Speaker 1: Once upon a time there was a good old traditional housewife.
Speaker 2: She couldn't.
Speaker 1: She cleaned and cared for her children and the man
Speaker 1: of the house, and of course she didn't talk back.
Speaker 1: She was both obedient and soft by nature.
Speaker 3: She was a good woman who always made good choices.
Speaker 1: That shit, we're good Mom's bad choices too, single mom
Speaker 1: who said fuck the patriarchy, shared all their bad choices
Speaker 1: and sound out they were so bad.
Speaker 4: After all, we're experts, overshares and your new besties.
Speaker 1: Sit back and enjoy the ride.
Speaker 4: I can do it. Welcome back to Good Mom's Bad Choices.
Speaker 4: I'm Erica and I'm Meila.
Speaker 1: Happy Wednesday, bitches.
Speaker 4: It's Wednesday, y'all, and we're back in the studio.
Speaker 1: This is our girl Cave. If you haven't subscribed to
Speaker 1: our YouTube channel, go ahead and subscribe. But if you're listening,
Speaker 1: make sure you live a rating and review. You know
Speaker 1: we always harass you to do it. Just stop what
Speaker 1: you're doing right now, right now.
Speaker 4: We don't harass them enough. We've harassed you previously.
Speaker 1: Literally just stop right now, right now. Pause, go leave
Speaker 1: and sit subscribe, leave a call down. You have to
Speaker 1: scroll up a few times. You have to scroll up
Speaker 1: a few times and you're going to see the five stars.
Speaker 1: Press five stars because you're listening, so obviously you enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Leave a cute review, doesn't have to be long, and
Speaker 1: then come back here.
Speaker 4: Because I read them and I would really like if
Speaker 4: you personally left me a message and just like, hey,
Speaker 4: you look so cute today. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Well, they probably wouldn't see you on whatever.
Speaker 4: Just pretend say sound good, Okay, Just leave the fucking review.
Speaker 4: It means a lot to us. We're doing a lot
Speaker 4: of work over here for free. We decorated, we use
Speaker 4: our voice, we use our.
Speaker 1: Time and energy. It costs money, and this costs you nothing.
Speaker 1: We're spending our coins for you.
Speaker 4: We love you, but also make it counts, make it reciprocal.
Speaker 1: Thank you, We love you.
Speaker 4: If you're in La area and you're thinking about studying
Speaker 4: a podcast, come book. Good Good Media. We are located
Speaker 4: in the Hollywood Hills of California, right across from Universal Studios.
Speaker 4: It's beautiful. We decorated ourselves. We have a fine man
Speaker 4: who operates the cameras you can look at and we
Speaker 4: might be here so Good Good Productions will.
Speaker 1: Roll your joints or not. If you don't smoke. That's
Speaker 1: mine too.
Speaker 4: Anyway, we're back in the studio. We have a very
Speaker 4: very special guest today. I'm very excited.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited because I'm fangirling because she was my
Speaker 1: idol growing up. As a former track star. Myself, I
Speaker 1: have a very short lived track star career. You don't
Speaker 1: know this about me.
Speaker 4: Oh apparently not. I learned to the new every day.
Speaker 4: She's a soccer star track star.
Speaker 2: Now depends on the guests.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I would like to welcome to the show, former
Speaker 1: world champion chap track star. Also, I didn't realize you
Speaker 1: played in the WNBA coach mother, motivational speaker, the one
Speaker 1: and only Mary and.
Speaker 2: Johnes recently podcaster.
Speaker 1: Yes, overall icon first black female athlete on the cover
Speaker 1: of Vogue, Darling. I remember that Vogue cover. That was
Speaker 1: really beautiful, that red dress.
Speaker 5: Yes, I wish I could get in that red dress.
Speaker 4: Now, good, you do look great? Really good?
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm I'm joyful.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm happy.
Speaker 2: I am. You know.
Speaker 6: I don't get back to Los Angeles very often, and
Speaker 6: coming back home and just being in this space is nice.
Speaker 6: But just kind of where I'm at in my world
Speaker 6: is a joyful time.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that you were born here, like that
Speaker 1: you are bor An La Native and lived in the valley.
Speaker 4: Like us, we rarely get anyone others, particularly other black
Speaker 4: women who are from valley.
Speaker 2: So yeah, when you all said that you were from here,
Speaker 2: I was like.
Speaker 1: Wait, what, I know, it's very rares. Very well, it's
Speaker 1: not rare anymore. I think there's a lot of black
Speaker 1: people in the valley now, but like in the eighties
Speaker 1: and the nineties and and before that, like, no, that.
Speaker 4: Is I told her, gave the way, Yeah, trailblazers. Growing
Speaker 4: up when when I I grow a person, so I
Speaker 4: was like five. Growing up, I thought that all black
Speaker 4: people nodded at each other, like in the mall in
Speaker 4: public because my parent, my dad always to other black people.
Speaker 4: So now and like I'm always like to black people
Speaker 4: and they're like, I'm like, what the fuck you didn't
Speaker 4: get the memo we're in the valley. You fucking you're
Speaker 4: not at me.
Speaker 1: I think it's a man to man thing.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, or at least smile.
Speaker 1: But you know, I do think I would like to
Speaker 1: say that we need to bring nodding to the women too.
Speaker 1: We need to do an at least a great bab
Speaker 1: like something like the men nod and the women do
Speaker 1: you have to poke your lips out like that's the.
Speaker 2: Stank poke.
Speaker 4: Girl.
Speaker 2: Hey, that's too much me.
Speaker 4: Another black, another black fucking harlem shaking. Oh my god,
Speaker 4: you're trying to take my man.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, you start to shake, you know, your
Speaker 6: titties start to move and.
Speaker 4: Stuff ain't taking nobody's man. Want to cleave it out.
Speaker 4: This is a p s. A announcement to all black people,
Speaker 4: people of color who live in places where you were
Speaker 4: the minority and there's mostly whites, you better smile or
Speaker 4: nod or when you see another black person. It is
Speaker 4: just the role of thumb. If your parents didn't teach you,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna teach you. You always acknowledge another black person
Speaker 4: just to say, hey, I got you. If something goes
Speaker 4: down in this mall, I see you.
Speaker 1: Well I think that's what I think. That's what it's
Speaker 1: rooted in. What it's like, Hey, like there's there's a
Speaker 1: few of us over there work Just in case there's
Speaker 1: a few, I mean, I see, just in case I
Speaker 1: acknowledge one, two, three, four, yep, counter.
Speaker 4: Even like there's for a minute I started noticing people
Speaker 4: like when all this twenty twenty, well, when the America
Speaker 4: was happening, when I would see like a black person
Speaker 4: pulled over, I would see other people like pull over
Speaker 4: and just like kind of wait for them. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: remember that too, or like sometimes like I would. One
Speaker 4: time I went to the ATM. It was late at night.
Speaker 4: I was with Luna and I went to the ATM
Speaker 4: and I saw a guy like waiting for me, and
Speaker 4: I was like, he's gonna fucking rob me. And then
Speaker 4: I was like, oh no, he's been kind. He's looking
Speaker 4: out for me. You know, like what bring back fucking
Speaker 4: people at care like empathy and compass for other people,
Speaker 4: especially the people that look like you. Because I feel
Speaker 4: like we're moving into a place that's so New York
Speaker 4: and so isolated, and it's like that's not the California
Speaker 4: Way and it's definitely not the Black way. So get
Speaker 4: your ship together, black people.
Speaker 1: You tell them, girl, let them know which.
Speaker 4: You know my middle names Asada, y'all, Oh God, here
Speaker 4: we go. Don't start with me.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying you should have run down all her credentials.
Speaker 1: She was a server in Atlanta, Mida Jamaican Trey LAWNI
Speaker 1: she's the sex of the podcast.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go there, but thank you for going down
Speaker 4: the list. I was only going to say that my
Speaker 4: middle name's Asada, okay, because I'm a black panther at heart.
Speaker 4: If you want to go down the rest of my resume,
Speaker 4: those are also very important things.
Speaker 1: My hospitality got it, very top notch hospitality server here.
Speaker 4: Ask about me Atlanta.
Speaker 5: Put this on the comments.
Speaker 4: You're in Atlanta in the two thousands and you saw
Speaker 4: me at the hotels doing my thing. Put it in
Speaker 4: the comments. Any of yer couldn't know what's up. I
Speaker 4: know we all know.
Speaker 1: We've all experienced it. Every person.
Speaker 4: My dad would be like, I know, we all know,
Speaker 4: we all have heard it.
Speaker 1: At what point is it like like it's too far
Speaker 1: in the past, so when you're like six years old.
Speaker 2: You're still gonna be erased very soon.
Speaker 4: What would ask?
Speaker 2: They're erasing everybody mine.
Speaker 4: That's That's why I'm a storyteller. This is this, you
Speaker 4: know what, she could be a race.
Speaker 1: I'm not mad at certain things being a race.
Speaker 4: Every every story contributes to like the the final product
Speaker 4: of like the meal. You know, every dash of salt,
Speaker 4: even if he spilled too much that time, like it
Speaker 4: always like it always equates to how we come to
Speaker 4: show up at this point. So I'm not really about erasing.
Speaker 4: I barely erase pictures of ex boyfriends and she because
Speaker 4: I gotta remind myself, like, bitch, memory did it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna disagree. I'm all for expunging certain things that
Speaker 1: expunging take it off the fucking record.
Speaker 4: Okay, what would you take off?
Speaker 1: I would take off. Oh yeah, one of my boyfriends,
Speaker 1: the one with the one, the one with Michael Jackson impersonator,
Speaker 1: would be expunged because it was that.
Speaker 2: His career, that was his career.
Speaker 4: Basically basically, yeah, he's still doing it.
Speaker 1: He's very talented. Yes he looks like but he's a
Speaker 1: questionable human and for some reason, everybody knows him and
Speaker 1: every time I dated him.
Speaker 2: And if you talk about him on here now everybody's good.
Speaker 2: You guys, please look.
Speaker 1: At up everyone time I mention him, and I because
Speaker 1: I now, I mention it because I'd like like to
Speaker 1: get a kick out of it, because people are like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, blah blah blah, and I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: used to date him. They're like, what the fuck?
Speaker 4: When you told me that, I was like, do we
Speaker 4: need to be friends? Still? Do you? Would you expunge
Speaker 4: anything from your life record?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 6: Yes, the same thing, so a few relationships. But I'm
Speaker 6: similar in the thinking, like what you said, like everything
Speaker 6: is creates where I'm at now, it doesn't mean that
Speaker 6: it doesn't exist.
Speaker 5: It means it doesn't exist for everyone else to view.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that deletes from me, and I'm blacking
Speaker 1: it for publicly. Okay, well yeah you no, No, I
Speaker 1: think that you know everything. Everything you do leads you
Speaker 1: to where we're at right in this very moment. So yes,
Speaker 1: but we could have left mister Michael Jackson, I personator
Speaker 1: off the record.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna have to get to Google, and I'm gonna
Speaker 6: have to get to I'm gonna have to go down
Speaker 6: this rabbit. I'm gonna have to go down this rabbit.
Speaker 1: Marian, It's really all over. I was proud, I will
Speaker 1: stalk in my defense, I was like seventeen, okay, and
Speaker 1: he was much older than me, and he tricked me. Okay,
Speaker 1: he was taking me to nice dinners and I was
Speaker 1: in high school, take flying me out to Vegas and
Speaker 1: I was in high Yeah, I was at my dad's house.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I'm so happy I'm not the only
Speaker 4: fucking badass teenager who was literally lying about being in
Speaker 4: the state. I was literally underage and flying to Philadelphia
Speaker 4: to go see like drug dealer and niggas that my
Speaker 4: cousin cousin hooked.
Speaker 2: Me up with.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I'm that Daniell's No.
Speaker 1: Well, see, I would tell my dad. My parents didn't talk,
Speaker 1: so I knew if I was at my dad's house
Speaker 1: there was no way to was going to like reach
Speaker 1: out and ask. So he was always my scapegoat. So
Speaker 1: thanks Dad, Our kids.
Speaker 4: Are being locked the fuck in the house.
Speaker 1: Hopefully they just tell us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my kid's pretty.
Speaker 2: Are they on on social media?
Speaker 1: Your kids like have her own account or you let
Speaker 1: them go go on there.
Speaker 4: I mean, well, Erica just exposed my daughter that she
Speaker 4: had a TikTok recently, and I remember it on the
Speaker 4: way to school yesterday and I was like, she says
Speaker 4: something about TikTok going getting banned, and I was like,
Speaker 4: speaking of TikTok, do you have a TikTok? And she
Speaker 4: was like, yeah, I know you did, because Erica told me.
Speaker 4: She's like, I was like, why would you get to
Speaker 4: TikTok And when you have a cover star, it's like
Speaker 4: the kid when she's like, sorry, mommy, I just wanted
Speaker 4: to see some of the songs.
Speaker 2: I was like, did she go babyish when she.
Speaker 4: Said she was going to delete it? It's Luna, I tried.
Speaker 1: I saw you on TikTok last night.
Speaker 4: Girl, last night.
Speaker 1: She was she said she'd be saving things and liking
Speaker 1: things on our page. That's how I found her on TikTok.
Speaker 1: I wasn't like looking for her page.
Speaker 4: What do you mean she's save shit on our page?
Speaker 1: She literally it said like Luna web or Luna with
Speaker 1: like emojis.
Speaker 4: And shit saved this video of ours.
Speaker 1: Yes, but no, it's her videos on our page because
Speaker 1: you know, our kids take our phones, create content and
Speaker 1: post it without our consent. And I've had to like
Speaker 1: tell her, like, girl, you can't just she'll like do
Speaker 1: songs that are like inappropriate and like there's like one
Speaker 1: like don't drop the soap in the shower and I
Speaker 1: was like, and people were like, where's your mom, like
Speaker 1: in the comments like go get your mom, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck.
Speaker 4: Or she'll like.
Speaker 1: Then Iri was posting kids from her school. I was like, babe, like,
Speaker 1: you can't need my permission to post.
Speaker 4: So yeah, like you know your mom's are famous.
Speaker 1: How old are your kids?
Speaker 2: Twenty one, seventeen, fifteen?
Speaker 1: Okay? So there are they on the socials things. They
Speaker 1: have their own accounts and doing all the things.
Speaker 6: But like my village, my people are all follow them
Speaker 6: and so and I do too, and so if anything
Speaker 6: pops up, they're not.
Speaker 2: They barely.
Speaker 5: They like to repost their friends stuff.
Speaker 2: They're not doing too much original contents. Thankfully.
Speaker 4: We're living in a weird time. You guys grow raising
Speaker 4: kids in this time, but it's so different than like
Speaker 4: what we grew up as. It's just like what the fuck?
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I mean we chatted about it briefly, just
Speaker 6: in terms of all the distractions they have now, right,
Speaker 6: it's like for us, well, for me, there was no distractions.
Speaker 6: It was get out when the light when the sun
Speaker 6: comes up, you're outside, right. You don't even come inside
Speaker 6: to go to bathroom, like when when street lights come
Speaker 6: back on, you come inside, right, and there's no there's
Speaker 6: no electronics or anything.
Speaker 2: And it's a much different time obviously.
Speaker 1: I mean I I Yeah, we were talking about that
Speaker 1: because I was. I was telling her like I was
Speaker 1: an athlete from the like from as early as I
Speaker 1: could be an athlete pretty much like. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if that was because of me. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: it was because of my mom. My dad was also
Speaker 1: a professional athlete as well, and so I think there
Speaker 1: was just this assumption that I was supposed to do
Speaker 1: that and I was going to be good at it
Speaker 1: football and in track he ran track and in college
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was this assumption that I was supposed
Speaker 1: to be good at all these things, and I was.
Speaker 1: I was good. And I think sometimes I even regret.
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, I could have like probably like went
Speaker 1: far if I just didn't start smoking weed.
Speaker 4: Now your downfall it was, it was literally the next
Speaker 4: Marion Jones. But I would have been I could have
Speaker 4: I could have been the fastest woman in the world,
Speaker 4: just like well never no, never, know it.
Speaker 1: Wasn't for that devil cannabis.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: But I think about my daughter and like, I just
Speaker 1: I haven't really pushed it on her in that way.
Speaker 1: And as I was driving here thinking about you and
Speaker 1: thinking about me and my trajectory and how sports is
Speaker 1: really was a major part of my life. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking, I think sports was also such a an
Speaker 1: activator in my confidence and working with people and like
Speaker 1: you know, working for a common goal. I actually didn't
Speaker 1: like track that much because it felt I felt so
Speaker 1: alone in it, like because I was doing like the
Speaker 1: one hundred to two hundred maybe the four by what
Speaker 1: I did love, but I felt like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's all on me.
Speaker 2: Like fuck.
Speaker 1: But I was like, oh my god, am I had
Speaker 1: I too late? Is my daughter not going to be
Speaker 1: a track star? Is she not going to be in
Speaker 1: the WNBA because it has been playing?
Speaker 6: Stressed too much about in terms of not like pushing
Speaker 6: her because nobody like pushed me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, how I was just exposed to it. Like my
Speaker 5: stepfather loved.
Speaker 6: The Dodgers and love the Lakers, and we would go
Speaker 6: to games and he would sit down after the races
Speaker 6: and the competitions and the games and he would force
Speaker 6: the only thing he would force me to do is
Speaker 6: watch the post game interviews. And I never understood then,
Speaker 6: but he was teaching me how to be humble. He
Speaker 6: was teaching me how to communicate my thoughts.
Speaker 2: And my ideas right and the more that I'm.
Speaker 6: Around it, like, and that's just the same thing with
Speaker 6: my kids, Like I don't push them to do anything,
Speaker 6: but it's.
Speaker 2: Always on the TV.
Speaker 6: We're going to games, we talk about it. They're exposed
Speaker 6: to it, they understand it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, it's turn a game, man, you know,
Speaker 2: go to a game. I know, you know.
Speaker 1: I think my daughter affinity to basketball really is because
Speaker 1: her dad loves basketball so much. And that's like, girl,
Speaker 1: I would say, so, and that's there, that's their time
Speaker 1: together because I have her most of the time. So
Speaker 1: when they are together like that, he's watching the game.
Speaker 1: And so she's like she'll come home and be like
Speaker 1: talking about all these basketball players' names, and I'm like, who, Like, you.
Speaker 6: Don't know, Like, just give us one name, girl, Lebron.
Speaker 2: I knew you so easy, Lebron.
Speaker 1: That's all I got. She said, some guy Shaka Shaka one. Yeah, Luka,
Speaker 1: the big one, the one that we were talking about,
Speaker 1: the big white man. Yeah, okay, so yeah, thatman Russian
Speaker 1: talk about. She was She's like, Luka Dagadogovich got traded
Speaker 1: to the DA he got the biggest contract and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, and I was like, what, Okay, you are
Speaker 1: living a whole other life at daddy's house because I
Speaker 1: don't know what the you're talking about. But she wanted
Speaker 1: to play basketball and that's kind of their thing too,
Speaker 1: Like he'll take her to practice and he is psycho
Speaker 1: when he's at the game, Like at the practices, he's
Speaker 1: super intense yelling at her and I'm like whoa, and
Speaker 1: she's listening. So I'm like, Okay, maybe it's gonna work out.
Speaker 1: Because you don't want to listen to me when it
Speaker 1: comes to sports. She'll be like, I'm like, I played soccer,
Speaker 1: I know how to play this game. The difference. So anyway,
Speaker 1: So Marian, tell us about your story.
Speaker 4: I know it was almost a shock star for someone
Speaker 4: you were.
Speaker 2: You were almost a black panther.
Speaker 4: Missed my time. I might bring him back though black
Speaker 4: panthers too.
Speaker 1: I think it's time.
Speaker 4: I think it's time. Think about time.
Speaker 1: If you guys want to start the bake, I'll be
Speaker 1: the Angela Davis here. Okay, we're bringing it back.
Speaker 2: No, we're going to tighten up that fro though yea safe,
Speaker 2: it'd be.
Speaker 1: Safe enough so we don't get like go to jail.
Speaker 1: But you know, yeah, I would love to know. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you grew about here, how did you What was
Speaker 1: your entry into sorts and track?
Speaker 2: And yeah, you know, I'm all.
Speaker 6: I'm from a single parent household. My mom who's originally
Speaker 6: from Belize. Oh wow, Yeah, beautiful country in Central America.
Speaker 6: She came up to the States when my brother was
Speaker 6: I have one older brother, he's five years older than me.
Speaker 6: She came up to the States just for better life.
Speaker 2: Started in New York.
Speaker 6: A lot of Beligians, you know, start there, and then
Speaker 6: she had family out here in California, Los Angeles areas.
Speaker 2: So she came out here, met my father I was born.
Speaker 2: They were divorced when I was.
Speaker 6: Three, and yeah, she just started raising us, and I
Speaker 6: just naturally gravitated towards it. You know, I have an
Speaker 6: old he's five years older than me. So I like
Speaker 6: to joke, but not really. When your older brother is
Speaker 6: picking you to be on his neighborhood teams, you know
Speaker 6: there's something a little.
Speaker 5: Special, right, Like he was bypassing his buddies because.
Speaker 2: He wants his little sisters chosen.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yes, like I'm good, I gotta be.
Speaker 5: So just got involved in every sport.
Speaker 6: My mom and my stepdad married, and he really was
Speaker 6: the catalyst to getting me.
Speaker 2: To love sport.
Speaker 6: We would go to Dodgers games, we would go to
Speaker 6: Lakers games, Clippers games. When they're at the sports arena
Speaker 6: where they now, I don't know, they're.
Speaker 1: Still slaying of the downtown.
Speaker 4: They do, they're here. How old are you when your
Speaker 4: mom married your stepdad? Hey, I must have been about four,
Speaker 4: okay five so, and he was.
Speaker 6: He was significantly older than my mom. He was former navy,
Speaker 6: navy cook. So he would like, he's stay home, but
Speaker 6: my mom had to work.
Speaker 2: She would drive.
Speaker 6: From the valley to Beverly Hills and then we moved
Speaker 6: out to Palmdale. She would drive to Beverly Hills.
Speaker 2: And what was she doing in Beverly Hills.
Speaker 5: She's a legal secretary yep.
Speaker 6: And she would commute and it was just a really
Speaker 6: good time in my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that you had like a stay at home dad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So like was that I guess was that did that
Speaker 1: impact you in a way that it may be different
Speaker 1: than it did?
Speaker 5: I guess I never even really thought of it like that.
Speaker 6: You know, he was just everything, you know, he was warm,
Speaker 6: he was loving, he was intelligent, he could cook, and
Speaker 6: he was when he was in the navy, he was
Speaker 6: the cook like thousands of men.
Speaker 2: Oh, I've shared this story.
Speaker 6: Recently that you guys remember back in the day, there
Speaker 6: was this a store called Fedco.
Speaker 2: It kind of was like the Costco now.
Speaker 6: They have Costco and Sam's Club now, but before then
Speaker 6: it was Fedco. Anyways, he would go to Fedco and
Speaker 6: he would load up on like meat that was on sale,
Speaker 6: just because he had a history of having to cook
Speaker 6: for thousands of people.
Speaker 2: He would load it up in the freezer and he
Speaker 2: would go bad and my mom would hate it.
Speaker 5: Right anyways, the food was amazing.
Speaker 6: I just I felt seen and heard and it was amazing.
Speaker 2: And then he passed away when I was nine.
Speaker 6: Oh damn yeah, and my mom was forced to be
Speaker 6: single parent again. And at that point, my biological dad,
Speaker 6: who was here in Los Angeles, had decided that he
Speaker 6: wasn't a part of like wanted to be a part
Speaker 6: of my life. My brother and I have different dads,
Speaker 6: and I having my stepdad in my life and then not.
Speaker 2: Having any father figure in my life.
Speaker 5: Even though I had a father, like a biological father
Speaker 5: who was alive.
Speaker 2: We didn't want any parts of me.
Speaker 6: It was just really hard, and my mom was dealing
Speaker 6: with grief in her own way, and I was dealing
Speaker 6: with grief in my way. And then I become a teenager,
Speaker 6: and then you know teenage girls, shit hits the fan
Speaker 6: and I don't know how to like what where to
Speaker 6: turn to. But thankfully I turned to sport.
Speaker 5: Like that was my.
Speaker 6: Alcohol, that was my drug of choice, and I found
Speaker 6: that I was just very good from the beginning.
Speaker 1: What was your first sport?
Speaker 2: My first board was soccer. My mom coached, my older
Speaker 2: brother brother was the assistant, so cute. I loved it.
Speaker 6: And then track there was a little recreation community team
Speaker 6: in Palmdale because we had moved out there to have
Speaker 6: to buy a house more Land, and yeah.
Speaker 2: It was just it was good, good and yeah.
Speaker 6: From there, moved into basketball and it just kind of
Speaker 6: By the time I was fifteen, I was competing here
Speaker 6: at UCLA and the meets and qualifying for the Olympic team.
Speaker 4: So you knew in high school that you're probably going
Speaker 4: to go to the Olympics, Oh, no doubt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, Yeah.
Speaker 6: I just I was I was the type of kid
Speaker 6: whom you didn't have to like push I was waiting
Speaker 6: at the door with my backpack. I was going to
Speaker 6: bed at eight pm the night before to make sure
Speaker 6: I had enough sleep. Right, I was like, come on,
Speaker 6: Mom's that's who I was.
Speaker 1: A natural drive for it.
Speaker 2: Natural drive eighty four.
Speaker 6: I was nine years old in nineteen eighty four and
Speaker 6: that was when the Olympics came to Los Angeles and
Speaker 6: did you go?
Speaker 2: So? The tickets are expensive, single mom.
Speaker 6: So, but my mom found a way to take me
Speaker 6: to the Olympic parade and this is when the athletes
Speaker 6: would be paraded down the street prior to the games,
Speaker 6: because she wanted me to just be in that space.
Speaker 6: And that summer, I sat in front of my TV
Speaker 6: and I watched for the first time, and I knew
Speaker 6: that that had to be me.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what's sport. I didn't know, but I
Speaker 2: knew I wanted that moment when they're about to cross
Speaker 2: the line and you can see it.
Speaker 6: I knew I wanted it. I wrote it on my chalkboard.
Speaker 6: Olympic champion at nine. So fast forward to fifteen. Made
Speaker 6: the Olympic team decided not to go? Right?
Speaker 2: Picked up basketball?
Speaker 1: Or why I just said not to go?
Speaker 6: Well, I wrote Olympic champion on my chalkboard at nine,
Speaker 6: and I knew that at the age of fifteen, I
Speaker 6: would just be on the relay and although I would
Speaker 6: have gotten a gold medal, it.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't have been like you.
Speaker 5: Yes, and I wanted my first to be me, So.
Speaker 6: We opted not to go wow, and I stayed here
Speaker 6: and mart strategic. Yeah my mom, My mom said, you
Speaker 6: also stayed here because you needed to get your grades.
Speaker 1: Was your mom at that time kind of like your
Speaker 1: manager or your guide essentially, or did you have like
Speaker 1: coaches that were kind of guiding her and giving her
Speaker 1: and what's the best path for you?
Speaker 6: At that point, My mom was sacrificing a lot of
Speaker 6: like drive time from here to there to get me
Speaker 6: to training. And I wouldn't say a manager, but she
Speaker 6: was definitely the guiding force in terms of Okay, you
Speaker 6: probably should do that meet, you probably shouldn't do that meet,
Speaker 6: and so yeah, she was kind of running the show,
Speaker 6: and especially even when it came to the grades. You know,
Speaker 6: my mom is tough, right. She comes from a background,
Speaker 6: very conservative Caribbean. You know, former British rule believes was
Speaker 6: formal formally run by British rule and so like things
Speaker 6: have to be on task, and if grades weren't up
Speaker 6: to snuff, if you weren't competing.
Speaker 2: So yeah, fifteen.
Speaker 6: But then around that time I started to pick up
Speaker 6: basketball and loved it, but skill wise I was very athletic,
Speaker 6: of course, but skill wise it wasn't up to where
Speaker 6: it needed to be.
Speaker 5: But my athletic ability overshadowed it.
Speaker 6: So I think my senior year seventeen, I decided to
Speaker 6: take a basketball scholarship and travel cross country to North Carolina.
Speaker 2: Play basketball there, and dabble in track.
Speaker 6: So if you know anything about the California track world,
Speaker 6: like it's strong, like we have some of the best
Speaker 6: in the country come from this area. And so the
Speaker 6: the decision to travel cross country, not go to UCLA,
Speaker 6: not go to USC, not go to Stanford, and go
Speaker 6: to North Carolina like the track role.
Speaker 2: Was like what what?
Speaker 5: I just I loved East Coast, I loved.
Speaker 6: The campus there, and and it was a good decision
Speaker 6: because my freshman year we won the national title.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: And also you were going to shine there.
Speaker 2: I was gonna shine.
Speaker 1: I wanted to shine anywhere, but you were really gonna
Speaker 1: shine there in basketball. But I would imagine anywhere I
Speaker 1: would have shoed not right like it is.
Speaker 2: Told me to be humble. Yeah, that was a given right.
Speaker 6: But I also wanted to play. If I had chosen
Speaker 6: potentially to play out of Stanford or u c l A,
Speaker 6: my playing time because I was still very novice in
Speaker 6: the sport of basketball, would have been limited.
Speaker 2: So I chose the school like North Carolina.
Speaker 6: Who didn't have an extensive history of success in the
Speaker 6: women's game, and I wanted to be on the court.
Speaker 6: And it was a good decision because my freshman year
Speaker 6: we won the title. And yeah, yeah, I also, you know,
Speaker 6: had a desire to I have a gift for gab
Speaker 6: a little bit, and broadcast journalism was something that I
Speaker 6: was interested in.
Speaker 5: Great program there, and so that's how that all.
Speaker 2: Came to be. Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as I'm thinking about your your journey and also
Speaker 1: like the passing of your stepfather and not having a
Speaker 1: father figure. I know, just in sports in general, a
Speaker 1: lot of times coaches kind of take on that role
Speaker 1: or in that realm, and that can be like a
Speaker 1: blessing and it also can be challenging because you're kind
Speaker 1: of trusting these men to guide you, to protect you
Speaker 1: within that I guess in those early years in that journey,
Speaker 1: like was that your story, like did you have that?
Speaker 6: Or my story was that I disguised a lot of
Speaker 6: the pain and poured it all into my sport. Like
Speaker 6: I don't even think they like I communicated that I
Speaker 6: was struggling because I didn't want anything to distract me
Speaker 6: from like as very goal oriented then and now, and.
Speaker 2: I didn't even want to distract I needed them to.
Speaker 6: Be focused on the task at hand, which was training
Speaker 6: me to get where I needed to be. And it
Speaker 6: was it was just a really challenging time.
Speaker 2: I mentioned that.
Speaker 6: We won the title my freshman year. My sophomore year,
Speaker 6: team traveled out to California to Los Angeles. It was
Speaker 6: the first time I had come back here since going
Speaker 6: to college. Hadn't seen my biological father, and I don't
Speaker 6: know how many years. And so I'm playing at Polly
Speaker 6: Pavilion at UCLA. We were playing Stanford, we were losing.
Speaker 6: It was the Sweet sixteen. I run into the locker
Speaker 6: room at Polly Pavilion at halftime, and you know, I
Speaker 6: just glanced into the audience and I see my biological
Speaker 6: father right just like caught eyes like a little bit stunned,
Speaker 6: but I'm trying to stay.
Speaker 2: Focused, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I didn't know how to we come back out
Speaker 6: from the locker room.
Speaker 2: We lose, We lose the game, but.
Speaker 6: I'm excited to see friends and family that I hadn't seen,
Speaker 6: and particularly just the like connect with him, and he
Speaker 6: was nowhere to be found. Fast forward and fast forward,
Speaker 6: and then we'll back up if we need to. Two
Speaker 6: thousand and one, on I get a call from his
Speaker 6: common law.
Speaker 2: Wife that he had passed.
Speaker 6: So seeing him at the game was literally the last
Speaker 6: time that I saw him.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 6: And again, so many unanswered questions, so many answer unanswered questions,
Speaker 6: but one of them that was answered was all along
Speaker 6: I thought, I wonder if he knows anything about my
Speaker 6: success like my successes. Does he know that I went
Speaker 6: to North Carolina? Does you know I played basketball? Does
Speaker 6: you know I won the national championship? Does he know
Speaker 6: that I'm Olympic champion? And seeing him at the game,
Speaker 6: I knew that he knew that I played. And then
Speaker 6: following finding out afterwards from his people that he had.
Speaker 4: A scrap book. Wow, like scrapbook.
Speaker 6: Of like me in Sydney and again, but the questions
Speaker 6: are like why why a scrap, But why not just
Speaker 6: pull up right? Yeah?
Speaker 5: You know who knows. I mean I could go down
Speaker 5: that road and.
Speaker 6: I have for for many years, but it was just
Speaker 6: a real hard time in my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I would imagine that's I think for
Speaker 1: any young girl, Like the father is such a complicated
Speaker 1: and get crucial figure in our in our existence, and
Speaker 1: it always so much of how we show up in
Speaker 1: our relationships, so much how we show up in our
Speaker 1: decision making comes from whoever was that figure in our life.
Speaker 1: And so if there was, if if you luckily you
Speaker 1: had someone enduring I guess a lot of your formidable years.
Speaker 1: They always say, like you know you who you are,
Speaker 1: between how you are, what you learn between the ages
Speaker 1: of one and seven, it's like sets the foundation for
Speaker 1: who you're going to be moving forward. Obviously there's a
Speaker 1: lot of layers and factors between then in adulthood, but
Speaker 1: but still like there's that wound there, that that father
Speaker 1: wound that exists.
Speaker 6: And I think even even more so when you when
Speaker 6: you participate in sports.
Speaker 4: Right, because it's like a man dominated world.
Speaker 6: You know generally, and the idea that you know you
Speaker 6: don't have anyone to turn to when it comes to
Speaker 6: that it is just and we also are from a
Speaker 6: culture whereby those times are slowly, thankfully changing, but you know,
Speaker 6: we still hold onto this.
Speaker 2: Don't air your dirty laundry, right, like the.
Speaker 6: Mental health thing and that you know, I certainly wasn't
Speaker 6: sharing that with a coach, like I said, nor was
Speaker 6: I going to get any type of therapy to help
Speaker 6: me navigate through it all. It's one of the lessons
Speaker 6: that I've learned, especially with my own kids. Right like
Speaker 6: I'm going to talk to them, I'm gonna make them talk,
Speaker 6: right if I'm not comfortable, if I feel like, I'm
Speaker 6: gonna get help.
Speaker 2: And it's so much different than what it used to be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a time as teenagers or as kids,
Speaker 4: it's like you'd be seen not heard. You know, it's
Speaker 4: very much like we don't tell our business, We don't
Speaker 4: talk about that. Are not talking about their own feelings,
Speaker 4: let alone asking you how do you feel?
Speaker 5: Or I alone paying somebody.
Speaker 4: But you better come talk to me, and you better
Speaker 4: not tell none of your friends about this, this and that.
Speaker 4: And also just like imagining that the big emotions of
Speaker 4: grief that you're feeling, but without the language you don't
Speaker 4: like if you don't even hear your mom or your dad,
Speaker 4: or you don't even have the space to discuss or
Speaker 4: communicate about certain about feelings. You can't even vocalize or
Speaker 4: verbalize how you're actually feeling to anyone anyway. So your
Speaker 4: your your default is to suppress. You know, you're just like,
Speaker 4: I'm feeling these feelings, but let me do this other
Speaker 4: thing instead. Like you said, it was like your drug.
Speaker 4: So you're diving into something else.
Speaker 6: But thankfully for me, you know, I have friends and
Speaker 6: no people that in dealing with all of that, they
Speaker 6: turned to drugs, and they turned to alcohol, they turned
Speaker 6: to overeating and all those things.
Speaker 2: And so people are like, well, well, thankfully you turned
Speaker 2: to sport.
Speaker 6: Yes, and no, right, it's still an unhealthy way of coping, right,
Speaker 6: it's still even even to this day addictive. Right, Like
Speaker 6: when I deal with stuff, I go and work out. Yeah, right,
Speaker 6: instead of sitting down and getting through it.
Speaker 2: Right, it's my outlet.
Speaker 6: And so yeah, you see people see on the success side,
Speaker 6: oh like that they don't know the demons you know
Speaker 6: that constantly.
Speaker 4: Are there because it's not toxic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they think it's not.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's so interesting, like using something that people
Speaker 1: say to dive into when you're having.
Speaker 4: Something healthy as your outlet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they'll say, google extra exercise over a.
Speaker 1: Walk a run, and you're like, that's all I ever did.
Speaker 4: Cry and scream and talk about it, but you know,
Speaker 4: all right, I'll go the treadmill.
Speaker 2: I mean, a good.
Speaker 6: Balance of all of it is is the healthiest way,
Speaker 6: you know, And I'm grateful that I never turned to
Speaker 6: the bottle, right or.
Speaker 4: Do what we do?
Speaker 1: Been the fastest woman in the world two thousand in four,
Speaker 1: two thousand and three.
Speaker 4: Don't go to that, don't go to that reefer.
Speaker 1: Look at these legs.
Speaker 4: Okay, oh my god.
Speaker 1: I well, you know, I think too, like when we
Speaker 1: talk when we think about like toxic traits or not
Speaker 1: toxic trait, but like using these type of healthy things
Speaker 1: for toxicity or not to avoid yourself essentially, like when
Speaker 1: was the point in your career where you couldn't run anymore,
Speaker 1: Like where you couldn't run away from your demons and
Speaker 1: what and and maybe you're still dealing with that because
Speaker 1: I think it's a lifelong Dirney, because I know we are.
Speaker 1: We are all still evolving and working towards that But
Speaker 1: was there like a moment where you were like, I
Speaker 1: can't run anymore. I have to face these things.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, it's it certainly was during some of
Speaker 6: the hard which we'll get to, I'm sure here in
Speaker 6: a little bit. But that was, you know, after the
Speaker 6: Sydney Games, and I had so much success, and I was,
Speaker 6: you know, America's Golden child and on the cover of
Speaker 6: every magazine, and and you know, when shit hit the fan,
Speaker 6: you know, in two thousand and seven, in two thousand
Speaker 6: and eight, and I, you know, shared with the world
Speaker 6: that I had made some poor choices and I had
Speaker 6: lied about, you know, being given performance enhancing drugs. And
Speaker 6: the consequence was six months incarceration, forty nine days really
Speaker 6: in solitary confinement.
Speaker 4: Oh my.
Speaker 2: But you know, whenever I.
Speaker 6: Share that, people's reaction is similar, but I always like
Speaker 6: to follow up.
Speaker 2: I say it was also a blessing.
Speaker 6: And the reason is because it forced me want no
Speaker 6: pun intended to slow my ass down and to assess
Speaker 6: figure out who I was, not who I was Mary
Speaker 6: Jones the track and Feel star, right, but who are
Speaker 6: you at the core? And I think so many young
Speaker 6: athletes and entertainers like like you you define who you
Speaker 6: are by what you do, which is sad. And that
Speaker 6: time locked up away from everything that I understood was real, like, Okay,
Speaker 6: you're not just a sprinter, right, Like, you're so much more.
Speaker 6: Like you have this this powerful personality and this ability
Speaker 6: to connect with people and make people feel like special.
Speaker 6: And how can you kind of harness that in your
Speaker 6: next season of life? And why had you made certain
Speaker 6: choices and you know, touching on daddy issues and mommy
Speaker 6: issues and all of that, and saying yourself, all right,
Speaker 6: you're here, right and sure like in regards to the
Speaker 6: world and reputation, there will be a good amount of rebuilding.
Speaker 6: You're here, you have a mom who still loves you
Speaker 6: and supports you, and a family that's tight, and.
Speaker 2: You're gonna be okay. And you're gonna be okay.
Speaker 6: And I knew the moment after I pled guilty in
Speaker 6: the judge handed down his like this crazy sentence, which
Speaker 6: was so far, so far from what we anticipated, it
Speaker 6: was going.
Speaker 1: To be more severe.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 6: So when I pled guilty, what generally happens is the
Speaker 6: court will do an investigation of the charge and the offense,
Speaker 6: and the court usually will recommend a sentence to the
Speaker 6: judge based off of it all right, like is this.
Speaker 2: Person need to be locked up?
Speaker 6: Or can they potentially serve the community by doing probation?
Speaker 6: All that, and my recommendation from the court was probation, like,
Speaker 6: hey speak to young people, right, like we think that.
Speaker 6: And three hours later into this sentencing, I'm having to
Speaker 6: look at my attorneys left and right.
Speaker 2: I'm like, did I did I hear?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: Did he say six months?
Speaker 2: And just being in shock.
Speaker 5: I'd never been around anybody who had been to prison.
Speaker 2: I don't know anybody.
Speaker 6: My only exposure to like prison life was that show
Speaker 6: that used to be on call, Locked Up.
Speaker 4: A lot of show, right.
Speaker 6: I probably shouldn't have been so into it because that
Speaker 6: became my face. But after the sentencing, walking down the
Speaker 6: steps there in New York and thousands of cameras, and
Speaker 6: I made the decision that so many people had embraced
Speaker 6: me in my highest of moments, right, that it was
Speaker 6: only right to speak. I could have easily just like disappeared,
Speaker 6: but I said no, I'm gonna speak. I'm gonna make
Speaker 6: my apology to the world that I'd let so many
Speaker 6: people down. But I knew that it was gonna all
Speaker 6: be okay, because there was one hand on my shoulder
Speaker 6: and that was my mama's right and she was patting
Speaker 6: me on the back.
Speaker 2: She was whispering in my ear, saying, baby, you'd be okay.
Speaker 6: And in those moments, even locked up forty nine days
Speaker 6: by myself, you know, twenty three out of twenty four
Speaker 6: hours a day, locked up, sometimes all day when the
Speaker 6: guards don't want to take you out there. There were
Speaker 6: some days from like wait, you know, let's cat, but
Speaker 6: the majority of the days are like you got this,
Speaker 6: you got this, Your your future is going to be okay.
Speaker 4: Wow. How old were you at that time?
Speaker 6: I was still in my twenties right, which is which
Speaker 6: is crazy when people are so critical and I get it.
Speaker 2: Right like everybody like I was. I was.
Speaker 1: I was that.
Speaker 2: Person to so many people.
Speaker 1: But you're human, your kid and that you're a human
Speaker 1: and your kid.
Speaker 5: And now at almost fifty, I'll turn fifty in a
Speaker 5: few months.
Speaker 6: When occasionally you'll get the people who try to come
Speaker 6: at me.
Speaker 4: I'm like, dude, right, you're talking about it, like, let's put.
Speaker 6: A lens on your twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven,
Speaker 6: can we do that?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: I mean listening, thank you for sharing. And I'm just
Speaker 1: thinking about this golden because when you were running track
Speaker 1: and during that time, it was literally like a golden
Speaker 1: era of track and field for you, and then even
Speaker 1: like the men that were running as well, it was
Speaker 1: just like this beautiful era. There was so much hope
Speaker 1: and there was so much You're bringing so much pride,
Speaker 1: especially to black people, and you kind of became the
Speaker 1: poster child not kind of, you were like the poster
Speaker 1: child to like success. This woman is like beating all
Speaker 1: these records and that is such an an unimaginable amount
Speaker 1: of pressure. Also on top of you're already suppression and
Speaker 1: need to be successful, and you already knew that you
Speaker 1: wanted to achieve a certain level of s success and
Speaker 1: you are dedicated to it. And I'm sure your coaches
Speaker 1: are not like, hey, maybe you just should like sit
Speaker 1: down for a second, and like they're not checking on
Speaker 1: your mental health there. They want to be out there
Speaker 1: and do what you need to do, so no one's
Speaker 1: really checking on you, perap. I mean, I'm assuming and.
Speaker 6: I also had made the decision. I mean, I'm just
Speaker 6: out of teenage years. Success came my way so fast,
Speaker 6: so much money, right, and.
Speaker 2: You know you, you.
Speaker 6: Start surrounding yourself. And I've shared this a lot of
Speaker 6: times with like a yes crowd, Yeah right, these are
Speaker 6: people who are gonna.
Speaker 5: Patch you on the back. Oh you want to make this, Yes,
Speaker 5: that's a good decision.
Speaker 2: Yes, an outfit, yes.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 6: And I start to start to distance myself and pull
Speaker 6: away from the people who are gonna give it, keep it,
Speaker 6: to keep it real with right, my brother, my my family, right,
Speaker 6: my close friends. I started to distance myself from them
Speaker 6: because I'm like.
Speaker 4: Hey, I'm I'm the star. I'm the star.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: And that, right, is what happens to a lot of
Speaker 6: young people who find success early on. I equated to
Speaker 6: being caught in a wave, and it takes you further
Speaker 6: and further out awave from reality.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 6: And the reason that I go back to saying that
Speaker 6: that time, that hard time, was such a blessing because
Speaker 6: it forced me to come back to shore, forced me
Speaker 6: to plant my feet in the sand and say, hold
Speaker 6: the hell up a second, it's time to get rid
Speaker 6: of some people in your life, right, And which is hard, right, Like,
Speaker 6: we're also a culture that's that's very loyal, right, And
Speaker 6: and there you stick with you know, you gotta stick
Speaker 6: with our own and sometimes you got to go through
Speaker 6: that list and you got to chop, you got to chop.
Speaker 6: And I found though that by you know, admitting to
Speaker 6: certain things and losing so much, that it was naturally
Speaker 6: chopped because so many of those hang arounders, right, we're like, oh,
Speaker 6: there's nothing she could do for us, nap, right, right.
Speaker 2: Right, which was I'm thankful for, you know.
Speaker 1: But during the time where you were at, you know,
Speaker 1: like in right before the Sydney Olympics and your your
Speaker 1: husband was.
Speaker 2: Your coach, correct, No, No, it wasn't my coach.
Speaker 1: Oh, but he was involved someone I'm sure he was
Speaker 1: involved in he was an athlete as well. Well, what
Speaker 1: do you think what was the moment in which you
Speaker 1: said I because I know I remember watching your interview
Speaker 1: on OPRAH where you said you could have won without
Speaker 1: the performance enhancing drugs. What was the moment in which
Speaker 1: you said, I'm going to take these like why why?
Speaker 1: If you already knew that?
Speaker 6: Well to understand get a little context of it all.
Speaker 6: During that time, there was just a lot of athletes
Speaker 6: in the news and performance enhancing drugs, right, there was
Speaker 6: also a need, especially for the elite athlete to make
Speaker 6: sure that whatever nutritional supplements were taking weren't tainted.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: You go into a GNC, for example, you don't know
Speaker 6: how they prepared it, right. And then, as the most
Speaker 6: tested athlete in the world, the most tested drug tested
Speaker 6: athlete in the world during that time, I needed to
Speaker 6: ensure that my stuff that I was taking wasn't tainted.
Speaker 2: I believe in a drug free sport. I'm a natural athlete.
Speaker 6: I know that I'm talented enough to win, so I
Speaker 6: am the advice of my team hired a company to
Speaker 6: make sure that the supplements that I was taking were
Speaker 6: clear and clean.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: And again, you know, I'm whatever age I am in
Speaker 6: my twenties, and you everybody has their role on.
Speaker 2: My team, right. You have the messeuse, you have the coach,
Speaker 2: you have.
Speaker 6: The manager, you have all this and you kind of
Speaker 6: just say, this is what I want, I will pay
Speaker 6: for it.
Speaker 5: Make sure that these are natural supplements, and you trust.
Speaker 6: Trust right Like I don't have a biology degree, right, Like,
Speaker 6: I'm not testing everything that and.
Speaker 5: I am again tested every week and.
Speaker 2: There's there's no red flags.
Speaker 6: So I am assuming that everything that I being given
Speaker 6: that I'm told is this is drug.
Speaker 5: Free and I'm passing every test.
Speaker 6: And it didn't come to my realization that I had
Speaker 6: been taking a performance enhancing drug until fast forward to
Speaker 6: two thousand and seven and federal investigators call me in
Speaker 6: because they want to ask me some questions. Right, And
Speaker 6: by that point, of.
Speaker 1: Course, I had seven years after the fast right.
Speaker 6: So and so I tell my attorneys like, yeah, I
Speaker 6: have nothing to hide, Let's go in. I've been tested,
Speaker 6: I've been asked about it. Let's go in, and let's
Speaker 6: just kind of like put an end to this.
Speaker 1: And so at this point, since two thousand you've you've
Speaker 1: stood on your ground of I did not take Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm running.
Speaker 5: I'm still the fastest woman in the world.
Speaker 6: And I had made a decision note to distance myself
Speaker 6: from certain coaches that I was just naturally.
Speaker 2: I had had my first child.
Speaker 6: And I didn't think that it was going in the
Speaker 6: right direction. And so by this point I had a
Speaker 6: new coach, a new team went in there in two
Speaker 6: thousand and seven, and they started asking me the questions
Speaker 6: and we could tell very quickly that it wasn't just
Speaker 6: a hey, it was more like, we think you know
Speaker 6: a lot more than what you're telling us. By the
Speaker 6: time the interview wrapped up, they decided to pull something
Speaker 6: out of their briefcase and kind of like slap it
Speaker 6: on the table and like push it towards me. And
Speaker 6: I immediately could tell it was a liquid and a
Speaker 6: little vial, that it was something that I had been
Speaker 6: taking prior to the two Thousand Games under the disguise
Speaker 6: I think of that it was something else, and I
Speaker 6: in that moment and I make it all. I guess
Speaker 6: a little bit more dramatic, but literally it was like
Speaker 6: twenty seconds.
Speaker 2: I made the decision to say, oh, shoot, this is
Speaker 2: what it is.
Speaker 6: Regardless of if I knew what it was or not,
Speaker 6: if I admit to having taken it. Everything that I've
Speaker 6: dreamt of that nine year old little girl, my mom
Speaker 6: traveling up here to the night it states for a
Speaker 6: better life for her family, like the fortune, the fame,
Speaker 6: everything would be questioned and would disappear. So in that
Speaker 6: short amount of time, I made the decision to lie,
Speaker 6: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: I'd never taken it before. By that point they called it.
Speaker 2: They were like, we're done.
Speaker 6: The issue And many people don't understand is that prior
Speaker 6: to that meeting with them because I had nothing to hide, right,
Speaker 6: So federal investigators shared with my attorneys, Hey, we're going
Speaker 6: to have her sign what's called a Queen for a
Speaker 6: Day letter.
Speaker 2: They still have it.
Speaker 6: It's under the disguise of they call it something else,
Speaker 6: but in essence, what it is is if they believe
Speaker 6: that they need information from you. It could be for
Speaker 6: any a murder, a theft, whatever. You sign this letter
Speaker 6: and you say you will tell the truth no matter
Speaker 6: what it is, and we will not and cannot prosecute you,
Speaker 6: prosecute you, So.
Speaker 4: You're under oath but in a way, but it's not
Speaker 4: any way, right, But if you sign it and then
Speaker 4: you lie, that's where the shit hits the fan.
Speaker 6: And I signed the letter prior again nothing to hide.
Speaker 6: I lied in it, and then they were able to
Speaker 6: use that against me. But you know, you fast forward
Speaker 6: a few years and had my you know, because the
Speaker 6: timeline is weird. Two thousand and seven is when I
Speaker 6: decided to tell the world that I had lied and
Speaker 6: all that, But two thousand and three was actually when
Speaker 6: they called me in, right, so we had said two
Speaker 6: thousand and seven, it was actually two thousand and three
Speaker 6: that was the year my first son was born.
Speaker 2: That is, I'm a mom. That is important because you
Speaker 2: all know when you become a.
Speaker 6: Parent, like things shift and you start to realize like
Speaker 6: your lifestyle or what you're doing or saying or not
Speaker 6: doing not saying can and will affect them someday. And
Speaker 6: I had my son and I'm telling him, you know,
Speaker 6: you know, when you make more choices, you know, you
Speaker 6: got to come and tell Mom and we'll deal with
Speaker 6: the consequences.
Speaker 5: And the sooner you tell me, the better, the better.
Speaker 6: And I'm just a hypocrite, right because I'm holding onto
Speaker 6: this lie and I'm running and I'm successful, but it's
Speaker 6: just heavy. Two thousand and seven, my second son was born,
Speaker 6: and at that point it was just I mean, I'm
Speaker 6: still competing, I'm still doing well.
Speaker 2: It's just the burden of it is too much.
Speaker 6: And I decided to you know, I'm going to just
Speaker 6: deal with the consequences whatever.
Speaker 4: So so had you never said admitted it, then what
Speaker 4: would not nothing have had happened? Or was it just
Speaker 4: as personal like it was.
Speaker 6: Just I mean, I was at that point still very
Speaker 6: heavily tested every week. By that point, I hadn't taken
Speaker 6: it since two thousand and you realize, right once I realized,
Speaker 6: But yeah, I mean, nothing would have I don't know.
Speaker 6: I really don't know what the consequences if I never
Speaker 6: had said anything. But at that point, it wasn't It
Speaker 6: wasn't even worth going down that road anymore.
Speaker 2: Was there a.
Speaker 4: Reason why this company would have, under the guise of
Speaker 4: everything as natural, been given in this fucking Olympian this
Speaker 4: drug without your knowledge?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it wasn't.
Speaker 6: There were a lot of athletes that had hired this
Speaker 6: particular company.
Speaker 2: And the more.
Speaker 6: Success the athletes, and we're talking about athletes, the elite
Speaker 6: of many different sports, right, the more success the athlete has,
Speaker 6: the more prominence this company will will become.
Speaker 1: This sounds like they did they take any accountability for
Speaker 1: what happened, or you know, they.
Speaker 5: Went down, they fold down.
Speaker 6: But I was the I was the only athlete to
Speaker 6: have been given any prison time.
Speaker 4: Is that because you're black?
Speaker 1: Well, I think I think that there.
Speaker 5: I think there were a lot of other athletes of color.
Speaker 4: I think that one would have to go to prison.
Speaker 1: They wanted to make an example of.
Speaker 6: It, and that's what the judge also said. The judge,
Speaker 6: he said, we're going to set a precedent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they wanted to make an example of it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: It wasn't until years later that I also found out
Speaker 6: that he was this particular judge was up for re election. Right,
Speaker 6: it was the biggest case during that time, right, so
Speaker 6: he high profile. But you know, you it was the
Speaker 6: decision that needed to be made. It was it was
Speaker 6: the right decision. It was one that I was fearful
Speaker 6: of having to. You know, have kids in this world
Speaker 6: who would would know my story and and how that
Speaker 6: would all play out and manifest And I think I've
Speaker 6: done a fairly good job in raising them in a
Speaker 6: way that they understand the truth and they can follow
Speaker 6: the timeline.
Speaker 5: And so to fast forward a little bit to kind of.
Speaker 6: Where I'm at now and the decision I've made, because
Speaker 6: I made the conscious decision once it all went down
Speaker 6: to step back, right like after I was released, I
Speaker 6: needed to be present for them.
Speaker 2: I needed to step away from the spotlight.
Speaker 6: When I was released from prison, though I still had
Speaker 6: an aching.
Speaker 5: To compete to participate in sport.
Speaker 2: Track was off the table.
Speaker 6: But as you all know, I played basketball and I
Speaker 6: also had on my bucket list to play professionally, So
Speaker 6: I made a WNBA team and I played.
Speaker 2: For a few seasons.
Speaker 6: And I did that so that my kids can when
Speaker 6: they're old enough to follow the trajectory of my career
Speaker 6: in my life. And they were going to see the
Speaker 6: success early on, and then they were going to see
Speaker 6: the hard times and the bad decisions and for me
Speaker 6: just to disappear and never would send. I think and
Speaker 6: thought a message to them that you know, you make
Speaker 6: things happen in life and you just.
Speaker 2: Stay there back it up. So I said, you know what, No,
Speaker 2: I'm putting myself back out there.
Speaker 6: I'm going to attempt to make a professional basketball team.
Speaker 6: Right after all of this, I hadn't actually played basketball
Speaker 6: competitively and over a decade because I was running and competing.
Speaker 2: I made a WNBA team to.
Speaker 6: This day, the oldest rookie in the WNBA. And I
Speaker 6: was able to like have my boys at that point,
Speaker 6: my daughter had she had just born, was born, but
Speaker 6: like they could be in there so they.
Speaker 4: Can remember what experience other than them.
Speaker 6: And so after I decided to step away from sport altogether,
Speaker 6: I then really needed to take another step back. No,
Speaker 6: it's my kid's time, Like I need to be present
Speaker 6: for them.
Speaker 2: Not knowing if if.
Speaker 6: I was gonna put myself ever back out into the
Speaker 6: public eye.
Speaker 2: And a few years back.
Speaker 6: I says, it's time and what is it time for
Speaker 6: Marian It's time for the world to see that, like.
Speaker 2: You don't have to stay in that place.
Speaker 6: And not just specifically with my story, but my story
Speaker 6: resonates if you think, no, not everybody can relate to
Speaker 6: being you know, you know, running fast here today, Olympic champion,
Speaker 6: all that cover a vogue. But everybody can relate to
Speaker 6: being knocked down in some capacity. You lose a job,
Speaker 6: somebody dies, your relationship fails.
Speaker 5: You don't got any money, right, you've you've fucked up,
Speaker 5: you went.
Speaker 6: To really everybody and everybody experiences that in some way.
Speaker 6: Everybody needs to know that you don't have to stay
Speaker 6: there and this is how you can get back up
Speaker 6: and to be able to use my own It's it's
Speaker 6: hard to have to be that that poster child now right,
Speaker 6: Like I would love to stay the other poster child,
Speaker 6: but I think this one is making even a bigger
Speaker 6: impact on the world than just being able to run
Speaker 6: fast from.
Speaker 2: Here to there. Because only very few people can relate
Speaker 2: to that. They might be inspired by that.
Speaker 6: So right, like you said, you know you loved watching me,
Speaker 6: and that was but really seeing somebody.
Speaker 5: Like like the phoenix, like the rise again.
Speaker 4: Meaningful and it relates to everybody.
Speaker 1: It's you actually are become the more authentic version, whereas
Speaker 1: the other place feels like aspirational, where now it's I
Speaker 1: feel it's very equally as aspirational, but there's like a
Speaker 1: groundedness in it. There's a reality, there's a relatability, there's humanity,
Speaker 1: there's people can actually see themselves in you, whereas before
Speaker 1: they're like, I don't know how and like it's great,
Speaker 1: like I want to take a picture with her, but
Speaker 1: but other than that.
Speaker 6: So that is why you asked early on in this
Speaker 6: like how am I today or how? And that's why
Speaker 6: I can sider here and say I'm like, I'm joyful,
Speaker 6: right because the journey for me hasn't been easy, but
Speaker 6: who is it easy for anybody?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 6: I'm just sitting any place where I know that what
Speaker 6: I'm doing right now is it's what it's God intended
Speaker 6: me to be doing.
Speaker 4: Good. Mom's bad choices. Yeah, it's the rise, It's the
Speaker 4: lesson that you learn from it. All the lesson that
Speaker 4: you get to like live out loud too, you know,
Speaker 4: like you said coming being you know, Black people, a
Speaker 4: lot of our things are We're taught to sweep it
Speaker 4: under the carpet and it's it's something we keep at home.
Speaker 4: We don't talk about it hush hush, like the I
Speaker 4: didn't come home last Like you don't tell nobody our business.
Speaker 4: But when you can mess up publicly and then rise
Speaker 4: up again publicly, it's so meaningful and it does set
Speaker 4: the president that we have to talk about it. We
Speaker 4: have to talk about it so that other people know
Speaker 4: this should happens. This is real life, like everything is
Speaker 4: not you know, butterflies and very which.
Speaker 6: Is what social media like exemplifies, like everybody wants to
Speaker 6: show their best life or in social media and my
Speaker 6: reality and one that I choose now because I'm also
Speaker 6: at a point in my world that I'm not going
Speaker 6: to allow my narrative to be written for me anymore
Speaker 6: as young, right, you kind of let know like this
Speaker 6: is who I am, this is what I did, but
Speaker 6: this is where it's going.
Speaker 2: And there are.
Speaker 5: Good days and there are bad days, and folks.
Speaker 2: Need to see all of it.
Speaker 4: How is your marriage during that time, Like, I know,
Speaker 4: you're no longer married, but like you were married when
Speaker 4: you were got locked up, you were married and came out.
Speaker 4: You know, how did that affect your marriage?
Speaker 6: It's certainly a strain, certainly a strain because I you know,
Speaker 6: we talk about like not airing any dirty launcher, Like
Speaker 6: I didn't even share certain things with my husband about
Speaker 6: that time, right, And so in his defense, right, like
Speaker 6: he entered a relationship with all without all the moving parts,
Speaker 6: which is unfair, right, and something that I am saddened
Speaker 6: that he had to partaken that. But also, you know,
Speaker 6: you also realize things about yourself that beyond that, it
Speaker 6: just wasn't going to work, you know, for for lots
Speaker 6: of reasons, and one that I've shared this year and
Speaker 6: that you know, I've kind of came out in twenty
Speaker 6: twenty four and and people are like so surprised, and
Speaker 6: why do.
Speaker 1: You say kicking, I don't see, it's not like a thing.
Speaker 6: For the ten plus years that I was away from
Speaker 6: the public eye, like I was living my true and
Speaker 6: authentic life, right, Like I knew for many years that I,
Speaker 6: you know, there was an attraction to women and you know,
Speaker 6: like guys were cool I also knew that I wanted kids, right,
Speaker 6: like you know for that and it's not well not
Speaker 6: even that's.
Speaker 2: That's the full truth now.
Speaker 6: But you also during that time you fit into a
Speaker 6: certain stereotype like this is what you know the female
Speaker 6: athlete should be, this is what sponsors are paying for.
Speaker 6: It's this pretty picture, right, and you know I mean.
Speaker 2: To be totally transparent.
Speaker 6: You know, my the culture in which I was raised
Speaker 6: in very conservative Bellisian culture, like you know, I have
Speaker 6: a mom, that's just not a thing, didn't support me, right,
Speaker 6: It didn't fit in that. So again you make choices
Speaker 6: and you just get to a point where I'm just like,
Speaker 6: it's just as heavy. It's just time to be me.
Speaker 6: And so that's when I say I came out. It's
Speaker 6: I didn't even realize when I made the decision to
Speaker 6: put myself back out in the pub like I in
Speaker 6: regards to my message, that the world didn't know that
Speaker 6: I was, you know, a queer woman of color, like
Speaker 6: it was a I had to be reminded like like
Speaker 6: my partner, my friends.
Speaker 2: Were like you, the world doesn't.
Speaker 1: You didn't share that everyone doesn't gay.
Speaker 6: Everyone is funny because now you know everybody now will
Speaker 6: come in and say, oh, I.
Speaker 2: Knew all a long, you know how we get.
Speaker 1: The way he was running. I thought that I see
Speaker 1: when you cut all your hair off, the only gays
Speaker 1: do they.
Speaker 6: And so this this journey back for me, this like
Speaker 6: second wind per se.
Speaker 2: It's just me living my authentic.
Speaker 5: Self, like I am who I am, right I do.
Speaker 6: I'm not at a point where I'm like I care
Speaker 6: what they say, like this is this is who I am,
Speaker 6: and my story is strong and powerful and I'm passionate
Speaker 6: about it and this is my life and this is
Speaker 6: my fa this is my world.
Speaker 4: Take it or leave it right. You don't have to
Speaker 4: like me, but you can keep it moving. How did
Speaker 4: your kids take it? Was there a moment you had
Speaker 4: to tell them like listen, mommy's lesbian again.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like that coming out way.
Speaker 6: It was just like it was just a natural, like
Speaker 6: after a divorce, dad. And you know, I made certain
Speaker 6: choices to bring whom I'm bringing around them, which I'm
Speaker 6: very cautious about. You know, there were and they're all
Speaker 6: different ages and different understanding levels, and you kind of
Speaker 6: figure that out along the way.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't any I mean it was. It was
Speaker 2: tough because.
Speaker 5: It's not dad right.
Speaker 4: It would like who is right?
Speaker 6: But again it wasn't like a shock factor or anything
Speaker 6: like I'm living with my partner now, my daughter lives
Speaker 6: in a household.
Speaker 2: My kids know mom. I think there's, like.
Speaker 1: Said, this misconception that like when when you when you
Speaker 1: lay it on your kids, like these life choices that
Speaker 1: you've made, If these life choices that you make are
Speaker 1: making mom happy, the kids are going to be happy.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't really give a fuck, like they care,
Speaker 1: they do give a fuck. They give a fuck that
Speaker 1: their mother is happy and that they're showing the mom
Speaker 1: is showing up for them.
Speaker 2: And so I think that never and of course that
Speaker 2: never changed.
Speaker 1: And I think like for the moms listening, who are
Speaker 1: you know, battling with, whether that's their sexuality, whether that's
Speaker 1: you know, leaving dad, whether that's career changing, location changing.
Speaker 1: And that's even a message for me myself too, is
Speaker 1: like we're always so concerned about if we're going to
Speaker 1: fuck up our kids, and the way we surely fuck
Speaker 1: up our kids is not being ourselves or.
Speaker 6: Hiding hiding trauma, right, Like that's another thing that you know,
Speaker 6: we in our culture, like you.
Speaker 2: Don't want to share that you're going through.
Speaker 4: You're strong, everything's fine, and your kids feeal you. They
Speaker 4: came from you. Then that energetic and bilical cord is real.
Speaker 6: My daughter, I could get in the car and just
Speaker 6: having a rough day.
Speaker 2: And I won't say anything.
Speaker 6: She's like, she'll get from school, She's like, what's wrong
Speaker 6: with you? Yes, I'm like no, I'm good to stop.
Speaker 6: So she will literally turn down the music and say
Speaker 6: what happened today?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 6: So to think that just because you don't say it
Speaker 6: or you don't show it right, like they don't know, and.
Speaker 2: Then that's it's a confusing.
Speaker 5: Time for them anyway, and you're intelligence.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, they're already hormonal and I'm mad for no reason.
Speaker 4: And now you're going to sit up there and lie
Speaker 4: in my face. And just like you tell your kids,
Speaker 4: you can't lie to me, I know everything before it happens.
Speaker 4: It's very much the same way. Your kid is super
Speaker 4: intelligent and intuitive, mostly because they're closer to God the
Speaker 4: younger that they are, and second of all, because they
Speaker 4: came from you and they know you. And I really
Speaker 4: I really abide by that in my adulthood, Like I'm
Speaker 4: not going to insult my child's intelligence because I remember
Speaker 4: when my parents do that shit to me coming out
Speaker 4: the grage, smelling like weed, Like what the hell y'all
Speaker 4: doing in there? Nothing you lying, you know, And it's
Speaker 4: just like I don't ever want to have a relationship
Speaker 4: where I'm insulting because I think it's like in life
Speaker 4: and adulthood, especially with women, people are going to try
Speaker 4: and confuse you, going to try and take you further
Speaker 4: and further away from your intuition. I am not going
Speaker 4: to contribute to your confusion. I'm going to tell you
Speaker 4: when you're right. I'm going to tell you when you're wrong,
Speaker 4: and like I'm going to respect you the same way
Speaker 4: that I expect you respect me, because it's a two
Speaker 4: way street. And I think a lot of times and
Speaker 4: especially like things are only weird when we make them weird.
Speaker 4: I'm like, Mom's gay, you know, Like why are you
Speaker 4: doing all that? You know what I mean. It's just
Speaker 4: like especially the time now is like everybody is, you know,
Speaker 4: and they're like, yeah, Jenny has.
Speaker 6: You know for moms, Jenny's mom is Polly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, they're going to commune like who, like,
Speaker 4: you know, what I mean, like our mom's not binary,
Speaker 4: they're they you know, like the kids are so more
Speaker 4: further informed than we were, Like there's it's so much
Speaker 4: more like present in media and we can't hide it,
Speaker 4: so it's like we might as well talk about it.
Speaker 4: And I always thinks like your happiness as a mother,
Speaker 4: as a parent is so important that like denying yourself
Speaker 4: the truth is essentially teaching your kid how to lie.
Speaker 4: If I'm not being myself, I'm telling you that you
Speaker 4: also have to shift in order to be accepted and
Speaker 4: to be loved, and to be further and further away
Speaker 4: from the authenticity. And that's even from your own recommendation.
Speaker 4: Like if you don't want your kid to be this
Speaker 4: or that, you're essentially telling your kid hide and be
Speaker 4: something different than what God made you. And I think
Speaker 4: that's such a terrible message, and it's such a confusing
Speaker 4: message as you have kids going off into adulthood trying
Speaker 4: to figure their shit out already, like don't be an
Speaker 4: oppressor in the space that's already going to be extremely
Speaker 4: difficult to kind of like get your two feet. So
Speaker 4: I think that's really, you know, I'm really I'm so
Speaker 4: honored to hear your story, to share this time with
Speaker 4: you and to hear how you've overcome and the things
Speaker 4: that you've been through and the success that you've had
Speaker 4: while maintaining yourself, you know, and your authenticity and having
Speaker 4: the time to sit back and be like, let me shift,
Speaker 4: let me course correct, because a lot of people don't
Speaker 4: have the wherewithal to do that, and they try to
Speaker 4: stay within this you know, whatever is likable and lovable
Speaker 4: for the public, but you know, at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, you have to live with yourself. You have
Speaker 4: to go to sleep at night, you have to love
Speaker 4: that shit. And so I appreciate this story and like
Speaker 4: hearing from you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's same. I think that, like, as women, we
Speaker 1: carry so much shame, and it seemed it seems like
Speaker 1: the world, maybe not I want to put it all
Speaker 1: in the world, but the world was trying to throw
Speaker 1: you away, then keep you down and use everything to
Speaker 1: just suppress all of the accomplishments that you've had. And
Speaker 1: I'm just so inspired by your journey to say no,
Speaker 1: I'm not done and like you're not going to put
Speaker 1: me away.
Speaker 2: You're not going to put me in that box.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and yeah, I think that like more women
Speaker 1: need to to abide by that rule and realize that
Speaker 1: there's always a second chance, there's always a second wind.
Speaker 1: I love the name of your podcast, second Wind, Second Wind,
Speaker 1: and I I definitely when I read when I was
Speaker 1: when I read the name of the podcast, and I realized, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I understand this because as my dad being a professional
Speaker 1: athlete and him being one of the best in his
Speaker 1: in the career, he still holds a record that has
Speaker 1: never been broken, and I think that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure that people try to put on him and
Speaker 1: he'd be like whatever, Like I don't even watch football,
Speaker 1: and like also like this this idea that a lot
Speaker 1: of athletes, they become so locked into their identity as
Speaker 1: an athlete that their second win some oft times never
Speaker 1: comes because they're stuck here. They don't know what to
Speaker 1: do after after that, after pouring so much time, so
Speaker 1: much energy, everything, and you and.
Speaker 6: You realize that it doesn't matter who you are. And me,
Speaker 6: he could be an everyday show.
Speaker 1: I mean, oh, you could be a doctor. That's like
Speaker 1: I want to be a hola hooper.
Speaker 6: And that's I mean in regards to my podcast, that's
Speaker 6: that's what it is like it's entertainers and people that
Speaker 6: you know, but it's also like everyday people.
Speaker 5: That have hit success in life, whatever success looks like.
Speaker 5: I mean, you could be the deacon in your church.
Speaker 6: And you mess up right and you lose it all,
Speaker 6: and then you just make the decision to you know what,
Speaker 6: like it doesn't have to end here, Like I don't
Speaker 6: have to stay stuck in my past, and it's and
Speaker 6: you know it's my affirmation. We will get to that,
Speaker 6: but like it's you know, your your setbacks in life.
Speaker 2: Can be like a catalyst for something even bigger.
Speaker 6: It could be a catalyst for like your your big
Speaker 6: comeback And people say, you know why come back? You
Speaker 6: know why play in the w NBA, right Because again,
Speaker 6: like for me, my kids are everything and they need
Speaker 6: I needed. I needed to be okay that I had
Speaker 6: created a narrative so that they can.
Speaker 1: See it, that you're in control of it, right.
Speaker 6: That I that I'm in control of it, and that
Speaker 6: in it the world can see and need if they
Speaker 6: need an example, Hey, it's me, yo, I love that.
Speaker 1: After me, your setback in life can be the catalyst
Speaker 1: to your comeback, your biggest comeback.
Speaker 4: Your cat your setback in life can be the catalyst
Speaker 4: to your biggest comeback. Yeah, I resignate with that. I
Speaker 4: think even with Eric and I, like we were in
Speaker 4: a very place where we're like, we're single moms, we're
Speaker 4: a stereotype and the statistic and like it's over, you know,
Speaker 4: and we're just like, fuck it, We're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 4: talk say the things, talk about dating, talk about things
Speaker 4: that are not likable for women and mothers, and we're
Speaker 4: gonna smoke our weed and we're gonna stay it out loud.
Speaker 6: And you're probably gonna fail at some point in it
Speaker 6: a little bit here and there, but it's part of it.
Speaker 6: And it's also like prepping for the failure, right, I
Speaker 6: call it prepping for the hiccup, prepping for the roadblocks.
Speaker 4: Because there's going to be a road Yes, there's going
Speaker 4: to be a hit. There's going there's no human that
Speaker 4: exists that has not fucked up.
Speaker 6: So even in y'all's example, I mean, I'm sure you
Speaker 6: all and have shared like the hiccups even into getting
Speaker 6: to where you are right now. For anybody like seeing
Speaker 6: hearing this to think that it's been smooth sailing the.
Speaker 4: Whole way right, that's illusional. Shit will get hard and
Speaker 4: you will be okay. You know, Amen? Do you want
Speaker 4: to do Tarot time?
Speaker 1: Yes? Tterot time.
Speaker 4: Of swords? Interesting? It seems like there's of sports is
Speaker 4: It's an interesting card upright?
Speaker 1: It actually represents betrayal, deception, getting away with something, acting strategically. Traditionally,
Speaker 1: the seven of swords indicates that betrayal, deception, and trickery.
Speaker 1: You might be trying to get away with something and
Speaker 1: are sneaking around behind other people's backs, hoping to go undetected.
Speaker 1: If you're lucky, you might get away with your secret intact,
Speaker 1: but if you're unlucky, others will soon find out what
Speaker 1: you have done, causing you shame and embarrassment. Be aware
Speaker 1: that anytime you use cunning or deception to gain an
Speaker 1: advantage over someone or something else, you're at risk of
Speaker 1: being found out. Alternatively, you may be a victim of
Speaker 1: someone else's betrayal. Others are not being candid with you,
Speaker 1: and you may be unaware of their lives and deception.
Speaker 1: You may trust someone who then turns out to be
Speaker 1: running towards our own agenda. Look out for any sneaky
Speaker 1: behavior and listen to your intuition when something does not
Speaker 1: feel right or seems too good to be true. On
Speaker 1: a more positive note, the Seven of Swords points out
Speaker 1: that you need to be strategic in what you do.
Speaker 1: You know you cannot do everything at once, nor should you. Instead,
Speaker 1: you must prioritize what's important to you and direct your
Speaker 1: focus and attention on the few tasks that will make
Speaker 1: you move closer to your goal. It's the eighty twenty rule.
Speaker 1: Twenty percent of your work will account for eighty percent
Speaker 1: of your results, so focus on the twenty percent. You
Speaker 1: may be able to accept some responsibilities or duties, but
Speaker 1: not all of them at once. You may say yes
Speaker 1: to some projects at the expense of others. At times.
Speaker 1: The Seven of Swords suggests that you may need to
Speaker 1: put yourself first to get what you want, even if
Speaker 1: it means letting others down or putting others off of
Speaker 1: towards The seven a Swords could also imply that you
Speaker 1: are trying to escape from a situation that is not
Speaker 1: working for you anymore, rather than dealing with it head on.
Speaker 1: You may attempt to run away from commitment, responsibility, or love.
Speaker 1: You may procrastinate, letting problems slip and become worse. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you just have to face what has to be faced.
Speaker 1: Hum you but you.
Speaker 4: Know, but the reverse is interesting to The reverse says
Speaker 4: you may doubt yourself and your abilities. For example, if
Speaker 4: you have started in new business and you think to yourself,
Speaker 4: who am I doing this? Know that this fear is talking.
Speaker 4: Go get out of your head and trust that you
Speaker 4: have everything that you need to make a new venture
Speaker 4: a success. Similarly, the seven of Swords reverse can suggest
Speaker 4: that you're deceiving yourself, trying to trick yourself into believing
Speaker 4: something even though it is out of integrity and out
Speaker 4: of integrity with your true self. You may attempt to
Speaker 4: fool yourself that everything is okay when it is not.
Speaker 4: Now is the time to get real with where you're
Speaker 4: at and confront your situation head on. So it's just
Speaker 4: you know, we've talked about all of those things, so
Speaker 4: I think that was very interesting on the side as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank you so much for coming on our
Speaker 1: show chat. This is great. Where can people find your podcast?
Speaker 2: You all the things everywhere?
Speaker 6: No, you can find a second win podcast wherever you
Speaker 6: get your podcasts, Spotify wherever that is. Of course I'm
Speaker 6: on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're on TikTok? Can you be doing TikTok?
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't dances all over, but are you
Speaker 6: sure you do it right now? Over?
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I had a guest come on the other day. She's like,
Speaker 1: we need to do TikTok and she's like, I can
Speaker 1: find one. In four seconds she went, this is the dance.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, is that how easy
Speaker 1: it is? I'm over here like searching for hours, like
Speaker 1: which one speaks to my soul?
Speaker 4: Like we learned that dance about eight seconds and we
Speaker 4: did it, okay.
Speaker 2: And then when TikTok disappears, all that hard work.
Speaker 1: Right, TikTok and go nowhere? Girl, They're not going to
Speaker 1: let that thing go nowhere.
Speaker 2: It's too much money.
Speaker 1: Well, we will make sure to link all of your
Speaker 1: links in this episode description, So make sure you check
Speaker 1: out Marion Jones and make sure you check us out.
Speaker 1: Make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Like we said
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the show, if you didn't listen, bitch,
Speaker 1: now is the time I say bitch in the most
Speaker 1: loving way, loving living way, but I really do mean it.
Speaker 1: And also make sure you follow the Good Vibe Retreat.
Speaker 1: We have three retreats this year that are still available.
Speaker 1: All the other ones are sold out, and these ones
Speaker 1: are almost sold out too, so make sure you check
Speaker 1: out the Good Vibe Retreat. We have a couple's retreat
Speaker 1: in June, and then we have two women's retreats in
Speaker 1: Costa Rica in July and August. And I would love
Speaker 1: to see there and take care of you anyway. I
Speaker 1: love you, love you bye please.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm living been so good? Can't you tell I
Speaker 3: went through a drought. That's until I find a well
Speaker 3: may my have been known art? I used to be
Speaker 3: broken tail, now got the blues dance and might beyond,
Speaker 3: say Jazell throat shot pop and this cower in our voices,
Speaker 3: patriarch and catch it in the box.
Speaker 2: So what'sploids?
Speaker 5: Women put the p and power, So what's the pointless?
Speaker 6: Say?
Speaker 1: Want me to be good?
Speaker 2: So I make bad choice?
Speaker 3: Bad mom, not a bad mom, but a bad mom.
Speaker 3: It he's in on the cannabus in their bathbon walked
Speaker 3: in Barcel's cap and I blew his cat boll hop dog.
Speaker 3: Now I'm immune to the cat called Herbie and the
Speaker 3: waisted straight to it like a dollar sign. Mother, rent
Speaker 3: the lover, when too it looks like a water summer
Speaker 3: where you're rent the winter essential will when the summertime.
Speaker 3: I do what doll ain't no one that needs to
Speaker 3: run it by