Anne Marie Anderson on How to Build Your Front Row | EP 587

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I think in working with your inner critic is acknowledging it's always going to be there, John. Your inner critic is always going to be alongside you chirping away.
You need to be able to recognize when it's talking and take away its ability to make decisions for you. You can explore the ideas, but your inner critic does not get to be a decision maker.
Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi, I'm your host, John R.
Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you.
Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.
We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now let's go out there and become passion struck.
Hey, passion struck fam. Welcome to episode 587.
Whether you're a long time listener or tuning in for the first time, I am so grateful you're here. You have joined a global movement dedicated to unlocking your full potential, living with intention and making what truly matters matter most.
Before we dive in, let's take a moment to reflect on Tuesday's episode with Nir Eyal. We explored how to master focus, break free from distractions, and design a life that aligns with your deepest goals.
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Now let me ask you this. What if the only thing standing between you and your biggest dreams isn't a lack of talent or opportunity, but a lack of audacity? What if the bold risks we shy away from are actually the ones that could transform our lives? And how do we dismantle doubt and step into the courage required to chase what truly matters? That's exactly what we're diving into today with my guest, the extraordinary Anne-Marie Anderson, a three-time Emmy Award-winning broadcaster for ESPN, keynote speaker, and now the author of her powerful new book, Cultivating Audacity, How to Dismantle Doubt and Take Bold Risks.
Anne-Marie's story is a masterclass in resilience, reinvention, and the power of intentional risk-taking. From her days as a standout collegiate volleyball player to her groundbreaking career covering six Olympic Games, heavyweight title fights, and the Super Bowl, she continually pushed the boundaries of what's possible.
In today's conversation, we explore how Anne-Marie made audacity her superpower, navigating setbacks with grit and grace. We explore the lessons she's learned from legendary coaches and athletes about achieving greatness.
And then we go into her strategies for dismantling self-doubt, recalibrating rejection, and taking risks that matter. Anne-Marie's insights go beyond her incredible career.
They challenge us to rethink our mindset, action, and sense of belonging. Whether you're at a crossroads in your personal journey, striving to lead with intention, or simply looking for the courage to take your next big leap, this conversation will leave you inspired and empowered.
And for those of you who want to go deeper, check out our episode starter packs at either Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs. With over 500 episodes, we've curated playlists on themes like leadership, mental health, and personal growth to help you find the inspiration that resonates most with you.
And don't forget to subscribe to my Live Intentionally newsletter at passionstruck.com for exclusive weekly insights, tools, and actionable strategies to live with greater intention. And if you prefer video, join the growing community on the John R.
Miles YouTube channel, where you can watch this episode and more. While you're there, subscribe and share it with someone who could benefit from Anne-Marie's wisdom.
Now, let's dive into this incredible conversation about fearless living, bold risk-taking, and the courage to pursue what truly matters with the remarkable Anne-Marie Anderson. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional

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I am absolutely thrilled today to welcome Anne-Marie Anderson to PassionStruck. Welcome, Anne-Marie.
Thanks, John. I'm excited to talk with you.
As I talked about in the introduction, your career is filled with many extraordinary accomplishments, from winning Emmy Awards to covering the Olympics and other major sporting events. What are some pivotal moments that shaped your approach to boldness and dismantling doubt, things we're going to cover in depth today? I started started ESPN when I was 21 years old in a temporary

position. It was only guaranteed for six months.
And I think to start my professional career in

a competitive way, knowing that I needed to compete in those six months and really shine and stand out and be bold and different, shaped the way that I approached my career. As a former athlete, I'm used to competing.
And to be able to, there's no time to warm up. There's no time to be shy, which I was when you're pitching story ideas for ESPN's SportsCenter.
I think right out of the gate, I learned quickly that I needed to be willing to take some bold risks in my career if I wanted to succeed. Well, I know for me that being a Division I athlete really was critical in developing so many aspects of who I am and my mindset around the importance of taking action, how it developed my relationship with teammates and the power that they bring to supporting you and encouraging you.
I know you had a really illustrious career at Hofstra. How did that influence your competitive experience and resilience that you now have in life and in your career? I totally agree with you.
There's so much that can be learned from being part of a team at any level that you take into business. I had a little bit of a unique situation going into college.
I was a pretty good volleyball player and I was being recruited by a lot of the West Coast schools. I had talked to Hawaii and Long Beach and UCLA and such.
And then I broke my leg. and so all of my offers west coast went away i literally went on recruiting trips on crutches

with a broken leg. And that's how I ended up at Hofstra, a school I had never heard of before up to that point, because I'm a Colorado kid, I live in California now.
And I think what I learned being there was the value of adaptation. It was a different level of volleyball at that point.
And I look now at all the kids transferred from one school to the other to get the best opportunity. And what I learned there at Hofstra was really how to work within a different system, how to embrace.
I mean, New York is a different culture altogether, how to embrace a different culture. And I feel like that resilience, because we didn't win a lot.
And I learned how to reframe my relationship with failure, with losing at times, until by my senior year, we were winning quite a bit. I think if I had gone into a really winning program and sat the bench, by the way, I'm sure I would have, I maybe wouldn't have been quite as resilient as I ended up being by the time I graduated.
Yeah, it really does make a huge difference. And I'm so honored that I had that background.
And having gone to a service academy, I sometimes wonder how much it would have been different if I went to a normal university where you didn't have, where I'm sure the sports focus would have been even more pronounced. I think our coaches knew we had these other elements to our existence, so they couldn't own all our time.
But I think at other universities, you're really owned by the sport that you're part of. Yes.
And thank you for your service, by the way. Which academy did you go to? I went to the Naval Academy.
Thank you very much for your service. Thank you.
Today, we are going to be discussing your brand new book. Congratulations on that, Cultivating Audacity.
And I think it's important to start out with maybe a definition of what audacity is. Completely, because I think in this country, we have this negative connotation of audacity, right? I mean, it's you have the audacity to ask me that or the audacity to say that.
Who do you think you are? I mean, my parents used to say that once in a while to me when I was a teenager. And then I looked it up and audacity by definition is the willingness to take bold risks.
That's not negative. Doesn't have any kind of a negative ringtone to it to me.
In fact, my sister-in-law is from Argentina and she was surprised to hear that there is sometimes a little bit of a negative undercurrent with the word because in Argentina audacity is all the positive things. Looking at taking bold risk, which is audacity, I don't think it's something you're born with, John.
I think it is something that you have to cultivate and grow and that's why that's the title cultivating audacity because it takes practice in order to take bold risks and have the confidence to do so. I have a friend of mine, Scott Simon, who wrote the book, Scare Your Soul, and he's trying to start a courage movement.
But I think it's the same thing. You've got to start taking boundary expanding actions if you want to grow from it.
And I think that's, as I read the book, a lot of your philosophy as well. For sure.
Because again, it's about reframing what failure looks like. I tell people that like to be, oh, I just, I don't like risk.
I want to stay the same. That's great.
If you're completely happy with every aspect of your life, your health and fitness, your relationships, your work, everything. But the only thing that staying the same ensures is that there's no growth possible.
So if you want to grow in any one area of your life, staying the same is not an option. You're going to have to risk, take information from that leap, whatever it is, and keep using it to drive you towards your vision and your values.
That's really what it's about, is anything that brings you closer to your vision, your values, and who you want to be. Emory, you have had a lot of defining experiences and success stories in your life.
Is there a time when you took a bold risk that didn't pay off? And if so, what did you learn from it? It's an interesting question. I feel like none of them paid off at the beginning.
It was all about learning. I mean, my first time on air was in 78 million homes and I was horrible.
And I was afraid that I was going to be horrible and exposed and judged and embarrassed. And when I went on air, I was all those things, but I survived it.
I mean, in terms of a bold risk that doesn't work out, it depends on whether you're looking at the outcome. I mean, the audacity is in the action.
The victory is in the action, not in the outcome. So I went on air and everything that I was afraid of was true and I survived it.
And I got some resilience and some data to try to be better next time. As I look through my life and I look at any risk that I took, they all led me somewhere.
Does that make sense? I don't count any of them as failures or not working out. It all just became information for me.
I remember hearing you talk about that appearance on another podcast that I was listening to prepare for this. And you were in that discussion, talking about a conversation you were having with your husband before you did the event, and you were going through your head, all the things that could happen.
Your career could come, it could be the end of your being a producer, it could be the end of you being a broadcaster, it could be the end of this and that. And I think that's something that we all tend to do.
I know for me, it's always been intimidating to do public speaking. And I had one speech that I gave that didn't fall the way I wanted it to for a sales organization.
And when I think about all the successes I had, they are not the first thing that comes to my mind. It's always that failure moment.
But I think because of it, it's made me prepare even more now about what does the audience want? What do I need to deliver? How do I show up in the best way? Do you think it's the same thing for you? I think that's a great example, John. Isn't that the worst? First of all, my sympathies, right? You give the speech and then it falls flat and you're standing there like the emperor has no clothes.
But you got information from it. And there's nothing you can do.
There's nothing you can do. You're standing there naked in your head.
Exactly. But you got information

from it and rebounded. The incident you're talking about with my husband at the time was,

I was terrified that first time going on air, standing outside the stadium, sobbing. You want

your reporter sobbing outside the stadium right before you go on ESPN2. It was in 78 million homes.

And what I tell people is that if you catastrophize the absolute worst that can happen at some point, you're going to realize that it's probably not going to go that far. So the story that you were talking about, I said, I could be so bad that not only will I never be on television again, but I'll never be able to produce again, as you talked about, because nobody will listen to me and I'll lose my entire career in television.
And if I lose my entire career in television, this is all I've ever wanted to do. So I will be a miserable person and you will have no choice but to leave me because I won't be able to be a good mother to our children who haven't even been born yet.
And I will die destitute and alone. And he was like, wow, you went there.
But once you catastrophize it obviously i'm not gonna die destitute and alone. And he was like, wow, you went there.
But once you catastrophize it, obviously I'm not going to die destitute and alone because I'm bad on a television camera one time. So once you take it to that ridiculous level, you can survive anything.
And that's what it's about is taking the action and no matter the outcome, knowing that you can survive and make another decision. Sometimes I feel like when we're going to make a decision, it feels like the last one we're going to make.
If this doesn't work out and it's not the case, catastrophize, it'll make it seem a little bit easier. I wanted to ask you one more question on your background before we go further into the book.
Emory, what's the most audacious decision you've made in your career and how did you navigate the uncertainty that came with it? The most audacious thing I did looking back, and I almost can't believe it, like that hubris of young people. When I was 26, I lived in Bristol at ESPN's headquarters and loved my job.
When I was 26, I took a vacation to Southern California to visit my brother in February. And I was thinking, man, people are playing beach volleyball out there in February, and I'm shoveling snow.
And so I went back to the headquarters and I said to my boss, I'd like to be LA Bureau producer. And he said, well, we already have an LA Bureau producer.
And I was like, I know that's what makes this conversation so awkward, trying to chuckle it away. And as we discussed, he said, how about this? Give me two more years here.
And in two years, if we haven't made JLA

Bureau producer, what have you really lost? And I thought, well, two years in my twenties. And so I gave him my notice.
He called me impatient. I just knew John that I wasn't enjoying my life.
I was enjoying my job, but not my life, my free time. And so I gave him my notice and I quit ESPN, an absolute dream job, and drove cross country.
And I didn't know what I was going to do. I just knew I wasn't going to shovel snow.
And when I got to Los Angeles, ESPN gave me some freelance work as soon as I arrived. And by the end of the year, I had been hired back at ESPN as LA Bureau producer for double the salary.
And that taught me because I didn't make the decision for money. I made it for my life to be able to enjoy the quality of my life.
And having more money was an unexpected consequence. I am so glad you shared this.
And I think it's something I want to explore a little bit more because I think there are a lot of people out there who really feel stuck. I call it on the show, quiet desperation, where they get in a situation where they're making the money, they have the quality of life, they think, but they tend to

be chasing the wrong things and their life is out of balance. That is exactly what happened to me.
And how does someone who's in this position take the steps to get out their way out of it? Because it's much easier to talk about it than it is to actually do it. Yes.
So here's the first thing to consider. When I talk about risks, I define in the book that there's risks that are reckless and risks that are worth it.
And risks that are worth it is anything that drives you closer to your values, vision, and who you want to be. That leaving my job and moving across country was worth it to me at 26 when I didn't own any property, didn't have a family, no kids.
If I were to do that same thing now, that would be reckless. So first define those two.
Then as you're talking about, you may have somebody who's making a nice living and really not enjoying their work, but they're thinking, well, if I leave this, that could be reckless for my family. Then you want to explore what it is that you really enjoy and that you're good at and how you can get there in a worth it kind of way.
And for me, if you have someone who's unhappy, let's say in their job or their current situation, what exactly is it about it that you're unhappy with? Is it the actual work? Is it the location? Is it the people that you work with? Is it the field all together? Because you need to pinpoint what it is in order to change it. And then I have a series of exercises throughout the book to help you narrow

the focus. Because I'll tell you this, John, there's always, after all my research and everybody I've talked to, there's always one of four things that stands between us and the thing we want to do, the life we want to lead, what we want our life to look like.
It always comes down to one of these four. Fear, time, money, or your inner critic.
Every time. And so diving into those and exploring what it is that's been stopping you can be incredibly powerful and breaking free.
It absolutely is the truth. And I think one of the things that I found when reading your book on this chapter that we're talking about is, is you write, there isn't one reason to make a change.
Everyone has a different rationale, but be careful about external motivation centered on others. Sometimes we may want to prove something wrong or make them feel proud of us.
Other times we seek approval from those we esteem and aim to please them. We may do something audacious or take a risk because we want to put it on social media to impress people.
Where I'm going with here is a lot of times we take these risks for external reasons. But what I have found is that if you're going to take a risk, the ones that I have done in the past that are focused on external seem to have a high failure rate.

The ones that I have done that are based on intrinsic motivation tend to have a high success rate.

Do you find a correlation in that?

Absolutely.

I mean, if you think about the example I gave you moving to Los Angeles, had I done that

for money, I really think I wouldn't have had the money.

It wasn't about that.

It was internal the way I wanted my life to be.

Look, if you're taking a risk because you want to impress somebody, understand they

may not even notice, right?

You're thinking in your head, oh, I want them to be proud of me understand they may not even notice, right? You're thinking in your

head, oh, I want them to be proud of me. They may not even notice.
And the easiest way to check

yourself about whether your motivation is of pure intent is, is it going to give you more of what you love in your life? Whatever that is, more time with your family, more autonomy, even if it's

going to give you more money in your life, why do you want the money? What are you going to do with the money? But that's the easiest check. Does it give you more of what you love in your life? If it's an external motivation to make somebody proud, doesn't fit that definition.
I like this section of the book where you were talking to, it was before you even launched your career and there was an advisor who was talking to about a hundred of you and said that maybe one of you out of the hundred has a chance to be in broadcasting and to be successful. And I would think when you started, that would have been even more daunting as a female at that time in a very male dominated one broadcasting, but two sports broadcasting world.
So I think oftentimes we hear something like that. It could be a teacher, it could be a mentor we have.
It could be a coach who gives us the barriers to be successful and we end up giving up all hope and don't pursue it. For you, what led you to hear that and have the audacity to pursue it no matter what? Because I think that's what really differentiates the people who go for it.
And I'll just make the correlation here. Like when I started this podcast, people were telling me, why are you even starting a podcast? They're like 3 million of them.
This thing is never going to be a success. And if I had listened to them, I wouldn't be here talking to you.
It's the same thing as you started your career. Exactly.
And can I ask you a quick question before I answer?

Why did you start the podcast?

Why did you start it then?

With people selling you like it's futile.

I started it because I was called to serve people.

And I felt that the best way to do it and to get my message out was I needed a vehicle to do it.

I didn't care about making money. That was never the goal.
I didn't care about how many downloads I got. That wasn't the goal.
I just felt if I could influence one person, it could have a ripple effect. And that's exactly what you've done.
Perfect example, John, of like pure intention. It gave you more of what you love, which was helping people.
That's the same way I feel about the book. Like I get so excited when somebody does the thing or takes the risk.
And so for me, I always tell people, some of us build backwards. I wouldn't have gone into accounting.
I can't add. I faint at the sight of blood.
I don't like the idea of working inside all day. I started eliminating all these professions.
I love sports. I like talking to people.
And so when the professor said that, I didn't have a plan B. I heard him and I thought, well, that's really a bummer for you guys.
Literally, I can't believe it when I look back. That's my thought when we were in there, but I don't have another choice.
And that's why I kept pursuing it. What's your other choice? I always tell people, if you have a plan B, go do that because plan B is always easier.
But for me, I knew this was the only thing I ever wanted to do. And so I was going to have to figure it out no matter how many times somebody told me no or what the odds are.
So I want to jump to the area of preparation. And I remember doing an interview with Susan Cain and I was talking to her about her TED Talk that went viral.
I think she has 40, 50 million views on it. And it was such a well done, well rehearsed TED talk.
And she said, well, what people don't see is the 200 times I did it and failed. Because I practiced it so many times before I got up there in front of that stage and tried all different types of ways to approach it before I got confident in how I wanted to deliver it.
And one of my other favorite interviews on the show was with Sally Jenkins, who I'm sure you probably know. And I was interviewing Sally about her book, The Right Call.
But she was talking to me about her time observing the most elite of elite athletes. And she was telling me that what she saw differentiate them from even A-level athletes was this extraordinary mental and physical preparation that they do that just goes above and beyond.
And using that as a backdrop, how do you see this relationship between preparation, our mindset, and then our willingness to take audacious leaps? I love that question. Because if you ask anybody in television about me, they will say that I'm prepared.
I'm known for my preparation when I'm preparing for a game. And it's all a safety net.
It was interesting when you were talking about the person giving the TED Talk that you said she did it 200 times and failed. Whereas I would ask, is it really failure? Is it data or information she's getting in order to get it to exactly where she wants to go? Preparation is everything.
And here's the thought when it comes to audacious moves. I don't want anybody leaping off the cliff to, oh, I'm going to succeed at this.
I'm going to put all my money in this and just jump into it. It's about the careful preparation.
What are the steps I need to take in order to get there? What are the backup plans that could go? That for me is where all the good stuff is in terms of planning and preparing. When I go on air to call a game, because I'm still a working broadcaster for ESPN, people will see me on the air for two hours calling a basketball game.
But it's been four days of preparation, researching, talking to coaches, talking to players, interviewing before I ever get on air for those two hours. The game itself, the speech itself, the cock is the reward.
It's the preparation where you really dig in and grow the most. I completely agree with you.
And as people have come on the podcast, I get a lot of people who say your interviews are different from everyone else's. And I say, well, that's on purpose because I try to do so much research that I don't want to have the same interview someone else has with a guest, because then what's the point if they've already done it? My favorite thing is, is when I have a guest and I ask a question, they go, no one has ever asked that to me before.
Yes, exactly. But it's not like Barbara Walters became Barbara Walters because she just came up with the questions on the fly before she had a guest.
I have to imagine that she dedicated herself to the art of preparation to become the person that she was. And I think the same thing goes with anyone in their field.
Absolutely. Barbara Walters, for example, and her team, careful preparation, and then the ability after that to be flexible, because you can prepare and have all your questions, and then you get an answer you don't expect and you want to just stay with your questions.
I see that all the time with the ability to be flexible. Well, you can apply that to any profession, right? Here's what you plan to do.
Here's something that comes in that's different, some data, and you need to be flexible in order to take your preparation and adjust to the current situation. Yes, I think it's both of those things.
It's the preparation and then the flexibility within it. Anne-Marie, I want to jump to a different area of showing audacity, and that is showing audacity to our kids.
And as I was reading your book, something really struck me. My grandmother used to always tell us when we were kids how she always wanted to go to medical school and never found her way to do it.
And I can't tell you how many times I heard her tell us this regret. And in the book, you talk about your mom, who's 93 years old, and she told you one time, Ann Marie, I envy you, because I always wanted to work outside the house, but never figured out how to do it.
And I mean, it's an emotional statement, both of them, because it's like a big part of who they are, got trapped and never got to express itself, which is very sad. But I think there's a big lesson here that we can learn from this on how, by the fact that we're willing to take risks, shows our children that it's okay to be brave as well.
And I was hoping you might be able to talk about that. For sure.
And the other thing is when something does not succeed, show that to your children as well. An example immediately comes to mind where I had been booked to be a play-by-play announcer for a series of games and I was waiting for my contract and my contract didn't come.
And finally, I asked the producer, hey, is there a problem? And they said, yes. They said the general manager and head coach decided that he wanted somebody else.
And I thought, well, I haven't even met him. You offered me the job.
I cleared my schedule. You told me you were the person hiring and now somebody else.
And I was so frustrated by that, John. I tend to cry when I'm frustrated.
I don't hide it. That's just one of the ways I release it.
So I'm crying in my office afterwards, frustrated. And I decided I wasn't going to let that happen.
I have no control over whether or not he hired me, but I did have control about being able to talk to him and say, here's who you're not hiring. And so I walked out of my office through the kitchen.
My children were pretty small at the time. They see me upset.
And I said, never just let somebody deny you something without asking questions. And I went to the airport, bought a ticket at the counter, flew up to, it was a short flight, met this particular boss and said, Hey, I wanted to have a conversation with you about that.
And it was really important for me to show the kids that I was going to have that conversation with him. I did.
And he said, look, it's not personal. I said, of course it's personal.
I'm a person. I just wanted you to know who you're not hiring.
At the end of the meeting, he did hire me. He gave me a raise as a matter of fact, before I even started and I came back and my kids got to see that.
Those are my favorite moments when they get to see their parent, their father is the same way, be resilient, be resourceful. I'm hoping that on my gravestone, my kids will see the words work the problem because that's what I tell them all the time when there's an issue.
Okay. Do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged? And if they say they want to be helped, I say, great, let's work the problem.
I think it's so important. And I remember one of these things also comes to, I think, helping our kids see their failures.
And you were in this interview talking about your 12 year old who at the time was having some confidence issues and some body image issues, which I think whether you're a male or a female, we all go through it. I grew up as a heavyset kid and I can't tell you how much that affected how I viewed the world and looked at myself.
And I loved how you helped your 12-year-old through this. And I was hoping you might be able to share this story.
The fourth barrier that I find really common, and everybody has it, is your inner critic. That voice in your head that is telling you, ready, you don't have all the qualifications.
Maybe you're not good enough. Other people are more qualified for the thing that you want to do.
And in picking my 12 year old up from school one day, and she gets in the car, hi honey, how's school? And she says, I'm stupid. I can't do math.
And oh, by the way, I'm fat. And I was like, yo, that's a lot in one moment.
And when we talked about it, I asked the questions that a lot of people would ask at that point. Would you say that to me? Would you say that to somebody else? No.
Why would you say it to yourself? But we went a step further and I said, okay, if that's not something that you would normally say, then that's not your voice. And a lot of psychology experts, I realized, have advised the same thing where you separate that inner critic from yourself simply

by giving it a name. Just the simple fact, your brain will recognize another name.
So I asked my daughter, what would you want to call that voice? And she said, Jerry. And I said, okay.
So if Jerry were to come up and whisper in your ear, you're dumb, you can't do math. And oh, by the way, you're fat.
What would you say to

Jerry? And she said, I would say, shut up, Jerry. And so if I hear her struggling, doing homework, saying, oh, I can't do this.
I will literally yell for my office. Shut up, Jerry.
Just to take her out of the moment and recognize it's only one thought. It's just a thought.
That's all the power that inner critic has. It's a thought and you can get curious about it and explore it.
But the most important thing, I think, in working with your inner critic is acknowledging it's always going to be there, John. Your inner critic is always going to be alongside you chirping away.
You need to be able to recognize when it's talking and take away its ability to make decisions for you. You can explore the ideas, but your inner critic does not get to be a decision maker.
So I want to take you to a famous athlete. And I think we all have moments in our life, some larger than others, where we have to redefine how we're approaching life.
And the story I want to talk about is Tiger Woods. Here you have a world-class athlete who's on the top of his game, probably at the time the most famous athlete in the entire world, eyes all upon you.
And then suddenly it breaks out about the rift between him and his wife at the time. And I remember talking to Sean Foley, his coach about it.
And Sean was telling me, here, you got a guy who's an athlete, but he knows everywhere he goes, everyone he meets, he knows exactly what they're saying. He knows what they're saying behind his back.
And all of that starts eroding your confidence, getting under your skin, et cetera. Now, I think any of us can face moments like that.
How have you observed those who are elite be able to get over moments like that happen? I think that they are absolutely brilliant with not giving a vote to anyone who shouldn't have a voice. That's a saying from Laura Gassner-Odding, who's a friend of mine and an author.
And I love that phrase because people want to talk behind your back. They want to criticize what you're doing and everything.
They don't get to have a, they shouldn't have a voice in what you're doing. So you don't give them a vote.
I think what I see with the elite athletes, I know what I see with the elite athletes. They're not even thinking about the person criticizing their performance or the way that they're doing because that person isn't going where they're going.
So they're especially astute at blocking out anything from someone who they don't give a vote to. They have very small circles, the elite athletes do, in terms of who gets to have input on what they are doing.
And it is a tiny circle. It's what I would call your front row, the people that you trust to give you feedback.
Everybody else is out of the equation. It reminds me, and I'm glad you brought that up because that's where I was hoping you would take it is I have this philosophy.
I talk about my book called the mosquito audit. And what I'm really encouraging people to do is we have these invisible influences all around us.
Some of them are the closest people we have in our lives, but you've got the invisible suffocators, the pain in the asses, the blood suckers, different types of mosquitoes who might be in your front row and who might be completely negatively influencing everything that you're trying to achieve. So doing what I say is a mosquito audit on a regular basis, I think is extremely important.
How would you respond to that? Absolutely. The front row, by my definition, consists of the people that will push, challenge, uplift, tell you the truth about where you're going.
And the front row maybe doesn't contain your mother or your best friend because they want you to be safe. Okay.
They're the people who want you to be safe. They don't want you to be hurt.
It's a great support system to have, but not necessarily your front row. And you will find once in a while, you let somebody in, you start listening to someone's advice who really doesn't have your best interests or maybe has jealousy or competition.
You pluck them out of your front row and you'll be able to know who's in your front row by this. We always talk about friendship as the person you would go to when things are really bad.
your front row consists of people that you would go to as well when things are great, when something big happens and you want to share it with the world. And you're not going to tell everybody because people might get jealous or brag.
Your front row are the people that you can call and say, this happened and I'm so excited about it. I wanted to share it with you.
And your front row will say, heck yeah. The mosquitoes, the gnats, the people who don't even deserve to be in the room have to be weeded out of that garden.
And to me, the front row is also that group that helps you feel like you matter. They're those people who are bolstering your sense of belonging.
And where I wanted to take this is you do a lot of keynotes into companies where they're dealing with pervasive disengagement. How does this front row equate to a company setting and maybe why so many employees feel disengaged right now? I'm so glad you asked that.
And John, here it is. Nobody's ever asked me that.
So great question, right? We have a very increasingly individual society, right? People working from home, you can order things to your house. You can ask chat GPT for some suggestions.
We're able to be in our own bubble. And it leads to what our Surgeon General has called a loneliness epidemic.
So if you take that into a corporate setting where you are separate, maybe not even working in the same space, you're going to get this kind of isolation. By developing a front row of your trusted advisors people who are challenging themselves they don't

even have to be going the same place you're going they just have to be going somewhere trying to

grow you are able to give significance to them right significance they have a worth and a value for you you hopefully are bringing a worth and a value for them and it reconnects. So when you've got

disengaged employees, it's because they don't have that connection to other people who they believe are also trying to better, trying to engage with themselves, I mean, with each other. When you ask somebody, hey, John, I'm trying to write a book.
I know you've written books and I'm wondering if you would be in my front row,

if I can ask you some questions. When you ask them, and I do use those words, front row, it gives them a place in your life and a connection.
People take it very seriously once you tap them and say, I'm going to need your help with this.

I can't do it alone.

It's remarkable the investment people will have.

With incorporation. Once you tap them and say, I'm going to need your help with this, I can't do it alone.

It's remarkable the investment people will have within corporations, creating those teams,

allowing the best leaders, like Phil Jackson, for example, I think was an excellent coach.

They weave individuality into a powerful group culture by creating systems within that allow for front rows. And I think that's extremely important.
And I don't think a lot of leaders know how to do it. So what would be, if you're a leader and maybe the best example I can give is I remember I went to Lowe's and I got hired into this position where I was

trying to overhaul IT operations and our security function after the company had gone through

the worst security hack in retail history at the time. And if that wasn't daunting enough,

I get called into the head of HR's office my first week. And she tells me that my group has

the lowest employee engagement scores in the entire company, 350,000 employees. But what I quickly came to realize is that the employees, when they were thinking of their front row, their boss was the chief seat in that front row.
And the boss that they had before didn't believe in them, didn't give them autonomy, didn't really entrust them that they wanted their input on anything. And I just found in that situation, the more that I put myself in their shoes and looked at their capabilities from where they sat and allowed them to have a voice into how the organization should look going forward.
It completely changed their willingness to want to invest in me and me reciprocal have the confidence to invest more in them. But I think a lot of people don't know how to do it.
Well, that's brilliant by you. And it's about, again, giving them significance.
So these employees with their former supervisor didn't have really worth, as I'm listening to you, because their ideas weren't valued. And so it's about letting them know, here's some ideas that I have.
I want your individual strengths. You have a different strength than you have, and you have a different strength.
And I want to hear all of it so that we are building upon each other.

The employees have to, or employers have to create a space to be able to have a yes.

And like an improv improvisational attitude where your ideas are welcome. No, no matter how outlandish they are.
Because even though we may not use that idea specifically, it may lead us as a team to something else more innovative. That innovation happens in groups.
Innovation does not happen no matter what people say on chat GPT when you're alone. Innovation happens when you're talking with other people about ideas.
And yes, you can get some help from AI, but the innovation is the back and forth of ideas. And as somebody who has a staff underneath them or people that they are overseeing, you have to welcome their ideas and make it open.
On Emory, one of the last areas I wanted to go into with you is I often talk about the importance of the power of choices in our life, because I think we tend to gravitate towards the bigger choices we make instead of realizing that it's really the micro choices that make up the hours, the moments of our days that influence us the most. And you emphasize in the book that life doesn't happen to you, but for you when you live audaciously.
How can shifting to this perspective empower people to make more intentional choices? So audacity, in my mind, has three components to it. The first is mindset, which really, John, is just about optimism, believing that you're going to be okay no matter what happens.
You will survive that outcome. The second is audacious action.
It's behavior. You have to do something.
You can sit around and be optimistic all the time. When people start to take an action, no matter how small, they take control.
Whether they're saying no to something, whether they are carving out time to look for a mentor, to ask questions. When you combine those two together, the mindset and the action consistently, the optimism that we're going to try this and if it doesn't work out the way I want to, I'm going to survive it.
I'm going to learn something. And here's the action again.
And again, you start to build an audacious identity. When you have an audacious identity, one bold risk leads to another leads to another because you feel a freedom to new things, because you are comforted knowing you'll be able to deal with the outcome.
I think that's the most important place for people to start when they're building an audacious life. Thank you for sharing that.
And I wanted to end on one of the sections from the part three of your book, which is the idea of what is your parachute? Because you explain in here that taking a bold risk is undoubtedly a leap of faith before anyone takes a scary jump out of a plane. They have to have a parachute of plans to mitigate the risks.
How does this idea or metaphor of the parachute play into us living audaciously? It's about all that planning. You talked about preparation earlier, what we were talking about.
That's it. It's not just your front row.
It's making sure that you have the finances set up so that you're not making a reckless risk. That's very important.
It's about going through time as one of the barriers, the urgency fallacy, and listing things that are urgent and things that are important because important leads you closer to your values and visions and making time for what's important instead of getting caught just on urgency. It's about money, which is another barrier, and recognizing that sometimes you're going to have to spend some

money to get some energy back. Maybe have somebody do some things that you don't enjoy doing so that you can continue your audacious dream.
You don't just jump saying, here's what I want to do. And so let's throw caution to the wind.
You have these systems in place along with your front row. So you have checks and balances really, for lack of a better term, to help you stay on the path.
Instead of one reckless swing of the bat, you have many different options in terms of trying again and again as you figure out the best way to get where you want to go. Okay.
And then the last thing I wanted to ask you about was hope. Interestingly enough, the most popular article I've ever written was why the world needs hope.
And in the book, you write hope is not a plan and you're not a big fan of hope. And you say, I've always been annoyed by the question, what is plan B? Like plan A is to write the book, but if that doesn't work out, then plan B is to do what? Hope is not a plan.
If you want to plan, if you want to hope for plan A, but have a plan B in your back pocket, then you might as well skip plan A together. Yeah.
I think so many people put these safety nets in place. And I know I did for a long time.
And the more I thought I had something I could fall back on, the more it was keeping me from pursuing what I truly wanted to do. And I think that's what you're saying here.
Absolutely. That's exactly it.
Look, plan B is easier. It's always easier.
Just keep amending plan A is what I did throughout my career, Just, hey, if this isn't working, I'll make an amendment here or there, but we're always going to default to what's easier. And if here's the problem with plan B, it wasn't what you wanted to do anyway.
It's your second choice. So you're really not going to be that fulfilled doing plan B.
So that's why I keep saying just amend plan A. Ann Marie, it was so wonderful to have you here.
Congratulations on your book, Cultivating Audacity. Highly encourage the listeners to go out and pick up a copy.
Where can people learn more about you? Thanks so much for having me on, John. My website, annmarieanderson.com, will tell you a lot of what you might need, especially if somebody wants to hire me to come speak at a keynote.
The book, Cultivating Audacity, is available wherever you buy your books, Amazon, Target, Barnes & Noble. And you can always find me on Instagram as well, annemarieanderson.tv or cultivating underscore audacity.
Annemarie, thank you so much for joining us and for getting up at way early in the morning to do this. I really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me. I enjoyed talking with you, John.
And that's a wrap. What an incredible conversation with Ann Marie Anderson.
Her insights on cultivating audacity, dismantling doubt, and taking bold risks remind us that courage isn't just about fearlessness. It's about stepping forward even when uncertainty looms.
From the lessons she's learned from covering legendary athletes to the strategy she shares for overcoming rejection and embracing challenges, Anne-Marie has given us a powerful roadmap for living with intention and confidence. As we wrap up today's episode, I invite you to reflect on a few key takeaways.
Where in your life are you playing it safe when you could be taking a bold step forward? How can you reframe rejection as a stepping stone rather than a setback? And what's one action you can take today to cultivate audacity in your own journey? If today's discussion resonated with you, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. It's one of the best ways to support the show and help us bring impactful conversations like this one to even more people.
And if someone in your life could benefit from Anne-Marie's wisdom, share this episode with them because a single conversation can change everything. For all the resources we discussed, including her book, Cultivating Audacity, visit the show notes at passionstark.com.
And if you want to go deeper, be sure to watch the video version of this episode on our YouTube channels, where you'll find more enriching conversations like this one. While you're there, hit subscribe and join our growing community.
Coming up next, I'm joined by Olympic gold medalist and figure skating champion Vincent Joe. Vincent made history as the first person to land a quadruple lutz in the Olympic competition, but his story goes far beyond the ice.
We'll be diving into his journey of resilience, the challenges of elite competition, and how he's using his platform to advocate for mental health, leadership, and clean sport. You won't want to miss it.
I just remember the feeling of stepping on the ice and not knowing what I was doing there. And that's a really scary feeling because when you've been passion struck your whole life and all of a sudden you step into the familiar arena, but you feel nothing, you feel nothing.
It's terrifying. It feels like you question everything.
You don't know what's happening. You don't know why it's happening.
You realize it's probably up here, but you start trying to find physical reasons to turn it around because that's something you can tangibly change in the moment.

But at the end of the day, that's the wrong reason.

So you end up seeding more doubt and more doubt into your mind.

And it's just a negative spiral.

And remember, the fee for the show is simple.

If you found value in today's episode, share it with someone who needs to hear it.

And most importantly, take what you've learned and put it into action.

Because knowledge alone doesn't create change, but action does.

Until next time, live life, passion strap.