Speaker 1: This is Let's be clear, who's Shannon Doherty.
Speaker 2: Hi, let's be clear listeners. I'm Mary Jones, and you
Speaker 2: might know me as a former track and field athlete,
Speaker 2: or maybe you know me from my time playing in
Speaker 2: the WNBA or college basketball, or maybe even most recently,
Speaker 2: you may see me compete on the Hits show Special Courses.
Speaker 2: And I'm so honored to be here hosting this episode
Speaker 2: of Cannon Dougherty's podcast.
Speaker 3: I know I've become a special gathering place for her.
Speaker 2: Fans, as well as a positive space where folks can
Speaker 2: share their stories and their lessons that they've learned along
Speaker 2: the way. So I'm excited to share my journey with
Speaker 2: you all today and I hope that maybe just a
Speaker 2: little bit of it resonates with you today in a
Speaker 2: very special way. So I thought I would start out
Speaker 2: by telling you all just a little bit about the
Speaker 2: highs and lows of my career. I am a California native.
Speaker 2: I was born and grew up in the Los Angeles area,
Speaker 2: and my mother and I knew at a very young
Speaker 2: age that I was just really blessed with an incredible
Speaker 2: amount of talent. I have one older brother, and I
Speaker 2: like to joke and say that when your older brother
Speaker 2: picks you his younger sister to play on his neighborhood team,
Speaker 2: you know that there's something very unique about you.
Speaker 3: And that was the case with me.
Speaker 2: I started participating in all kinds of sport and excelled
Speaker 2: in all of them. I was also at that time
Speaker 2: figuring out life my mom. My mom and my father
Speaker 2: biological father were divorced when I was three years old,
Speaker 2: and my mom became a single parent. Thankfully, she found
Speaker 2: love again and I had an amazing stepfather. So I
Speaker 2: had that really warm, loving family until my stepfather passed
Speaker 2: away at the age of nine years old. And that
Speaker 2: time that I share with you is very pivotal in
Speaker 2: my life and in my career because in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 2: I happened to be nine years old, and that was
Speaker 2: the summer that the Olympic Games came to Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: the city that I was living in, and my mother
Speaker 2: took me to the Olympic Parade where all of the
Speaker 2: athletes are paraded down the street. That summer, I sat
Speaker 2: in front of my television and for the first time
Speaker 2: I watched in amazement as the athlete across the Finch line,
Speaker 2: and many of them won Olympic gold and I made
Speaker 2: the decision, but this is what I wanted to do
Speaker 2: with my life. I wanted to achieve success. I wanted
Speaker 2: to win gold medals, I wanted to run and I
Speaker 2: just I wanted that to be me. And everything from
Speaker 2: that point on in my life revolved around that goal,
Speaker 2: to the point I even wrote on my chalkboard that
Speaker 2: I wanted to be an Olympic champion. Fast forward a
Speaker 2: few years. It was just going through a very difficult.
Speaker 3: Time in my life. I was an adolescent.
Speaker 2: My mom was working very hard to support my older
Speaker 2: brother and I and I was just going through it
Speaker 2: with my emotions, not understanding why I had a biological
Speaker 2: father who just really.
Speaker 3: Didn't want to be in my life.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people even listening for
Speaker 2: this kind of understand that where maybe you don't have
Speaker 2: somebody in your family who is you know, it's supposed
Speaker 2: to be supportive, and for whatever reason, they choose they're not.
Speaker 2: And so I gave it to my mom. As we
Speaker 2: like to say, I was rebellious. I lashed out. I
Speaker 2: was one of those adolescents where when your parent asked you,
Speaker 2: how are you doing, honey, I would respond with, I'm
Speaker 2: fine that you all know what I'm seeing what I say,
Speaker 2: I'm fine. That was me, and now, as a parent
Speaker 2: of an actual fifteen year old who gets a lot
Speaker 2: of those I'm fine, mom, I absolutely understand how difficult
Speaker 2: it is to parents, especially at that time when you're
Speaker 2: the only parent.
Speaker 3: Thankfully, though, for me, I had an outlet.
Speaker 2: My outlet was sport, and as I shared earlier, my
Speaker 2: mom and I knew that there was something unique about me. Faster,
Speaker 2: I was stronger. I loved it.
Speaker 3: I was passionate about it.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of young people at that age twelve, thirteen,
Speaker 2: fourteen through high school, they want to be on the
Speaker 2: social scene. I, on the other hand, was waiting by
Speaker 2: the door with my backpack and shoes and equipment, and
Speaker 2: waiting on my mom so that I wouldn't be late
Speaker 2: for Prictice. So that gave you a little idea of
Speaker 2: the mindset that I had even at that young age.
Speaker 2: All of that got you to the age at fifteen
Speaker 2: years old where I was blessed enough to make my
Speaker 2: first Olympic team. The team that the USA team that
Speaker 2: summer was traveling to Soul, Korea, I decided that I
Speaker 2: would hold off even though I made the team, I
Speaker 2: would pull off on pursuing my Olympic dream and my
Speaker 2: Olympic journey because I really didn't think that it was
Speaker 2: going to be the right time. So I decided to
Speaker 2: stay and continue to hone all of my athletics hills,
Speaker 2: particularly basketball at that time. A few years later, I
Speaker 2: decided to accept a basketball scholarship to the University of
Speaker 2: North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I was going to
Speaker 2: be a dual sport athlete. So I traveled across the
Speaker 2: country from California to North Carolina to start this incredible
Speaker 2: athletic and academic journey in Chapel Hill.
Speaker 3: So at this point, I've.
Speaker 2: Shared some highs, I've shared some lows when it comes
Speaker 2: to relationships, but it was all just the beginning. I
Speaker 2: had the opportunity to be on a women's basketball team
Speaker 2: at the University of North Carolina that in my freshman
Speaker 2: year nineteen ninety three, we won the national championship. And
Speaker 2: of course there's so much.
Speaker 1: In the news right now about women's basketball and March Madness,
Speaker 1: and I just feel feel very fortunate to have been
Speaker 1: on a team of women where we can experience winning
Speaker 1: it all.
Speaker 3: It happened to be on the last second shot. So
Speaker 3: if you're looking for something to.
Speaker 4: Do after hearing this podcast, type in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety four buzzer Beater Women's National Championship and you'll
Speaker 4: see Mike tar Hills winning it all.
Speaker 3: Certainly a highlight in my life.
Speaker 2: Decided that I loved the sport, was going to continue
Speaker 2: dabbled in track and field while I was at the
Speaker 2: University of North Carolina and four years was really decided
Speaker 2: that I wanted to for all of my attention into
Speaker 2: my first love, which.
Speaker 3: Was track and field. I graduated from the University of
Speaker 3: North Calnon.
Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety seven and quickly began the trajectory of my
Speaker 2: track and field career.
Speaker 3: It happened very quickly, as in about eighteen.
Speaker 2: Months, I became arguably one of the fastest women in
Speaker 2: the world, became a world champion at that time, and
Speaker 2: things in my life were fairly well, apparently going fairly well.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety eight, I.
Speaker 2: Was traveling around the world competing because, as you might
Speaker 2: know listening to this, many of the track and field
Speaker 2: athletes in the US have to travel abroad in between
Speaker 2: the years of the Olympic Games. Of course, the Olympic
Speaker 2: Games are every four years, and these athletes have.
Speaker 3: To spend a majority of their.
Speaker 2: Time traveling in Europe and Africa and South and Central
Speaker 2: America literally for a living to run these big races.
Speaker 2: And so in nineteen ninety eight, I was at a
Speaker 2: press conference in Bruckels, Belgium, and a reporter asked me, Marion,
Speaker 2: you know, what are your plans for the near future,
Speaker 2: particularly the two thousand Games in Sydney. And I don't
Speaker 2: know my exact age, but I was early twenties, mid twenties,
Speaker 2: and I flippantly answered, just like any twenty year old,
Speaker 2: I flippantly answered, I planned to compete in five events
Speaker 2: in Sydney, and I planned to win.
Speaker 3: Five events, so five golds.
Speaker 2: And I said that, and I stayed flippantly because unbeknownst
Speaker 2: to me, it had never been done before. So that's
Speaker 2: press conference was the catalyst to the world and Hi, hey,
Speaker 2: there's this young athlete, incredible and he wants to achieve
Speaker 2: history in Sydney. And that kind of took on a
Speaker 2: wave and a momentum of its own, whereby the lead
Speaker 2: up to the Olympic Games. I was the poster child
Speaker 2: for the Olympics. So I was on the cover of
Speaker 2: every major magazine from Vogue to Sports Illustrated to.
Speaker 5: Ebony, to Time to Life, and I was that athlete
Speaker 5: going into the Sydney Olympics. I went to Sydney achieved
Speaker 5: a lot of success.
Speaker 2: I won five medals, three of them gold two of them,
Speaker 2: and left Sydney on the most incredible there was len
Speaker 2: We get a little bit of context to you all.
Speaker 2: During that time in two thousand till about two and ten,
Speaker 2: and about a ten year span.
Speaker 6: There had did a lot a lot of news about
Speaker 6: athletes and performance enhancing drugs and trying to get a
Speaker 6: handle of that in the sport. Well, I've always been
Speaker 6: a proponent, proponent for a drug free sport.
Speaker 2: But because I was an elite athlete, I needed to
Speaker 2: make sure that any type of vitamin, any type of
Speaker 2: supplement that I was taking was going to be free
Speaker 2: from any other substances.
Speaker 3: So I hired a company to create the supplement for
Speaker 3: me right, and I also had a team around, a
Speaker 3: manager and coach it is, and everybody to protect my
Speaker 3: best interest, or so I thought. So again achieved a
Speaker 3: lot of success in Sydney.
Speaker 2: A few years later, two thousand and three, I get
Speaker 2: a phone call from federal prosecutors asking me inviting me,
Speaker 2: I say that, loosely, inviting me to come and sit
Speaker 2: with them in San Francisco and share any knowledge so
Speaker 2: that I might have known about performance handing drugs during
Speaker 2: that time, a particular company that was creating them. And
Speaker 2: I just quickly said, sure, I don't have any problem.
Speaker 2: I don't have anything to hide. Understand that during that
Speaker 2: time I was also the most tested athlete in the world,
Speaker 2: meeting every few weeks, somebody would come to my home
Speaker 2: and I would have to go to the bathroom and urine.
Speaker 2: They would text my urine to make sure there were
Speaker 2: no performance to handing drugs, and every single time it
Speaker 2: was negative.
Speaker 3: So I had nothing to hide. I had hired this company.
Speaker 2: I felt very confident that they knew there was nothing
Speaker 2: tainted in it at all.
Speaker 3: So I traveled to In two thousand and three, I
Speaker 3: traveled to San Francisco with my attorneys and prior to
Speaker 3: the meeting, I sat down with federal investigators and signed
Speaker 3: what it's called a clean for a day letter, and
Speaker 3: if you've never heard of that.
Speaker 2: What it is essentially is you sign this document saying
Speaker 2: that you will be honest with the federal prosecutors that
Speaker 2: no matter what they asked you, no matter how brutal,
Speaker 2: no matter what you've done, if you tell the truth,
Speaker 2: they will not prosecute you. Right So, because I went
Speaker 2: into this meeting with absolutely nothing too high, I signed
Speaker 2: a letter. Very quickly, my attorney looked it over. Everything
Speaker 2: was fine. We go into the interview with the federal
Speaker 2: prosecutors and very quickly we determined that they felt that
Speaker 2: I knew a lot more than what I was sharing
Speaker 2: with them, and their questions became a little more intense
Speaker 2: and aggressive, to the point about three hours into this
Speaker 2: interview they pulled something out of the bag and they
Speaker 2: kind of push it towards me, and I quickly realized
Speaker 2: in a very short amount of time, I couldn't realize
Speaker 2: that there was something that had been given to me
Speaker 2: years prior, right before the Olympic Games, by the team
Speaker 2: that I had hired, and it's something that I had
Speaker 2: taken with the the size of it being something else.
Speaker 2: So in that moment, I knew that everything that I
Speaker 2: had heard about in the news about these athletes and
Speaker 2: performance enhancing drugs, and this particular one called but Clear
Speaker 2: was indeed what I was looking at and was indeed
Speaker 2: actually something that I had been given. So in that
Speaker 2: short amount of time, I made the decision to lie
Speaker 2: for fear that everything I had dreamt of, everything I
Speaker 2: had worked towards my entire career leading up from nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty four when I was nine years old and wrote
Speaker 2: I wanted to be an Olympic Champion on my talkboard
Speaker 2: to that moment. I feared that if I was to
Speaker 2: tell them the truth, that everything that I had worked
Speaker 2: for would be taken away, And so I made the
Speaker 2: decision to lie. In that moment. Of people when they
Speaker 2: hear my story, they say, oh, you know Mary Jones,
Speaker 2: she lost it all, or she went.
Speaker 3: To prison because she took performance enhancing drugs.
Speaker 2: That's not accurate. I actually went to prison, and we'll
Speaker 2: get to that. Because I had signed that Queen for
Speaker 2: a Day letter and because I lied to them, they
Speaker 2: were able to come back a number of years later
Speaker 2: and try me, and I was found guilty, of course.
Speaker 2: But so of course there are a lot of high
Speaker 2: and loans to all of that. Fast forward from two
Speaker 2: thousand and three to two thousand and seven. I had
Speaker 2: been carrying this heavy burden with me for quite some time,
Speaker 2: four plus years. A lot had happened in that four years,
Speaker 2: in that I had my two sons, I was still competing,
Speaker 2: I was still running fast and being considered the fastest
Speaker 2: women in the world. But the burden of this life
Speaker 2: every single time I raced, every interview would ask are
Speaker 2: you a drug free athlete? Do you take right? Just
Speaker 2: became heavy.
Speaker 3: But the heaviest part of it all.
Speaker 2: And many people listening to this will understand this that
Speaker 2: when you have since, your perspective in life most times
Speaker 2: drastically changes and you realize that everything that you say
Speaker 2: and everything that you don't say, everything that you do
Speaker 2: and sometimes don't do, can and will affect them. And
Speaker 2: I was telling my boys, hey, you know, when you
Speaker 2: make a poor choice, and it happens in life to everybody,
Speaker 2: but when it happens to you, son, like, you need
Speaker 2: to come back and you need to tell mom and
Speaker 2: we'll deal with the consequences and then we can move
Speaker 2: on and be done with it. And I certainly wasn't
Speaker 2: living that life. I was quite the hypocrite at that time,
Speaker 2: and it just became too much, and I said to myself,
Speaker 2: you know what, like like I need a fresh start.
Speaker 2: I need to just make this right. And I know
Speaker 2: the consequences would be severe. Didn't know they.
Speaker 3: Would be as severe as they were.
Speaker 2: And so in two thousand and seven, I've led guilty
Speaker 2: to applying to the federal investigators and was sentenced to
Speaker 2: six months incarceration. The only athletes that had served any
Speaker 2: time in all of that. So, of course that's the
Speaker 2: low and probably the lowest point in my career where
Speaker 2: the forty nine days spent in solitary confinement. But I
Speaker 2: also tell people in all of that, like, I'm not
Speaker 2: looking for empathy or sympathy. I certainly made four choices.
Speaker 2: But I also say during that time it was a
Speaker 2: blessing in disguise because it forced me to analyze my past,
Speaker 2: who I was, and more importantly figure out, all, right, well,
Speaker 2: what's the next step, what's my tomorrow look like, what's
Speaker 2: my next year, what's my five year outlooks look like?
Speaker 2: But also I like to say that it forced me
Speaker 2: to slow down. Right, there was so much pressure, there
Speaker 2: was so much same and fortune as a twenty something
Speaker 2: year old that can be enormously overwhelming, and the time
Speaker 2: away was really just an opportunity for me to slow
Speaker 2: down and to also realize that I had allowed my
Speaker 2: sport of choice, track and field, to dominate my life.
Speaker 2: Like when people ask me Mary Jones, who are you
Speaker 2: back then, my quick response to be, I'm attracting cial
Speaker 2: athletes right, which I think a lot of young athletes
Speaker 2: get go down that road whereby they identify by who
Speaker 2: they are with what they do, and that causes a
Speaker 2: lot of problems, particularly towards the end of your career.
Speaker 2: So that was the lowest point of my life. I
Speaker 2: will tell you that the highlights, of course was winning
Speaker 2: the gold medal, but more so the biggest highlight is
Speaker 2: now I have three kids twenty one, seventeen, and fifteen,
Speaker 2: and I'm proud to say that I am probably the
Speaker 2: most joyful and happiest that I've ever been in my life.
Speaker 2: I have created such an incredible business around sharing this
Speaker 2: idea with people that their failure in life does not
Speaker 2: have to be forever that no matter who you are. Yes,
Speaker 2: I understand people don't have the incredible life story potentially
Speaker 2: that I do.
Speaker 3: It's not all it's to be so to take that
Speaker 3: in your account.
Speaker 2: But everybody from all walks of life have some type
Speaker 2: of failure that they deal with. It could be a
Speaker 2: business that has failed, your finances, your relationship, whatever it is, right,
Speaker 2: everybody has been knocked down and everybody needs to learn
Speaker 2: tools on how to pick yourself back up and that success,
Speaker 2: whatever you identify success as, can be had again and
Speaker 2: maybe even more so if you know the right tools right.
Speaker 2: So what I share with people is that, hey, you
Speaker 2: need a living example of somebody to look forwards that yeah,
Speaker 2: they've had so much success, they've lost it all for
Speaker 2: various reasons, and they are on the comeback of sport too.
Speaker 2: Not I make it identical in terms of the height
Speaker 2: of my success, but for me, success and now looks
Speaker 2: like people realizing that they are strong, that they can
Speaker 2: overcome anything, that their setbacks in life do not have
Speaker 2: to define them, that their mistakes don't have to be
Speaker 2: their narrative for the rest of their life.
Speaker 3: And that's what I hope to do.
Speaker 2: So that's actually the high of my career and where
Speaker 2: I'm at right now, I'm not such a wonderful feeling.
Speaker 2: So I share some of the challenges that I faced
Speaker 2: that changed me as a person, certainly as an athlete.
Speaker 2: I would say that that the challenges of surrounding what
Speaker 2: are the challenges that I faced was that I made
Speaker 2: the decision to surround myself during that time with what
Speaker 2: I call yes people, right. And these are people whom
Speaker 2: you make a decision that they're gonna be your community.
Speaker 2: They're your people, and they're gonna stay and do anything
Speaker 2: that you want them to do, right, and usually it's
Speaker 2: for reasons that would benefit them, not too These are
Speaker 2: people that if you're making poor decisions, they're gonna say, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't have to get a good idea or even
Speaker 2: something simple like that output on you. And I made
Speaker 2: make a choice during my twice right to surround myself
Speaker 2: with people who would just say, Mary, I think that's
Speaker 2: a great idea, instead of surrounding myself with people who
Speaker 2: would give it to me straight. What do I mean
Speaker 2: by that? These are people most likely your parents, right,
Speaker 2: not every case, but people who've known you for a
Speaker 2: significant amount of time or know you really well, and
Speaker 2: who are not afraid to just say, hey, married, maybe
Speaker 2: you should rethink that, or hey Mary, maybe you should
Speaker 2: look at it from this angle, and so I think
Speaker 2: in regard to how I've changed as a person now,
Speaker 2: I certainly identify the need to have a strong, strong
Speaker 2: community around me that pours into me in a healthy way. Right.
Speaker 2: The people that I surround myself now certainly are not
Speaker 2: get people. These are people that love me for who
Speaker 2: I am, right and are willing to say the hard
Speaker 2: things to help me navigate this thing called life. And
Speaker 2: I am so very grateful for them in my life.
Speaker 2: I want to tell you all why it's so important
Speaker 2: I said to surround yourself with the right team, because
Speaker 2: if you go through life thinking that it's it's going
Speaker 2: to be what social media looks like. Because that's the
Speaker 2: big thing right now, Everything on social media is it's beautiful,
Speaker 2: general and pretty, and everybody wants to portray their life
Speaker 2: as something magical, which we know is not active. Right.
Speaker 2: There are moments in life that are, but many thingses
Speaker 2: there are at people moments that are not. And I
Speaker 2: think people just kind of get stop thinking that's the
Speaker 2: way it is, and that there will be no picked
Speaker 2: upsk in life. And it's so sad that young people
Speaker 2: in particular see this example every day as they scroll Instagram,
Speaker 2: tick pout, Facebook, whatever it looks like, whatever social media platform,
Speaker 2: and that's what they see all the time. And so again,
Speaker 2: surrounding yourself with reality, right they're on yourself with people
Speaker 2: who will keep it real is so important, I believe
Speaker 2: in our lives. So I also want to share with
Speaker 2: you. You know, there was a time when, of course I
Speaker 2: surrounded myself with I'm not going to take the wrong people.
Speaker 2: They just weren't the right people for me, right, And
Speaker 2: that led to obviously a lot of disappointment, uh.
Speaker 3: And just a lot of feeling of hanging there.
Speaker 2: You put like there are a lot of wood haves
Speaker 2: and puttos right, and then you could have been X,
Speaker 2: Y and Z, or you could have achieved this right.
Speaker 2: And I don't really allow myself to go there very
Speaker 2: often because it's hard to pull yourself out of that place.
Speaker 2: People see particularly now on social media and on interviews
Speaker 2: or whatnot, and it looks like one percent I've always
Speaker 2: had it together. That's not the case. There are good days,
Speaker 2: there are bad days. But now I just learned how
Speaker 2: to hope with it all.
Speaker 3: So I want to pivot a little bit.
Speaker 2: We've talked about from UPSTI downs in my life. But
Speaker 2: I know a lot of my listeners and followers and
Speaker 2: people who watch the Legs Clear podcast just want to
Speaker 2: know what it takes to be a disciplined elite athlete
Speaker 2: and how people can embrace that discipline in all areas
Speaker 2: of their life. And I love to speak on that
Speaker 2: because currently what I do. In addition to being on
Speaker 2: shows like Speciful Forces, I also am so blessed to
Speaker 2: have started my own podcasts with my business partners tou
Speaker 2: Van Evans called Second Wind, where we have the opportunity
Speaker 2: to sit down with guests from all walks of life
Speaker 2: who we believe are on their second wind in life.
Speaker 2: They keep achieve some type of success, have hit the roadblock,
Speaker 2: people have written them off and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: but whatever different reason, they've been able to come back
Speaker 2: and it's cake. You know, you'll find that a lot
Speaker 2: of companies love to hire former athletes, former champions, and
Speaker 2: the reason is very simple.
Speaker 3: Is because to be a success, you really in.
Speaker 2: Sport, you have to have self discipline. You have to
Speaker 2: have figured out the formula to wake up in the
Speaker 2: morning when you're tired, or when you're hurt, or when
Speaker 2: you're sick, or when you're like, you have social pressure
Speaker 2: pulling you away, right, you have to have a certain
Speaker 2: discipline to say, you know what, this is my goal
Speaker 2: and I'm going to sacrifice everything else for that goal.
Speaker 2: So well, that's why you see these Fortune five hundred
Speaker 2: companies like when they look at their list of potential candidates,
Speaker 2: they're generally lean towards the side of hiring former college
Speaker 2: athletes because they know that in the ground, in the
Speaker 2: thick of it, these people will get the job done.
Speaker 2: For me, I have always been self driven, self motivated.
Speaker 2: I had some wonderful coaches and mentors along the way
Speaker 2: in my life that I've just been fortunate. I had
Speaker 2: some that were horrible. To be honest with you, it
Speaker 2: didn't really make a difference for me because I knew
Speaker 2: what for me the end game was. The end game
Speaker 2: for me was to be a success.
Speaker 3: The endgame for me was to make my mother proud.
Speaker 2: And people sometimes will say, well, Mary, you messed all
Speaker 2: day up, and I will quickly respond and say, you
Speaker 2: think I have the one person who was there for
Speaker 2: me when all of that negative stuff happened on the
Speaker 2: courtroom steps after I played guilty. My mom's hand is
Speaker 2: on my shoulder and she's tapping my shoulder rubbing. I
Speaker 2: told her, and she's my biggest.
Speaker 3: Supporter, saying, I love you, everything will be okay. I
Speaker 3: believe in you.
Speaker 2: I believe in this next chapter for you. They're gonna
Speaker 2: be amazing. And so there's nothing that anybody says on
Speaker 2: social media anywhere that can make me believe otherwise. I've
Speaker 2: just been grateful for that support for my mother and
Speaker 2: just seeing her and all the sacrifices that she has
Speaker 2: made in her life has told with the discipline that
Speaker 2: I was speaking of earlier, Right, Like, my mom came
Speaker 2: here from a small, beautiful country by the name of Believe.
Speaker 2: She came here very young, wanting a better life for
Speaker 2: herself and for her kids, and she sacrificed time away
Speaker 2: from family. She sacrificed so much for a better life
Speaker 2: for her kids. And people say, oh, it would be
Speaker 2: so difficult to be an elite athlete, so difficult to
Speaker 2: do this, And I'll tell you this. I'll say, No,
Speaker 2: what's difficult. It's coming to a new country, right leaving
Speaker 2: your family behind, having a young child, not knowing what
Speaker 2: the future would look like, and waking up every day
Speaker 2: with this desire that no matter what, you're going to
Speaker 2: make a better life for your kids, like don't is
Speaker 2: that is sacrifice? And so when people ask me that,
Speaker 2: I just kind of sit back and I say, I like,
Speaker 2: you have no idea, right, It might look like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the athlete a lot of success, and yes it is.
Speaker 2: But then when you have gotten a chance to witness
Speaker 2: through greatness and I have with my mom, everything else
Speaker 2: is much more simpler. Let's move a little bit more
Speaker 2: to like like's talking about fitness and the body, which
Speaker 2: I love. I am a certified personal trainer. I have
Speaker 2: such a passion for healthy living and for helping people
Speaker 2: live longer, happier, healthier lives. Over a decade ago I
Speaker 2: got my certification and training people virtually the proper technique
Speaker 2: on how to stay fit and run and lift and
Speaker 2: all that. And I want to share with you how
Speaker 2: I've been able to connect the body, you know, and
Speaker 2: as it's older, I will be fifty years old October
Speaker 2: of this year, and it's it's.
Speaker 3: It's amazing me to even say.
Speaker 2: That that I've been on this planet for fifty years
Speaker 2: and the incredible life that I've been given. But naturally,
Speaker 2: at this age you start to see cases in your body.
Speaker 2: I start to see aches and pains and things that
Speaker 2: I never knew existed. But I have found with a
Speaker 2: good nutrition and with a consistent movement pattern, meaning yeah,
Speaker 2: I work out every day, full struggle. I have great
Speaker 2: four art writings who both needs. You know, I struggle
Speaker 2: with certain things. I don't nearly run it. I don't
Speaker 2: run nearly as fast as I used to or jump
Speaker 2: that side. But every single day of my life there
Speaker 2: is some movement right. It's a non negotiable. I share
Speaker 2: this with my clients often. Movement every day is a
Speaker 2: non negotiable. Good eating right, making sure at this age
Speaker 2: protein is everything, particularly for premenopausal and menopausal women. Making
Speaker 2: sure that you get the proper amount of protein, healthy water, intake,
Speaker 2: good sleep, relieving stress and so to me, just making
Speaker 2: sure that is a priority in my life as I
Speaker 2: age is so very important. I decided a few.
Speaker 3: Years fact that.
Speaker 2: I would notice a good amount of my friends who
Speaker 2: are my age. I would see them getting heavier, I
Speaker 2: would see them stressed out. I would see them dealing
Speaker 2: with work and relationships and just really struggling overall in
Speaker 2: their life. And I was been having those struggles and
Speaker 2: I decided number of years fact that.
Speaker 3: Making a decision to one plunging thing every.
Speaker 2: Year of my life, something that's going to get me
Speaker 2: out of my comfort zone, I think is the recipe
Speaker 2: for a long and healthy life. So this year I
Speaker 2: made the decision that I was going to attempt to
Speaker 2: compete in my first triathlon. I had had an affinity
Speaker 2: for the sport for many years, lots of respect for
Speaker 2: these athletes who have to commit so much of their
Speaker 2: time to perfecting three different disciplines or really four if
Speaker 2: you consider nutrition as one cycling, biking, swimming, good nutrition.
Speaker 2: And I decided that I wanted to compete this year
Speaker 2: and see what I can do. And I've taken that
Speaker 2: on and he has taken over my life. But I'm
Speaker 2: excited to say that in about one month time, I
Speaker 2: will be competing in Honolulu in a triathlon. And really,
Speaker 2: what it.
Speaker 3: Has taught me at this stage of my life.
Speaker 2: Is an endurance component that I have been unfamiliar with,
Speaker 2: particularly because in my prime, endurance was not the thing
Speaker 2: right I was intended. I was chosen to run fast
Speaker 2: from here to there, very fast, not around around, around,
Speaker 2: around me tract lots of times and so taking on
Speaker 2: a sport where endurance is everything. You can't go out
Speaker 2: too hard, you can't go out too fast. You have
Speaker 2: to learn and hate that you can maintain at a
Speaker 2: high level for an extended period of time. It's such
Speaker 2: a challenge for me participating in disciplines that I didn't
Speaker 2: have a background. The pop swimming, I knew how to swim,
Speaker 2: but the swimming that I did was hey, with my friends,
Speaker 2: I'm jumping off the diving board and getting over to
Speaker 2: the side, or with my kids making sure that they
Speaker 2: don't drownd, nor do I.
Speaker 3: I've never really swam left from.
Speaker 2: Here to there. I learned proper technique and that is
Speaker 2: mind blowing, especially learning to do that as an adult.
Speaker 2: So that is the first challenge, the swimming component. The
Speaker 2: second challenge was the fipling component. Did I know how
Speaker 2: to ride my bike? Sure, my little Puffy and if
Speaker 2: you're a third age you know all about puffy. I
Speaker 2: could ride that around the block, or I can ride
Speaker 2: that fast. But it had been a number of years
Speaker 2: before I had really been on a bike for a
Speaker 2: good amount of time, and there is a skill set
Speaker 2: associating with that that I did not have that I
Speaker 2: had had to learn. And then, of course the third
Speaker 2: discipline is the running component, and most people hearing from
Speaker 2: me might say, oh, that portion he must have down packs.
Speaker 2: Got agatn't? I can run? Used to run fast from
Speaker 2: here to there right short distance, but to have to
Speaker 2: run a five k or further was mentally exhausting in
Speaker 2: addition to physically exactly so.
Speaker 3: Having to train my body for that.
Speaker 2: It has forced me to learn balance in my life
Speaker 2: because I when I competed at the highest.
Speaker 3: Level, like that was all that.
Speaker 2: I was supposed to do. Train At this point in
Speaker 2: my life, It's not all I supposed to do. I
Speaker 2: have a family, I have a business that need as
Speaker 2: much science as my training. So learning balance in my
Speaker 2: life and not allowing it to overwhelm me, not allowing
Speaker 2: it to start to define again who I am and
Speaker 2: want to be, has been the challenge. But it has
Speaker 2: taught me so many new things about myself and whom
Speaker 2: I want to be as a person, a mother, a partner,
Speaker 2: an athlete, and I do things that I didn't even realize.
Speaker 2: So that is my journey on triathlon. Every year from
Speaker 2: this point out, I plan.
Speaker 3: To choose something new, something that.
Speaker 2: I a new skill, set a new challenge, something that
Speaker 2: I've never done before, and I'm just so excited to
Speaker 2: have discovered that and the need for that really in
Speaker 2: my life. So with all of that, you know, my
Speaker 2: kids have watched me transform and through all of this
Speaker 2: all along with them. My mom, I've always just been
Speaker 2: mom for them. It's funny. They know about my success
Speaker 2: in sport, they also know about my challenges in life.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, I'm his mom.
Speaker 2: If you're listening to this, you know about that that
Speaker 2: As long as I have their cash app and their
Speaker 2: Venmo and I'm the mama Uber, they're perfectly happy. But
Speaker 2: people always ask me why I made certain choices to
Speaker 2: come back onto the scene, why I even decided to
Speaker 2: play professional basketball I had after I had been released
Speaker 2: from prison, And I tell them it's this simple fit,
Speaker 2: simple equations for me. My kids, particularly with social media
Speaker 2: and the internet, like they even if I made a
Speaker 2: choice not to.
Speaker 3: Tell them about what I did in my past.
Speaker 2: They would know. I certainly wanted to be able to
Speaker 2: explain things to them how they understand which I've done right.
Speaker 3: But also as they get older and they have their
Speaker 3: own families and they many dive.
Speaker 2: In deeper into their mom's life. I wanted them to
Speaker 2: be able to follow the trajectory of my life and
Speaker 2: my career and see certain things that were important to me.
Speaker 2: One sure, had a childhood and an adolescence whereby I
Speaker 2: learned to love spork, found out I was very good
Speaker 2: at it, achieved some hues dry and successes in sport,
Speaker 2: Olympic champion, all of that. Along the way on this timeline,
Speaker 2: Mom made some poor choices, right, lost it all right,
Speaker 2: had to figure out how to refrain whom she was,
Speaker 2: how to figure out what is she going to do
Speaker 2: with her world and with her life, and to build
Speaker 2: her reputation back. And again they're following this timeline and notice,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, you know she had come back from it all.
Speaker 3: You know, She's had the opportunity to share.
Speaker 2: Her story with the world with the hope that people
Speaker 2: can make better choices for their own lives and the
Speaker 2: fact that I can be a living example to them,
Speaker 2: and even once I'm gone from this world, they can
Speaker 2: share with their kids and their families like this is
Speaker 2: this is what real life looks like, if not what
Speaker 2: you see on social media. Always right, this is what
Speaker 2: real life looks like you have to set them time.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you make a wrong whom you make a wrong call.
Speaker 2: Sometimes something knock you down. Maybe it's a death in
Speaker 2: your family, Maybe it's a divorce. Maybe it's something you've
Speaker 2: done and not git down right, and you do not
Speaker 2: know how you're gonna take another step, and you figure
Speaker 2: it out, You repray, You create your own legacy, you
Speaker 2: create your own narrative, and you pull yourself out of
Speaker 2: that dark place, and all of a sudden you find
Speaker 2: yourself knocking on the doors and then actually being opened
Speaker 2: for you whatever that looks like the next season of
Speaker 2: your life. And and for me, I can sit back
Speaker 2: and say, Okay, a life well lived because my kids
Speaker 2: can identify and see the timeline and say, you know what,
Speaker 2: like my mom is a bad mammage general or she
Speaker 2: was a bad mamma gemma. And for those of you
Speaker 2: all hearing this and they're not certain way Mamma Gemma is,
Speaker 2: it's a badass woman.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 2: I am excited just to be in this season of
Speaker 2: my life. As I've shared, I had the opportunity on
Speaker 2: Special Forces and I did well and I have launched
Speaker 2: along with my business partners Susan Evans, The New York Times,
Speaker 2: step Zone author our own podcast all called Second Wind.
Speaker 2: You can find Second Win wherever you find your podcast.
Speaker 2: We've brought in some incredible guests in our first season,
Speaker 2: and I'm just excited to explore where that's going to
Speaker 2: go and to continue to share my story, but even
Speaker 2: more so like share the stories of people who inspire
Speaker 2: me for various reasons, particularly those who are on their
Speaker 2: second win in life. So that's my story in a nutshell.
Speaker 2: In a nutshell, I'm going to wrap it up now,
Speaker 2: and I want to thank you all really for listening
Speaker 2: to this episode of Let's Be Clear. I'm Mary Jones
Speaker 2: and you can follow me on Instagram at the Mary Jones.
Speaker 2: Until next time