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Gabby Reece: Lessons on Resilience, Reinvention, and Redefining Success | E142 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Randall Kaplan: When Al named you one of the five most beautiful women in the world when that came out, what were you thinking? I wasn't for me again, COVID, you're being humble. No, I'm not. I'm not.
• 0:07
  Randall Kaplan: Did you say to yourself, holy?
• 0:10
  Randall Kaplan: Like, that's pretty cool. I
• 0:11
  Gabby Reece: don't know what what's cool about it, I have to be honest. Again, you don't earn it. I was on the right shoot at the right time. You know these magazines, it's all these titles, top 10, top five. Like, I never was fooled by that. I was like, This is gonna be very good for my work, and it's gonna create more opportunity. But it is what it is. And I think my sports also kept me really grounded, and I understood the difference between good fortune and hard work, and they're very different. And so in fashion, that was a lot of good fortune, and that was getting picked.
• 0:48
  Randall Kaplan: Welcome to In Search of Excellence, where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers, athletes, motivational speakers and trailblazers of excellence, with incredible stories from all walks of life. My name is Randall Kaplan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and the host of In Search of Excellence, which I started to motivate and inspire us to achieve excellence in all areas of our lives. My guest today is Gabby Reese. Gabby is a former professional volleyball player who's gone on to have an incredible career as a sports announcer, fitness advocate, serial entrepreneur, public speaker, model, actress, New York Times, Best Selling Author, television host and podcast host. She's had her own show on MTV. Was the first female to design a shoe for Nike. Is a former spokesperson for both Nike and copper tone has been a sports commentator for MTV and CBS, and in 1997 was voted one of the 20 most influential women in sports. She's a co founder of the fitness training program XPT, and is also a co founder of Laird superfood, a line of coffee supplements, which she started with her husband, LAIRD HAMILTON. And is also the host of the Gabby Reece show, a podcast about health, fitness, relationships, parenting and business. Gabby, thanks for being here. Welcome to In Search of Excellence. Thanks
• 2:03
  Gabby Reece: for having me. I'm In Search of Excellence still.
• 2:05
  Gabby Reece: So all right, well, let's get
• 2:07
  Randall Kaplan: into it. I want to start with your parents. You were born in La Jolla, California, and we're going to start with your mom, and then we're going to talk about your dad and what happened when you were five years old. Your mom, Terry, was a dolphin trainer in the circus, and at one point she was in Mexico and you got whooping cough. Can you tell us about what happened after that and how your life changed from that moment on?
• 2:30
  Gabby Reece: Well, so I know it sounds kind of strange, but she was training dolphins in Mexico City and in a tank, yeah, in a tank, and they'd have circus, you know, like they'd have the clowns that went off the high dive, extra, you know, all kinds of different acts. And my mom was a single parent. My parents were not together, and I got pretty sick there. I got whooping cough. And my mom grew up in Long Island, New York, and so childhood friends of her neighborhood friends, you know, like people would have, then they ended up taking care of me from age two to seven in Long Island. My mom was quite young, and I think if I put myself in her shoes, she was sort of doing the best. What was she thought was definitely what was best for me and my I called them my aunt and uncle Joe. They were a high school, boyfriend and girlfriend, and they became they were married. He had just come back from Vietnam, either they chose to not have children or could not have children. So they took me on until I was seven, and my mom remarried and and then I ended up moving down to the Virgin Islands, to the Caribbean at
• 3:38
  Randall Kaplan: two and a half.
• 3:38
  Randall Kaplan: You don't really know what's happening, right? I mean, I remember my parents got divorced. I was two and a half.
• 3:41
  Randall Kaplan: I barely remember it, but at some point you realize that you're not with your parents.
• 3:50
  Randall Kaplan: When did you think about that, and did it affect you? Did you say, Why isn't my mom around? I
• 3:56
  Gabby Reece: think I did. No. I also think being in a really different location, going from one location to another, made it a very significant break. And my aunt or an uncle Joe, they, you know, the joke was, when I was seven, my aunt norette was five feet tall. I was five feet tall at seven, and it was, we were not, you know, a match in that way, but they loved me so deeply, so in one way, I was, I was really cared for and really loved, and so that made a lot of that easier, but it was always sort of like, how come I don't live with my family, but they but they became my family and and it was always interesting in conversation. But the thing I really appreciated is my especially my Aunt orette, she was always very direct. She never danced around it. So it was never made awkward or weird that, in fact, that's what was happening. So
• 4:47
  Randall Kaplan: you're living in Long Island, you're five years old, and one night, her anorak gets a phone call. You can sort of hear on the phone, and you know from her voice something's wrong. Can you tell us what happened? What your reaction was, and how. That influenced your life. I
• 5:01
  Gabby Reece: was sitting in my room. It was a really tiny little house, really tiny, and I remember, you know, hard lines.
• 5:08
  Gabby Reece: The phone rang, and my internet went to the where the phone is, and I could hear in her voice that whatever what she was being told was not good news. And so she came in my room, and she had told me that my father had died in a plane crash, and listen, I think that's hard, but I also say that because I it was not the everyday he did not not come home from work. It was a different type of experience or loss, because I wasn't around him every day. And so it's not to minimize it, but it's just to say that it was a little bit more unusual and and something that I've thought a lot about over the
• 5:48
  Randall Kaplan: years. So at age seven, your mom remarried, and you moved to Puerto Rico, because the person she married was in Puerto Rico, and after that, you moved to St Thomas in the Virgin Islands, which is sort of where you grew up. Can you tell us about that experience and how that impacted your life going forward?
• 6:02
  Gabby Reece: Yeah, I mean, I listen. I worry about that myself as a parent, you know, thinking, Oh, is this the right the best move my stepfather, who I still know to this day, my parents have they were broke.
• 6:10
  Gabby Reece: They broke up by the time I was 12 or 13, but I still know him, you know, 40 something years later, he was very loving and kind. He was not an authoritative figure. It wasn't like there was not a lot ton of structure, and it was the 70s, and people were having fun, and they were in the Caribbean, so there was a lot. It was sort of there was a loosey goosiness to the way that I grew up, which only kind of reinforced a couple things in my natural personality, which is pretty disciplined, kind of linear, looking for stability, looking for order. I would, I would create order in my environments, even when I was very, very young. And the thing that I'm really grateful for, though, is growing up on an island and and the values of being on an island which are so different than the mainland United States, because I wasn't I wasn't trained that I had to be somebody. Nobody was striving in that way, at least around me so much they were living life and enjoying life.
• 7:14
  Gabby Reece: And indirectly, I got to understand my father's culture, because my father's from Trinidad. So I understood my that whole side of my family so much better, because I grew up in a really similar culture. And quite frankly, later, I think the thing that that bonds my husband and I layered is we grew up on islands, so
• 7:33
  Randall Kaplan: a lot of times when we have a major loss, we don't really recognize the impact of our loss until later in life, and you didn't really recognize it either. You said you were numb from it in a school. You felt very alone, and you acted out against your mom.
• 7:47
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, so can you tell us about that? And then what's, what's your advice to all the parents out there listening when their kids are acting out how? What's the best way to talk to your kids about that.
• 8:54
  Gabby Reece: You know, I think when a parent dies, they get off the hook. So my mom was the person who took the hit for everything. And also, I do think we have a different scale that we or standard we hold our moms to, like your mom's not supposed to not be there, your mom's not supposed to leave. So I was angry, and I probably punished her pretty good for that. And also, it's not like when she came back, she was the most dialed in, organized person she was. That's not, let's say her, her, those are her strong suits.
• 9:27
  Gabby Reece: So I was really frustrated by always feeling like, you know, what's the plan and what are we going to do? And, you know, we missed several air, you know, flights like my mom was a little bit scattered that way. And as far as other parents, you know, one thing I've learned is we do the best that we can and and if I look at it now, I'm so grateful for all the ways that my mother was because it really helped me establish a lot of traits that have supported me in my life. Some things I've had to work through and offload that I don't need anymore, like hypervigilance or things like that, but other things of being organized and having three plans in place and sort of doing things on my own. I moved out at 17. Really was also a reaction to that. For me personally, what I say my philosophy as a parent is, is I'll make the mistakes I can apologize for. So you know, the joke is I, Byron Katie said, once I have three kids and they have three different mothers.
• 10:31
  Gabby Reece: You know this, having five kids, right? Every kid has a different story about who you are as a parent. And so all I try to do, or all I invite parents to do, is, you know, say sorry when you know you blew it. Don't try to, you know, shuck or jive, move out of it. Just be like, I blew that. Because that's, I think, really, all I wanted my mom to say was, like, Hey, I. Did the best I could, and I'm sorry, but for her, she wasn't taught that it was okay to make mistakes, so she spent the whole time trying to justify or whatever. So whatever mistakes I'm making as a parent, they're ones I'm going to be willing in 20 years time.
• 11:08
  Gabby Reece: If a kid comes back and goes, you know you were it was hard because of your discipline and your thing, whatever I'm going to have to apologize for, are those things I'm going to be comfortable with, and that's how and that's how I view that and and again, as far as my mother, that notion of, if you were them, that's how you would have acted. You know, as an adult, I've really learned that idea, you know, when someone says, Well, if you were them, if you had all their variables, all the ways that they were raised and what they dealt with and who they are, you might have done exactly the same thing. And that has really been hopeful.
• 11:43
  Randall Kaplan: As you were younger, this eight to 10 year old phase, you were acting out against your mom, and you said yourself someday, you said yourself at the time, I need to make a change. So at at 10 years old, how do you even have the thought process to do that? And what's your advice that people listening today are older? I mean, I'm 55 you're Yeah, I'm right there. You're nearby. But what if you're, what if you're 20 years old, 30 years old, and you're living this life? How do you actually tell yourself I need to change. Actually do it.
• 12:14
  Gabby Reece: You know, each of us are given our own special life and path, and everyone will have their reasons that they it's not fair. You had your your own reasons, and it isn't fair.
• 12:23
  Gabby Reece: And by the way, there's people who suffer much more than it can always be worse. And what I would always invite someone to do is, is to look at their life, their special life, their unique personality, and the ways that they can contribute and not have their life be a reaction to what they didn't get or how somebody wronged them, but to become the creation and the expression of what they what they hope and desire. And you know, I used to say that my motivation was, was fear based. It was I had to survive. And as I've gotten older, it's the inspiration of the gift that is the opportunity, right? Instead of doing things and working really hard at things, because I have to pull it and I have to make it, I just go, Wow, you're so fortunate that you get these choices, you get to do it. So I would tell a younger person you may not even be where you want to be right now, especially when you're living in a house that you're kind of not in charge, but to not be the victim of that story, and to sort of dream about the things and the places in the and the ways that you would like to create your adult life. And then what does that look like? And then, how would you do that? And just keep those ideas rolling in your head and keep moving in that direction.
• 13:38
  Gabby Reece: And then, if you're older, you have to have a strategy in place. You can't just wish it or dream it. You have to have a strategy and take small steps towards that and keep reevaluating as you go, like every month or every six months or every year in your businesses, I'm sure you do the one, three and five years and go, Am I doing the right things?
• 13:56
  Gabby Reece: Do I need to add things? Do? I need to take away certain behaviors that are keeping me from those things I say that I want, and keep doing that. And it's pretty amazing what we can do. And a lack of forgiveness is really hard on us, and it really holds us back. And so if there's a place and a time that we're able to forgive whoever the people that we feel have hurt us, that's really a helpful tool. So many
• 14:22
  Randall Kaplan: of us are a little unusual in ways as we're growing up. You had something physical about you that very unusual. The average 12 year old is four and a half feet tall.
• 14:32
  Randall Kaplan: You were six feet tall, and at 12 years old, you were unusual looking. People would look at you and they would talk about you. Tell us what that was like when everyone, I mean, someone, at some point, thought you were a substitute teacher. Yeah. And you know, what did? What did that have on your psyche? And then, what's your advice to all the parents out there, or people growing up who have something a little bit about them that's physically different. Well,
• 14:58
  Gabby Reece: you know, listen, growing up, I think I realized really quickly, and this is a very practical side of my personality, you're not going to fit in in that stereotypical way. And all you yearn to do when you're a teenager, right, is to be like everyone else and fit in. And somewhere in there, I realized, like, that's not going to happen just based on my physical size. So there was this kind of acceptance of, okay, I'm different, and sometimes it's really uncomfortable, and I get, you know, singled out with either names or thinking I was a substitute teacher, like in seventh or eighth grade. What were the names that people would you know, like Jolly Green giants. And you know daddy long legs, and you know whatever the million things are, and as a and as a female, right? The idea of, of, of, you know, being less or not powerful or fitting in or meek, or whatever, taking up space, that kind of all was out.
• 15:52
  Gabby Reece: The window. And I will give my mom a lot of credit here. My mother was about six, probably six to six, two and a half at her at her height, of her at her height, and she was pretty comfortable with it, kind of oblivious, almost, and and so she was that, in that way, a good a good example. But what I will say is, then we spend our entire adult life, trying to stand out. And so when we're young, even though it's painful, it is your gift. You know your curse is your gift, for all of us, and once we if we could just kind of ride that out, it doesn't mean you don't have those days and and also maybe sometimes go, Huh, well, in what ways is this going to support my story, in this, this difference about me? And I think the sooner we can get in touch with that, and know too, that once you're out of high school, it's going to be great that you're different. A lot of people will have to work so hard to be different, to stand out. And so I would just remind people to it's sort of like, not your problem, it's their problem. If people are responding to your difference, it's not about you, it's them. Beautiful
• 17:05
  Randall Kaplan: people look beautiful when they're younger and you're I mean, they just continue. I really don't know beautiful child who turned out to be ugly, right? At some point, Your looks are I mean, at some point, maybe we all age and, you know, we don't look as good, but you're beautiful, and owl Magazine named you at 1.1 of the five most beautiful women in the world. So at 12 years old, where you're looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, Okay, I mean, maybe people think I'm unusual, but I'm actually pretty good looking, and I need that to feel good about myself.
• 17:38
  Gabby Reece: No, I never really.
• 17:38
  Gabby Reece: You know, that's one thing I'll say that I never really, but the hook, I call it. My mother was an incredibly beautiful woman, and I thought to myself, Oh, that doesn't solve all the problems the world's problems that doesn't make you love somebody because they're pretty or handsome. And so for me, and also I was, you know, kind of more strange, tall, you know, not a sort of girl next door, pretty. So I never that, wasn't that, wasn't it for me. I never for me, it was really about the relationships, and I fancied myself like, smart. I go through this with my youngest daughter.
• 18:18
  Gabby Reece: She's quite a beautiful girl, and I know I can tell that she wants to be taken serious for being a smart person. And I remember feeling that so much when I was younger, like, Yeah, it's cool. But I'm not, you know, just prettier, athletic. I have ideas and and so I think I was really lucky that way. And growing up in St Thomas was lucky too, because pretty wasn't such a big deal,
• 18:44
  Randall Kaplan: right? I mean, I know your daughter. She's friends with my son. Yeah, she is a beautiful woman as well.
• 18:50
  Randall Kaplan: Young woman. Do you talk to her about her beauty and how that is a blessing and a curse at the same time. What
• 18:56
  Gabby Reece: I what I try to share with her is Listen people will take from you. Well, first of all, what are you representing and what are you spending your time with? What are you cultivating within yourself? And I think when you're a younger woman, I joke and say it's like getting a new car. When you become a young woman, all of a sudden, like, people start looking at you, and things start happening, and you're learning to drive the car. And a lot of times with younger women, they they're gonna, like, show you everything that the car, like, look at the car. And then as you get older, you you start to go, Well, there's a time and a place, and I don't need everyone to think I'm pretty or whatever that means. So all I do is, you know this, having kids your best, being a good a good example, and then kind of sharing ideas and reminding them that we really can't control how people what in us they respond to as much as we would like them to know, like, oh, I have a kind heart, or I, you know, I, I want to have a good conversation. Doesn't really matter. They're gonna lock into you in the ways that have to do with them. And so with my youngest daughter, I just try to be a good example, and, and, and also say we don't really have anything to do with our physical, physical appearance. So the things that we can really work on and do, those are the things that are interesting about us, not like, Okay, you're pretty girl.
• 20:21
  Gabby Reece: There's a millions of those millions. And as you get older, if your currency is decreasing, not great currency.
• 20:30
  Randall Kaplan: My mom told at a young age that beauty is only skin deep, yeah, and I think that's true. And I again, I don't it's so much more important what's inside us than how we physically look. Because you can be a beautiful man or woman, and you could be the biggest asshole in the world and be absolutely miserable and
• 20:46
  Gabby Reece: or insecure and scared, and you don't even think so. Sort of you just go, Hey, I give it to the gods like i. I that's not the stuff I control.
• 20:52
  Gabby Reece: Yeah, I'll take care of my health, but I'm not going to, I'm not coming to the table with this. Some value I'm bringing to the table. I just look at it like, you know, hey, you're fortunate if you move through life, and people, you know, in certain ways, make it easier, but then really do the work to develop yourself. Because a lot of times when people are, you know, handsome or beautiful or attractive, they underdeveloped themselves, and then, you know, they hit 3540 and it's like, oh, okay, that's very
• 21:23
  Randall Kaplan: interesting. I mean, we live in LA, a lot of models move here to make it as a model or an actor. And throughout my time in LA, I've met many of them, and I'm sure you know many of them as well.
• 21:34
  Randall Kaplan: There are many of them, most that I've met. And I don't know if this is a representative sample or not, but highly, highly insecure. And for the all the outside people looking, oh, she has an incredible life. It's easy for her. It's, it's not so good inside,
• 21:50
  Gabby Reece: yeah, well, because you can't. We can't fool ourselves. And so if we're not doing some kind of work, and when I say that, I mean, like, work, like, that's what I loved about sports, it's like, you had to earn it. And so we all know, am I earning it? Am I am I learning new ideas? Am I learning skills? And am I helping my neighbor? Like, all these things, are the things that make us feel good about ourselves and love ourselves, not, hey, I'm good at a sport. I jump really high, I score lots of points, or I'm pretty those things are a bonus. But that isn't the thing that makes us feel proud of ourselves and respect ourselves. At
• 22:30
  Randall Kaplan: 15 years old, moved back to the US to St Petersburg, and you're 15, you're six, three at this point, you played basketball and you played a little volleyball. Tell us in eighth grade who you met and how that whole thing got going in eighth grade. Sorry, tell us in your junior my junior year, junior year in high school. Tell us how that got going.
• 22:49
  Gabby Reece: So my junior year was really pivotal. I did not want to move. You can imagine I had a boyfriend and all my friends. I was going into my junior year of high school, I was not happy, and I went to a Christian school, and St, Keswick. Yeah, exactly, Keswick.
• 23:01
  Gabby Reece: And so I went to the school. And again, credit to my mother, she knew I was spinning tire in the Caribbean, and I needed a change, and she pulled me out of there, and so I ended up going to this school and having playing sports because I was six three. It was a tiny school.
• 23:20
  Gabby Reece: There go, yeah, great, even if you're not good, you're going to play because you're a big body.
• 23:23
  Gabby Reece: And I had a basketball coach in particular who was really supportive of me and taught me how to play basketball, and used to encourage me to keep peace at home with my mom, because
• 23:34
  Randall Kaplan: you play. I mean, a lot of tall people have never played. They're very awkward. They can't dribble, you know, they're I mean, you obviously have great, oh, talents, but yeah, basketball for the first time, it's very awkward,
• 23:45
  Gabby Reece: both, I would say I was awkward, and I'm a pretty coachable person, and I had a good coach. And so the first two games were probably like, oh and and then I really was pretty good about if I trusted you, if you're my coach or teacher, and you said, Do this, I would really do my best to do that, whatever that was. And I had great teammates as well. And so I also had a boyfriend at the time, who I still know today that came from a really, really good family. And when I say good people, you know, think good they think, you know, the Rockefellers. And I'm like, No, a good family, a loving family, kind family, and a together family. And he was really, a really powerful reminder to me that there's a lot of good people in the world doing their best, trying to show up with really great values, the real ones. Not I, you know, just to go to church on Sunday, but like, the real values and and, and then my senior year, weirdly, my mother wasn't going to return to St Pete. She was going to go and stay back in New York, the principal of my school called her and said, Send her here. And I lived with the principal and his wife and two small children my senior year.
• 24:59
  Gabby Reece: So I was the only quote unsaved person my junior year, because they said, you know, are you? Do you have a relationship with Jesus? And I was just, it was all new to me. And I was like, I and I was an honest kid. I was always really honest. And I was like, I just don't have I just haven't grown up like this. So the joke was, I was the only unsaved kid in the high school, whatever that means, and my senior year, I'm living with the principal. Was that so weird?
• 25:27
  Gabby Reece: Yes, but I've been bounced around so much in my life that it was weird and it wasn't. And this is a really important point, I think, for your audience, sometimes we think, we look and we go, I didn't get this, I didn't get that. I didn't get this, but if we really pay attention, we get extra in piles that a lot of people don't get. So I didn't really have a stable. Family much, but I had a lot of adults that stepped in at really pivotal times, a lot of extra adults that were willing to stand there and be loving figures and, you know, learning to go, that's just as good, because that's what we need, right? We need someone to go, Hey, I believe in you. Hey, knock that off here. That's not cool. Hey, let's get some discipline. You know, what's going on, what's on your mind.
• 26:17
  Gabby Reece: And I had a lot of those people always, and so now, you know, of course, looking back, I had all these people who stepped in. So they stepped in. And again, I had that family and my boyfriend at the time who really taught me the value of practice and appreciating and enjoying sport and and then I, you know, I went on from there and got a scholarship and played in college. You
• 26:46
  Randall Kaplan: said something really important, and I always say the four most important words in the English language.
• 26:51
  Randall Kaplan: As a parent, or I believe in you, you say that your kids, I do those words, I
• 26:57
  Gabby Reece: do and and more importantly, that I've learned as a parent is sometimes, you know, when you have a kid who, who they they're maybe, of course, they're gonna go through things. And we've gone through many things with our kids, is not only saying it to them, but kind of creating a heart vibration, if you will, that is they, they feel that you believe in them, because you might say, I believe in you, and then they think, Oh, she thinks I'm gonna do and I'll say to them, I believe in you, and I know you're gonna figure it out. But also I, when I kind of in my quiet time, just sort of say prayers about my whole family, kind of add in that that that spirit of this kid's gonna find their essence and be their best, and their life's gonna reflect that. Because I often think that it's sort of like, I've had coaches where I was feeling like I was in a circle unknown, and didn't know what was going on, and they look at me and they go, you're gonna figure it out, which doesn't mean you're gonna do it right now, even it just means you're gonna figure it out. And sometimes that was even more important, because it was like, well, they know and see something about me that I'm, I don't know about myself yet.
• 28:12
  Randall Kaplan: You're you had a coach, Cecile, right now, is it how you pronounce it? Yeah? Ceci or not, yeah. Who saw you your junior year? No, my senior year, she came. How did she even find out about you? She just shows up and she
• 28:25
  Gabby Reece: didn't find out about me. She fell onto me. So I had gotten all these offers, more for basketball than volleyball, because I went to a big camp.
• 28:34
  Randall Kaplan: You're good enough to play basketball, d1 basketball? Yeah, I probably would have
• 28:38
  Gabby Reece: had to put on about 20 pounds and eat a little raw meat and get a little meaner, but I probably would have gotten there. But I went to one of those BC camps, invitation camps, and after that, I was like, Oh, these girls are tough.
• 28:49
  Gabby Reece: Like, maybe I should probably have a net, you know, a net between my opponent and I, and I really had fun in volleyball.
• 28:55
  Gabby Reece: Anyway, I had played very little club volleyball, which is really common now. Kids play club ninth grade through 12th grade, many tournaments every year I played, like two or three maybe I was in Tampa at the University of Tampa, their coach, Chris catnack was his name was from St Croix, which is a sister island of where I'm from. So he's a cruiseian, and I was about to sign a letter of intent to go to University of Tampa and play basketball and volleyball. It was very good school, small school. My mother never went to my sporting events. My mom was there for whatever reason. Very tall woman, very, you know, she's a formidable
• 29:35
  Randall Kaplan: financial go to your sporting events. She just
• 29:38
  Gabby Reece: it, just whatever, timing, scheduling, who knows?
• 29:41
  Gabby Reece: Okay, the million reasons that.
• 29:41
  Gabby Reece: So
• 29:45
  Randall Kaplan: she comes to this event,
• 29:46
  Gabby Reece: she's there. Cecile walks in the gym. She had a player that had become academically ineligible right then. So we're talking like April, May, kind of late going in. I'm signing a letter of intent to go to the school for August. It's mayor at University of Tampa. I'm at the University of Tampa in a club I played for Tampa. These, this group called the d'agostinos. They run an incredible program out of there anyway. Long story short, Cecile sees my mother and says, Where's the kid? Connected to that woman, literally, and walks over to the court, sees me, watches me for a few minutes, believe me, it's not pretty good enough, probably. And she walks up to me and she goes, I'm Ceci or not.
• 30:26
  Gabby Reece: Would you like to come for a visit? I went for like, an eight hour visit. Usually you go for a two day visit, drops me off.
• 30:31
  Gabby Reece: Says, you know, we have a lot to offer you, and I think you have something to offer us. I don't see why you wouldn't want to come to Florida State. Boom, done. I went to Florida State.
• 30:39
  Gabby Reece: Interesting.
• 30:41
  Randall Kaplan: How so many of the best things that happen to us in life are so fortuitous and just a function of timing.
• 30:47
  Gabby Reece: Yeah, and that's I feel like I've really clung to this idea as a parent, because.
• 30:50
  Gabby Reece: Because I fret, I can I get concerned. I'm like, the and I'm like, oh, and you're so in control and in charge of all these things that are happening.
• 31:01
  Gabby Reece: Because I think about that in my own life, I was not to be kept from my destiny. And if you met me, you know, one week before I moved to Florida, and said, Here's the path of this kid, there's no way you would have lined it up, no way. So that's why I always encourage people to listen to their heart and their instincts and and really stay in touch with who are they and who do they think they really want to be, because those are those opportunities, those peoples, those happens, those accidents, right? They're going to show up.
• 31:34
  Gabby Reece: And sometimes it isn't when we want them. It's definitely never as quickly as we want them, as you know, and it may not even be in the form that we understand, but they will show up. You
• 31:46
  Randall Kaplan: go to Florida State. Things work out very well for you. You become a fantastic player. At some point, a family friend says, Hey, you should go do some modeling. You're gonna go to New York. Your mom says, No, she's not doing that. Tell us what happened then, who was, who found you, who was that moment, and where did you go?
• 32:05
  Randall Kaplan: What was your first modeling job? Well, so
• 32:10
  Gabby Reece: I was sort of found, let's say my actually, my junior year of high school, and my mother, that's why she put the brakes on it. She said, listen, just finish high school, because I was going to graduate at 17, so still young, and I had no idea that I was going to be playing college athletics. Then none. And so I what I decided to do, because I was very practically minded, is I was like, okay, a scholarship is a sure thing. I'm going to go to school for the year. I'll only be 18 after the first year, then I'll go to New York. And so I was found by a woman named coral Weigel who since this past and she put me with IMG, which was, at the time, a very small agency. I went in the summer, I went to New York. I was a college athlete. I could work and C double A rules during this legal holiday. And I did very well quickly. And so I was that mean, I mean, it means I got okay. So people
• 33:03
  Randall Kaplan: don't really know what it's like to be a model. So, so, yeah, you got to sit through auditions, and you got to sit there. Everyone's looking at you. And, you know, do this, walk this way, that's
• 33:13
  Gabby Reece: ridiculous. You were sort of like cattle, right?
• 33:16
  Gabby Reece: So you're, you know. And the funny thing is, I was bigger than everybody there. Thank God there was two very well known models at that time who were working a ton one Rachel Williams and a girl named Ashley Richardson. Very big girls. If they were not there, I don't know that. I would have pulled it. I'd come up. And of course, the first thing is how I'm much, so much bigger than everybody, even my physical I'm more muscular. I'm just a bigger person.
• 33:39
  Randall Kaplan: And back then they love thin models. They
• 33:42
  Gabby Reece: always love thin models. Yeah, never goes out of style, okay? And it's different today, okay, yeah, no, that's a different that's a whole other thing. If you go into high fashion or runway or whatever, you know, they love, slender and so. But I was that weirdness, that strangeness, even my muscles, kind of led itself where all of a sudden photographers were really interested in shooting me in form, kind of the female form, if you will. So I worked, you know, I worked with all, tons of all the magazines at that time.
• 34:16
  Gabby Reece: It meant something now magazines, it's a sort of a dying deal, you know, be more like a big Instagram, you know, sort of social media person with large following. So I was in vogue and now, and bizarre and all these magazines, but didn't
• 34:28
  Randall Kaplan: come on the covers of some of those magazines, yeah. And so it was
• 34:31
  Gabby Reece: working. But by the way, let me just tell you secret. They don't pay you for editorial. They pay you barely anything. It's all, you know, it's like they're building your book, and then you get big jobs for lots of money. That's how it works. And so I was really fortunate. I got into kind of the slipstream of working with really good photographers and a group and and that's how it happened. But then I went back to school in August, and I was on scholarship, so I went back and I played for Cecile my sophomore year, and that December. So after my season, I decided to give up my scholarship and pay to play and her and I worked out a deal that sort of January, spring, I would live in New York and work because I was independent. I was paying for myself, and I would work, and then I would come to summer school. I would jam up on credits to stay eligible to play. I'd work a little more in summer, and then once I got back to school in August, I would not work. I only go to school and play, and that was our deal. And I would I did that through my college career, so I played another three
• 35:35
  Randall Kaplan: seasons like that. Do you remember what your first job was and how much you were paid? You know, I don't
• 35:40
  Gabby Reece: exactly remember my first job. I will tell you my first money job, because it's very strange. So I go into this ad agency, and I'm probably different than a lot of models, because I'm a call I'm a college athlete. I. I'm from the Caribbean. I'm, you know, just different, a little different.
• 35:55
  Gabby Reece: And so I go to a company called Ogilvy and Mather, which was a very big ad agency in those days, and there's this wonderful woman. JB, Sutherland, I won't forget her name, and she says to me, after we visit for a few, 30 minutes, 15 whatever. And she says, You know, I really like you. I want to find you a job.
• 36:12
  Gabby Reece: She goes, You know, you have really pretty hands. Now, remember, I'm a college athlete.
• 36:15
  Gabby Reece: I'm banging iron, I'm hitting balls. I'm doing all this. They hire me for cutex, which is a nail company. They pay me $3,500 for the day in 1988 they barely use the side of my face. They use my hands. I'm, you know, I'm with hand models that have white gloves on, and they're not doing anything with their hands, and I got a credit card and a bank account, and I was in the game a little bit when
• 36:40
  Randall Kaplan: Elle named you one of the five most beautiful women in the world. Yeah, when that came out, what were you thinking?
• 36:47
  Gabby Reece: I wasn't. That's all. That's for me again, COVID, you're being humble. No,
• 36:51
  Randall Kaplan: I'm not. Did you say to yourself, holy shit, like, that's, that's pretty cool. They did that. You know, that's very cool. I
• 36:58
  Gabby Reece: don't know what, what's cool about it. I have to be honest. I have always looked at that again. You don't earn it. I was on the right shoot at the right time. And, you know, these magazines, it's all these titles, top 10, top five, like I never was fooled by that. I was like, this is going to be very good for my work, and it's going to create more opportunity. But it is what it is. And I always looked at it, even in 18 I looked at it like that. And I think my sports also kept me really grounded, and I understood the difference between good fortune and hard work, and they're very different. And so in fashion, that was a lot of good fortune, and that was getting picked.
• 37:39
  Gabby Reece: That wasn't something I earned.
• 37:43
  Gabby Reece: And of course, I'd show up. I show up on time. I'm professional, great, those things I could control, but that other stuff for me, and remember, I had to go home and be with my teammates. Who would give you, you know, you were gonna get a hard time. So it's not like you could get, you know, full full of yourself.
• 38:01
  Randall Kaplan: Were they jealous of your success? I mean, here you are. You're going to New York, you're making money, you're on scholarship. I mean, I know you said you gave up your scholarship, but you know you can pick and choose when you want to come play. Did it affect your relationships with your teammates?
• 38:16
  Gabby Reece: It did. I had some teammates that didn't get it.
• 38:18
  Gabby Reece: They thought maybe I got off the hook because I didn't have to go to spring training because I lived in New York and worked.
• 38:25
  Gabby Reece: But Cecile was really supportive and said, Listen, if anyone had this opportunity, they would take it, and I'm going to try to help you navigate this kind of unusual opportunity that you have that might be really good for you in the future, but you just have to be dedicated when you're here as an athlete. And I was, I was I was dedicated, but it was hard on me, honestly, that was hard on me my whole career playing sports. I didn't make a I didn't have a relationship with that until I was, like, in my 30s, it was really hard for me to be singled out from my for my teammates or for them to resent me for that, when really I just want to be a part of the team and contribute and and win and be the best that I could.
• 39:08
  Randall Kaplan: How much money were you making when you were in college going on all
• 39:11
  Gabby Reece: these modeling jobs, you know, several hundreds of 1000s of dollars. Amazing.
• 39:14
  Gabby Reece: Yeah, I bought a house at 19, you know, looking for roots,
• 39:21
  Randall Kaplan: right? That's crazy when you think about it.
• 39:24
  Randall Kaplan: Can you imagine your kids right now buying their own house at 19 years old? Be great. I can't be okay, not really, because I don't want my kids to leave.
• 39:31
  Randall Kaplan: They don't. It'd be great for the independence, right? It'd be great to if I'm gonna earn the money and go through all the hard work and do it themselves, like, yeah, that'd be great, but I don't want to leave in my house.
• 39:44
  Gabby Reece: No, I, you know, that's the great thing I feel as a parent. You know, I tell my kids this, and it might be kind of harsh, but I'm okay with it.
• 39:52
  Gabby Reece: I always say, if you, if you come back here and you are with your dad, and I it's because it's good for you. And I always say, like you don't owe us anything. Whatever we've done for you is because that's our job. And so I want my kids to have this sort of freedom, and then it gives them this idea to explore, making sure that all the people in their life are people that are good for them. I think that's really, really, really important. It's very harsh, very harsh. But if you are, if you go through your life saying, I'm going to contribute to someone's life, but also I'm going to have boundaries that I will know how to take care of myself. Because also, like for example, if they go off and have their own family, you have to do that because you owe it to your family that you create to be all in and so I know it doesn't mean you don't have quirky family.
• 40:51
  Gabby Reece: Members and their pain in the butt. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about really knowing how to build your life in a way that is really good for you, because you're responsible for that. When
• 41:05
  Randall Kaplan: you graduated, you moved to Florida for a little while, and you played volleyball, and then, I guess, four years before you actually played beach volleyball for the first time. Yeah. So tell us about the transition there, and it's it's so different walking on sand and playing on sand than it is playing on a gym floor, where you can stop on a dime and do all that. So what? What prompted the move? And then you move out to California as well.
• 41:27
  Gabby Reece: So after I finished playing at Florida State, I didn't want to live full time in New York City, which is where I was living, so I moved to Miami because it was a city I could work out of. I had worked enough that I would just really fly to jobs. At that point. I wasn't necessarily trying to get jobs.
• 41:39
  Gabby Reece: I would just get go to work and so I could live there, and I had some friends there. And just for fun, I picked up beach volleyball. I hadn't played beach volleyball before, and after about a year and a half, almost two years ish, I had a girl I was playing with who was quite good, and she played in all these small tournaments and and qualified for some of the pro tournaments, and she said, You should move to California and try to pursue this. And ignorance is bliss. And I was like, oh, that sounds like a good idea. And so I did tell
• 42:11
  Randall Kaplan: people how it works, because I think people, you know, we understand the football leagues, and I think it's a little new for people.
• 42:15
  Randall Kaplan: There are two pickleball leagues. They just merge, and there's also two volleyball leagues. So explain to everyone how it works and which Lee you played in, and why does a player play in this one versus that one?
• 42:27
  Gabby Reece: Well, I was really fortunate. So when I moved out, doubles was only the only one that existed, the WP VA, which no longer exists. It's all under the AVP at this time, men's and women now are together. Then they were apart. AVP was men, WP VA, women. AVP stands for Association of Professional volleyball, professional and So, long story short, I started in the double store, and because I'm a middle from indoor, you know, to say it, frankly, I got my ass handed to me pretty good explaining what a because a middle is so specialized. You hit and block and hit and block, and that's what you do. And you're in the middle of the vibe, yeah, and you cover the whole net, and you're sort of an air traffic controller with your setter letting people know what's happening, protecting areas. And you are it's so specialized, and so beach, you have to do everything well, right? Simultaneously, I moved out to California. I was a practice dummy for a lot of very good teams because I'm, I'm big, and I could hit and block, and I'm, you know, I could do it.
• 43:23
  Gabby Reece: And they'd say, Hey, do this, do that, whatever, because they would use me to practice against. And simultaneously, the four person tour opened up. So they had this whole other tour that opened up, which was really good for my game. And I got drafted. I was the first pick in the draft, and so that kind of got me into a rhythm and my feet wet, and I could be successful right away. So that was really very, very good for for me.
• 43:49
  Randall Kaplan: You were a very good player. You were nominated for Offensive Player of the Year four years in a row, you led the year and you led the league in blocks one year.
• 43:58
  Gabby Reece: It was a great game for me. And I'll tell you something funny is, as a middle one year, I'm talking about I'm against all the best indoor players in the world, us, us players in the world. I i was the smallest middle one year on the tour. So people have to understand these are really big, strong girls. And I really was, was grateful for the opportunity to play with such high level athletes. They were, a lot of them were Olympic players, and, you know, doing all these different things. So it was a great experience, really great.
• 44:33
  Gabby Reece: Let's talk
• 44:34
  Randall Kaplan: about the money.
• 44:34
  Randall Kaplan: You guys get paid tons of money.
• 44:36
  Randall Kaplan: You were, you made $23,000
• 44:39
  Gabby Reece: your first year on the tour, huge. We joked my account and said, one year, she's like, You did not lose money, because I would pay my coach, what, double what I earned. And, you know, with my team, you know, we took care of taking them out and all these things. So the joke was, if I broke even playing volleyball.
• 44:57
  Randall Kaplan: So today, a lower player makes between 10 and $50,000 a year for the whole year. And again, you aren't gonna lose money because you're traveling. Yeah, a middle player makes between 50 and 100 150,000 then if you're a top player, a top, top, top, you could make a million dollars a year through endorsements, but you got to be one of the best players in the world. Yeah, double standard between men and women.
• 45:24
  Gabby Reece: Well, actually, quite frankly, you mean in athletics, yeah? Well, just
• 45:27
  Randall Kaplan: in well, we're going to talk about a documentary in a second when it comes to volleyball, but just in terms of the pay for women is lower than the pay for men.
• 45:38
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah,
• 45:38
  Gabby Reece: I don't know that it's that much lower in the I think once you start getting into indoor contracts, maybe those are pretty different. And when I played Fords, we were paid more than the men because our TV ratings were higher. So that was kind of a running joke.
• 45:50
  Gabby Reece: Boys, six, 810, guys were like, Hey girls, thanks a lot. So we we were paid more. Volleyball is one of the more even sports.
• 45:59
  Gabby Reece: You're just talking about lifestyle sport. So it's just a hard sport. It's a small platform to make money on, period, men or women, it's tough.
• 46:11
  Randall Kaplan: There's no big TV contract that's supporting player salaries. And no, you're not flying around first class.
• 46:18
  Randall Kaplan: You're you're paying for your own coach ticket.
• 46:20
  Gabby Reece: Yeah. So a lot of players will, it's a little bit like maybe golf or tennis, where you are paying you're out of pocket before you start. So a lot of times that's how it starts. Now, if you're one of the higher level you have budgets for that, you have sponsors, you have you're winning prize money. But again, even volleyball, the prize money itself isn't that great. How
• 46:45
  Randall Kaplan: do you pick a partner? Is it? It's sort of like dating, but your success is wholly dependent on your partner, and their success is wholly dependent on you. Yeah.
• 46:53
  Gabby Reece: So location, personality and the complimentary of style of play, I would say, are the variables that go into that. And first would probably be style of play, right? Because people want to win. So it'd be like, okay, one person is maybe has a strong you could have two that have real, even skill set in all areas. You could have one that's a killer block and, you know, hit offensive player. So this player is usually a little better on the defense, so it just depends on the strengths and weaknesses, and then it goes down from there. So it'd be your skill set, then it would be your location. Can you practice together and get in those rhythms? And then obviously your personalities? I want
• 47:32
  Randall Kaplan: to go back to the double standard for a minute. Okay? And then in 2013 ESPN did a documentary called branded about volleyball players, and it talked about the double standard between men can wear shorts and women have to wear things that I think you called toothpick clothing at some point. Does a double standard exists today, and what are we doing about in sports to make it go away? I
• 47:57
  Gabby Reece: think, well, there's a couple things. So the FIV B at that time had a rule that you couldn't have a side of your bathing suit. Couldn't be thicker than two fingers apart.
• 48:06
  Gabby Reece: The
• 48:06
  Randall Kaplan: side of your bathing suit, correct? Can't be thicker than two fingers, right?
• 48:09
  Randall Kaplan: So they went
• 48:13
  Gabby Reece: from there. Well, they just were smaller. So when I played fours, I played in running tights. It was comfortable. I liked it. They were tight. And I wore an athletic top. Once you tights that were full length, okay? And so once you played internationally, the FIV B, which was trying to grow the sport, trying to get it more international, had secured a place in the Olympics. Part of the marketing, part of the story was these really beautiful and fit athletes. So I think that
• 48:40
  Randall Kaplan: people really doodling at women's physical bodies. Yes, you know, they're wearing skimpy bikinis, basically playing
• 48:49
  Gabby Reece: 100% and there is a part of it, like, if I wasn't wearing tights. I'd rather wear a certain type of bottom bathing suit, bottom than a pair of shorts. Quite frankly, it for me personally, and I know of a lot of players, feel this way. It's more comfortable. It's like it's drier. You don't have sand all over you. There's some things of it. So if you're not wearing full tights, a weirdly athletic Bikini Bottom is more comfortable. But it doesn't matter, they still had a ruling, which now doesn't exist. If you see the Brazilian team that won the gold this last Olympics, they were wearing shorts, yeah, so I think they've thrown that out. But sports is entertainment, and the people marketing it are gonna, you know, they were thinking, we're going to pull out all the stops of what is appealing about these sports. And you know, beach volleyball players typically have very attractive physiques.
• 49:43
  Gabby Reece: I love the
• 49:44
  Randall Kaplan: beach. I have the trademark Mr. Beach. I'm the world's foremost beach expert, which is true because of my company Sandy. You've created the world's largest, most trusted beach database. We cataloged over 120 categories of data for more than 140,000 beaches in 212 countries. So that's my main job. Amazing, the beach is my happy place.
• 50:05
  Randall Kaplan: However, I hate getting a mouthful of sand or any grain of sand anywhere near my mouth?
• 50:11
  Randall Kaplan: Yes, so I've never understood you and the volleyball player jumping around you must get just fistfuls of sand in your face and your mouth occasionally,
• 50:23
  Gabby Reece: occasionally. And there's nothing prettier than a girl you know, volleyball player spitting out sand. I definitely have eaten sand in my life, I will tell you, and it's not fun, but the sand and the beach is it's such a magical place and and the great thing about that environment is you get stronger.
• 50:42
  Gabby Reece: It beats you up less than indoor. So it creates an opportunity where you can play a lot longer when
• 50:48
  Randall Kaplan: you know you're going down, do you breathe out?
• 50:50
  Randall Kaplan: So it doesn't get your mom to just close up and close. Right?
• 50:52
  Randall Kaplan: Well, you
• 50:53
  Gabby Reece: you kind of hold your breath, because if you're gonna fall, you kind of brace yourself. So I think you keep your air in to protect all your organs. But there's just times where you're reaching and you know you're kind of open, you know your mouth is open, and it just becomes inevitable, for
• 51:07
  Randall Kaplan: sure. So how did you go from professional beach volleyball player to getting your own MTV show and working with CBS and all these other networks.
• 51:15
  Gabby Reece: So when I was playing, I sort of really looked at the landscape and thought, you know, this sport is really small, and it's going to be there's a real limitation here.
• 51:27
  Gabby Reece: So I had already been modeling, and I I started writing columns for L magazine because I had relationships there. And so I wrote about fitness in these fashion magazines, which kind of opened up my mind that I could communicate a little bit more.
• 51:44
  Gabby Reece: And so there was a guy named Dan Cortez who I still know, and he got hurt doing the show called MTV sports, because he would go and try all these things. Yeah, so he's lovely. So he was like, Hey, I'm not doing that anymore.
• 51:56
  Gabby Reece: I'll do the wrap arounds, which is like, you know, the intros and stuff, and get somebody else. And they brought me in.
• 52:02
  Gabby Reece: And so what was great about that is you didn't have to be really good. You could practice and get develop a skill set and and not get too punished for it. And I got to interview a ton of athletes. I would try every sport or activity of the person I interviewed. And it really got me sort of a little more comfortable in front of the camera and and just kind of learning how it works. So it was, again, a really fortunate opportunity. And I I really enjoy interviewing other athletes, because that was the other thing, is, for, you know, kind of the previous five years, it had always been questions to me, at least in my world. And I love the idea, because, remember, I'm a team player of talking to someone else about them. So,
• 52:49
  Randall Kaplan: so you look at Tom Brady's ago, he signed this$375,000,000.10 year deal with Fox. Yeah, he took a year off to study broadcast thing to make sure he was going to be at the top of his game. And he didn't do so well his first game, but he's pretty good right now.
• 53:02
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, and he's really gotten into it. Did you have to study to become a broadcaster, or just come naturally to you? Well, that's
• 53:08
  Gabby Reece: the great thing about doing it in a in a low impact way. If I was given a that kind of contract, there would have been training. And certainly I had media, media training over the years, which I actually found really annoying, because media trainers are they over message you so you lose your authentic voice. They try to say, like, Oh say, the question and the answer and this and that, it's like, yes, and how do you let your real personality come out simultaneously to hitting the marks, being concise and doing all of that? So I learned on the fly, but I will say I also think I'm naturally. It was something I could do naturally. And
• 53:48
  Randall Kaplan: at some point, you became the first woman ever for Nike to design a shoe for.
• 53:52
  Randall Kaplan: Did Phil and I just call you up and say, Hey, Gaby, I see you.
• 53:56
  Randall Kaplan: I'm a big fan. Let's do a shoe.
• 53:59
  Gabby Reece: I love PK. No, I Okay.
• 54:02
  Randall Kaplan: How great would it be to know Phil and I and be able to call him PK? Oh, that's very cool. But
• 54:08
  Gabby Reece: he's a really special person. I know I this talk about good timing. So you have all these other female athletes that lay the path. You know, the path for me. Bo Jackson comes out with cross training over here, they needed a female counterpart, because I was pretty serious about my training. I always have been, because in beach volleyball, I don't even wear shoes, they brought me in as their cross training female representative, and it was just really good timing. And then Tinker Hatfield did my shoe. And so Tinker is the kind of designer that you're you're really lining up to be successful. I mean, he did a lot of the Jordans and so many other incredible shoes from Nike. So again, it's not it's not being naive enough to not realize when you're really being put in the right place at the right time, as you're going
• 55:00
  Randall Kaplan: through all this career development. Are you telling yourself, geez, look at where I started, look at where I am today, and are you taking inventory in terms of what I want to do next and what's my next move? Or you're just letting it happen?
• 55:13
  Gabby Reece: Well, yes, I'm letting it happen. And no, I'm sort of aware that if you want to be somewhere, it's going to still always take a little time.
• 55:19
  Gabby Reece: So where do you think you want that to be? And so who do you need to call, or what questions do you need to ask, or who do you need to reach out to? And so I was always pretty good about being here and looking ahead, because again, from maybe my childhood, it was, yeah, this is okay. But you know, what is what? What is the runway looking like in the future? And because I didn't have people handling that for me, I was always really proactive in kind of going, Well, where do I think I want to be and and ask. Asking people either to help me, or could I be involved in something. And so I've always kind of looked ahead to where do I think I want to be? But here's the other side of that. I always tell people, do the things that you're inspired to do, that you're motivated to do, that you're willing to work hard at for the sake of those reasons, because you like it.
• 56:10
  Gabby Reece: Then once you're in it, then you can get strategic. I think it's a mistake when people over strategize like, Well, that looks like a good space, or that's a white space, and I should go there. Well, are you even going to be good at that?
• 56:22
  Gabby Reece: Or do you even like that? So I don't get strategic until I'm kind of in there, and then I go, Yeah, this is something I'm I'm feeling now. I'm going to get strategic.
• 56:32
  Randall Kaplan: We talked briefly. You mentioned a one, three and five year plan about companies. But are you saying that we shouldn't have one, three and five year plans for our personal business plan in terms of our career and professional development? I
• 56:46
  Gabby Reece: think you should, but I think you should lean into the things that feel good to you first, that match your natural skill sets. I think we overthink it sometimes, and it's disingenuine if we lean into something because everyone's doing it, it's popular, it's on trend, or, like I said earlier, it's an it's a white space. I think it's really important to be guided by your in internal, you know, desires and and sort of things like, what do I want to be spending my time grinding away at? And then once you get in there, I think you really should be strategic. But I think it's premature to do it from the outside of a situation until you even really know,
• 57:30
  Randall Kaplan: at various points in our careers, we take risks. We evaluate something we said is going to be upside, there could be a lot of downside. At some point, you decided to do a playboy spread and tell us about how what the thought process was, how it helped you, and how possibly it hurt you. So
• 57:49
  Gabby Reece: I was 30, so I was a grown up when I chose to do it, and I had full creative control. There was no one from the magazine at my shoots. I worked with a photographer that I'd already worked with at that time for 12 years, so I trusted him very much. And I thought to myself, would this be something that I would be afraid to show my children and and they paid me a lot of money, and so, and also I, I sort of had all the rights to it as well. I kept the rights so it was sort of negotiated in the in the strictest way that I could. I felt comfortable. And the pictures are really in celebration of a powerful female form. I'm not there sitting on like bubbles with high heels, I don't even have makeup on, and I'm in natural environments. So I felt good about it, and again, I controlled the whole thing.
• 58:45
  Gabby Reece: The downside was I was tapped to do the Presidential like part of the fitness presidential group, and they said, Is there anything you've ever done that's controversial at that time? And I was like, well, not really, but maybe if you guys consider Playboy controversial. So I went through all the interviews, I was grilled beyond I'm really not that exciting. And then right at the end, they said, well actually, because you did playboy. And I thought, Oh, it's so interesting. But like, my daughters have seen it, and it really isn't, I don't think it's. It never really was that big of a deal.
• 59:21
  Randall Kaplan: Did they talk to you about and or did you bring it up? Did they bring it up? How did that conversation go? Well, it was
• 59:27
  Gabby Reece: really my middle daughter was the one who said, like, brought it up, and I told them that you had done it, or they just found, well, they weren't born then, right? But it was, but at some point, yeah, I did say, hey, you know, I done that. If you ever want to see the photos? Well, I know, right?
• 59:42
  Gabby Reece: And I really the images are, in a way, they're not provocative there. It's, you know, be like, more like something you'd see at some like, photographers art studio, than like playboy. So maybe the medium was a little more controversy than the the actual images themselves. I'm completely nude, but, so I'm not going to dance around that. But they, yeah, I think they were, in fact, my middle is like, Oh, that's interesting, that you can have photos like that, that you have of yourself forever. And I'm like, you don't really look at them. You've
• 1:00:16
  Randall Kaplan: been very successful in a lot of things you've done in your career. And also, I view my biggest success as my parents, my kids. What's your definition of success?
• 1:00:26
  Gabby Reece: My personal definition of success is when your life reflects back to you the feeling that you have about who you are inside, and that means all the things like where you get to live, the person I'm married to, the fact that I have relationships with my kids, deep and loving relationships, not perfect relationships. They're never perfect, no, and that's the thing. I never want to sell that bill like i. We have it figured out. I have nothing figured out. I'm just gonna wake up every day and keep trying.
• 1:00:55
  Gabby Reece: But I all those things feel like something that is connected to who I am, in my spirit, in my soul, including my work and so that for me is success, not lots of attention, fame, money. I mean, that stuff is, it's unsustainable. You know, being the best, being relevant, all these things are not sustainable. So it's really about those real relationships, the one you have with yourself and the people close to you and and, you know, I'll add to that, which is, I like to have choices. I like to have professional and creative choices, because that's keeps me stimulated and excited, and I really think that that is a real part of success, when you still get to have those choices. What
• 1:01:46
  Randall Kaplan: are the three most important ingredients of success?
• 1:01:51
  Gabby Reece: Oh, I'd imagine it's different for everyone. I think for me, it's definitely hard work has really just the tenacity to just keep on rolling. I think having a certain amount of objectivity to what you're doing is really important in success. I think not. It's like it might be the most important thing to you, but remembering where it fits in the grand scheme of the story and where it creates value for other people, I think, is really important. And if, like, later on, in another 30 years, I don't think God, I wish I hadn't spent so much time doing that I really believe in in the stuff I wake up for each day, and it feels like time well spent. So that feels like a part of success. I don't, I don't want to feel like, I, you know, my husband says this all the time, like, is this what we're doing, like our because for him, he wants to be more in nature and more outside, and I'm answering more emails.
• 1:02:53
  Gabby Reece: And he's like, is this what we're doing with our lives? And I'm like, part of it is, yeah, so I think it's that hard work.
• 1:03:00
  Gabby Reece: It's It's that ability to have space and and take the losses and and don't get crazy with the wins and, and also for it to keep growing, if you cannot, just keep doing the same thing, but your success represents who you are today, not who you were 20 years ago. I think that's pretty interesting.
• 1:03:22
  Randall Kaplan: One of the core ingredients elements and my success is something I call extreme preparation. I'm writing a book by the same topic, and it means if someone's preparing a one hour for a meeting, I may do five or 10 for a podcast. It's usually 15 per show. How has extreme preparation contributed to your success? And can you give some examples? Yeah, see,
• 1:03:42
  Gabby Reece: I put that preparation, I really appreciate that, by the way, into my hard work bucket, which means, like, you're thorough. I want to be prepared so that I can forget after that. Like, you know, whether I've trained really hard and prepared in a when you're playing so you're free to play, or if I'm doing an interview where I've done so much work that when I'm asking the questions, they're really almost from a place of, like, my subconscious, not, okay, I've got my paper and I'm ready to do that so that you you know, my aunt told me this a long time ago when I was a kid. We have to know the rules so we can then break them, and that's how I feel about preparation. We have to be so prepared and ready so that we're able to pivot and adapt when we need to. We're prepared enough to do that, and we know enough about what we're doing that we can also make it really simple. I really appreciate it when people can take big ideas and tell me in three words or less. And so preparation for me is gives me that freedom. Are
• 1:04:40
  Randall Kaplan: there any specific examples that you can remember we said, Oh, my God, I prepared more than anybody else, and it led to a specific positive result that otherwise would not have been possible. I mean,
• 1:04:50
  Gabby Reece: definitely showed up in athletics. And I think, you know, doing a podcast where I have to talk to scientists that write all these books. I don't know that I could be more successful than other people that interview them, but I know that then it gives me the freedom to interview them as my genuine self, versus, kind of the obvious stuff, like, I'm going to ask the same 20 questions that everybody asks.
• 1:05:14
  Gabby Reece: No, I'm going to take an going to take in all this information, and then I'm going to ask the questions that are interesting to me. It shows up there for sure.
• 1:05:22
  Randall Kaplan: Where does fear of failure come into our success and motivation? Can you be successful without a fear of failure?
• 1:05:30
  Gabby Reece: I think, I think there are people who do it. I think there are people who are more fluid than someone like me, where they just like, oh, this is fun, and they're talented, and they can just kind of keep rolling into it. I think a lot some artists are like that. You know, singers or painters. Maybe for me, it was originally fear of failure. Have. To survive, have to make it. And then it became, try to pay attention to how fortunate you are that you you get this. And how do you you know, sort of, what do you want this to continue to look like?
• 1:06:04
  Gabby Reece: So take care of the privilege, through hard work, through gratitude and through being able to take the knocks. But I don't know fear is really a powerful fuel, but at some point we got to get rid of it, because I also think it has another side that's destructive. And so as we mature, I think we have to try to offload the fear and make it something else. I think
• 1:06:33
  Randall Kaplan: communication is very important to our success.
• 1:06:36
  Randall Kaplan: You said that men communicate through food and sex. How do women communicate?
• 1:06:42
  Gabby Reece: Well, a lot of things with women is non verbal, right? You're supposed to figure it out. That's the tricky part.
• 1:06:49
  Gabby Reece: I think women, it's there's a little, oftentimes, a little bit more emotion and sort of new, you know, nuance, and also, because we're not encouraged to just say it like, this is what I want, this is what I need. And so I think a lot of times, you'll see, though, in athletics or business women that who have developed a relationship with that makes it easier for me personally, if you want to talk about some of the abstract, I really like to be cherished, appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. I think you know when I feel that the people really close to me, my husband, and not my children.
• 1:07:33
  Gabby Reece: I don't Well maybe as they've gotten older, I think when they're younger and they're teenagers, I don't have any expectation of that. Their job is to kind of worry about themselves. You know, does mean I don't like a thank you, but I have realistic expectations. But just like you're You're important to me, and I don't need a lot of it, but also what I really appreciate is a presence. You know, I don't need a lot of anyone's time, but if we can connect for real, even if it's for a short period of time, that is much more fulfilling and feeds my my spirit or love, almost more than any anything else.
• 1:08:19
  Randall Kaplan: Most people I know have some motivation to make money. Someone told me, by the way, if someone said, I'm not motivated motivated by money, I just it's hard to believe somebody like that.
• 1:08:28
  Randall Kaplan: Sure. I mean, 99% of people in the world, probably 99.99% are motivated by money to different degrees, right, right? We've seen people make gobs of money who are absolutely miserable and destroy their lives. Yeah, you said you've seen it a lot at what point, and you said at some point you have too much money where it's destructive, yeah, what's the number? I
• 1:08:54
  Gabby Reece: don't know, because I think every individual is different, but I don't know that we're meant to have, like, and listen, I know a couple people have a lot of billions and billions, and some of them, it's okay. I just, I think it's but this is my own hang up. Maybe I've had to come to terms with that. There's people who like, I'm looking for some kind of like, oh, normal life, and, you know, connecting with everybody.
• 1:09:18
  Gabby Reece: And there's people who are like, yeah, no, I don't want to, I don't want to cook my own meals.
• 1:09:21
  Gabby Reece: I want to be off in a bubble over here. And so I'm actually putting my filter on them, because I associate kind of those that normality and that connection with a sense of happiness and being part of the story. And I think there's people who are like, No, I want to go live, you know, on that planet by myself. So, so maybe I should, I should look at that.
• 1:09:44
  Gabby Reece: What I do know, and I've, I've said, this is when the money, the pursuit destroys your real life. That's too much. And I, for a long time, would put a governor, because having these rural relationships, my marriage, my children, I always was trying to protect that, and now I've had to look at that because maybe it's been too much of a governor in certain ways and well, like almost a limiting belief, or that you could have sort of this expansive success and this so that's something I've really had to look at.
• 1:10:24
  Randall Kaplan: When I was 31 years old, I had the incredibly good and lucky fortune to be a founder of a company, internet company, not really, but that's how people look at it, too. Went co public a year after we incorporated the company within a year, a year, wow, which will never happen again. On three point on $3.2 million of gap revenue, revenue in the bank. We had a market capitalization of$35 billion and it was a good.
• 1:10:52
  Randall Kaplan: Event for I know. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's almost, I mean, now you can't help but not laugh so but it's also very appreciative to go some through something, and it's a life changing event in so many ways.
• 1:11:03
  Randall Kaplan: But what I want to talk about is, I remember, right after a company went public, maybe two months the Wall Street Journal wrote something about sudden wealth syndrome. And it was, geez, you get all this money quickly. At a young age, you don't know what to do with it.
• 1:11:19
  Randall Kaplan: How do you deal with it? Some people feel guilty. I mean, I remember when I was younger, my Porsche was my dream card go sit in the porch dealership. Once a year, I'd sit in there one day and went on a Porsche so I could clearly afford a Porsche after a company went public, and it took me almost a year to go and actually buy the Porsche. I felt guilty. I said, Oh my gosh. This thing is, you know, $107,000 by the way, I still have it today.
• 1:11:42
  Randall Kaplan: I mean, it's like a little go kart. It's not really made how, you know, don't drive it on the highway. But I remember thinking, gosh, you know, I feel, I do feel guilty. You had success, and in your 20s, had all the success and you felt guilty and you said that you didn't deserve it. Why not? I
• 1:12:00
  Gabby Reece: think when you're not groomed for success and you get you're telling yourself one narrative your whole life, and then all of a sudden you do get success, I think it's you feel like shame or something to that nature of, why do I get to, you know, and you'd see other people who they're working two jobs just to keep because I am sensitive. And so this fairness thing really would hit like, Well, why do I get to and, and that was really hard, and also hard when you're on a team sport. You know, when you're you're doing the same thing, you're on the same team as everyone else, and you're making, you know, 10 times, 20 times whatever. I don't know, your teammates. It feels, it, it felt it was, it was it was awkward, it was uncomfortable, and, and then I've learned it changes. Life is unfair, and it isn't for us to know why, but the best thing we could do to show that we're grateful for it is to do good things with it and and really try to show up. But yeah, it isn't. I mean, you know, the the world has some crazy lopsided things happening.
• 1:13:18
  Randall Kaplan: Did you get over your guilt and say, okay, like I actually did earn it. When I think back I went to these modeling jobs, I
• 1:13:25
  Gabby Reece: never used the word earn because we, you know, as well as I do, right? How much of luck? There's plenty of people that could have done exactly what I did. I just was at the right place at the right time, and I'm the one filling that that space. It isn't me doing it. It's just like, I'm the one in that space, right? You know, at that time. You know, listen, I you ever driving down the road, and you see someone who's sitting at the bus stop, and, you know, they just came from work at someone's house, and you think, okay, so they walk to the bus stop, they go, they bust their ass for however much that you're gonna go eat at a restaurant at dinner. So I'm well aware, let's just say that I don't spend a lot of time feeling guilty, because that's just some like weird thing that unless I'm gonna do something about it, unless it mobilizes me to do something. But I'm well aware of, like, kind of all the you know things and how it could go, and how it goes for a lot of people.
• 1:14:20
  Randall Kaplan: You're listening to part one of my incredible interview with Gabby Reese.
• 1:14:22
  Randall Kaplan: Gabby is a former professional volleyball player has gone on to have incredible career. He's a sports announcer, fitness advocate, serial entrepreneur, public speaker, a model, actress, New York Times best selling author, television host and podcast host. It's an incredible episode. You're going to learn a lot about her. Be sure to tune in next week to part two of my incredible interview with Gabby. You.