Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird on Passion and Purpose: Achieving a Peak Performance Mindset

welcome to the stage four-time X Games competitor National ski champion and head of community at Summit Langley [Music] [Applause] McNeil all right we had some flight delays we lost some bags but we are finally here in this moment so thank you everyone for the patience so you guys making me feel so good thank you so there's no better Duo to kick us off than these two we have two-time World Cup soccer champion and Olympic gold medalist she's a New York Times best-selling author Time Magazine 100 most influential people she even has a presidential medal of freedom award she is a hero to Millions for her courage to stand up for social justice and her fight for equal pay for women women sports then we have not well not saying her name to the end two time NCAA Champion four time WNBA Champion 13 time WNBA Allstar five time Olympic gold medalist huge advocate for social justice and equality let's give it up for Sue bird and Megan rapino hi yellow I mean you guys that was a lot should we just let you nap for the rest of the session our work is done we made it we made it your work is done so I I didn't mention I mean most of you know but these two are also an incredible couple [Applause] and somehow they managed to retire within a year of each other so Megan this last summer sue the summer before and I feel like you guys are even busier now than when you were playing sports I was driving to Miami yesterday sus on NPR you were on Jimmy Fallon last week I mean Megan you're always everywhere so what's the day-to-day like these days busy um yeah the weather gods made it a hellish two days yeah the travel here anybody come from New York here yeah that that was terrible no the dayto day is either like we're just really hanging out and have nothing to do or we're sort of jet setting or yeah we're kind of trying to figure it out I'm trying to figure out what what it is to make uh your own schedule I've just been a toddler for a long time and it was really nice and then she tore her Achilles at the end of her season sadly so she was still a toddler yeah I had to do a lot of the caretaking so that put our vacation on hold we were talking about backstage um but she's up and atam now so we're doing better well thank God so gonna get right into it we're going to talk about a topic we love here at Summit longevity Human Performance so Sports World Kelly Slater 52 still top of his game Diana terasi 41 just signed multiple more years with the WNBA Diana niad was 63 when she swam from Cuba to Florida right I mean ridiculous Tom Brady went to 43 who knows maybe he'll come back out of retirement keep going Sue as the only WNBA athlete to win titles in three different decades what were some practices and habits that we can learn from oh man um I think the thing I learned or I took when I think back on that experience that I took with me was being able to adapt um a lot of times for me it came in the form of injuries and so I tore my ACL in I've basically had like every knee surgery you could possibly think of on this left knee a couple hips my nose it's a long story but with each injury um what I realized was there was a grieving process and letting go of of what I was probably no longer going to be and that was really hard right I couldn't move exactly the same you know as time goes maybe you get a little slower you know you lose your quickness um and so with with each injury with each decade I just I I let myself grieve a little bit I let myself let go of of the player that I was but then I also realize like wait a minute I'm older which means I'm more experienced so I'm smarter and so I can lean into these other skills and just trying to find that balance um along with all the things I'm sure we'll talk about taking care of your body nutrition Yad y y but that balance I I think was most important for me as I as I went through my 20-y year career I love it this is a very nerdy crew so you guys can get really granular I'd actually love to know how you look at nutrition yeah it it it probably the most important thing I shifted um around 35 I started taking it seriously which is really more so it just wasn't the thing to do people didn't really talk about it in the same ways it wasn't you know you didn't hear about other aging athletes and what they were doing I actually the best way to tell the story is um Brianna Stewart was a teammate of mine and she was 21 she was like what would you do different if you were my age and I was like there's a coach I work with we both work with named Susan shout out Susan know Jes Susan I mean Susan is my god um and I was like work with Susan and a big part of what Susan does is nutrition so for me it was about fueling for what I was trying to do and refueling for what I just did to my body and just staying in that cycle and then 8020 80% on it 20% I'm eating ice cream Megan what do you got for us oh gosh for both questions um I mean I think a little bit to what Sue said is just the the mindset of adaptation you know you constantly have to be uh willing and able and eager to sort of move on to the next thing with that said I think it's important to celebrate and live in the moment you know they say you don't get these moments back and I feel like that's twofold that is you know enjoying them and you know we've both been lucky enough to be on successful teams and we championships and uh you know be successful for a long time I think it's really important to take the time to celebrate that like you work so hard and put so much focus on a singular goal and sometimes you actually achieve it and that's amazing and in the same sense like you don't get to go back to that moment that's not something that's able to be replicated so I think from you know even just like a a you know sort of combination physical mental emotional you're constantly having to take what you can from what you've done and move forward in a different way and to Sue's point the sort of grieving of like me at 25 was very different than me at 30 and 35 and 38 so um being able to do that and then I think yeah from a from a longevity and training perspective um diet is I mean massive it's like literally the fuel we put in our body I feel like I had two sort of like life-changing Moments One was my sophomore year in high school my freshman year my mom would just like give us two do I'm a twin so I always say we she would just like give us $2 and we would for lunch buy like a piece of pizza a Coke and like a Mamba like you know candy that was my lunch like for all day and like into basketball practice or soccer practice or whatever was doing obviously that's insane um so we sort of Switched things up and she started you know feeding us like horses which is what we were at the time and then meeting Sue Sue had been working with Susan um for a number of years and I was like what the first time yeah yeah quickly right when we first started dating it was like oh this is great this like the first week we're doing whatever and um you know hanging out and we're falling in love and all the things and she let me like do like two or three orders and then she was like okay I have an admission like we cannot be doing this we're not eating like this anymore this is not what's happen any gulping down like every fried item on the tie menu like you're going to love this I was like if anyone's a Seinfeld fan I was like doing the mutton when he's like putting in his pocket I like yeah so fin I was like enough with the noodles it's 6:00 p.m. yeah so I quickly grieved that part of my life and adapted adapted into following in Sue's footsteps which I've been doing ever since and it has uh boded very well for me oh my God all right I want to get into the clutch Gene you know that ability to kick it into gear when pressure is at its highest so we actually pulled some fun clips that I want to watch before we get into it let's take a look sub bird back playing after breaking her nose in the second quarter of game four sub it's only one word to describe it's great what a fourth quarter for the 11 time allar subber subd has taken over for her Seattle Team Su is everything I feel like she's the best point guard who's ever played the game bird will take you she's unconscious right now s bird is huge reason why I play this game she's such a great player but such a special person sub bird with ice pouring out of her veins in this fourth quarter you really can't speak to how hard it is to do what she's doing at the level that she's been doing it for as long as she's been doing it and she's a legend burn he it is her night she just doesn't seem to age she just continues to get better and better and she makes her team so [Applause] great I mean you obviously got the clutch Gene that clock was going to zero so many times tie game Ball's always going to sub bird so is the clutch Gene something you're born with or do you think it can be trained the million dooll question um I do think there are elements that you are born with I do I think I've been around enough athletes where you can see it even if it hasn't been groomed yet or you know they haven't fed it you can just kind of see who wants that moment and who's a little scared of that moment I think that is a big part of it but I do think that almost like if you have a seed inside of you I do think you can also water that seed some people but the seed has to be there so can you do you see it in people's eyes when you have the ball like not passing to that person pretty much pretty much pretty much they're not looking at you either they're like don't look at me got it somebody else is open yeah no you can tell you can tell in those moments recently I descri I I kind of came to this I described it as when you watch a player who is traditionally clutch when they have in my sport when they have the ball and they're dribbling there's a determination to them it doesn't mean they're going to make it like clutch doesn't mean you always make it there's a determination versus someone when they have it and they're like a little like you can see it in their eyes like oh it's a little more of of like uncertainty and it's subtle but it's a difference so if we did want to train it like would you recreate those stressful moments and you know have everyone cheering while you're trying to hit three-pointers like how would you train that yeah I think you have to have um a lot of competition in your workouts I think you have to have a lot of Randomness because I think what makes clutch people separate themselves maybe within that 1% of Cl clutch is the ability to adapt to the randomness cuz every single one of those shot that was one game by the way I just want to point that out tell them in a span of six minutes um none of that was like a set play or a drawn up play I mean it starts out that way fingers crossed but like very rarely does it does it finish the way you you drew it up so you have to be able to read the defense kind of take all the input in front of you in and just go some of that comes from preparation which kind of circles back to your workouts making sure they're competitive and that they have um some Randomness in them the ability to prepare for the spontaneity yeah all right Megan what let's take a look at Megan motivation I work too hard too long and not be in the conversation my team up way up ain't nothing less than domination I got the game sa BYO in the shot what a go [Applause] BYO doing up motivation staying winning nothing less ain't no consolation used to tell me that [Applause] magnificent by Mega [Music] [Applause] reper time that I came through when I got one for the boy hey now I'm ball out step back shoot for the score hey if I had a penny for everyone doubt me I make a million bounces there go for the US ring repo on the board it's four [Applause] qu the trees tell is a breeze as you can see I do it with ease want to make it believe bad time that I came through and I got one for the boy hey now I'm going the ball out step back shoot for the score hey one time for one time off rebound re in the me I stack up this my reward all they hating that they doing will be appearing in her 200 know sending went in it's head this money on my mind that's my motivation talking but you not up in the conversation they all me to stop that's my motivation I mean you're so much fun to watch and I've heard you refer to yourself as an Entertainer as much as an athlete can you say more on that yeah I mean I think my my motivation a lot of time is a sort of risk reward analysis but for me it's like the reward of glory and like doing it right and getting to celebrate and scoring a goal always outweighs I mean if I try it and I miss I'm like I missed I tried it I don't you know I think I've always kind of taken that approach I've been given a lot of freedom as well to do that and I think even when I was younger I had coaches who did that for me who were always encouraging me to try things and be creative and it's not always going to work um but to you know I think that creativity and that willingness was fostered when I was younger and then I think as I got older um you know I've sort of narrowed it in you can't try everything all the time um as much as I would like to but um I think I you know sort of learned where to do that and learned a little bit of discipline around that it made it much more um impactful when it did come off right on well it gets us right into resilience you know everyone here at Summit can relate to this being an entrepreneur is so hard being an artist being a nonprofit leader you have to be almost irrationally resilient right to get up every day with these really hard Visions right your funding falls through you have a thing with your co-found supply chain breaks down I mean we have seen it all right so in sports you have to be equally as gritty Megan you had a tough moment last summer at the World Cup you missed a p penalty kick and what I loved you said after is even though you know you'll miss shots at times you would always choose yourself to take that PK you love the pressure and you got to you know dig deep so how do we in these really hard moments find the resilience to step up I I think this is especially true for athletes and in our face all the time but just getting really comfortable and familiar and friendly with failure um that's where we learn and I think for us it's we're constantly missing shots or um you know missing goals or making mistakes or trying something that doesn't quite work out but you learn something from every time I think um and like sometimes stuff just happens you know there's like life that that happens as well um but I think trying to really like integrate the failure not as like oh I didn't do you know good enough or whatever but like just okay that's what that's what happened and I'll take what I can and and move forward it's just part of that nobody it's like we all know we're never going to be perfect but we've judge ourselves like that or we hold ourselves to that standard so it's sort of self-sabotage so I never wanted to do that I feel like I never did that um I know that's not you know as easy set it set it done but um being able to have space for Learning and growth and figuring things out a lot of times you have to you know mess up a bunch of times to figure something out or get to the result that you want all right I want to talk about mindset mental training I had my own experience with this I had a horrible crash on the World Cup I think I broke eight ribs and had a minor concussion and and then a week later we lost a really good friend to a ski acccident I remember just feeling so shook by the whole thing and you know I wasn't sure I want to ski anymore and every time I got in the Starting Gate I would like have these breakdowns and so the US ski team headquarters is this incredible $18 million facility in Park City and the first floor is all your weight racks you know your squat racks your your recovery rooms and on the third floor there's this little tiny room called the sports psychology department and I was like oh thank God found this so it's was the first time I learned about breath word and meditation and positive selft talk and was honestly the only thing that got me back out there got me excited and then a few months later I was able to win the national title but only because I you know thanks guys but so it it was you know these very physical Sports I think you know just recently people are talking about the mental game the mindset so I'm always really curious what other athletes are doing Sue what was your approach to the mental game yeah um to your point it really didn't get talked about until much later in my career um I have a really busy brain it's kind of um at times it can be an issue but it's it's also a little bit of a superpower in terms of the position that I played as a point guard being able to help manage a team alongside of a coach so you know with every Pro there's a con it's like the Ying Yang but the busyness can get me like whipped up too I can overthink I can think too much so it's really important for me to quiet that down so the way I look at that ying and yang is the busy part that's good I need to feed it and and that for me came in the form two forms I I'll Circle back on the second one after though came in the form of preparation like I can hold a lot of information so the more film I watched the more I understood our opponent the more I understood our team my teammates the the better I could go out there and actually not think it's almost counterintuitive but the more I had in that bank I knew when I needed to pull it I'd be able to go get it but the side was the quieting and probably my last 1 2 3 four like through two two three four years um I did start to meditate I it was the headspace app we're talking 10 minutes I couldn't really go beyond that it was it was tough for me but that 10 minutes I felt like I was wiping my slate clean it really just quieted me down um sometimes you know you'd be like where'd you go I was like oh just took a Fiverr back there like sometimes you just need a couple minutes for me personally like I said to quiet it down um so so that balance was really important and then circling back on what I was going to add to the um busy brain part for me part of that busyness again was was giving myself a lot of information the more that I poured into my teammates the calmer I felt the more that I was helping them perform the calmer I felt the more success they had I felt like I was a part of that success but also it brought me down it made me feel like H so when things are going well it's almost um a point guard for me personally I play it the way like a producer does when they're creating I like things to make sense I like it to fit I like it to flow I like everyone to feel good and the more I was able to do that again by pouring into my teammates uh the like I said the calmer the quieter that my mind got and the better that I played so somewhere in that little recipe is is how I approached it beautiful Megan what about you basically the exact opposite of Sue brain's like a super computer and I'm like an tar one or something um it's just like I know what I'm doing and I'm good at it you're like go go go go go go go risk risk risk risk um yeah I mean to to Sue's sort of you know uh busier mind I'm kind of a dissociator at least I I very much was for a long time um and definitely in my career I feel like I could sort of like block things out I didn't want to watch a lot of film I didn't want to study a lot um it was a lot of like sort of like feeling based and I think later in my career and just in my life in general um just learning how to like take the time to to sort of like survey more and to input more information and to listen to people more sort of value the conversation around the thing um that we're talking about a little bit more and I think honestly the Equal Pay fight was a was kind of a a real light bulb moment for me because we were taking this team that sort of had this very established you know structure in inside the lines in terms of who was starting and who was a star and who did this and who did that and trying to take that into a very different realm and sort of deciding like okay actually this is what you're good at so that's what you're going to do and it was different than you know it's like a lot of our leaders internally in that fight were um not the people who were in front of the camera it was it was not who who you might have expected and we were taking a lot of orders from uh from them and taking a lot of our cues from them so just like UND understanding how to be in a different role and to um see myself differently but to see other people as well I think that takes a little bit of a a slowing down and um of a a level of attention and care and I'm trying to continue to learn how to do that cuz I like to move move fast uh which doesn't always bode well for me as who knows I know we're like we're complimentary yeah yeah yeah I'm very complimented by so um but yeah I think that it it's sort of a balance too because I think my ability to kind of shut everything off was something that a enabled me to be really successful and to drown out a lot of the noise um that was happening definitely at particular times like was crazy sometimes I'm like this is just insane this can't even be real and be able to laugh about it and kind of Shug it off and and find a space within sort of the the chaos that felt a little bit calmer I think was was helpful and then I think as always when you get to play in a team sport that's the like that's the most amazing part about being a professional athlete is the locker room and the bus rides and there's like 20 to 25 people I mean you guys have smaller roster there's this such a small amount of people who actually know what you're going through at that particular time and these are the only people in the world that are going through that so whether you're you know best friends forever or not at all or friends or not you have this shared you know space and intimacy that um I think pouring into and really leaning into is vital if you want to be successful can I add one thing please um for both of us I'm going to speak a I think a big part of it is really being kind to yourself that like I cannot stress that enough it's something that um one of my assistant coaches throughout my career helped me with so that was just it really I mean literally during games I'd be like wow you're being so mean why are you being so rude that inter voice is crazy yeah so that's something and then we both started going to therapy recently and I'm like H where was this 25 35 45 years ago um can't recommend that enough either all right I I do want to get into equal pay payy backing off that so most people probably pretty aware with it but so March 8th 2019 the US Women's Soccer Team files a gender discrimination lawsuit against US soccer so at this time you guys were paid roughly what 40% of what the US men's team was was making and for comparison's sake the US men had not made made it past a quarterfinals in modern day World Cup and were ranked 22 in the world where the women's soccer team at this point had won three World Cups and was ranked number one in the world right well people might have said well the viewership wasn't there but in 2015 four years before this lawsuit would was even filed the US Women's World Cup final was the most watched soccer match in American history had more views than in the NBA finals and the Stanley Cup right so not that you had anything more to prove it had been proven but winning always helps right 2019 they win Another World Cup to make it four wins so only fitting 2022 the verdict comes in you're awarded a $24 million settlement in the agreement to pay men and women equally moving forward W so Megan as the undeniable face of equal pay what comes along with that I'm the face because I didn't want to read the briefs other people were reading the briefs and telling me what to say I just want to make that clear sorry what was the question again my scatter brain I mean just the fight like and also it was complex trying to understand where we are with it all so I'd love just to hear your take like were you happy with that settlement where do we need to go kind of and also you you took a lot of heat like you were out there every day doing the good fight so what was that like MH I mean as always with settlements every side has to hurt a little bit so I you know I I always say somebody still owes me money I know that um but I think what we were able to do moving forward was you know just like program changing and I think you know world changing in a lot of ways especially for those players who are now on the team and for the league and I think just a part of this incredible landscape that's happening right now and has been happening for you know a while in women's sports but particularly these last you know six seven eight years um have been Sensational and we're seeing it all you know happen again with the NCAA tournament and just the way the women are absolutely bodying every single aspect of it from star power to TV ratings to um whatever all the other things everything's just way more exciting over here um it was a complex fight sort of I mean there's some like intricacies that are you know very specific to US US soccer is a national governing body so you know the necessity for Equal Pay was was part of that I think that was such a Crux of our argu arent and I think they wanted to bring in the sort of the famous line the sort of Market realities of things um it was a little difficult with the men's team at times and I was like you guys we're the labor force both of us like there's no us and you and them it's them and us so the more we can you know stick together and and understand that you know till we're all free none of us are free um and in the end they you know sort of came on board but they were very reluctant and I think a lot of the narrative around that was that you know they're not good and we are good and a very blunt sense which I never really liked because I was always like we're we're the labor force like this is the this is a an equal pay you know a sort of EEOC claim at its heart like whatever you know we're asking for like you're going to be getting it too so um that was a little complex I think the length of time that it took um originally we had filed an claim which is um like through the government and it was cruising and going good and then you know 2016 happened and the administration change and I swear to God Trump threw that in the garbage himself like that it just stopped it just like all of a sudden it was going really well and then it was like we never heard from the EOC again so that led to uh filing a lawsuit um that took a lot of time um you know I think my sort of naive Tay around the legal system and the actual process was probably a good thing for me because apparently we took some L's but I didn't really know I was like I don't know we'll just go on to the next step I think that's the sort of failure mindset of an athlete it was like okay you know judge I think his name is Judge clausner in California um delivered what I think was a pretty um significant blow to us but there was another step there was an appeals process and we were still in it so I think we always just kept together I think at the heart of it we just knew we knew that we were right and we knew we were on the right side of things and we knew that there was really no opportunity for them to win it was either like we're going to get this done or we're going to stop playing at some point so I think we all I think they always knew that too although they wasted a lot of money tens of Millions on the way there um but I think we sort of just always knew that eventually this was going to be something that was happening and I think even just the the perspective and ability for us to take a step back and think like it look at the world like this is you know 2016 17 18 19 there's so many things that we can point to that were real like progress moments whether that was like racial Justice or you know the me tooo movement or trans rights or women in sports or gay right there was a lot of things you know the the sort of snowball was gaining um momentum and we just we just never lost faith and we had an incredible group of players like I I just can't overstate enough um the determination and the resilience and the intelligence and the load that this generation of players from Becky sabun to Kristen press and Tobin Heath and myself and Kelly and Alex and Carly and Sam muis and so many other people who just wouldn't let it die like some of us had to take some breaks at times and you know just tap out for a little bit but never all of us at once we just never let it die and honestly in fighting for equality that's what it is it's constantly an uphill battle the the you know the sort of tide is always um flowing against you and you just have to collectively stay together um and we took a lot of you know inspiration and and sort of fuel andow from a lot of other places obviously we were dating at the time um not the exact same thing that you guys were going through but the but similar of just being able to say what you want is your worth and and be able to say that you want that and um you know a lot of other movements at the time I felt like we were part of something much bigger um we definitely were one of the ones that got more attention um I mean I think USM national team traditionally is white and straight and very palatable for you know most of America and certainly for the media and I think we got a lot of attention for that and hopefully we did a a good job with you know turning that attention back on so many other people black women of course from the WNBA other gay people um you know me too movement who didn't have the spotlight that we did I feel like we were all sort of in that together so it was a combination of all all of that W yeah and the ripple effect has been I mean massive I read your your own Aunt actually went to her own job and asked for a raise is that true yeah yeah that is true so I was like go on Wendy we don't agree on a lot but we did on we did on that yeah I'm not going to get into my whole family love them we uh stay away from that all right so we're in a huge moment for women's sports I mean it's always been a big moment for women's sports but it's finally getting the buzz and the attention it deserves you know history was just made and Kansas City a few weeks ago the first ever stadium was built for a women's sports team finally yeah I know Lindsay Von Michaela shiffrin in skiing the Williams sisters in tennis I mean Caitlyn Clark prime example people are paying thousands of dollars to go watch her Play 4 million people tuned in to watch her break the three-point scoring record in a season I mean there's so much Buzz around March Madness right now Sue can you just paint the current land landcape of what's going on in women's sports and the future of women's sports as a business yeah it's it's pretty simple um I just feel like Society finally caught up it's pretty much how I see it um all the things that when you really start to Deep dive um and if I put the basketball lens on for a second when you really start to Deep dive let's use viewership numbers right so Caitlyn Clark is certainly taking the sports world and the world in general by storm and in the Elite 8 game yes in the Elite 8 game they got 12 million viewers which broke all kinds of Records you you mentioned earlier things like Stanley Cup and NBA finals this game blew that out of the water and then you start doing these deep Dives and because um this weekend we're going to the finnal four so I might be on TV talking about some things so I got to get my studying going and you you start to learn that when Cheryl Miller who's one of the alltime greats played in college that game was actually on network television I want to say CBS don't quote me I'm still studying and that game Drew 11 million viewers and you're like wait a minute we're talking mid 80s we had 11 million viewers in the mid 80s like what could have happened that we're just now getting back to those numbers and you're like oh all the oppression oh sexism racism homophobia like all the things these impact women's sports directly and I think now we're just at a time for so many reasons obviously Megan and her teammates huge reason um a bunch of the names that we've already stated you know I think of Sedona prince who was just a college kid who on her Tik Tock showed the discrepancies between what the NCA provided for the men's tournament when they were in their bubble season bubble tournament season in 2021 versus the women's and all of these different Meo movement all of these different things are finally um I guess colliding in a way where people are being held accountable in a different way albeit we still have a long way to go and so that has allowed the way people interact with women's sports to change because we're on TV more we're getting talked about more you know things have changed in that regard and I've always said it there's Die Hard fans that love women's sports always have always will and then there's people that don't like it and that's okay and I always say I don't love hockey I don't love baseball that's okay to each their own but there's this casual fan that women's sports has has been missing out on and it's all these things I'm talking about and that is finally changing we're finally turning to Corner we have the momentum people are paying attention and I got to give it to Caitlyn Clark specifically the way she plays is is truly captivating there have been many great players before her starting with Cheryl Miller and I could rattle off literally 2013 20 30 names not to and that's not to take away from Caitlyn she is she's coming at a time where the the platform has been set up for somebody to take it and she's taking it and a lot goes into that that's not easy um but there's been so many great players and I think that's what's changing so to me the future is bright we're finally on on the track and people finally caught up yeah I knew it was a big moment we were sitting backstage with Mickey Drexler Drexler who's coming on next who's going to be amazing he built J crew and he's like oh Sue you play basketball tell me about this Caitlyn Clark girl like oh we've arrived finally Micky Nots about Kaitlin Clark all right so you are both captains of your team uh Founders here Business Leaders we love thinking about Team Dynamics teams team culture so Megan something that you said that I loved is the more people can be individuals the more they can bring their full selves to the job the more they'll give to the team the more they can provide to the team you know the better the team's going to be how do we create these environments for our teams so people can bring their full selves I mean I think the the thing about being a a leader or captain or you know the the sort of figurehead of things is like your job is to make it easier for everyone else to do their job and you obviously have a special talent or quality that allows you to do that and do it for other people so I think that's kind of the main thing it is selfless job like your job is to do as much as you can behind the scenes so that they don't even know so they don't even have to think about it and I think that goes hand inand with what you were just saying I it's very important for me to always express myself it has been since I was little I think it's a vital part of being a human being in the world and of our own happiness we all want to be seen and understood and accepted and celebrated for being who we are we all know individually that there's no one else like us I'm a twin and I feel that so deeply even though I'm a twin and we are very different but I feel like when people feel valued and they understand that they're you know on the field or in the room or on the court for more than just what you can bring to the business or to the sport or to this particular game they feel more invested they feel cared for you feel um valued in a in a different way I think also and you know I'll sort of tie this to what really sad you know around sort of the Dei or the anti- Dei movement the point is not to have you know just these checkbox in the room the point is to bring different perspectives so if I was running a business and all I had around the table was a bunch of mes like that would be crazy that'd be terrible we can all imagine it would be a lot of risk and it it doesn't work but when you have different people around the table when you have people who are bringing a different perspective when you have people bringing their full selves they have something that nobody else has and so in sports obviously you have to work for the team and you know I played a a sport where you know 11 people are on the field at the same time and it takes a high level of intimacy and coordination and trust but at the end of the day the ball is at one person's feet at a time and they have to feel empowered um and I just always have felt for for my whole career and I've seen sort of different iterations of it good ones and and bad ones and I just always felt when people were able to you know be who they are on and off the field you get a better version of them in the thing that you're trying to do at the end of the day we're trying to win games and win championships and all that so you get a better version of them and you get a just a generally a more enjoyable experience of course the wins and the losses are are important but um you know you don't always get to win every game and you're spending all of your time virtually you're away from your family you're away from your friends you're away from your partners you're you know dedicating your life to this thing like it might as well you know be enjoyable and be a space where you can grow as a human being as well I love [Music] that all right sue the Wall Street J once wrote The Following the most successful team captain in professional sports anywhere on Earth is Sue bird to understand why it helps to study her nose or more specifically why it keeps getting broken can you say more on that um A peculiar quote I had to ask probably because I'm putting it everywhere it's constantly everywhere that's why yeah no I think the uh the physical answer is I'm a I'm at a bad height everyone I'm 5'9 everyone else around me is 65 so these are constantly in my face um I want to say what he's really saying is I have my fingerprints and I have my little fingers in in in all my teammates cookie jars does that sound weird I'm basically all over the place uh and that's actually something that I learned from my college coach went to the University of Connecticut coacher I'm a a legend that's right big game tomorrow um and one thing he always saw in me and tried to help me see in myself was um this ability to be a connector this ability to connect with people individually and then as groups and making that work and that really is I mentioned my superpower earlier it's part of it and I think that's what he's he's getting at um I have relationships with all all of my teammates and I know how to how to make it fit and and the way I view it as relationship Equity I'm just depositing in that bank all the time truth be told so I can yell at them later and they know it's coming from a good place joking but not really sometimes you have to have convers hard conversations with teammates and the only way they're going to be receptive is if you have built that relationship and like I said built that relationship Equity so I think that's what he's saying I mean you're the point guard you're facilitating everything happening out there right absolutely yeah so incredible people are in this room that love to collaborate and help can you talk to us about what you're doing now and how the Sumit Community can support you want me to start um we're trying to take over the world who's in yeah yeah yeah pinky in the brain yeah at least we have a brain um I think for for both of us to your point that you just made I think our fingerprints have been on a lot throughout our careers um both from a very tactical in the locker room type way to you know what narratives are out there and I think we would like to continue to be that um sort of The Architects whether that's outr front or behind the scenes I think for us we just believe so deeply in what's happening in women's sports and the power for Sports in general but certainly women's sports to change the world there's every single intersection that you can imagine in in women's sports at all times and therefore we're sort of taking care of everyone at the same time um we have a production company that we started it was sort of born out of um pandemic craziness called a touch more um and where did that name come from go ahead everybody gained a little bit in the pandemic and you know she asked me in the beginning and she's like how do I look I'm like I don't know there's like a touch more but yeah it didn't go over well didn't go over well it's like wrong answer immediately it's okay she shaped right back up um so we have that that we're um that we're starting back up um you know the sort of uh base goal really is to tell revolutionary stories and to tell stories that get left behind or um you know purposely excluded um you know we have a a couple of individual projects but for the most part I've where we are at an age where our story has been told and told and told again um and that's not really our Focus we can you know use the sort of power that we have to shine that light on on others and um on other areas so we have that going um Sue obviously is one of the founders of uh together and uh founding member of Deep Blue uh which is kind of a media buying media firm agency um it's actually amazing I don't totally understand it but you do and I'm like yes get it girl um and then just continuing to figure our way through retirement we've had you know at least for me you're a little bit more um structured in it but at least for me um it's been just so weird to be honest it's like it's it's really good I'm really enjoying and I'm so happy to be retired but I was on the strictest of schedules for you know three decades basically and now you know sort of figuring everything out and um being the biggest fan of women's sports that we that we possibly can be and also just enjoying time in our life this is the first time in our relationship that we're not ships in the night and um you know traveling all over and playing and have that singular Focus so um coming back to each other in a lot of ways as well I think what's um really cool about where we are and where women's sports is is we've definitely left our Mark as players on the field on the court off it as well obviously but as players and now we have a chance to do it as former players and we can really create a blueprint for younger generations of athletes to see you know what types of business people you can be you know that if you have you are passionate about things after your sport there's there's ways to to continue to dive into that so I don't know in some ways we we set a blueprint as players and it's really exciting that we get to do it as former players as well after my ski career I found Summit these people are way crazier than any X Games athletes so 2024 Olympics right around the corner they're in Paris and Sue I know at the end of your 2021 season when you were thinking about retiring the whole audience started cheering one more year one more year so what do we got to do to get you two starting lineup Team USA this summer I'm like I need a new knee I need a new knee yeah I'm like uh we'll be there just not how you think yeah we'll be there we'll be there cheering them on yeah that would yeah I don't think there's anything that can pull us out of retirement this is nice retirement is nice people are like how is it do you miss it I'm like what what miss it no on Sundays I miss the I missed the playoffs the game I missed the playoff the game that's it every other day of the week I'm like oh this is great you can have those uh Thai noodles right there you go well this was so much fun I see why you two are heroes to millions of people can we give it up for Megan orino and sub bird [Applause] w [Music]