Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 230. Jessica Robertson, Co-Founder & Chief Content Officer of TOGETHXR

Transcript

230. Jessica Robertson, Co-Founder & Chief Content Officer of TOGETHXR · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: Your gut is your compass. You already know you feel
0:02
Speaker 1: it in your bones. You will not be satisfied unless
0:07
Speaker 1: you do this thing, because that's who you are. You
0:09
Speaker 1: live and die by your gut. Take that chance. There's
0:11
Speaker 1: no such thing as failure, There's only lessons.
0:27
Speaker 2: What is going on? Everyone, Emily A Body Here.
0:30
Speaker 3: You are listening to episode two hundred and thirty of
0:34
Speaker 3: Hurdle a While, this focus podcast where I connect with
0:37
Speaker 3: everyone from your favorite athletes to top experts and industry
0:41
Speaker 3: CEOs about their highest ties, toughest moments, and everything in between.
0:45
Speaker 3: We all go through hurdles in life, and my goal
0:48
Speaker 3: through these discussions is to empower you to better navigate
0:51
Speaker 3: yours and move with intention so that you can stride
0:55
Speaker 3: towards your own big potential and of course have some
0:58
Speaker 3: fun a law the way. For today's episode, I am
1:03
Speaker 3: chatting with the chief content officer and co founder of Together,
1:08
Speaker 3: Jessica Robertson. I am elated for this conversation. It's always
1:12
Speaker 3: fun for me to be able to wrap with someone
1:15
Speaker 3: in the industry, and not just as a fellow journalist,
1:18
Speaker 3: but as a fellow a woman in sports enthusiast. I
1:22
Speaker 3: love that for us now Together, you have definitely seen
1:25
Speaker 3: them on social media.
1:27
Speaker 2: Let me refresh your memory.
1:29
Speaker 3: Together as a brand new media and commerce company, they've
1:31
Speaker 3: got a mission to feature a diverse and inclusive community
1:34
Speaker 3: of game changers, culture shapers, thought leaders, and barrier breakers
1:39
Speaker 3: to say that five times fast. They're founded in twenty
1:42
Speaker 3: twenty one alongside not only Robertson, but a few of
1:46
Speaker 3: the world's top athletes, including Sue Byrd, Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim,
1:52
Speaker 3: and Simone Manuel. Maybe just can give me the hookup
1:55
Speaker 3: to get in on some of those conversations. But as
1:59
Speaker 3: Together's Chief content officer, Just has done truly unbelievable work
2:04
Speaker 3: pushing boundaries to promote all the things that are in
2:07
Speaker 3: their mission statement, including inclusivity and visibility for women in sports,
2:12
Speaker 3: and her journey to doing this.
2:14
Speaker 2: It did not happen overnight.
2:16
Speaker 3: In today's episode, Jessica gives us some of her backstory,
2:20
Speaker 3: talking to me about what it was like to grow
2:22
Speaker 3: up in a small town and make the move to
2:24
Speaker 3: New York to follow her dream of at the time
2:27
Speaker 3: being a music journalist. We chat about what that chapter
2:32
Speaker 3: of her career was like, what it felt like to
2:34
Speaker 3: be one of the only women in her space, and
2:37
Speaker 3: the evolution of transitioning from music to sports. Jessica shed
2:43
Speaker 3: some insight into the creation of Together, what those first
2:48
Speaker 3: meetings were like. We talk about what it is like
2:50
Speaker 3: for her to constantly be surrounded by so many impressively talented,
2:55
Speaker 3: strong women, both in sport and beyond, and what she
3:00
Speaker 3: hopes for the future of coverage for women's sports, what
3:03
Speaker 3: we can expect moving forward, and how she herself plans
3:07
Speaker 3: to be a part of the conversation. I really really
3:10
Speaker 3: appreciated jess for opening up with me, not only about
3:14
Speaker 3: her career path, but also about what it was like
3:17
Speaker 3: for her as a gay woman coming up, like I said,
3:20
Speaker 3: in a small town, transitioning to different markets New York
3:23
Speaker 3: and now LA, and finally feeling as though she herself
3:27
Speaker 3: has found a community that embraces her for who she
3:30
Speaker 3: is and she couldn't feel more fortunate. If you're not
3:34
Speaker 3: doing so yet, make sure you're following Together, and also
3:37
Speaker 3: make sure you are following Hurdle over at Hurdle Podcast
3:40
Speaker 3: on social I am at Emily a body and with that,
3:46
Speaker 3: let's get to it. Let's get to hurdling.
4:07
Speaker 2: Today.
4:07
Speaker 3: I am sitting down with Jess Robertson. She is the
4:10
Speaker 3: co founder and chief content officer for Together.
4:14
Speaker 2: How are you doing today, Jess, I'm doing great.
4:16
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
4:17
Speaker 2: How are you? I'm good, I'm good. I am trying
4:20
Speaker 2: to find the right word here.
4:21
Speaker 3: I am excited to sit down with someone who has
4:26
Speaker 3: such an extensive background as a journalist, as a fellow journalist,
4:31
Speaker 3: because I feel like we're going to geek out a
4:33
Speaker 3: little bit together.
4:34
Speaker 1: I love that storyteller to storyteller. Those are my favorite conversations.
4:38
Speaker 3: Oh for sure, for sure. Well, thanks so much for
4:40
Speaker 3: the time today. Am to have you here. And first
4:44
Speaker 3: and foremost, I mean we have to write off the
4:46
Speaker 3: bat address a commonality between the two of us, which
4:51
Speaker 3: is that you started out your career in a completely
4:55
Speaker 3: different sector than women's sports and storytelling. So can you
5:01
Speaker 3: tell me a little bit about the decision to go
5:04
Speaker 3: from music based content to this kind of content?
5:09
Speaker 1: Such a great question. I've always loved music and sports.
5:13
Speaker 1: Those are two of my biggest passions in life. I
5:16
Speaker 1: was an athlete. I also studied music business and my
5:20
Speaker 1: minor was journalism, and I thought at some point I
5:22
Speaker 1: would work at a record label and bring great music
5:24
Speaker 1: to the world as an A and R person, But
5:28
Speaker 1: I didn't love the business of it all, But I
5:30
Speaker 1: still loved the artistry and the impact that music can
5:34
Speaker 1: have on culture and the stories behind the music that's made.
5:37
Speaker 1: So even though I worked in music as a music journalist,
5:41
Speaker 1: I still identify as a storyteller, and I see sort
5:45
Speaker 1: of my lane kind of similar in sports and that
5:48
Speaker 1: I think sports are a prism for culture, as is music,
5:52
Speaker 1: and sports move culture forward. When we think about sort
5:56
Speaker 1: of icons of culture who have greatly impacted it and
5:59
Speaker 1: made an impact on this world, on politics, on communities,
6:02
Speaker 1: marginalized communities, and people, it's athletes and musicians. I think
6:06
Speaker 1: about that all the time, and I think about their
6:08
Speaker 1: role and the responsibility that they have as sort of
6:12
Speaker 1: icons of culture. So even though I'm in sports now,
6:15
Speaker 1: but I was in music before, I'm still a storyteller
6:18
Speaker 1: and I still get to work with incredible people who
6:21
Speaker 1: are impacting the world that we live in.
6:23
Speaker 2: For sure.
6:24
Speaker 3: For sure now, to give some context, I was writing
6:26
Speaker 3: about everything from God, food and holiday and news and
6:31
Speaker 3: the royals too. Then making the decision to go into
6:35
Speaker 3: writing and editing content about health, wellness and fitness full time,
6:40
Speaker 3: a while back, now, before way before the Hurdle chapter.
6:44
Speaker 3: You made this pivot in twenty fifteen. I'd be curious
6:48
Speaker 3: if when you made the pivot you had any reservations.
6:51
Speaker 3: Despite knowing that maybe the industry made you feel some
6:54
Speaker 3: kind of way, were you still hesitant to drift away
6:58
Speaker 3: from this music content space.
7:02
Speaker 1: I really wasn't. And the reason I say that is
7:05
Speaker 1: because I found that in my sort of day to
7:09
Speaker 1: day life personal life, I was talking about sports more.
7:13
Speaker 1: I'm watching more sports, I'm going to more sporting events.
7:15
Speaker 1: I was a lifelong athlete. I still compete today in
7:19
Speaker 1: rec leagues or you know, I've been taking up boxing
7:23
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have an amateur fight, like I just
7:24
Speaker 1: I've not It's true. It's so true. I shortly, yeah,
7:31
Speaker 1: just please don't tell my mother. So I just found that,
7:35
Speaker 1: like my in my personal life, my passion for this
7:39
Speaker 1: space was increasing, and my passion for music had changed,
7:43
Speaker 1: not that it was lessened, it just had changed. And
7:45
Speaker 1: I've been in the music industry for almost twelve plus
7:48
Speaker 1: years at that point. It's a young person's industry to
7:53
Speaker 1: be able to taste, make, and influence culture the way
7:56
Speaker 1: that I used to and or wanted to do that,
8:00
Speaker 1: change my ability to do that, and I didn't want
8:02
Speaker 1: to be going to shows and clubs, you know, late
8:05
Speaker 1: at night and writing all night and then being up
8:07
Speaker 1: the next day, and you know, running a consumer facing brand.
8:09
Speaker 1: It was just it's a different we're all the older
8:12
Speaker 1: that you get and the longer you've been in it.
8:14
Speaker 1: But my personal passion had really swelled around sports. And
8:19
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, I vividly remember I was working in
8:22
Speaker 1: music and I read a story by Michael Carter Williams
8:26
Speaker 1: on the Player Stripute. The player Stripune had just launched
8:29
Speaker 1: in October twenty fourteen. That's Derek Jeter's athlete lad Media company,
8:33
Speaker 1: and I felt like I was in this really intimate,
8:37
Speaker 1: beautiful storytelling experience because it was through his voice, his words.
8:42
Speaker 1: It felt like I was sitting in a bar next
8:44
Speaker 1: to him and someone was telling me a really intimate
8:46
Speaker 1: story about something that I would have had a thousand
8:48
Speaker 1: questions on and through his own POV, which felt like
8:52
Speaker 1: he was free to express, was telling me something I
8:57
Speaker 1: never would have heard through a traditional means, And it
9:00
Speaker 1: felt like a really interesting landscape shift in content period
9:07
Speaker 1: forget sports or music, like we've seen the democratization happening
9:12
Speaker 1: in digital, the rise of blogging in the early aughts,
9:15
Speaker 1: to social media and the insertion of eye and I thought,
9:19
Speaker 1: just as a storyteller, like, Wow, what amazing impact you
9:23
Speaker 1: could have and what really rich stories you could tell
9:27
Speaker 1: if you sat with your subject and you allowed them
9:30
Speaker 1: to be vulnerable in a safe space where ultimately they
9:33
Speaker 1: had some version of control over what their personal story is,
9:37
Speaker 1: which they should And I met the co founder and
9:41
Speaker 1: president at the Players Should You and Jamie Mussler shortly
9:43
Speaker 1: after that, and said, this is where I want to be.
9:46
Speaker 1: I believe in this type of storytelling. I see what
9:48
Speaker 1: you're doing, and I think we could impact the world,
9:51
Speaker 1: especially through sport. And I was hired within maybe twenty
9:54
Speaker 1: four hours, and it was one of the most transformative
9:57
Speaker 1: experiences in my life.
9:59
Speaker 2: That's awesome, awesome to hear.
10:00
Speaker 3: I hear you on the I just wasn't in the
10:05
Speaker 3: place in my life anymore where I wanted to be
10:08
Speaker 3: out late doing the all nighter. I think we all
10:12
Speaker 3: in regardless of whatever industry you're in, you know, we
10:15
Speaker 3: go through these phases where we put in the time.
10:18
Speaker 3: And I'm sure that in the position that you're in now,
10:22
Speaker 3: you have an opportunity often to offer advice about getting
10:27
Speaker 3: through maybe those earlier, super transformative years for anyone who
10:33
Speaker 3: could be interested in making a little bit of a
10:37
Speaker 3: career pivot. You clearly weren't afraid to change the plan.
10:42
Speaker 2: What do you say to them?
10:43
Speaker 1: Oh? I think there's a couple of answers to that.
10:48
Speaker 1: Number one is your gut is your compass. I firmly
10:52
Speaker 1: believe that if I didn't feel such conviction and passion
10:56
Speaker 1: over sport as a potential lane for me, but in
11:02
Speaker 1: particular the types of storytelling I wanted to do within
11:04
Speaker 1: the sport, I think I would have had more reservations.
11:07
Speaker 1: If I was like, Oh, I just want to get
11:08
Speaker 1: into sports, but what does that look like? I would
11:10
Speaker 1: be a little more nervous. I actually had something made
11:13
Speaker 1: visible to me that gave me a path, and that
11:16
Speaker 1: happened to be fortunate timing. I couldn't imagine working at
11:20
Speaker 1: a place like ESPN. Not that I don't like, Yespian,
11:23
Speaker 1: It's just it was too traditional for me. I wanted
11:25
Speaker 1: something new and innovative that could impact the way we
11:28
Speaker 1: tell stories, and it happened to be visible to me,
11:31
Speaker 1: so it helped the transition be a little bit more
11:34
Speaker 1: comfortable because I could see it. So one, listen to
11:37
Speaker 1: your gut. It is your compass. If you're feeling something,
11:41
Speaker 1: it's probably for a reason. But the second is do
11:44
Speaker 1: your homework and know the people that are in that
11:45
Speaker 1: space and ask them questions, like make those connections, because
11:50
Speaker 1: if you don't have a path and you don't have
11:51
Speaker 1: that network, which for many reasons some of us don't,
11:55
Speaker 1: some of us are more advantage than others. I think
11:59
Speaker 1: if I had not had that path visible to me,
12:02
Speaker 1: and I also didn't make that connection with the president
12:05
Speaker 1: of the company and know how to pitch what I
12:07
Speaker 1: wanted to pitch, I don't know that I would be
12:10
Speaker 1: in this position. So it's know what you're feeling and
12:14
Speaker 1: why you're feeling it is probably real, and look to
12:18
Speaker 1: lay a path to get yourself there, and oftentimes that
12:20
Speaker 1: path is through people.
12:22
Speaker 3: So make those connections, make those connections. That path is
12:26
Speaker 3: through people. I also love the tidbit about not being
12:31
Speaker 3: afraid or above let's say, asking questions, right, because there's
12:38
Speaker 3: always that opportunity to learn, and we learn through listening,
12:42
Speaker 3: which is clearly something that you had a strong awareness
12:47
Speaker 3: of at this point in your career.
12:50
Speaker 1: Listening makes you an amazing storyteller. I don't know how
12:54
Speaker 1: you tell stories if you're not listening to people, if
12:56
Speaker 1: you're not curious to know more about them and their
12:59
Speaker 1: life experience is shared or different from yours, if you
13:02
Speaker 1: don't listen with intent and also with empathy. Those two things,
13:06
Speaker 1: those three things actually are really really critical, along with curiosity.
13:11
Speaker 1: I am this way in my work, but I'm also
13:13
Speaker 1: very much this person in my personal life. I love
13:17
Speaker 1: talking to people and knowing people and making people feel seen.
13:21
Speaker 1: And I don't know where that comes from, because it's
13:23
Speaker 1: not like I was an extrovert as a kid and
13:25
Speaker 1: I was innately curious about I was observant of people.
13:29
Speaker 1: But now my desire to talk with them, to know them,
13:31
Speaker 1: to connect with them and make them feel seen is immense,
13:36
Speaker 1: and I get to do that through my work, but
13:38
Speaker 1: I would also do that in my private life.
13:41
Speaker 3: Before we talk more about what you're doing now at
13:45
Speaker 3: Together and Woman in Sport, I do want to talk
13:49
Speaker 3: a little bit about Jessica as a kid to get
13:53
Speaker 3: that understanding. Because you said at the time of making
13:57
Speaker 3: this pivot to the player's Tribune and then ultimately two
14:00
Speaker 3: together that you had a vested interest in sport, But
14:04
Speaker 3: was that nurtured in you from a young age.
14:07
Speaker 2: What was life like for you growing up.
14:10
Speaker 1: I grew up in a really small town in Kentucky.
14:13
Speaker 1: It's not a place where many people leave and beyond
14:19
Speaker 1: high school, there's not much of a path unless someone
14:22
Speaker 1: has again made it visible and sort of invested in
14:26
Speaker 1: you and made it known that that could be your
14:29
Speaker 1: journey beyond just your primary education. It's a pretty simple place,
14:34
Speaker 1: and it's a place where, you know, if New York
14:39
Speaker 1: and LA are places where when you meet someone you
14:41
Speaker 1: ask them like, well, what do you do where I'm from?
14:43
Speaker 1: Is a place where you ask people how they are?
14:45
Speaker 1: It's actually really rude to ask what do you do
14:47
Speaker 1: where I'm from? So I grew up with the sort
14:53
Speaker 1: of innate trait to pay attention to the people around
15:00
Speaker 1: me and make sure they're okay. I started playing sports
15:05
Speaker 1: at the age of four. My dad and my mom
15:08
Speaker 1: both greatly invested in my twin sister and I. I
15:12
Speaker 1: remember my dad we played basketball and softball. Tea ball
15:16
Speaker 1: at that age would put my twin sister and I
15:19
Speaker 1: on either side of the tea, and that's how I
15:22
Speaker 1: learned to like swing in bat left handed, because we
15:24
Speaker 1: would fight over who got to bat first, so we
15:26
Speaker 1: would just bat at the same time. I don't remember
15:30
Speaker 1: much of my early life and certainly middle school and
15:33
Speaker 1: high school life without either like a cassette player or
15:37
Speaker 1: CD player walkman in my hand and a basketball or
15:40
Speaker 1: softball or glove on my other hand. Like those two
15:43
Speaker 1: things are just so ingrained in me. And I remember
15:47
Speaker 1: being thirteen and nineteen ninety six, which were those really
15:51
Speaker 1: incredible Summer Olympic Games held in Atlanta, and having this
15:56
Speaker 1: very sort of transformative informative experience of watching particular all
16:00
Speaker 1: the incredible American athletes dominate that summer and there was
16:05
Speaker 1: the softball team, the soccer team, the basketball team, the
16:08
Speaker 1: gymnastics team that was a fantastic four like watching all
16:12
Speaker 1: of them when gold and dominate. And then the WNBA
16:16
Speaker 1: was announced and it was like, oh, we have a
16:18
Speaker 1: like first of its kind professional women's basketball league outside
16:23
Speaker 1: of the ABL and others that come before it, like
16:25
Speaker 1: backed by the NBA, and it just felt like this
16:27
Speaker 1: big moment for like a young girl like me who
16:32
Speaker 1: finally had maybe a future in sport. If I was
16:35
Speaker 1: a better athlete, I probably would have been. So that
16:37
Speaker 1: was a very formative experience. But it was also happening
16:40
Speaker 1: at the same time where there's a swell of girl
16:42
Speaker 1: power happening in popular culture. So I also remember like
16:46
Speaker 1: in the music side, like there was Lilith Fair, there
16:49
Speaker 1: was a Riot Girl, there was the Spice Girls, and
16:52
Speaker 1: girl power. There was like like then the rise of
16:54
Speaker 1: like c Elliott and Lauren Hill and what was happening
16:57
Speaker 1: in hip hop and R and B, and I was
16:58
Speaker 1: just like, wow, like women are it. I don't know
17:02
Speaker 1: what that means because I'm only thirteen, but like, I
17:05
Speaker 1: was so inspired by the generation maybe two generations before me,
17:10
Speaker 1: who created and laid a path that up until that point,
17:14
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I was going to do. I
17:16
Speaker 1: didn't see an opportunity to get outside of my small town.
17:21
Speaker 1: And from then on it was I knew I would leave.
17:24
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to tell stories. I didn't know
17:26
Speaker 1: what that meant, and I didn't know what lane that
17:28
Speaker 1: would be in. But I also had the fortune of
17:32
Speaker 1: having a supportive family who knew that staying in Paduca,
17:38
Speaker 1: Kentucky was not gonna satisfy me.
17:42
Speaker 3: It sounds like you had your own gender rank moment
17:46
Speaker 3: in Paducah, Kentucky.
17:49
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly exactly.
17:52
Speaker 3: And so going from that, how are you culture to
17:57
Speaker 3: then coming to New York say and immersing yourself head
18:03
Speaker 3: first Rollingstone dot com.
18:07
Speaker 2: Was it a culture shock for you?
18:11
Speaker 1: Yes and no in some ways. I remember the first
18:13
Speaker 1: time I visited in New York City. It was also
18:14
Speaker 1: the first time I ever got on a plane, which
18:17
Speaker 1: is wild. To say that is wild wild. We drive
18:21
Speaker 1: where I'm from, We don't. We are not a flying people.
18:24
Speaker 1: I landed in New York and I was like, this
18:26
Speaker 1: is it. This is where I want to be. I
18:28
Speaker 1: had dreamed of living there, and when I got there,
18:30
Speaker 1: it felt right, like the place felt right. What was
18:34
Speaker 1: sort of more of a culture shock for me, especially
18:37
Speaker 1: at a place like Rolling Stone was, and maybe it
18:39
Speaker 1: was more my insecurity and less culture shock, was the
18:42
Speaker 1: people I You know, there weren't many others with my background.
18:48
Speaker 1: I went to a state school. I was surrounded by
18:50
Speaker 1: people who came from family that had worked in media
18:55
Speaker 1: and industry and had connections right, or who went to
18:59
Speaker 1: an Ivy League school, or just had different privilege and
19:01
Speaker 1: opportunity than I did. So there was a little bit
19:04
Speaker 1: of inferiority complex more than anything. And I wouldn't call
19:08
Speaker 1: it culture shock, just am I good enough to be here?
19:12
Speaker 1: Like one of these is not like the other? And
19:15
Speaker 1: it was me. So I had to really work to
19:19
Speaker 1: develop self confidence, which now looking back and I just
19:24
Speaker 1: think about like that twenty one year old kid, that
19:26
Speaker 1: twenty year old kid feels normal because in your twenties
19:31
Speaker 1: or it's like your second adolescence, right, Like, that's that's
19:34
Speaker 1: I think everyone goes through that and maybe it continues
19:37
Speaker 1: throughout the course of your life. But I had that
19:40
Speaker 1: confidence going into that role, but as soon as I
19:42
Speaker 1: got into it, I was like, am I do I
19:44
Speaker 1: fit here? So that that was the big trans That
19:48
Speaker 1: was a big transition for me.
19:50
Speaker 3: And that's so understandable that you felt that way coming
19:54
Speaker 3: in to such a big opportunity, knowing your backstory up
20:00
Speaker 3: till this point when you say that there was a
20:04
Speaker 3: need for you to develop self confidence, where did you
20:09
Speaker 3: garner that from? How did you strengthen that muscle so
20:12
Speaker 3: to speak?
20:13
Speaker 1: I think it comes with reps a little bit. I
20:18
Speaker 1: also think it comes with the people you surround yourself
20:21
Speaker 1: with I also think it comes with time. I'm sure
20:26
Speaker 1: you find this to be true. The older you get,
20:28
Speaker 1: sort of those things that you worry about and those
20:30
Speaker 1: insecurities you have just sort of fall off a little
20:33
Speaker 1: bit like leaves. You know, you just say, I'm not
20:35
Speaker 1: carrying that weight anymore. I've lived enough life to know
20:39
Speaker 1: that this thing will be okay, or this problem or
20:44
Speaker 1: this path will solve itself or reveal itself. Like life
20:47
Speaker 1: is going to happen, and I will be okay because
20:50
Speaker 1: I know how to navigate it now. But reps to
20:54
Speaker 1: me are really important. I mean, in that role in particular,
20:57
Speaker 1: at that age, surrounded by these people who seem to
21:00
Speaker 1: so experienced and so smart and so funny and so
21:04
Speaker 1: you know, charming, and all the sort of like the
21:06
Speaker 1: social skills they had that I didn't, and being able
21:08
Speaker 1: to navigate a place like Rolling Stone or a city
21:11
Speaker 1: like New York and I just didn't know. It was
21:13
Speaker 1: just like dropped into the pool. I needed a lot.
21:17
Speaker 1: There were a lot of first that happened for me.
21:19
Speaker 1: And after first and seconds and thirds and fourths, you
21:23
Speaker 1: start to find your rhythm and your groove and you
21:25
Speaker 1: start to discover like what you're really good at and
21:29
Speaker 1: the things that maybe you're not as good at, and
21:31
Speaker 1: you lean into those sort of superpowers that you have,
21:33
Speaker 1: and you're not trying to be every single superpower at once.
21:37
Speaker 1: You just you know, you know what you have to offer,
21:40
Speaker 1: and you're confident in what you have to offer. Again,
21:41
Speaker 1: it takes time, and then you find that people tend
21:45
Speaker 1: to pour into you around those things. I was fortunate
21:48
Speaker 1: enough to have an editor at that age and in
21:52
Speaker 1: that role who would literally wheel a chair over next
21:56
Speaker 1: to him and his desk, and we would edit stories together,
22:00
Speaker 1: like line by line, comma by comma, paragraph by paragraph.
22:05
Speaker 1: So I learned not only how to tell a story,
22:06
Speaker 1: but how to construct and really build a story, and
22:08
Speaker 1: it made me ultimately better storyteller in the long run.
22:10
Speaker 1: But if it weren't for him seeing something in me
22:13
Speaker 1: and knowing that I could add value to even a
22:16
Speaker 1: conversation like that one, which is relatively small in scale,
22:20
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know that I would be the
22:21
Speaker 1: same person. I was very, very lucky to have that
22:24
Speaker 1: at a young age.
22:26
Speaker 3: It's special to be able to reflect on that mentorship
22:29
Speaker 3: experience and how beneficial it was for you to then
22:35
Speaker 3: move forward and know that you have the opportunity to
22:38
Speaker 3: be that type of individual for others, younger in the
22:44
Speaker 3: field coming up.
22:46
Speaker 2: Is it not?
22:47
Speaker 1: It's amazing. And I also just think about privilege and power,
22:53
Speaker 1: and I firmly believe at least in my position as
22:57
Speaker 1: a storyteller and now is sort of a co founder
23:00
Speaker 1: of a company that's impacting the world. I mean, what
23:04
Speaker 1: good is my power, my privilege if I don't give
23:07
Speaker 1: it away to people? Like, what's the saying? What use
23:11
Speaker 1: is it when you take the elevator up if you
23:12
Speaker 1: don't send it back down? There's no what's the point? Like,
23:17
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean anything. And because I was invested in
23:21
Speaker 1: not just by one person, multiple people over the course
23:23
Speaker 1: of my life and my career, I see it as
23:26
Speaker 1: a responsibility to do that to other people, especially people
23:29
Speaker 1: who don't have the privilege that I have in this world.
23:32
Speaker 1: I think it's critical.
23:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, reflecting on those early years, I don't want to
23:38
Speaker 3: call it a mistake, but do you have a story
23:42
Speaker 3: or a takeaway of a moment that perhaps you made
23:47
Speaker 3: an error that at the time felt catastrophic.
23:51
Speaker 1: I want to come back to that one.
23:52
Speaker 2: I need to think about that one Okay, marinate on that.
23:55
Speaker 2: I'll tell you a story while you think about it.
23:57
Speaker 3: So, when I was at Self magazine, we did a
24:00
Speaker 3: package leading up to the Olympics. I believe this must
24:04
Speaker 3: have been the twenty sixteen Olympics. I'm like, my years
24:08
Speaker 3: are all a player now after COVID, but leading up
24:11
Speaker 3: to the sixteen Olympic Games.
24:13
Speaker 2: And there was a line that.
24:15
Speaker 3: Somehow made it into the print magazine that insinuated that
24:21
Speaker 3: one of the athletes we featured lifted weights I want
24:25
Speaker 3: to say, like six days a week instead of five
24:27
Speaker 3: days a week. It wasn't a big it wasn't a
24:30
Speaker 3: large error, but it was an error. And this athlete
24:33
Speaker 3: also happened to be the only athlete that we didn't
24:36
Speaker 3: show her face. She was in a sport that like,
24:41
Speaker 3: she just had the most beautiful strong back, and the
24:44
Speaker 3: photos of her, like from behind, doing her sport were
24:48
Speaker 3: just stunning, and that's what we went with. And so
24:50
Speaker 3: I'll never forget the call I got from the entertainment
24:56
Speaker 3: director at the time basically telling me that I had
25:00
Speaker 3: royally messed up.
25:01
Speaker 2: She couldn't believe that I had done X and Y.
25:04
Speaker 3: And really this frustration was coming from the fact that
25:07
Speaker 3: the entertainment director had been contacted by this athlete and
25:11
Speaker 3: the athlete was upset, and I remember going into the
25:14
Speaker 3: office that day and thinking like this is it, Like
25:16
Speaker 3: this is how I lose my job. I can't believe
25:19
Speaker 3: that this whole thing happened. And in retrospect, again not
25:22
Speaker 3: a big error. But I tell this story and that's
25:24
Speaker 3: why I asked this question of you, because I look
25:28
Speaker 3: back on that experiences as you put it, a true
25:32
Speaker 3: rep like that was a moment where I had to
25:37
Speaker 3: experience what it felt like to disappoint someone higher up
25:40
Speaker 3: than me, navigate their feedback and their criticism based on
25:45
Speaker 3: feedback and criticism that they received from someone else, and
25:48
Speaker 3: also worry about what it would be like if I
25:51
Speaker 3: were to lose my job that day, which ultimately I
25:54
Speaker 3: don't need to tell you, but that's what ultimately ended
25:58
Speaker 3: up happening months later when self folded.
26:01
Speaker 1: I love that story for so many reasons because as
26:04
Speaker 1: you were telling that story, I could feel that anxiety,
26:07
Speaker 1: which means I have a thousand berson been there, and
26:10
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's like one massive mistake or
26:14
Speaker 1: one that rises to the top, but a lot of
26:16
Speaker 1: micro mistakes like that that felt really really big in
26:20
Speaker 1: the moment, and the ones that I'm thinking of, And
26:24
Speaker 1: if a specific, like really specific one rises to the top,
26:27
Speaker 1: I'll come back to it lean into it. But it
26:29
Speaker 1: comes down to something very similar that you're talking about
26:32
Speaker 1: right now, which I think goes back to, like my
26:35
Speaker 1: unconscious bias had to do with like descriptions and representations
26:40
Speaker 1: and especially around women in particular women's sports, which you know,
26:44
Speaker 1: when I did transition from music to sports, like I
26:47
Speaker 1: knew a lot about sports because I was a fan
26:49
Speaker 1: of sports and I played sports, but I didn't know
26:51
Speaker 1: all like the way a super fan or someone that
26:54
Speaker 1: did this for a living had to know about sports,
26:57
Speaker 1: and there was a real learning curve and what was
27:00
Speaker 1: happening and happens in particular in women's sports. And this
27:04
Speaker 1: is again a broader lesson, but I feel your anxiety
27:08
Speaker 1: around decision making what tends to happen, especially in a
27:12
Speaker 1: sport like women's basketball, for example, as we center the
27:16
Speaker 1: more feminine quote unquote attractive, maybe straightish appearing white basketball
27:26
Speaker 1: player versus you know, the real women who maybe dominate
27:29
Speaker 1: that league because it's predominantly black and predominantly queer, and
27:33
Speaker 1: that's because they've been deemed unmarketable, and therefore there are
27:36
Speaker 1: just certain women who tend to be on magazine covers
27:39
Speaker 1: who tend to get this, like talking head spots, who
27:42
Speaker 1: tend to be interviewed more than others, and that's clearly
27:45
Speaker 1: the bias that's happening in the media. But I remember
27:48
Speaker 1: coming into the sports sector and gravitating towards those women
27:53
Speaker 1: because they were available to me and they were easy
27:56
Speaker 1: to get a hold and I just they were there
27:57
Speaker 1: and you know them, and they start you enter them
28:00
Speaker 1: in stories, and you learn very quickly if you're paying
28:04
Speaker 1: attention not just to the sports, but like the women's sports,
28:07
Speaker 1: but to culture, that we were centering the wrong people.
28:12
Speaker 1: The people that needed to be centered, and especially having
28:14
Speaker 1: certain conversations in the women's sports space were black and
28:18
Speaker 1: queer women because they were the ones that had been
28:21
Speaker 1: grossly marginalized and should have been centered. And not just
28:24
Speaker 1: like in sport, but in culture. That's true. Women's sports
28:26
Speaker 1: is ground zero foreverism. And so I don't remember it
28:30
Speaker 1: being there's been a series and the stakes like the
28:32
Speaker 1: one that you're describing, but I remember the theme of
28:36
Speaker 1: them is an unlearning of unconscious bias and being very
28:42
Speaker 1: very very mindful about who tells these stories, what stories
28:46
Speaker 1: we're telling, who's the storyteller through which these stories are told,
28:51
Speaker 1: and how do you better represent the communities that you
28:54
Speaker 1: know ultimately create the space through that storytelling. It's been
29:01
Speaker 1: a big, not learning necessarily, but a really gratifying journey.
29:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially to be at the forefront of and to
29:12
Speaker 3: have that opportunity to help others, let's say, better understand
29:19
Speaker 3: maybe they're unconscious bias, so that you can further along
29:24
Speaker 3: the mission of the specific publication or the outlet that
29:28
Speaker 3: you are working on.
29:29
Speaker 2: And then also of course to better yourself right, right.
29:33
Speaker 1: And it's even those micro things like you mentioned, like
29:36
Speaker 1: showing those athletes back because it's beautiful, right, and you
29:40
Speaker 1: want to show that because we don't often celebrate the
29:42
Speaker 1: physicality of a woman's body, especially as an athlete. We're
29:46
Speaker 1: trying to shrink them, we're trying to feminize them, We're
29:48
Speaker 1: trying to do all these things. And you think that
29:51
Speaker 1: you're doing a great thing, but by not showing her face,
29:53
Speaker 1: you're making her less visible. I mean, these layers of
29:57
Speaker 1: decision making that you you have to take into account
30:03
Speaker 1: and every single one matters, so that learning and the
30:07
Speaker 1: anxiety of learning through that and being very intentional about
30:10
Speaker 1: your decision making is Again It's been a really rich experience,
30:15
Speaker 1: but one that's also critical because, like I said, these
30:17
Speaker 1: women have been so marginalized and deepowered that we have
30:24
Speaker 1: the opportunity to pull them into the center and empower them.
30:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean to your point about the women in
30:33
Speaker 3: the WNBA and their visibility. I feel lucky and grateful
30:37
Speaker 3: that I've had the opportunity to talk to so many
30:40
Speaker 3: WNBA players for the show, ranging from Necho Guimmockay and
30:44
Speaker 3: Dede Richards too. I sat down with Kelsey Plumb yesterday
30:48
Speaker 3: and I will say that I think there is a
30:50
Speaker 3: really beautiful transition happening right now, large in part because
30:55
Speaker 3: of what outlets like Together are doing to show the
31:01
Speaker 3: breath of the athlete, to show what it is that's
31:08
Speaker 3: actually happening instead of, you know, just the random every
31:13
Speaker 3: eighteen months woman on the cover of women's Health magazine
31:16
Speaker 3: that happens to play sport.
31:19
Speaker 1: It's so fascinating to see the shift in sport broadly.
31:22
Speaker 1: And then I'll talk about women's sports specifically, but for
31:25
Speaker 1: sure Yeah, around twenty fourteen twenty fifteen, what I'll call
31:29
Speaker 1: like this athlete empowerment movement happened, and it was really
31:33
Speaker 1: just the recognition that these athletes come off a dreamalized
31:38
Speaker 1: performances and then they have a microphone in their face
31:42
Speaker 1: and they have to answer questions about how they performed
31:44
Speaker 1: or didn't perform, or if you're Lebron, you're getting asked
31:48
Speaker 1: about NBA's relationship with China, and like you're just like
31:51
Speaker 1: you have to answer for anything and everything at all times.
31:55
Speaker 1: And I can just imagine the tension and the fraught
31:58
Speaker 1: relationship that's built between built up over time between traditional
32:01
Speaker 1: media and athletes. Athletes as a whole are just sort
32:04
Speaker 1: of considered assets to be traded and discarded and embedded
32:09
Speaker 1: on over time, despite the fact that they are some
32:11
Speaker 1: of the most culturally powerful and influential people in our world.
32:16
Speaker 1: So we've dehumanized them for so long. What I love
32:19
Speaker 1: about this sort of movement that's happened and through places
32:22
Speaker 1: like the players should beune or uninterrupted in others, is
32:27
Speaker 1: you give them a space to tell their whole story
32:29
Speaker 1: in a way that feels authentic to them, because in
32:32
Speaker 1: the end, their byline is on it. You get to
32:34
Speaker 1: know them and they can have significant, significant impact through
32:39
Speaker 1: their personal narrative in a way that traditional media sometimes
32:42
Speaker 1: doesn't allow for. And I think the two need to coexist.
32:45
Speaker 1: I think they're very symbiotic. They need to exist at
32:48
Speaker 1: the same time. But for women athletes, they almost it's
32:53
Speaker 1: different because they don't even have the visibility and they're
32:56
Speaker 1: not even respected as athletes, so it's wishing critical to
33:01
Speaker 1: tell their stories and make them visible. There is this
33:05
Speaker 1: very vicious cycle that happens in the women's sports space
33:09
Speaker 1: where of one hundred percent of media coverage, only four
33:12
Speaker 1: percent of that is dedicated to women's sports. And that's
33:15
Speaker 1: not even to talk about the quality of that coverage,
33:18
Speaker 1: the depth of that coverage, the diversity of that coverage,
33:21
Speaker 1: nothing where you can find it. If you're not telling
33:25
Speaker 1: these stories and you're not making these women visible, then
33:28
Speaker 1: it's incredibly hard to grow an audience or community around that,
33:32
Speaker 1: or to put butts in seats, or to drive viewership
33:34
Speaker 1: or any of those things that matter to teams, leagues,
33:37
Speaker 1: media companies, organizations. And if there's no audience in no
33:41
Speaker 1: community and no people in the stands and nobody watching
33:43
Speaker 1: then brands don't invest in the space, and then media
33:45
Speaker 1: companies don't tell the stories because there's no money for
33:47
Speaker 1: them to be had. It's so vicious, and we think
33:51
Speaker 1: every couple of years it'll break around a women's World
33:54
Speaker 1: Cup or an Olympic year because women tend to dominate
33:57
Speaker 1: those summers, and we think maybe because there's a swell
34:00
Speaker 1: of investment and coverage then that it will sustain itself
34:03
Speaker 1: over time, but it doesn't, which is why Together exists.
34:06
Speaker 1: It's just to make these women visible every single day,
34:10
Speaker 1: to celebrate them, to dimensionalize them, to recognize the power
34:15
Speaker 1: in their skill and their athleticism, and respect them as athletes,
34:18
Speaker 1: but also to embrace that they are incredible multi hyphenates
34:22
Speaker 1: as women have to be who move culture forward. And
34:28
Speaker 1: I say this so often, but I think it's incredibly
34:33
Speaker 1: true and hopefully changing over time. But there's this perception
34:38
Speaker 1: that women's sports has been behind, and that's because we've
34:41
Speaker 1: viewed sports through a male lens, and that goes back
34:43
Speaker 1: to visibility and media stuff. But there's this perception that
34:46
Speaker 1: women's sports has been behind, And I think, to myself,
34:50
Speaker 1: knowing what I know about women, women and women's sports
34:54
Speaker 1: has been so far ahead of culture that culture has
34:57
Speaker 1: had to catch up. And when you have plate entities
35:00
Speaker 1: like you know, together just women's sports, when you do
35:06
Speaker 1: have a publication like GQA others like putting women on
35:09
Speaker 1: the front, like the cover, like, it actually does matter.
35:12
Speaker 1: It needs to be more sustained, but it really does
35:15
Speaker 1: matter because it takes this sort of socially constructed norm
35:19
Speaker 1: that sports are male inherently and starts to center these
35:22
Speaker 1: women and just make it more of the norm. Hopefully
35:25
Speaker 1: we are at the tip of a spear and things
35:27
Speaker 1: are really changing.
35:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think we see hints of that change
35:32
Speaker 3: as time goes on. Right, I mean, prime example the
35:37
Speaker 3: US woman's national team versus England sellout at Wembley when
35:40
Speaker 3: sixty five thousand tickets were sold like the day after
35:44
Speaker 3: they went on sale, and there was a surprise in that.
35:48
Speaker 3: But the general theme from let's say media and maybe
35:53
Speaker 3: female focused reporting advocates for women in sport was it's
35:57
Speaker 3: been here, The demand has been here.
35:59
Speaker 2: Where Why have you been sleeping on this?
36:02
Speaker 1: Yes, it's been here. Also, women's sports fans are inherently digital,
36:06
Speaker 1: They're digitally native. They've had to be. They are here,
36:08
Speaker 1: they think they've been underserved, they have been starved. It's
36:11
Speaker 1: not if you build it, they will come. It's like
36:13
Speaker 1: they're here. So if you create, if you create the
36:18
Speaker 1: stories and you make them visible, they'll consume them. They'll
36:21
Speaker 1: engage with them, they'll share them. If you make the
36:23
Speaker 1: games available for broadcasts, they will tune in. They will
36:26
Speaker 1: watch them. If you put like massive events and big arenas,
36:30
Speaker 1: same thing happened in the O two Arena, the women's
36:32
Speaker 1: boxing match Colorisa Shields and Savannah Marshall in the UK
36:36
Speaker 1: in the last month, like sell out, Like that's women's boxing.
36:39
Speaker 1: It's not even women's soccer where we have like the
36:42
Speaker 1: crest on our chests and we suddenly become really patriotic.
36:45
Speaker 1: It's like it is. If you just do it, audience
36:49
Speaker 1: is there. They've been waiting for it. What's been missing
36:52
Speaker 1: is the investment. And I don't mean just like financial investment,
36:55
Speaker 1: which is very true. I mean the media and storytelling investment.
36:59
Speaker 1: It's it's those two things are critical to growing the
37:02
Speaker 1: overall category. And as you say, sell out stadium Wimbley
37:07
Speaker 1: is huge, it's a massive event. Because of that, then
37:10
Speaker 1: Fox decided to broadcast it on their main channel, not
37:12
Speaker 1: on FS one. Like, imagine if you made a conscious decision,
37:16
Speaker 1: if you had the power as a decision maker at
37:19
Speaker 1: a massive media organization to not broadcast an NWSL championship
37:23
Speaker 1: at nine am on the West coast right which happened
37:27
Speaker 1: last year, that was out under consideration, and put it
37:29
Speaker 1: in prime time, not competing against another massive men's sporting event.
37:35
Speaker 1: What you could do for a viewership on a major
37:37
Speaker 1: media network, And that just comes down to again, to
37:39
Speaker 1: go back to conscious decision making. There are people in
37:42
Speaker 1: positions of power who can make this happen, who can
37:45
Speaker 1: change it. They just have to decide to invest, cut
37:48
Speaker 1: the check, tell the story.
37:54
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40:52
Speaker 3: as a co founder.
40:53
Speaker 2: Just start together. Give us some of that origin story.
40:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had been working at the Player's Tribune for
41:01
Speaker 1: four and a half years by then, about four years,
41:04
Speaker 1: and I got a call like early twenty nineteen one
41:10
Speaker 1: day asking if I would be willing to take a
41:15
Speaker 1: meeting on a potential new athlete, a women's athlete focused
41:19
Speaker 1: media company, and outside of running content at players should
41:24
Speaker 1: be in my day to day focus, or at least
41:26
Speaker 1: what I would bring into a lot of conversations was
41:30
Speaker 1: insertion and reminding that we were also working with women athletes,
41:32
Speaker 1: were not just entering male athletes, and we would infuse
41:35
Speaker 1: that into our content strategy. So over the course of
41:38
Speaker 1: those four to five years, I had the privilege to
41:42
Speaker 1: tell some of the greatest stories I think I've ever
41:44
Speaker 1: told them in my life in partnership with really incredible
41:46
Speaker 1: women athletes. So I've had sort of built a reputation
41:51
Speaker 1: for being a storyteller and an ally in the space,
41:54
Speaker 1: knowing how to build brands and build companies around temples
41:59
Speaker 1: and ideas and hypotheses, and knowing like potential audience and
42:03
Speaker 1: consumer demand, and having relationships with a lot of these
42:07
Speaker 1: women athletes directly. And I took the call and it
42:11
Speaker 1: was about Alex Morgan and she was going into a
42:16
Speaker 1: World Cup year. I said, this is twenty nineteen. This
42:20
Speaker 1: is Alex's observation, which is true. You know she watches
42:25
Speaker 1: you know Lebron James build Uninterrupted in spring Hill, Derek
42:29
Speaker 1: Jeter has the Player Subune, Kevin Durant builds his own
42:33
Speaker 1: venture company, thirty five Ventures. Steph Curry has Unanimous Media.
42:38
Speaker 1: There's just all these male athletes. They can build their
42:40
Speaker 1: own platforms and their own brands and their own venture
42:43
Speaker 1: and companies because the money and the investments made available
42:45
Speaker 1: to them, because their power and platform is so much bigger,
42:49
Speaker 1: because they happen to be superstars because they're male athletes.
42:52
Speaker 1: And even despite like that sort of disruption of athlete
42:56
Speaker 1: led storytelling, women were still kind of left in the margins.
43:00
Speaker 1: And she was tired of waiting for any one of
43:04
Speaker 1: them or traditional media to decide that women's stories who
43:08
Speaker 1: are worth investing in consistently and telling. So she said,
43:13
Speaker 1: what do you like, Let's fuck it, let's go build it.
43:16
Speaker 1: And I remember the first big meeting with Alex in
43:22
Speaker 1: September twenty nineteen that we were in Los Angeles and
43:26
Speaker 1: we got in this sort of coworking shared space and
43:30
Speaker 1: there was just a massive whiteboard and there was nothing
43:33
Speaker 1: on that board except brains in a room who knew
43:36
Speaker 1: that we wanted to build a media company, but that
43:38
Speaker 1: was it. So we asked over the course of a
43:42
Speaker 1: full day like ourselves. What do we want this to be?
43:45
Speaker 1: Who do we want this to stand for? What is
43:47
Speaker 1: the voice of this brand? What is the tone of
43:50
Speaker 1: this brand? What are the qualities that our stories have?
43:52
Speaker 1: Like just who do we want to build this in
43:54
Speaker 1: partnership with? What other athletes do we want to bring
43:57
Speaker 1: into this, Like who are we representing? It was just
43:59
Speaker 1: such inspiring, thoughtful, creative, collaborative conversation. And I remember leaving
44:07
Speaker 1: that room that day and getting on a plane to
44:09
Speaker 1: go back to New York and knowing that this was
44:13
Speaker 1: the right move for me, but more importantly, just feeling
44:17
Speaker 1: so excited by the impact that a brand like this
44:19
Speaker 1: one could have. And then from there it's like, Okay,
44:22
Speaker 1: well how do you build it? It's one thing to
44:25
Speaker 1: have an idea of what you want to make, and
44:27
Speaker 1: then something else entirely to then go and make that
44:31
Speaker 1: thing and launch it into the world.
44:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
44:35
Speaker 3: And so when you sat in there and you started
44:38
Speaker 3: to outline kind of the brand ethos. Now when you
44:43
Speaker 3: are asked those questions, who are you reaching, what is
44:48
Speaker 3: your mission?
44:49
Speaker 2: What do you say?
44:50
Speaker 1: Our mission is to make women visible and give them
44:55
Speaker 1: their power back through storytelling? Who we reach every single day. Right,
45:01
Speaker 1: there's the technical answer, which is predominantly women eighteen to
45:04
Speaker 1: thirty five who have never had a brand like this
45:07
Speaker 1: probably exists for them before, who finally see themselves reflected
45:10
Speaker 1: back because we're telling stories that represent their own journey
45:13
Speaker 1: and maybe their own identities. But for me, I think
45:18
Speaker 1: this brand and if you spend time with the content
45:21
Speaker 1: and certainly the mission and the voice, which has a
45:24
Speaker 1: bit of sort of an activist voice to it, we
45:28
Speaker 1: stand for anyone who hasn't felt seen, who's been disempowered,
45:32
Speaker 1: or who has been told that they weren't powerful, and
45:35
Speaker 1: we're taking those people, like I said earlier, from the
45:38
Speaker 1: margins and pulling them into the center and giving them
45:41
Speaker 1: their power back. Because women inherently move culture forward.
45:45
Speaker 2: When have you felt like that in your life? Unseen?
45:51
Speaker 1: I mean so many times. And that's to say I
45:54
Speaker 1: have a lot of privilege that others don't. To personalize it,
46:02
Speaker 1: I was, you know, growing up in this small town.
46:04
Speaker 1: I was. I knew at a very young age I
46:07
Speaker 1: was gay, and that was not a place where you
46:11
Speaker 1: wanted to be, especially at that time the mid nineties,
46:14
Speaker 1: like you wanted to be out in a conservative town.
46:18
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of sort of like hiding
46:19
Speaker 1: of self and identity out of shame and fear, some
46:23
Speaker 1: fear which was self construct and some fear which was
46:25
Speaker 1: actually very real. So it took me a while to
46:27
Speaker 1: feel seen on a personal level, which was part of
46:29
Speaker 1: my journey. I've also been and I'm sure you have
46:33
Speaker 1: two and only in a room A lot in the
46:37
Speaker 1: media industry, if surrounded by men and oftentimes the only
46:42
Speaker 1: woman in the room, and I see one, they don't
46:46
Speaker 1: hear me when I talk, which isn't the case anymore,
46:49
Speaker 1: but for a long time, you know, I could say
46:51
Speaker 1: something and then the guy sitting next to me could
46:53
Speaker 1: say the same thing and he would be heard. And
46:55
Speaker 1: I'm like, I just said that thing. I just said
46:58
Speaker 1: that thing, or I would be the only woman in
47:00
Speaker 1: the room. I will never forget. This is actually a
47:05
Speaker 1: really funny story. I will never forget. It was working
47:10
Speaker 1: sort of like I hate calling them more room styles,
47:13
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean. When you're like covering
47:14
Speaker 1: a big event like the Grammys or the Super Bowl
47:16
Speaker 1: or whatever, and you have like every employee is in
47:19
Speaker 1: the same space because you're like deploying and publishing a
47:22
Speaker 1: lot of content in real time. So I was in
47:25
Speaker 1: one of those spaces and I was in charge in
47:28
Speaker 1: that room, and someone came in, an executive came in,
47:32
Speaker 1: and it was sort of like my show, my event,
47:34
Speaker 1: my thing to run, and he knew that I was
47:37
Speaker 1: the one in charge, and he asked me to order
47:42
Speaker 1: dinner for the entire team, who were all men, because
47:46
Speaker 1: he didn't know how to get on seamless, and just
47:48
Speaker 1: order a couple of pizzas. And I remember, I think
47:50
Speaker 1: like feeling so undermined in my power, and then thinking, well,
47:57
Speaker 1: that's default for you, and you don't even realize you're
48:00
Speaker 1: doing it. You just think I know how to get
48:02
Speaker 1: things done, But the default for you is to turn
48:04
Speaker 1: to the only woman in the room and make sure
48:06
Speaker 1: she's servicing all the guys in the room and taking
48:09
Speaker 1: care of them, making sure they're fed, even though my
48:11
Speaker 1: job was to actually run the ship that night. And
48:17
Speaker 1: I felt really small in that space. And it's such
48:20
Speaker 1: a specific and tiny example, right, there's bigger ones that
48:23
Speaker 1: I can think of in space as I've been and
48:25
Speaker 1: where I didn't feel seen, But even something like that,
48:28
Speaker 1: even when you are seen, but you're still undermined because
48:31
Speaker 1: you're a woman is infuriating.
48:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and thank you for sharing that.
48:40
Speaker 3: You spoke about the whiteboard session with Alex right, But
48:47
Speaker 3: how does it feel ultimately when you start to truly
48:53
Speaker 3: understand and get to a place where you are going
49:00
Speaker 3: to be working with so many women that represent a
49:05
Speaker 3: wide breadth of female athletes, some of the best and
49:07
Speaker 3: the best, Sue Bird, Chloe Kim Simone, How did that
49:12
Speaker 3: feel for you?
49:14
Speaker 1: There are avengers. These women are amazing. They are for
49:19
Speaker 1: the greatest athletes in the world, I don't have to
49:21
Speaker 1: say for the greatest women athletes in the world. They
49:24
Speaker 1: just are. But beyond that, they are incredible humans for
49:30
Speaker 1: all of sort of their shared greatness and accomplishments, which
49:34
Speaker 1: you know would take an hour's worth of conversation to
49:36
Speaker 1: go through. They have incredibly different lived experiences and povs
49:41
Speaker 1: on the world too, and different personalities and expressions, and
49:46
Speaker 1: given what together stands for, which is representation and visibility,
49:51
Speaker 1: to be able to take all of that sort of
49:55
Speaker 1: like lived experience and aspiration and dedicated and commitment to
50:01
Speaker 1: the same thing. We all have the same thing that
50:03
Speaker 1: we're marching towards, but all those different expressions and infuse
50:07
Speaker 1: it into the DNA of Together has been wildly beyond
50:13
Speaker 1: my dreams. And the best part is they are all
50:19
Speaker 1: incredible thought partners and they are also all incredibly selfless,
50:24
Speaker 1: and I think that's what you see happening with women generally,
50:27
Speaker 1: Like we know how to come together, form a collective
50:31
Speaker 1: and move things forward for the better men of everyone
50:33
Speaker 1: around us and more importantly for those that are coming
50:36
Speaker 1: behind us. And these for women, embody that every single
50:40
Speaker 1: day in their life. They are first. They are all
50:42
Speaker 1: first of different kinds. They also understand what it means
50:46
Speaker 1: to break glass ceilings and then the cuts and the
50:50
Speaker 1: bruises that come with that, which we don't even consider.
50:52
Speaker 1: Sometimes they are wildly creative and entertaining, and they also
50:58
Speaker 1: just know this space, they know it's missing, So they
51:01
Speaker 1: know what Together needs to be, what it needs to exemplify,
51:06
Speaker 1: what it needs to consider, and where it needs to
51:08
Speaker 1: show up. And it's like just having a focus group
51:12
Speaker 1: right every single day. They're just a focus group for
51:15
Speaker 1: where we should go. They're a good litmus test for
51:17
Speaker 1: where this brand should go. But they are just wildly
51:21
Speaker 1: creative thought partners and collaborators and champions, not just in
51:26
Speaker 1: the sense of sport accomplishment and winning, but like true
51:29
Speaker 1: champions for other people, and it's been a dream.
51:33
Speaker 3: Honestly when you say breaking glass ceilings and the ramifications
51:38
Speaker 3: of that, can you expand on that a little bit?
51:42
Speaker 1: Yeah? I remember. I think in particular about Simone Manual
51:47
Speaker 1: when I think about this, because for all of her
51:53
Speaker 1: accomplishments for being a first, I think about there's this
51:58
Speaker 1: picture of Simone that her family has shown me, that
52:02
Speaker 1: she's shown and the world has probably seen, where she's
52:05
Speaker 1: this young girl in a swimming pool in Texas, maybe
52:09
Speaker 1: six years old, and she's smiling and excited because she's
52:14
Speaker 1: like she loved it. She was also so good at
52:16
Speaker 1: at such a young age, but she just loves swimming.
52:19
Speaker 1: What people don't see about that picture is she had
52:22
Speaker 1: been intentionally left off a swim team because of their
52:25
Speaker 1: parents complained that she made the team and it was
52:27
Speaker 1: really they were racist, and she happened to be the
52:30
Speaker 1: only black swimmer and they didn't want a black swim
52:32
Speaker 1: on the team because their white daughter got left off.
52:34
Speaker 1: And when I think about Simone in twenty sixteen winning
52:40
Speaker 1: that gold medal and becoming a first, I think about
52:44
Speaker 1: what she represents to her broader community and how they've
52:48
Speaker 1: been left out of that space for generations and generations,
52:51
Speaker 1: and what it must mean for her. But I also
52:53
Speaker 1: know what she had to go through to get there,
52:56
Speaker 1: and the racist comments and the unintentionally racist questions she
53:01
Speaker 1: gets asked all the time, but also the you know,
53:03
Speaker 1: sort of the weight on her shoulders to represent her
53:05
Speaker 1: entire community as we go through like social justice movements.
53:09
Speaker 1: And she has said herself, you know, you guys see
53:14
Speaker 1: the accomplishment and I break these glass ceilings and I'm
53:18
Speaker 1: a first But what you don't see, because either I'm
53:21
Speaker 1: not asked, or you're not thinking, or you're not paying attention,
53:24
Speaker 1: or you just don't know me, is I am covered
53:27
Speaker 1: in cuts and bruises, and I have been for so long.
53:31
Speaker 1: And I think a lot about that. As glorious and
53:35
Speaker 1: triumphant as it is to be a first period, there
53:40
Speaker 1: is a long journey that goes into that one moment
53:43
Speaker 1: that we ultimately see. And when you are first and
53:46
Speaker 1: you break a glass ceiling, of course, because you were
53:49
Speaker 1: opening up for the people that behind you, the seconds
53:51
Speaker 1: and thirds that are coming, we don't think about the
53:54
Speaker 1: cuts and the bruises and the scrapes that come with that,
53:56
Speaker 1: and because of her and being an pathetic storyteller. Now
54:02
Speaker 1: that's almost where my mind goes first. It's like, wow,
54:04
Speaker 1: what did you have to go through to get there?
54:06
Speaker 3: Also, top of mind the boundaries that are set as
54:10
Speaker 3: a result of breaking that glass ceiling and recognizing what
54:15
Speaker 3: it is that these women need so that they can
54:18
Speaker 3: continue on in their pursuit of greatness while also protecting
54:23
Speaker 3: their mental health and their needs.
54:26
Speaker 2: Right.
54:26
Speaker 3: I remember some own is actually one of the few
54:29
Speaker 3: people that I've ever tried to message that I got
54:33
Speaker 3: a notification that she only allows certain people to message her.
54:37
Speaker 1: Right.
54:39
Speaker 2: And so you.
54:40
Speaker 3: See the parameters that athletes are putting not just on
54:46
Speaker 3: you know, the boundary between their personal and professional life,
54:49
Speaker 3: but then also when it comes to social media and beyond,
54:52
Speaker 3: just so that they can go on living a life
54:54
Speaker 3: that brings them joy, that brings them that sense of
54:57
Speaker 3: contentment and enables them to focus on the things that
55:00
Speaker 3: they feel are to be really important.
55:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also women athletes, Sue has said this before,
55:05
Speaker 1: they aren't really afforded the luxury of shutting up and dribbling. Right.
55:10
Speaker 1: They can't just show up and perform and compete and
55:14
Speaker 1: do their job because number one, we don't actually respect
55:18
Speaker 1: them as athletes. We don't respect women's sports in the
55:22
Speaker 1: way that we should. So they have to advocate for themselves.
55:27
Speaker 1: They have to advocate for their communities. They have to
55:30
Speaker 1: think about the next generation. They're fighting for equal pay,
55:32
Speaker 1: they're fighting for visibility. Like their day job may be
55:36
Speaker 1: an athlete, but their full time job is almost as
55:39
Speaker 1: an activist. And especially considering most of the communities that
55:44
Speaker 1: they come from, there's a heavy emphasis on representation. And
55:48
Speaker 1: you know, because you are a public figure, and maybe
55:52
Speaker 1: not as public as you could be because of the
55:54
Speaker 1: inequities and visibility, but because you are a public figure,
55:56
Speaker 1: people also think they have access to you. And I
56:00
Speaker 1: think about just the level of mental fortitude you have
56:05
Speaker 1: to have to compete at that level in the first place,
56:09
Speaker 1: and then you have to think about and consider all
56:11
Speaker 1: these other things because you're fighting for so much more
56:13
Speaker 1: for yourself but also for your teammates, but also for
56:16
Speaker 1: the women coming behind you. And then you're being asked
56:19
Speaker 1: questions about social justice and pay inequity and all the
56:22
Speaker 1: isms and the issues that it exists in the space.
56:24
Speaker 1: You can't even focus in your sport, and then you're
56:27
Speaker 1: like all of us when you're on social media and
56:29
Speaker 1: you have this massive platform. Therefore, people think they have
56:31
Speaker 1: access to you even though they don't. It's unhealthy, it's wild.
56:38
Speaker 1: It's taken them to a place where they have to
56:43
Speaker 1: be protective and they also have to treat their brain
56:45
Speaker 1: like they treat their body. Right, we focus so much
56:48
Speaker 1: on athletes' body and less so their mental well being.
56:52
Speaker 1: I think for women athletes, it's incredibly important to give
56:55
Speaker 1: them that space and that support considering all the other
57:00
Speaker 1: sort of competing and fighting they have to do outside
57:02
Speaker 1: of the sports arena. It just just it's wild. And
57:06
Speaker 1: Chloe Kim talks about this too. She's you know, especially
57:09
Speaker 1: I go back to being first and representing communities. I mean,
57:12
Speaker 1: there's a lot of women's sports is ground Zegle foreverism.
57:15
Speaker 1: There's a lot of racism and hate that's targeted towards her,
57:18
Speaker 1: especially as what we see happening in culture, the rise
57:21
Speaker 1: of ap I hate in crimes. She's seeing that in
57:26
Speaker 1: her DMS, you know, and it's just like wow, it's
57:30
Speaker 1: you can't sub you can't separate the personal and the
57:34
Speaker 1: professional truly for them, because the stakes are so high.
57:38
Speaker 1: It's advantageous for them to be visible and to be
57:41
Speaker 1: advocating for these things because it's bigger than them. But
57:44
Speaker 1: it's also, you know, a really vulnerable and probably lonely
57:49
Speaker 1: place to be into.
57:51
Speaker 3: And that's a place that so many of the people
57:53
Speaker 3: that whether you're you know, sending those horrible messages or
57:58
Speaker 3: you're just scrolling through during a break in your workday,
58:03
Speaker 3: you're not thinking about putting yourself in that position, putting
58:06
Speaker 3: yourself in their shoes and thinking of the things that
58:10
Speaker 3: they have to navigate through that lens, right, And so
58:14
Speaker 3: it makes it easier more often than not to speak
58:19
Speaker 3: and say things without taking that time to consciously think
58:25
Speaker 3: about that and again to put yourself in their shoes. Now,
58:29
Speaker 3: what I find so impressive about you is not just
58:33
Speaker 3: your fandom of sport and your advocacy for women in
58:36
Speaker 3: sports specifically, but also your affinity to empower everyone to
58:45
Speaker 3: be a storyteller and your belief that that is possible
58:49
Speaker 3: when you come down to it.
58:52
Speaker 2: How does Jess take care of Jess?
59:00
Speaker 1: She drinks whiskey?
59:03
Speaker 2: Yes, do you have a favorite right now?
59:05
Speaker 1: I am a huge fan of will it Rye and
59:09
Speaker 1: Pikesvill Rye. I'm a big rye girl if I'm gonna.
59:11
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, I'm a bourbon girl, but I'm on a
59:14
Speaker 3: four Roses small Batch kick for the last few months.
59:17
Speaker 1: Listen, Whole Foods doesn't have my Willet or my Pikesville,
59:20
Speaker 1: so I get the four Roses small Batch.
59:23
Speaker 2: Wait where are you in, La?
59:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in Playa Vista.
59:27
Speaker 2: Okay, I was.
59:28
Speaker 3: Gonna say, because you know that I'm not walking to
59:30
Speaker 3: Whole Foods to buy bourbon in New York City.
59:33
Speaker 1: It's across the street, so it's easy.
59:37
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're sipping whisky. What else are we doing?
59:39
Speaker 1: I have to I have a lot of adrenaline because
59:42
Speaker 1: of my stress, so I have to exercise. I'm also
59:46
Speaker 1: very competitive person, so when I exercise, it helps me
59:50
Speaker 1: to have some sort of goal in mind, which is
59:53
Speaker 1: why I'm now, you know, wanting to compete as an
59:56
Speaker 1: amateur boxer, which is probably not the smartest decision I've
1:00:02
Speaker 1: ever made. I have a great community, and I love
1:00:09
Speaker 1: spending time with my people and talking about the space
1:00:13
Speaker 1: that I'm in and hearing about the space at they're
1:00:15
Speaker 1: and laughing for hours. I'm actually really energized by other
1:00:21
Speaker 1: people and their energy, and when I need to protect
1:00:24
Speaker 1: my space or give back or feed my soul, people
1:00:27
Speaker 1: tend to do that for me. So my decompression is
1:00:33
Speaker 1: a happy hour, probably a sweat session. I also read
1:00:39
Speaker 1: and consume a lot of things that have nothing to
1:00:42
Speaker 1: do with sports. So words inspire me and settle me,
1:00:45
Speaker 1: and you will find me probably lost in a book
1:00:48
Speaker 1: or like a New Yorker somewhere.
1:00:52
Speaker 3: I again really appreciated your openness talking about your experience
1:00:57
Speaker 3: as a gay woman, and when you say community not
1:01:01
Speaker 3: only with you know the work that you're doing, citing
1:01:04
Speaker 3: the fact that so many women not just in the WNBA,
1:01:07
Speaker 3: but of course throughout sport share that in common. How
1:01:11
Speaker 3: does it feel for you now to be a part
1:01:14
Speaker 3: of this overwhelming community, that idea that if sometimes to
1:01:19
Speaker 3: be her, you need to see her like you're surrounded
1:01:21
Speaker 3: by her now. So how does it feel these days
1:01:24
Speaker 3: for you knowing that compared to where you came from?
1:01:30
Speaker 1: Oh, I feel like I have my people. Yeah, I
1:01:34
Speaker 1: feel settled. It's such a different existence. It actually feels
1:01:40
Speaker 1: so wild. Like the fifteen year old in Kentucky, it's
1:01:44
Speaker 1: almost like she didn't happen like it's just it's been.
1:01:48
Speaker 1: It's so wildly different from that time. Yeah, I certainly
1:01:52
Speaker 1: feel seen. It's gotten to a point where I don't
1:01:54
Speaker 1: even think. I don't describe myself as a gay woman, right,
1:01:57
Speaker 1: I just describe myself. But when I was growing up,
1:02:00
Speaker 1: that was the big label that I was so afraid of.
1:02:02
Speaker 1: And now it's just another detail about myself because I'm
1:02:06
Speaker 1: surrounded by so many people who are like me. I'm
1:02:10
Speaker 1: comfortable with my skin. I have that community. But also
1:02:15
Speaker 1: I get to make that community visible every single day.
1:02:18
Speaker 1: And it goes back to why I do what I do.
1:02:21
Speaker 1: There is a power and a privilege in my position,
1:02:25
Speaker 1: and what I love about that is I get to
1:02:28
Speaker 1: give it back to the people that don't have it.
1:02:30
Speaker 1: And yes, for me, it was probably as a young
1:02:34
Speaker 1: queer woman in Kentucky, and for other people it might
1:02:38
Speaker 1: be something different. And I get to listen and pay
1:02:40
Speaker 1: attention and use myself, you know, together as sort of
1:02:45
Speaker 1: a conduit to make sure that that visibility exists, because
1:02:48
Speaker 1: when I was growing up as a gay woman, it
1:02:51
Speaker 1: didn't in the mid nineties.
1:02:53
Speaker 3: I love all of the I get too's within your responses.
1:03:00
Speaker 2: I to you right now, Jess.
1:03:01
Speaker 1: This literally, this conversation. I wake up every single day
1:03:06
Speaker 1: and I get to make micro decisions and sometimes really
1:03:10
Speaker 1: big decisions that hopefully impact the world and change the
1:03:14
Speaker 1: world and the culture that we exist in. But I
1:03:16
Speaker 1: also I get to do it with such an incredible team.
1:03:19
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm here talking about together as one person,
1:03:23
Speaker 1: but we are an incredible eighteen person mostly women identifying
1:03:30
Speaker 1: team who are some of the smartest and coolest and
1:03:35
Speaker 1: the most wonderful and creatively talented people I've ever met
1:03:38
Speaker 1: in my life. And that feels like my family. So
1:03:40
Speaker 1: not only do I get to wake up every single
1:03:42
Speaker 1: day and you know, change the world through story, I
1:03:45
Speaker 1: get to do it with my people, and I get
1:03:47
Speaker 1: to do it with Alex and Sue and Chloe and Simone,
1:03:49
Speaker 1: And that is just wild to me. What a privileged
1:03:54
Speaker 1: position to be. And you know, not to say that
1:03:56
Speaker 1: it's not hard at times, but I this literally being
1:03:59
Speaker 1: in this moment, being to talk about it with you
1:04:01
Speaker 1: inspires and excites me.
1:04:04
Speaker 3: Aside from more representation within the media, what else do
1:04:09
Speaker 3: you hope for coverage of woman's sport going forward?
1:04:16
Speaker 1: I think we've all been existing on crumbs for so long.
1:04:21
Speaker 1: It's it's sort of what I mentioned earlier, it's cut
1:04:23
Speaker 1: the check and tell the story. I think I want
1:04:27
Speaker 1: to see not just more, but specific types of more.
1:04:31
Speaker 1: I want to see really intentional storytelling. I want when
1:04:34
Speaker 1: there's a you know, NWSL draft happening, for there to
1:04:40
Speaker 1: be like a pre show that breaks down the draft
1:04:43
Speaker 1: class and like who's going on and like what's like
1:04:45
Speaker 1: there's just not even enough. It's not just the quantity
1:04:49
Speaker 1: of story, it's the type and quality of story. And
1:04:52
Speaker 1: I think if the goal is to sort of undo
1:04:58
Speaker 1: that social construct that we view sports through a male lens,
1:05:01
Speaker 1: the only way we can do that is to reinvest
1:05:04
Speaker 1: and be consistent and the volume and the quality and
1:05:07
Speaker 1: the diversity of women's sports stories that we tell every
1:05:10
Speaker 1: single day, and it comes with intentional decision making. The
1:05:16
Speaker 1: beautiful thing that's happening right now is we don't have
1:05:19
Speaker 1: to rely on sort of the larger, more traditional media
1:05:22
Speaker 1: organizations to do that. What also inspires me is outside
1:05:26
Speaker 1: of Together, you have other women's sports focused brands that
1:05:29
Speaker 1: exist and are increasing. You have just women's sports, you
1:05:33
Speaker 1: have Highlight Her, you have the GISTs, you have a
1:05:36
Speaker 1: lot of like smaller but hyper focused women's sports newsletters
1:05:41
Speaker 1: that exist every single day. You have athletes coming into
1:05:44
Speaker 1: their own power on their own social platforms, growing their
1:05:48
Speaker 1: own communities, and monetizing against it. The top ten nil athletes,
1:05:53
Speaker 1: what is it, Seven of them are women and that's
1:05:56
Speaker 1: with no like massive media organization coming behind them except
1:06:01
Speaker 1: for maybe pagebackers. Like it is so exciting for me
1:06:05
Speaker 1: to see because the change has been happening for on
1:06:10
Speaker 1: the grassroots level for so long. And that again, that's
1:06:12
Speaker 1: where I say like people have been here, Like it's
1:06:15
Speaker 1: not like we're creating a new space. Like this space
1:06:18
Speaker 1: has been existing and just waiting, just waiting for the
1:06:22
Speaker 1: right time, and culture is catching up. We're having the
1:06:25
Speaker 1: necessary social conversation, social justice conversations that we need to have.
1:06:29
Speaker 1: We're focused on outside of sport and culture right sizing
1:06:33
Speaker 1: the pay inequity and opportunity for women in the workplace.
1:06:37
Speaker 1: Were it's sort of like the ground swell and the
1:06:41
Speaker 1: sort of the perfect storm of all the right things
1:06:43
Speaker 1: happening at the right time. But the most important thing
1:06:45
Speaker 1: is we're not waiting for legacy media companies to decide
1:06:50
Speaker 1: to invest. They have a power, they have massive power,
1:06:52
Speaker 1: and they could change it and pour like a lot
1:06:55
Speaker 1: of fuel on that fire. But these women, especially who
1:06:59
Speaker 1: are starting their own news media organizations or consumer facing brands,
1:07:03
Speaker 1: who're creating their own merch and selling it to women's
1:07:06
Speaker 1: sports fans. These athletes who are creating their own platforms
1:07:09
Speaker 1: on their social channels or with a company like Together,
1:07:12
Speaker 1: have decided to take it into their own hands and
1:07:15
Speaker 1: build something so big and so cool and so powerful
1:07:19
Speaker 1: that everyone else is going to be forced to follow.
1:07:22
Speaker 1: Brands are going to follow, large media organizations are going
1:07:25
Speaker 1: to have to follow because it's going to be undeniable.
1:07:30
Speaker 3: Your excitement is contagious, and we love a page backer,
1:07:33
Speaker 3: as mentioned because I am a University of Connecticut alumni.
1:07:39
Speaker 1: Ooh, I'm a Lady Vols fan.
1:07:41
Speaker 2: Is this where we oh? No good thing? We're coming
1:07:44
Speaker 2: to a close here?
1:07:48
Speaker 3: Well, you know, as I wind down here a question
1:07:51
Speaker 3: I ask everyone that comes on the show. We know
1:07:54
Speaker 3: you no longer feel like that fifteen year old in
1:07:58
Speaker 3: Kentucky these days, But when you look in the mirror, Jess,
1:08:02
Speaker 3: who is it that you see looking back at you?
1:08:07
Speaker 1: I do I actually see that young girl? I don't.
1:08:11
Speaker 1: I don't see that life anymore because it's so far
1:08:14
Speaker 1: from my reality, but I have, especially the work that
1:08:18
Speaker 1: I do now, I have a lot of full circle moments,
1:08:22
Speaker 1: a lot of can you can you believe this? Like
1:08:24
Speaker 1: I went to the White House with Megan Rappino when
1:08:28
Speaker 1: she got her Presidential Medal of Freedom, and I'm thinking
1:08:32
Speaker 1: about that girl who was watching the ninety six of
1:08:35
Speaker 1: the Olympic team or the ninety nine ers and just
1:08:37
Speaker 1: being so and like, what that is my life now?
1:08:40
Speaker 1: And I'm outside of I get to tell those stories
1:08:44
Speaker 1: that were so formative for me. I'm a part of
1:08:48
Speaker 1: a bigger community that I at once felt very isolated
1:08:53
Speaker 1: from or didn't think that it existed, and now it's here.
1:08:58
Speaker 1: So when I when I look at that mirror and
1:09:02
Speaker 1: I see that girl, I think, Wow, a lot has changed.
1:09:07
Speaker 1: But I also kind of think she just needed to
1:09:10
Speaker 1: let life happen. I was so worried about what would
1:09:14
Speaker 1: be next and creating a path and following a plan
1:09:17
Speaker 1: and how do I get to Rolling Stone? And then
1:09:19
Speaker 1: from there what do I do? Because I've peaked at
1:09:21
Speaker 1: twenty one and like what happens now? Where do I go?
1:09:24
Speaker 1: And who am I? And who am I Dating's? Who
1:09:27
Speaker 1: can I say? This like, just let life happen and
1:09:31
Speaker 1: you can't answer the You can't answer the questions, the
1:09:34
Speaker 1: life has to answer them for you.
1:09:36
Speaker 2: Let life happen.
1:09:38
Speaker 3: I would be remiss if I didn't ask you because
1:09:41
Speaker 3: we've dropped a few pretty big names over the last hour.
1:09:46
Speaker 3: Is there anyone that you've met that you just completely
1:09:50
Speaker 3: geeked out and lost your shit with?
1:09:52
Speaker 1: I mean there's some like legends and sports, like I
1:09:55
Speaker 1: met Cynthia Cooper, but it wasn't like this big moment.
1:09:57
Speaker 1: It was just like, holy shit, that Cynthia Cooper.
1:10:01
Speaker 3: I guess you know as I asked that question, like
1:10:03
Speaker 3: it wouldn't be odd if you did. But I also
1:10:05
Speaker 3: do feel like you get to a certain place in
1:10:08
Speaker 3: your career at least this is where I am, and
1:10:11
Speaker 3: I'd be curious if you feel the same that it's
1:10:13
Speaker 3: like just us shared respect more than a point where
1:10:18
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, I can't believe I'm in this situation.
1:10:21
Speaker 3: Like yes, maybe a little bit of that, and also
1:10:25
Speaker 3: like I've worked hard to be in this situation and
1:10:28
Speaker 3: I feel fortunate to be in your company instead of
1:10:31
Speaker 3: just completely like I'm going to lose my shit.
1:10:36
Speaker 1: There's a lot of rooms that I get to be
1:10:39
Speaker 1: in with not just powerful women in sport, but powerful
1:10:43
Speaker 1: women in culture. Yeah, and the people who take me
1:10:47
Speaker 1: like a back are more those sort of like cultural
1:10:52
Speaker 1: icons who have changed the landscape for all of us,
1:10:57
Speaker 1: including sport. So recently. An example that comes to mind
1:11:03
Speaker 1: because I do love words and because I lean towards
1:11:08
Speaker 1: culture when I'm thinking about this question, I was in
1:11:11
Speaker 1: the same space and got to meet Roxanne Gay and
1:11:16
Speaker 1: it was such I don't even remember what I said,
1:11:20
Speaker 1: and not because I was like nervous or anything, just
1:11:22
Speaker 1: like it was one of those moments where it was like,
1:11:23
Speaker 1: I have read your words and consumed your ideology, and
1:11:28
Speaker 1: so much of that inspires me and has infused into
1:11:31
Speaker 1: some of the work that I do, and so many
1:11:34
Speaker 1: of the women athletes I work with love your work
1:11:37
Speaker 1: and connect with you, including Megan Rapino. And it was
1:11:39
Speaker 1: just sort of this moment where it's like I am
1:11:43
Speaker 1: in a position to be in the same room as
1:11:47
Speaker 1: now Roxanne Gay, who is impacting culture in a shared
1:11:54
Speaker 1: but very different way, and those moments to me are
1:11:58
Speaker 1: really surreal.
1:12:01
Speaker 3: Definitely definitely well. I'm so glad again that we were
1:12:05
Speaker 3: able to carve out the time for this. Before I
1:12:08
Speaker 3: let you go, one final question. You have an opportunity
1:12:11
Speaker 3: right now, Jess, to offer yourself a piece of advice.
1:12:15
Speaker 3: Back when you knew that you were were ready to
1:12:18
Speaker 3: leave the music space, You are ready to pivot a
1:12:23
Speaker 3: bit and continue telling stories in a different way. Knowing
1:12:27
Speaker 3: what you know now, what do you say to yourself
1:12:30
Speaker 3: back then, during that hurtle moment?
1:12:33
Speaker 1: Jump jump? Do it? You know your gut is your compass.
1:12:39
Speaker 1: You already know, you feel it in your bones. You
1:12:43
Speaker 1: will not be satisfied unless you do this thing, because
1:12:47
Speaker 1: that's who you are. You live and die by your gut.
1:12:50
Speaker 1: So take that chance. There is no such thing as
1:12:53
Speaker 1: There's no such thing as failure. There's only lessons.
1:12:56
Speaker 3: No such thing as failure, only lessons. Again, so glad
1:13:00
Speaker 3: we were able to make this happen, Jess. How do
1:13:01
Speaker 3: the hurdlers follow along with you? How do they keep
1:13:04
Speaker 3: up with you? How do they keep up with together?
1:13:06
Speaker 3: Give me the details.
1:13:08
Speaker 1: Follow together on all your favorite social platforms TikTok, Instagram, Twitter,
1:13:14
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens there. We're all there. Please follow, YouTube, follow, subscribe, like, engage,
1:13:19
Speaker 1: share all of those things and together, or at least
1:13:22
Speaker 1: for me specifically. You'll find me mostly on Instagram at
1:13:25
Speaker 1: Jess M Robertson.
1:13:27
Speaker 3: And make sure that you are spelling together right. How
1:13:31
Speaker 3: do they spell together?
1:13:32
Speaker 1: It's together with an ex so t og E t
1:13:36
Speaker 1: XR beautiful.
1:13:38
Speaker 3: I will say I checked out the YouTube in preparation
1:13:40
Speaker 3: for this, and I feel as though I could watch
1:13:42
Speaker 3: the together YouTube for at least seventy two hours straight.
1:13:46
Speaker 1: Please go do that right now.
1:13:49
Speaker 2: Amazing.
1:13:49
Speaker 3: I'm over at Emily Abodi and at Hurdle Podcast Another
1:13:53
Speaker 3: Hurdle conquered.
1:13:54
Speaker 2: Catch you guys next time