Latest / Mind Over Mountain / Building the World You Wish Existed | The Sports Bra's Jenny Nguyen

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Building the World You Wish Existed | The Sports Bra's Jenny Nguyen · Mind Over Mountain

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Mind over Mountain with me
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Cheryl Strade.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: This week, my guest is Jenny Wynn.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Jenny is the founder and owner of the sports Bra,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: which is the first bar dedicated to supporting women's sports.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: When you walk into her place in Portland, Oregon, you
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: see women athletes on every screen. In our conversation, we
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: talk about how Jenny made this vision into reality, how
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: she trusted her authenticity to make her dreams come true,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and what's next for the sports Bra around the nation
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: as different franchises open up their doors. Let's listen to
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: our conversation. Jennyin Welcome to Mind over Mountain. I'm so
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: thrilled to have you on.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: I am so excited to be here and speaking with
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: you today.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Well little known fact, I'm not sure if you remember.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Back in February, I had lunch at the sports Bra,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: your beautiful, fabulous, amazing bar you celebrate the launch of
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: this podcast.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: It was I was there on the first day. One
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I how.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Can I forget?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: We took a selfie, we put it on Instagram.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: It was like, Yeah, I felt like, what better place
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to celebrate this podcast than your amazing spot that celebrates
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and empowers women athletes. Tell us about how the sports
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Bra began. I understand it was in another sports bar
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: in Portland, Ore again where we both live, back in
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. Take us back to that moment when you
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: had this great idea.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so back in twenty eighteen, you know, so I
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: had grown up here in Portland having fell in love
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: with basketball and been a basketball player and fan my
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: whole life. So I'd been playing, making all of my
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: friends through basketball. And what we did recreationally was we
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: wanted to go out and watch women's basketball. Like whether
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: it was for birthday party or pregame, post game, before concert,
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: whatever it was, we always ended up at some type
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: of sports bar trying to convince the server tender to
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: change the channel for us. And this one day in
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: twenty eighteen was no different.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: It was the.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Women's NCAA Basketball Championship. It was a big deal for us.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: It was the biggest game of the year. And at
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: the time, we loved college ball more than WNBA eve
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: and we were just like the college ball was just
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: where we were at and kind of closest to our
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: age range, and so for us, that was the game
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: of the year. So we got a group together and
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: we went over to a sports bar and sure enough,
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: we walk in and there's thirty plus TVs and not
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: a single one has, you know, the year's best game on,
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: And so we asked the bartender if they can change
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: the channel. They were like, oh, sure, absolutely, you know,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: we'll seat you guys over here. And you know, they
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: put a bunch they cobbled together a bunch of tables
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: into the corner of this restaurant and we proceeded to
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: watch this game that ended up being, you know, historic,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: one of the best basketball games ever played. And by
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: the end of the game, I was hugging my friends
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: and we were all high fiving and just so elated
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: that this game was outstanding. And I was in the
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: parking lot and I remember saying to my friend, that's
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: the best game I've ever seen, and she goes, can
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: you imagine if we'd watched it with the sound on?
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: And it was really watching it in silence in the
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: corny list bar.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one small TV in the corner of this bar,
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: in silence. And you know what's crazy is that, you know,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: a couple of things happened in that interaction. Was one
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: I hadn't noticed, because we had been so accustomed to
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: having that be the art lived reality for watching women's
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: sports in a public space.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Like you just accept yet like we had Yeah, I.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: Hadn't even I didn't even notice. And so I was
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: like mad and frustrated, not only at the situation but
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: almost at myself for being this huge fan and not
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: demanding more than what we're given. And so right then
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: I blurted out, you know what, the only way we're
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: ever going to watch women's sports the way it deserves
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: is if we had our own place, right And I
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: said it because I was mad. I said it because
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: I was frustrated at the situation and myself. But I
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: didn't mean like, you know, I wanted to, you know,
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: I was wishing it to existence, or that I was
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: going to do it. It was just something that I said.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, a couple of days later, I
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: was driving around and I was thinking about, you know,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: this comment that I'd made, and I was just like,
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: if we did have our own place, what would we
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: call it? And the very first name that came to
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: my mind was the Sports bra I. You know, I
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: was just driving around, I like started giggling to myself,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: and I just thought how hilarious it was, because to me,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: I was just switching two letters in the sports bar
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: and changing it to sports bra.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this clothing that supports women literally exactly exactly, and
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: then bar does exactly and so like right after that,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I go, oh, I have a tagline we support women,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: And then I just thought it was hilarious. I told
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: my friends they thought it was funny, and you know,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: for the next several years, it became a kind of
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: a running joke with us whenever we were disgruntled or
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: like if a sports bar experience disappointed us, which was
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: like every time, we'd be like, oh, at the sports Bra,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: you know, we could.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Watch championship volleyball. Oh at the sports Bra. You know,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: we'd have gluten free buns for our burgers and just
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: everything that we could think of where you know, traditional
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: sports bars have kind of come up short for folks
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: like us or folks in the community were just like
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: the sports Bra this fantasy.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Place, and how did it go from like that fantasy?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, I love that I have that same kind
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: of thing with my girlfriends about various things like we'll
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: do this and we'll do that. How did that go
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: from the fantasy in twenty eighteen to the reality and
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: you opened in twenty twenty two?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's correct.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was it was weird.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: So I had been unemployed for a little like about
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: five years, and so in twenty eighteen, I was I
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: was unemployed then, and so I had quit my job
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen, and prior to you know, prior to
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: the BRA, I was a chef, and so I'd spent
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: a little over fifteen years in kitchens and I ended
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: up leaving that career trying to figure out what I
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: was going to do next. And it turned out what
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: I was really good at was being unemployed, not working
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: at all. I was very good at that. So I
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: had managed to you know, make ends meet through like
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: some small gigs and kind of going on Craigslist and
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: picking up jobs, and I was perfectly happy. So, you know,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: I was spending time with my friends and my family,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: all the things, all the reasons why I kind of
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: left my career as a chef, and I was kind
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: of starting to see my future as just that, you know,
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: couch surfing, traveling and cogwork and meet gig work, and
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: then the pandemic happened in twenty twenty, and how you know,
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: because there was all this conversation about how the world
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: was different and how we didn't want to go back
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: to what was normal before, and how how did we
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: want to see the world and us in it in
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: the future. So I started to think about that and
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: I was just like, Okay, here, I am forty years old.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: I really feel like I have something to offer, but
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: I wasn't sure what it was. And ultimately, you know,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: I was really inspired by watching the WNBA playing in
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: the bubble. They call it. I'm not sure if you're familiar,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: but they all twelve teams, one hundred and forty four
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: players and their families and all the coaches went into
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: a quarantined environment outside Orlando and played their entire season
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: in a bubble.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the bubble that the WNBA, Well, I love it
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: exact How inventive.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Of them to do that.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: It was genius and also like very I mean, it
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: took an enormous amount of dedication from all involved. And
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: these are women who were doing their jobs but also
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: literally changing the narrative of the world outside through their platforms.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: And this was social justice work. This was political. This
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: was visibility representation, and they did it as a unit,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, individuals and as a team,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: as a leading exactly, and they stood for so much,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: like so many diverse voices. And it was at that
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: time where I was just like really inspired by what
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: they were doing, and I just grew more and more
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: impatient with myself, thinking, God, what you know, I've spent
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: the last five years kind of just like Max and
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: relax and getting a tan and hanging out and loving it.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: But like now it was like, Okay, how can I
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: give back to the community, How can I have impact?
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: And I just really didn't know what that was. And
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: it turned out, you know, I was just like, Okay,
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: what are the things that I've really loved and have
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: been passionate about my whole life? What am I about?
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: Where does that live? And it was really basketball and food.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: And that was when, you know, I was dating this
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: woman at the time and she goes, hey, you know
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: how you always joke about the sports bra And I
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: was like yeah, she goes, why don't you do that?
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: And she said it's so matter of factly and it's
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: hilarious because at the time I literally laughed because I
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: thought she was joking. You know, here was this like
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: fantasy place that we just kind of threw away, threw
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: around the name and the idea. And on the other hand,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: you had this extremely serious global pandemic with millions.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: The restaurant industry was the I would say, the hardest
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: head industry, right, I mean.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: And you were here in Portland. You saw dozens of
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: restaurants and retail stores closing every week. Absolutely, so yeah,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: it just seemed like a really absurd idea to like
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: lean into at that moment when I was taking everything
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: super super seriously.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: But you did lean and you did and Portland's I
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: just want to for people who don't know Portland or again,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: it's sort of famously like hugely into women's sports, wouldn't
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: you say that, like a we are you know, far
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and away.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: Far and away. I mean again, I might be biased.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: I grew up here, but it's not one of those
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: things that just happened in the last ten years. This again,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: you know, from the beginning, for as long as I
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: as I've been alive, I've witnessed folks showing up for
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: women's sports. And so when I thought about the BRA,
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: I thought, you know, if I even wrote it in
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: my business plan. I wrote out the sentence you know,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: I believe that if the sports Bra doesn't work in Portland,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: this concept wouldn't work anywhere else.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: It won't work.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Like I truly believe that.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: The sports Bra is the first place, the first bar
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: in the world.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Right, that is all about women's sports, not just in
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: the US. Correct. So you're really blazing a trail.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And it sounds like, you know, you had that background
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: as a chef, but you weren't a business woman, right
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: You hadn't. Ever, you didn't major in business in college,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: or say you're.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Amount so I was.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: I was a psychology major creative writing minor, which I think, oh, okay,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: enjoy knowing that.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wells As someone who does creative writing for a living,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I could tell you it's very different than running a business.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: It is so different. It is so different.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: However, psychology probably has come in handy because I think
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: one of my powers are people, and it's really relationships.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, when it comes down to it, business is
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: really about relationships. But yeah, so what's crazy is I
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: didn't know it would have been the first one. The
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: more and more I did research, the more I was
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: like this, I really want to do this. And then
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: I also remember like kind of asking my friends, like
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: what do you guys think about the name of the
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: sportspra and a majority of them are like, we love it.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: That's hilarious. I think it's awesome. And then there was
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: a small group of people that were just like, it's
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: kind of it's kind of too risque, like it's kind
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: of offensive, you know, it's a it's an undergarment. And
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: I was like, honestly, it's you know, it is a
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: tool that some girls and women use in order that
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: enable them to play the sport right to play the
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: sport that they love. So it's really a piece of
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: sporting equipment if you think about it.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: And but it's really interesting to me because I thought
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: about it that, you know, I was in Portland and
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: read all the press that you know, that was leading
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: up to the opening of the bar and after it opened,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and I thought about that because language is so powerful
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: and important, of course, and I feel like it's like
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: a reclamation, oh, you know, kind of the way like
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: queer folks reclaimed that word queer or you know, I
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: mean that there's that's like Okay, women have been reduced
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: to basically their their bust size for you know, for generations,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: and so for you to point so directly at something
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: that actually supports our breasts, you know, I think that
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: that's like a kind of reclaiming. Did you think about
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: that aspect of it?
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Totally? For me, it was like taking the taboo out
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: of saying it out loud right, and you know, kind
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: of some of my earliest moments that I'll never forget,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: which I find are like so tiny. But the most
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: memorable was the first time I got a letter from
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: the I R S, you know, and it said the
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: sports bra on it, and I was like, yes, you know,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: somebody out there had to print this like it it's
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: in the system now. And then I remember when we
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: were first open, we were burning through produce, like we
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: couldn't order enough food to keep in house because we
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: were so busy, and so I kept running to the
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: to go pick up like a will call. And so
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: the first time I went to go will call the produce,
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: this giant warehouse with everybody in forklifts driving around is
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: just like hot and like just loud, and I go
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: to the counter as like pick up for the sports Bra,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: and a woman's like okay, and she gets on the
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: mic she goes, we'll call pick up for the sports Bra,
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: and you can just hear echoing throughout this giant warehouse.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: I love remember thinking, oh my god, Like everybody has
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: to hear that, and everybody has to understand that the
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: sports Bra is a business and it's a place, and
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: like people have to like they're going to say it,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: and now we refer to it as the Bra. So
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: everybody's very n from the Bra. Hey, I'm heading to
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: the Bra after this, Like, so it's just very much
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: the Bra. And now we have everybody, kids, old men,
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: everybody being like, oh the Bra. Yeah, we know that place,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: you know. And just so now it's normalized. And I
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: definitely that was definitely one of the draws for naming
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: it the sports Bra as well.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And you know, I want to talk about so first
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: of all, I should say I tried to go on
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: your like first couple of days. My girlfriends and I
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: were like, this cool bar is opening up, let's meet there.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Forget about it, dear, I mean forget about it. You
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: couldn't get into that. You couldn't get into that bar.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: To save your life, so I had to wait for
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: things to simmer down a bit. But now I go
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: and you know, I have to say, it is such
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: a mind blowing place to me. And you know, the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: thing is is I went in knowing like, oh, this
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: this bra, this bar, this bra is all about women's sports.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't until I was sitting there and looking
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: around at all these screens, every screen, on every screen,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: there were women athletes doing things, all kinds of different sports,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: and I realized I had never ever ever seen that
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: in my life before, and that it had been you know,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: men men play in sports is in the background, you know,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: in so many places I go right all my life,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: and it felt so different, like it felt like just
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: this radical transformational thing.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And I know I'm not alone in feeling that.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So tell me about that experience for you that like
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: you're probably witnessing this over and over again now for years.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you know again, it's kind of those early
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: memories that are that feel really small, but I'll never
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: forget how kind of it transformed, you know, the purpose
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: for me. You know, ultimately I thought about opening it
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: for the community, opening it for myself, and what it
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: grew into and what it is now is so much
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: larger than what I had anticipated. But I remember I
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: had just gotten the cable hooked up and there were
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: two tables that are sorry, two TVs that came with
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: the location, and then we purchased the rest and installed
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: them later. But I remember the cable guy had just
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: left and he had connected the two TVs that were there,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: and I was there by myself. It was nighttime and
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: I knew that there it was women's college basketball season,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: and so I just sat down. I turned on each
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: TV and I put them on two different games, and
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: I sat against the banquette, you know, on the other
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: side of the bar, and I just looked up and
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: I just started.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Crying, you know.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: I started crying, thinking, you know, where else is this happening,
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: And this is a place that that I made. Yeah,
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: and this was really early on and I was and
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: I was very moved by that moment, and I just
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: thought how much it meant to me to create a
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: space kind of the space that I've always wanted, and
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: like I didn't even know that I wanted it, you
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: know what I mean, until like it kind of was
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: pushed into my face in this way that was like
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: through frustration and through years and years of kind of
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: watching or feeling like a second class citizen in Sport.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: So yes, so that moment is solidified in my brain
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: as an early memory of kind of that feeling. You know,
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: a lot of folks have talked about it being like
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: a transformative, transformative experience, right, and not just for them,
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: but for their future and for their history.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I've had folks come in who are you know, my age,
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: and they talk about their grandparent, you know, having been
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: a basketball player and playing in heels, half court, two
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: passes or you know, like or folks who come in
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: who were part of the Title nine generation, and then
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: folks who come in who have little kids and those
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: kids will never grow up in a place or in
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: a world where women's sports wasn't on TV.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: So it was kind of those moments compiled that made
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: me realize that I wanted the BRA to be bigger. Yeah,
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be bigger than just this one location
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: in Portland that I felt like that transformative experience didn't
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: belong to just our forty seat bar in Northeast Portland.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: That kind of belonged to the world that I wanted
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: as many people as possible to have that experience.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: And I know you guys are you're going to franchise,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: You're franchising to other cities, and I just want to
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you about that, but I just
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: want to linger there for a minute on what you
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: just said because I think it is so powerful. I
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I heard you so clearly talk about you know that
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: those days in the pandemic where you like, I want
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: to I want to offer something. What do I have
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: to offer? And you know I'm a chef and I
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: was a basketball player, and like what you know, how
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: do I form these passions into something that's meaningful and
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: offering to the world, a contribution to the world, if
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: you will. And I so am so moved by this
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: thing you did. It's it's, I want to say, a
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: simple act. I know it wasn't simple to get the
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: funding and to open that bar, and you know, nothing
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: is simple, but it you know, it is this little
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: bar in northeast Portland, Oregon, and yet it has this
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: world changing impact.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Because it's exactly what you said.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: You know, I think a lot of us we sort
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: of we've seen women athletes being treated like second class citizens.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: All of our lives. And we talk historically a lot
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: about all the ways that women were even prevented from
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: playing sports, but we forget that that's still happening now,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the fact that the sports raw is this like you know, anomaly,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: an outlier, you know, and.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: You walk into most sports bars today.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: And it's still going to be man on all those screens, right,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: you still have to fight for the one screen that
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: they might show female athletes. And so I just want
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: to say to you, Denny, you know, thank you, because
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: I do think that this kind of act, you know,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: this this mountain you climbed, changes the world for all
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: of us.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: And that's powerful, powerful work. Thank you so much. I
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: appreciate that, and it's you know, it's really humbling to
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: hear that and to know that I'm a part of
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: this movement coming out of twenty twenty two and the
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: women the growth of women's sports, and you know, for
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: so many of us that have been in this space,
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: you know, either as athletes or as fans, it's about time, right,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: like right, the job's not finished, We're just getting started.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: But it's also like a reminder that because I feel like, truly, deeply,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: I feel like a regular person, right, Like I feel
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: like a regular person who had a regular life, like
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: as far as regular you know, challenges, yes, overcoming things, yes,
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: failures absolutely, But that I had this dream and I
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: had just the right amount of support. And that's the
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: key to me, is like if I didn't have that support,
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: if I wasn't in a place of privilege, this dream
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have become a reality. I have my parents, they
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: live twenty minutes away. If I felt flat on my face,
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: my mom would love for me to move into the basement.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: She'd be like, come on, move into the basement. So
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: like the risk and reward aspect for me, Like I
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: knew that I wouldn't be completely like out on the
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: street if the sports brought you know, so like, yes,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: all of those things, but also how can we inspire
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: and and help as many people as we can put
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: them in a place where they can take their dream
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: and then go for it. Because I had that opportunity
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: and it has been the best, the best thing of
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: my life.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Right wow.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're giving that so you are franchising and
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I know that, Oh, we are definitely franchising.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: You're giving that to other people.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are people in other cities who are saying, hey,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: like this is also my dream and my vision.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: I'm want to be part of that.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Can you tell me about like what cities are we
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: going to see the sports brought in? And how did
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: how did that come about? What does that vision look
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: like to you?
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: You bet?
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: I mean it's it's such a long, crazy story. First off,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: you know, I started to get that sense in twenty
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: twenty three about you know, we opened in twenty twenty two,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: and it was like the first eight months or just
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: mayhem and everything I'd ever hoped and wished and dreamed
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: for the BRA we had like seen success in the
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: first twelve months, Like everything we had, you know, super
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: to Diana Farrossi taking shots with our guests, you know
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: during a Sweet sixteen event. You know, it was just
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: all of these amazing partnerships and just fanfare all the things.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: And so by twenty twenty three, I was starting to think,
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: oh my gosh, how do how do we give this
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: experience to as many people as possible and create more
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: ripple effects and impact in communities Because we all know
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: that viewership drives so much of everything. The ROI and teams,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: you know, salaries, media deals, content representation. You know, all
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: of that impact is from having visibility, and visibility happens
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: at the sports bra or sports bars when you put
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: women's sports on TV. So I started to think about
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: how we could scale, and I thought maybe I could
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: open these myself in all these different cities. And I
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: realized that what I want, what I really craved for
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: each location was authenticity. And because I'd spent my entire
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: life in Portland, the Portland location feels very authentic to
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: me andto the community into Portland, And if I were
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: to open it in Manhattan or Saint Louis or Miami,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't know the first thing about those communities. And
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: so that's when franchising kind of landed on the table
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: and I read through it and I was just like, Oh,
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: this is an opportunity to reach into the community, find
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: folks who believe in exactly what we're doing, and have
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: them open the sports brou where they live, and they
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: are the connector, they're the heart and soul of the business, and.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: They bring themselves the way you brought yourself. I mean,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: it's still going to be standardized, I'm sure to a
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: big degree. They bring their local knowledge of the community
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: they're surveying.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: And.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: Very early on, I realized that the sports Bra wasn't
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: something that I owned. You know, the sports Bra is like,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: you know, I've never had a kid, but I imagine,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: you know, when you have a kid, you look at
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: this baby and you have hopes and dreams for its future.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: You imagine you know what it's life will be like.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: But the reality is that you have no idea what
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: this baby's going to grow up to be.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Boy, don't I know it, Jenny.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: I have a twenty year old and a twenty two
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: year old, and yeah, I apparently I don't get to
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: just like map out their lives before like that.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, you can have plans, but just know that
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: you know they're going to grow up to be whatever
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: they're going to grow up to be.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've not.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: And so when I look at the sports Bra as
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: a baby my I felt like my job was to
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: do whatever it takes to take care of the baby
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: and give it, give it whatever it needed to grow
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: and thrive and change the way I felt like it
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: wanted to change, right, And I learned that early on
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: because it grew, so it grew outside of my dream
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: so quickly that I was just like, Okay, you know,
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: I can either stifle this baby and it's where it's going,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: or I can let it go and grow. So right
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: now we have five cities that are signed and building out.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: It's Las Vegas, Saint Louis, Indianapolis, Boston, and the other Portland.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: We call it Portland, Maine, the other Portland.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: I love it. Yeah.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: And so with the you know, kind of with the
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: six entities, it's already become kind of a mind hive
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: where you know, we have ideas of our own and
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: they come with ideas and we're like, oh my gosh,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: we've never thought of it that way, like let's try it.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: And so it's it's just this amazing way to kind
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: of grow and scale the business, not just in size,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: but in like inventiveness, right and impact, which is like
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: kind of my number one identifier of if I want
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: to do something is like how much impact will it have.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I'm sure your parents are just like wildly proud of
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: you and your success, but what about like what about
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: along the way? What did what did you what did
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: your folks think? I understand your only child, so all,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: you know, all their eggs are just in one basket,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: that is you, and they're like, wait a minute. You know,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: during the pandemic, you're like, I have this great idea
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to open a bar when all the bars are like
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: shining down. Like, tell me the journey that you've been
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: on with with your parents.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, for all of your listeners that are Asian,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: they can understand this. So I'm an only child, first
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: generation Vietnamese American. You know, my parents came over from
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Vietnam and seventy five during the war, they landed in
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: you know, Ellis Island and then both went to Saint Paul, Minneapolis,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: froze their asses off. I don't know why they send,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: you know, Southeast Asianers to Minneapolis.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm from Minnesota, Jenny. I grew up in
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: marisona there.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: So they packed up a car and drove west until
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: they got to Portland. And so they've been to They've
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: been in Portland for a long long time.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: And you know, so growing up as an only child
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: to you know, immigrants, for your listeners, who do know,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a it's a whole bag of its own. Yeah, right,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: And when I was five or six, I knew that
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: I was that I knew that I was gay. You know,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: it was early on and I started to like, you know,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: want to cut my hair really short, Like if my
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: mom put a dress on me, I'd break out in hives.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Like it was a whole situation.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: And I was.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Climbing trees, playing with the boys, coming back dirty with
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: scuffed up knees. And my mom is very much like
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: a style queen, like literally like a model, like glam
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: glam queen, and so she she really wanted a daughter
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: that would you know, dress up, will steps exactly.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: So there were no standing together.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: There was some friction there, and you know, I grew
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: up with the with the words like, you know, girls
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: don't play sports, girls don't do this, girls don't do that,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: and so like there was a lot of friction there.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: But as I got older, my dad really kind of
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: was just like also loved basketball and was just like
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: a little more into sports than mom was, So he
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: kind of fostered that relationship. And so I came out
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: when I was seventeen, and that conversation, you know, was
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: really really hard, and it took my mom probably a
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: decade to really like accept that that that it wasn't
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: a phase, and then you know, I was in college
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: when I realized that I loved cooking, and so I
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: was I was actually pre med in college, right, and
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: by the end of my sophomore year, I called my
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: parents to tell them that I wanted to be a chef,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: not a doctor. And so that conversation, as you can imagine,
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: went probably even worse than my coming out conversation, like honestly,
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: because I think that, you know, coming out, they understood
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: that I was born that way. It wasn't a choice
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: but a career. Like I was full on like choosing
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: chef life.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: And so they felt almost like betrayed.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: On that phone call, my dad's literally said something to
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: the effect of, we didn't flee a war torn country,
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: cross an ocean and work six jobs for you to
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: be a cook.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Hmm. That must have been painful for you to hear.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Sure, oh you bet. Like there was lots of tears,
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: there was lots of hang ups, and yeah, so it
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: was really hard. But I stuck with it because I
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: was very passionate about it, and so like there have
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: been these steps throughout my life where I didn't meet
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: their ideal. You know, I was wearing a baby that
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: they imagined, you know, and it caused a lot of friction,
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: but ultimately, like as hard as it was, I always
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: kind of chose my authenticity and pushed for it. And
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: what the one great benefit and like a blessing that
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: I will also mention, is that in the end it
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: always turned out for the best, right And that's not
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: true for everybody, Like I know that to this day
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: there are folks who are standing in their authenticity and
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: are out in the street because their family projected them
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: and kicked them out, that their friends turned their backs
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: on them, that they got fired because they were their true,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: authentic self. So I also know that in every step,
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: though it was a battle, I was accepted. I was
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: loved unconditionally. I was supported, you know, whether it was
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: through friends, family, maybe not my parents, but you know,
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: other folks. I had a support system around me. And
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: you know, I will never I will never. Folks who
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: know me will know that I will never say that
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I did anything on my own. I didn't do the
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: sports bra on my own. I didn't I didn't come
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: out on my own. I didn't, you know, choose chef
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: life on my own. It all came with an ardible
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: support network that was absolutely critical to those next steps.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: And so my parents too, Like even though they were resistant,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: they never did like they never completely shut you out.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: They were about it all the time, don't get me wrong,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: but they like you led them down the path that
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: they didn't want to go, but they reluctantly followed you.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: And so by the time I was forty, and I
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: sat them down to tell them, you know, and this
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: is the thing about the age. You know, I was forty.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: I wasn't asking them. I was sitting them down to
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: tell them what my next.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Step, this is what I'm doing.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And you know I would be lying if
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: I didn't say that. I wish they would have been supportive.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Like it was still very painful. I'm still, you know,
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: that child that just wants acceptance from their parents. But
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I sat them down, I told them about the BRA
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: And you know, a couple they that they said at
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: the beginning also will stick with me because it's kind
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: of One is kind of funny and one is very poignant.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Is my mom. You know, I tell her about what
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: I'm doing and she goes, are you sure right now
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: is a good time to open a lesbian bar?
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Women's sports bra just is a lesbian bar. Okay.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: I know at no point did I ever use any
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: words like that, but mom, Mom is sharp as attack.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: She knows those ven diagrams, like right, right, So I
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: thought that was hilarious and I was just like, that's
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: not exactly what I said, Mom. But and then Dad
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: was like, okay, so what you're telling me is that
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: a sports bar dedicated just to women's sports has never existed.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: Before I go, that's correct, and he goes, maybe there's
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: a reason why.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Which, yeah, I couldn't understand that reasoning. Right, that's what
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: he said.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: And I immediately got like that that flush in my
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: stomach where I was like, I'll show you.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh I was gonna say that. You were like,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: what if he's right?
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: And instead you were like, uh, no, way, I'll show you.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I love that well the spirit, Jenny.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: Well, my thinking was, you know, if if humans always
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: thought that, then we wouldn't have ever invented anything, right,
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: because if it would have existed already, we'd be happy
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: and sitting like in a cave in the dark.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: You know, somebody's got to have the idea that's never
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: been done before and test it, right, and you did bingo.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: So listen, I have I love hearing about, you know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: your relationship with your parents in this because it's of
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: course that matters, that makes a difference. And I'm dying
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: to know like more about like what they think once
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: you've had this wild success, so they're skeptical, they're asking
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: you these questions. It drives you forward, But what do
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: they think now, Like when they saw that opening weekend
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: where like my girlfriends and I and the rest of
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the city couldn't even get in the doors.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: February first of twenty twenty two, I got the keys
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: to the location and I really wanted my parents to
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: be there when I walked in for the first time,
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: and you know, I really wanted them to go on
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: this journey with them. Reluctantly, I dragged them with me,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: and they were just like hating this idea the whole
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: time and being like you really, you know whatever.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I unlocked the.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: Door and I open it up, and the place is
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: like kind of a wreck, you know. It's the pandemic.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: The restaurant that was in there could not wait to
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: get out, and they like left everything, so it was
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: a bit of a wreck. Dad walked in and he
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: had a panic attack. He full on couldn't breathe, and
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: he kept saying over and over and over again, I
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: can't believe this. This is the worst mistake you've ever made.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: And then he walked. He had to, he had to
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: walk out, and it was gut wrenching, right, but I
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: just kept I walked. I walked mom around. I was like,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: I want this to be here. I will clean this up,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: and you know, I had the vision. And meanwhile, you
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: know they're both just totally freaked out, totally looked out.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: But what changed everything was Grand Opening Day. So they
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: sit across the street and you know, thousands of people
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: show up. There are camera crews standing to the forty
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: seat bar. There's a line down the block and around it,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: and I.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Was on that line for a little bit.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: You were in that line. It was just mayhem. And
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: it was that at that moment that I think my
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: parents realized that it wasn't just me and my dream
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: that it was It was really a dream for so
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: many others, and and it wasn't just me taking a
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: leap of faith for my myself, right, it was it
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: was me taking a leap of faith for this this
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: movement and something I truly believed in, and once they
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: kind of were able to like see that and zoom out,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: it changed everything like overnight. They It wasn't even the success,
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: It was just the visibility of the impact that it
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: had created just being in existence, not even having you know,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: a successful month or successful day in sales. It was
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: just the fact that it existed and that it mattered,
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: and all of that changed the lens for them.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is so beautiful.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: Complete one eighty, Like complete one eighty. I had cousins
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: that had babies and my parents are like, congratulations, but
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: guess what happened at the sports brawn. I'm like, oh
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: my god, settle down.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Now you're the star at the family gatherings, right, Like
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: who cares about those doctors and engineers and lawyers?
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Like what about what about changing the world? Kids?
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Mom and dad are my number one fans.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: So listen, Jenny, I have as you know, I always
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: ask my guest to help me answer a Dear Sugar letter,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: and your discussion about your parents brings to mind this
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: letter I want us to address today, which is a
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: very different kind of tale about parents. Yes, I think
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: as somebody who has you know had some struggles with
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: your your own parents.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: I think you might be able to offer some wisdom.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Can I read you the letter? Yes?
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: Please?
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, here we go. It's from a young woman, a teenager.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Dear Sugar, I'm an eighteen year old girl, and I
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: need your advice. My parents divorced a year ago and
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: separated a year before that, so a lot of my
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: teen years have been spent having to deal with their issues, conflicts,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: and all the emotions their breakup has caused in me.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: When they first told me and my two older sisters
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: that they were separating, and later when they decided to
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: go ahead with a divorce, I felt extremely sad. But
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: now the main feeling I have is anger. The reason
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: for this is I've learned that both of my parents
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: cheated on each other before they separated. I only found
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: this out after my oldest sister told me this was
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: the real reason they decided to get a divorce. They
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: originally told me it was only that they quote fell
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: out of love but still cared for each other. I
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: think the reason I'm so mad is that I feel
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: like they're hypocrites. They made my sisters and me go
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: to church regularly, were Catholic, and they claim to care
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: about having good values. They taught us that honesty and
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: integrity were very important, but what they did is entirely
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: the opposite of honesty and integrity. Knowing this about them,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: how can they be my role models. My dad is
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: now seriously dating the woman he cheated with, and I've
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: had to spend time with her on a few occasions.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: My mom isn't dating anyone, as her affair was just
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: a fling, according to my sister. Once I found out
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: about their affairs, I confronted them about lying to me
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: about the reason they divorced, and they both apologized and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: tried to explain what happened. But I still feel deeply
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: upset and angry that our family had to be ruined
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: by their selfishness. I love my parents, of course, but
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: I'm really disappointed in them. I feel like they've failed
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: me and my siblings by not being able to keep
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: their wedding vows. My whole family has shifted because of
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: their actions. I sometimes feel like we aren't really a
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: family anymore. I'm going to college in the fall, and
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: I don't want to leave feeling this anger inside of me.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: How do I forgive my parents for these choices that
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: feel so wrong to me? How do I let go
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: of my disappointment that the two people I used to
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: look up to the most failed to live up to
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: their values and also failed me?
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Signed angry Daughter.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: What a letter?
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: We've I mean, this is a you know, it's a
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: pretty hard case, but it's also like we've all been there,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: I think, where somebody we really love and admire disappoints
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: us profoundly by a choice they've made.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Sure, and I'm curious, what do you? What do you
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: what are what are your thoughts on this? Jenny?
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm I feel so much sympathy for her,
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm I'm an enneagram for so I'm a feeler,
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: uh and a super EmPATH, right m h.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: I think that.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: I think it's interesting. I think that there's some layers
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: of values and this idea of like what has been
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: preached and you know, going to like a Catholic school
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: like I went to, and I think that there are
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: so and you know, just from my viewpoint, there are
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: so many lessons in religion that are really like tales
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: about morals and values and.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: They're a guide, right, right, they're aspirational the best case
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: scenario we live up to that, you know.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: Exactly exactly, And I think it's only natural for parents
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: to want to instill those values in their children through lessons,
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: whether it's church or whether through it's reading or or
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: whatever it is.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: But also like.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: That we're all human, and I think that there's this
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: level of superhuman that she was expecting for her parents
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: to live up to, and it's not realistic. But also,
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, and it doesn't negate her feelings of anger
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: and disappointment, Like all of those are real and she
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: should feel them, right, she should absolutely feel them, but
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: she I think that there's this level of understanding that
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: everybody is a human being and is part of the
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: human condition to make mistakes and to be driven in
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: weird ways through lust or passion or desire or greed.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: You know, it pulls us in all these different directions,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: and that's just the human way. However, I do think
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: that the fact that the parents chose to have a divorce,
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: chose to speak to their kids about what is happening,
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: answered the questions, you know, truthfully, after the fact, I mean,
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: it's always hard, and it's like the little White lie
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: that turned into the big black lie afterwards. Right, So
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: I think that there is an opportunity for her to
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: reevaluate what a role model looks like. And it's it's
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: not the mistakes that you make, but how you grow
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: and learn from the mistakes, because mistakes will always inevitably happen.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: If you hold anyone to that standard, you're going to
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: live a life full of disappointment and you know, all
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: the things. But for parents, you know, I think that
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: if her parents move forward in a way that is
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: growing and learning with love and compassion for the kids
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: and for their partners and exes and all of those things,
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: I think that is much more a sign of integrity
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: than a breaking of you know, a breaking of vows
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: or breaking of this ideal.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Ideal role model.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: So I think that there's still an opportunity to to
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: to like see her parents in a different light.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think too, like in fact, you use
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: that word authenticity, you know, I think that in so
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: many ways, in their botched way and their way that
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: was probably even to these parents, like not the path
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: they would have chosen if they could go back in
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: time and do it differently, but their separation and divorce
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: and even their affairs were probably some expression of like
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: what it is they really want now in their lives.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: And I think you say it so well, Jenny that, like,
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: to me, a.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Real role model, like a real role model is not
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: somebody who manages perfection, because what we know and what religion,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: frankly even acknowledges, is you know none of us can
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: be in our perfect that the best thing we can
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: do is make amends when we've made mistakes and hurt people.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: And it sounds to me, angry Daughter, like your parents
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: are trying to do that, And I think that I
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: also want to echo again, Jenny, what you said. You know,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: sadness and anger are absolutely valid feelings for angry daughter
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: to be feeling right now because a hard thing happened
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: in her life and her family dynamic.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Did change profoundly.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: But angry daughter, if you can kind of allow those feelings,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: accept those feelings, and you know acknowledge that none of
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: us can be perfect, maybe start to think about ways
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: that your parents can be role models to you in
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: a more complicated way. Jenny, one thing I listened to
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: your great Ted talk, and one quote I wrote down
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: that I just loved is you said, when we learn
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: to let go, we make room for more, and you
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: said it in a totally different context than this letter,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: but I think it applies here because, Angry Daughter, I
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: think what you need to let go of is this
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: idea of role model equals, you know, always living out
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: every every one of your highest values or highest ideals.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: We all fall short of that at one time or
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: another over the course of our lives, and Angry Daughter,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: you will too someday. And so when you can let
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: go of that, the room, the thing that you make
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: room for is real life, real people, which includes not
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: just sadness and anger, but forgiveness and acceptance. Okay, Angry Daughter,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: we wish you luck, we know, and you know you're
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: eight I think too, Jenny.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: You know you remember being eighteen.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: I remember that feeling too, of having to sort of
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: grow into this idea of how complicated we are. Right,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: So that plays into it too, Like at college, you're probably,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Angry Daughter, not going to just learn a lot of
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: stuff at school, but also in life that you are
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: stepping into adulthood. And I think it's going to be
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: a time where you can see your parents more clearly
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: once you go off into the world.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: I mean so much, like even now, you know, I'm
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: realizing that my mom, you know, I'm seeing everything from
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: her lens now where it's just like, oh my gosh,
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: Mom was just trying her best. She was just doing
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: her best. And as a as a thirteen year old,
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: I remember being like always angry at her.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that is one of the gifts of
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: middle age, right that you get to look back and
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: you know, most of my peers who are in their
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: forties and fifties and sixties are saying like, oh my gosh, yeah,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: my parents they just they were doing their best, you know,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: And it is it is a more complicated, but more
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: authentic way of seeing other people. So thank you, Jenny,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: You're You're quite a good dear sugar there.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: He got some good advice in you. Thank you. I
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: appreciate that.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: I've never done that before. So that was I mean,
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: and you pulled out a hard stop for me. I
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: was just like, oh wow, I know, I.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: Know, I'm not. I wasn't going to go easy on you.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: You know, I know you. I knew you had some
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: game in you.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: So here it is seeing grad four, that's right, So
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: what's next for you? What's the next I mean, you've
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: you've done this big thing in making this not only
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: like successful business, but a business that actually has real
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: social and cultural impact that contributes to the betterment of others.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: And now is franchising across the nation. What's your next
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: mountain to climb? And it doesn't have to be in business,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: It could be in life, in sport, in whatever realm
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: you want. What what next mountain are you ascending?
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: Gosh, that's a great question. I mean right now, you know,
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: all I'm looking at is trying to get these first
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: four or five franchises up open and successful and seeing
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: what doors that opens for us. Right like actually going
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: from one location into a franchise system across the country.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: It's going to change the lens of the bra in
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: a major dramatic way. I just back from kind of
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: the WNBA All Star weekend and I attended an event
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: that was really insightful around where do we go from here?
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: Because everyone is talking about ROI and investment, all of
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: those things, and yes, all of that is going and happening,
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: but how do we make this sustainable and lasting? And
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: what are some aspects around the world right now that
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: can help define the next twenty thirty years of women's
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: sports and the world that we want to what the
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: world we want to see. And you know, there's a
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: lot of talk of AI and what those experiences are
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: like around social media AI and kind of the isolated fan,
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: and for us, we see it as a bringing together
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: of people and that is irreplaceable. And so the more
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: AI happens and the more people become isolated, the more
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: valuable community becomes, engagement becomes, and so the essence of
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: what the BRA is has a very good foothold into
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: the future because we're all about creating experiences and those
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: things will become so much more necessary and valuable to
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: all folks, fans or not, going into the future of
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: women's sports. So we're really really excited to kind of
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: dive into that. I'm excited for you and I can't
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: wait to see what's next. And I can't wait to
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: walk through that door again of the sportspra in my
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: neighborhood because you're so right. You enter and you know
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: that you are part of a community, not just the
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: community that's in that room, but really around the world
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: of people who love and support women's sports. Thank you, Jenny,
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: for being on the show, and thank you for being
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: part of that really cool vision. Oh my gosh, it's
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on here.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to write a letter seeking advice, please
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: send it to me at Deardearsugar at gmail dot com.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: And don't forget to.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, Happy trails,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: and I'll see you next week. Minover Mountain with Cheryl
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Strade is an iHeart women's sports production produced by Britney
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Brown and Rodney Brown of Barbara Jean Productions. Supervising producer
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: is Kaylin West at REALM. Associate producer Amaya Brathwaite. Our
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: executive producers are Molly Barton, Jerry Carreta, Grace Views and
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Jesse Katz. Our theme song is composed by Gramoscope Music.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: your podcasts, Happy trails, and I'll see you next week.