February 24, 2022 • 56 mins
At their best, the Olympics symbolize our world’s potential for cooperation, honoring the common humanity that unites us across old divisions of gender, race, and geographical borders. With the 2022 Winter Olympics having drawn to a close, President Clinton sits down with two iconic Olympians, speed skater Apolo Ohno and basketball player Lisa Leslie, to talk about their journeys from modest backgrounds to the pinnacle of their sports, the honor of representing the United States, and embodying the Olympic ideals. They share stories and frank discussions about the pressure and emotional toll Olympians face, the discipline to succeed and the resilience to keep going after setbacks, and how to find satisfaction and purpose after athletic careers end by lifting others to achieve their own potential.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Like millions of people around the world, Hilly and I
spent a lot of time in the last couple of
weeks tuning into the Winter Olympics. As we cheered on
Team USA and marveled at the almost superhuman athleticism on display,
I was reminded why I love the Olympics so much.
If you've listened to this podcast at all, you know
I'm a big fan of sports and athletes of all kinds.
(00:25):
I admire their dedication, determination, hard work, and raw talent,
and they embody what so many people aspire to be
in their own lives. The Olympics puts that on display
on a global scale. As President, I had the opportunity
to celebrate many triumphs by Team USA and meet hundreds
of athletes who represented our country so well. It was
(00:47):
a special honor to be president when the United States
hosted the Games in Atlanta, and I'll never forget the
experiences giving the Olympic Torch a ceremonial sendal from the
White House as it began its journey to Olympic Village,
attending the opening ceremony with Hillary, where Muhammad Ali lift
the flame, visiting with athletes in the US, and several
(01:08):
other nations while we were there was in some ways
the most interesting thing of all. So why am I
telling you this? Because at their best, the Olympics symbolize
our world's potential for cooperation, for bringing people together, for
honoring the common humanity that unitess across old divisions of gender, race,
(01:29):
geographical borders. No one knows more about the Olympic experience,
of course, than the athletes themselves, and today I'm honored
to have two iconic gold medalists with me to offer
their insights on the Olympics, on the years of training
to go into qualifying, all the rigors of competing in
the Olympics, the ups and downs at all athletes faced,
(01:51):
and finding residience to keep going. Apollo On won eight
medals and short track speed skating across three Olympics from
two thou and two two thousand ten, America's all time
most decorated Winter Olympian in the process, becoming the face
of his sport and one of America's most iconic athletes.
(02:11):
Since retiring from competition, he's transitioned successfully into business, philanthropy, broadcasting,
and book rotting. His latest book, Hard Pivot, is out
this month. It takes us through this transition and offers
guidance for anyone facing big life changes, a subject especially
useful in these times, as so many of us navigate
(02:35):
uncharted waters. I've loved watching him throughout the years. I'm
glad I got the chance to meet him twenty years ago,
and I'm very grateful for the chance to speak with
him now. Apollo. Thanks for joining us, Mr President. It's
wonderful to see you again. Twenty years later. I was
thinking about you know, we have in our home that
(02:57):
picture of you and our family together in the Dominican Republic.
It was great. I remember that very very well. It
was it was an honor. I've been really impressed by
what you're trying to do and helping people manage transitions
in their lives and also supporting these athletes that are
under so much stress. I think it's I think it's
really good. The average person has no idea how much
(03:21):
mental stress of companies, the efforts you have to make
to be the best in the world, and anything I
agree and I do is overlaw of support. Yeah, it's
I think that that's that's why we all fall in
love with with the Olympics. Every time they come because
of the the kind of only limited three podium spots
that are available, but the thousands of athletes that have
(03:44):
dedicated a ten year or sometimes even a twenty year
UM path towards being their best, and we tend to
only celebrate champions the ones that they are standing typically
on top of the podium or receiving a medal in
some capacity UM. But it's not to say that those
other those others haven't done the work, they haven't put
in the time and the energy and that sacrifice and dedication.
(04:05):
And so what's interesting I think in today, at least
from my purview, is this transformation I think all of
us are are having around this transparency of talking about
the pressures associated with such high levels of performance, whether
that is in the Olympics for the athletes specifically, and
the other side of the coin of what's happening behind
(04:25):
the curtain, right what's happening between our own two ears.
And I think at the end of the day, although
we hoist many people up on pedestals because we aspire
and are inspired by them to to to be something
that semblance a little more like them, I think at
least what I've seen is Um, this ability to say, well,
that person is also human and he or she has
the same thoughts and the same struggles and the same
(04:47):
insecurities and self doubts. You know that I do. And uh,
just trying to help people manage that the best way possible.
You wrote this book that I think it's coming at
a very important time because everybody has undergone some chance
in their lives lately as a result of COVID, and
COVID has taken a pretty terrible tone, not only in
(05:09):
the lives we have lost and the people who have
been permanently impaired, but the fights were having over the
vaccine and masks and just the anxiety that people have.
It's it's it's unnatural to worry about going outside, walking
down the street, being with your friends, doing all these things.
(05:30):
So this book of yours is coming in an important time,
and uh, I'd like to talk about it a little
bit and why you think it's just as important for
people who aren't Olympic level athletes to read is for
people who are in high level competitions. Yeah, and and
you know this is the book it's called hard Pivot,
Embrace change, fine purpose and show up fully it's a
(05:53):
short book, it's a it's an easy read. And when
I started writing this book two and a half years ago,
it was actually and deeply rooted in kind of my
own struggles and tribulations around my reinvention or my transition
from this one identity that I had been married to
my entire life, which was Apollo oh no, Olympic champion
(06:17):
speed skater um, you know, fifteen years in the Olympic
path in space, and so I had. I had only
thought that that's what I was. I had no idea
other facets my personality. I was naturally curious. I was
interested in exploring different parts of business in the world,
but I still carried that business card with me. It's
(06:39):
really hard for me to figure out when I decided
to retire, what's next, Like what am I good at?
What am I passionate about? And will I ever be
able to replace the feeling that I once had representing
our country and competing in the Olympic Games and having
thousands and millions of people around this country cheer for me.
I had realized quite quickly that we always see things
(07:02):
for what they are in the moment. We stay so
zoomed in and we believe that this moment is the
defining moment, this is what's going to have the rest
of my legacy and chapter for the rest of my life.
And I think we failed to realize that it's just
one chapter. It's a part of all these different experiences
that make up the entire book. And so there was
this deep psychological process that I had to go through
(07:24):
in terms of who am I? What is important? My father,
who has been a huge um just just advocate and
support of my life, but also his philosophy on kind
of always prompting me to ask the internal questions, and
you talk about like how am I keeping score of
a life well lived regardless of what the external circumstances
(07:46):
are telling me as and and this book reminds me
to kind of ask life, right, what does Apollo want
from life? And what do I believe life wants from Apollo?
How can I engage in this path um knowing full
well that I'm gonna have failures, I will have multiple mistakes,
i will have missteps, but also making sure that I
(08:08):
am aligned with that true north so that I can
zoom out and also remain committed on that path. And
so the book is dedicated towards people who either during
COVID they were laid off, they decided they didn'ty don't
no longer want to pursue this career that they spent
twenty or thirty years in, and now they're stuck with
the same question of how do I do my best
(08:30):
in life to find my true north? How do I
keep score? And actually understand that the scorecard maybe was
the wrong scorecard from the beginning. Maybe I was living
a life in fear of other people's opinions versus what
I fundamentally believe is the most important thing for me,
my family and my community, etcetera. And I hope it
(08:50):
will help improve and change at least light the fire
within a lot of people. I remember, sometime around the
time I left the White Else might be a yours later.
I had given a lot of thought to what I
would do in the rest of my life, but I
knew just vaguely how I wanted to do it. I
didn't I couldn't answer the how question. So first you
(09:13):
have to say what, then you have to say how.
And Uh. I read a little book by a man
named Spencer Johnson called Who Moved My Cheese? And It
was from a story about mice being trained in laboratory
experiments to navigate fairly complicated mazes to get to the
cheese once they found the cheese, and they had a
(09:35):
surprising capacity to remember complex roots until somebody moved the cheese.
And you know, you stopped speed skating and somebody moved
your cheese. You biology moved your cheese. All kinds of things.
You had to make that decision. And I think you're
(09:56):
still young enough that a lot of people much younger
than you know about you remember with great pride and
excitement what you accomplished, but are out there asking these
questions of themselves now because this is happening to people
at all ages. I have a lot of young friends
that I just see them asking these questions now, probably
(10:19):
twenty thirty years before they would have asked had it
out been for this total disruption of our lives in
in two thousand two, before the first Olympic Games that
I had competed in just six months prior was the
September eleven, two thousand one, um devastating attacks on on
this country. And you know, during that time, I was,
(10:42):
you know, I was eighteen going on fifteen I always
joke and uh, and I remember walking into the opening ceremonies,
you know, just a year six months after, you know,
the country was very uncertain in terms of travel. We
weren't we weren't entirely sure if we should be hosting
a global event on home soil. We didn't know if
it was an invitation to replicate what had just happened,
(11:05):
and so there was this uneasiness that existed, this uncertainty,
a lot of misinformation and disinformation that existed, and um,
people were unsure. For the first time in a long time.
We I think we as a country had been brought
to a niece, so to speak. And it was hard
to believe that, right. I think that the ethos of
being American was kind of always brashedly, always saying like
(11:26):
we're the best, We're number one, you know, uh, nothing
can can can take us down. And and it was
it was this time where I remember walking to the
opening ceremonies and you know, seeing the the you know,
the security and the Special Forces people were on top
of rooftops and they had their night vision goggles and
walking into the actual arena. And then at that point
(11:49):
in time, you know, this like reverberance of energy that
was like unified. They had walked in this flag that
was flown at the World Trade Center from New York.
One of my very close friends and teammates was a
part of that contingency that walked in the flag and
there wasn't a dry eye in the entire arena. But really,
and most importantly, um, there was this sense of community.
(12:13):
And you know, the Olympics was really powerful. It showed
that hey, we're going to persevere, we are going to continue.
Is there uncertainty, yes, is there going to be risk here, yes,
but we have to continue and pick ourselves back up again.
And that was at the moment for me in which
I felt like, Wow, this is this is way bigger
(12:33):
than this little sport of speed skating that I do.
This is something that is very representative regardless of outcome.
Here's an incredible opportunity in a chance to have unification,
to have common belief, to have Team USA and a
global arena for people to compete their absolute best and
showcase the utmost of the human spirit. And my very
(12:57):
first race, it was the two thousand two um Win Olympics.
It was a one thousand meters in Salt Lake City. UM.
I was favored to win the race. I was like
on all these magazines and um a mirror. Moments before
the finish line and I was in first place. At
the snap of the finger, another athlete crashed into me
and then all of us went spiraling into the paths
(13:19):
UM and my Olympic dreams of winning gold in that
race were almost over. And I scrambled to my feet,
falling again. But I thrust my skates across the finish
line in this like wild craze of just trying to
finish the race. That was my instinctual habit. I didn't
know what happened. I rush off of the ice. Um
I had just one silver. Uh, and I was confused.
(13:42):
I didn't know what happened. And and for for a second,
you know, like many others, I felt like, hey, this
was taken from me. I was deserving of that gold.
It was mine, it was someone else's faults. Those are
my natural human reactions and responses. And then in incomes in. Uh,
this this friend of mine who also our physio and
kind of slash doctor. He's got this crazy look in
(14:03):
his eye, and he looks at me and he says
Apollo that was the most incredible race in the world.
At the time, I had this huge gash in my leg.
I just cut myself and it's at that moment that
I realized it, Wow, this this was a gift. I
didn't get the color of the metal that I wanted,
but representative of that was this ability to get back
up and win that silver. And so I told myself
(14:25):
as I went out to receive the medals in the
in the metal ceremony, that I was going to celebrate
this silver as if it was the gold, because it
represented so much more than just the race itself. It
was We're going to get back, We're going to get
knocked down, and during those times is a defining component
of how do you get yourself back up, recalibrate and
(14:47):
continue on. And it's never easy, and oftentimes life doesn't
give us the entire result that we would like if
we were the ones holding the playbook and writing the script,
so to speak. But I think it's how we react
and respond to those life challenges that are at the
time are seemingly crushing and they can paralyze you in
a capacity that doesn't allow you be your best self.
(15:10):
But then later on life. We realize that that was
the most incredible blessing of all and that to this day,
out of the eight medals that I've won, was the
most significant, the most important, and the one that I
think is my favorite because of the life lessons that
I carry with me today, not because of the color
of the metal. I was watching that, right, I remember
the crash, and I remember being so proud that somehow
(15:33):
you got up and finished in you tried out for
the one or Olympics and you didn't qualify this right,
what happened? Then? How did you react? Did you ever
think for a moment about quitting? I did? I was confused. So,
you know, in the Olympic Games are going to be
(15:54):
held in not going to Japan, which is near where
my grandparents are actually from. And so my father was
a Japanese immigrant who came to the US um no
money in his pocket, you know, like incredible immigrant story
that just kind of fought tooth and nail and survived
to live the American dream, which was to pursue his
passion in this country. And when I was born, everything
(16:15):
changed and so you know, for his entire, my entire
life at that point, my father wanted me to do
something special, and here was the moment in which we
were going to come back to Japan. My dad was
gonna say, see, it wasn't for nothing. Look at we produced.
We produced this. You know, our our son, our family
is going to compete on Japanese home soil, compete for
(16:35):
the US. This is like the perfect story book. I
was fifteen years old. One year prior to that trials,
I was actually number one in the US. I was
ranked number one in the U S. I had this
incredible rise to um being technically the captain of the team,
so to speak, by performance, not by not by age,
of course, and uh in less than a year at
(16:56):
those Olympic trials, I finished dead last, sixteenth place. Actually,
I was kind of mentally defeated that year. I had
not gone um to the levels that are required to
be your absolute best. I went through the motions, and
my father saw this pattern that was starting to show
habits um in the way that I trained and approached
(17:18):
the sport. And so after I did not make that team,
was I defeated? Yes? And so my father took me
and we flew back to the Seattle area where I
where I grew up and I'm from and he drove
me about three and a half hours southwest of downtown Seattle,
and this area on the Pacific Ocean called the Palace Beach.
And at the time, you know, we didn't grow up
(17:38):
with a lot of money, and so whenever we had
the chance, my father would drive me to these nature
esque places um that we're somewhat nearby, and we would
we would we would sketch, and we would walk, and
he would talk to me about life and give me
lessons and and all these things. And so this was
the place that we had been many times. And there
was an old cabin there that was a part of
this um area. It was called Iron Springs Resort. Now
(18:02):
at the time it was very old, very run down
um and it was like a log cabin that someone
had built um in these woods that that that are
a part of the ocean. And my father drops me
off at this location and he says to alone, and
he says, you're not listening to anything that I've been
saying for the past year. You've thrown away an incredible opportunity.
(18:26):
And I'm not upset that you didn't make the team.
What is concerning to me is that you are throwing
away an opportunity to be your best and you have
second guests, and and told yourself subconsciously that, well, maybe
if I would have tried harder, I probably would have
made the team or committed or been more dedicated. And
(18:47):
these can potentially haunt you for the rest of your life,
this feeling of regret, this feeling of maybe I'll just
quit and and do something else. And so he says,
You're going to stay here for as long as it
takes for you you to understand and realize, like which
direction on life that you want to go and how
are you going to pursue that. So I'm fifteen years old, right,
(19:08):
So this is the time. I can articulate much better
today than I could back then. Back then, I was
very confused and angry at my father all these things.
I just I didn't want to be there. I was
I didn't understand why. I just want to hang out
with my friends in Seattle, Like I have no video games,
there's no cell phone, there's no social media, there's no
way to entertain myself. And so I'm just kind of
trying to figure out and I'm journaling every single day
(19:30):
and I come to this conclusion that I'm willing to
take the risk and take the gamble one more time, uh,
and pursue this wild, crazy sport of speed skating and
try to make the next Olympic team, which be four
years later, which in my sport is a very uncertain,
vaulatile environment. So I called my father. I let him
(19:51):
know the decision that I've made. He doesn't know which
decision it was. I just told me, I've made a decision.
He comes and picks me up. On the three and
a half hour drive home, I explained to him that
I'm willing to try us one more time. He's ecstatic
a because he wants to see me and he believes
that I have the talent skill to continue on. But
also um, he was happy that I actually came to
a conclusion that throughout this hardship, this tough love, was
(20:14):
this underlying light switch that was turned on for some reason,
and from that moment on, I harnessed the and leverage
the emotional trauma that occurred of not making that team
and the way that it made me feel, the chatter
that I heard in the other parents and coaches years. Oh,
(20:34):
he's just a low statistic. He can't handle the pressure.
He's going to crack under pressure. Those things were deeply
emotionally scarring, but they also were important to me to
harness the power of And that's how my career took
a real turn was when I decided to say, you
know what, the work is the shortcut. I want to
(20:55):
go somewhere and be there in four years, and the
only way through was by doing the things necessary on
a day to day basis that compound over time and
aligned with what I felt at that time was was
my purpose. I know that you have had spent some
time with other athletes having doubts, and only they can
decide what they want in their lives. And I think
(21:19):
you know one of the things your book will do
for people who are high achievers but at some tipping
point is to convince them not to make the decision
for anyone else, but not to make it out of fear,
because there is some dignity in the decision. Just to
(21:40):
keep trying. Handling these changes is a very big deal.
In handling setbacks is a very big deal. We'll be
right back. What do you think we could do to
(22:04):
pay more positive attention to the the enormous mental and
emotional and psychological challenges and pressures. A lot of athletes
are under and still continue to value competitive excellence and
recognize momentary victories. How can we strike the write balance?
(22:25):
I thought about this often. I think, Um, you know,
my own conditioning around how I can be my own
version of a warrior has probably also transformed over the
past decade. And as we enter into an era where um,
we're being much more communicative around what happens between our
(22:46):
own two years and this connection and engagement that we
can create with our communities through social or wherever. The
good side is that we can actually show the human side.
You can show that side that that makes us more awesome. Um,
we can also exude the same type of qualities that
we want to see in Olympic athletes and in those
(23:08):
that we believe when we define the words strong. But
I think the words strong now is encompassing and has texture,
and that texture is associated with realizing and recognizing that
you must have empathy, the vulnerability associated with seeking one's
authentic truth. It's actually incredibly strong. And so you know
(23:33):
my first reaction when I saw Simone Biles say that
she was not going to continue and compete in those
games might because of my own conditioning. I said, hey,
that that doesn't seem fair. That seems like she's quitting.
I think she's failing at what she's doing. That was
my first natural response, and then I said, wait a second, Apollo,
you don't know this person. Number one, You have no
(23:54):
idea what this person has gone through or what is
feeling and seeing right now and an actual reality. To
say yes and continue on the same path that she
had been on many many times before was actually the
easy road. That was the road that was expected, and
that was the road that she was conditioned to do,
regardless of how she feels and or what has happened,
(24:18):
or making a stand in some capacity, even if it
meant that she was not going to get a medal.
That's really hard to do. I'm not sure that I
would be able to do that in full transparency. And
on the flip side, to go against the grain, against
what anyone else thought was acceptable and or um what
(24:39):
we wanted to see happen. She said, I'm not going
to compete because I'm not okay that has taken That
takes so much strength to go against what what you know.
Potentially I don't know a hundred million people in this
country would say that's not the right answer, um, And
so I commend her for doing that. And I'm sure
(25:01):
that that has not been easy. UM. I think that
as we entered this era where yes, there's a lot
of challenges this country has. Yes, there's a lot of conflict. Yes,
there's all these things that sometimes we ask ourselves, I'm
not sure if we're going to make it, um. And
I think the strength and the determination that exists when
we define those words can live in the Olympic space,
(25:24):
and so what can we do? I think we need
to talk about it. We have to have the open
lines of communication to still hold to our truth of
you can be incredibly strong, you can persevere and overcome
the most devastating of situations circumstances, and uh, you can
come out the other side incredibly strong, calloused in a way, right,
(25:47):
Douglas Douglas Mallock. Right, good timber does not grow with ease.
The stronger wind, the stronger trees. That is the experience
that we can live up to. And then realizing the
scars that we have in our life, the things that
have happened are what makes us who we are today.
But people don't know about those unless you are communicating
about them. And only through communication can we actually help
(26:09):
those athletes proceed to be more wholesome, and I believe
actually stronger, because then they own those things. They are
no longer held in this mental prison, being handcuffed to
this idea that I will have to do what everyone
expects me to do versus knowing what is right and
what I need to do. Uh, And that's available. So
(26:30):
I think that I think we're on the right path.
I think the communication has to continue UM and then
for people who suffer UM on a chemical level, I
think that we're understanding so much more about the brain,
and there are treatments and people and professionals that we
can seek to help us navigate through life's most challenging times.
(26:51):
Thank you, Thank you for not quitting when you've got
off the drink. I'll be honest, I've never really put
a nickel's worth of attention two speech skating and those
smaller rinks until you came along, and slowly I saw
first what skill it took, the second, what courage it took,
(27:14):
third how it could be dangerous, and fourth how a
lot of Olympic sports are like this, but how often
in that sport you wind up being at the mercy
of who bumped who first and what happens and you
just seemed to lift yourself above it all Your head
was in a good place. Life is a complicated piece
(27:38):
of work. But I think the one thing that it's
almost impossible to make people appreciate when they're young, it
is how fast it happens mhm, you know, and how
you you want to enjoy every phase of your life
and you want something you've given back, And I think
(27:59):
that's really hard to think about when you're young. My
father died before I was born, so I always was
more aware of my mortality than most people. And one
of my great goals in life, when Helen I got married,
I said, you know one thing I hope will happens.
That will be old people one day sitting on a
(28:20):
park bench and the young people will walk by, holding
hands and laughing, and we will have no resentments and
no regrets, just gratitude. But it's one thing to say
and another to live. That's what that wag said. When
all is said and done, more is said than done.
(28:43):
You know what's you're like? To be that way you
want to be, and I think you've got a chance
here to have a really profound positive impact on people.
Thank you, Thank you. This is this has been This
has been amazing. I have a lot of life lessons here.
My next guest is a former professional basketball player, four
(29:04):
time Olympic gold medalists, three time w n B A
m VP, and Hall of Famer. Lisa Leslie is currently
the coach of the Triplets in the Big Three Basketball League.
She led to the inaugural Big Three championship in twenty nineteen.
In addition to her pioneering basketball career, which includes being
(29:25):
the first woman to dunk w n B a game,
Lisa's resume includes fashion, modeling, acting, sports commentary, and now
real estate. I had the honor to meet her when
I was president and she was a member of the
women's national basketball team when they won those gold medals
in and in two thousand. I've been a big fan
(29:45):
ever since, and I'm so glad to be speaking with
her today. Lisa, thank you for joining us. Yes, thank
you for having me, Mr President. I'm so excited. It's
a great one to see you. To hear your voice
always warms my heart. I remember, UH, just me really
getting into voting and focusing more on our country and
(30:06):
our needs. UM, after having the pleasure of meeting you
and Miss Hillary and UM meeting you also on Beverly
Hills at Rock the Vote. I don't know if you
remember that. UM, thank you so much. It's always been
a pleasure and I'm so happy to be on your podcast.
So tell us just a little about winning. How you
(30:27):
grew up, and how you became interested in basketball. I
grew up in Compton, California, which is the inner city
of southern California. UM. I was raised by my mom,
who's a single mom with two sisters, an older sister
and a younger sister. I'm the middle child, therefore the
best child, who's most flexible, who gets along with everybody
because I'm used to being told what to do. But
(30:50):
I'm also used to leading and telling my younger sister
what to do. So UM, I'd argue that the middle
child's the best. Of course, my sisters would argue something different,
but UM, you know, we just screw up. I come
from very humble beginnings. UM had so much love and
just positive affirmations from my mom for my sisters and
I to, you know, take on the world and do
(31:10):
the best that we can do, be our best, and
do it with a lot of love and heart and integrity.
But I gotta tell you, I didn't start playing basketball
until I was twelve years old, which is really late
considering all the success that I've had in this sport.
But basketball, for me, really was about an opportunity to
create change for our lives and for me to be
(31:32):
able to go to college. That was the whole reason
why I picked up a basketball because I recognize that
that was the one sport that because obviously I was
so tall. I was six ft in the sixth grade,
so crazy, right. I remember telling my mom that people
keep asking me if I play basketball, and she's like, oh, well,
(31:53):
because you're tall. To be heard, you know, they associate
sports with people who were tall. And I was like, well,
I don't want to play that, and she was like, oh,
you don't have to. So funny. Um, But I went
to middle school and there was a girl named Shay.
They called her she and everybody's like Shay and she's
so popular, and I'm like, why is everybody know her name?
And they said, well, she's on the basketball team, and
(32:16):
so I think God just had that happen for me
so I can go, well, I want everybody to know
my name. So I tried out for the basketball team.
I guess the rest is history. It's amazing, that's how
I started playing basketball. That's a great story. It's a
great sport. Yes, it's It's changed my life and it's
enhanced my life in ways that I would have never known.
(32:37):
Through all the hard work and dedication of picking up
that one basketball. In addition to your Olympic career, you
made a huge contribution, I think to building the w
n b A into what it is today. Talk about
what that was like starting the league, expanding it. I
know that Kobe Bryant did so much for the n
b A. He supported it all much. A little about that, Yeah,
(33:01):
I kind of think back first, even going to high
school and Title nine, Right, So Title nine played such
a huge part and the opportunities that I've had even
getting to the w n b A. Um, when I
look at Title nine and I remember learning about it
in high school in the ninth grade and just having
the opportunity to be able as a female, to be
(33:22):
able to play sports, and recognizing that Hey, this is
an opportunity that although it's a bill and a law
that can go away at any time. And so I
think it was that understanding of the opportunity and the
urgency to play sports and not knowing if it was
gonna last that really motivated me to want to to
be my best and to get after it. So I
(33:44):
never took playing for granted. I went to Morningside High
in Inglewood, California, and then I went on to USC
and at USC, I played for a coach name Mary
Anne Stanley, and it was coach Stanley who gave me
that idea about, you know, representing our country and you know,
understanding that there's basketball overseas. And from there, I have
(34:05):
to say that making my first USA basketball team in
the eleventh grade was my first opportunity to travel the world.
And so what happens is sometimes we have kids that
play these sports, but you never get an opportunity or
you don't see the big picture. By making my first
USA team and going to Spain out of the country,
first time out of the country ever, my first passport,
(34:27):
that was really what opened and brought in my my
horizons to the fact that other women in other countries
play basketball professionally, like there are more opportunities outside of
our state. And then I would come back to our
country and go, well, why don't we recognize or celebrate
women's sports as much as we do men? And so
I knew that I had really um one of voice
(34:49):
and a purpose, and my purpose was to try to
spend spread the word about women's sports and us playing
at this next level and us being even better. So
when you look at what we did in six it
really started in when the USA team traveled the world,
playing everybody in their country and beating them. By the
time we got that gold medal placed around our next
(35:10):
we were sixty and oh and so that's sixty and
oh is really what elevated the idea that women can
play professional basketball in our country. And so the w
b A was then launched in um. I was assigned
to Los Angeles and the w b A again a platform,
an opportunity to be a role model for so many
(35:32):
young kids, boys and girls, signing autographs, taking pictures, um
doing community service because I knew we had to invest
in our fans and try to grow our basketball in
our country. And so that really was the pivotal moment
for me was just understanding the platform, understanding the importance
(35:53):
of networking, understanding the importance of you know, my appearance,
and you know I love being feminine and I love fashion.
So that for me was like, Hey, but I'm gonna
play basketball and they're gonna play as hard as I can.
I loved having those opportunities. And I would say that
our NBA counter parts, our guys, were our biggest supporters.
And yes, Kobe Bryant was probably had done more for
(36:17):
women's basketball and our awareness and a very short period
of time than anybody else in history when it comes
to a man that really loved what we were doing,
aside from David Stern himself and the late doctor Bus.
Tell the people who are listening, how long you played well?
I played professionally for UM. I'd say eleven years in
(36:38):
the w n B A UM, because I stopped and
I had my daughter, and I went back and played
and played in my last Olympics. UM, but I've been
playing basketball for over twenty five years. UM. I played overseaves,
I lived in Italy, I lived in Russia. UM got
a chance to eat some amazing food and learned to
speak another language. Um, and bath sketball. Like I said,
(37:01):
picking up that ball in seventh grade changed my life forever.
I always say, you know, it was one thing for
me to represent my city and even my state and
winning state championships in high school, but it's been the
biggest honor of my life to represent our country playing
for Team USA. At first, that's a beautiful sentiment and
I'm glad you feel that way still. So you won
(37:23):
gold medals in two thousand, two thousand four, and two
thousand night, anyone in particular stand out for you? Oh? Yes,
Mr President, it will always be for me. Um. If
you remember that, Um, which is not to put a
damper on it, but there was a bomb that went
off in at the in Atlanta at the Olympic, and
(37:46):
so um our men and women's team stayed across the
street from that Centennial Park. That bomb went off outside
of my balcony window, and UM, that moment was sort
of surreal because you know, things you saw on television,
but to be on our US soil and for that
to happen. In that moment, I think we were all
faced with the challenge of like, are we gonna move
(38:09):
in fear? Or are we gonna fight, And it was
a symbolism to me that you know, our country, our security,
everything stepped up right. We were aware and we were
prepared for anything. And that's the same thing we were
as a team Team USA. We had a talk and
we were you know, shaken by that, but also it
was like, this is the point we have on this
(38:30):
USA uniform. We are fighters, we work hard, we don't
give up. And that moment, for me, it was just
very symbolic because we had an opportunity to sort of
power away or be like, you know, we're afraid, we
don't want to go on with the Olympics or whatever,
and it was just like, you know, a second that
that comes in, it's like, no, we are we are USA,
and no one's going to you know, stop us from
(38:53):
fighting for our country. And although again I love and
respect our military. My husband flew um, he went to
the Air Force Academy, he flew in Desert Storm and
Desert Shield, um as well as my you know, my father,
my grandfather, and my uncle's my father in law. So
our military means so much to me that I understand
(39:15):
that they fight and protect us in such a way,
but that for me was just like I thought about
our our military and that you know, even though I'm
just an athlete in this USA uniform, we have an
opportunity to fight for our country and to still go
out there. And so the nineties Olympics um will always
be my favorite just because we were on us soil
(39:36):
fighting for our country. Yep, it's a wonderful memory. Yes,
let me ask you a little bit about what you're
doing now and we'll come back to the Olympics. Not
all of our listeners know about Big three basketball, and
you're a coach of a team and you've got some
pretty outstanding players. So tell people about just a little
(39:57):
bit about Big three basketball, how to get store the
who's behind it, and how did you get involved. Yeah. So,
first off, President Clinton, we have to have you at
a Big three game. You have a personal invitation in
a court side seat because we would love to have you.
And this amazing league was started by ice Cube, Jeff Quasnet,
and Amy Trash, three amazing, brilliant people who came together
(40:22):
to start this league. And you know, ice Cube is
just he's really a genius in our time and so
amazing that he would think of three on three for
players who still have a lot in their tank, but
maybe you know, just they don't have a spot on
the NBA team anymore. Although a lot of our players
have been picked backed up by NBA team, So three
on three or NBA men who um left the NBA
(40:46):
or retired and have an opportunity to play three on
three half court. We have an amazing game. That's the
first team the fifty. You gotta win by two. We
have three point shots, four point shots, uh, you name it.
We also have something called fireball that was at it
last year, which is also brilliant. So ice Cube decided
that if you want to challenge, you know, a foul call,
(41:09):
unless it was an offensive foul, you can challenge that
call and then go one on one. So we call
that fireball, which is also so exciting. And we were
talking a little before the program started about real essite,
how did you get into the lap Yeah, well, you know,
Mr President, having the opportunity to play in the w
n b A was really the first time that I
was able to make money, you know, and I have
(41:31):
also endorsement deals and so once I got there, I
was very lucky and blessed to have an uncle, two
uncles who aren't both um, they are both accountants, and
so having them, I went directly to my uncle, who
you know, obviously was very well off, and I was like,
how do I keep my money? What do I do?
You know? And he was like, well, the first thing
(41:51):
we need to do is, you know, open up your
corporation and you need to go and get some real estate.
So it really started in and having that advice, I
started to buy homes. I bought myself a home, then
I bought my mom a home, which I kept in
my name, and I started out like that really slowly,
and I'm about to launch the first national Black um
real estate agency across our country. We've never had one.
(42:15):
It's called Aston Rose. And the beauty of that is
that it's gonna be an opportunity for all of us
to be very inclusive with investing in athletes as well
as entertainers and trying to not just help them with
their real estate, but also to educate them because sometimes
in the African American community, we we miss out on
(42:37):
that educational opportunity of understanding how to keep your money.
And we know of so many athletes and people in
the past who had millions of dollars and have nothing
to show for it, whether after they retired in five
years they have no money left or if they blew
it all um just on things that really didn't appreciate.
And so it's it's time. It's time for us to
(42:59):
make that change. And I think for all of the
things that happened with the pandemic and the social unrest
really also gave us all clarity on the change that
needed to happen in our country. And so you can
either talk about the change or you can be a
part of the change. And so for me, I felt like,
how can I be a part of the chain understanding
that you know, we've been in situations where minorities were
(43:22):
not allowed to live in certain areas or even have
access to certain schools, and so we have to change
that by how we invest and how we can create
generational wealth. That's not something that happens by accident. Is
something that we have to educate. We have to come
together as a community to do that. The thing that
I found interesting is that there are we're really there
(43:43):
are two different issues. One is you want to make
sure that all athletes are fairly paid. The second, once
they get paid that they you manage what they've earned
so it can be valuable to them over a lifetime,
long after they stop playing sports. And those are two
distinct problems, both worthy of pushing. I think so, Mr President,
(44:06):
I think it's it's important to recognize that we don't
have that education and not that it's hard to have
the education about money when you don't have money. Let's
just say that. And when you come from the inner
city in the way most of us do, and a
lot of the athletes and entertainers, Um, we've worked hard
for where we are, Like, we're working as hard as
(44:27):
we can. But where were you going to get this
education about financing? I mean, I went back to school
to get my master's in business and that was probably, um,
the first understanding and infrastructure of just like economics, you know,
in general on a micro level, on a macro level,
just understanding like oh wow, and things that are depreciating
or understanding the stock market. That's a whole another level
(44:47):
of education that is not necessarily provided. So where would
they know how would they know? You know, they don't,
but they know that they're hard work and their talents
is getting them a check. But now what do you
do with that? And so there's uh. You know, we've
been able to see some athletes do amazing things and
be able to reinvest and get smarter about their money,
(45:08):
but we've seen a lot who have no idea what
they're doing, and after that retirement, within five years, statistically
they're broke. We have to change that. I agree with that.
I think the goal of almost all social policy and
economic policy should be empowerment. Yes, we should be. We
should empower other people to live their best lives so
(45:31):
that it may not be what you would do, it
doesn't shouldn't be. We have a more interesting society if
we don't make our own decisions, but you have to
be empowered to make them. And I really appreciate what
you've done on that. I think it's important that we
as African Americans in our country, our system had been
so broken for us to be broken and separated apart,
(45:54):
that we have to learn to come back together and
we have to learn to invest in each other, and
we have to be edgy catd um and educate each other.
And so that's a part of the change that I
want to be a part of. That's my new endeavor
for sure. More after this, if you ask any casual
(46:21):
sports fan, what are some of the main storylines and
all kinds of athletics over the last year or two,
one of them would certainly have to be the freedom
with which athletes have become to discuss the mental and
emotional tensions and stress they feel, particularly those who are
in dangerous sports. But we've seen that from Simone Bile
(46:45):
through Naomi Osaka, Jamie Anderson that games, and and of
course MICHAELA. Schiffern has been unusually and I think appealingly
straightforward about how she just sort of blocked out on
her first events. And the thing I really liked about
her is she said, I feel that I still feel
(47:06):
like I failed, and I'm so touched that people are
so nice to me, but I don't feel like I
earned it. I mean that she's sort of caught in
mid term with the challenges all people involved in great
endeavor's face. But almost all great contests are at bottom
head game that is. I mean, you know, you had
(47:27):
certain advantages playing basketball, you were taller than most people,
but there was some other people who were pretty tall.
I mean, if if given a fair distribution of effort
and ability contests are mental battles, I think, So, what's
your take on it. Is it a positive thing that
we're getting more open about mental health? And how do
(47:51):
you talk about these things in a way that doesn't
necessarily make the paralysis worse. I believe it's it's a
real topic that people who feel that they need help
should have access to that and not be looked at negatively.
I do believe that there are things in life that
(48:12):
we can do to even help with mental health, and
that is giving people the tools to deal with it.
I remember a long time ago, I used to work
with volunteers, probably the better work because I didn't get paid,
but I worked with or volunteered to help UM Foster Boys,
and I was working with the boys a lot, and
(48:34):
I found that one on one UM talking to the
boys and creating that relationship was amazing, Like I loved
each of them and just had so much fun hanging
out with them. But I also realized when we got
together there were times where if you date one was antagonized,
or if they were challenged, they would become very aggressive,
(48:55):
possibly fight. Like it was just a change, and I
was interested to understand, like the chemical imbalance at times
that would happen, it's because they didn't really understand how
to deal with their emotions. And so I believe that
that's a real thing and things maybe we need to
look for in children younger that may have behavioral issues
(49:18):
sometimes or maybe seem sad more than others. Are paying
a little bit more attention to the emotions of children
and then finding ways to get them help. Now as
we move more into the teens and the you know,
young adults, yeah, I believe. I believe it's real. Listen,
we are older looking at them go through social media
(49:40):
and you know, cyber bullying and a pandemic, and problems
being canceled in college, opportunities being canceled. Like, they are
going through a lot. It's very heavy for them, and
no one could have prepared them for all of these
negative things that are happening to them all at one time.
Then you add on that the possibility of not being
(50:02):
financially secure or even knowing where your next meal is
going to come from. I'm not sure you can't afford
to have certain clothes or you know, there's a lot
of elements that these young people are dealing with, um
that maybe some of us are we passed that threshold
where we're not even thinking about that. But if I
take myself back to my nineteen year old self and
(50:24):
not knowing, you know, having five dollars to buy a burrito,
and half my burrito I ate in the morning, and
then my other half I ate, you know, before practice,
just to have enough food. I remember those days. I
couldn't imagine you adding me trying to figure out how
to where I'm gonna find my mill while I was
at college or in high school, and a pandemic, you know,
(50:47):
and some people in some close quarters dealing with COVID nineteen.
So I could think that there are a million things
right now that young people are dealing with that they
cannot process the way we as adults can step back
and go, well, listen, we have to be thankful that
we we can afford to be here. We have to
be thankful that we have a house in the space.
You know. There's so many things that we look at
(51:09):
and we're just like, well, you've got to be thankful.
But it's tougher for them. And I think it's important
for us to have the conversations. It's more real again,
giving us clarity in so many areas. Mental health is
something that we have to be aware of and we
have to check in on people and see how they're doing.
(51:31):
We are also a country that we believe in being first,
you know, we we are a country that drives people.
We were it's like second place is not acceptable. And
we have that mentality in our workplace. We have that
mentality in our sports, we have that mentality. You know,
even you and country, our country as a leadership that
(51:52):
you know, we will not be second place. That's tough
to live up to. That's a lot of pressure. And
then let me just add social media. Social media for
what it does to these young people and what they
see and all of these again material things and how
people are living makes them feel less than because they
don't have it and they don't have the access to it.
(52:14):
So I believe it is real. It's just more to
the forefront because this millennial generation, if you will, and
even this younger generation, they are dealing with things that
we did not have to deal with and they are
not capable all the time of being able to process
it and then go, hey, let me take a moment
(52:38):
to meditate, let me be happy with myself, let me
stop and learn to love myself. Let me be thankful
for the blessings I have you. You have become a
wise woman. Thank you wisdom. I pray for wisdom. You
probably always were now, but I always pray for wisdom
and discernment, you know, to just to to be able
(53:00):
to understand. I think my spiritual gift is my ability
to speak. That's what God's blessed me with. Maybe someday
you'll coach the Olympic team. All right, Mr President, I
really thank you for having me. It's an honor again
to you know, be in your presence to talk to
you than you and I know that it's you probably
hear this all the time, but some of you presidents
(53:22):
have such a voice that rings in our minds and
our hearts, that gives us hope and stability and calm
even during the storm. So it's great to hear your voice.
God bless you. Tell ms Hillary, I said, hello, and
thank you please as well. Thanks. Why am I telling you?
(53:43):
This is a production of our Heart Radio, the Clinton
Foundation and at Will Medium. Our executive producers are Craigmanascian
and Will Malnadi. Our production team includes Mitch Bluestein, Jamison Katsufas,
Tom Galton, Sir Harrowitz, and Jake Young, with production support
from Liz Raftoree and Josh Farnham. Original music by What White.
(54:05):
Special thanks to John Sykes, John Davidson on hell Orina,
Corey Ganstley, Kevin Thurm, Oscar Flores, and all our dedicated
staff and partners at the Clinton Foundation. Hi, this is
Bill Clinton. I hope you're enjoying whin I telling you this.
I started the Clinton Foundation on the belief that everyone
(54:28):
deserves a chance to succeed, Everyone has a responsibility to act,
and we all do better when we work together. In
the more than twenty years since the Foundation first opened
its doors in Harlem, we've brought people together across traditional
divides to address some of the most complex and pressing
challenges of our time. The need for cooperation has never
(54:50):
been more urgent than it is now. The COVID nineteen
pandemic has ripped the cover off long standing in equities
and vulnerabilities across our global community and here at home.
The existential threat of climate change grows every day and
all around the world. The forces of division are tugging
at the fabric of our common humanity. That's why this
(55:13):
year we're relaunching the Clinton Global Initiatives Annual Meeting in
New York in September, bringing together heads of state and
other government officials, leaders of NGOs and philanthropic organizations, prominent
voices and business, labor and finance and youth leaders, and
grassroots activists to drive progress on inclusive economic growth and recovery,
(55:34):
climate resilience, and health equity. While the challenges we face
our steep, our work has always been about what we
can do, not what we can't do, and by bringing
diverse partners together to take action and achieve real results,
we can create a culture of possibility in a world
hungary for hope. I hope you will take a moment
(55:56):
to share your thoughts and ideas with us and learn
more about our work by is a ning www dot
Clinton Foundation dot org, slash podcast. Thank you, m HM.
Like millions of people around the world, Hilly and I
spent a lot of time in the last couple of
weeks tuning into the Winter Olympics. As we cheered on
Team USA and marveled at the almost superhuman athleticism on display,
I was reminded why I love the Olympics so much.
If you've listened to this podcast at all, you know
I'm a big fan of sports and athletes of all kinds.
(00:25):
I admire their dedication, determination, hard work, and raw talent,
and they embody what so many people aspire to be
in their own lives. The Olympics puts that on display
on a global scale. As President, I had the opportunity
to celebrate many triumphs by Team USA and meet hundreds
of athletes who represented our country so well. It was
(00:47):
a special honor to be president when the United States
hosted the Games in Atlanta, and I'll never forget the
experiences giving the Olympic Torch a ceremonial sendal from the
White House as it began its journey to Olympic Village,
attending the opening ceremony with Hillary, where Muhammad Ali lift
the flame, visiting with athletes in the US, and several
(01:08):
other nations while we were there was in some ways
the most interesting thing of all. So why am I
telling you this? Because at their best, the Olympics symbolize
our world's potential for cooperation, for bringing people together, for
honoring the common humanity that unitess across old divisions of gender, race,
(01:29):
geographical borders. No one knows more about the Olympic experience,
of course, than the athletes themselves, and today I'm honored
to have two iconic gold medalists with me to offer
their insights on the Olympics, on the years of training
to go into qualifying, all the rigors of competing in
the Olympics, the ups and downs at all athletes faced,
(01:51):
and finding residience to keep going. Apollo On won eight
medals and short track speed skating across three Olympics from
two thou and two two thousand ten, America's all time
most decorated Winter Olympian in the process, becoming the face
of his sport and one of America's most iconic athletes.
(02:11):
Since retiring from competition, he's transitioned successfully into business, philanthropy, broadcasting,
and book rotting. His latest book, Hard Pivot, is out
this month. It takes us through this transition and offers
guidance for anyone facing big life changes, a subject especially
useful in these times, as so many of us navigate
(02:35):
uncharted waters. I've loved watching him throughout the years. I'm
glad I got the chance to meet him twenty years ago,
and I'm very grateful for the chance to speak with
him now. Apollo. Thanks for joining us, Mr President. It's
wonderful to see you again. Twenty years later. I was
thinking about you know, we have in our home that
(02:57):
picture of you and our family together in the Dominican Republic.
It was great. I remember that very very well. It
was it was an honor. I've been really impressed by
what you're trying to do and helping people manage transitions
in their lives and also supporting these athletes that are
under so much stress. I think it's I think it's
really good. The average person has no idea how much
(03:21):
mental stress of companies, the efforts you have to make
to be the best in the world, and anything I
agree and I do is overlaw of support. Yeah, it's
I think that that's that's why we all fall in
love with with the Olympics. Every time they come because
of the the kind of only limited three podium spots
that are available, but the thousands of athletes that have
(03:44):
dedicated a ten year or sometimes even a twenty year
UM path towards being their best, and we tend to
only celebrate champions the ones that they are standing typically
on top of the podium or receiving a medal in
some capacity UM. But it's not to say that those
other those others haven't done the work, they haven't put
in the time and the energy and that sacrifice and dedication.
(04:05):
And so what's interesting I think in today, at least
from my purview, is this transformation I think all of
us are are having around this transparency of talking about
the pressures associated with such high levels of performance, whether
that is in the Olympics for the athletes specifically, and
the other side of the coin of what's happening behind
(04:25):
the curtain, right what's happening between our own two ears.
And I think at the end of the day, although
we hoist many people up on pedestals because we aspire
and are inspired by them to to to be something
that semblance a little more like them, I think at
least what I've seen is Um, this ability to say, well,
that person is also human and he or she has
the same thoughts and the same struggles and the same
(04:47):
insecurities and self doubts. You know that I do. And uh,
just trying to help people manage that the best way possible.
You wrote this book that I think it's coming at
a very important time because everybody has undergone some chance
in their lives lately as a result of COVID, and
COVID has taken a pretty terrible tone, not only in
(05:09):
the lives we have lost and the people who have
been permanently impaired, but the fights were having over the
vaccine and masks and just the anxiety that people have.
It's it's it's unnatural to worry about going outside, walking
down the street, being with your friends, doing all these things.
(05:30):
So this book of yours is coming in an important time,
and uh, I'd like to talk about it a little
bit and why you think it's just as important for
people who aren't Olympic level athletes to read is for
people who are in high level competitions. Yeah, and and
you know this is the book it's called hard Pivot,
Embrace change, fine purpose and show up fully it's a
(05:53):
short book, it's a it's an easy read. And when
I started writing this book two and a half years ago,
it was actually and deeply rooted in kind of my
own struggles and tribulations around my reinvention or my transition
from this one identity that I had been married to
my entire life, which was Apollo oh no, Olympic champion
(06:17):
speed skater um, you know, fifteen years in the Olympic
path in space, and so I had. I had only
thought that that's what I was. I had no idea
other facets my personality. I was naturally curious. I was
interested in exploring different parts of business in the world,
but I still carried that business card with me. It's
(06:39):
really hard for me to figure out when I decided
to retire, what's next, Like what am I good at?
What am I passionate about? And will I ever be
able to replace the feeling that I once had representing
our country and competing in the Olympic Games and having
thousands and millions of people around this country cheer for me.
I had realized quite quickly that we always see things
(07:02):
for what they are in the moment. We stay so
zoomed in and we believe that this moment is the
defining moment, this is what's going to have the rest
of my legacy and chapter for the rest of my life.
And I think we failed to realize that it's just
one chapter. It's a part of all these different experiences
that make up the entire book. And so there was
this deep psychological process that I had to go through
(07:24):
in terms of who am I? What is important? My father,
who has been a huge um just just advocate and
support of my life, but also his philosophy on kind
of always prompting me to ask the internal questions, and
you talk about like how am I keeping score of
a life well lived regardless of what the external circumstances
(07:46):
are telling me as and and this book reminds me
to kind of ask life, right, what does Apollo want
from life? And what do I believe life wants from Apollo?
How can I engage in this path um knowing full
well that I'm gonna have failures, I will have multiple mistakes,
i will have missteps, but also making sure that I
(08:08):
am aligned with that true north so that I can
zoom out and also remain committed on that path. And
so the book is dedicated towards people who either during
COVID they were laid off, they decided they didn'ty don't
no longer want to pursue this career that they spent
twenty or thirty years in, and now they're stuck with
the same question of how do I do my best
(08:30):
in life to find my true north? How do I
keep score? And actually understand that the scorecard maybe was
the wrong scorecard from the beginning. Maybe I was living
a life in fear of other people's opinions versus what
I fundamentally believe is the most important thing for me,
my family and my community, etcetera. And I hope it
(08:50):
will help improve and change at least light the fire
within a lot of people. I remember, sometime around the
time I left the White Else might be a yours later.
I had given a lot of thought to what I
would do in the rest of my life, but I
knew just vaguely how I wanted to do it. I
didn't I couldn't answer the how question. So first you
(09:13):
have to say what, then you have to say how.
And Uh. I read a little book by a man
named Spencer Johnson called Who Moved My Cheese? And It
was from a story about mice being trained in laboratory
experiments to navigate fairly complicated mazes to get to the
cheese once they found the cheese, and they had a
(09:35):
surprising capacity to remember complex roots until somebody moved the cheese.
And you know, you stopped speed skating and somebody moved
your cheese. You biology moved your cheese. All kinds of things.
You had to make that decision. And I think you're
(09:56):
still young enough that a lot of people much younger
than you know about you remember with great pride and
excitement what you accomplished, but are out there asking these
questions of themselves now because this is happening to people
at all ages. I have a lot of young friends
that I just see them asking these questions now, probably
(10:19):
twenty thirty years before they would have asked had it
out been for this total disruption of our lives in
in two thousand two, before the first Olympic Games that
I had competed in just six months prior was the
September eleven, two thousand one, um devastating attacks on on
this country. And you know, during that time, I was,
(10:42):
you know, I was eighteen going on fifteen I always
joke and uh, and I remember walking into the opening ceremonies,
you know, just a year six months after, you know,
the country was very uncertain in terms of travel. We
weren't we weren't entirely sure if we should be hosting
a global event on home soil. We didn't know if
it was an invitation to replicate what had just happened,
(11:05):
and so there was this uneasiness that existed, this uncertainty,
a lot of misinformation and disinformation that existed, and um,
people were unsure. For the first time in a long time.
We I think we as a country had been brought
to a niece, so to speak. And it was hard
to believe that, right. I think that the ethos of
being American was kind of always brashedly, always saying like
(11:26):
we're the best, We're number one, you know, uh, nothing
can can can take us down. And and it was
it was this time where I remember walking to the
opening ceremonies and you know, seeing the the you know,
the security and the Special Forces people were on top
of rooftops and they had their night vision goggles and
walking into the actual arena. And then at that point
(11:49):
in time, you know, this like reverberance of energy that
was like unified. They had walked in this flag that
was flown at the World Trade Center from New York.
One of my very close friends and teammates was a
part of that contingency that walked in the flag and
there wasn't a dry eye in the entire arena. But really,
and most importantly, um, there was this sense of community.
(12:13):
And you know, the Olympics was really powerful. It showed
that hey, we're going to persevere, we are going to continue.
Is there uncertainty, yes, is there going to be risk here, yes,
but we have to continue and pick ourselves back up again.
And that was at the moment for me in which
I felt like, Wow, this is this is way bigger
(12:33):
than this little sport of speed skating that I do.
This is something that is very representative regardless of outcome.
Here's an incredible opportunity in a chance to have unification,
to have common belief, to have Team USA and a
global arena for people to compete their absolute best and
showcase the utmost of the human spirit. And my very
(12:57):
first race, it was the two thousand two um Win Olympics.
It was a one thousand meters in Salt Lake City. UM.
I was favored to win the race. I was like
on all these magazines and um a mirror. Moments before
the finish line and I was in first place. At
the snap of the finger, another athlete crashed into me
and then all of us went spiraling into the paths
(13:19):
UM and my Olympic dreams of winning gold in that
race were almost over. And I scrambled to my feet,
falling again. But I thrust my skates across the finish
line in this like wild craze of just trying to
finish the race. That was my instinctual habit. I didn't
know what happened. I rush off of the ice. Um
I had just one silver. Uh, and I was confused.
(13:42):
I didn't know what happened. And and for for a second,
you know, like many others, I felt like, hey, this
was taken from me. I was deserving of that gold.
It was mine, it was someone else's faults. Those are
my natural human reactions and responses. And then in incomes in. Uh,
this this friend of mine who also our physio and
kind of slash doctor. He's got this crazy look in
(14:03):
his eye, and he looks at me and he says
Apollo that was the most incredible race in the world.
At the time, I had this huge gash in my leg.
I just cut myself and it's at that moment that
I realized it, Wow, this this was a gift. I
didn't get the color of the metal that I wanted,
but representative of that was this ability to get back
up and win that silver. And so I told myself
(14:25):
as I went out to receive the medals in the
in the metal ceremony, that I was going to celebrate
this silver as if it was the gold, because it
represented so much more than just the race itself. It
was We're going to get back, We're going to get
knocked down, and during those times is a defining component
of how do you get yourself back up, recalibrate and
(14:47):
continue on. And it's never easy, and oftentimes life doesn't
give us the entire result that we would like if
we were the ones holding the playbook and writing the script,
so to speak. But I think it's how we react
and respond to those life challenges that are at the
time are seemingly crushing and they can paralyze you in
a capacity that doesn't allow you be your best self.
(15:10):
But then later on life. We realize that that was
the most incredible blessing of all and that to this day,
out of the eight medals that I've won, was the
most significant, the most important, and the one that I
think is my favorite because of the life lessons that
I carry with me today, not because of the color
of the metal. I was watching that, right, I remember
the crash, and I remember being so proud that somehow
(15:33):
you got up and finished in you tried out for
the one or Olympics and you didn't qualify this right,
what happened? Then? How did you react? Did you ever
think for a moment about quitting? I did? I was confused. So,
you know, in the Olympic Games are going to be
(15:54):
held in not going to Japan, which is near where
my grandparents are actually from. And so my father was
a Japanese immigrant who came to the US um no
money in his pocket, you know, like incredible immigrant story
that just kind of fought tooth and nail and survived
to live the American dream, which was to pursue his
passion in this country. And when I was born, everything
(16:15):
changed and so you know, for his entire, my entire
life at that point, my father wanted me to do
something special, and here was the moment in which we
were going to come back to Japan. My dad was
gonna say, see, it wasn't for nothing. Look at we produced.
We produced this. You know, our our son, our family
is going to compete on Japanese home soil, compete for
(16:35):
the US. This is like the perfect story book. I
was fifteen years old. One year prior to that trials,
I was actually number one in the US. I was
ranked number one in the U S. I had this
incredible rise to um being technically the captain of the team,
so to speak, by performance, not by not by age,
of course, and uh in less than a year at
(16:56):
those Olympic trials, I finished dead last, sixteenth place. Actually,
I was kind of mentally defeated that year. I had
not gone um to the levels that are required to
be your absolute best. I went through the motions, and
my father saw this pattern that was starting to show
habits um in the way that I trained and approached
(17:18):
the sport. And so after I did not make that team,
was I defeated? Yes? And so my father took me
and we flew back to the Seattle area where I
where I grew up and I'm from and he drove
me about three and a half hours southwest of downtown Seattle,
and this area on the Pacific Ocean called the Palace Beach.
And at the time, you know, we didn't grow up
(17:38):
with a lot of money, and so whenever we had
the chance, my father would drive me to these nature
esque places um that we're somewhat nearby, and we would
we would we would sketch, and we would walk, and
he would talk to me about life and give me
lessons and and all these things. And so this was
the place that we had been many times. And there
was an old cabin there that was a part of
this um area. It was called Iron Springs Resort. Now
(18:02):
at the time it was very old, very run down
um and it was like a log cabin that someone
had built um in these woods that that that are
a part of the ocean. And my father drops me
off at this location and he says to alone, and
he says, you're not listening to anything that I've been
saying for the past year. You've thrown away an incredible opportunity.
(18:26):
And I'm not upset that you didn't make the team.
What is concerning to me is that you are throwing
away an opportunity to be your best and you have
second guests, and and told yourself subconsciously that, well, maybe
if I would have tried harder, I probably would have
made the team or committed or been more dedicated. And
(18:47):
these can potentially haunt you for the rest of your life,
this feeling of regret, this feeling of maybe I'll just
quit and and do something else. And so he says,
You're going to stay here for as long as it
takes for you you to understand and realize, like which
direction on life that you want to go and how
are you going to pursue that. So I'm fifteen years old, right,
(19:08):
So this is the time. I can articulate much better
today than I could back then. Back then, I was
very confused and angry at my father all these things.
I just I didn't want to be there. I was
I didn't understand why. I just want to hang out
with my friends in Seattle, Like I have no video games,
there's no cell phone, there's no social media, there's no
way to entertain myself. And so I'm just kind of
trying to figure out and I'm journaling every single day
(19:30):
and I come to this conclusion that I'm willing to
take the risk and take the gamble one more time, uh,
and pursue this wild, crazy sport of speed skating and
try to make the next Olympic team, which be four
years later, which in my sport is a very uncertain,
vaulatile environment. So I called my father. I let him
(19:51):
know the decision that I've made. He doesn't know which
decision it was. I just told me, I've made a decision.
He comes and picks me up. On the three and
a half hour drive home, I explained to him that
I'm willing to try us one more time. He's ecstatic
a because he wants to see me and he believes
that I have the talent skill to continue on. But
also um, he was happy that I actually came to
a conclusion that throughout this hardship, this tough love, was
(20:14):
this underlying light switch that was turned on for some reason,
and from that moment on, I harnessed the and leverage
the emotional trauma that occurred of not making that team
and the way that it made me feel, the chatter
that I heard in the other parents and coaches years. Oh,
(20:34):
he's just a low statistic. He can't handle the pressure.
He's going to crack under pressure. Those things were deeply
emotionally scarring, but they also were important to me to
harness the power of And that's how my career took
a real turn was when I decided to say, you
know what, the work is the shortcut. I want to
(20:55):
go somewhere and be there in four years, and the
only way through was by doing the things necessary on
a day to day basis that compound over time and
aligned with what I felt at that time was was
my purpose. I know that you have had spent some
time with other athletes having doubts, and only they can
decide what they want in their lives. And I think
(21:19):
you know one of the things your book will do
for people who are high achievers but at some tipping
point is to convince them not to make the decision
for anyone else, but not to make it out of fear,
because there is some dignity in the decision. Just to
(21:40):
keep trying. Handling these changes is a very big deal.
In handling setbacks is a very big deal. We'll be
right back. What do you think we could do to
(22:04):
pay more positive attention to the the enormous mental and
emotional and psychological challenges and pressures. A lot of athletes
are under and still continue to value competitive excellence and
recognize momentary victories. How can we strike the write balance?
(22:25):
I thought about this often. I think, Um, you know,
my own conditioning around how I can be my own
version of a warrior has probably also transformed over the
past decade. And as we enter into an era where um,
we're being much more communicative around what happens between our
(22:46):
own two years and this connection and engagement that we
can create with our communities through social or wherever. The
good side is that we can actually show the human side.
You can show that side that that makes us more awesome. Um,
we can also exude the same type of qualities that
we want to see in Olympic athletes and in those
(23:08):
that we believe when we define the words strong. But
I think the words strong now is encompassing and has texture,
and that texture is associated with realizing and recognizing that
you must have empathy, the vulnerability associated with seeking one's
authentic truth. It's actually incredibly strong. And so you know
(23:33):
my first reaction when I saw Simone Biles say that
she was not going to continue and compete in those
games might because of my own conditioning. I said, hey,
that that doesn't seem fair. That seems like she's quitting.
I think she's failing at what she's doing. That was
my first natural response, and then I said, wait a second, Apollo,
you don't know this person. Number one, You have no
(23:54):
idea what this person has gone through or what is
feeling and seeing right now and an actual reality. To
say yes and continue on the same path that she
had been on many many times before was actually the
easy road. That was the road that was expected, and
that was the road that she was conditioned to do,
regardless of how she feels and or what has happened,
(24:18):
or making a stand in some capacity, even if it
meant that she was not going to get a medal.
That's really hard to do. I'm not sure that I
would be able to do that in full transparency. And
on the flip side, to go against the grain, against
what anyone else thought was acceptable and or um what
(24:39):
we wanted to see happen. She said, I'm not going
to compete because I'm not okay that has taken That
takes so much strength to go against what what you know.
Potentially I don't know a hundred million people in this
country would say that's not the right answer, um, And
so I commend her for doing that. And I'm sure
(25:01):
that that has not been easy. UM. I think that
as we entered this era where yes, there's a lot
of challenges this country has. Yes, there's a lot of conflict. Yes,
there's all these things that sometimes we ask ourselves, I'm
not sure if we're going to make it, um. And
I think the strength and the determination that exists when
we define those words can live in the Olympic space,
(25:24):
and so what can we do? I think we need
to talk about it. We have to have the open
lines of communication to still hold to our truth of
you can be incredibly strong, you can persevere and overcome
the most devastating of situations circumstances, and uh, you can
come out the other side incredibly strong, calloused in a way, right,
(25:47):
Douglas Douglas Mallock. Right, good timber does not grow with ease.
The stronger wind, the stronger trees. That is the experience
that we can live up to. And then realizing the
scars that we have in our life, the things that
have happened are what makes us who we are today.
But people don't know about those unless you are communicating
about them. And only through communication can we actually help
(26:09):
those athletes proceed to be more wholesome, and I believe
actually stronger, because then they own those things. They are
no longer held in this mental prison, being handcuffed to
this idea that I will have to do what everyone
expects me to do versus knowing what is right and
what I need to do. Uh, And that's available. So
(26:30):
I think that I think we're on the right path.
I think the communication has to continue UM and then
for people who suffer UM on a chemical level, I
think that we're understanding so much more about the brain,
and there are treatments and people and professionals that we
can seek to help us navigate through life's most challenging times.
(26:51):
Thank you, Thank you for not quitting when you've got
off the drink. I'll be honest, I've never really put
a nickel's worth of attention two speech skating and those
smaller rinks until you came along, and slowly I saw
first what skill it took, the second, what courage it took,
(27:14):
third how it could be dangerous, and fourth how a
lot of Olympic sports are like this, but how often
in that sport you wind up being at the mercy
of who bumped who first and what happens and you
just seemed to lift yourself above it all Your head
was in a good place. Life is a complicated piece
(27:38):
of work. But I think the one thing that it's
almost impossible to make people appreciate when they're young, it
is how fast it happens mhm, you know, and how
you you want to enjoy every phase of your life
and you want something you've given back, And I think
(27:59):
that's really hard to think about when you're young. My
father died before I was born, so I always was
more aware of my mortality than most people. And one
of my great goals in life, when Helen I got married,
I said, you know one thing I hope will happens.
That will be old people one day sitting on a
(28:20):
park bench and the young people will walk by, holding
hands and laughing, and we will have no resentments and
no regrets, just gratitude. But it's one thing to say
and another to live. That's what that wag said. When
all is said and done, more is said than done.
(28:43):
You know what's you're like? To be that way you
want to be, and I think you've got a chance
here to have a really profound positive impact on people.
Thank you, Thank you. This is this has been This
has been amazing. I have a lot of life lessons here.
My next guest is a former professional basketball player, four
(29:04):
time Olympic gold medalists, three time w n B A
m VP, and Hall of Famer. Lisa Leslie is currently
the coach of the Triplets in the Big Three Basketball League.
She led to the inaugural Big Three championship in twenty nineteen.
In addition to her pioneering basketball career, which includes being
(29:25):
the first woman to dunk w n B a game,
Lisa's resume includes fashion, modeling, acting, sports commentary, and now
real estate. I had the honor to meet her when
I was president and she was a member of the
women's national basketball team when they won those gold medals
in and in two thousand. I've been a big fan
(29:45):
ever since, and I'm so glad to be speaking with
her today. Lisa, thank you for joining us. Yes, thank
you for having me, Mr President. I'm so excited. It's
a great one to see you. To hear your voice
always warms my heart. I remember, UH, just me really
getting into voting and focusing more on our country and
(30:06):
our needs. UM, after having the pleasure of meeting you
and Miss Hillary and UM meeting you also on Beverly
Hills at Rock the Vote. I don't know if you
remember that. UM, thank you so much. It's always been
a pleasure and I'm so happy to be on your podcast.
So tell us just a little about winning. How you
(30:27):
grew up, and how you became interested in basketball. I
grew up in Compton, California, which is the inner city
of southern California. UM. I was raised by my mom,
who's a single mom with two sisters, an older sister
and a younger sister. I'm the middle child, therefore the
best child, who's most flexible, who gets along with everybody
because I'm used to being told what to do. But
(30:50):
I'm also used to leading and telling my younger sister
what to do. So UM, I'd argue that the middle
child's the best. Of course, my sisters would argue something different,
but UM, you know, we just screw up. I come
from very humble beginnings. UM had so much love and
just positive affirmations from my mom for my sisters and
I to, you know, take on the world and do
(31:10):
the best that we can do, be our best, and
do it with a lot of love and heart and integrity.
But I gotta tell you, I didn't start playing basketball
until I was twelve years old, which is really late
considering all the success that I've had in this sport.
But basketball, for me, really was about an opportunity to
create change for our lives and for me to be
(31:32):
able to go to college. That was the whole reason
why I picked up a basketball because I recognize that
that was the one sport that because obviously I was
so tall. I was six ft in the sixth grade,
so crazy, right. I remember telling my mom that people
keep asking me if I play basketball, and she's like, oh, well,
(31:53):
because you're tall. To be heard, you know, they associate
sports with people who were tall. And I was like, well,
I don't want to play that, and she was like, oh,
you don't have to. So funny. Um, But I went
to middle school and there was a girl named Shay.
They called her she and everybody's like Shay and she's
so popular, and I'm like, why is everybody know her name?
And they said, well, she's on the basketball team, and
(32:16):
so I think God just had that happen for me
so I can go, well, I want everybody to know
my name. So I tried out for the basketball team.
I guess the rest is history. It's amazing, that's how
I started playing basketball. That's a great story. It's a
great sport. Yes, it's It's changed my life and it's
enhanced my life in ways that I would have never known.
(32:37):
Through all the hard work and dedication of picking up
that one basketball. In addition to your Olympic career, you
made a huge contribution, I think to building the w
n b A into what it is today. Talk about
what that was like starting the league, expanding it. I
know that Kobe Bryant did so much for the n
b A. He supported it all much. A little about that, Yeah,
(33:01):
I kind of think back first, even going to high
school and Title nine, Right, So Title nine played such
a huge part and the opportunities that I've had even
getting to the w n b A. Um, when I
look at Title nine and I remember learning about it
in high school in the ninth grade and just having
the opportunity to be able as a female, to be
(33:22):
able to play sports, and recognizing that Hey, this is
an opportunity that although it's a bill and a law
that can go away at any time. And so I
think it was that understanding of the opportunity and the
urgency to play sports and not knowing if it was
gonna last that really motivated me to want to to
be my best and to get after it. So I
(33:44):
never took playing for granted. I went to Morningside High
in Inglewood, California, and then I went on to USC
and at USC, I played for a coach name Mary
Anne Stanley, and it was coach Stanley who gave me
that idea about, you know, representing our country and you know,
understanding that there's basketball overseas. And from there, I have
(34:05):
to say that making my first USA basketball team in
the eleventh grade was my first opportunity to travel the world.
And so what happens is sometimes we have kids that
play these sports, but you never get an opportunity or
you don't see the big picture. By making my first
USA team and going to Spain out of the country,
first time out of the country ever, my first passport,
(34:27):
that was really what opened and brought in my my
horizons to the fact that other women in other countries
play basketball professionally, like there are more opportunities outside of
our state. And then I would come back to our
country and go, well, why don't we recognize or celebrate
women's sports as much as we do men? And so
I knew that I had really um one of voice
(34:49):
and a purpose, and my purpose was to try to
spend spread the word about women's sports and us playing
at this next level and us being even better. So
when you look at what we did in six it
really started in when the USA team traveled the world,
playing everybody in their country and beating them. By the
time we got that gold medal placed around our next
(35:10):
we were sixty and oh and so that's sixty and
oh is really what elevated the idea that women can
play professional basketball in our country. And so the w
b A was then launched in um. I was assigned
to Los Angeles and the w b A again a platform,
an opportunity to be a role model for so many
(35:32):
young kids, boys and girls, signing autographs, taking pictures, um
doing community service because I knew we had to invest
in our fans and try to grow our basketball in
our country. And so that really was the pivotal moment
for me was just understanding the platform, understanding the importance
(35:53):
of networking, understanding the importance of you know, my appearance,
and you know I love being feminine and I love fashion.
So that for me was like, Hey, but I'm gonna
play basketball and they're gonna play as hard as I can.
I loved having those opportunities. And I would say that
our NBA counter parts, our guys, were our biggest supporters.
And yes, Kobe Bryant was probably had done more for
(36:17):
women's basketball and our awareness and a very short period
of time than anybody else in history when it comes
to a man that really loved what we were doing,
aside from David Stern himself and the late doctor Bus.
Tell the people who are listening, how long you played well?
I played professionally for UM. I'd say eleven years in
(36:38):
the w n B A UM, because I stopped and
I had my daughter, and I went back and played
and played in my last Olympics. UM, but I've been
playing basketball for over twenty five years. UM. I played overseaves,
I lived in Italy, I lived in Russia. UM got
a chance to eat some amazing food and learned to
speak another language. Um, and bath sketball. Like I said,
(37:01):
picking up that ball in seventh grade changed my life forever.
I always say, you know, it was one thing for
me to represent my city and even my state and
winning state championships in high school, but it's been the
biggest honor of my life to represent our country playing
for Team USA. At first, that's a beautiful sentiment and
I'm glad you feel that way still. So you won
(37:23):
gold medals in two thousand, two thousand four, and two
thousand night, anyone in particular stand out for you? Oh? Yes,
Mr President, it will always be for me. Um. If
you remember that, Um, which is not to put a
damper on it, but there was a bomb that went
off in at the in Atlanta at the Olympic, and
(37:46):
so um our men and women's team stayed across the
street from that Centennial Park. That bomb went off outside
of my balcony window, and UM, that moment was sort
of surreal because you know, things you saw on television,
but to be on our US soil and for that
to happen. In that moment, I think we were all
faced with the challenge of like, are we gonna move
(38:09):
in fear? Or are we gonna fight, And it was
a symbolism to me that you know, our country, our security,
everything stepped up right. We were aware and we were
prepared for anything. And that's the same thing we were
as a team Team USA. We had a talk and
we were you know, shaken by that, but also it
was like, this is the point we have on this
(38:30):
USA uniform. We are fighters, we work hard, we don't
give up. And that moment, for me, it was just
very symbolic because we had an opportunity to sort of
power away or be like, you know, we're afraid, we
don't want to go on with the Olympics or whatever,
and it was just like, you know, a second that
that comes in, it's like, no, we are we are USA,
and no one's going to you know, stop us from
(38:53):
fighting for our country. And although again I love and
respect our military. My husband flew um, he went to
the Air Force Academy, he flew in Desert Storm and
Desert Shield, um as well as my you know, my father,
my grandfather, and my uncle's my father in law. So
our military means so much to me that I understand
(39:15):
that they fight and protect us in such a way,
but that for me was just like I thought about
our our military and that you know, even though I'm
just an athlete in this USA uniform, we have an
opportunity to fight for our country and to still go
out there. And so the nineties Olympics um will always
be my favorite just because we were on us soil
(39:36):
fighting for our country. Yep, it's a wonderful memory. Yes,
let me ask you a little bit about what you're
doing now and we'll come back to the Olympics. Not
all of our listeners know about Big three basketball, and
you're a coach of a team and you've got some
pretty outstanding players. So tell people about just a little
(39:57):
bit about Big three basketball, how to get store the
who's behind it, and how did you get involved. Yeah. So,
first off, President Clinton, we have to have you at
a Big three game. You have a personal invitation in
a court side seat because we would love to have you.
And this amazing league was started by ice Cube, Jeff Quasnet,
and Amy Trash, three amazing, brilliant people who came together
(40:22):
to start this league. And you know, ice Cube is
just he's really a genius in our time and so
amazing that he would think of three on three for
players who still have a lot in their tank, but
maybe you know, just they don't have a spot on
the NBA team anymore. Although a lot of our players
have been picked backed up by NBA team, So three
on three or NBA men who um left the NBA
(40:46):
or retired and have an opportunity to play three on
three half court. We have an amazing game. That's the
first team the fifty. You gotta win by two. We
have three point shots, four point shots, uh, you name it.
We also have something called fireball that was at it
last year, which is also brilliant. So ice Cube decided
that if you want to challenge, you know, a foul call,
(41:09):
unless it was an offensive foul, you can challenge that
call and then go one on one. So we call
that fireball, which is also so exciting. And we were
talking a little before the program started about real essite,
how did you get into the lap Yeah, well, you know,
Mr President, having the opportunity to play in the w
n b A was really the first time that I
was able to make money, you know, and I have
(41:31):
also endorsement deals and so once I got there, I
was very lucky and blessed to have an uncle, two
uncles who aren't both um, they are both accountants, and
so having them, I went directly to my uncle, who
you know, obviously was very well off, and I was like,
how do I keep my money? What do I do?
You know? And he was like, well, the first thing
(41:51):
we need to do is, you know, open up your
corporation and you need to go and get some real estate.
So it really started in and having that advice, I
started to buy homes. I bought myself a home, then
I bought my mom a home, which I kept in
my name, and I started out like that really slowly,
and I'm about to launch the first national Black um
real estate agency across our country. We've never had one.
(42:15):
It's called Aston Rose. And the beauty of that is
that it's gonna be an opportunity for all of us
to be very inclusive with investing in athletes as well
as entertainers and trying to not just help them with
their real estate, but also to educate them because sometimes
in the African American community, we we miss out on
(42:37):
that educational opportunity of understanding how to keep your money.
And we know of so many athletes and people in
the past who had millions of dollars and have nothing
to show for it, whether after they retired in five
years they have no money left or if they blew
it all um just on things that really didn't appreciate.
And so it's it's time. It's time for us to
(42:59):
make that change. And I think for all of the
things that happened with the pandemic and the social unrest
really also gave us all clarity on the change that
needed to happen in our country. And so you can
either talk about the change or you can be a
part of the change. And so for me, I felt like,
how can I be a part of the chain understanding
that you know, we've been in situations where minorities were
(43:22):
not allowed to live in certain areas or even have
access to certain schools, and so we have to change
that by how we invest and how we can create
generational wealth. That's not something that happens by accident. Is
something that we have to educate. We have to come
together as a community to do that. The thing that
I found interesting is that there are we're really there
(43:43):
are two different issues. One is you want to make
sure that all athletes are fairly paid. The second, once
they get paid that they you manage what they've earned
so it can be valuable to them over a lifetime,
long after they stop playing sports. And those are two
distinct problems, both worthy of pushing. I think so, Mr President,
(44:06):
I think it's it's important to recognize that we don't
have that education and not that it's hard to have
the education about money when you don't have money. Let's
just say that. And when you come from the inner
city in the way most of us do, and a
lot of the athletes and entertainers, Um, we've worked hard
for where we are, Like, we're working as hard as
(44:27):
we can. But where were you going to get this
education about financing? I mean, I went back to school
to get my master's in business and that was probably, um,
the first understanding and infrastructure of just like economics, you know,
in general on a micro level, on a macro level,
just understanding like oh wow, and things that are depreciating
or understanding the stock market. That's a whole another level
(44:47):
of education that is not necessarily provided. So where would
they know how would they know? You know, they don't,
but they know that they're hard work and their talents
is getting them a check. But now what do you
do with that? And so there's uh. You know, we've
been able to see some athletes do amazing things and
be able to reinvest and get smarter about their money,
(45:08):
but we've seen a lot who have no idea what
they're doing, and after that retirement, within five years, statistically
they're broke. We have to change that. I agree with that.
I think the goal of almost all social policy and
economic policy should be empowerment. Yes, we should be. We
should empower other people to live their best lives so
(45:31):
that it may not be what you would do, it
doesn't shouldn't be. We have a more interesting society if
we don't make our own decisions, but you have to
be empowered to make them. And I really appreciate what
you've done on that. I think it's important that we
as African Americans in our country, our system had been
so broken for us to be broken and separated apart,
(45:54):
that we have to learn to come back together and
we have to learn to invest in each other, and
we have to be edgy catd um and educate each other.
And so that's a part of the change that I
want to be a part of. That's my new endeavor
for sure. More after this, if you ask any casual
(46:21):
sports fan, what are some of the main storylines and
all kinds of athletics over the last year or two,
one of them would certainly have to be the freedom
with which athletes have become to discuss the mental and
emotional tensions and stress they feel, particularly those who are
in dangerous sports. But we've seen that from Simone Bile
(46:45):
through Naomi Osaka, Jamie Anderson that games, and and of
course MICHAELA. Schiffern has been unusually and I think appealingly
straightforward about how she just sort of blocked out on
her first events. And the thing I really liked about
her is she said, I feel that I still feel
(47:06):
like I failed, and I'm so touched that people are
so nice to me, but I don't feel like I
earned it. I mean that she's sort of caught in
mid term with the challenges all people involved in great
endeavor's face. But almost all great contests are at bottom
head game that is. I mean, you know, you had
(47:27):
certain advantages playing basketball, you were taller than most people,
but there was some other people who were pretty tall.
I mean, if if given a fair distribution of effort
and ability contests are mental battles, I think, So, what's
your take on it. Is it a positive thing that
we're getting more open about mental health? And how do
(47:51):
you talk about these things in a way that doesn't
necessarily make the paralysis worse. I believe it's it's a
real topic that people who feel that they need help
should have access to that and not be looked at negatively.
I do believe that there are things in life that
(48:12):
we can do to even help with mental health, and
that is giving people the tools to deal with it.
I remember a long time ago, I used to work
with volunteers, probably the better work because I didn't get paid,
but I worked with or volunteered to help UM Foster Boys,
and I was working with the boys a lot, and
(48:34):
I found that one on one UM talking to the
boys and creating that relationship was amazing, Like I loved
each of them and just had so much fun hanging
out with them. But I also realized when we got
together there were times where if you date one was antagonized,
or if they were challenged, they would become very aggressive,
(48:55):
possibly fight. Like it was just a change, and I
was interested to understand, like the chemical imbalance at times
that would happen, it's because they didn't really understand how
to deal with their emotions. And so I believe that
that's a real thing and things maybe we need to
look for in children younger that may have behavioral issues
(49:18):
sometimes or maybe seem sad more than others. Are paying
a little bit more attention to the emotions of children
and then finding ways to get them help. Now as
we move more into the teens and the you know,
young adults, yeah, I believe. I believe it's real. Listen,
we are older looking at them go through social media
(49:40):
and you know, cyber bullying and a pandemic, and problems
being canceled in college, opportunities being canceled. Like, they are
going through a lot. It's very heavy for them, and
no one could have prepared them for all of these
negative things that are happening to them all at one time.
Then you add on that the possibility of not being
(50:02):
financially secure or even knowing where your next meal is
going to come from. I'm not sure you can't afford
to have certain clothes or you know, there's a lot
of elements that these young people are dealing with, um
that maybe some of us are we passed that threshold
where we're not even thinking about that. But if I
take myself back to my nineteen year old self and
(50:24):
not knowing, you know, having five dollars to buy a burrito,
and half my burrito I ate in the morning, and
then my other half I ate, you know, before practice,
just to have enough food. I remember those days. I
couldn't imagine you adding me trying to figure out how
to where I'm gonna find my mill while I was
at college or in high school, and a pandemic, you know,
(50:47):
and some people in some close quarters dealing with COVID nineteen.
So I could think that there are a million things
right now that young people are dealing with that they
cannot process the way we as adults can step back
and go, well, listen, we have to be thankful that
we we can afford to be here. We have to
be thankful that we have a house in the space.
You know. There's so many things that we look at
(51:09):
and we're just like, well, you've got to be thankful.
But it's tougher for them. And I think it's important
for us to have the conversations. It's more real again,
giving us clarity in so many areas. Mental health is
something that we have to be aware of and we
have to check in on people and see how they're doing.
(51:31):
We are also a country that we believe in being first,
you know, we we are a country that drives people.
We were it's like second place is not acceptable. And
we have that mentality in our workplace. We have that
mentality in our sports, we have that mentality. You know,
even you and country, our country as a leadership that
(51:52):
you know, we will not be second place. That's tough
to live up to. That's a lot of pressure. And
then let me just add social media. Social media for
what it does to these young people and what they
see and all of these again material things and how
people are living makes them feel less than because they
don't have it and they don't have the access to it.
(52:14):
So I believe it is real. It's just more to
the forefront because this millennial generation, if you will, and
even this younger generation, they are dealing with things that
we did not have to deal with and they are
not capable all the time of being able to process
it and then go, hey, let me take a moment
(52:38):
to meditate, let me be happy with myself, let me
stop and learn to love myself. Let me be thankful
for the blessings I have you. You have become a
wise woman. Thank you wisdom. I pray for wisdom. You
probably always were now, but I always pray for wisdom
and discernment, you know, to just to to be able
(53:00):
to understand. I think my spiritual gift is my ability
to speak. That's what God's blessed me with. Maybe someday
you'll coach the Olympic team. All right, Mr President, I
really thank you for having me. It's an honor again
to you know, be in your presence to talk to
you than you and I know that it's you probably
hear this all the time, but some of you presidents
(53:22):
have such a voice that rings in our minds and
our hearts, that gives us hope and stability and calm
even during the storm. So it's great to hear your voice.
God bless you. Tell ms Hillary, I said, hello, and
thank you please as well. Thanks. Why am I telling you?
(53:43):
This is a production of our Heart Radio, the Clinton
Foundation and at Will Medium. Our executive producers are Craigmanascian
and Will Malnadi. Our production team includes Mitch Bluestein, Jamison Katsufas,
Tom Galton, Sir Harrowitz, and Jake Young, with production support
from Liz Raftoree and Josh Farnham. Original music by What White.
(54:05):
Special thanks to John Sykes, John Davidson on hell Orina,
Corey Ganstley, Kevin Thurm, Oscar Flores, and all our dedicated
staff and partners at the Clinton Foundation. Hi, this is
Bill Clinton. I hope you're enjoying whin I telling you this.
I started the Clinton Foundation on the belief that everyone
(54:28):
deserves a chance to succeed, Everyone has a responsibility to act,
and we all do better when we work together. In
the more than twenty years since the Foundation first opened
its doors in Harlem, we've brought people together across traditional
divides to address some of the most complex and pressing
challenges of our time. The need for cooperation has never
(54:50):
been more urgent than it is now. The COVID nineteen
pandemic has ripped the cover off long standing in equities
and vulnerabilities across our global community and here at home.
The existential threat of climate change grows every day and
all around the world. The forces of division are tugging
at the fabric of our common humanity. That's why this
(55:13):
year we're relaunching the Clinton Global Initiatives Annual Meeting in
New York in September, bringing together heads of state and
other government officials, leaders of NGOs and philanthropic organizations, prominent
voices and business, labor and finance and youth leaders, and
grassroots activists to drive progress on inclusive economic growth and recovery,
(55:34):
climate resilience, and health equity. While the challenges we face
our steep, our work has always been about what we
can do, not what we can't do, and by bringing
diverse partners together to take action and achieve real results,
we can create a culture of possibility in a world
hungary for hope. I hope you will take a moment
(55:56):
to share your thoughts and ideas with us and learn
more about our work by is a ning www dot
Clinton Foundation dot org, slash podcast. Thank you, m HM.
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