How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions

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is that you really care about other human beings.

Your heart is so big,

even though you've been known for this focus mentality

that is just almost psycho in some ways,

but you care deeply about human beings.

And I think that's why so many people love you as well.

So I want to acknowledge you for your kindness and your generosity towards humanity. My first question for you is I'm curious about who was your greatest teacher growing up? Because you had an interesting childhood being in Italy for a while, coming back to Philadelphia, I think it was.
Who was the greatest teacher for you in those early days?'s funny i had a lot of them my parents were were great you know growing up you know they instilled in me the importance of imagination of curiosity and understanding that okay if you want to accomplish something i'm not just going to sit here and say yes you can do whatever you want yes you can but you have to also put in the work to get there. Right.
So they taught me that at a really early age, man. And when you grow up as a kid thinking that the world is your oyster, all things are possible if you put in the work to do it.
You know, you grew up having that fundamental belief. Yeah.
Who was more influential for you, your father or mother? Both were influential at different points. Yeah.
Right. My mom was there on a daily basis.
My father was really influential at a really critical time where I had a summer where I played basketball when I was like 10 or 11 years old in a very prominent summer league in Philadelphia called the Sunny Hill League, where my father played, my uncle played, and they were like all-time greats and stuff. Will Chamberlain played in the league, you know, Earl of Pearl Monroe played in the league.
And here I come playing, and I don't score one point the entire summer. Really? Not one.
How old were you? 11, 10, 11. You're playing against other 10, 11-year-olds? Uh-huh.
You didn't score once. Not one.
Were you in the game? I was in the game. How'd you not score? Because I was terrible.
Really? Yeah. At 10 or 11 years old, you were that terrible.
Awful. I mean, you know, and I had these big knee pads on because I was growing really fast.
I had socks all the way up here. And I had like the high top face.
Skinny, yeah. Like skinny.
And I scored not a free throw, not a nothing. Not a lucky shot, not a breakaway layup.
Zero points. And I remember crying about it and being upset about it.
And my father just gave me a hug and said, listen, whether you score zero or score 60, I'm going to love you no matter what. Wow.
Now that is the most important thing that you can say to a child. Because from there, I was like, okay, it gives me all the confidence in the world to fail.
I have the security there. But with that, I'm scoring 60.
Let's go. Right, right.
And from there, I just went to work. I just stayed with it.
I kept practicing, kept practicing, kept practicing. Is that when you think the mentality of hard work started to come in for you at that age when you failed so miserably, I guess, that summer? I think that's when the idea of understanding a long-term view became important because I wasn't going to catch these kids in a week.
I wasn't going to catch them in a year, right? So that's when I sat down and said, okay, this is going to take some thought. All right, what I want to work on first, all right, shooting, all right, let's knock this out.
Let's focus on this half a year, six months, do nothing but shoot, right? After that, all right, creating your own shot and you focus it. So you start, i started creating a menu of things when i came back the next summer i was a little bit better right i met you being like i've got my jump shot from 15 i've got yeah i got my jump shot from 15 i got my three-point shot like just open shots not miss open shots right and be able to shoot it with speed because those kids are so much more athletic yeah and then the next summer i came back it was a little better the summer came back you scored it was a little better i scored yeah it wasn't much right but i scored this is 12 13 12 13 then 14 came around back half of 13 14 years old and then i was just killing everyone and it happened in two years and i wasn't expecting it to happen in two years but it did because what i had to do was work on the basics and the fundamentals.
Well, they relied on their athleticism and their natural ability. And because I stick to the fundamentals, it just caught up to them.
And then my body, you know, my knees stopped hurting. I grew into my frame.
And then your athleticism, once you have the fundamentals, the hard work, the mindset, and you tack on the athleticism, it's game over. Then it was game over.
What was your routine and ritual like after every game? Would you watch almost every game over or certain games? All of them. Every game you watch? Every game.
The whole game? The whole game. No way.
Yeah. So it started with me when Phil Jackson's first year here with the Lakers.
One of the assistant coaches, his name was Tex Winter and I call him Yoda I mean he was like 82 when he got Wow and he was responsible for teaching me the triangle offense how were you then I was 21 so three years four years in the league yeah so my about my fourth year okay and so I go up to his room and this is when you're there are no iPads anything like that right? So when you're on the road, you have to call down to the front desk and have to bring up the TV with the rolly thing and the VHS and the cassette tape and pop it in and I thought we were going to watch what we call touches. So watch all your touches when you have the ball, all the decisions you make, good ones and bad.
No, watching the start of the game oh my to the end of the game and not like not like the tv feed we're watching the in arena feed the layup line the timeouts oh my gosh yeah rewinding stopping fast forward rewinding slow motion every little thing every game of that season with the 82 year old yoda oh my gosh who is as brutally honest as you can get what did that teach you that season oh it taught me to look at detail right look at things things that they're smallest right look at body language you know um look at the energy between players our team and the other team wow right look at the tactics you know look at the overall strategy and to look at how tactically things are manifesting themselves and because i watch so much film then it gave me the ability to see game in real time as if i was watching film wow or i can see pop pop pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Because a lot of times the game starts moving really fast.
But if you train yourself to watch hours and hours of film, the game's not moving that fast anymore. You can really recognize who's doing what and why.
Then you can position guys in the right places in real time. Seeing it before it happens.
Yes. Yeah.
You know, in football, we'd watch it once a week, game film, but not, you know, after every every game it was only one game a week you got like three three weeks sometimes yeah you gotta you gotta go i don't know i know tom brady's obsessive over game film as well i mean watching his show uh that came out tom versus time was all about him just in there studying even months after the game he's studying to prepare right it's just like he's not stop and that's that's one of the keys you think it's like if you're not watching film whether it be as a speaker on stage or a performer and a musician if you're not watching yourself back you gotta learn man i mean beyonce is same same thing really after a performance she's immediately on her laptop re-watching the performance. No way.
Yes. Seeing how to do things better.
What could we have done differently? Right? I mean, it's just, it's an obsessiveness that comes along with it. You want things to be as perfect as they can be.
Understanding that nothing is ever perfect. But the challenge is try to get them as perfect as they can be.
And what can you do? It's in your control. So control what you can.
I can watch film all day long. It's going to help me.
Get better. Yes.
Now, did you have your teammates also follow on this obsessiveness that you had as well? Or did you just encourage them? Or what was the? No, you can't push somebody to do that. But what you can do is alter behavior and also change the vernacular of how they speak about the game so on team buses team planes in a locker room after practice i would look at the film i'd pull powell lamar d fish pull him aside and say let's look at this right we probably should have done this that and the other so you'll show them the game from a little bit here and there and then you speak to them in executional terms it's never come on guys we can do better come on guys we can do better that's rah rah stuff right leader must give very tactical you know things that we can do adjustments okay the defense is doing this that and the other that means we should probably do this this this that and the otherway through the season, through that behavior, you start seeing them communicating the same way back to you, right? And it's like, okay, Cole, they're doing this, that, and the other to you.
Maybe we should do this, that, and the other. You're like, okay, yeah, awesome, great, let's do it.
Yeah, yeah. What about season 16, 17, 18? Are you still watching every game film as obsessively as the first 10 years? Not now, no.
Well, when I were playing yeah so when i was playing what i would do is is um study the film but study our younger players and see what areas do they need to develop in and how can i help them develop i mean that was the big challenge is you move from you know being the single dominant player to understanding okay i have to help these other guys how do i lift everyone else up it's tough what i mean you were so dominant in your whole career one of the greatest of all time was there a weakness that you had or did you because obviously you're always trying to master your weaknesses so they came strengths but at the end or towards the end did you ever feel like gosh i still haven't like mastered this one part of the game the challenge for me was always compassion and empathy because you're like guys let's go get results shut up don't complain right i want to hear your whining i don't want to hear it no excuses don't tell me how rough the water is just bring the boat in you know i like i don't i don't want to hear it you know and it's uh it's funny it's understanding like okay these guys have lives right outside of here they have other things have other things happening to them that may be affecting the way that they're practicing or the way that they're performing right and it was hard for me to understand that because nothing nothing bothered me you know anything personally that never fazed me when i'm compartmentalized it Very well. So I couldn't understand how my teammates couldn't do that either until I, you know, so I had to really work on that aspect of it.
That's hard. Yeah.
Do you feel like you never really had the compassion you wish you would have had? Like until the last maybe couple of years? Yeah. So I think about 09 things started changing for me.
I started really making a conscious effort to better understand. And that doesn't mean you have compassion and empathy, so you go soft on them.
It's more like you put yourself to the side, and you put yourself in their shoes and understand what they're feeling. And then you have to make certain decisions of, okay, what buttons do I need to push for this player to get them to the next level? So it's never, it's not sit around and it's all happy-go-lucky type of thing.
If you're a leader, your job is to get the best out of them, even if they may not like it at that time. Yeah, wow.
What are you most proud of from your 20 seasons? Honestly, it sounds, may sound a little shallow, but I got to say beating the Celtics in game seven. That's what I'm most proud of.
Why? Because it was the hardest. You know, you're playing with Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett.
All-Stars. Ray Allen.
And, you know, there's myself, Powell, and players that other teams didn't want. And, you know, how do we figure out as a group what to do? And the reason why I love that series so much is that we went down three games to two against Boston.

And now you got two games coming home.

I remember sitting in the locker room

and they beat the crap out of us too that game.

So we're sitting in the locker room

and it's really, really quiet.

I'm sitting there looking around

and we just lost the Celtics in 08.

So this is like revenge, right?

And they're kicking our butt again, right?

So I sit around and I just started laughing.

I just started laughing.

And then I remember Derrick Fisher looked at me like,

Thank you. lost the celtics in 08 so this is like revenge right and they're kicking our butt again right so i sit around i just started laughing i started laughing and then i remember uh derrick fisher looked at me like and lamar looked at me he goes what what is funny i said dude they beat the crap they just beat the crap and say i'm missing the part where that's funny i said man listen if you start this season and they say you know all you have to do is win two games at home and you're NBA champ, would you take that? Yeah.
Right. That's all we got to do.
Yeah. Go home, win two.
We're NBA champions. All you got to do is win two games in a row.
That's it. We'll take care of the first game.
And I promise you, you're not winning game seven on our home floor. It's not happening.
So we all just laughed

about it and then we

went out and we figured

it out but that game

seven was we're down

15 points in the fourth

quarter.

Right.

And that's when you have

to collectively look at

each other and say you

know the spirit of your

team must be good.

Because at that moment

is when teams fracture.

If the energy amongst

each other isn't there

that trust isn't there

you're done.

And we were able to

collectively dig deep

together and say all

We're going to go. is when teams fracture.
If the energy amongst each other isn't there, that trust isn't there,

you're done.

And we were able to collectively

dig deep together

and say,

all right,

we're going to figure

this thing out.

Wow.

And I wasn't playing well.

I wasn't shooting

the ball well at all.

And so my teammates

picked you up

and they delivered.

Yes.

Wow.

What do you think

the biggest challenge

is for most athletes

after they retire?

I think it's the fear of starting anew. And that was certainly present for me as well.
Really? Yeah. Like identity, you mean? Well, it's starting from scratch, right? Because when you play for 20 years, I play for 20 years, you reach a certain level.
You're like, okay, wait a minute. I have to start again at the base of a mountain and try to climb the top of this mountain.
First of all, what mountain am I climbing? I don't even know what the am I going to be doing. It's very scary.
It's very scary. Even for you? Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely. And the thing that helped me actually was hurting my Achilles because that forced me to sit there and say, okay, the day could be today that your career is over.
At any time when were playing you mean yeah now what do you do you have these ideas about doing something with your life after basketball but what if today is the day that you that's it now what do you do so i had all this time sitting there with my achilles injury and contemplating and thinking and i said i better to get to work. Wow.
That was that. What was the vision for you afterwards then?

Was it to do what you're doing now? Did you have other ideas or what is, what's the vision? I struggled with it at first. Cause the first question I asked, which is the wrong question is what's the biggest industry I can get into? Was it more money thinking or? Money thinking saying, okay, athletes are saying you can't make more revenue when you retire this is your source of your income is here saying okay that's a challenge what can i do and i remember just going didn't you launch a fund or something i did i did and so i started i went for a ride and i said okay stop thinking of it that way you're thinking of it the wrong way why'd you start playing basketball because i loved it all right what do you love to do.
Oh, I love to thinking of it that way. You're thinking of it the wrong way.
Why did you start playing basketball? Because I loved it.

All right, what do you love to do?

Oh, I love to tell stories.

All right, let's do that.

And then that's where it started for me.

And then on top of that, it became things like,

you know, you start learning more about the financial industry

and about players going broke once they retire.

And saying, okay, how can I,

how can I minimize the chances of that happening? What are things that I can do, uh, to invest my money smartly also help control some of that outcome to a certain extent. Right.
And that's when I, uh, called Mike Rapoli. Mike Rapoli was an entrepreneur who built vitamin water, pirates boot and some other companies and started learning from them.
Storytelling is something you're really passionate about. What's a story over your life that's been a constant theme that you go back to? Is there something you heard as a kid that really resonates with you, or a book, or a movie that just feels like, this is me? Yeah, that's funny.
Movies, there are plenty. But there's a quote from one of my English teachers at La Merion named Mr.
Fisk.

He had a great quote that said, rest at the end, not in the middle.

I'm not going to rest.

I'm going to keep on pushing now.

There are a lot of answers that I don't have, even questions that I don't have.

But I'm just going to keep going.

I'm just going to keep going, and I'll figure these things out as you go.

Right?

And you just continue to build that way. Rest at the end.
Rest at the end. What's the question that eats you alive the most that you haven't answered yet? The question that eats me alive that I haven't answered yet.
You're still looking for the answer. I'm still looking for the answer.
How to tell a good story. I don't think anybody has that answer.
You know, like when I sat down to write Deer Basketball, I was like, okay, what do I want to say? And you have certain acts in how you can structure certain things, right? The ebbs and flows of story. Certain formulas that have been there since the beginning of time.
But it's such an exact situation. exact so challenging yeah right and so that one question

is really interesting why do you want to tell a great story i think stories is what moves the world whether it's an inspirational story it's an informational one nothing in this world moves without story.

Why do you think so many people struggle with self-confidence and self-belief today? Is it social media, outside influences? Is it people just don't think they're good enough? How come you were able to drink the Kool-Aid and stay in that environment and not let outside forces creep in? Yeah, I think that's important. And I think there's a difference between having self-belief at your core and having situational moments where you don't feel good about it, right? There's a hundred times more that I've walked on the court and just didn't feel great.
You know, like, I don't know if I can do this, right? So that's different than ultimately deep down knowing I have what it takes to do it. So those are two different right so I would say yeah there have been plenty of times I was like you know oh my god but at the end I always felt like I was worthy and that I deserved it and um and that's purely my background it was purely my parents who just gave us that from the very beginning like there was nothing else I ever heard since I could remember.
So I was very fortunate in that sense. And I think as an adult, I've definitely faced some moments where I have felt like, I don't know if I belong here.
Really? Yeah, that felt. Like what situations do you mean? I guess they call it imposter syndrome.
Really? Yeah, so I've had different moments. I'm working with a new AI company.
It's with interior design. I'm thinking, should I really be here? I mean, I have a background in interior design.
And then I had to fundraise for the first time. This was a nightmare for me.
And oh my God, like the anxiety and the issues going, it was horrible. And that's the moment where I understood imposter syndrome.
So I went through my whole life of like, pretty much feeling like, you know, king of the court. And then I get there and have to raise money.
I'm like, I don't want to be here. I'm so afraid.
What's happening? So I think that was a great experience for me. And I think that I saw it for what it was.
And I knew I had to push through, but it was extraordinarily uncomfortable. It was awful.
What was so uncomfortable about it? Was it doing something you'd never done before, like getting out of your comfort zone and asking to raise money for something that maybe you're new at? Is that what it was? Exactly. My parents are, once again, back to them.
My mom said, never ask for anything. So just for me to have to ask, like, you know, we're raising money.
We need you to give us this. Oh, no, I have to ask for money.
This is out of my DNA. I don't ask for anything.
I'm used to be able to do everything for myself. Also, just a pitch, like in AI.
I'm anything about ai i had to learn new term what am i doing here um just in general i think on the second call i um the person i was pitching with they fell off so they asked me okay yeah what are next steps in the timeline and i'm all by myself and and you have to say something, you know? And so those kinds of things happen and you're completely unprepared and it's like, how do you deal with it? But I absolutely think that my experience in sport helped me to deal with that kind of dealing with ambiguity. It's just, it's not easy, but sometimes you don't know what's going to happen when you walk on the court, but you have to deal with it.

So I think that helped.

But by no means, it was a tough situation.

Do I ever want to fundraise again? Absolutely not. I hope I don't have to.
It's not a place I'd like to be, but it was good to be very humbled. Yeah.
Wow. What do you think was the greatest skill that you developed in your training on the court and as an athlete that you're able to translate into these moments of raising money for a business? Say you've always wanted to have a backyard oasis.
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Talk to qualified candidates tomorrow. Well, I mean, it's hard to pick one, right? I'm a workhorse.
I don't mind working day and night. I'll work all day, work all night, and start over again, repeat.
I think that lack of fear of laying it on the line, blood, sweat, tears, leave your heart out there, walk off on a stretch or not even walk off, be carried off on a stretcher. So, you know, that kind of thing, not being afraid of hard work.
I think a lot of people are afraid of that level of intensity, but that's honestly what it takes to succeed. The people who are succeeding, a lot of times you see folks when they get to the finish line, the trophies up, right? They played a beautiful match or created an unbelievable business.
Now you see them and they're at billions. You never heard of them before.
You didn't see them the 10 or 15 years that they put it. You didn't see their failures beforehand.
No one sees, you know, the injuries that you have around the court when you just can't get it right and the frustration and the back and forth and the losses. So all of those things really teach you all the lessons you need in life.
And the failures too, the failures that you have to get back up and you still have to believe in yourself just as much. And if you don't, still pretend at least that you do.
Sometimes just faking it is enough. Sometimes you don't know how you're going to get there.
And I think being okay with not knowing, but knowing that there is a point A to point B and you got to get to point B and it's okay not to exactly know, but you know, you're, you know, you're swimming through the water, you're climbing the mountain, whatever you face, you have to do it on your terms. Wow.
Have you ever been afraid of failure or have you just been confident? Really? For sure. For sure.
Um, everyone is, um, but you can't, you can't let it stop you but i've always said fear is the devil and also you have to think about the decisions you would make if you weren't afraid you know like if i wasn't afraid what shot would i actually go for you know what would i try what what would i give up also if i weren't afraid a lot of times not it's not even about going forward. Actually, what would you leave behind? Interesting.
A lot of times we hang on to stuff that's just holding us back. And also if you aren't afraid, then you can actually look at yourself.
I think sports teaches you self-awareness and I have a real thing for not being self-aware and being around people who aren't self-aware bothers the heck out of me. If you're not self-aware, if you do not tell yourself the truth, you will not win.
Wow. That's what it's about winning and being honest with yourself.
What's the thing, speaking of holding on to things, what's the thing that you in your life held on to for the longest period that once you let go of it, allowed you to step up in a greater way as an athlete or a human or, you know, in business? What was that thing? This is going to sound weird, but I'm a person who's always involved in the arts. and when you are buying art for me I buy or look at art that I love because it makes me happy and I find it beautiful there is no category I don't buy just this or that and so over the years when you look back you're like I should have gotten that piece I thought about it or I should have invested in this artist and it's about buying work that you love and you get to live with right? And so I would walk through art fairs and everywhere you looked was someone else that I just didn't get that has like blown up now.
And I think finally once I let it go, I let it go. I felt such peace, you know, just like such peace of like, it's fine.
That was hard. And I know that's a weird answer.
So the letting go of the letting go of, oh, I should have invested in this, I should have taken this action and beating yourself up, you let that part of you go for that. I had to let that go.
And now I'm free. So that's good.
That's good. I know you weren't expecting that answer.
But no, whatever's on your heart and mind. What do you think? Regret.
What do you think has been the emotion that you held on to for too long in your life that when you let go allowed you to be a better human being, a better athlete, a better person in your family? I don't hold on to emotions. Really? No.
Or beliefs don't know i don't i don't hold on to things i think that's one of my strengths that i can i do let go outside of that art thing um but you things happen as they happen i think i would hold on to things if i was continuing to make the same mistakes over and over. But I'm human.
I make mistakes. Sometimes I make a decision that could have been better, but I learn from it immediately.
I set responsibility for it and I move on. And I think that's all you can do, right? So you can't hold on to stuff.
Unless you have a time machine and you can go backwards. But otherwise, there's no point you say, you know, your, your parents, obviously, I think a lot of people know about your parents making a big impact in your life.
You speak about them a lot. Um, what would you say was the greatest lesson that each of your parents taught you growing up that you still hold on to today and implement today in your life? Yeah.
You know what? Um, that's there's there were so many lessons. You have to understand everything was a lesson.
Even watching a cartoon was a lesson. Like there was nothing that wasn't a lesson.
So I'm so grateful for that. And as I've, you know, had time to spend around my nieces, I just feel like I've just totally failed because I've made I feel like I haven't made anything a lesson yet.
Like, I got to bring my parents' energy to this. But I think one of the biggest gifts my parents gave me was spirituality.
It's so important to have something to believe in. It's so important to have hope.
The world's a beautiful place, but it's a tough place too. And if you don't have the belief in values, you will do anything and then you'll get anything.
If you don't have hope, it's going to be hard to get through this world where so many things happen. And it's not even to you, but to other people that you hear about that's so disheartening.
So all that is very grounding. And I think it helps you to let go of stuff.
It helps you to play better in your game. It helps you to realize, like, I'm going to give my everything to this.
And if I fail, that's fine. I have something bigger and better that's backing me up.
And I think it just lets you be happy. So to me, that's the biggest gift that they gave me.
I'm just like my mom, though. My family jokes, transformation complete.
We're exactly the same. And I'm proud of that.
I love being just like her, but we have our weaknesses. We definitely have weaknesses.
What is your weakness that you think you could improve on? Zero patience. It's bad.
I can't always read the room as well as I like it. My emotional intelligence is as high as I'd like it to be.
And's not something I can fix you're born how you are and I just tell people I'm empathetic but I don't always pick out about it just tell me I'll be there just may not know so you gotta you gotta let me in some some things and I think once I became aware of it because during COVID I had a friend stay with me and like the friend came and like ate all the food, drank all the drinks, didn't get groceries. So I'm like buying food, buying drink, buying groceries.
And I think it was everything, you know, because we just we thought it was going to be a few weeks and it lasted months. Right.
It was a fun experience, but I had to learn how impatient I was. And also the standard I hold for myself is so high, but because of the standard my parents held, like we weren't even allowed to walk slow.
My dad would say a slow walker, slow thinker, you can't walk slow. So everything was fast, quick.
So I learned to do things so quickly, so fast, so efficient that then, you know, someone else is in your house and you see that they're moving so slow. Like this can be done in a minute.
Like, what are you doing? And, you know, my house is someone else's. I didn't, I never complained about it, but it was like, buy some groceries.
Like you can't just eat all the food. So I learned a lot about myself and I realized that I needed to work on my EQ.
And then I realized that some people had more of it and others don't. So I always, my family helps me understand things and situations.
They're like my crutch. Are you, do you feel like you're just overly generous and not, you're not thinking, oh, is this person just taking advantage or just maybe they weren't thinking about contributing? No, not even that.
But like I, once I was at a party and I was talking to some friends and then one of my friends came over. And when she left, everyone said, what's wrong with her? She seemed horribly sad and I never saw it.
And so I said, wait, let me go check on her. So those are things like I will never see.
And it's not because I don't want to. It just goes over my head.
So those kinds of things I've seen, I can't improve on. That's why I tell people I care about.
It's like, I have this, you know, this thing that it doesn't work as well as others. So just tell me everything.
Sure. I'm curious about your, you know, your mindset, you know, again, with someone like yourself, who's accomplished so much at the highest level in the world of what you do,

can you break down a little bit on how you think before entering a big moment in your life, in your sport, or in the business you're building? Is there a process that you think about when you're going to enter the arena of whatever you're working on? is there a mantra a process do you visualize

something do you

release something? Can you just walk through a little bit about that process? I think the process changes depending on the moment you are in life, right? I think you have these moments as an athlete or in business or in life where you're on top of the world, you can do nothing wrong, everything's golden. Then you're like you're in a world you're on you're in a flow right and then you have other moments where it's not great and so you have to be more uh cognizant of of that process be super self-aware and really extract out what's what what you're feeling and figure out what part's real and what isn't because we can get the feels right and you have to distract like what's what is just a feeling and what is the what is the issue and I do that by journaling really start writing what I'm feeling and then once I start writing down all the things I'm feeling that I'm able to recognize this is actually the one thing that's real is issue the rest is just a bunch of other stuff that's just floating in my head and I can get rid of the fluff and then focus on the real thing that's bothering me.
I think also a lot of being about being your best is just preparation. You cannot be great without the preparation and you can't feel good about what you're doing unless you've done the work.
So the greats are doing the work. They're putting in the work day in, day out.
If you're in finance, you're up all night reading, whatever that is that it takes to do that, being on top of your industry, thinking, literally just sitting and thinking and meditating about what you like to accomplish. And it's the same in sport too.
You sit and you meditate about what you'd like to accomplish. So being great is intentional.
And then when you're in a bad place, also getting out of it is also intentional, too. But it's just realizing where you are and applying what you need to succeed no matter where you are.
And I think when you're in a bad place, you just have to realize that a lot of it is also mental, too can just what I try to tell myself is that this moment I'm anticipating what might happen that could be bad but anticipation is just that it's not even real right what if something great happened what if something amazing could happen what if I could that happen? And it's like changing your thought around things is so powerful. And it's not easy.
And you have to constantly work on it. But if you put in the work, your mind will change.
It's like anything else. If you go to the gym and do those biceps for six weeks, you're going to see some improvement.
So if you flex your mind in a different way, instead of saying I can't for six weeks, if you say I can for six weeks, your mind goes on a completely different pathway. And it's so powerful and so true.
And it's not easy. And you have to continually do it.
Once you do it just once, it doesn't just stick. You just have to keep training your mind.
And I think sometimes people forget that part, that training your mind is so important. If you want to be strong mentally, train to be strong mentally.
Ooh, I love that. How do you train to stay strong mentally, personally? Yeah, for sure.
First is preparation, right? Doing the preparation. That's ground zero.
Doing the work, part of the reps. Putting in the work whatever that may be you have to you have to put in the work so if you don't do that you're never going to be great you're never going to be mentally strong whatever it is you'd like to achieve once you've put in the work then you realize what you're good at what you're not i mean me personally i think there's probably a lot of people who are smarter who are going to get that 1600 on the SAT.
I'm probably not going to get the 1600. But my strength is that, you know, I'm extremely logical.
And, you know, I notice patterns. I'm very quick in those sorts of things.
So then I have to set myself up in a way that plays in my strengths. Not everyone's going to have the same strength.
Everyone's going to be good at everything. But once you've done your work and you see your strengths, then you've got to figure out a way to play to that.
And then always, of course, work on your weaknesses over time. And those at some point can come up, too, until you're like this complete player, you know, ready player one.
So it's just, yeah, it's like, let's play this game to win. If we're going to play, let's win or else there's no need to play.
Absolutely. I think a lot of people want to win at whatever game they're playing in life or their career or their business or their sport.
They, they want to be more successful. They want to win.
And it seems like more than ever, uh, society, at least in America, American society, it seems like everyone,

or lots of people want to become more famous, wealthy, and successful. And the more people I interview and ask about this who have fame, wealth, and success, they talk about the pressures that come with that.
Can you share a little bit about how you were, did you feel like you were mentally and emotionally prepared when you became, you know, a world icon

in your sport and you started to gain popularity, fame, success, money? Did you feel you were

mentally and emotionally prepared or was that a challenge or was it, was it a lot of pressure at

first? I think I was aware of the pressure. I started really young.
My first pro match was

Thank you. or was that a challenge or was it a lot of pressure at first? I think I was aware of the pressure.
I started really young. My first pro match was 14.
So a lot of it, though, the youth and the inexperience is in some way a protection. You just don't really, really get it.
You don't now, yeah. But also it can go the other way too and I think there were some matches where I I felt pressure to perform up to maybe what I was supposed to be like this hype but at the end of the day I failed sometimes and then the failure was a lesson and I learned from it and so that was like you, even though I failed, it was still a step up.
Yeah. It wasn't a step down because I learned something and I got more determined.
So I think that a lot of what people want today is based on what they think other people have in social media. I think that's a lot of pressure for young people to be successful immediately.
No one's successful that young. I was successful young, but I started playing tennis at four and I put in a decade before I even went pro.
So yes, it was young, but there was millions of hours of work that happened before that happened nothing happens that fast and really the process is the most joy I find right when you when you can't figure something out or you do figure it once you figure it out and you've put in the work and you find the right process and you're able to repeat that process over and over and over again the sense sense of pride and accomplishment that you get, not from the success, but the work you put in to get there. That's where the happiness comes from.
Wow. And I think there might be a generation now that doesn't understand that, that there's so much pride in your work.
Like what you do work is a part of your happiness. You don't want to circumvent that.
That's a part of who you are, that accomplishment, accomplishing things gives you confidence and happiness. And so if you are empty or because you haven't, you skipped that process, then it's something to look at.
Wow. Did you ever feel like you got punished after a loss? No, nothing was worse than the punishment that I felt like internally, you know, that my expectation of myself.
And I think that's a good thing and a bad thing. You got to temper it, right? Sometimes your expectations can be, you can be so hard on yourself that you never pat yourself on the back enough, but some people aren't hard enough on themselves.
And so so then they never make it you got to find the middle the middle ground of like being hard but also like recognizing the things you accomplish too yeah and not holding on to it for like days or weeks of of you know a loss yeah that's easier said than done like we hold on to our losses whether we realize it or not And you just have to think about this a new day,

like it's a new possibility. And that's not easy.
Absolutely. The younger generation might have today or the confusion around how to build confidence.
Can you share, and I think this speaks into building a confident identity. Can you share your passion for really starting to shift the conversation from appearance to capability and in your own personal journey, given the insights in this issue.
It's so important that does this matter what you look like? It matters what's inside of you that you can get out to live the life that you want to live and figuring out what that life is and that having other people's approval or none of those things really matter for you know it doesn't help you get out of bed you know the research has shown that about 45 percent of girls globally quit sports by the age of 14 and that's due to low body confidence and when i think about what if that happened me, I turned pro at 14. What if I had stopped sports at age 14 because I'm good about myself? I mean, this is literally my life.
I got to play sports and change my life. And through that, that was never my plan.
I just wanted to win Wimbledon, change other people's lives. Just by doing

something positive for yourself, you never know what impact you're going to have on not only

yourself, but the world. I had no idea that was going to happen.
I just wanted to lift the trophy.

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You love a good deal? Get in your bag and get to DeeDee's Discounts. how did you learn to build confidence during a time of maybe not feeling that confident growing up? Gosh, I think that's, you know, I think that's the thing is that you don't get confidence by thinking about having confidence, you know, you get confidence by action by action and I never had confidence before I started wrestling and I think that's why I was always trying to fit in or with the with the kids that were drinking and that would make me cool and then I'd be smoking and it would take the edge off from the self-consciousness and everything

that was going on at home at the time and uh and then when I was 15 and I just failed PE I was getting ready for my junior cert which is I'm not sure what the equivalent is over here but it's your when you're 15 you're doing these exams in school that at the time they make it seem like if you fail these your life is over really but yeah all the pressure that they put on you in school this will determine the rest of your life exactly where you go to school and college and everything else and that's how and that's what what i felt like and at the time even though i was a little degenerate and i i wasn't doing good in school and I was drinking and I was smoking, I was doing everything that I shouldn't be doing. Like I still had ambition.
I still wanted to do something good in my life. I still wanted to be a lawyer or something productive in society.
And I realized on one random Monday when I wanted a beer that at 15, that needed to turn my life around I needed to do something different that I couldn't I couldn't keep going down this pathway of failing PE and just not applying myself to anything and so I started looking up like different kickboxing things because gyms weren't a thing in Ireland back then. There was like two or something, you know.
There was this big gym, but it was too preppy. It was too preppy and I was an alternative kid, you know, the ones with the black lipstick and the dog collars and all that kind of stuff.
And so, you know, going to a gym just seemed too mainstream for me, too Jane Fonda for me. And so then one day I go into the computer room, because in 2002, everybody had a computer room.
And my brother's looking up this website, and it was called Hammerlock, and it was this wrestling school over in the UK. And I was like, what are you doing there? And he was he was like well I was thinking about training as a wrestler instantly I had this jealousy this feeling of I need to do that and I was like are you going to go over there and he was like yeah yeah yeah and I was like there's no way there's no way my mom is going to let me go over to the UK to train.

I'm 15.

I'm also a degenerate.

Like she's aware.

She's aware that I'm going off the rails.

And then the promoter there wrote back to him to let him know that there was two Irish lads that were going to be opening a school like an hour away from us on the train.

And so that's how I found out about it.

And he told me that. And I was like, oh, I want to go too want to go too he was like no you're not going you have to be 16 and i was like a lie and he was like no i don't want to have to look after my little sister i was like you won't have to lying and uh and and i went down there and uh and i started and that was it of a sudden, for the first time in my life, I wanted to apply myself to something.
I wanted to get better at something. I saw progress in each training session and that built confidence.
Because not only was I applying myself and getting

better at something and seeing results but I also now had this community and I think there there and and there was also this feeling of like and I'm different which I you know I always felt a little different you know I wasn't wasn't cool kid even though I tried to be but but but but now I had this confidence in my

difference felt a little different, you know, I wasn't, wasn't a cool kid, even though I tried to be. But, but, but, but now I had this confidence in my difference, you know, and I was the only girl there too.
I was the only girl in a group of lads and I was hanging with them or maybe not, but I was, I was there. I felt like I was.
And so that gave me confidence that I could do this and I could set myself apart and there was something more to me. And then I just continued on there.
I never thought, or not that I never thought, maybe I had like this suppressed dream, but I still thought I was going to be a lawyer and do something realistic. Really? Until I was like 17.
And it was the first time I had played the heel role, the bad guy role. And I was teaming with my brother.
And when you're a heel, when you're the bad, you can do no wrong. Because you can just have fun.
You can taunt the crowd. You can be an idiot.
That's your job. Yes.
There's such freedom in that. There's such freedom in that.
And I came back and I was like, this is what I need to do. This is what I'm meant to do.
This is what I'm going to do. At 17? At 17.
And then by 18, dropped out of college, moved over to Canada, wrestled around Canada, around America, around Japan, around Europe. My visa ran out from Canada.
I had to move back in with my mom. And my mom, God bless her, like she's only ever wanted the best for me.
And the best in her eyes was not being a wrestler, especially back then, because what I wanted, what I visualized for myself was me being seen on par as The Rock, as Stone Cold Sea Boston, as Mick Foley, as all these lads that I looked up to. But if you watched TV and you watched how the women were booked, there was lots of brown panties matches.
There was mud wrestling matches. That wasn't anything anything i wanted to do that was certainly nothing my mother wanted me to do and uh and so there was an opportunity for women to really be stars back then not when you started not in the way that i wanted to be not in the way that i wanted to be and so so i started looking at uh the women's promotions in Japan and then I went over there and I wrestled in Japan and uh I got assigned to this advertising agency over there and they wanted to promote me as this big time wrestler but then when I came home and I had to live with my mom again she's gone what's your plan what's your plan what's your plan what's your plan because she always wanted to plan but with wrestling and i suppose any artistic endeavor i genuinely think wrestling

is an artistic endeavor and you can't necessarily plan that why not why can't you plan it You can have a rough plan, but so much is out of your control, you know?

You can have a rough plan, but so much is out of your control. You can work towards what you want.
You can't decide when you're going to get on somebody's radar, what they're going to be looking for. I think it's the same same with, say for example, an actor, an actor can do the best audition of their life, but they might have brown hair and the person is looking for blonde hair.
And so they see this great audition, but that's not what they were looking for on that day. And so I started to believe that if I looked a certain way that that would give me that that was my plan that that is how i would get there because all these women looked like figure competitors and they were beautiful models and you know it was just a regular average looking girl with with a bit of a pair of biceps on me and decent set of shoulders.
But like at the time, you know, there was there was enhancements that were standardly involved in the hiring process. And I didn't have them, nor did I want to get them.
And so I thought, well, if I have abs and if I'm ripped, then if I look in this way, then they'll want me. And so I kind of compare it to the Survivor song, On the Eye of the Tiger, and you change your passion for glory.
Because then my focus shifted from just how i looked and how that would make if i change how i am to make them want me as opposed to being true to myself interesting how long and then yeah wanting wanting you for who you are for who i am so how long did you transform into someone you think they would want how long was that process for well it didn't last very long because i completely destroyed myself so i started i i i started bodybuilding then i like was like oh let me sign up for this bodybuilding competition and if i can do well in this bodybuilding competition then they'll see see that. Just the logic that goes through my head.
They'll see that. And then they'll be like, oh, yeah, let's sign her.
Like she'll be on a magazine or something and we'll sign her that way. Interesting.
How old were you then? 19. Okay.
I was 19 then. And I mean, maybe it would have worked if I committed to it.
But anyway, the point was I didn didn't know what I was doing. I was with this lad who had never trained a girl before.
He was a bodybuilder himself, but he was a giant man. And a giant, giant man.
And who had done many competitions. And he was training me and then my diet was all over the place.
And then he put me onto this other guy who gave me this other diet, which I just became amazes and I was trying to wrestle around Japan and all this stuff my body was just hurting but like I was loving how I looked in the mirror because I had these abs and I was like disciplined and my focus was what I was going to eat and how I was going to train and like I had this then sense of ego like like look at how disciplined I can be I am so much better than everybody because I have this discipline but ultimately I was like dying on the inside because I had no energy my moods were all over the place I was like leering at cookbooks of what I was going to eat when when when this diet finished and uh and and and and ultimately I I ended up not being able to make it past 10 weeks of this diet there was two more weeks till the competition I just the guy who was trying to me suggested a cheat meal and that was it then I just went completely off the rails and couldn't get back on and then that that that then became an unhealthy relationship with food for years really years and years and years completely destroyed uh how i looked at myself and everything like that and how i valued myself and how did you value yourself then? On how I looked. From somebody who had gone from valuing myself on my substance and what I brought to the table in terms of wrestling and my craft, I was then just now, I just conforming to what I thought thought they wanted and what society wanted but by then then I was like I don't even know if I want to wrestle anymore maybe that dream is over it's time to be realistic and get a real job then I ended up being a flight attendant and uh so you were wrestling you were pursuing professional wrestling I guess at the time yeah then you quit to be a flight attendant then well then I was like well then I then I started thinking like oh well maybe I'll be a fitness model because that'll be easy on my body and but I couldn't maintain it because I was so hungry I just loved eating like I loved eating so much and but and so then that that then I became bulimic and all of these things and and it was really just just going from being somebody who cared about about their mind who who thought their mind was powerful to just thinking that I was a set of abs and a pair of arms, you know?

And that was where I put my focus.

It took a long time to shake that.

How old were you when you shook it?

35.

Wow.

No, no, no, not quite.

But, like, I think it was a process.

It was a process.

It was a process.

Because I was a flight attendant,

hated it,

but was still trying.

I then did the bodybuilding competition.

I came third, by the way.

Wow.

Out of four.

Four entries.

Yeah, yeah.

It sounded impressive.

So,

I did the bodybuilding competition.

It was like standing up on stage

Thank you. four entries yeah yeah it sounded impressive so I did the bodybuilding competition was like standing up on stage oh my goodness I'm so glad they just everybody didn't have an iPhone back then but I did that and I was just like why am I standing in my underwear showing people my muscles like this isn't this doesn't feel like me you know because for some people for some bodybuilders it's such an artistic thing they are sculpting their body they are they love it they love the discipline of it but for me it was it was some sort of a means to an end some sort of way for me to be validated by society or something that that and it just didn't feel authentic and and and true to me it just felt like I was yeah I was just trying to be something that I wasn't it was just consumed by by my body will be my vessel too wow but if it looks a certain way then then i'll be successful and whatever and then i i i then i started to realize that like the part of wrestling that i loved it wasn't just the training it was the performance i loved the performance i loved the crowd i loved the creativity i loved the storytelling and i think throughout my whole life i found that storytelling is what draws me more than anything like in school I was terrible at every subject except English and history because it was just stories like it was it was hearing stories and and learning about these stories and I rocked at those subjects terrible at everything else and um and and and and so then I I went back to school to study acting and uh is this in London now or where is this is in Dublin yeah yeah I'm kind of all over the place but like at 22 I went back to college studied acting in in Dublin and then did a year in Chicago and that felt like that felt like, okay, now I'm back.
Now I'm back a little bit. And then it seemed more like I was part of a creative endeavor.
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Tap the banner to save the celery. Where did you feel like you were not connecting with in that first year was it the story aspect the story part was what helped me that's what saved my job kept you in it yeah yeah because dusty roads was the promo teacher at the time and dusty like loved his his broken toys the ones that were like rough around the edges but he saw that had some soul or something about them.
Just a little something, just a spark. And he tried to bring that out.
And so I didn't know. I didn't know who I wanted to be.
Everybody was like, find a character, find a character, find a character. So I'd try out all these stupid characters.
None of them worked. And of course none of them worked.
They were all awful. But it was the trying.
It was the being able to put yourself out there and throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. Nothing.
But I tried and I kept trying. And i think he valued the creativity more than more than the outcome because if somebody came in they were the total package um i can point to there's a wrestler called la night at the time um who right now is making big waves in wrestling but at the time he was there, we started on the same day and he had everything.
He had it just down. He had it down, you know.
So Dusty had no more. He was smooth.
He was great, yeah. Dusty was like, yeah, you're great.
But he had no more work to do because he already had his act down. Whereas somebody like me was completely lost, completely screwed.
And I think there was a combination of of dusty and william regal that saved my job wow many many times because they saw that there was something something there in this irish girl that had not a clue so that had not a clue because i didn't like look like any of these other girls that were like stunners um i wasn't great in the ring but there was something when i talked that was unique was that was unique yeah interesting is it like six days a week training it was so it was like five days a week and then we would do three shows so you do monday tuesday you would do um a school session which is you'd watch matches but then there'd be extra training gosh that would have been so fun the watching the matches just i mean that whole experience just like being a full-time athlete training watching testing trying just like in hindsight right in hindsight but during it but during it was I remember that. That was one of the things that Triple H would always say.

You know, because he was head of developmental

and he was always, enjoy this.

Enjoy this.

There's never going to be...

And there was times when I would feel like I was in a Rocky movie

and, you know, like I get that, like...

And you could enjoy it.

But the other part of it was not sleeping

because you were always scared that you were going to be on the chopping block. You could be cut like every week.
Yeah, yeah. We called it Black Friday and you'd come in, you'd get pulled into the office and that was it and your dream would be over.
And, you know, I had several friends that got cut and it was devastating. And my friend Joe, the reason that I got signed in the first place who i lived with he got cut and so that was a whole new world to navigate um but but so once once the fear of not being cut subsided then you could enjoy it more but when you were scared that you were going to get fired every other day not enjoyable not enjoyable at all so when did you feel like i'm making it like when did you feel like okay i'm actually making it i don't know in my sport in society culturally financially when was the moment from 10 years ago to like i'm arriving so i think it it was shortly after that, shortly after the breakdown, shortly after the breakdown of, okay, wait, I'm not a bad person.
And then I remember coming into promo class, not doing a character, but just cutting an angry promo of, of, of, I am sick of the, I put in all of this work. I have done this, I have done that, I have done this have done this blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and this is why I deserve a shot this is why I need to be on TV and I remember cutting that promo and then like people seeing a bit more of an edge and it wasn't just a hi yeah please don't fire me hi hi hi hi i'm so happy to be here like there was there was this there was now this weird confidence and this um i wasn't so meek anymore like i had a chip on my shoulder and i was ready to fight and then things started to to to happen there and like then i got on tv one of the worst debuts of all time really oh my Oh my god, terrible.
What happened? I came out there doing this stupid Irish jig, and I can't the Irish jig. But like I- You tried to dance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tried, tried.
You tried to do the Irish dance or something. I tried to do the Irish dance.
Like as hammed up as possible. Oh, man.
Like shameless, just shameless. But like at the time, there was this girl, Emmett, she was doing this wacky dance and it was like okay well like wackiness is getting people on tv there was there was just wacky characters left right and center because that was the thing about the developmental system down there you got the chance to be wacky and you got the chance to try things and fail and so i failed epically publicly on tv on tv that lives on forever that will never be erased from history but hey if you can come back from that you can come back from anything let's go and and so the greatest part of it was like i didn't even realize how awful it was until like a few nights later.
And like, I remember seeing Triple H and being like, what did you think? As if he was like, oh yeah, that was amazing. You dominated.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the audience loved me.
They were still, they were real positive to me. I think, come on, like I was a little idiot.
Like, I suppose you couldn't really boo me.

Like, God bless her.

You know, what did she think?

What was she thinking?

Look at this fool.

But, but yeah.

And then, and then, and then I tried various different things.

But I remember, I remember after that,

and then just having this different perspective

and this gratitude that I was able to pay my bills. And the food in my fridge was bought by the money that I'd made from wrestling.
And the roof over my head was paid for by the money that I'd made from wrestling. And I was driving a car with the money that I'd made from wrestling.
And I was just driving with just tears of gratitude

that I could afford these things with the money that I'd made from wrestling.

Because I've never felt like money that I've made from wrestling is real money.

You know?

It just doesn't feel like real money because I'm not working, you know?

You're having fun.

I'm having fun. I love what I do.
I love what I do. Wow.
I love it. I love it.
And sometimes, and sometimes it's hard. And sometimes there's so many opinions and there's, you know, like our wrestling fans, they're so vocal and they're so great.
But, you know, you take the good with the bad. So sometimes you're getting lots of negative opinions on what you're doing or you're getting.
And so where you or you think creative should be this way or you should be booked that way. And so you can get bogged down in those things.
When it comes to the creative process and I'm putting together a match or i am thinking about a promo i don't think there's anything bar like playing with my child that makes me feel more alive like i just i love it so much and i love just like something coming to me and building from that you know know, just these little seeds of ideas. Like, what if we try this? You know, what if we try this? Maybe this will work and maybe it'll be awful.
But that's the greatest thing about wrestling is that you, because we do it 52 weeks a year, because we're on the road constantly, you get to try and fail so the road constantly you get to try and fail so often but you get to try and succeed so often too and you never know which way it's gonna go but if you keep trying you know sometimes you hit gold sometimes you don't right sometimes you think something's gold and other people don't and but that's art right like you do the art what you want to do. And then whatever the audience takes out of it is up to them.
Big WWE fan, Rick Rubin, we had on the show. I love Rick.
And he talks about what you just said, making art for you. And writing in your journal, in your diary, the things that are meaningful for you, your art, not worrying what people are going to think about it, but having the courage to put it out there and allowing others to see it as well.
That's like part of the process. Yeah.
And he's a big fan, isn't he? Oh, he's a huge wrestling fan. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And his book is...
It's amazing. Have you read it? Yeah, it's so good.
Read it, listen to it. Yeah, he's great.
Yeah, and I love because I just like, sometimes I just, I'm like, okay, what do I need right now? Universe, tell me. Yeah, and then, of course, it's exactly what you need in that moment.
I love it. But it is that.
But the other thing about wrestling, which is so different from any other artistic endeavor, like writing a book have it you you you can take your time you know if you're writing a script or whatever maybe like a movie or a song if you have an album but like say if you're writing a song you can just take your time to do that wrestling we don't we ain't got time like this show is gonna go live on TV at gotta make it happen 8 pm and if at 7 pm you don't have something you better find something because we're we're gonna go live have you ever not felt like you were prepared before going live and having to come up with something on the spot a million times really oh yeah because now it's different but uh it used to to be back the day, the show would be getting rewritten while the show was going on, live, in front of people. So you would have an idea of what you're going to say, and then somebody comes up, no, no, no, no, no, you have to say this.
Find a way to put this in. And so you're okay going out the curtain and changing things.
As you're going out, you have to evolve what you're going to say yeah so sometimes and and that's happened like several times and but it's really exciting it's scary but exciting at the same time because it's chaos yeah and it's chaos and so whatever comes out is great because you can't it's just organic it's just in the moment it's the ultimate yes and experience yes i love it it's so exciting because you don't know what's going to happen but something's going to happen there's been so many times when i've had like we're putting together a match but we haven't had the time and so like you're going out and you think that you have something but you're not sure and you're not sure if everybody else is on the same page but you go out there and something happens like something's gonna happen because something has to happen based on what happens they might rewrite the next thing and the next thing and it just keeps evolving huh yeah because you never go out there and nothing happens right because that can't happen because that would be weird you're like people aren't just going to stand in the rain and wait to be told what to do someone's gonna do say something and hit someone and and just go on to the next person. And we're just going to go because that's what has to happen.
So it's such a... They'll throw you out there and you just figure it out.
It's such an exciting, addictive business. I've told you I've never been to a show so I've got to come and watch you.
You've got to come. It's the best.
I'm curious, when is there a moment, you've had so many different matches over the last, you know, 10, 15 years. When was the match or the moment that you were in the most flow? That you felt like 100% authentic to you? That the words were flowing, the movement was flowing, like it was all connecting and the audience was connected to you.
Gosh, I suppose there's several. Like recently, recently I had a match with Trish Stratus.
It was a cage match. And it just felt like, yeah, I'm so present.
Everything that needs to happen is happening. And that was back in September.

So that's like, there's like these big matches that stand out.

Because, you know, it'll often happen on live events and different things.

But there's big moments, these big events built around it.

And then a match that I had with Bianca Belair, WrestleMania 38, one of my favorite matches.

One of my favorite stories um leading up to it and I was the bad guy and I loved it I loved it I was having so much fun and she was she's this great athlete and this great baby face and she can do everything and uh and I was getting to because I'd robbed the title from her essentially like I'd underhandedly beat her and I was going to be able to give her back her championship she would beat me for it I wasn't handing it out she would beat me for it but it was that you know her redemption story and that was that was so fun to be a part of and then there was match that i had in 2018 with charlotte flair as the last woman standing and that one stands out because i remember it being the first match where i felt confident in it in the moment i can do no wrong really yeah yeah what year's 2018. 2018, okay.
I want people to get your book. It's beautiful stories, lessons about someone from, you know, really a small town, small country who was able to become one of the biggest stars in the world.
And all the different life lessons and stories along the way, which are really inspiring. So I want people to get a copy of your book, The Man, Not Your Average, Average Girl.
Make sure you guys check this out by Rebecca Quinn. Really inspiring stuff and just some really cool stories in here that I think people will like, whether you're into WWE or not.
You know, again, I've never been to a match, but I thought all this stuff was fascinating. So I'm coming one of these days.
I'm going to be there. I have three final questions for you, Rebecca.
The first one is called the three truths. It's a hypothetical question.
So I'd like you to imagine, if you can, a moment, that you get to live as long as you want in this world. But it's your last day, many years away.
You get to pick as old as you want to be. But eventually, you've got to turn the lights off for yourself.
And in this hypothetical world, you have to take everything with you. So no one has access to this book, our conversation, any piece of content that's ever been out, anything you create from this moment moving forward, it has to go with you when you leave.
But on the last day, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world, three things you know to be true. And that's all you would ever be able to leave behind to everyone else.
What would be those three truths for you? To believe in yourself. My dad said something and it's from the Bible, but he misquoted it.

But I, and it's a quote that I use in this book too.

And he misquoted it, but I like his version better.

And it's, if you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will complete you.

If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will destroy you.

Wow. And I love and uh i love that i love that it's essentially being authentic to whatever it is inside um and the other one the third one uh i will use the most polite language that I can.

Just don't be a...

Just be nice to people.

Be good to one another, you know?

I think that's what we need in this world more than anything.

And if you want an outlet for people not being good to each other,

watch wrestling. Watch wrestling where they're not being nice to each other but it's agreed upon it's contained it's contained it's contained and it's controlled because i think i think more than ever especially in a world where negativity is a hot commodity where where the algorithm loves it.
It is more important where we thought that we left the bullies in the schoolyard, but we don't. They're online every day.
They're constantly telling you they're constantly chirping in their opinions. I think we need more than ever just to be good to one another.
That's beautiful. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
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