Latest / Voices for Voices® / From Olympic Ice To Inner Healing: Nicole Bobek On Pressure, Addiction & Owning Your Story | Ep. 353

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From Olympic Ice To Inner Healing: Nicole Bobek On Pressure, Addiction & Owning Your Story | Ep. 353 · Voices for Voices®

• 0:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hey everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices.
• 0:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for joining us.
• 0:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Whether you're watching or listening here in the United States or uh across uh 90 countries and uh pushing 900 cities uh across the world, uh we're grateful we're over 350 episodes going strong.
• 0:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And again, for those who uh aren't aren't aware that uh this show, uh this organization, uh I founded uh after my mental health uh crash in in November of 2017 and wanted to not only be able to share my voice uh but share the voice and the stories of of others.
• 0:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And we have this huge goal and we still have it, and uh we're gonna keep going down the road of trying to help three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.
• 0:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's a huge, lofty goal, uh, but with your help and your support, uh, if you can smash that subscribe button, if you can uh give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, share, all those free things uh to do really help us uh get towards uh that goal of helping 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.
• 1:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh speaking about beyond, I'm beyond and we're beyond uh honored to have uh uh the the guests that we do today and excited to get into the conversation.
• 1:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm gonna just give uh a little bit of a bio so uh uh you have an idea, uh, and we will uh introduce her and have uh uh a great uh as she mentioned in one of her texts, you know, everybody's got skeletons in the closet.
• 1:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um uh we all do, so whether we think we do or we don't, I do.
• 1:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I've had skeletons in the closet and kind of work through as many of those as I can uh in 2017, but as we know, life uh nobody's perfect.
• 2:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So uh I'm gonna hop into uh introducing our uh our our guest.
• 2:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh our guest is a uh a retired American figure skater.
• 2:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh she uh is uh just from an accomplishment standpoint, uh just just amazing from the US championships to the world championships to competing in in the Olympics uh and and and figure skating.
• 2:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh it's just an incredible the um the amount of time that she she mentions, uh early mornings, uh late evenings, uh going through um uh addiction, which I re relate to uh as our uh die hard voices for voices of uh listeners or viewers uh know and we're just excited because not only uh is is that uh her her background, but this is what I am also excited, we're excited to share.
• 3:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I'm gonna actually share my screen so we can uh all see her uh her book.
• 3:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Her uh her book is out on uh it's out on Amazon and paperback uh electronic version as well as uh hardback uh on Barnes and Noble.
• 3:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I am going to try to share.
• 3:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Okay.
• 3:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: See if this actually works.
• 3:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Okay.
• 3:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So let me see if I can move this.
• 4:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So uh hopefully you're seeing uh if you're watching and if you're listening, uh you want to head on over again to Amazon uh dot com.
• 4:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh you want to type in Bobek, uh B-O-B-E-K.
• 4:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and uh as followed by the wild one.
• 4:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um and and so our our guest is uh Nicole Bobek, and I'm gonna just as we get into introduction, I get a little bit uh a little bit more of a uh a proper introduction.
• 4:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm just gonna quote a little bit of uh what's listed for the description of her book.
• 4:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But before I do that, I just wanna mention that her book is a number one new release in ice skating and figure skating, and that's a huge honor to to get.
• 4:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh just again, uh so uh so grateful that she's joining us today.
• 5:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I'm gonna I'm gonna quote a little bit of the description and then we're gonna we're gonna talk to Nicole Bovac, which is just amazing.
• 5:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so quoting uh the description, she was the wild child of figure skating, graceful, rebellious, unforgettable.
• 5:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is her story in her own words.
• 5:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Nicole Dencha skate, she soared, spiraled, and crashed in ways the world can never look away from.
• 5:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: With a ponytail flying and a link to judges, she captivated audiences in the 1990s, redefining what it meant to be a figure skater.
• 5:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But behind the sequence and spotlight was a girl fighting battles far from the ice, battles with identity, expectations, addiction, and the crushing pressure to be perfect in a sport that demands nothing less.
• 6:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh and then lastly here, told in her unmistakable voice, and so that obviously gets us to uh a little bit of why we wanted to have her on on the show, because uh she's raw, authentic, as well as I was looking through her uh uh some of the uh some of her posts on on Instagram and the here we go, where's Oh here we go.
• 6:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hold on, okay.
• 6:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh let's see here, where's uh here, okay.
• 6:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 1995, so I was four fourteen years old at the time, I was born in 1981.
• 6:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh in in Nicole's uh Instagram account, and this is just incredible, in 1995, and still today, uh, and so does it speaking in her voice.
• 7:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm the only figure skater who got a two-page spread in Vogue magazine, and no, not advertising for a company or a clothing line strictly for being who I am and was.
• 7:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, and then uh obviously wants you to go out to Amazon, uh, get her book, uh, whether it's electronic, uh paperback, or get the hardback copy at uh at Barnes and Noble.
• 7:33
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and so the this this post uh mentioning uh being that two-page spread in Vogue magazine, that is also another reason we wanted to have her on, because she again to her post, she wasn't representing uh a particular product or service.
• 7:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That it was just her being herself.
• 7:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I think a lot of us, and I'm speaking for myself at least, uh, we we can get caught up in the uh you know, we're not worthy, we're not enough.
• 8:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that right there is just another reason that uh not only is she worthy and enough, but we are too.
• 8:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So that long introduction, we are bringing Nicole Bobek to uh to to our show.
• 8:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And thank you, Nicole, for for joining us.
• 8:28
  Nicole Bobek: Thank you so much for having me.
• 8:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're welcome.
• 8:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh maybe maybe you can start a a little bit about that figure skating career at the at the beginning and the the work and the intensity that goes into trying to be as perfect as you can from a young age, and then how you grew grew up, and then we can we can get into the the uh uh almost just like a timeline of of life, I guess.
• 9:01
  Nicole Bobek: Sure.
• 9:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And then we'll finish with uh with the book and how people can find it and all those great things.
• 9:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So the floor is yours.
• 9:10
  Nicole Bobek: Floor is mine.
• 9:11
  Nicole Bobek: Well, I started skating at three.
• 9:13
  Nicole Bobek: Um, I was a very active child.
• 9:15
  Nicole Bobek: My mom had to put me in something.
• 9:17
  Nicole Bobek: I was doing gymnastics, ballet, swimming, you know, all the things the kids, you know, pretty much do.
• 9:23
  Nicole Bobek: And skating just came very natural for me.
• 9:27
  Nicole Bobek: Um, there was definitely a talent there the first time I stepped on the ice.
• 9:32
  Nicole Bobek: And it was like there was something that resonated in me, like, yeah, this is this is what I'm supposed to do, even at that young of an age.
• 9:40
  Nicole Bobek: And you know, as things progressed, as I got older, we got into competitions.
• 9:45
  Nicole Bobek: I grew up in Chicago.
• 9:47
  Nicole Bobek: I still consider myself a Chicagoan, even though I left when I was 10, go Blackhawks.
• 9:52
  Nicole Bobek: And um, and um, you know, we moved from state to state, we moved out of the country.
• 10:00
  Nicole Bobek: These are the sacrifices that really go into the sport to really move forward.
• 10:07
  Nicole Bobek: You know, it was getting lessons from the best people, uh, working out the best programs, and also creating an art out there on the ice combined with sportsman kind of real physical hard work on the body.
• 10:23
  Nicole Bobek: And I say that because my body is so sore, it's how it comes fresh into my mind.
• 10:28
  Nicole Bobek: I am 48 now, so it is getting harder.
• 10:32
  Nicole Bobek: But um, all these things are really part of something when you commit to really anything specific, playing an instrument or if you're doing ballet, you know, there are sacrifices that go along with how much are you willing to succeed and what are you going to give up so you can move forward.
• 10:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, and I think uh with uh today's fast-paced life of uh everything or a lot of things in in the palm of our hand that we're impatient and want things to happen fast.
• 11:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so to see the results uh as you started to skate and and and as you mentioned, being kind of a natural, um, I I I use uh analogies about you know just certain certain people the you know they're this they're just meant to be who they are.
• 11:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, we're all meant to be who we are.
• 11:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But from like whether that's a sport, whether that's an actor or an actress, that uh there's there's some of us, a lot of us, who are just meant to do certain things, whether that's a certain body fit, whether that's a certain mindset, to be able to memorize lines to shows or movies.
• 11:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I think that's a big thing for for people to understand that if you're a natural and you find yourself coming back to that, and uh then that means that that's something that you're you're good at, and then you just have to kind of decide is that the path, you know, you want to continue to go down, or you know, try something different.
• 12:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and the the the great thing is there's no wrong answer because it's you living your life, how you feel, and the only people to know how we feel is ourselves.
• 12:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So whether we have a huge smile on our face, whether it looks like we're having a lot of fun, or uh for for me with uh with with my mental illnesses, uh medications and stuff, people go, you say you're excited about this, but you don't have this huge, bubbly, like uh excited face.
• 12:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and I think that that's something that I'm battling through.
• 12:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um so to know that like you said, once you stepped on, it was it was just a natural, natural thing, and and uh and and that that's something to to just to think about.
• 13:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um now so as far as let's say practicing, what does that all all that uh entail?
• 13:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Because from uh from an outsider like like myself, watching watching you and other skaters on the on the TV or YouTube, uh it we just see you know a couple minutes of a performance, and you're not the lead up into that what wasn't just you know two or three or four minutes.
• 13:43
  Nicole Bobek: Yeah, no, it's true.
• 13:44
  Nicole Bobek: I mean, the fact in figure skating that we have two programs.
• 13:48
  Nicole Bobek: We have a short program and we have a long program.
• 13:51
  Nicole Bobek: In the short program, we have required elements, and in the long program, quote unquote, is called the free skate, where it's when I skated, now it's a little bit different, it's a point system.
• 14:01
  Nicole Bobek: But the free skate when I skated was basically everything that you could do, you put it in in that program.
• 14:09
  Nicole Bobek: And those programs, short program is two minutes and 40 seconds, and that can make or break you.
• 14:16
  Nicole Bobek: You miss an element, you don't get a do-over, so it's very hard.
• 14:21
  Nicole Bobek: And then also the long program is four minutes, 10 seconds.
• 14:24
  Nicole Bobek: So it's like we work, you know, almost a whole year for that limited amount of time.
• 14:30
  Nicole Bobek: And I do have to say, this is where it gets very psychological at skating because I've gone to competitions still prepared and completely bombed.
• 14:42
  Nicole Bobek: And I've gone to competitions where I really wasn't prepared, but I pulled it off.
• 14:48
  Nicole Bobek: Really, that adrenaline of that moment and what you not only you have your muscle memory that's always there, because we're just rigorously trained.
• 14:58
  Nicole Bobek: I mean, it is a committed sport, like any sport.
• 15:00
  Nicole Bobek: If you either, you know, jump in the pool or you don't jump in the pool, you know what I mean?
• 15:04
  Nicole Bobek: So you have to you commit so much to it, and then mentally to bring it all down to that one moment of hitting the elements or completely falling all over the ice is it's so much, so much.
• 15:19
  Nicole Bobek: And every skater, I do believe, has some kind of a different tactic that they play in their mind.
• 15:26
  Nicole Bobek: Some are very just automatic.
• 15:29
  Nicole Bobek: You can see it's like muscle memory, it's like just another run through.
• 15:33
  Nicole Bobek: The the pressure doesn't phase them at all.
• 15:35
  Nicole Bobek: And then there are others that are incredibly emotionally involved.
• 15:40
  Nicole Bobek: That's why we get upset when we don't succeed at something because we are human, we do have feelings.
• 15:46
  Nicole Bobek: And you know, if you don't, well, wow.
• 15:49
  Nicole Bobek: But you know, you you you blow the season because you had a bad skate, and it is like this flood of uh I didn't do good enough.
• 16:00
  Nicole Bobek: I let some my fans, my family, my coaches, the association, I let all these people down.
• 16:06
  Nicole Bobek: I fell on my butt during the program in front of 6,000 people, not to mention the 20,000 watching live on TV.
• 16:12
  Nicole Bobek: It's like, what?
• 16:14
  Nicole Bobek: You know, it it's it's a very difficult thing.
• 16:18
  Nicole Bobek: You know, I think skating is is such a really amazing sport because we we have the athleticism of the jumps and the training, and we're also combining it with artistry from ballet and skating to the music and being theatrical, loving what we're skating out there, beautiful costumes, and still trying to land triple jumps.
• 16:41
  Nicole Bobek: You know, it's it's mind-blowing when you really think about it.
• 16:44
  Nicole Bobek: And we're balancing on a very tiny little blade.
• 16:46
  Nicole Bobek: And this is years of practicing, years of doing something, just consistent repetition of every single thing.
• 16:54
  Nicole Bobek: And I have to say, when I was younger, you know, you just went out and skated.
• 16:59
  Nicole Bobek: You really didn't think of the audience, you didn't think of really anything, you didn't, you almost didn't even really, or I didn't think about the responsibility of what I was doing out there.
• 17:09
  Nicole Bobek: I just skated.
• 17:10
  Nicole Bobek: It was so easy for me.
• 17:13
  Nicole Bobek: And then as I got older, the brain starts working a little bit different, you know.
• 17:18
  Nicole Bobek: Now all of a sudden we got boyfriends, now all of a sudden we got, you know, worried about other people's opinion, if you're gonna be accepted, if you're not gonna be accepted.
• 17:26
  Nicole Bobek: And to be able to draw a line in between of, all right, I'm stepping on the ice now.
• 17:34
  Nicole Bobek: I need to put all those emotions on the boards right now and just go out and skate.
• 17:40
  Nicole Bobek: It's hard.
• 17:41
  Nicole Bobek: It's hard, especially if you're a skater who skates off of emotion.
• 17:46
  Nicole Bobek: And I was one of those skaters, and I literally had to learn almost to have a split personality of Nicole the skater and Nicole the person.
• 17:56
  Nicole Bobek: And I think I struggled with that for a very long time because it's, you know, the people they know you, and people know me from 95, and they know the skating, and they know the stories, and they know the ups and downs of my life.
• 18:11
  Nicole Bobek: And it's like, okay, well, she's not there now.
• 18:14
  Nicole Bobek: Now Nicole's normal.
• 18:16
  Nicole Bobek: She lives in a house, she has a son, she went through a divorce, she had a struggle to have a child.
• 18:22
  Nicole Bobek: We went through uh my my ex-husband, you know, we went through four years of IVF, you know, that we ended up going to a different country to achieve it.
• 18:33
  Nicole Bobek: You know, it it's it's traumatizing, it's a lot.
• 18:36
  Nicole Bobek: And it was like before it was like, oh, I just had to skate, you know.
• 18:40
  Nicole Bobek: So yeah, we have a lot of costume changes in life.
• 18:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So yeah, and I and I think that's what makes you so uh so personable, so so down to earth because you you are sharing and you are talking about those those ups and downs, but how early in your career it was just just skate.
• 19:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and then as we get older and uh other things, uh other topics, other experiences, other people, uh they they they come, they go, uh and and and to uh it's hard to to do to be like, hey, I'm I'm okay with myself regardless if um success.
• 19:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, accepting our acceptance.
• 19:34
  Nicole Bobek: People will always lean more towards a very human person.
• 19:39
  Nicole Bobek: You know, there are people who deal with things in all different kinds of ways, and we fall into these patterns of how we self-soothe ourselves, almost like babies do.
• 19:49
  Nicole Bobek: What they figure out either it's a pacifier or a certain blanket or toy, that's their comfort thing.
• 19:55
  Nicole Bobek: And I do believe that does carry on in life with so many things.
• 19:58
  Nicole Bobek: But as you get older, we need human connect.
• 20:02
  Nicole Bobek: When you see somebody actually feel something maybe you've been hiding, like I'm I will never expose that this movie makes me cry.
• 20:10
  Nicole Bobek: And then you see somebody just completely cry about it and open up, but you're just like, it's so settling in your heart of like you sit there and like, I'm not the only one, you know.
• 20:21
  Nicole Bobek: And this is the thing, is that we get we get very deep into ourselves at times that we forget that the other person might be struggling just as much.
• 20:32
  Nicole Bobek: There are people in worse situations.
• 20:34
  Nicole Bobek: Some people, this is their last day on earth, you know what I mean?
• 20:38
  Nicole Bobek: And I have to even consistently tell me tell myself that, like, hey, you've got a roof over your head, you're doing okay, you're not amazing, you're not a star, you're not super mom, you're not any of these things, but you are trying.
• 20:52
  Nicole Bobek: And you can go to sleep every night knowing I'm okay.
• 20:56
  Nicole Bobek: All right.
• 20:57
  Nicole Bobek: And and that's you know, that ties in with real life issues.
• 21:01
  Nicole Bobek: And I think when you do a sport, um you really have to balance those things out.
• 21:07
  Nicole Bobek: My process with doing this book, I did work with an alignment coach that I had to speak to because I had to really go back into my life into chapters that I locked up and threw away the key.
• 21:23
  Nicole Bobek: You know what I mean?
• 21:24
  Nicole Bobek: That I just like, nope, mom doesn't live there anymore.
• 21:27
  Nicole Bobek: That house has been sold, demolished, whatever.
• 21:30
  Nicole Bobek: And almost suppressing those feelings so much that you you almost forget about them.
• 21:38
  Nicole Bobek: And you can do that, which is incredible.
• 21:41
  Nicole Bobek: But I had to open these haunted houses.
• 21:45
  Nicole Bobek: And I worked with an alignment coach, her name is Jamie, and um, she works with Center of Alignment, and she really helped me to regulate those emotions and not to let them take over of what I was going through.
• 22:02
  Nicole Bobek: And also the simple saying that I say to myself so many times a day is that anxiety is the future, depression is the past.
• 22:12
  Nicole Bobek: Try to live in the now.
• 22:13
  Nicole Bobek: And this is really heavy, and it seems like a very simple thing, but if you really think about it, it's exactly what it is.
• 22:21
  Nicole Bobek: So now I consistently when my head starts going one way or the other, I say, no, no, no, let's just let's do today.
• 22:27
  Nicole Bobek: Let's get through today because I cannot change my past and I cannot predict my future.
• 22:34
  Nicole Bobek: I can try to maneuver it, what I want to manifest and what I want to see into helping people and living a fulfilled life.
• 22:42
  Nicole Bobek: But as far as you know, it's called the past for a reason because it's past, honey.
• 22:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, um I completely agree.
• 22:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And when when I had my crash and I was in the hospital and the psych ward, it was all those ego things of I could do everything myself and I don't need any help, and I can Google for the answer.
• 23:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And but it wasn't until I voluntarily admitted myself because I was like, I don't have anything left.
• 23:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I I don't know, I don't know how else to handle this.
• 23:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And um, and I look back on that you know that November day uh eight years ago, and it's one of the I say one of the worst days of my life, but then it was also one of the best days because it was when I let other people and and have a a team that actually cared about me, that were specialists, that could diagnose and and help me in ways that I couldn't, and other people and and in my family just because unless that's that's your calling and your background, it's it's hard to um hard to go through.
• 23:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I mean, and and my my wife was like, we were married for six months at that time, and she's like, just get through it, just go out and go for a walk, just you know, take a deep breath, and yeah, and all these self-help things.
• 24:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, yeah, they're great and those help, but uh I had the hundred and thirty eight different things that I had kind of my skeletons in the closet that I had to put out on paper and and go, oh my gosh, I've been holding on to these things, and I I haven't I haven't dealt with them.
• 24:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And some of them are heavy issues, and some of them are not, some of them are just easy things that I just made decisions and it was like like screw you, I'm gonna do this because I know what what's best.
• 24:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh first day I was in that that uh that cycle, I sat around and and I was thinking that I was the only one that was going through what what I was, and I was the only one that whatever had these issues or whatever you want to call it.
• 25:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But I sat around a table and you mentioned, you know, this could be our last day on earth, our last minute, our last second.
• 25:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And around the table, it was like, Hi, my name is, and then what are where are you why are you here?
• 25:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And there was probably about five people ahead of me.
• 25:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One had cast on both of his arms, trying he tried to end his life, and he was sharing these stories, and and others were sharing theirs, and how they had suicide attempts, and uh and I was like, oh my god, it almost made me feel in a way like my problems are nothing.
• 25:43
  Nicole Bobek: Right, right, yeah, no, and it's so true, but this is so important that I feel that very emotional people, we also were very stubborn about what we allow and what we won't allow to happen in our lives.
• 25:57
  Nicole Bobek: And there's a very good positive to it.
• 25:59
  Nicole Bobek: But if you can't look at yourself in the mirror and say, I need help, I need to do this, or even the fact, no, I'm too afraid, I don't want nobody to know I have this going on in my life, or this kind of stuff.
• 26:11
  Nicole Bobek: We are in an era now that we do have a lot of help.
• 26:17
  Nicole Bobek: And it just is only about how you want to handle it.
• 26:22
  Nicole Bobek: What you allow to continue will continue and wait, because you know when you're done with something, you are done for sure.
• 26:30
  Nicole Bobek: So we do have that power, and just even recognizing that we have that power is already your first step of reaching out.
• 26:38
  Nicole Bobek: I, for instance, uh Instagram for me, if you get on the acrohythm of really good quotes and really good sayings, they help me so much.
• 26:49
  Nicole Bobek: There are so many people out there with so many issues and so many problems, and it can be about divorce.
• 26:55
  Nicole Bobek: It can be about I went through a physically abusive relationship.
• 26:59
  Nicole Bobek: And the first time, because it never happened to me, I didn't know how to handle it.
• 27:04
  Nicole Bobek: I was kind of like this, he was very sorry, yada yada yada.
• 27:08
  Nicole Bobek: And the second time it happened, I said, I am not gonna be that person who allows this to happen anymore in my life.
• 27:18
  Nicole Bobek: I didn't tell anybody for years about what took place, but I did know after that second time when he went to work, I packed my bags up and I got out of that house because I was not gonna be the victim who says, Well, you know, my boyfriend greets me, but I can't leave him and yada yada yada.
• 27:37
  Nicole Bobek: No, no, no, honey, you can get out, but you have to do it.
• 27:41
  Nicole Bobek: Nobody's gonna come in and nobody's gonna save you.
• 27:44
  Nicole Bobek: It doesn't matter about the love, it doesn't matter about the money.
• 27:47
  Nicole Bobek: There are plenty of places, shelters women can go to get the help they need, you know, but it has to come from you.
• 27:54
  Nicole Bobek: And we you have to talk yourself into that you do have this power because things food doesn't cook itself.
• 28:05
  Nicole Bobek: You have to cook the food.
• 28:06
  Nicole Bobek: You have to wake up in the morning.
• 28:09
  Nicole Bobek: I have to rack my brain every morning.
• 28:11
  Nicole Bobek: What am I gonna make my son for lunch today?
• 28:13
  Nicole Bobek: I have no idea.
• 28:15
  Nicole Bobek: Every morning at 6 30, like oh, this is my life now.
• 28:18
  Nicole Bobek: But we do it, you know what I mean?
• 28:22
  Nicole Bobek: So, you know, the power within oneself is incredible if you can figure out your pros and your cons and address them head on and also just learn to be able to accept yourself.
• 28:35
  Nicole Bobek: I'm a horrible critic on myself every single day.
• 28:37
  Nicole Bobek: I don't like the way I look, I always think I'm too fat, maybe I'm not doing enough for my son.
• 28:42
  Nicole Bobek: What more can I be doing out there on the ice?
• 28:44
  Nicole Bobek: You know, I'm 48, I'm pre-menopausal, I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I'm trying, I'm holding a house, I'm a single mom.
• 28:51
  Nicole Bobek: There's so many things.
• 28:53
  Nicole Bobek: And at the end I say, you know what?
• 28:55
  Nicole Bobek: I'm okay.
• 28:56
  Nicole Bobek: I don't need all the answers today.
• 28:58
  Nicole Bobek: You know what I mean?
• 28:59
  Nicole Bobek: And I think people, that instant gratification that you were speaking about, we all want that.
• 29:05
  Nicole Bobek: We all love that.
• 29:06
  Nicole Bobek: You know, why do people love the gamble?
• 29:08
  Nicole Bobek: Because when they, you know, do this and the money comes out like that, man, that's instant gratification.
• 29:14
  Nicole Bobek: And people get addicted to it.
• 29:16
  Nicole Bobek: So they tend to lean on those things.
• 29:18
  Nicole Bobek: Same with the drugs, that instant high.
• 29:21
  Nicole Bobek: I went through my drug thing and at some point it just no, wasn't cutting it anymore.
• 29:27
  Nicole Bobek: And uh it was a harsh reality.
• 29:30
  Nicole Bobek: But like you said, what happened with you, those hardest days were the best days of my life because they saved me, really.
• 29:37
  Nicole Bobek: And I would not be able to talk today here with you about this if that didn't happen.
• 29:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Absolutely.
• 29:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, we got about five minutes left.
• 29:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I want to definitely uh dive in to uh what made you want to uh uh do a book because it's very personal, especially the um what would I?
• 29:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And we gather it's it's very personal.
• 30:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's kind of like when I go to my therapy points, you know, they're personal, and so like it's sharing things are are hard enough to go through it ourselves, but then have somebody else ask, oh, what about this?
• 30:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh tell me why you're here or whatever, whatever.
• 30:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So, what made you uh want to be so authentic?
• 30:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It sounds like that's just your your hyper personality, but to share with the world because people across the world um are are gonna be uh and have been reading, reading or listening to to your book.
• 30:40
  Nicole Bobek: Well, I was actually approached by uh an editor named Todd Fisher, and I noticed he was always liking my videos, he was a big fan of skating, and you know, we got talking for several months, and you know, he put it out there, and I was asked before, but I didn't feel I was ready for it yet.
• 31:03
  Nicole Bobek: Um and when I was asked, you know, I thought about it and I said, Well, this is gonna be hard, you know, but I did also feel there were a few uh certain things with the book, you know, doing a book before you have a child, your mind is completely different.
• 31:21
  Nicole Bobek: Now that I have a son, I always have said it on millions of podcasts already, that that's been my superpower is doing this book because once I had him, it changed my perspective on so many things that I didn't see before.
• 31:37
  Nicole Bobek: And everything kind of made sense.
• 31:39
  Nicole Bobek: So I did feel I was couldn't do it, I could do it.
• 31:42
  Nicole Bobek: It it was hard.
• 31:44
  Nicole Bobek: It took about six months, and I was also with uh on Zoom twice a week, about an hour and a half, and with uh uh Todd Fisher and Caden, who is the writer, just incredible.
• 31:57
  Nicole Bobek: Um, they were very patient with me, they understood, and they always, especially when we got into some really heavy stuff, they're like, Do you need some time off?
• 32:06
  Nicole Bobek: And I said, Nope, I didn't want to.
• 32:09
  Nicole Bobek: I was like, let's keep moving, let's keep moving.
• 32:12
  Nicole Bobek: And my mom, who lives about 20 minutes away, you know, she's you know the old school mom with the albums, you know, which is so important because going back, there were so many things that I suppressed and timelines and where we lived and in situations that happened, those books were like the cliff notes, you know what I mean?
• 32:34
  Nicole Bobek: So I knew what we were gonna talk about the next day, and I would go to her house and do like a cheat sheet kind of a thing.
• 32:43
  Nicole Bobek: And but it was hard for her too because she lived that life with me.
• 32:48
  Nicole Bobek: So she gave me her perspective also of what was going on, and then I had to sit and like think about it and well, how did I react to that?
• 32:59
  Nicole Bobek: And sometimes I didn't know, I didn't remember, you know what I mean?
• 33:04
  Nicole Bobek: So it was hard not only for her to go through, she had breakdowns, I had breakdowns, you know, big crying episodes.
• 33:10
  Nicole Bobek: But um, I felt like it was time to really just I owed it to my fans.
• 33:17
  Nicole Bobek: You know, there was a lot of stuff out there.
• 33:18
  Nicole Bobek: I did disappear for a while, I did live this whole other life.
• 33:23
  Nicole Bobek: I got married, I ran away with the circus for seven years.
• 33:26
  Nicole Bobek: I had a child, I went through a really, really hard divorce.
• 33:30
  Nicole Bobek: Um, and these are, I think, great things for people to connect with the human nature of the person, not just Nicole the Skater.
• 33:39
  Nicole Bobek: You know, uh people can relate to it of like, oh wow, I went through that also, you know.
• 33:47
  Nicole Bobek: So it's not just, I think in in sports, we also want to fit this image of these superheroes, that we are these superheroes.
• 33:56
  Nicole Bobek: But really, at the end of the day, we go home, we hang up, hang up our cape, and we pay our electricity bill.
• 34:02
  Nicole Bobek: So, you know, is what people gotta remember, also.
• 34:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah.
• 34:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, so it can you just let everybody know how to find your book, where to find it, um, and and kind of give uh that that that pitch.
• 34:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So we make sure we get that in.
• 34:21
  Nicole Bobek: I I've done the pitch a few times.
• 34:23
  Nicole Bobek: Let's see here.
• 34:24
  Nicole Bobek: So the name of the book is Bobak the Wild One, and you can find it on Amazon.
• 34:30
  Nicole Bobek: Amazon is soft cover and Kindle.
• 34:33
  Nicole Bobek: And if you want the beautiful, glorious, glossy book, you go on Bardzo Noble and get the hardcover.
• 34:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's awesome.
• 34:42
  Nicole Bobek: And we are in the works of uh uh working on an audiobook.
• 34:45
  Nicole Bobek: I can give you a date on that because I don't know yet, because a lot of people have requested for that as well, which I I fully understand.
• 34:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Awesome.
• 34:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Oh, that's great.
• 34:55
  Nicole Bobek: One too many times now, so I don't want to read it.
• 34:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah.
• 35:00
  Nicole Bobek: Because we have to do edits, you know.
• 35:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Right, yeah, there's a little process.
• 35:04
  Nicole Bobek: The first two, the first one was like a total.
• 35:07
  Nicole Bobek: I was like, oh my gosh, because I'm working with two different kinds of audience.
• 35:11
  Nicole Bobek: You have your fans, you have your super fans who know even more than I do.
• 35:16
  Nicole Bobek: Like, well, you were at this competition, you wore this dress, and you know, like, so to make those little mistakes, and poor Todd and Caden were like, is it really that important?
• 35:27
  Nicole Bobek: I said, Yes, it is, because I will get it so bad if I get that coach taught at that rank and he never taught at that rank, I will never hear the end of it.
• 35:37
  Nicole Bobek: So these were really specific things that we had to work on, and that was hard.
• 35:42
  Nicole Bobek: Once the skating was done, then I had to relive my drug thing, I had to relive my arrest, I had to relive my marriage, I had to relive IBF, I had to relive a lot of other stuff, and that was equally as hard, but only I could do that.
• 36:03
  Nicole Bobek: You know, then it was mom was like, I can't help you with that, you know.
• 36:07
  Nicole Bobek: So that was so it was like kind of like these stages we went through.
• 36:11
  Nicole Bobek: But working with an alignment coach, um, I wouldn't have been able to get through it without her, really.
• 36:17
  Nicole Bobek: Yeah, her just align me, being self-aware of what's going on, recognizing and accepting and all that good stuff.
• 36:26
  Nicole Bobek: I highly recommend it.
• 36:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, Nicole, thank you so much for joining us.
• 36:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, it's been a pleasure, and we're honored and grateful for you uh spending time with us and uh especially sharing uh those just raw emotions, old stories, and events.
• 36:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And again, we want to invite everybody to head out to Amazon and Barnes and Noble and pick out the copy of Bo bek the Wild One.
• 36:56
  Nicole Bobek: So I I I think there's something in there for really literally anyone.
• 37:01
  Nicole Bobek: You don't have to be a super skating fanatic to just pick it up because it's a typical skating book.
• 37:08
  Nicole Bobek: So this is why I believe the book is is so incredibly not only written, but the way it flows is like wow.
• 37:16
  Nicole Bobek: But um, we're really very grateful for you, by the way.
• 37:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Absolutely.
• 37:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you.
• 37:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and please watch, listen, subscribe, like, share, and we'll see you next time on the Voice of your Voices TV show and podcast.
• 37:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Bye bye for now.