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November 27, 2024 59 mins
In this episode of Stay A While, seasoned sports broadcaster and GALVANIZE founder Laura Okmin shares her journey through the challenges of ageism and sexism in the industry. She discusses the power of mentorship, positive self-talk, and the importance of building supportive communities for women. Laura reflects on personal growth, her passion for empowering the next generation, and the lasting impact of family and food memories. This episode highlights resilience, self-discovery, and the need for women to uplift each other in their careers.

Guest: Laura Okmin

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Music By: Stichiz - Big T. Music / Roj & Twinkie
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stay Awhile, the podcast that's virtual soul food
for your ears. I am your host, Tommy Vincent, and
each week we break bread with gold passionate women who
have faced the impossible and are still standing to share
their testimonies. Make yourself at home and stay Awhile. Hi everyone,

(00:24):
it's Tommy Vincent, your host of Stay Awhile podcast, and
today joining me at the table, we have Laura Oakman. Laura,
Welcome to the table today. I am so excited for
our conversation. Before we get into it, let me just
let the folks know who we have joining us today.
Such a powerhouse, such a woman who has made her

(00:47):
mark in the wide world of sports. Laura has over
thirty years covering some of the biggest names and sports
on the biggest stages. She is a communicatoration's coach, and
she is had the opportunity to have some of the
most interesting conversations on the sidelines from sport to sport,

(01:12):
and we are delighted to have her at the table today.
Welcome Laura.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
I'm so excited, I'm so honored, I am so delighted.
I just like I'm trying to put my arms around
the table where I'm so excited. I'm just so excited
to be a part of this and have a conversation
with you.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Tell me, yes, thank you for being here. And before
we get into questions, the very first thing I want
to understand is who is Laura Oakman.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
It's so funny because if you would have asked me
that maybe fifteen years ago, I'm going to say right
before I was forty. If you asked me about fifteen
years ago, I would have taken about thirty five seconds
and I would have listed my bio and I would
have told you where I started, where I went to
from there, and where I am now, and every single

(02:03):
thing about my who would have been my job, And
now what I would tell you is who I am
is a woman way past a shrinking window that she
was told she had, a woman on TV, a woman
talking sports. I was told after thirty, you better start
looking for a new career, and then I was told
after forty, you better start looking for a new career.

(02:24):
So here I am north of fifty. And who I
am is a woman madly in love with her second act,
a woman who was told that it gets worse, a
woman who was told that you won't know who you
are after fifty no one's going to want to hear
who you are. And who I am is a woman
who is madly in love with with my husband I

(02:45):
met later in life, with opportunities that I keep getting
in my life and being at this age, at this
moment in my life. And as I'm sitting here thinking
about that, and I never mentioned my job or sports once,
And I think that for me says that I've been doing,
I mean, the work I needed to get to get
to this age.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
When you look back at that journey that you've been
on to where you are today, how did you use
those knows and all of that negative talk that people
were asserting onto you as stepping stones versus as barriers

(03:25):
preventing you from where you desired to be in your career.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
I love that you made it sound like it was
the past, because I would say I still get those
right like that. You know, you think that all of
a sudden, you get to this point in your life
where you go, look at me, I beat sexism, and
then all of a sudden, agism is just standing around
the corner waiting to punch you in the face, and
comes a whole new conversation, new knows for a different reason.

(03:49):
And I just know that the first know that I
really heard, that I really heard was when I was
in college and I took a sports broadcasting class and
thirty thirty three, thirty four years ago, and there were
no very few women in sports, and I told my
advisor I wanted to do something in sports broadcasting and
he said, that's crazy. You know, a woman can't do that,

(04:12):
and Tommy, I had no confidence, like I had none.
So I don't know how in the world, but somewhere
way back in that little you know that young Laura Bray,
for some reason future me said that's not acceptable. And
I walked out of that office and said to him,
you just met your next one, because he said, I
don't have any and I said, you just met the one,

(04:32):
you know, the one, not the next one. And I think,
for whatever reason, at that moment, I just was like,
that's not right. And I'm going to spend the rest
of you know, the rest of my career proving that
not only can I get in this business, but I
can stay in this business. And I still say that saying,
honest to God, I had no confidence. Still I was

(04:53):
forty because I think at some point, all those no's
and all those people telling you I don't care what
you said, I don't want to hear what you say.
Women in sports, you know, like nobody wants you here.
I think at some point that becomes your voice. So
for so long I didn't think I knew what I
was talking about. I had to prove, prove, prove, prove.

(05:14):
I had to prove I knew what I knew what
I was talking about. And at some point that became
my head, and that became my brain and my voice,
And once I was forty, my work truly began, you know,
of going, how do I make sure that the voice
in my head is a positive one that truly is
my fan and my best friend and my support system?
Because I hadn't had it, and so forty changed everything

(05:37):
for me, going how do I make a new voice?
How do I make a new voice in my head
that's louder than all the negative ones that I had
been having for twenty years?

Speaker 1 (05:47):
What is a pep talk that you give to yourself
when those voices start rising up? Because to your point,
that stuff shows up differently. You know, it may not
it may come now at different way, but it still
does show up. And as someone who was seasoned, who
has experience that there's a new talk that you can

(06:09):
give to yourself to help you beat those voices down.
So what is a talk that Laura has with herself.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
It's funny because I'll never forget this. This is such
a core memory for me when I was doing that work,
and you know how people are always like, so I
did some work to make my voice confident, you know,
and it's like that kind of skips over all the
work that it took, which was a lot, and one
of the exercises that I would do was right before
I went live on TV, before a kick and the

(06:39):
camera comes on you you have thirty seconds. And I
struggled a lot then because the voices in my ear,
literally the men talking to me weren't positive and weren't supportive.
And so I had that kind of in my head of,
you know, a feeling like I was kind of being
pushed down, and the voice in my head was telling me,
you're probably going to screw this up. And so what
I started realizing was every time I was about to

(07:02):
push myself, I was about to do something that I
needed my confidence. I was talking myself down. So I
started going, gosh, every time I'm going, you can really
mess up in front of millions of people. You can
really look stupid. Here's where you're probably gonna screw up.
Like you could literally feel me just going down the
rabbit hole. So my first assignment to myself was changing
that voice to talking me up. And so what I

(07:25):
would do about three minutes before I went live, I'd
take two steps away from my camera by myself, and
I would just start telling myself I was going to
crush it, and you're gonna do great, and you're gonna
and I would picture you know, people at home, my friends,
you know, texting me and going crushed it. I pictured,
and I kept talking about how well I was going
to do, which that was very new to me, and

(07:46):
the first time that I really did that. I was
standing there and just looking down and talking myself up,
and all of a sudden, a man walked by me
on the field, just walk by and like double took
and he turned around and he goes to me, Hey,
don't mean to interrupt, but whatever you're thinking about, it
looks good on you. And he walked away, And that

(08:06):
was the time I realized how you change when you
talk yourself up. Me sitting there saying you got this,
You're great at this, You're going to crush this. I
now when I talk like that, my shoulders go back,
like I bop a little bit, like I have that
confidence right. And it was the first time that I
realized how your entire body and face change when you

(08:29):
tell yourself how amazing you are, you know, when you
talk yourself up. So I teach this to all these
young women that I mentor and I coach, and we
do confidence drills and we go around the room and
talk about a moment that was that moment for you
when we think about it, and we look at each
other and ourselves of how we change when we thought
were talking about it, and a long way of answering

(08:50):
your question, because now all these young women will say, well,
what do you think about? You know, what do you
do when you're talking yourself up? And what I always
say now, Tommy, is I don't have to think about anything.
I just am like, I don't have to tell myself.
I know I'm gonna crush it even when I don't.
I know how prepared I am. I know how confident
I am. I know how valuable my voice is. I

(09:12):
know how seasoned I am. I know all of this,
and so what I would say is now it's you know,
thirties was about figuring out my voice, forties was really
trying to step into it, and fifties is fully fully
being that voice now. And I love that you smile.
It tells me like you get that. So I would say,

(09:32):
now my head is probably really still when I do
things that I need to really like work up for,
because it just allows me to just kind of be
in be in my confident place and fully feel all
the lessons and all the growth and step into that.
Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (09:49):
It definitely makes sense. And you know, you and I
were talking a little bit before we started recording, and
we talked about how there is this generation now that
has the opportunity to really benefit from the stories of
people who have been there, done that, and are excelling

(10:09):
in that. And I know I heard you having a
conversation before in another recording and you talked about how
you didn't have women to look to that were getting
older and really growing in their career, and I thought, well,
here's someone who has over thirty years of experience. Now

(10:34):
you're that woman. You're that woman that someone can look
to and they see you not only as a woman
in sports, but they see you aging well in sports
and still standing firm, flat footed, doing your thing and
excelling at what you're doing. So there is an example

(10:54):
now of somebody that they can look to. And so
I recognize we we didn't have the benefit of a
lot of conversations with a lot of women who are
doing some of the things that we're doing now. But
I also own that I now can be that voice
for someone else that is working their way through life

(11:17):
and really trying to identify their voice, assume their power
and authority in the fields that they've been called to,
Because this shows up in every industry. This is not
just women in sports. It's when you're really just trying
to understand who am I really and what value do
I bring to the table so that I can show
up authentically as me and I can really impact the

(11:41):
world while I'm here. So when you think about that,
and you think about the work that you're doing as
a mentor, and I want you to talk about galvanized
as well, how do you what does that weight feel like?
Now knowing that you are that woman that you were
looking for.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Probably the biggest compliment you can give me, you know,
it's you usually create what you wish you had. And
so that was the impetus of Galvanize was I would
have killed to have young women around me when I
was a young woman. I would have killed to have
other women to say, how are you handling this? And
I made a mistake and should and I'm judging myself harshly,

(12:22):
you know, like can you help me? Can you love
me out of this? And I would have loved to
have helped someone else on her journey.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
And so.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
I feel like my mom died young. And my mom
was vibrant and beautiful and just turned fifty, and so
she was just hitting her peek. My mom was, I mean,
had a crazy unexpected cancer in the year she passed away,
but she really was the most fit woman that I
had ever known, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, all of it.

(12:52):
And so I never saw someone on TV that was
older than fifty, and I never saw my mom a
and so this was a real wild wilderness for me.
And I'm so grateful. That's why I'm so loud about
this because if you would have told me when I
was thirty or forty that I talk about being older

(13:14):
than fifty, I would have been like, you're crazy, because
I'm so scared of that window, because I don't want
anyone to know how old I was. I'm scared that
maybe they realize they let me sneak in. And so
now I want these young women to be able to say,
look at what it looks like, not just that she's
on TV, but that she's the happiest she's ever been,

(13:36):
that she doesn't stop talking about her husband. You know
they're so madly in love, and that I'm so in
love with the opportunities I get now and my life
keeps changing because all these awesome things I'm doing that
I needed to get to this age and stage. And
so I weigh that I wear that weight really proudly

(13:56):
because I needed it so much. I mean, there's a
great chance it's if you're a woman that's older than
forty and you're on an airplane with me, or if
you're at a line like in TSA. I'm going to
talk about menopause like I can't talk about it enough
with women, like how are you, like, what's your resources.

(14:16):
Are you getting through it? Like I never heard any
talk like that, and I can't get over the fact
that right now I feel like our generation is redefining
this age. And someone the other day just said, how
old did you feel? I'm like, how old do I feel?
I feel fifty five. I don't want to feel any
other age I feel right now, and I want this

(14:37):
to be the best age I've ever been at until
fifty six. So I think I feel that in such
a wonderful way about not just like you said, not sports,
but life, that we need women in our fifties. And
I'm you know, I just keep asking my friends in
their sixties, like does it get better? Like tell me
it gets better? Because no one told me forties were great.

(14:58):
No one told me fifties were great. So I kind
of like reluctantly went in and then was surprised. And
I'll just say this too. I thought I was handling
the forties great. I loved that decade, that was my
decade of work. And I didn't know how I felt
about fifty. And my husband asked me, can I throw
you a party for your fiftieth birthday? And I was like,

(15:19):
I don't think so. Like, I don't know how I feel,
and so I don't know if I'm celebrating, if I'm
kind of kicking and screaming. So I'd rather not. And
he said that's fair. Could I have a bunch of
people over to celebrate you and tell you, have them
tell you what you mean to them? And I was like, well,
that sounds like a lovely night. And so that's how

(15:40):
he ushered in my fiftieth birthday for me, was bringing
all these people and to tell to tell me how
they felt about me. And the difference of going in
to fifty and going how do I feel about it?
Versus what a beautiful life that I'm living right now today?
Have all these people want to be a part of this,
Because if I would have had a party at forty,
nobody would have been there. I was just lonely and

(16:03):
I was depressed, and I didn't share myself and I
hid behind my job and I didn't have any life then.
So all that to say, I can't get enough of
women talking about how good it gets as we keep
going with.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
Decades, you know. So I recently celebrated my fiftieth birthday
and Troy and the kids they gave me a surprise
birthday party. It was amazing. And I did a lot
of work in my forties where I was really working

(16:38):
on identifying my voice. What does Tommy like? What does
Tommy not like? And I work so hard to the
point where I am not interested in what other people
think or what other people have to say. And I
say that because I don't know what the I don't

(17:02):
know what the word was on the street about turning fifty.
It was good, it was bad. All I knew is
I felt great because I felt like I had reached
this space in my life where I'm so focused. I
know what I want to accomplish. I know what type
of impact I want to leave in the earth, and

(17:23):
that was my focus. So I didn't go into it like,
oh man, I'm turning fifty. I will say my body
definitely says something different than it did in the forties
and thirties, for sure, But mentally, I am in such
a great place that that's the part I want other

(17:48):
women to get. That you get to this place in
life where you just love you, You're grateful for every
breath you have, You recognize that you have purpose and
that you can do whatever it is you put your
mind to do. Let's focus there and allow for your

(18:09):
life experience to come forward so that it helps you
to navigate the time that you have here on the earth.
Use the wisdom that you got in your twenties, thirties
and forties to be you know, to mold you and
to help you with your decision making process. So for me,
that's been my approach to this new decade of my life.

(18:32):
And I'm so grateful to be here. And then when
I did turn fifty, I had a friend of mine
she texted me and she said, Oh, you're going to
absolutely love it here, so welcome to the party.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Welcome. That's a good I love that. And it's like,
how are we all not doing that for each other?
And I do think we're we are now. I just
think going back to point, all those voices become your voice.
I think, Tommy, if you didn't do the work and
I didn't do the work at the forties, like that

(19:08):
would be right now the work. And so I can't
get enough of these younger women going I didn't get
it until I was forty, wasn't supposed to get it
in a minute before that. But what if you can
help a young woman at twenty three or at twenty
five or thirty five, And so I just sit and go.
I just sit and I think about the work that

(19:28):
it takes to age. And I'm so grateful for the
I'm so grateful you and I did the work in
the forties, because I still have friends who haven't done
the work yet that didn't ask about Tommy. They asked
about the wife and the mother and the job, you know,
like all of those things, but the conversation about who
am I without all of that, without those thirty four

(19:49):
seconds that I would have told you all my job titles.
So I just know I always tell the story, but
I didn't tell it for so many years. When I
was forty and I was on a plane, I thought
the plane was crashing, and so we had the best
drop and the and the mask come down, and I
was sitting there and I just was watching people, and
I was watching them cry and pray and scream, and

(20:11):
I didn't care. And when I started sharing that story,
people would always interrupt and go because you were at peace,
And I'm like, no, because I didn't care. And they'd say,
because you accomplished so much, and I'd be like I
didn't care if the plane crash, and so that changed
everything in my life, where thank god, when we landed,
I said, okay, I'm going to start doing this, like

(20:33):
I've got to create a life that I would care
desperately if you know, God forbid if a plane went down.
And Tommy, I think about this all the time. I
think about people who had that moment. But the plane
does crash and I write and just have that moment.
And so I'm so grateful to have had that minute
of you know that you've done the Super Bowls, and

(20:56):
you've done the Olympics, and you're at a network and
all those things I thought would make me so happy,
and there I was alone and miserable and and just
and didn't didn't have any idea who I was. And
so I'm so thankful for that. But most importantly, I'm
so thankful I just it was a near you know
it was it wasn't the plane crash, but just had
that jolt of life. So I always just want to

(21:17):
talk to women about that of hopefully you don't need
that jolt, but you know, to really start doing that
work about who is Tommy? And I'm going to guess
that was hard for you in the beginning to not
mention being a mom and not being a wife when
you were saying that, or a shot, you know, all
the all the titles that you have, that you have
earned and beautifully born all those all those years.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Absolutely it was it was challenging because my identity was
wrapped up in all of those things, and to I
did them very well, and so it was it was
also something I was really proud of, and so it
would be easy for me to talk about those things
and talk about my husband and talk about my kids

(22:00):
and what they accomplished, because it very much felt like
my accomplishments as well. But it definitely was not who
Tommy was who Tommy is, and so I had to
really do the work of being able to identify those
aspects of me so that I could show up that way.

(22:23):
And the journey wasn't just a journey that impacted me
and impacted the people I loved as well, because they
were accustomed to me showing up a certain type of
way and also being accessible in a certain type of way.
And when you do the work to really work on
identifying who you are, you quickly learn there's some stuff

(22:47):
you were doing I really didn't enjoy doing that stuff,
and I don't want to do that anymore. I get
the opportunity to choose when I recognize I like that,
I don't like that. And you know, when you were
talking about the plane and not caring if the plane
went down, what it brought to mind to me is

(23:08):
how we can be moving through life and there can
be some amazing things taking place around us, but because
we're checked out, just because we're just not in a
good place and life doesn't feel good for us, we're

(23:28):
missing the moments. So the good stuff is happening, but
we're not experiencing the good stuff because we're not sitting
in it looking at it like wow, look at what's
in front of me. We're just trying to get to
the next step, or get to the next day, get
to the next week, and we're just moving through life
with these blinders on, missing all of the amazing moments

(23:52):
that create the memory bank that we get to pull
from when we're having those tough times as we're continuing
to matriculate through life.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
That's so good. I always just said, for so many
years I was sleepwalking like that was it, And so
exactly what you said, It's just I was numb to everything.
And also, this is such a woman thing. I didn't
want to tell anybody any of this because I didn't
want to appear ungrateful, because I was constantly told like

(24:21):
you like, look at what you've accomplished, and look at
this job, and you just so badly didn't want anyone
to think that you were ungrateful for it, and so
I just stuff it, stuff it, And so it just
not only forced me to sleep walk, but also just
put such a facade on. And what I would tell
you is, I'm really good at building relationships. Since I

(24:43):
started this business. I have a relationship Tuesday and that's
all I do, you know, one day a week. It's
just literally building relationships. I have a huge whiteboard that
I would keep track of. You know, this is before emails,
but who I'm reaching out to and making sure you
know that relationship building was really important and I was
really good at that. But if you would have turned
around up until you know, forty up until the plane

(25:04):
and asked any of those people, like what do you
think of Laura, and they'd be like, she's great, she
reaches out, you know, she's a vault you can trust
her with everything. You know, you know you can, you
can just trust her. But if you would have then said,
well tell me about Laura. Is she happy, is she married?
Does she have kids? Does she have a dog? Is
a peg monologue? No one would have had any idea,

(25:28):
And not because they didn't try, because people did. I
just didn't let anybody in. And so just that whole
sleep walking or you know, just kind of going through life.
It's such a lie, and so you're not letting anyone
in to tell you that, and it just that bubble
just kept getting bigger and bigger to me. Of like
you said, very cool, like being at a game watching

(25:50):
Michael Jordan play, and very cool watching the flu game,
and very cool being at the Olympics. But it didn't matter.
It was just scenery for that bubble. But I was
just so lonely inside of it. And that and also Tommy, like,
tell me if you feel this, I feel so deeply.
Now I have goggles for sleepwalkers. You just see who's

(26:13):
kind of going through the motion and you just so
desperately want to do that shake of like there's like
you said, there's so many moments that you're missing right now,
but I just always think I wasn't ready. I wasn't
ready until the exact minute I was ready to learn that.
But it makes me really sad knowing that there's so
many people out there going through the motions, and you

(26:33):
just hope that they get that moment that they realize
there's so much more. I'm so thankful you and I
got to got to have that experience.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
I am so grateful. So let's talk about Galvanis. Because
you have this army of thousands of young women that
you have an opportunity to give them a gentle shake
about it.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Well that is a little harder.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
So that they can wake up, yeah, and they can
experience life. They can experience the things and the goals
and the dreams that they're pursuing, and they can do
it well. So let's talk about Galvanis. If you could
just share with everybody what it is and why you
felt like I have to do this.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
I think I'm really grateful that the universe did everything
to me around that forty mark, because I started seeing
at that age all these young women getting thrown into
the sports industry and very high and very fast. And
I was watching this and if I was younger, I

(27:43):
would have been very judgmental because I saw a lot
of them getting thrown in and thrown out, and I
saw a lot of them not being ready for it.
And if I was younger, it would have been more
about she wasn't ready and like she's not tough enough.
But I was at a motherly age to instead of
being judgmental, I got very protected and was like, they're
not this is this isn't just crushing their confidence on

(28:05):
a Sunday or Saturday. This is crushing your confidence. And
so I started just saying how can I help? And galvanized.
Really that was it. The genesis of Galvanized was how
can I help? And it started with twenty women in
a room and just going what can I do to
help make your journey into this industry better? And it

(28:25):
started out women on camera, which you know was my
obviously was what I did so much of. But about
a dozen years later, it's been over five thousand women
and it's I get as young as maybe nineteen, and
I get as old as fifties women coming back for
the dream. So I've all these women in every single

(28:46):
facet of sports, and so it's not just on TV
it's not broadcasting. It's coaches and agents and pr and
marketing and women who don't know what they want to do.
And it really is everything I would have killed for.
Like I said, it is an army of women to
be supported, supporting each other and to help each other.

(29:08):
And now it's been around long enough where they're hiring
each other. They're each other's bridesmaids, you know, their godmothers
to their children. And I started it when there just
wasn't any groups out there. That was before all the
women the women movement, the Women's movement really started, and
so it was really just trying to go, how can

(29:29):
I help them navigate an industry that's going to be
really mean to them and really tough, and how do
I make sure that they have somewhere to go? And
so there are two day workshops where it's a you know,
a big seminar, and what I would tell you is
we never talk sports. It's all confidence. It's confidence in
who you are, it's confidence in other women, and it's
doing all the things you and I were talking about.

(29:51):
How do you train your voice to be a loving one?
How do you make sure you're not competing with other women?
And that you're supporting other women while in essence you
are competing with other women. And how do you make
sure that you are that you are very clear in
who you are as you are going to be told
by a million different people in a million different ways
who they want you to be. So it's women in sports,

(30:13):
but Tommy, it doesn't matter, you know, like it could
be women in engineering, it could be women in food industry,
it could be women in whatever it is. It's just
women navigating the world and having a great sisterhood around
them that that feels safe. And the best part for
me is I don't have children, and I feel every

(30:33):
day like I have thousands of them now. So I've
always been passionate about my job. I still love it,
but Galvanize gave me a purpose which was much bigger
than me and something I was desperately needing while I
was doing the work.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
So, Laura, when you talked about at that time, when
you were looking around at what was taking place with
the women coming into sports, they were advancing fast and
being thrown out just as quickly as they were coming in.
Was that par for the course in the industry or
was that just really was it gender specific the industry.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Because it's kind of the good news is all of
a sudden places were being held accountable for having no women, right,
and so it was kind of we need women, and
so they started kind of throwing What I would say
is they started throwing women in. On one hand, yay,
there was more women, and on the other hand, just going,

(31:26):
they're going to get a sweet gig, but they're not
going to build a career. They're not ready. And so
I would say, in our industry, but I'm sure we
could throw a whole lot more in there. It was
it was just women who I would have loved to
have seen them. I'll say it this way. So Pam

(31:48):
Oliver is one of my closest friends and one of
my heroes. And Pam has been doing sidelines longer than anybody,
and it's just, you know, it's just is the North
and Pam has foundation, and I had a foundation. We
did local news, we did we became reporters, we became journalists,
and then you worked your way to do the sidelines

(32:10):
for the NFL and Fox, which was it wasn't is
a really big deal. But what started happening was the
sideline position started becoming a young woman's position, and that's
where they kind of threw everybody but before their journalists,
before they are reporters, before they really know the game
that they're covering. And so again I knew I wasn't
going to change the cycle. It was moving very fast.

(32:33):
But what I wanted to make sure of was that
they had somebody to call and go, how can I
be ready for this? How do I prepare? What questions
can I ask? And I had NFL coaches saying that
to me, you know that there's a young, adorable woman
at halftime, but I don't she doesn't know what I'm saying,
and I don't know what she's saying, but she reminds
me of my daughter, so I want to be kind

(32:53):
to her. And that was like a nah. So that's
when I said I really I really needed to help.
I mean again, i'd say that sports broadcasting or that
sports journalism, but you know that's kind of the world
right of all of a sudden going going, let's throw
these women into this position and instead of looking and going,

(33:16):
let's make sure that they're ready for this.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
And I just know that.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
When I first started in this business, Tommy, I would
go around and I would count women because I could.
And so anytime i'd go to a super Bowl, if
I would go to the Olympics, I'd count women. And
it was one hand, and then it got to two hands,
and that was awesome. And now I could never count
there's so many women. But if we went and counted
all the women in power and the women who had voices,

(33:43):
and the women who make an impact, the women of color,
then I'm going to go, We're back to this again.
And so right, so it was kind of the wave
of let's get women in, but it just hasn't moved
forward since that, which was always which was something that
took me a little while to notice. And then now
go again, how can we help, How can we do
something about that to make sure more diverse voices are

(34:07):
being heard in our industry When.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
You're talking about like this place where opportunities are being presented,
and for whatever reason, people may receive the opportunity, but
they're not prepared to actually step into the moment. You've
been doing this now for decades, and clearly it's not

(34:30):
because someone has done you a favor. You've done the work.
You do what is necessary so that you can be
excellent at what you do to be one of the
best doing it. What would you share with someone in
regards to how to prepare so that you can have
longevity in what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
I mean I could give the answer about preparation right, like,
I know you're the same. I'm obsessed with it, you know,
Like I still have the reoccurring nightmare showing up for
an interview I didn't know about, you know, Like that
obsession with being prepared is real. That's who I am
at my fiber, no matter what I'm doing. I've done
boot camps with Galvanis where we've talked about preparations and
how to ask questions and how to build relationships, and

(35:14):
all of that is so important. But at the end
of the day, I would say when I really became
the best version of me, when my interview started being conversations,
when my relationships stopped being contacts and contacts and sources
and started being true relationships, and when I started asking

(35:34):
good questions and listening. All of that was because I
suddenly knew who I was. I did so much work
and again of who do I want to be? I
want to be a pro I want to make sure
that every room I'm in, if someone doesn't like me
in the fifties, I'm fine with that. But everyone in
the room better respect me and better respect my voice,

(35:57):
and better respect what I bring to the what I
bring to the table. And I think that to me,
getting all these young women right now is the first
thing I try to work with them on, which is,
let's set your bar. Who are you? And what's important
right now? For when you walk out of the room.
You know how people talk about you? And I think

(36:19):
I got that at a younger age. I cared desperately
about if people liked me. That came later, but being
told that no one wants you in a room for
a long time, you really work hard to make sure
that you've earned it. And so I would say that preparation.
My easy answer is the preparation and building relationships and
all of that, But honestly, my true answer is who

(36:42):
do you want to be when you walk out of
the room, and what do you want people to say
about you? And I'm happy to say if you talk
to someone who I work with currently, or if you
go to someone who I worked with thirty three years ago,
they would say I wasn't very good, and they would
say I was in over my head, which is true.
But I think what they'd also say is, but she
was a prep and that was my mom's voice in

(37:05):
me of making sure that I that I knew who
you know, that I knew how I treated people was
extremely important, and being prepared was extremely important. And I
think that's probably what I go to now, which is
it's not about what you do, it's about who you are,
which it's your who, not your due is kind of
galvanized language.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
You talked about your relationship Tuesdays that you have now.
When you said that, it immediately stood out to me
because I'm definitely a relationship person and not transactional. And
as you're talking about the whole piece of being prepared
and being the pro I'm like, that's a masterclass that
relationship piece and being able to teach people how to

(37:48):
be in relationship with other people, especially professional relationships, is
it's a skill that I don't know that people get
the benefit of really learning today because career wise, people
aren't where they used to be as long. They're going

(38:08):
from one place to the next pretty quickly and just
trying to find their way to the next spot they
want to be in life, and so they don't get
an opportunity to really dig their heels in and build.
And I don't know that people have a whiteboard in
their office like you do, where you're actually planning out

(38:28):
how you're going to engage with relationships and cultivate those relationships,
because I'm sure after thirty years and more, you recognize
that those relationships you've been building have come full circle
on many occasions, and you can pick up the phone
and you can make stuff happen because you know the

(38:50):
art of building relationships. Talk to us about that.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
I love that you said this. So I do a
lot of speaking now outside of sports, and this is
the topic and I'm hired to talk about the most
and it's with major companies, and it always amazes me
because it's something that I've been doing so long and
it's such a core part of me. And then I
realized exactly what you said. Most people are asking, can

(39:14):
you teach me how to do that? And what I'll
always say is relationship building is the most important part
of my job. But it's a job like if you
really want to do it right, it is intentional and
it is very much It is very much a skill,
like you said, and I learned it at a young reporter.

(39:36):
I called Charles Barkley and Charles picked up the phone
and said, well, well, well, Laura oak Ben, what do
you need? And I was like, uh, you know, like
what can't a girl does call and say hello? And
he said, a girl can you just never do? What
do you need? And He's like, I'm not trying to
you know, I'm not trying to give you grief. I'm
just saying, when you call, you need something. And that
crushed me, even as a young reporter, because I thought,

(39:58):
why else would I call. I'm not going to say
like good game and how is your weekend? And you know,
navigating lines and all of that, and so I didn't
know why I would call, so I just did it.
But that instantly woke me up to well, I don't
want to be that person. I don't want to be
the one that when someone looks at the phone and
they're like, what does Laura want? And so everything from

(40:20):
that moment as a young woman turned into how do
I make sure that I'm not that person? And so
it's been thirty years of not just as a woman,
navigating that because you know that has great that has
lines and greatness, and that you have to navigate too.
But also as a reporter, because how do you make
people happy to see you, especially now in a time

(40:43):
where people are, you know, how they feel about the media,
and so it really you have to work on all
these skills to make sure that they're not looking at
you as a reporter, that they're not looking at your phone,
that you're not reaching out just when you need anything.
And I just know that one of the first thing
that I did to really help me with that back

(41:03):
to you know, back to when I was forty. But
I started realizing the place that I was wasting my
connections and my conversations were airplanes because I was on
them all the time, and I didn't talk to people.
I was always I was always on them, and so
I didn't want to talk. You know, it's my job
is asking questions and asking people. So I just didn't

(41:24):
want to I didn't want to have those conversations on
an airplane, and so I put my music on and
i'd work. But I started challenging myself and going, I'm
going to see how many conversations and connections I missed
all these years flying and who knows who I was
sitting next to. And so I made a rule that
I would have to start connecting with people on airplanes,
but I could not talk about a job, like it

(41:46):
was all who not do And that was the one
rule that I had. And I would tell them that, like,
that's the one thing you know I won't do, and
no exaggeration tought me. So the first person I did
that with introduced me to my husband. The second person
I did that with is now one of my closest friends,
and her and her husband were the first people to
say to me, would you ever do some communications coaching?

(42:08):
And I was like I had never thought about that,
and they were like, I think you'd be really good.
So the husband hired me for something and that changed
the trajectory of my life. And then the third person
my husband produces movies, and this gentleman I sat with
they wanted producing a movie together. So three people who
were at my wedding and three people who changed my life.

(42:30):
And I always think about before I challenged myself to
do that, I would have either talked work or I
would have not talked. And you just kind of started
thinking about what would your life be and I'll say
one other thing about why it's so important about not
talking about your job. So the second person, the woman
who I'm friends with, we were flying cross country and

(42:52):
we just started talking. And she was about ten years
older than me, but our lives were mirroring each other.
And we were talking about mom's dying young, and we
were talking about terrible divorces, and we were talking about
a place I went to that was magical for me,
that I had one of the biggest moments of my
life and she had gone there and had her own
magical moment there. And so we're just mirroring, and we

(43:16):
weren't talking work, and finally we switched numbers and we
both said we're not great with connecting, you know, with
like girlfriends, you know, and let's do let's change numbers
and let's commit to this like we're supposed to be together.
And so as we had that conversation, we were starting
to starting to playing or starting to go down, and

(43:37):
she was asking me a question and I said, I'm
going to break the rule. I just think we're probably
in the same worlds, So can I just ask you
what world are you with? And she said, my husband's
in the world of sports, and I was like, got it,
Like makes sense. We kept talking and I finally was like,
I gotta ask because I know, like we're speaking the
same language. And I said, what world and she said,

(43:57):
my husband owns and it's a Major League Baseball. And
I say to this day, if we would have started
with her saying that and me saying I was a reporter,
we would have never talked. We would have been like,
like's stay away. And so it's so important building relationships,
about knowing who you are and connecting with other people

(44:18):
and who they are, because the work stuff gets in
the way, the titles, the who do you know? The
what's your experience? It's just it's a way to size
each other up. But building relationships and doing it so
genuinely and not about what can I get from this?
To me, really is the secret sauce. And it always

(44:38):
has been and always will be.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
I agree. So before we go to our next segment,
I have one final question for you. If you had
younger Laura sitting across from you. Young in her career,
she just had the conversation with the coach who tried

(45:00):
to indicate that she was not the one, What type
of shaking would you give her in that moment and
pep talk so that she would stay the course in
a way that she didn't know how to.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
I don't think I would have. I wouldn't have. I
wouldn't shake her. I would hug her, I think, right
like I so badly needed a hug. I so badly
needed my mom. I so badly needed a woman especially,
but I needed a woman in my ear telling me
that I was doing the best that I could. And

(45:36):
I'm so hard on myself, and I lost my mom
so young. But I am so grateful, Tommy that I
know you're like this that I had a woman who
raised me, telling me constantly I was so wonderful, and
telling me I was prettier on the inside, and telling
me not to compare myself to other women and mean girls.

(45:57):
And I just had a mom that was here long enough,
but she filled me with all of that. And so
when I lost all of that for a long time,
I think I don't know anymore, like when I find
you know, when I finally found my voice and my confidence,
I don't know if it was me or I don't
know if it's my mom. You know that all of
a sudden, all of that taking root. But so I

(46:19):
would say that it would have been such a hug.
And I don't even know if I would have needed,
if she would need to hear anything except feel a
woman's arms around her and telling her you know that
she's doing the best that she could. I voided, I
need that, But who doesn't, right m hm.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
And you know that type of that moment for someone
lasts a lifetime. You know when when when you're in
desperate need of something and someone gives it to you,
it hits right at the right moment, and it will
last forever, Like you'll remember that every time you start
feeling that way, You'll remember the hug. You'll remember the

(46:56):
words that encourage you, and it'd be the fuel for
your life that you need to keep going, just to
keep going. So in this segment of our conversation, it
is titled I'm bringing her to the table with me.
It is your opportunity to give another woman her virtual flowers,
because you know you would not be where you are

(47:17):
today without her fingerprint on your life.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
It's such a hard one because obviously it's my mom,
you know, like if you gave me one seat at
the table. There's nobody else that I would grab with
fologues to my husband, but I would grab my mom.
And this is what makes me sad about their answer,
because I want to tell you somebody who's instrumental in
my career, and I want to tell you somebody who

(47:43):
did help me get from you know, that twenty two
year old, you know, young girl over her head to
a fifty five year old woman who's been doing it
a really long time. But I don't have one. And
it's just I grew up in a time where there
just weren't women mentors. We were all just trying to
make our own way. So it wasn't that it was

(48:05):
a cattiness. And I get really defensive when people talk
about that. It wasn't because we were caddy or trying
to take each other out. It was because we were
just looking down and just trying to put one foot
in front of the other. So what I would say is,
you know, the flowers go to me, The flowers go
to me, going keep putting one foot in front of
the other, you know, and you can do this, And

(48:28):
so I would take the flowers because our generation never
gets those flowers. We didn't get them, and now we
spend our life giving them to all these young women
to make sure they get the flowers we didn't and
that yet sometimes I look around and go, but then
where are our flowers? Like we're still not getting the flowers.
So there are women in my life right now, Pam
and Oliver, Like I'm so thankful for Pama and thankful

(48:51):
Pam and I weren't close when we started, and then
the older we got and the more we respected each
other and the more that we felt each other, I
you know, like I can't imagine. I can't imagine not
having Pam and and there's so there's women now who
I cradle, you know, and just go there's terrific at

(49:12):
this moment. But I don't have anyone that grew up
with me. Is that sad? Or is that like that's
just this generation.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
I believe it brings us right back to the beginning
of our conversation, where you know, you were looking for
someone and it was you you were looking for all alone,
and so you deserve those flowers. Yeah, that's what I think.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
I'd still say, Tommy, like right now, if you said
bring women to the table, like there's young women I'm
obsessed with and like Sam Rappaport from the NFL, who
does so much for women in football, Kendall coin Schofield,
who does so much for women in hockey. And I've
watched these two young women like help grow. They're trees,

(50:01):
you know, all these branches and do what they've done
for women, and they did it in their twenties and thirties.
And I'm in awe of that because I didn't hit
that until forty. So there's so many women that I
want to, you know, I want to throw flowers at
because they're doing so much so early. But I feel
like we need the biggest table in the world to
have women fifty plus and not saying who you know,

(50:22):
and not saying who else you're giving the flowers to,
but making sure that we're handing them to ourselves.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Hey, look, maybe we need to create that event where
we're creating this table filled with flowers for the fifty
and overcrew.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
I love that they need it more than anybody. And
imagine the power that would be in the room, Like,
imagine all the women finally finally feeling their power and
finally being able to use their voice. I'm in Yes, Yeah,
talking about me possible.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
So going into our final SEGM, which is food is Love,
I already know we've talked about this. You're not in
the kitchen cheffing it up. So we're going to just
change it up a little bit so that we can
come into your willhouse. So if you could, I know
that you talked about you lost your mother when you
were twenty four years old. What meal did your mom

(51:22):
make when you were growing up that you when you
think about it, it just brings a smile to your face.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Gosh, there's so much, there's so much, but it's this
is what's so sad. It's a little girl food right
like it was it was the spaghetti and butter, and
it was and it was, you know, growing up with
with Here's what I'll say. You know, I told you

(51:49):
I had I had stomach surgeries when I was young,
and so I always have had a complicated relationship with food.
And so what I'm so appreciative, appreciative is my my
brothers were sitting here, they would say all the wonderful
things she made for them, and yet mine was the
butter with noodles, like whatever was so basic and just

(52:09):
no flavor at all. But here's what I would also say.
I've been thinking about this so much with knowing that
I was coming on the show and hoping that I
didn't have to talk about my cooking. But food and
family is everything, and what I think about with my
mom is two things I think about. I didn't have

(52:31):
a job for a year after I graduated college. It
took me a year to have someone believe in a
woman in sports, and so I lived at home and
I'm so thankful for that now. But my mom and
I had a Tuesday night dinner that we would do
every week that it was just her and I going
into the city, into Chicago, and we would go to
this wonderful Italian place that isn't there anymore, and it

(52:53):
was like out of the Godfather. It was just incredible
and people watching and the food. And it was the
first time, in my only time, that I got my
mom as a woman, and I still wasn't one, but
it still was being able to talk to her about
her marriage, even, you know, about things that I finally
kind of graduated to a different level of being a friend,

(53:13):
maybe a little bit more than you know, a natty
little teenager. And so I'm really thankful for that table
in that restaurant for that year every Tuesday, of getting
to see my mom as a woman instead of my mom,
because that was just a little glimpse that I got
and now I crave it so much. And the other thing,

(53:34):
Tommy was that year she was sick. She wasn't eating
and it was cancer and food became complicated again. And
there was a little restaurant right down the street that
she would go to, but she started not having the
energy to go, and they would make her soup every
day for me to come over, my dad to come

(53:54):
over and bring her a soup that she would love
and try to make her eat. And it was just
from her, from them falling in love with her and
having her in the neighborhood and wanting to make her
happy and wanting to give her soup. And so that
was also as a young woman seeing people take care
of people and seeing that it was nothing more and
they would never let us pay for it. Just a

(54:15):
huge thing of like different kind of soups, of just
wanting to love on my mom. And so I think
about like that was such a big thing for me
of how you treat people and that relationship so I
can't have lemon soup or chicken noodle soup or just
like there's certain soups that I can't have without thinking

(54:35):
about that time of how heart it was and awful
it was, and yet the kindness of people.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
So we talked about this table for these women who
are deserving of flowers. So I want you to think
about this table. It's full of flowers. There are enough
seats for everyone to take a sea eat there, and

(55:01):
I want you to tell us what the spread is
on the table?

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Can I just ask you what you would You.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
Might not eat all the food, but I know you
see food and you're like, man, I wish I could
eat that. I'm so if there was foods that you
could eat, you know, like if your stomach wasn't an issue,
and you're like, man, this table would be full of
these dishes, what would it be?

Speaker 2 (55:35):
It's so funny. I'm going to I can't wait to
tell my husband how amazing this whole conversation has been.
But when I tell him you asked me this, he
is going to laugh so hard because he's going to
be like, did you tell her peanut butter yogurt? Like?
Did you tell her what did you tell her. I

(55:55):
mean I would eat something fried. I haven't had fried
since probably I was ten. So like the idea of
having fried chicken and having mashed potatoes with gravy, and
like having a salad with bacon, and like having like
real food like that, which would put me into a hospital,

(56:16):
into a bed for two days. But honestly, it would
probably be something fried and so bad for me, because
I haven't The last time I had that was a
New Year. I spent a New Years alone, and.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
It was probably when I was about twenty five, probably
right when my mom died, and I said I was
going to go get Kentucky fried chicken because I wanted
to just do something that felt good and comfort food
and something that reminded me of my childhood.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
And Tommy, I was in bed for two days after that.
So that was the last time I had anything fried.
Was trying to treat myself to some Kentucky fried chicken,
but that would be something unhealthy and something something delicious
with gravy and fried and something comfort that reminded me
of my childhood.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Okay, okay, answer no. So first of all, that's the
first time I asked that question. So you set the
standard for the.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
I will cater Chipotle for everybody that.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
Laura, I am so grateful for our time today at
the table. Please share with everyone where they can learn
more about all of the amazing work that you're doing
and how they can stay in contact with you.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
I love it. My website is Laura Oakman dot com
and that is all my information and all my Galvanized information.
What I always say now is if you're interested in Galvanized,
there's a lot there, and there's an email that you
can send your information to. But I'm not just saying
that to my women in their twenties and thirties. I'm like,
are you in your fifties? Are you in your forties?

(58:07):
Let's do a whole thing with women who are older.
Those are some of my favorite two day experiences. So
if you are looking for an army of women and
looking for a really cool couple days and partnering with
some NFL teams and helping rookies figure out who they
are and not talking football, then Galvanized could be something
wonderful for my girls and for my women.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
Well, thank you again, thank you so much, and just
know that you are welcome to come and stay awhile anytime.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
Ah, I will never leave, Tommy, I wish you didn't
say that to me. You're gonna be like I didn't
being this whole time. This has been so meaningful and
I can't tell you how much.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
I've appreciated this absolutely. Thank you so much. I hope
you felt the love and connection in today's conversation. Every
woman you heard from has faced the impossible and emerged
strong longer. This is your personal invitation to stale while
longer at Tommy V dot com. That's t O M

(59:07):
M I V dot com for more inspiration for your mind, body,
and soul, and let's not forget your belly. You're always
welcome at my table. Please be sure to subscribe, make
yourself at home and stale wild Gone Stay
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