heart Radio and the College Athletes Network. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Playbooked is a production of I Heart Radio and the
College Athletes Network. Hey everybody, this is the Playbook Podcast
and you are listening to clobe Vie Mitchell, your host
on the College Athletes Network. Please subscribe to the podcast
so you never miss a new episode, and this can
(00:21):
easily be done via the I Heart Radio app. In
this episode of the Playbook Podcast, Christie takes my job
as the host and we switch rules and she gets
to interview me about my experience as the first college
athlete in history to be paid off of my name,
image and likeness. I also talked about how my experience
went with founding Playbooked, my company, while maintaining my job
(00:43):
as a TikTok influencer. We also touch on the best
ways to monetize your nil while on social media. Okay, everybody,
I am here with Christy, my dear friend, my mentor,
and like I mentioned, she is going to be our
beautiful host today, so I'm gonna let her take it away. Chris,
do you want to you want to introduce yourself to
our listeners? Yes, thank you for having me Chloe and
(01:05):
letting me come interview you. We've we've done this before,
so we're old pros at this together. Now. I am
a sports business reporter for Forbes and have been for
gosh eleven years now. I took a two year break
where I was the sports business reporter at ESPN, and
also during all that time, I have owned a site
(01:27):
called Business of College Sports. And so I've actually been
writing about and talking about name image and likeness for
about a decade now and knew that this day would come,
just didn't know when it would happen. But I've been
preparing for it for a long time and it has
been so interesting and so much fun to see it
play out, kind of this first full school year that
(01:48):
we've had name image and likeness, and it's led me
to meet student athletes like you. And you were the
first student athlete to monetize your name image, Like now
you're gonna be like the answer to a trivia question
one day. Oh my goodness, I would love to be. Wow. Okay,
So what was that first deal? What was the first
thing you got paid to use your name, image and
likeness for? I love it. My first deal was with
(02:14):
a golf company too, golf companies I got connected with
through Delta Put and Bloodline putter through. Actually my company
playbooked and it happened with a very very fast paced
timeline all of a sudden, the n A I A,
which will delve into later, really breaking that down for
our listeners. The n ai A, which is where I play,
(02:34):
who I play for. They passed the legislation just randomly
one day and I got a call from my dad.
I remember exactly where I was in the dorm parking lot,
and he was like, Chloe, they passed legislation. Oh my goodness,
this is insane. We need to get you to be
the first athlete. And I was like, I I completely agree.
I need to be the first athlete. This is what
we've been working for. So we got in contact with
(02:57):
those with the golf company. I made a cute little
mini golf course inside for Father's Day in my living room.
You can even watch it on my Instagram if you're interested.
And I posted it and we didn't hear back anything
for three days, no, no media, no nothing. And then
at that third day it just blew up and everybody
(03:18):
was talking about it. And that's you know how I
can in contact with you and I I wouldn't take
it back for the world but one thing I would
do differently is I would have drawn out that that
little mini golf course video because I don't think it
was my best content. But yeah, that was the first
That was the first deal. It's a sign that you're
(03:41):
getting better, though, when you look back at your old
work and you're horrified, because that's HOWEL about my writing
in the early years, and it means that you're progressing
and growing. So that's okay. I mean, I sure hope
so because I look back at that video and I
just I just cringe, But it's it's a constant theme
in my life to look back at the content I'm
reading and be like, oh, that was terrible, Chloe, that
(04:02):
was terrible, But like you said, it to sign a growth,
like you, I was caught a little off guard when
I got the press released from the n A I
A that they were instituting new name, image and likeness
rules because as reporters, we were all very focused on
what the n C double A was doing. We knew
that they were going to vote on it July, which
by the I'm sorry January, which then they didn't. It
(04:25):
took them until uh late June. But we were so
focused on that January date for the n C double
A that I remember getting that n ai A press
release October of and being like, wait a second, what
so you mentioned that you founded this company playbooked. What
did that timeline look like though, in terms of sort
(04:48):
of being aware that name, image and likeness might happen,
and then it actually happened and you managed to get
a business started pretty quickly in all of that, What
did that look like from your point of view? I
love that question because the answer is so simple. For me,
it was a problem. It was a problem that I
was going into my freshman year of college and I
(05:10):
was making money already as an influencer, and I knew
that I could lose my eligibility the second I step
on campus and the second I mentioned I'm a college
athlete and I'm making money. It was that simple. And
so I went to my dad with this problem, and
I'm like, I'm freaking out and making this great money.
I'm really excited about it, but I'm not going to
be allowed to in a few months once I step
(05:30):
on that volleyball court and start promoting myself as the
college athlete I've always dreamed to be. And so months
prior to that legislation passing for the n A I A.
My dad and I came up with the idea of
playbooked and he's the mastermind. Honestly, he's He's the most
fantastic business partner father, He's everything, and he really helped
(05:53):
build this business from the ground up. And so we
already had a board in place, we already had a
president in place, a CEO, CFO, everything when the n
AI legislation passed. So we are a year ahead of
everybody else in the industry. And that's what I think
(06:13):
makes us so special, not just as a company but
as people to We literally have a year, three hundred
sixty five days headstart. Jump on everything you need to
know about NIL, everything you need to know about conducting
these brand deals, getting in contact with brands, um learning
(06:34):
from trial and error. I mean, I'm the test bunny, right,
I know, I know the ins and outs of this
entire um NIL situation, you could say, but yeah, that's
pretty much the timeline. Do your teammates look to you
to learn more about N I L and how you're
doing things? I feel like they do. But I feel
(06:58):
like my teammates, my teammates we're a freakishly close team.
We are a full blown family, freakishly close. And this
year I forgot to tell you Christie offline, Um, I'm
a captain. I'm a captain. Know what kind of congratulations?
I'm sure they're so sweet, thank you. I'm really excited
about it and honored to be trusted by my teams
(07:20):
and my teammates and my coach that much. Um. But anyways,
we're really close, so I feel like instead of looking
up to me about it, they just kind of make
fun of me about it, um, because they think it's
great what I'm doing. But it's not really a lot
of them, it's not really their scene. I have a
few teammates who actually worked with playbooks and done deals
and they're fantastic. But they could say they look up
(07:45):
to me, but at the end of the day, they're
always poking fun of me, and I love them for that.
They keep me humbled for sure. Yeah, that kind of
tough question for you. So being both a lawyer and
a journalist is tough because as a lawyer, were taught
that you never asked a question you don't know the
answer or two, And then as a journalist were taught
to like, ask all the questions you don't know the
answers to. So this is what I don't know the
(08:06):
answer to you and I have never talked about this before.
If the n ai A had not changed their n
I L rules, were you willing to give up playing
collegiately to follow what you were doing as an influencer. Wow,
that's a killer question. That's a killer question, and that's
the decision people had to make for decades, forever, forever.
(08:27):
I'm going to answer that question once we come back
from this break. Everybody, you are listening to the Playbooks podcast.
I am Chloe Vie Mitchell and this is the College
Athletes Network. Welcome back to the Playbook pod cast on
(09:00):
the College Athletes Network. This is College Mitchell, your host,
but today Christie Josh has taken over and choose your host.
So subscribe to my podcast so you don't miss a
show like this one. Christie. Answering your question about if
I would have given up my lifelong dream to play
collegiate volleyball an order to pursue my career as an influencer,
(09:20):
That's a hard one for me because people have to
make that decision. They have been a number of student
athletes over the years who have given up playing collegiately
in order to do sponsorships and make money in other
ways that they weren't allowed to buy the n C
double A or the n A I A. Oh, and
I remember reading that story about um the the collegiate athlete.
(09:42):
He was a male, and he was a YouTuber, and
I remember seeing that he was quitting as a college
athlete to keep doing YouTube and thinking, Oh, I'd never
be put in that position. And here I was. Here,
I was in the middle of a pandemic, questioning if
all of the blood, sweat and tears that I had
put in my sport was for nothing, because I was
(10:03):
making great money and I deserved to earn that money
and I didn't want to give that up. I don't
think I would have given it up back then. No,
I don't think I knew the potential. I don't think
I knew. I didn't know what I didn't know. And
I think that is really what's happening across the board
with a lot of student athletes. You don't know what
(10:23):
you don't know when it comes to know. And now
that I'm the most three years in two years in,
I would have quitten a heartbeat. If I knew what
I did now, I would have quitten a heartbeat. You
would have quit playing, yes, because ah no, I know
it's hard, right and to the force people to make
that decision at seventeen eighteen, nineteen twenty years old, to
(10:50):
a major life decision. I mean, honestly, if you stopped
what you were doing on the influencer front and you
went and played collegiately for four years and you weren't
able to do anything with that at the end of
those four years, would you be able to pick right
back up where you left off. Probably not. I mean,
you know, it kind of depends on how much you
kept up with your social media and that kind of stuff.
(11:10):
But how many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands
or millions in those four years would you have passed
up to play college volleyball? Yeah, but people had to
make those decisions. They had to, and I guess I
completely take my answer back. I am playing volleyball one
because I love it, but it's a means to an end.
It's helping me pay for my school, it's it's a job.
(11:34):
It quite frankly, is a full blown job. It's getting
my degree. I guess I would have had to quit influencing.
I don't know. I love that you asked that question
because now I'm gonna be thinking about it forever. That is,
you didn't have to make that the same end, which
leads us to, how on earth are you doing everything
that you're doing? Because you're excelling academically. You had a
(11:56):
fantastic volleyball season. Playbooked is growing, your personal brand is growing,
now you've got a podcast. How does Chloe Mitchell schedule
herself and at the same time protect time with your time,
time with your friends and family and other people. You're
so cute. I When people ask me this, I always
(12:17):
giggle because when you put everything I'm doing on paper,
it's like, oh, my goodness, how's this girl doing this?
She doesn't sleep at night at the end of the day.
At first, it was really hard for me to organize everything.
Get used to putting my sleep in a Google calendar.
You know, really you understand, really segmenting my day with
(12:38):
what I need to do. That was difficult at first.
But now it's like second nature. And I love the
routine and I love how strict it is, and I
love that it happens to do. And I think that
that's something that is really natural for a college athlete
or somebody who is in the sports world. You have practice,
you have training, you have left, you have pt you
have you have everything, and so just adding on that
(13:02):
extra layer of rigorous schedule it was natural for me.
I know that sounds really weird, but it was natural.
And I know you and I talked about it before
we hit record, and I was telling you that when
I went to college, I decided not to play my sport,
and the freshman year I was like a drift because
I was so used to being overscheduled with you know,
high school classes and my sport and I worked a
(13:24):
part time job at the end of high school and
juggling all those things. When I got to college and
I wasn't juggling anything. All I had with school, I
had no job, I had no sport, I had no
idea what to do with myself, and I wasn't doing
as well in school as I did when I was
overscheduled because I would put things off. But when something
(13:44):
has to be done in the time slot I made
for it on my calendar, it gets done. And so
I am better overscheduled and like you. I mean, the
number one thing people say to me is, I don't
know how you do. Everything you do, you must not sleep,
And they're always surprised when I tell them I get
eight hours of sleep every night and I require sleep.
I am not someone who thrives on like going on
(14:07):
four or five hours and like getting up at you know,
four thirty am to like work out and start my
That is not my life. That is not how I
air at all. I get eight hours every night, and
then from the time I wake up till the time
I go to bed, I am scheduled, like down to
the minute most days. But that works for me. And
you just have to know what works for you, totally do.
And I really want to drive this point home. Actually
(14:31):
before I say that point, I do want to say.
I think when you peel back the layers of being
over scheduled, it's that self discipline piece that college athletes
all have. You have to be a little crazy, you
have got to have an insane amount of self discipline,
and most college athletes, I should say, but the point
that I was going to make is disclaimer of sorts.
(14:54):
It's that overbooking myself is awesome until it's lot and
being really conscious, what I've learned this year is if
I feel like I'm too busy or need a day
of rest or need a mental health day, that is
also completely fine as well. You know, and I'm sure
you have those days as well. But being super overscheduled
(15:17):
is awesome until it's not. And if I need a
day to take off, I do that. I just I
just wanted to say that as well, because its athletes
we're taught. Victoria Garrett talked about this in a TED
talk and she was a former volleyball player, and she
talks about how athletes are always told to push through,
to push through, to push through the pain, to push
through the tiredness, and sometimes to push through the mental
(15:38):
health struggles. And breaking that stigma and being like you
don't have to push through you can openly talk about
it is really important, especially when you're an athlete like
me that is always overbooked. So I just wanted to
include that piece. No, And I think the mental health
piece is so important, especially unfortunately this school year and
not just this school year, it happens every school year. Uh,
(15:59):
you know, we have seen student athletes who have really
struggled with their mental health, sometimes with tragic consequences, and
so I do think it's important, especially with the kind
of one more thing getting added on people's plates with
n I l to figure out what you need for
your mental health. What what you need, Chloe might be
different than what I need. And you mentioned before we
(16:20):
started recording that you have been trying more to put
your phone down at sort of the end of your day,
tell people what you're trying to do and what's working
for you right now. Of course, I love that we're
talking about this. We I don't know why I said
we we mean my phone. I am really trying to
be conscious of when I work, how many hours I
(16:43):
put in, and when to put my day phone down
so our listeners know that I work online exclusively and
not exclusively, but everything I do go through my phone,
whether it's personal or whether it's professional, and putting a
boundary with the professional side and only doing personal stuff
(17:05):
is really hard for me, and I'm really working on
it and really being conscious of it. So lately I've
been putting my phone on do not Stir, where sometimes
I even have to put into my closet and just
shut the door and just not have it on me, because,
like you said, figuring out what works for me, creating
those personal boundaries, those healthy boundaries with my phone and
(17:26):
with my work is is my new goal. That And
this is gonna sound really odd. That and eating more vegetables.
I know college affine can be saying that, but I'm
really trying to eat more veggies. But you'll have to
teach me your trick because I am also not good
at putting my phone down and not good at eating
my veggies. So you do it together, Christie me and
(17:47):
you might have gotta hide your spinach in your smoothies.
That kind That's how I get by all of those things.
When you come to Michigan, I'm gonna take you to
this um this place called Fruition. This is a shameless promo.
They're not they're not I'm saying this at all, but
Fruition is the best and they're like super healthy and
you can't even taste it. Now, you take this episode
to them and say, look, I talked about you in
that episode exactly. Hey, you want to, you know, do
(18:10):
some collaboration. Okay, we are heading into our second break
you're listening to the Playbook podcast. I am your host,
Clovie Mitchell and this is the College Athletes Network. Welcome
(18:42):
back to the Playbooks podcast on the College Athletes Network.
This is your host Cloevie Mitchell, and today our host
is actually Christie Josh. So subscribe to my podcast so
you don't miss an episode, especially like this fun one. Okay,
what I want to know is what's next for Chloe
mitch amper playbooked And we're going into summer, and I
(19:03):
think for me as a reporter, this is gonna be
a really interesting time period for me because student athletes
have largely had to juggle in I L and classes.
Now they're going to have a whole summer to maybe
focus on things that they want to start or they
want to grow. And so every student athlete I've been
talking to recently, I've been asking, how are you planning
to spend your summer in terms of things you're gonna
(19:26):
do to propel your personal brand and your n I
L efforts forward. Oh I'm so excited to answer this. Well,
like I was mentioned earlier, because I had a year
jump because the n A I A is not the
n C double A not D want, not D two,
not D three for our listeners. Uh Vanna. I is
(19:46):
a completely separate entity. And this head start with playbooked
and with myself has opened up doors that I never
thought would be opened. I got the amazing opportunity to
work with an agency UM D b A out of California,
and they really taught me how to negotiate. They taught
(20:08):
me how to demand a seat at the table with
men and experienced businesswomen. And like I said, that has
opened up doors for twenty year old little Chloe that
I never thought would be open. For example, I just
signed and I can talk about this openly. I'm so
excited about it. I just signed my biggest ever deal
(20:30):
with Fabletics. It's a three month long deal and it's
all throughout the summer, and they send me their incredible
clothes and they obviously pay me that baseline rate UM
and I get to post about them and I get
to work closely with their marketing team. And the best
part about this, Christie, was I negotiated this entire deal
(20:50):
my manager, who's also my mom. By the way, I'm
really he's fabulous. He's fabulous. Her and Christie are my
favorite people on the planet. Um, she had no partner.
She had no partner. I would like send things to
my mom, my manager, and she would copy and paste
them and send them. Just just to have that little
professional piece that go between person right and seeing myself
(21:15):
do that has instilled this sense of confidence in me
and going forward this summer. I got off the phone
this morning with a brand that wants to talk about
compensation as well as an equity piece, and I'm talking
to obviously Playbooked is what I'm gonna be doing the
entire summer, but brands that want to work with me
(21:36):
and Playbooked, which has been my dream almost. I also
just bought in nineteen holiday Rambler travel trailer. Oh my gosh. Yeah,
just that there's something random. So on top of all
these brand deals, I'm gonna be doing a passion project
for me. Um it was the most expensive thing I've
ever bought, minus my car, and I just bought it
(22:00):
and I drove it home and now I'm going to
be renovating it on my TikTok as well as so
like getting brands to collaborate with that. Um, that project is,
I don't know, it's a it's a big summer. There's
a lot going on. I could ramble on and on
and on about it, but I just I just wanted
to talk about how although the summer is busy, and
although work is going to be awesome and fun and crazy,
(22:21):
I'm just I'm just proud of myself. I'm gonna go
into this summer with I'm really proud of myself, and
I'm really grateful for the relationships we've created, especially with you,
and I just want to use this gratitude, in this
attitude to help other athletes, not not help other athletes.
Let me take that back, empower other athletes. I'm so
sick of hearing let's help the athlete. Let's let's help
(22:44):
them do this, Let's make them into who they're No,
we're going to empower them. We're going to teach them,
and we're going to enable them to be the best
student athlete, collegiate athlete they could possibly be. One example
I give people all the time of the ways and
which I have worked with student athletes. I have not
taken a dime from any student athlete for anything. It's
(23:05):
just people who reach out by email or d M
and they ask me questions and I one of the
examples I give is that I talked to you about
some deals that you've looked at. Playbooked is a production
of I heart Radio and the College Athletes Network. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Chloe V. Mitchell
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