Speaker 1: What do you think could the most recognizable pool player
Speaker 1: on the planet, a world champion right number one, known
Speaker 1: as the Black Widow, disguise herself and hustle a guy
Speaker 1: out of all the money in his pocket. Ginette Lee
Speaker 1: got a phone call one day from the great Rick Riley,
Speaker 1: of a sports illustrated who wrote a backpage column called
Speaker 1: The Life of Riley. He asked her that very question.
Speaker 1: He had asked me, have you ever do you think
Speaker 1: you could hustle now? And like, no, you know, everybody
Speaker 1: would recognize me. And he was like, but what you know,
Speaker 1: what if we changed everything, changed the way you look?
Speaker 1: And I said, oh no, then yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to be I don't get any It's like
Speaker 1: a bully picking on the low kid. It doesn't do
Speaker 1: anything for me. He was like, no, we should do it.
Speaker 1: We should do an article, and so he flew into Indianapolis,
Speaker 1: where we live. We um George made some call, my
Speaker 1: ex had made some calls, and we picked a Mark
Speaker 1: who was coming out of a bar across town and
Speaker 1: we had Rake be like my pimp daddy, and you know,
Speaker 1: he had like a wife beater shirt and the Navy
Speaker 1: bowling hat. And you know, God knows what. And and
Speaker 1: I had put on a black you know, I mean
Speaker 1: like an auburn red wig and glasses and like skin
Speaker 1: tight like one piece denim with my Newport's cigarettes and
Speaker 1: my you know, spurn off eyes. And we hustled a
Speaker 1: guy to eventually lose all the money in his pocket,
Speaker 1: which was about seven and eventually he gave it back
Speaker 1: after the story, and it was it was great, but
Speaker 1: it was one of his pieces. I love that the
Speaker 1: Black Widow spins her web in disguise and then gives
Speaker 1: the mark his seven hundred bucks back. But how did
Speaker 1: the shy daughter of Korean immigrants who had a severely
Speaker 1: curved spine was bullied transformed into the black Widow. It
Speaker 1: goes to this episode's title, true Grit. Jeanette Lee embodies
Speaker 1: it the courage, resilience, relentless drive. Coming up, she tells
Speaker 1: a story of pain tolerance that's up there with anything
Speaker 1: I've heard in thirty five years covering athletes in all
Speaker 1: sorts of sports. But each and every day Jeanette gets
Speaker 1: by on grit and toughness. My other guests, Jay billis
Speaker 1: ESPNS lead college basketball analyst and an attorney has steadied
Speaker 1: toughness and wrote a best seller on it, drawing from
Speaker 1: examples of the toughest people he's known from all backgrounds.
Speaker 1: You talk about a positive influence that what you know
Speaker 1: what in my life is so difficult, in such an
Speaker 1: obstacle that I can't deal with it with the positive
Speaker 1: attitude that a young woman with a geoblastoma had, like
Speaker 1: I can't match that attitude with the tiny little molehill
Speaker 1: obstacles I have when she had that the scale that
Speaker 1: that was another one for me just in writing the
Speaker 1: book that I said, man Um, I may think I've
Speaker 1: I've got a little bit of toughness in me, but
Speaker 1: it's not close to Sabrina Lewandowski. Later, Jay offers valuable
Speaker 1: ideas on developing mental toughness. But first Janette Lee and
Speaker 1: they're empowering example. It's a unique journey. At age twelve,
Speaker 1: the course of her life change when she developed scoliosis
Speaker 1: sideways curvature of the spine. Jeanette's case was severe and
Speaker 1: debilitating to eighteen inch metal rods were implanted in her back.
Speaker 1: She says it was excruciating physically and emotionally, something that
Speaker 1: is not known to be a lethal disease. But it
Speaker 1: is something that really affects your life, not just in
Speaker 1: the way that you look, which you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of it happens more girls than boys. Um, you discovered
Speaker 1: a lot of times in your early teams are just
Speaker 1: in your early childhood development. And and to then see
Speaker 1: that and be it. For me, it was when I
Speaker 1: was like twelve, So you're just starting to like boys
Speaker 1: and just starting to form your own identity and you know,
Speaker 1: start worrying more about what you look like. And and
Speaker 1: for me, actually in New York, being born and raised
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, New York, it was an all black neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and so I was the minority, and I was the
Speaker 1: one ching chong chali wang and all this stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: going to school, and so I already felt very much
Speaker 1: like an outcast, you know what you mean. And so
Speaker 1: then now you know, having to have this major spinal
Speaker 1: fusion and where this giant cast and then for the
Speaker 1: next year this big plastic brace, and um, it was.
Speaker 1: It was definitely the worst time of my life to
Speaker 1: that point. And those are some serious challenges. You talked
Speaker 1: about it, feeling racism as a kid, being bullied, feeling different,
Speaker 1: not to mention dealing with a whole lot of pain,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure experts telling you you're not gonna be
Speaker 1: able to do this. It became about what you can't do,
Speaker 1: the limitations, and not what you can do. So what
Speaker 1: got you through that? I remember back then, Um, I'm
Speaker 1: a Christian. My whole family was raised as Christians, and
Speaker 1: my my mom has always been a devout Christian. And
Speaker 1: I remember her saying to me when I was laid
Speaker 1: up in bed, you know, after surgery and being miserable
Speaker 1: and feeling like the world is so unfair and why
Speaker 1: is this happening to me, and her saying let us pray,
Speaker 1: and her saying, well, God has a great plan for you.
Speaker 1: And like any teenager got shut up, Mom, you don't understand,
Speaker 1: you don't know what it's like. And and she just
Speaker 1: kept saying that sometimes we may not understand why something happens,
Speaker 1: but it that God has a greater plan, right, And
Speaker 1: so I wasn't buying into that. It was just life stinks,
Speaker 1: everything's unfair. And then later I continued on um, and
Speaker 1: she always said, you have gifts and you have to
Speaker 1: be open to discovering what that is. And you can't
Speaker 1: do it feeling sorry for yourself on your couch. You
Speaker 1: need to go out, get off the TV, get out there,
Speaker 1: like you know, and go out and do things and
Speaker 1: try things and always just be open. You've talked about
Speaker 1: just the way that the universe guided you, or whether
Speaker 1: it was divine, whatever your belief, to find pool, because
Speaker 1: it wasn't just the scoliosis. You were going through some
Speaker 1: troubled times in your teenage years and lo and behold, boom,
Speaker 1: here's this sport. It wouldn't be the first thing you'd
Speaker 1: expect a girl from Brooklyn to run into. And now
Speaker 1: you sent you what was that kind of a lightbulb
Speaker 1: moment when you realize this is something for me and
Speaker 1: this could really be important. I remember when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I was a bit of a tomboy. I loved being active.
Speaker 1: I loved playing ball um with the kids. And I'm
Speaker 1: talking about an elementary school so in my and then eventually,
Speaker 1: because of what I was saying, that racism, the bullying,
Speaker 1: some of the other things, my mom transferred me to
Speaker 1: a private school in the city, which she she regrets
Speaker 1: to this day. It was in Greenwich Village, you know,
Speaker 1: And so in a private school it's it's great in
Speaker 1: some ways, but you have access to a lot more
Speaker 1: things that can get you in trouble. And I was
Speaker 1: being a bit of a teenage delinquent and being rebellious
Speaker 1: and things like that. And after after scoliosis my spinal fusion,
Speaker 1: I could no longer run be the tomboy. I had
Speaker 1: to be way less active. And they kept saying, you know,
Speaker 1: within a couple of years, you should be fine. Um well,
Speaker 1: they would say in six to nine months, and then
Speaker 1: a year, and then two years, and then they were like,
Speaker 1: now you probably I just should expect that you Now,
Speaker 1: this is quite possibly the best that you're going to get.
Speaker 1: Jeanette was forced to accept that playing all the sports
Speaker 1: that she loved would now be impossible. Eventually, your high
Speaker 1: school boyfriend took her to play pool. The Color of Money,
Speaker 1: starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, had made pool cool again.
Speaker 1: New billiard rooms are opening up all over New York.
Speaker 1: So one night, when she was eighteen, Jeanette walked into
Speaker 1: a pool room near where she worked and laid eyes
Speaker 1: on a stranger who would completely change the course of
Speaker 1: her life. And so I'm in there and I remember
Speaker 1: all this noise and things going on, and in the
Speaker 1: far back corner of the room there was an older
Speaker 1: gentleman playing by himself and he was it was almost
Speaker 1: like you're in a in a movie twilight Zone and
Speaker 1: everything black sat and you're like you focused on this
Speaker 1: one table and I could almost almost felt like my
Speaker 1: breathing was in sync with his. And he was just
Speaker 1: it was like he made the cube all dance. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was just so graceful and he made everything look
Speaker 1: so easy, and I just this is just beautiful. And then, um,
Speaker 1: so I started going there more often. There were more
Speaker 1: and more players that were really, really good. But I
Speaker 1: remember that first night that I saw him. I was looking,
Speaker 1: I was analyzing and looking at his stance and I
Speaker 1: remember making my hand in the shape of a bridge
Speaker 1: and I just kept practicing because it feels so like uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and I did that. And I don't remember how long
Speaker 1: I sat there, because because I would imagine somewhere between
Speaker 1: fifteen and eighteen hours, and it was a twenty four
Speaker 1: hour place. But there was one straight in there. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: but and that was normal. But that was my first time.
Speaker 1: That was the first time that I just fell in
Speaker 1: love with what I was seeing, and so it really
Speaker 1: did beca I'm an exception um an obsession. But I
Speaker 1: think that anytime you see someone really good at what
Speaker 1: they do, it's it's most morizing. That is a vivid
Speaker 1: picture that you painted, that kind of the heyday pool,
Speaker 1: the glamour days thanks to the hustler, and so this
Speaker 1: mix of people, the Wall Street guys full of bravado
Speaker 1: and pockets full of cash, the pool hustlers who who
Speaker 1: wanted that cash? And they were they were playing their
Speaker 1: own games, I mean, and how did you fit in
Speaker 1: and what did they make of you when you walked
Speaker 1: into that room? As I said, there weren't a lot
Speaker 1: of women playing pool seriously, right, So eventually I did
Speaker 1: stand out because I was I became that was my
Speaker 1: second home, that became my second homes there all the time,
Speaker 1: I would say most of the time. I mean I
Speaker 1: would say that I feel like the hustle that I
Speaker 1: did was just me being a woman, because I mean,
Speaker 1: I was always very competitive, so they could see my game.
Speaker 1: I feel like they could see my general game, but
Speaker 1: just because I was a woman, maybe they had some
Speaker 1: blinders on where they didn't really equate whether they could
Speaker 1: beat me well, because most of the times it really didn't.
Speaker 1: It didn't take effort or lying so much. It was
Speaker 1: that I could see their game for what it was,
Speaker 1: and I feel like time and time and time again,
Speaker 1: I was underestimated and I read the reward of that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would say that, And the regular hustlers
Speaker 1: didn't really pick on me. If anything, they would make
Speaker 1: a deal. Listen, I've been feeding off this fish every
Speaker 1: Friday for the last blil blaiflies, he's only good for
Speaker 1: you know, fifty dollars, just said, and blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: If you want to go in there, then you can.
Speaker 1: You know. That's what the mark was called. The fish
Speaker 1: was what the it was what the hustlers called the marketing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: usually fish. You know, you pretty quickly had some incredible
Speaker 1: success and became one of the most recognizable players. Once
Speaker 1: you reach that, there's no way you're gonna hustle somebody.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be they're gonna be looking out for you.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're gonna say beware of the black widow.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you had this success and you're in
Speaker 1: your early twenties and this is the thing, we're supposed
Speaker 1: to take years and years to hone skills, to deal
Speaker 1: with the pressure of of tournament pool and and being
Speaker 1: able to understand how different it is when there's a
Speaker 1: title and the money on the line versus being practicing
Speaker 1: in the back room. I mean, did this success catch
Speaker 1: yourself off guard? You're not supposed to win the Women's
Speaker 1: Nationals and the US Open nine ball at the age
Speaker 1: you were, not only were you female, if you're so
Speaker 1: young in the game, is this what did you just
Speaker 1: act like? Hey, I expected this, this is what I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to I'm supposed to win. No, because no matter
Speaker 1: I mean I I will say that. Um, I think
Speaker 1: I turned pro in three years, and after a year
Speaker 1: and a half of becoming pro, I became number one.
Speaker 1: So it was But that's crazy, Jeanette, that everybody, a
Speaker 1: million people must have told you that's just not supposed
Speaker 1: to happen. That's just great put to put in perspective
Speaker 1: for folks. How unusual that is to skyrocket that quickly
Speaker 1: in your sport. Yeah. I still haven't met anyone that
Speaker 1: has attained anything like that in my lifetime, let alone
Speaker 1: Before that, you go from being here's this new sensation. Wow,
Speaker 1: this is going to be good for the sport of pool.
Speaker 1: We've got a new star too. Now you're on top
Speaker 1: and all the stuff that comes with that. Now you're
Speaker 1: a target, you're the one to beat. It's natural in
Speaker 1: a sport that jealousy and resentment are part of that
Speaker 1: because you're achieving things that are beyond just the success
Speaker 1: and the tournaments. You're obviously getting noticed, you're getting endorsements.
Speaker 1: How was the climate and what kinds of things did
Speaker 1: you have to deal with there? You find the sport
Speaker 1: to get you out of being an outcast, main bullied,
Speaker 1: and now there's the pressure of being at the top
Speaker 1: and there's all people want to take a run at there.
Speaker 1: It was that there was some jealousy. I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of people didn't think that I earned the
Speaker 1: attention I was getting. And I did stand out because
Speaker 1: I was the only minority or actually there was Vivian Balurial.
Speaker 1: It was Latino, but it was otherwise fully Caucasian, you know,
Speaker 1: all the players and me being from New York dressing
Speaker 1: in all black, which for New Yorker is very normal,
Speaker 1: but um, I just really stood out and so getting
Speaker 1: all that attention and I felt very alone. I remember
Speaker 1: my first title, the first time I won a major.
Speaker 1: Um After I won, I mean, everyone cleared out, and
Speaker 1: I went into the restaurant attached to that club, and
Speaker 1: and everybody was sitting down and eating and not one
Speaker 1: person congratulated me or asked me to join them at
Speaker 1: their table. And I went to my hotel room and cried.
Speaker 1: And that was my first major win. So it was
Speaker 1: it was very, very low at the top because of
Speaker 1: how I started. Whenever I play in tournaments, I make
Speaker 1: a point to go out of my way to any
Speaker 1: players I don't recognize that are new and introduce myself
Speaker 1: to them and say, hey, do you want to sit together,
Speaker 1: you want to grab a coffee, you want to practice together?
Speaker 1: And they're all like, oh, I want to intentionally make
Speaker 1: a difference based on my bad experiences, So I go
Speaker 1: out of my way to to recognize and encourage new
Speaker 1: players on the tour whenever I can, for those of
Speaker 1: us that will never experience it. And you've talked about
Speaker 1: the importance of confidence in this board. You can be
Speaker 1: technically clean, you can you can be fine tuned for
Speaker 1: a tournament. When you walk to the table. That feeling
Speaker 1: of confidence in the role that it plays, and and
Speaker 1: kind of getting in the flow state or the zone
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call whatever athlete expression is
Speaker 1: used describe everything clicking. It's relaxed intensity together, which is
Speaker 1: how a lot of athletes describe it. That's exactly right. Yeah, good.
Speaker 1: When I'm playing my best pool, when I'm in the zone,
Speaker 1: all I focused on is the job at hand at
Speaker 1: the table. But I helped myself get there more often
Speaker 1: by I actually have a little, um, it's like a
Speaker 1: little business card size. And what I did was I
Speaker 1: typed on a sheet of paper all of the things
Speaker 1: that I do mentally right, um or my attitude. So
Speaker 1: it'll say I stopped the table, you know, like a
Speaker 1: I think it was like a panther or jaguar or
Speaker 1: something like that. It says I stopped the table. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm decisive at every opportunity. I look forward to. I
Speaker 1: rise at any case. You know. So basically, if they
Speaker 1: and they leave me a crappy shot, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: sit there, piste off and feel like they got lucky.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna step up and be like I'm ready at
Speaker 1: least I'm here, let's go, you know. And And so
Speaker 1: I think about that, because I know when I'm playing
Speaker 1: my best pool, there is no judgment, there is no past,
Speaker 1: There's only this moment and an intense focus, but also
Speaker 1: an aggressive kind of forward thinking, forward attitude um at
Speaker 1: at everything that I'm doing. You know, each moment to moment,
Speaker 1: it's looking at right now and giving a effort in
Speaker 1: focus on getting the result that I want. It's truly incredible.
Speaker 1: The Jeanette got the results, shooting to number one so quickly,
Speaker 1: then battling to stay at the top while coping with
Speaker 1: constant pain from scoliosis, arthritis and autoimmune disease and surgery
Speaker 1: after surgery. I worked so hard to become number one,
Speaker 1: and worked so hard to build this brand and have
Speaker 1: it all just you know, gone taken away so unfairly
Speaker 1: and kind of going through again. And now I've had
Speaker 1: a total of sixteen major surgeries um on my back,
Speaker 1: on my neck, on my shoulder, on my leg. It's
Speaker 1: been a really big journey. And each time I was
Speaker 1: miserable and mad, and each time I've grown from it.
Speaker 1: How much of that Jeanette was pushing pain out of there.
Speaker 1: We talked about the numerous surgeries and numerous ailments. The
Speaker 1: constant day to day pain. You're trying to deal with
Speaker 1: pain in a sport where balance precision are are essential.
Speaker 1: How do you push or how did you push the
Speaker 1: pain away and not have it become an unwanted part
Speaker 1: of your focus in those moments where you couldn't afford that.
Speaker 1: I remember one tournament, the Gentleman Jack's Dallas Shootout, where
Speaker 1: on the final day I was I was waiting for
Speaker 1: my match to play against someone, and then right as
Speaker 1: we were waiting, it was like ten minutes before we
Speaker 1: got called. Our match got called up, and I'm standing
Speaker 1: by the determined Starrett group and damn right through my
Speaker 1: body and it literally knocked me to the ground where
Speaker 1: I would get these spasms, these back spasms, and it
Speaker 1: would just that the intensity. And this was before um
Speaker 1: my surgeries in two thousand one, and it was so
Speaker 1: bad that I couldn't even see straight, and I was
Speaker 1: embarrassing that all these people over me, and they were
Speaker 1: like calling and called the you know nine one and
Speaker 1: do all this other stuff and I was like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: just give me a minute. And I was explained, no,
Speaker 1: this this happens, and it was it was normal. My
Speaker 1: ex husband saught. I mean it, it happens a lot,
Speaker 1: is I go through these pains, but it had didn't
Speaker 1: happened at a tournament, and I generally hit it, and
Speaker 1: so it was shocking. And I said, just can you
Speaker 1: guys get me out of here because I was embarrassed.
Speaker 1: All the fans and everyone was watching. So finally, um,
Speaker 1: they carry me to a bathroom and they get me
Speaker 1: a chair and I put my legs up so I
Speaker 1: can rest my back, and I remember my ex husband.
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know what to do. I can't
Speaker 1: see straight. My eyes just kept tearing. And he said,
Speaker 1: this isn't worth all this, you know, it's just a tournament.
Speaker 1: Just let's go home. You've done enough for your back.
Speaker 1: And I was like, you know, one minute, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: calling him and I'm whining and crying, and then he's
Speaker 1: telling me that it's not worth it. Just quitn't come
Speaker 1: home and I and I was like, what, I'm not quitting.
Speaker 1: It's like, I didn't call you to tell me to quit.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have to peel me off that pool table
Speaker 1: now that la And he was like, well, that's what
Speaker 1: I thought you would say, But I just wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure you heard yourself say it. And he was like,
Speaker 1: if you and get down in pain to miss that ball,
Speaker 1: then you can get down to make that ball, and
Speaker 1: just make every time you put your body through that,
Speaker 1: make it count. Make the ball. And I remember just
Speaker 1: having them carry me up and then me being called
Speaker 1: in and I had like four minutes left on the
Speaker 1: shot clock, because you know you only have fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: before they forfeit you to the table, and I leant
Speaker 1: holding this pool que as my cane and the other
Speaker 1: hand on the table, and I walked um and played
Speaker 1: against Lena and bending down and the pain had tears
Speaker 1: so much that I had to like windshield wipe my
Speaker 1: eyeballs and there were drops of tears on the pool
Speaker 1: table as I got down, and I'm blinking, and I
Speaker 1: just made ball after ball, and I beat Lena Shu's
Speaker 1: Vick from Norway, Gerda Hofstetter from Austria, um will send
Speaker 1: Fisher and then Karen Core in the finals to win
Speaker 1: that tournament. And it was the first and last time
Speaker 1: I ever cried out of pool match. But I literally
Speaker 1: made that last fault, and the whole time feeling embarrassed
Speaker 1: and read and worrying about what people were thinking, if
Speaker 1: I'm baking this, or maybe I had just such. I
Speaker 1: was so insecure. Actually, if I think about it, and
Speaker 1: and one by one, and I could never have been
Speaker 1: more proud. There is no amount of prestige or money
Speaker 1: or glory that anyone could dawn upon me than me
Speaker 1: fighting through, fighting through that at every moment. And and
Speaker 1: you know, I've just done that for most of my career.
Speaker 1: But I remember that being so hard that my legs
Speaker 1: were like jello. I could hardly hold myself up because
Speaker 1: the pain it makes a somehow it affects my legs.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just get weak and well, that
Speaker 1: that is extraordinary. I've covered a lot of sports, and
Speaker 1: thirty plus years, I've never heard a story like that.
Speaker 1: Tears of pain dropping onto the pool table. But fighting
Speaker 1: through that, I think you are certainly entitled to feel
Speaker 1: proud about that. Pain is still her constant companion. Jeanette
Speaker 1: says that sometimes getting out of bed is a struggle.
Speaker 1: She repeats this mantra over and over. You don't need
Speaker 1: to feel strong to be strong, That's what I say. Like,
Speaker 1: you don't have to wake up with a big, funny
Speaker 1: smile and be cheerful to everyone. You can be miserable,
Speaker 1: but sometimes the strongest thing you can do is just
Speaker 1: getting out of bed and and to recognize that it's
Speaker 1: just a matter of continue, you know, to keep going,
Speaker 1: to keep going and keep being open. And that's just
Speaker 1: kind of the way that I've learned to get the most,
Speaker 1: the most joy out of my life is to um
Speaker 1: always makes some kind of effort to make an impact
Speaker 1: on people's lives, whether it's want or whether it's thousands UM,
Speaker 1: but also kind of just do what you can do,
Speaker 1: do what you can do, and if you need to
Speaker 1: take a day off and just feel sorry for yourself
Speaker 1: and eat ice cream or just be pouty, or you know,
Speaker 1: try not to be nasty to people. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you have to just go to your room read
Speaker 1: a book, um, but then get back up and just
Speaker 1: keep moving. Because sometimes it's not even just about you.
Speaker 1: It's about the people that are watching you go through
Speaker 1: your journey, and they're getting strength from just seeing you,
Speaker 1: you know, knowing your story, and so that that kind
Speaker 1: of gives me. You know, wool skill will only get
Speaker 1: you so far, you know, And it is some thing
Speaker 1: that I love and I'll always love and I'll always play,
Speaker 1: but I no longer value my self worth on my
Speaker 1: pool game, which I can say for some time that's
Speaker 1: exactly what I thought, even though it would not have
Speaker 1: been my choice to go through this. I'm so genuinely grateful,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean just really genuinely grateful because of
Speaker 1: what I've gotten back from it, which is a lot
Speaker 1: more compassion and humanity or more sense of I mean,
Speaker 1: simplest self worth. She that reminds me of other all
Speaker 1: time grades I've known, Nadal Jordan's Lebron, always hungry to improve,
Speaker 1: never satisfied with their level of play. And if Jeanette
Speaker 1: can get relief after an electric spinal stimulator is implanted,
Speaker 1: she is plotting a comeback to finish her career on
Speaker 1: her terms. I feel like I've won the titles, so
Speaker 1: it's really not about that. It's for me personally. Just
Speaker 1: like you said, you want to feel like when you one,
Speaker 1: I want to feel like I touched on my best.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure that I even got sixty of
Speaker 1: where I feel like I could have gone had all
Speaker 1: my physical disabilities not had, you know, an impact on
Speaker 1: on my ability to practice for any long period of time,
Speaker 1: and then having six children on top of that, you know,
Speaker 1: can kind of like take your time away also. But
Speaker 1: now a lot of them are grown. I have a
Speaker 1: strong support system, and I I just feel like my
Speaker 1: passion for becoming better is there being number one. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but what that's what I learned really by
Speaker 1: accomplishing it the first time. When I was number one,
Speaker 1: I was like, that was my only goal. I was
Speaker 1: going to be the the next world champion. I was
Speaker 1: going to be number one. At first it was world champion.
Speaker 1: I realized, well, that's just winning one tournament. No, I
Speaker 1: wanted to be ranked number one in the world. That's it,
Speaker 1: because then you have to do it over the span
Speaker 1: of twelve months, you know, stuff like that. And then
Speaker 1: when I accomplished that, I still realized, God, I'm still terrible,
Speaker 1: you know. I still I could still be so much
Speaker 1: better than this, and so um since then, it's always
Speaker 1: been about just gosh, I wonder how good I could
Speaker 1: really yet, and I still feel like so much of
Speaker 1: that has not been given a fair shot. And if
Speaker 1: this spinal cord stimulator could do that, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: feel like I still have pride, but I'm humbly enough
Speaker 1: that if I don't get back to number one, I
Speaker 1: can live with that. What I'm having trouble with is
Speaker 1: saying that I'm done improving. You know, mean, I think
Speaker 1: for me, that's it. That may not be the popular No,
Speaker 1: I understand completely. It's it's it's the process. It's it's
Speaker 1: the journey. It's the process. It's not the title, it's
Speaker 1: not the prize at the end. It's what it takes
Speaker 1: to get there. I I think a lot of athletes
Speaker 1: would relate to that. I do think that if I
Speaker 1: do get close to to where I think I can be,
Speaker 1: I'm already a threat even without practicing. But with practicing
Speaker 1: and doing what I think I can do, I think
Speaker 1: the rest will come. Anyway. It's you're throwing down the gullet.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of throwing down the gallet. It's
Speaker 1: your competition. There you go, look out. I've grown into
Speaker 1: the black Widow name. I hated it at first because
Speaker 1: I thought, again, as I told you, very insecure and
Speaker 1: already people didn't like me, and that kind of nickname
Speaker 1: and the way I looked at the table made me
Speaker 1: ultimately so unlikable or at least that's how I felt
Speaker 1: at the time, But now I think it just represents
Speaker 1: so many women out there today who were unafraid and
Speaker 1: unashamed to just go for it. And so yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: all about being the black widow. Now I'll be keeping
Speaker 1: an eye out for the black widdows potential comeback. I
Speaker 1: had never met Jeanette before our conversation. I knew of her,
Speaker 1: but didn't fully appreciate her story. But I can't tell
Speaker 1: you how many times I've thought of her example of
Speaker 1: resilience since that conversation. My next guest, I do know
Speaker 1: very well, had the pleasure of working with Jay Bellis
Speaker 1: at ESPN covering Final Four's selection Sundays other college basketball
Speaker 1: stories for many, many years. Jay is as fine analyst
Speaker 1: as there is on television in any sport, and he's
Speaker 1: one of the most important voices in college basketball. At Duke,
Speaker 1: he was a four year starter, part of Masachevski's first
Speaker 1: Final Four team, and later was an assistant under coach
Speaker 1: k Along the way, Jay became an expert on the
Speaker 1: topic of toughness and wrote a New York Times bestseller
Speaker 1: with that title, Jay, This will be fun. I look
Speaker 1: forward to this he wrote a best seller on toughness
Speaker 1: and it's various forms and define what being tough is
Speaker 1: and what it isn't, which I think is also fascinating.
Speaker 1: But let's view it through toughness in terms, and millions
Speaker 1: of people are struggling, searching within for strength and toughness
Speaker 1: just to get it through each day and get to
Speaker 1: better days, and sometimes just staying positive requires various forms
Speaker 1: of toughness. How do you see toughness coming into play
Speaker 1: right now? Well, Chris, I mean, first of all, in
Speaker 1: today's world, when we're dealing with COVID and so many
Speaker 1: other things that are are really beyond our control. One
Speaker 1: of the first people I thought about with regard to
Speaker 1: the idea of toughness and and being disciplined and approaches
Speaker 1: my wife, Wendy. And you know my my wife. You've
Speaker 1: met her. She's she's uh, she's probably the last person
Speaker 1: based upon her voice and and she's always smiling that
Speaker 1: that she would be this incredibly tough person. But she's
Speaker 1: really one of the toughest people I've ever met. And
Speaker 1: by that, I mean she's got her priorities completely in order.
Speaker 1: And when we were when we were married, early in
Speaker 1: our married life. Um, and you've gone through this. We
Speaker 1: we all have. You know. You get you get calls
Speaker 1: from friends that will say, hey, can you come do
Speaker 1: this charity event, or can you come do this? Or
Speaker 1: would you mind appearing at this thing? And and like you,
Speaker 1: my first answer was always yeah, I'd be happy to
Speaker 1: do that. And my wife kind of sat me down
Speaker 1: one time and she said, uh, she said, I just
Speaker 1: want you to know something you know, really proud of of,
Speaker 1: you know, your willingness to say yes to help your
Speaker 1: friends and people you know and your colleagues, which I
Speaker 1: needed to understand something that when you say yes to
Speaker 1: other people, you're saying no to your family. And that
Speaker 1: was a real gut punch for me because she was
Speaker 1: right and her priorities were uh, and still are. Our
Speaker 1: family is first. Um. We have to be where our
Speaker 1: feet are all the time, and we have to be
Speaker 1: present at the moment. And and that's really true. I
Speaker 1: think of right now, there's so many things beyond our control,
Speaker 1: and there are feelings of insecurity that we all have
Speaker 1: about maybe our jobs or our livelihood, in our livelihoods,
Speaker 1: what we have into the future, our kids, whatever it
Speaker 1: may be. And my wife's thing is, no, you have
Speaker 1: to choose to be present and not to go off
Speaker 1: on a tangent to your question, Chris. But when my
Speaker 1: kids were little and and we you know, we were
Speaker 1: all out trying to you know, improve our careers and
Speaker 1: get ahead and and all that stuff. Um, I remember
Speaker 1: my wife saying that she said, now these babies, we
Speaker 1: have our temporary that you need to pay attention to
Speaker 1: the here and now because you're going to really regret
Speaker 1: if you miss this. And so I think about that
Speaker 1: a lot about Um, I can I can worry about
Speaker 1: certain things later. I need to be here now. There's
Speaker 1: nothing I can do about some of these other things.
Speaker 1: So so what are my priorities? And then I often
Speaker 1: think along the line of priorities. What Jeff van Dundee
Speaker 1: said years ago, and I believe he got this working
Speaker 1: with pat Riley, was your decisions reveal your priorities. That
Speaker 1: you can say what your priorities are, but if your
Speaker 1: decisions take you in another direction, it reveals that those
Speaker 1: really weren't your priorities. Thank goodness for wise and tough
Speaker 1: women in our lives. Um, that's the most important thing,
Speaker 1: toughest being stamina, endurance, discipline, resilience, sacrifice, selflessness, the kinds
Speaker 1: of things that are really put into question in times
Speaker 1: like this, and and people having to to find within
Speaker 1: themselves a toughness that maybe can only be revealed by adversity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and to and for me in my life, that that's
Speaker 1: a lot what the book was about. There was so
Speaker 1: much of it. Not to write, hey, look how tough
Speaker 1: I've been, or what I've learned about toughness. It was
Speaker 1: look at the lessons I've learned, and then through my
Speaker 1: friends about areas in which I fell short, sort of
Speaker 1: in the in the toughness realm. And and for me,
Speaker 1: Chris um like, I think I'm not alone in this,
Speaker 1: But for me, I think earlier in my life I
Speaker 1: was a really good rationalizer and excuse maker, and if
Speaker 1: if something didn't go on my way, if I didn't
Speaker 1: perform to the level I felt I should have. Um,
Speaker 1: I think my first fallback was to rationalize why and
Speaker 1: and to really make an excuse. And I think I
Speaker 1: became much better at everything I did when I stopped
Speaker 1: making excuses and started accepting responsibility for the result. And uh,
Speaker 1: and the first, you know, the first thing was self
Speaker 1: you know, self evaluation, can you are you willing to
Speaker 1: take a hard look at the at the y of
Speaker 1: of the result and and instead of worrying about success,
Speaker 1: worry about achievement. And you know, did I achieve the
Speaker 1: goal that I had set out? And if not, why not?
Speaker 1: And and look at it sort of that way, without
Speaker 1: without an excuse, And that was really important for me. Um.
Speaker 1: I think I'm much better at that now than I
Speaker 1: used to be. And uh, and look, I mean, Steve
Speaker 1: Kerr is a good friend, I know you know. Well,
Speaker 1: he had said something to me years ago, uh, sort
Speaker 1: of about his when when he turned. One of the
Speaker 1: ways he turned a corner in his basketball career was
Speaker 1: when he became willing to accept the consequences that came
Speaker 1: with failing or with losing. That if he were to
Speaker 1: take a big shot at the end of a game,
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that, hey, I may miss, but I'm not
Speaker 1: afraid of missing. I'm willing to accept the consequences that
Speaker 1: come with missing. I'm stepping up to take this shot
Speaker 1: to make it. I want to make it. I don't
Speaker 1: want to miss, but I'm not afraid to miss. And
Speaker 1: that's a really big hurdle to get over. I think mentally.
Speaker 1: And when when I was in high school, I had
Speaker 1: a speech and debate and drama teacher named Billy Kramer,
Speaker 1: and uh, and he had he had kind of boguarded
Speaker 1: me into being in a in sort of this school play,
Speaker 1: this this production we had of Lillian Hellman's Watch on
Speaker 1: the rhyme. You know, you talk about some of those
Speaker 1: way over the head of of of high school seventeen
Speaker 1: eighteen year old high school kids. But one way, we're
Speaker 1: going through these what I considered pretty grueling rehearsals. If
Speaker 1: if I made a mistake, Uh, he really jumped on
Speaker 1: me about listen, you don't have an opponent out here
Speaker 1: that's trying to stop you from doing what you're supposed
Speaker 1: to do on stage, from from being there on your queue,
Speaker 1: of hitting your mark, of being president in the scene,
Speaker 1: of of giving to your fellow actors, things like that.
Speaker 1: And I remember him saying, very very distinctly, him saying,
Speaker 1: don't don't be your own opponent. And I really thought
Speaker 1: about that. I'm like, hey, when I'm playing basketball, I've
Speaker 1: got somebody who's actively trying to stop me from what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do. Well in the rest of my
Speaker 1: my life, when whether it was that that play or
Speaker 1: my job as a broadcaster, like what you know, our jobs,
Speaker 1: I'd like to think our jobs aren't easy. Yours as
Speaker 1: an easy mind is an easy But we don't have
Speaker 1: an opponent, and we may have competition in our jobs,
Speaker 1: we don't have an opponent. So what excuse do we
Speaker 1: have of not being prepared, of not being in the moment,
Speaker 1: and of not doing our job to the best of
Speaker 1: our ability all the time? Uh? And that that's that's
Speaker 1: a part of it too, of accepting that responsibility and
Speaker 1: really getting out of your own way and not being
Speaker 1: your own opponent. Are you good actor? After all that?
Speaker 1: I was a good actor, I'd say my dad was
Speaker 1: a theater director and a professor. Nothing terrified me more
Speaker 1: than the idea of getting on stage and trying it
Speaker 1: before I never did that. I lacked the toughness to
Speaker 1: face that fear and do it, and only much later
Speaker 1: in life got even stand in front of a group
Speaker 1: of people in talk and the incentive was you leave
Speaker 1: too much money on the table if you won't go
Speaker 1: make a speech to a booster club. You have to
Speaker 1: learn to overcome that fear. ME ask you, this is
Speaker 1: is being able to overcome those fears. Is toughness born?
Speaker 1: Is it in the d n A in your opinion,
Speaker 1: or is it developed out of necessity and people? That's
Speaker 1: a great question. I think in the research I did
Speaker 1: for the book, it was about fifty fifty and and
Speaker 1: it's it's mostly opinion that people have that that. Some
Speaker 1: people say you're born with that. Other people say that, no,
Speaker 1: you can develop it. I'm I'm in the camp of
Speaker 1: that that it can be developed that. I don't think
Speaker 1: we come out of the womb, you know, Uh, you
Speaker 1: know tough tough people that you acquire it and learn
Speaker 1: about it. And maybe your circumstances as you're growing up
Speaker 1: are ingrained in you to be able to fight through
Speaker 1: some things. Maybe there's part of it that's the genetic.
Speaker 1: I don't I'm not sure. I U I understand it completely,
Speaker 1: but I know that in in my life, Um, I
Speaker 1: learned it it that I don't think I had it
Speaker 1: when I was younger. I don't think I understood it.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I think it was it was sort
Speaker 1: of an acquired thing. To the extent I have it
Speaker 1: at all, it was acquired and I learned from other people.
Speaker 1: I was inspired that. That's maybe the thing that stuck
Speaker 1: with me most is how my friends, my colleagues, my
Speaker 1: teammates really inspired me um to to persist, um to
Speaker 1: have the resilience in the way I went about things.
Speaker 1: You got into sports, Well, let's let's launch into sports toughness,
Speaker 1: where people tend to think that that means prominently a
Speaker 1: physical component. Can you take punishment, can you endure pain?
Speaker 1: Can you suffer and still excel? But you write in
Speaker 1: your book a lot about mental toughness being way more
Speaker 1: important than that stuff. Yeah, And and a lot of
Speaker 1: that I learned from my teammates that were honestly at
Speaker 1: times willing to fight through more than I was at
Speaker 1: that time time and watching them do it and picking
Speaker 1: their brains on on how they did it really helped
Speaker 1: me realize that I had artificial barriers, metal barriers that
Speaker 1: I put up that that were born out of fear, honestly.
Speaker 1: And you know, when I was when I was in college,
Speaker 1: we used to run the mile every year for time,
Speaker 1: and I was not built for for the mile, but
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to get better at it. My
Speaker 1: junior year I really trained hard for it. I ran
Speaker 1: It was not a natural thing for me to run,
Speaker 1: to run a mile for time, and I worked my
Speaker 1: tail off. And my college roommate and teammate, Mark Allery,
Speaker 1: was about the same size, and generally, you know, within
Speaker 1: the realm of the same type athlete. He's a better
Speaker 1: athlete than I was, but but at least we're in
Speaker 1: the same realm. And so I worked really hard and
Speaker 1: I ran like a five thirty mile, which for me
Speaker 1: that that was like Roger Banister breaking four a minute mile.
Speaker 1: And and Allery, who did not train for it at all.
Speaker 1: I mean he played pick up all and did all
Speaker 1: his conditioning work, but he didn't train for it like
Speaker 1: I did, ran a five level. He was in his
Speaker 1: dorm room before I finished, and and I was pissed,
Speaker 1: and I talked to him about and I said, what,
Speaker 1: you know, how how did that happen? Like I, I
Speaker 1: worked way harder than you, and look at the result.
Speaker 1: And he said something very matter of factly that that
Speaker 1: that really was was profound. He said, he said, look
Speaker 1: like the mile is just how much pain you're willing
Speaker 1: to endure. And he was right, like I was not
Speaker 1: willing to endure the same amount of pain in that
Speaker 1: last sort of lap, and a half that he was.
Speaker 1: He was stronger in that because he was and he said,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, think about like how many times
Speaker 1: have do people collapse from exhaustion? You really don't. The
Speaker 1: truth is you've got another gear and and you just
Speaker 1: have you have to be willing to find it. And
Speaker 1: uh and I wasn't willing to at that time. I
Speaker 1: think I got much better at it. But but that
Speaker 1: was really helpful to me to have somebody kind of
Speaker 1: point that out. That and that was sort of the
Speaker 1: excuse making thing. But it was a fear of of
Speaker 1: pushing yourself, like you know, what if I don't do it?
Speaker 1: Or what if I fall short? So you hold yourself
Speaker 1: back instead of well if I run out of gas,
Speaker 1: I run out of gas, But why would I hold
Speaker 1: myself back? And that that was a that was an
Speaker 1: important moment for me. It's sort of my mental approach.
Speaker 1: That's a great story. I think toughness within athletes, and
Speaker 1: I covered tennis as well as football, as you know,
Speaker 1: and people don't think of tennis players is being that tough.
Speaker 1: But as you were talking, I was thinking about Raphael Nadal,
Speaker 1: who is physically tough, is mentally tough still as a
Speaker 1: humility and humanity to go with that. He's he's not infallible,
Speaker 1: he's choked before. But the physical component. He uses the
Speaker 1: word suffer a lot, and I never really heard someone
Speaker 1: in tennis use that word, but as it is defined
Speaker 1: by him, it's just the toughness to ignore pain and
Speaker 1: just do more out lasts longer than your opponent out there,
Speaker 1: and be willing to put in the suffering. Well, and
Speaker 1: you put in the preparation. The suffering comes from the
Speaker 1: preparation you put into being that kind of shape, so
Speaker 1: you can endure even more when the lights are on.
Speaker 1: And you know that goes frankly too. I think the
Speaker 1: jobs that we do job most people do that that
Speaker 1: your preparation. You get your confidence from your preparation that
Speaker 1: you know you're ready to perform. But it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you put in that preparation that and you're entitled
Speaker 1: to perform. You're not. You still have to go do it.
Speaker 1: And I remember a quote from the great actor, Sir
Speaker 1: Lawrence Olivier that that the amount of preparation he put
Speaker 1: into a role. He would say that that in order
Speaker 1: to in order to uh, you know, do this great role,
Speaker 1: you had to have the humility to prepare and the
Speaker 1: confidence to pull it off. But the confidence to pull
Speaker 1: it off comes from the preparation of it. And now
Speaker 1: look digging down deep when you're late in the match
Speaker 1: or late in the game, when when you're tired and
Speaker 1: and all that, that's a that's a level of toughness
Speaker 1: that I think you have to go through, UH in
Speaker 1: order to understand UH and understand yourself. But but part
Speaker 1: of it also is, you know, if you're down late,
Speaker 1: if you've had some bad bad luck, or maybe you're
Speaker 1: not performing at the level you think. It's sort of
Speaker 1: what Coach k used to say to us, is that,
Speaker 1: you know, having a next play mentality, no matter what
Speaker 1: just happened, you have to move on and flush all
Speaker 1: that and then and then be prepared to perform in
Speaker 1: the moment. And UH, you know, next play, it's always
Speaker 1: next play, whatever happened, next play. And I think about
Speaker 1: that a lot in in game broadcast studio. If you
Speaker 1: make a mistake or if something something doesn't go on
Speaker 1: the way you think a man, the next play, whatever happened,
Speaker 1: the next play is the most important. And especially as
Speaker 1: you get down, get down to the end of the
Speaker 1: game and then you know, going back to that that
Speaker 1: friend of mine and teammate and my Mark Gallery who
Speaker 1: told me about the you know, sort of how much
Speaker 1: pain you're willing to endure. He also had a thing
Speaker 1: about his mental mental preparation, you know, when when we
Speaker 1: were playing for Coach k he was younger, and so
Speaker 1: we would have film sessions when maybe we lo as
Speaker 1: a game or didn't play well, and the film sessions
Speaker 1: got into we got beat up a little bit and
Speaker 1: it wasn't really pleasant, you know. When he was so
Speaker 1: Alary had told me one time, I think it was
Speaker 1: my turn to get beat up, and I was. I
Speaker 1: was pretty mentally torn up after after the film session,
Speaker 1: and Alary he told me, he goes, oh, when he
Speaker 1: gets like that, I don't watch, And like, what do
Speaker 1: you mean you don't watch? And he goes, I'll look
Speaker 1: at my feet, I'll look at something else. He because,
Speaker 1: if we're doing something analytical about here's the position we
Speaker 1: need to be in, here's what we're running all that,
Speaker 1: he said, I'm all in. And he says, but I'm
Speaker 1: not letting anybody put anything negative in my memory bank,
Speaker 1: like that belongs to me, and I have to drop
Speaker 1: up on that when things get difficult and nobody gets
Speaker 1: to plan anything negative in there. And I was like, man,
Speaker 1: you are a lot mentally stronger than me, because I
Speaker 1: was listening to all that stuff and I think, I
Speaker 1: think I need a psychiatrist to get through it. But
Speaker 1: but that memory bank thing was it was really interesting
Speaker 1: to me, like can you evaluate what happened without beating
Speaker 1: yourself up and and putting yourself in a negative position
Speaker 1: going forward, Because I think there's a difference there in
Speaker 1: in any walk of life to to evaluate what happened,
Speaker 1: to act positively upon it, and to not carry the
Speaker 1: negative forward so that that it keeps you from performing
Speaker 1: at a high or higher level in your next hout. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great point that you make at several spots
Speaker 1: in the book about how maintaining a positive attitude when
Speaker 1: it's challenging is a true example of toughness. You talked
Speaker 1: a couple of times about managing fear, and I thought
Speaker 1: it's interesting in the book you use the example of
Speaker 1: Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy, both seems soccer legends, and
Speaker 1: how Mia Hamm as great as she was prepared with fear,
Speaker 1: tremendous fear of failure. You don't want to play the
Speaker 1: game with fear. But part of being tough is, you know,
Speaker 1: managing that and admitting that you have this fear of failure. Now,
Speaker 1: how do I put myself position not to fail when
Speaker 1: I get there? It's fascinating, I think for people that
Speaker 1: have never been in that that level of athletics, and
Speaker 1: I've never been at Julie or me as level of athletics.
Speaker 1: I know that, but you know, like in in all
Speaker 1: of your your career, you've been around so many amazing athletes,
Speaker 1: amazing people, and and you know, it's interesting to me,
Speaker 1: Like you always hear the thing about is it better
Speaker 1: to want to win or hate to lose? You know,
Speaker 1: You've heard that a bunch and I hear from coaches
Speaker 1: a lot. They say, oh, oh, I'd rather have somebody
Speaker 1: who hates to lose. And honestly, Chris like, I'm not
Speaker 1: different with them, but just for me personally, that doesn't
Speaker 1: move me, Like I don't. I don't want to go
Speaker 1: into a game wanting or into into anything I do
Speaker 1: wanting to avoid a negative result. I want to strive
Speaker 1: for the positives, kind of like we're talking about Steve
Speaker 1: Kerb before. I want to strive for the positive, but
Speaker 1: willing to accept a negative result, Like I'm willing to
Speaker 1: accept falling short. I'm willing to accept failure. And I
Speaker 1: don't mean failure in the sense of my career is over,
Speaker 1: but failure in the sense that I don't achieve the
Speaker 1: goal I had. But I'm not gonna let fear of
Speaker 1: failure stop me and and affect me negatively. And because like, look,
Speaker 1: nobody broke a huddle. Nobody ever broke a huddle worth
Speaker 1: a damn saying don't lose. You know, one to three,
Speaker 1: don't lose. You know, it's always one, two three win.
Speaker 1: So how do you put yourself in the mindset of
Speaker 1: striving to win? Like I play a lot of golf,
Speaker 1: and this is it's really hard for me because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a decent golfer, but I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not as good as I want to be. And so
Speaker 1: sometimes you step up to a hole and when you're
Speaker 1: thinking about, oh, there's trouble over here, there's water here,
Speaker 1: don't hit it there, don't do this. And I remember
Speaker 1: playing I had I had a caddy with me as
Speaker 1: a great guy, and I stepped up to this really
Speaker 1: hard part three, and I said, man, this is a
Speaker 1: hard God, this is a hard hole. And the caddy says,
Speaker 1: not today and not for you, and and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that was the pep talk I needed because I was
Speaker 1: sitting here thinking about all the things that could go wrong,
Speaker 1: and he's like, not today, not for you. Five words
Speaker 1: as a pretty good pep talk. And it was great.
Speaker 1: I mean it was great. And and it's almost embarrassing
Speaker 1: that I had to have somebody that was was working
Speaker 1: with me to tell me that that that wasn't my natural,
Speaker 1: you know, natural approach. But it really snapped me back into, uh,
Speaker 1: into a mindset of think about the positive and get
Speaker 1: into routine and think about doing your best and and
Speaker 1: going back to Steve Kerk. So here's another one from
Speaker 1: Kerr that that I thought was just I've carried this
Speaker 1: with me ever since he told me the story. You know,
Speaker 1: Steve Kerr, great shooter, one of the one of the
Speaker 1: best shooters ever in the NBA, one of the best
Speaker 1: free throw shooters. And he told me there was one
Speaker 1: game he played in Houston against the Rockets where he
Speaker 1: shot the perfect free throw, Like his routine was perfect.
Speaker 1: Everything in rhythm, shot, perfect form, perfect follow through and
Speaker 1: uh and it went through the went through the bucket
Speaker 1: and the net. It was just perfect. From then on,
Speaker 1: every time he took a free throw when he was
Speaker 1: finishing his routine, he dribble three times and then he
Speaker 1: would breathe out and he would say Houston, and it
Speaker 1: would just put himself in that mindset of when he
Speaker 1: was perfect and and that's kind of what that's kind
Speaker 1: of what it's about, like, put yourself in the in
Speaker 1: the best position to perform. And it doesn't mean you're
Speaker 1: going to shoot the perfect free throw there, but you're
Speaker 1: in a hell of a lot better position to do
Speaker 1: it if you've got the positive mindset of executing that way.
Speaker 1: I think it's great advice for anything. I'm certainly not
Speaker 1: claiming to be tough or that my job requires any
Speaker 1: special toughness, but I always tell young broadcasting students who
Speaker 1: want to do this, you get to a certain point
Speaker 1: where you stop thinking about making mistakes, as you say,
Speaker 1: you know, the fear of failure, and it's an evolution,
Speaker 1: and then a light bulb goes on and you suddenly
Speaker 1: begin to have fun and enjoy and you want to
Speaker 1: excel do the best you can, and the fear of
Speaker 1: failure or or avoiding a bad show, it doesn't even
Speaker 1: come into it. And that was a that's a key
Speaker 1: moment for me, sort of getting beyond trying to avoid
Speaker 1: a negative outcome and just enjoying the experience, just being
Speaker 1: present and thinking only about how good it could be.
Speaker 1: You know well to your point on that, Chris, And
Speaker 1: then again, I'm not just fulling to smoke at you.
Speaker 1: You're the most prepared person I've ever worked with. And
Speaker 1: and from my seat, what one you made my job
Speaker 1: when I worked with you incredibly easy because you took
Speaker 1: care of everything and then set set your partner up
Speaker 1: for partners to be at their best because you understood
Speaker 1: what they need to do, accomplish and what they needed
Speaker 1: to get out. But but your ultra preparedness from my seat,
Speaker 1: allowed you to react in the moment that you weren't
Speaker 1: thinking about what you were going to set. You knew
Speaker 1: everything that was going on and we're in complete control
Speaker 1: of it, and so you could pivot and react to
Speaker 1: what was being said and and frankly, you you your
Speaker 1: preparation allowed you to listen and and how how important
Speaker 1: is that in our job, or any job, your ability
Speaker 1: to not just think about what you're gonna say, say
Speaker 1: and think about what's next, but to listen to what's
Speaker 1: being said that so you can react to it and
Speaker 1: and amplify it and and you know, make it better.
Speaker 1: And and that's what I think you do better than
Speaker 1: anybody I've ever worked with. Well, you're very kind. I'll
Speaker 1: have to decide with that at these parts out later on.
Speaker 1: But I appreciate the nice comments here. The host is
Speaker 1: supposed to say nicer things about the guests. Now you're
Speaker 1: you're embarrassing here, but I appreciate it. Now your your
Speaker 1: your preparation goes without saying. I mean, preparation is confidence
Speaker 1: in broadcasting and anything and sports certainly, but uh, but
Speaker 1: you certainly continue to bring it. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about a couple of other aspects of toughness and and
Speaker 1: the idea of the opposite of tough being soft, and
Speaker 1: a lot of things that are viewed as real negative
Speaker 1: is kind of the the humanity. And I think that
Speaker 1: my experience, people can be tough and also be very
Speaker 1: vulnerable at the same time. In fact, sometimes that vulnerability
Speaker 1: brings out the toughness, reveals the toughness in a nice way,
Speaker 1: in ways that people might not expect. Yes, and and
Speaker 1: for me, uh in in my not only my career,
Speaker 1: but my life. Um, some of it had to do
Speaker 1: with with letting go of the fake toughness of trying
Speaker 1: to play through an injury and instead of being honest
Speaker 1: with the doctors that were taking care of us and
Speaker 1: a trainer, I was trying to sort of play through
Speaker 1: something because I thought I was being tough, and what
Speaker 1: I was being was foolish and stupid. Um that that
Speaker 1: you can, like, you can play through some pain, that's fine,
Speaker 1: but when you're injured, you have to be honest about
Speaker 1: it so that you can get it taken care of
Speaker 1: and that you can you can be at your best.
Speaker 1: And the other part of it, you know, we've all
Speaker 1: had this with with family. I had a family member,
Speaker 1: very close family member that went through a very difficult
Speaker 1: about of of depression. And that's especially Jermaine. Now in
Speaker 1: our society because of the higher rates of depression and anxiety,
Speaker 1: not only in younger people but across the board, with
Speaker 1: what people have to deal with now, because it's harder,
Speaker 1: it's harder now than it than it's ever been. I think,
Speaker 1: but one of the one of the things that that
Speaker 1: got my family member through it was was sort of
Speaker 1: surrendering to the fact that that this is real and
Speaker 1: it's going to require a lot of attention, and there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with it, um, just it's just like any
Speaker 1: other problem. It's just like a bad knee or a
Speaker 1: bad back or whatever. Uh. And and sort of admitting that,
Speaker 1: admitting that you need help and that you're willing to
Speaker 1: do what it takes and you're willing to accept help
Speaker 1: from others was was really important. And and you know,
Speaker 1: you like Coach Kay said this, and I think he
Speaker 1: said it for a variety of reasons, but he had said,
Speaker 1: you're not nobody is tough alone, Like that doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: Nobody is tough alone. And uh, and that that was
Speaker 1: especially true I think for in in what I was
Speaker 1: talking about with my stupidity and dealing with an injury
Speaker 1: I had in college, and then for the family member,
Speaker 1: um kind of dealing with a depression issue that that
Speaker 1: that took a tremendous amount of toughness and strength to
Speaker 1: deal with. Uh. Not only are a part of my
Speaker 1: family member, the entire family and and none of us
Speaker 1: were tough enough alone to handle it. None of us were,
Speaker 1: but but collectively we were. And uh and it was
Speaker 1: a positive and has been a positive result because of that.
Speaker 1: Do you use examples in your book of cancer patients
Speaker 1: and those who treat cancer patients? Of course, we both
Speaker 1: knew Jim Balbano, who was a very public inspirational force
Speaker 1: in this area. But you talk about a component to
Speaker 1: toughness being hope and belief, Why are those so important?
Speaker 1: That came from from Dr Henry Friedman, who is ahead
Speaker 1: of the Duke Brain Tumor Center and the overwhelming majority
Speaker 1: of Henry's patients die. And he's the most positive person
Speaker 1: I've ever met. And that's why I consulted him on
Speaker 1: this was I I wanted, I wanted to know how
Speaker 1: do you do that? How do you remain so positive?
Speaker 1: And and the people that that have his patients and
Speaker 1: the families of his patients to a person said that
Speaker 1: Henry gave me hope. And so he told me that
Speaker 1: he felt the foundation of toughness was hope. And then
Speaker 1: he said that that when and he you know, he
Speaker 1: used basketball as an example because he know he's a
Speaker 1: Duke and he and coach k are really good friends.
Speaker 1: And so he used sort of the Duke basketball team
Speaker 1: and program as an example, and he said, anytime you
Speaker 1: guys started a season, the number one thing you started
Speaker 1: with was hope. It was a hope that you were
Speaker 1: going to have a great year of the hope you
Speaker 1: were going to win a championship. Now, hope isn't a plan.
Speaker 1: You you had a plan and went after it and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, but it all starts with hope. So
Speaker 1: he would have patients with with a geo blastome a
Speaker 1: brain tumor with with an eight percent chance of survival
Speaker 1: and and the first thing he would tell them is
Speaker 1: is we've got a plan. We're going to attack this.
Speaker 1: And and he remember him saying, here's our Plan A.
Speaker 1: And if Plan A doesn't work, we're gonna move right
Speaker 1: to Plan B. And if Plan B doesn't work, we're
Speaker 1: gonna move right to plan ceed. And said that our job,
Speaker 1: like we are making technical technological advances every day in
Speaker 1: this field, and our job is to keep you alive
Speaker 1: long enough where our advances, UH can can beat this.
Speaker 1: And he he introduced me to a woman named Sabrina
Speaker 1: Lewandowski and he said, you've got to meet this woman.
Speaker 1: He says, she's five to little blond woman. And he goes,
Speaker 1: I promise you, you lock her in a room with
Speaker 1: the toughest football and basketball players you've ever met, and
Speaker 1: only one of them comes out. You go, Sabrina is
Speaker 1: coming out. And I talked to her about it. She
Speaker 1: had a geo blastom of brain to her and and
Speaker 1: she had said she the teacher, and she had told
Speaker 1: me that that when she was going through that she
Speaker 1: made a decision right away, I'm in the eight percent.
Speaker 1: And when she would go for treatment, she would see
Speaker 1: people in in the same situation that she was in
Speaker 1: that we're near the end. And she said, I'm not
Speaker 1: proud of this, but but it's just something I felt
Speaker 1: like I had to do. I couldn't look at them
Speaker 1: when I was going in for in and out of
Speaker 1: treatment because that wasn't me. That that's not going to
Speaker 1: be me. And and she she acknowledged, and Henry did
Speaker 1: that you know, her mindset and her attitude didn't mean
Speaker 1: that she was going to come through the other side
Speaker 1: to survive. But if she didn't have that, she would
Speaker 1: never have And and not only did she survive, she
Speaker 1: had a baby. I mean, she's been a success story,
Speaker 1: like when when she brought her baby into the the
Speaker 1: Duke Brain Tumor Center, there was of all these doctors, nurses,
Speaker 1: healthcare professionals, not one dry eye. And I'm having a
Speaker 1: hard time keeping mind dry right now, even though I
Speaker 1: know that you know the story, Um, that was you
Speaker 1: talk about a positive influence that what you know what
Speaker 1: in my life is so difficult and such an obstacle
Speaker 1: that I can't deal with it with the positive attitude
Speaker 1: that a young woman with a geoblastoma had, Like, I
Speaker 1: can't match that attitude with the tiny little mole hill
Speaker 1: obstacles I have when she had that to scale that.
Speaker 1: That was another one for me, just in writing the
Speaker 1: book that I said, man Um, I may think I've
Speaker 1: I've got a little bit of toughness in me, but
Speaker 1: it's not close to Sabrina Lewandowski. Now, we've all been
Speaker 1: around far too many people had to have that kind
Speaker 1: of toughness. You see it in kids, you see it
Speaker 1: in people of all ages. It's um. It is inspiring.
Speaker 1: Alex Carris was a tough guy. He said, toughness is
Speaker 1: in the soul and the spirit, not in the muscles.
Speaker 1: And I think that a lot of what we've talked
Speaker 1: about sort of is in line with that. You use
Speaker 1: the term earlier in the context of sports playing through
Speaker 1: an injury, but in a broader sense because the genesis
Speaker 1: of this book was a PC he wrote on ESPN
Speaker 1: dot com and essay, fake toughness? What is fake toughness? Jay? Well,
Speaker 1: that that it That article. I wrote an article for
Speaker 1: ESPN dot com because I was watching a basketball game,
Speaker 1: kind of preparing for something coming up, and and the analyst,
Speaker 1: you know, my role, had praised a player for being
Speaker 1: tough when the player is just being a bully and
Speaker 1: and just sort of physically trying to push somebody around. Um.
Speaker 1: That's what kind of fake toughness is. Is the bravado
Speaker 1: that the meaningless bravado I would call it um for
Speaker 1: lack of a better way of putting it right now,
Speaker 1: the stuff that that is showy but doesn't really mean anything.
Speaker 1: I think that the concept of fake toughness, it just
Speaker 1: runs rampant outside of the sports fear. You said, false
Speaker 1: bravado projecting something that's not really deeply felt because of
Speaker 1: deep insecurity. And that's where I think you see so
Speaker 1: much fake toughness. You don't really have it. You have
Speaker 1: to use a lot of bluster and bravado and man.
Speaker 1: Um is that is that another epidemic that we've got
Speaker 1: to deal with in society. I don't want to leave
Speaker 1: it there. Um this on an upbeating note, just to
Speaker 1: patch yourself on the back because you said you had
Speaker 1: to learn the hard way about toughness, but give yourself
Speaker 1: credit for for something that's that's happened. Maybe away from
Speaker 1: the basketball court, where you you appreciated all the things
Speaker 1: that coach k child you. Your dad was a huge influence.
Speaker 1: He said he was the toughest guy you knew. But
Speaker 1: all the tough players that have been a part of
Speaker 1: teams and and broadcasters, what what's a moment where you
Speaker 1: felt like, you know what, that's a lifetime full of
Speaker 1: absorbing lessons and being around tough people to help me
Speaker 1: through something. I think probably my dad was probably the
Speaker 1: most helpful to me in in getting me to let
Speaker 1: go of this this kind of fear that I had.
Speaker 1: You know, when I first went to law school, I
Speaker 1: really felt like I was out of place. Um, I
Speaker 1: just didn't know if this was the right thing, that
Speaker 1: I could hack this, And you know, I was an
Speaker 1: assistant basketball coach at Duke at the same time as
Speaker 1: a grad assistance. I had a little bit on my
Speaker 1: plate that maybe I was too much for me. But
Speaker 1: I remember calling home once. Uh you know, like with
Speaker 1: my family, you would call home. It was back in
Speaker 1: the remember back in the long distance days. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to call at night so you get you know,
Speaker 1: long distance rates and all. So I called, I called home,
Speaker 1: and in my family, you talked to your mom and
Speaker 1: you told your mom everything, and then at the end
Speaker 1: of the conversation she had the phone to your dad,
Speaker 1: and your dad would go, how's everything going. You got
Speaker 1: enough money? All right? Good? Great calculator, And that was
Speaker 1: the end of it. And so this one time I
Speaker 1: had called and I was having a hard time in
Speaker 1: law school. I was at a low point, and I
Speaker 1: my dad got on the phone. At the end of
Speaker 1: the conversation. My mom hadn't even asked me about about it,
Speaker 1: but he said, he said, how school? And I said,
Speaker 1: it's not good, Dad, I'm struggling, like I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm gonna make it. And he said,
Speaker 1: what are you what are you talking about? And I said,
Speaker 1: everybody here seems to know this stuff already. Maybe their
Speaker 1: parents were lawyers and they know all the Latin terms.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm like running uphill and underwater. Any analogy
Speaker 1: you want. I don't. I'm struggling. And I remember him
Speaker 1: to him kind of saying, come on, man, he's he said,
Speaker 1: you don't get it. You don't get a prize for
Speaker 1: knowing it. Now you get a diploma for knowing at
Speaker 1: the end. Like relax like so all he goes, how
Speaker 1: many lawyers are are out there in the country, and
Speaker 1: I go, well, a lot, And then he goes, but
Speaker 1: you're the one that can't do it, and he just
Speaker 1: kind of knocked me, you know, kind of you know,
Speaker 1: figuredily slapped me around a little bit to say, come on,
Speaker 1: like just do the do the work. You'll be fine,
Speaker 1: Like like you know, you don't nobody's saying you have
Speaker 1: to be on the Supreme Court at the end of
Speaker 1: your first year law school, like keep keep keep working,
Speaker 1: you'll be fine. And I was. And that's sort of
Speaker 1: the the attitude I've taken in all the different things
Speaker 1: i've I've I've done, whether it was practicing law, whether
Speaker 1: it's broadcast whatever it was, Hey, I may not figure
Speaker 1: it out fastest. But I'm gonna I'm gonna keep working
Speaker 1: at it and and I'm gonna figure it out. And
Speaker 1: that's been that's been the most helpful thing, like I'll
Speaker 1: figure it out and uh. And that was a really
Speaker 1: really helpful thing my dad did for me that time.
Speaker 1: I don't think he was thinking he was helping me.
Speaker 1: He probably just wanted me to shut up, but it
Speaker 1: was important. That's an awesome way to express a really
Speaker 1: important lesson. There's there's somebody in the book. We could
Speaker 1: do this for hours. You're against multitasking. You think it's
Speaker 1: hard to be tough if you multitask. We any more
Speaker 1: single minded focus in this world right now. And I
Speaker 1: think that's that's a well put point in the book
Speaker 1: as well. But but your mom and dad did their job,
Speaker 1: when he does her job, your coaches, your teammates, and
Speaker 1: we thank them for for giving you this wisdom and
Speaker 1: and thank you for sharing some of the wisdom on toughness.
Speaker 1: Jay Well, thanks for having me, Chris and Honrapy with
Speaker 1: you as always. If you don't already at a bunch
Speaker 1: of you to follow Jay Billis on Twitter at jay Billis.
Speaker 1: As about one point nine million people already do. He
Speaker 1: is insightful and thoughtful and also very funny. Grateful to
Speaker 1: both Genette Lee and Jay Billis. They have very different backgrounds.
Speaker 1: They come at our topic here of true Grit differently,
Speaker 1: but I think both offered good ideas, good tools that
Speaker 1: you can use. So I hope you found it entertaining
Speaker 1: and also useful. I appreciate it if you'd offer us
Speaker 1: feedback through ratings and reviews. Those are important for any podcast,
Speaker 1: and also invite you to subscribe. We have new episodes
Speaker 1: that come out about every other week thanks to my
Speaker 1: co executive producer Jennifer Dempster and producer Jason Whiteheldt. I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you soon.