The Daily Stoic - Carli Lloyd on Fueling Greatness with Discipline

Episode Date: March 11, 2023

Ryan speaks with Carli Lloyd about the intense discipline that it takes to be a professional athlete at the highest level, how she was able to bounce back from being cut from the Women’s National Under-21 team, how Stoicism informed her soccer career, and more.Carli Lloyd is a former American professional Soccer player who retired in 2021. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion, two-time FIFA Player of the Year, and a four-time Olympian (2008, 2012, 2016 and 2021). Lloyd scored the gold medal-winning goals in the finals of the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. Lloyd also helped the United States win their titles at the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women's World Cups, the bronze medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics, and she played for the team at the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup where the U.S. finished in second place. She currently stars on Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test on Fox.✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time.

Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. Actually I was talking with Paul Raeble.

This is many years ago, one of the great lacrosse players of all time past podcast guest. I was on his podcast and he recommended this book, The Captains Class by Sam Walker, which I absolutely loved. We sell the painted porch, I highly recommend. And I remember reading that book and you know, there's the teams you know about, there's the New England Patriots, there's the San Antonio Spurs, there's the Chicago Bulls, the great teams of history. And for whatever reason, it wasn't until I read, actually I know what reason women's sports tends to get the short end of the stick in American culture,

but I hadn't really thought of the US women's national team as one of the great dynasties of sports all time. And it very clearly is, very clearly was, it remains an institution that a ton of people could learn from. And I have seen that team totally differently from reading that book. I've seen a bunch of different teams differently from reading that book. But all of that led to a very wonderful and humbling surprise when we were doing the marketing reach out for courage or discipline.

And someone on my social team was like, hey, you know, Carly Lloyd follows you and the daily Stelick. And I was like, No way. Cause she is one of the all time greats two time Olympic gold medalist, 2008, 2012, two time FIFA player of the year, four time Olympian. She's made 300 plus appearances for the U.S. national team. The fourth, fourth, fourth most goals, fifth most assists, and she just announced in 2021 that she would be retiring. She's one of the best people to ever do what she does on one of the best teams to ever do what they do. And there's just a ton to learn there. So I was so excited to have Carly Lloyd on the podcast. And we just had an amazing discussion. This was a month or so ago. I think the freeze was still

happening in Austin. So I was doing a bunch of interviews from my house. And we had a really awesome discussion. And I'm excited to bring that to you. You can follow Carly on Instagram and Twitter at Carly Lloyd, C-A-R-L-I Lloyd with two Ls. And I'm sure it's going to be a fascinating post sports career for her. She's on that fascinating Fox reality show, Special Forces, the Ultimate Test, where she's putting herself through, you can't even imagine I was watching in an episode.

I was when I was in New Orleans, in January, and I was watching her go into the water, trapped in a humvee, and how long she could hold her breath. It's a fascinating show, and she's great on it. But definitely a great follow on social and an athlete to put up there in the pantheon of all time, greats. Thank you so much to Carly Lloyd for coming on the podcast saying some nice things about Stoicism as well. I'll get straight into the interview and let all of you enjoy it as much as I did. The Dell Technologies Black Friday in July event is on with limited quantity deals on top business PCs with Windows 11 Pro. Save on select Vostro laptops with built-in OS recovery fingerprint readers and antivirus

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for in terms of credit. Life can get you down. I'm no stranger to that. When I find things are piling up I'm struggling to deal with something obviously I use my journal obviously I turn to stosism But I also turn to my therapist which I've had for a long time and has helped me through a bunch of stuff and because I'm so busy And I live out in the country. I do therapy remote so I don't have to drive somewhere and that's where today's sponsor comes in Toxbase makes it easy to find a therapist that you like. It's convenient, it's affordable.

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with most major insurers. As a listener of this podcast, you can get 80 bucks off your first month with Talkspace when you go to Talkspace.com slash Stoic. To match with a license therapist today, go to Talkspace.com slash Stoic to get 80 bucks off your first month and show your support for the daily Stoic, that's Talkspace.com slash Stoic. One very excited to do this, so thank you for taking the time. Yeah, it's great to chat. com slash stoic. I'm very excited to do this, so thank you for taking the time. Yeah, it's great to chat.

It's been a big fan and reading all your books throughout my career. No way. Do you remember how you heard about them? I don't know if it was probably just through Instagram probably. Just started following you, friend of mine, who I used to play with. We always kind of balance different books off of one another. And, yeah, I think the obstacles, the way was probably one of my first initial books to read. And, yeah, I've just been taken some notes from all of them and it's been really helpful.

Well, that's really helpful for me. Well, that's very cool for me to hear. Certainly not what I expected when I was writing about ancient philosophy, that Olympic soccer, let's say, would be a viable audience, but it's pretty cool. Yeah, no, it's all relatable for sure. What else did you like to read as a player? What books have been influential for you?

Honestly, just a lot of athletes and just successful people's stories. Any self-help book, I would always try to get my hands on. And obviously, I gotta always try to get my hands on. And obviously, you know, I've got to throw in some other books that I'm not constantly turning my brain on for, but yeah, I think, you know, reading several of yours, they were just kind of easy good reads for me to kind of pick up and put down for a little pick back up again and then at any particular moment throughout my career, you know, I'd find myself like, wow, I think I

really needed to hear that message. So, no, you know, no particular books, just always just trying to get myself on, you know, into books that have just been, you know, people's stories and kind of what they they've went through in life. It is weird. I think people assume that people who are very good at what they do and doing it at an elite level where they're getting pay a lot where there's like huge audiences that these people are just sort of intrinsically motivated that they just sort of naturally have all the sort of mental skills that they need.

It is both interesting and then I think actually kind of reassuring to see that like people are just picking up the same books as everyone else going like, I could use a little motivation even though they have every reason to sort of, and it had all the training to just naturally be that way or to be that way at this point. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, one of, you know, we talk about certain books. I mean, Relentless was one book that just rang real true to me, you know. And I think it's just a constant evolution of learning. Like, we're going to learn till the day we die and there's people who have the growth mindsets and the people who have the fixed mindsets. And I've always just been someone who wants to constantly grow and learn. And I don't have all the answers nor do many other people. But if you can constantly fill yourself with positivity and

you know stories of of people failing and getting back up again, that that is what resonates with me. So even the best of the best, you know, continue to need self-help and and figure out areas in their life where they can they can learn And that's the beauty of life. Well, even there, you just sort of casually alluded to Carol Dwick, growth mindset, right? I guess it's called mindset. But the idea, like, the first time I read that and it was like, oh, yeah, there's sort of people who believe

that they're as good as they can be and they can't get any better, or there is bad as they can be and they can't get any better. And then there's people who sort of relentlessly focus on where they can improve and how they can get better. You're probably naturally that way, or you wouldn't have gotten to even being good at, let's say, high school soccer.

But when you learn that concept for the first time, even if it's only confirming sort of how you're inclined to be, it's weirdly, it unlocks something, just like hearing a, getting a name for the concept unlocks something in a person, I think. Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, I think you have to be open to failure too. I feel like I've always been someone just from a little girl.

I can remember trying to throw a spiral with a football and I would try and fail at it and then the fifth try may be able to get it. And that's just kind of how it's wired. So I don't know, yeah, is that something that you're kind of born with? Do you adapt to that? Is that your environment? Is that your circumstances? Like it is pretty interesting, but I've just

never been afraid to fail and mess up. And that's the constant, successful stories that you hear about people is they've failed over and over again. They've failed more times and they've succeeded. And it's a general theme. It doesn't matter if you're a doctor, a scientist or an athlete or an author. Going to obstacles then and sort of the growth mindset, I was thinking about this as I was preparing. It's 20 years ago that you were cut from the under-21 team and you've talked about this. That's kind of amazing, but you thought that was it for you. Like you've talked about how you thought

that was the end of the road. Obviously it wasn't, but talk to me about that moment where you're short of like, is this as far as this thing takes me or am I gonna double down and figure out who I'm gonna be and how I'm gonna get past this? I think that moment for me was, it was a pivotal moment in my career, in my life, and I kind of break up my life into two halves.

The first half, you know, being born and then up until this U21 point of getting cut, I was one player and person. I relied on my talent a lot. I had a lot of coaches who supported my talent. And even though one day I would show up and give 80%, it was still better than most people's 100%. And whether that was, was you know right or wrong with some of the coaches that I had They would constantly play me, you know, they would constantly need me I was the best player on every team I played on and I never really kind of went through anything that was a little difficult or a little Challenging were you know hit an obstacle per se.

And I was pretty lazy in fact and didn't have like the best workout ethic pointed the fingers, blamed a lot of people. There was never that, again that growth mindset, that internal motivation to say, alright I'm going to look myself in the mirror, what do I need to do to be better? It's not anybody else's fault. What do I need to do? So when I got cut from the under 21 national team, the easy way out for me was to quit. Of course my parents didn't want to see that happen. They had you know spent numerous weekends and hours and money, you know, giving me the opportunity to kind of lay this foundation, and they did know that I loved it.

So I finally, you know, figured out that I just had to face it, and I really believe that the only way through any challenge in obstacle life is through it. And you can come back on as through. When you just go through it. And you can have that on your through when you just go through it. Exactly. I remember that from your book. And so I started to just change my mindset. Started to work hard, started to work on a

lot of things that I wasn't necessarily good at. I got myself fit, I hated running, but I just I just did it. And I knew that I had to do it and have now grown to love running. It's therapeutic for me, it's my outlet. So again, that first half of my life was pretty much relying on my talent up to that point. And like anything in life, talent only gets you so far. And so that second

part of my life from the under 21 days, you know, all the way until this point, yeah, it's a tale of two different people, two different Carlys. And, you know, right now it's been about, you know, digging deep. And I had the motivation and I had the motivation, I had the passion, I just needed to learn the necessary tools to not only get me to the top, but allow me to stay there for so long. And yeah, it's been an incredible journey, but that was a pivotal moment in my career and my life.

Yeah, there's a story about Roseanne Cash, Johnny Cash's daughter. I think I heard about it from Stephen Pressfield first, but it's in her memoir, which is really, really good. But she was sort of coasting. She's obviously naturally talented. Her father's sort of music royalty. So she's just sort of doing her thing

and she'd put out a couple albums and they'd done okay. And she has this dream one night. And you know, dreams are sort of doing her thing and she'd put out a couple albums and they'd done okay and she has this dream one night and you know dreams are like sort of weird and she's so she's in this dream and she's at this party and she sees the singer Linda Ronstat talking to this man and the man has like a name tag on and it says art right these sort of symbolizing like her craft, what she does. And she goes up to them. She's a huge Linda Ronsett fan and she tries to talk to her. And the man, Art, looks at her and he says, we don't respect dilatants. And then they both turn her back, they're back on her. And she sort of has this wake up call that like she hasn't, she's been doing okay, but she had she's been a bit of a dilatant like she wasn't all in on the thing. And then you know she ends up hiring better.

Collaborators, she demands more of herself as a lyricist and as a musician, you know, hires teachers, etc. And I think about that moment, it's like, are you being serious about this thing? Or are you just enjoying the fact that you're pretty good at it or that you're getting rewards for it or you know, that it doesn't ask that much from you? Because life doesn't, ultimately, the craft or the profession or the thing, it doesn't have much time for dilatants. You're not going to get very far. No, and you're not going to be handed it. And I think that was the biggest lesson is, I don't know that I necessarily even had

the most belief in myself that I could do it. So maybe there was a sense of fear that crept in. What if I start running? What if I start working hard? And then what if I don't make it right but I committed to it from that point on I was like you said I was all in and and just consistently living a lifestyle you know throughout that journey of taking care of my body getting, eating well, training as much as I can, double, triple the amount of other players, and just committing to that. And you don't know what the journey is going to be like, and you don't know how

it's going to play out, but just a big believer in just being consistent with everything that you do and giving it all you have, and the journey will write itself. Well, obviously in athletics, there's a sort of a legal distinction between amateur and professional, but it strikes me that that's the moment that you turn pro. Yeah, it was almost,

I think timing is everything in life. I think that there is the higher powers or whatever your beliefs are that you know need to collide and need to kind of all come together. But the under 21 national team for me was the four years throughout my collegiate career at Rutgers University. And then in 2004 when I finished up 2005 was when I first got into the national team. I had two camps.

They were actually not as busy that year because they were going through some contractual stuff. So I had my first two games being played on the national team and it was almost like, hey, you're rolling into this and you better learn fast and take this opportunity and figure out what you need to do to be able to stay there. Yeah, and the idea of being a professional at what you do is sort of secondary or independent of whether you're getting paid for that thing or not, right? Like obviously being a pro athlete means that you're getting paid to be the athlete, but like, there are plenty of people who are getting paid

that are not professionals. Do you know what I mean? Like they don't treat it like a job or a calling or a craft, they are, they are continuing maybe because they're, maybe they had different assets or whatever, they didn't, they don't run into that thing that you happened to bump into there early on, which is like, hey, my natural talent isn't enough anymore. There has to be some other

driver or system that it's going to allow me to continue doing this. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, because you reach a point where you're being funneled into a bucket of all the best players. Everybody that I was playing with were the same me, just in a different state, in a different section of the country. So, there's got to be some sort of separation of what's going to keep you there and what's going to allow you to keep staying at the top. And I think it ultimately starts with passion. I mean, that for me is a non-negotiable. If you don't have any passion and love for what you do, it's going to be just treated as a job. It's going to be treated as this monotonous thing that you just go through

life. But, I mean, I loved playing. That round ball was my first love, you know, and it was never about the money, it was never about the fame, the glory, nothing. It was purely because of the beautiful game. And, you know, that's ultimately what it's all about. Now, when you're under five players playing on a rack versus playing at a professional level,

it does somewhat become a job. There's a lot of things that you have to navigate. I think it's much easier when you're younger. There's not all this pressure and all these other things, social media world and the media world and the doubters and all of that. So it is a lot to navigate. But when you step in between those lines and I always stepped in between those lines, it was like everything else around me just paused.

It was like time stood still and I'm just playing this game and Yeah, it was it was pretty amazing Yeah, there's a Paul Graham line that I love. He's this entrepreneurial rights. He's great essays about sort of entrepreneur Entrepreneurship and creativity and his line is that It's very hard to be graded something that you don't think about in the shower you know like if it's not something that you are profoundly obsessed with and consumed by, you are probably not going to be putting the resources in that's not just required, but that's going to allow you to compete with the majority of people in that field that are that way, right, for better or for worse. Like, you're competing with and against people

who are totally obsessed and live and breathe that thing. And so if you don't have that, that is a huge competitive disadvantage. 100%. And I saw that and felt that firsthand from players that I played with, played against, all throughout my youth days, up into my college days. Some of those players I used to look at them and say, wow, there's so much more talent than I am. There's so much better than I am. But I got to a point where none of them were playing past college. So I hadn't even gone to college to play. And suddenly, you know, I remember kind of saying, you know, what was it that that, you know, I saw these players just all of a sudden stopping and it's that will, it's that love, you know, it is life consuming.

You know, for 17 years in my professional career, I don't know whether it's right or wrong, my life was consumed by soccer. And now stepping out of that world and being retired, I feel like I'm blessed to be able to be retired at the age of 39 last year to still be able to do so many things. And now I feel like I have just such a better balance on life. I was all in and needed to do what I did with my career.

But now I just have this different perspective of maybe not being as hardcore and just kind of being in the present and just taking life in. So, yeah, I don't know if that's just, you know, getting older and not playing anymore, but I definitely have a shift in a mindset in this new retired face. I was with Dante Hightower, the football player the other day. He just sort of retired and I was with Dante Hightower, the football player, the other day, he just sort of retired

and I was talking to him about that. And I was like, you gotta find an outlet, man, because like, I was like the intensity that you brought to this thing that you've been doing since you were 10 years old, right? Every day, it's what you're thinking about in the shower, it's what you're spending literally hours in the gym, on the field, watching film, and then also like your competitiveness and your satisfaction, that was all directed at this thing.

And that thing is now gone, right? That energy cannot just be vomited on the people around you who have gotten to know you over the years as being the person who had an outlet for those things, right? You have to find a productive, healthy place, I think, for that energy or it turns on itself. or it turns on itself. Yeah, no, that's what I heard. I heard a lot of stories about athletes in particular that have retired, that haven't really transitioned well into that retirement phase. And I think it's interesting. And I'd almost like to you know dive deeper into it because I was someone who was able to dictate when I left sport. It was no career ending injury or I was too old or it was a coaches

decision. I said, I've done it all. I've got nothing left to prove. It's time for my next step in life and that was that. And so to be able to peacefully walk away from something you've done your whole life, you talk about this outlet and this release, I don't really have those competitive foaming at the mouth juices that I'm longing for anymore, which I think is a good thing. I mean, I play golf now with my husband

and I'm getting into that. And but it's almost like a good thing. I mean, I play golf now with my husband and I'm getting into that. And, but it's almost like a peaceful journey. Like I'm just kind of, all right, it's gonna take time to learn the swing and I'm gonna be patient with it, but I'm gonna enjoy the process more because I don't know that I necessarily took in and enjoyed the process in my career. And again, maybe that was good,

maybe that was bad. I reached heights that I wanted to reach, but it's just an interesting perspective to kind of compare the two. See, like, there's two different rions. There's the Ryan who's writing a book, and then there's the Ryan who has recently finished a book, right? And so Ryan who's writing a book is like a dog that's getting walked, that's going outside and playing a lot, you know, that's sort of very, like, or like a kid that like had a full day, right? Like I had a productive, healthy, generative, you know, like thing

that I got a lot of that energy out. But then also because I care about this thing so much, I don't care about a lot of other things that don't really matter. I'm just sort of blunt, like I don't care what the weather is, when I'm writing, I don't care what's happening in the world. Like, I don't, I'm not noticing whether the house is messy or clean because like I have like a kind of a tunnel vision.

That is my thing. And then sometimes my wife will catch me when I'm like between books or I've just stopped a book or I'm waiting for edits back on a book. Like suddenly I'm like, I'm up and everyone's business. I have a lot more. Like, now all of a sudden, I'm looking for stuff that I would have been totally oblivious to before. And I think that is the beauty of having a kind of a life's task. Like, a thing that you do, that fulfills you and challenges you and stimulates you, being involved with the game, I think probably generally is that for you. But I think people struggle when either they don't have that thing, like just imagine how frustrating it would be to be you having never discovered the thing you were meant to do, like if you just never,

if you had walked away from soccer after you got cut. Like you would be the same person, but you would have never found that fulfillment and meaning and sense of self. So I think it's frustrating to never have it, and then it's also frustrating when the way you're involved in it changes, you have to find a new way to adjust and calibrate

or else you're not pleasant to be around. Yeah, and I would probably say throughout my career, I mean, with my husband and I mean, talk about the tunnel vision and your mood is a reflection of wins and losses, success and failure and it tended to not be good when there was failure and losses and all that.

But yeah, I mean, you have to be all in. And I think that I do. I look at the people around me, friends, family. And I couldn't imagine not really going after a dream, right? You're just cruising through life and you go to college and you get a job and then you're just kind of, you know, you're just going about life. But yeah, I'm very fortunate to have been able to do something that I love for so long and follow that dream.

And I think what I take most from everything is again, you know, the books, the lessons, the the journey and everything that I've learned in between that. That's what I treasure most because I'm a better person, I'm a stronger person and I don't think that you you get that just kind of going through life is just like it's your job in a sense. Yeah, and that's there's obviously the people who choose not to, and then the people who can't, right? Like I think I think all the time of the Langston Hughes poem, what happens to a dream deferred? Do you know that one? I don't. Oh, it's so good. It's really short. I just pulled it up. He says, what happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet or maybe it just sags like a heavy load or does it explode? And then so you think about the people who, because they didn't have the teachers or the coaches or people because of the color of their skin or what country they were born in or the economic circumstances they were born in, that have this potential or this calling or this gift, but they never know it, or they, it's not even an option to explore it or make it real, just how terrible a fate that is and how tragic that is for someone to like not even, not even have like a chance that they walked away from, but like to not even have a chance. Yeah, I know, that's why I'm so grateful and thankful. But do you think those types of

people realize that throughout life? Or do you think that not knowing is kind of that unknown of not being fulfilled and realizing you haven't had that opportunity or chance. There's probably different ways of knowing, right? There's like the, I could have, you know, I could have been somebody, I could have been a contender, you know, there's like sort of that kind of like I didn't pursue it or I didn't get it. Then there's like, you were talking about people who have injuries who like, they were great and then, you know, a freak fall or an accident or,

you know, violence done to them takes that away. But then yeah, there's probably a larger contingent that just sort of has a lack of fulfillment or meaning or some sense that like, they were meant for something more. But because they were born in this impoverished area or like, I mean, just think, I mean, how recently it even was possible to be a professional women soccer player. Like, how many people just like, it wasn't even a thing, like, I'm sure there were generations of talented, athletic, you know, ambitious women who it just, it wasn't even a thing that they weren't thinking about. They were just, they were given a kind of tunnel vision about the kind of career options or life that they could or couldn't have. And there must have been kind of just

a profound dissatisfaction or a sense that there was more to life that they couldn't fully realize because of just how things were. Yeah, I mean, even speaking to my mom, I mean, she had said, you know, soccer was never an option, never a choice for her to play. I mean, she was a cheerleader. There wasn't much. And then you have Title IX that allowed women and more women's sports in college. So what was that 50 years ago? It was interesting.

And then you look at, yeah, I think it was, yeah, it was not a go. So it's interesting. And then, but then you hear stories of, you know, just incredible people who grow up with nothing and somehow find a way through that, which I think is incredible too. So yeah, it's just life, life is definitely a journey. Totally. Yeah, it's, there are the people who persevere through things that they shouldn't have to persevere

through. And then there are the people who, you know, maybe they were just one degree or less determined, but that didn't mean they couldn't have been great. Had there been fewer barriers, less resistance, you know, a different path. And I'm sure there's even, as I've talked to athletes, I remember I was talking to Marty Bennett about this, the who also played for the Patriots, but he's like, there was a very clear path for a big black dude like me

to be a professional athlete. Like there was a whole system that encouraged people like me to go towards sports. But he's like, I also liked drawing an art and there was not a system that said, how do we make you great at that? How many sort of sparks are there and which sparks as a society do we or green sprouts, whatever, how many of those do we make

into something and how many of those do we sort of, you know, stamp out. Like there's the famous story about Malcolm X, Malcolm X is a young boy and he said, is teacher assam what he wants to do. And he says he wants to be a lawyer and she's like, she laughs at him. She's like, you must think of something more realistic. And I think there was a racial slur involved also. But the point is, like, he becomes a criminal instead, right? Like, because the thing that he should have been encouraged

to think about is humiliatingly slammed in his face. Yeah, I mean, to say with kids too nowadays, I feel like I, you know, I would never, I would not, yeah, you hear so many stories of professional athletes in particular just because that's kind of the world that I'm in where, you know, their teachers have laughed at them when, hey, what do you want to do? I want to be a professional football player.

Right. I want to be a professional soccer player. And it is just interesting because for my perspective, you know, I would be like, hey, yeah, dream big, go for it. You know, shoot for the stars. So it is in someone's particular environment journey, what is said or done can literally have life-changing effects on them and what way they go in life.

You know this discussion lately about nepot babies, this one about people who's like parents are actors or actresses and then they become an actor and actor. Like a lot of the people that are like famous or important are good today, you know, it's not so much a pulled up by their bootstraps thing. It's like their parents were in the industry, right? And so people are saying that sort of unfair and there's an event. And that's true. There's football, super-nepotistic, Hollywood super-nepotistic. Lots of professions are. But I've always thought, I think about this from a parenting standpoint,

because I think about my own childhood. Like, nobody I knew was a writer. Nobody I knew. I don't think there's a single parent of any of my friends growing up that didn't have a salary to job. They were all like employees. I didn't know anyone that was like an entrepreneur or a creative or an artist or something. And so I've always wondered if part of the thing about what we call nepotism, like how does Steph Curry and his brother both make it to the NBA, the fact that their father was in the NBA,

is that a biological advantage? Is that an advantage that he pulls strings for them? Or is it that they lived in a world where it was possible to be a professional athlete? And their dad was like, here's how you do it. It's not rocket science. Like, you know, in the sense that like, you grow up not thinking that it's insane to make your living playing a game, right?

And like, my kids will have a different relationship with books and entrepreneurship and things that I do because they've been normalized, right? by them growing up around a person who did it. And so I wonder how many people's options are closed off by the fact that the things that they want to do are just outside the experience or even the ability to conceive, like by teachers or what like the teachers like you can't become a professional athlete because they've never seen that before.

It seems in pod. It's like you can't win the lottery. You know? No, yeah. No, it's interesting. I've had the same kind of chat with my husband about it. And you look at you look at Tiger Woods and his son and now in the in the Super Bowl with the Eagles and Chiefs you've got the Kelsey brothers. So I was talking to my husband about this you know I was very athletic growing up you know my parents I'm one of three I'm the oldest I have a younger sister and a younger brother. And my husband, Brian, was very athletic. And we kind of, we kind of go back and forth with one another. Like, how much of that, are you born a bit athletic? And then how much of that is your environment?

Like, he was put in front of four wheelers dirt bikes, wave runners you know every sport imaginable. I wasn't put in front of those you know action type sports and those riding sports but you know swimming, softball, football, soccer I mean every sport and my siblings you know we grew up in the same household. My brother went on to play college soccer, and then that was it. And my sister played soccer for a little bit. But it's just very interesting, the dynamics of, because we talk about it all the time, when, you know, we want to start a family, and we would want to give our kids the opportunity to just try everything,

you know, maybe, you know, maybe more geared towards sports because we're sports people, but because I feel like that's the only way you truly can kind of find a passion and know what you may be good at or like. Well, speaking of books, have you read David Epstein's book, Range? I have not. I think you would really like it. Well, he wrote a book called The Sports Gene, which, several years ago, which is really good.

But then, Range is basically, he's contrasting Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. So, like Tiger Woods is basically, from two years old, is told, told, you're going to be a golfer and is basically raised in a kind of science experiment to do nothing but live and breathe, hitting this small white ball. Whereas like Roger Federer like plays a bunch of sports, he doesn't even really get serious about tennis until his late teens. And he has a different relationship with it, but they're both dominant, both all-time

greats. One has more of a resilience and a flexibility and a lightness to him, and the other is kind of imprisoned in this thing. And his point is that range, having a range of skills and interests and being exposed to different things, not just in art, or sorry, not just in sports, but in all things, is a better way to be. Yeah, that's interesting.

I know it is, I didn't realize that often. Just for that that book down. But yeah, it's it's very interesting. And then you kind of think of someone like Tyre who, I mean, the greatest of all time, I mean, transformed the sport of golf. the sport of golf and then kind of hit those rocky patches, you know, was that... Because he was just too, you know, one dimensional in that, you know, was there that feeling creeping in of wanting to experience other things and there's a lot of athletes that, you know, are athletic that have played multiple sports and it is kind of an interesting comparison to, most of the grades do seem like they are a bit more dimensional than just that one sport.

But then you've got the rare occasions that, you know. Tom Brady was drafted as a baseball player also, right? Like you can be so good and be good at multiple things. And like, I also think there's probably an argument if you're really getting into it. It's like, there's something wrong with a high school baseball player having to get Tommy John surgery. Do you know what I mean? Like, that you've thrown so many pitches by the time you're 17 years old that you're

wearing out your arm. Like, like what I love about what I do and I think we talk about it less as a society, is like, like burnout, right? Like I love that writing, you can do, you can be a writer, a professional writer up until the day that you die. You know, like you had an incredibly long career

and you're not even 40 and it's over. Like, you just think about like how how small the window is for some of these things, but is is part of the reason that people get these repetitive injuries or it's so short, is that they're they're thinking about it in such like a finite, they're not thinking about it. How can I like they're thinking about how can I be great at insert thing now, not, I don't know if you're familiar with Peter Tia's work, he's fascinating, he's his doctor. He's like, you should think about what your life

is gonna be like at 90. Like you should make decisions. Like you're staying in the ring an extra year as a boxer, but if you're lucky enough to live to 75, what's your quality of life gonna be based on the decision that you just made? Do you know what I mean?

We don't think long-term in a lot of the decisions we make. No, not at all. And that's, you know, a lot of athletes that I know that I've played with. You know, some of them need knee replacements. Some have already gotten them. So, you know, my quality of life,

I'm grateful that I'm able to still golf, hike, ski, do all of these things because that'd be a really crappy life to play soccer for 34 years and then not be able to walk or do anything after that. But I think it's a high debate amongst youth sports now in general. We talk about the specialization and I'm all for, you know, if you want to be the best at something, you've got to put the time, you know, and energy and hours into that. But I look back on my youth career and I, you know, I didn't get that burnout because I wasn't playing four or five soccer games on a weekend. It was one, maybe two Macs. So during that week, you look forward to that one or two games. And then you get back at it and practice, and I did some other sports as well, but you develop

different muscle groups. And I really believe that it's, you know, it's, every parent now seems to want to get their child into some sort of specialized training at the age of four because they think they're going to be the next biggest star. I'm like, it doesn't work like that. No, and that's totally what the book is about. And it's not just, hey, you could burn yourself out. You could get different injuries. But it's also like you learn things,

being in these different situations, having these different experiences, that ideally, when you do ultimately specialize, and you're right, at some point, you have to pick a lane and you're like, because you can't be world class at like seven things that you're half-heartedly pursuing. You have to pick your thing. But like, the more experiences and environments that you have to draw on, the better you're going to be at that thing.

Like, if you've only studied physics, you know, when it comes time to communicate physics to people who don't know that much about physics, you're gonna not have the skills, right? Or the words to be able to communicate this thing to like regular human beings. So I think range, is not just range, but also the sustainability we're talking about.

I think like as we're talking, I don't know when this will run, but like Brady announced his retirement today. Like he's pretty good for a guy who's 45. Like, like you compare Brady's body to Tiger Woods's body, you know, that's a different approach to how one treats themselves. And one is probably going to be, I don't want to say happier because that's relative.

But one is going to be a less pained 70 year old than the other, I imagine. Oh, 100. Yeah. Absolutely. Their bodies are going to creak less. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it was big, big news for Brady this morning. I was kind of wondering about that. You know, I kind of, I think, you know, physically, you could probably, you could probably do it, right?

And I look back at, you know, kind of my retirement announcement. I just got to a point where the grind, I love the grind, but it is a full-time job, you know, to constantly be all-in, to constantly take care of yourself, you know, around the clock. I was thinking about it, thinking about all the things that I need to get better at. It's, you know, it mentally takes a toll and obviously can't speak for Tom in this particular moment, but it looked like it took more of a mental toll, obviously. Some personal things going on, and it's hard. It's hard to stay at that level for so long

and just grind away every single day and give all of yourself to that. And because a lot of other things suffer and you have to sacrifice. So it's not easy, but that's life. Everybody sacrifices and does, you know, has to make choices throughout their life in different circumstances. Well, you mentioned passion earlier.

It's like you're not just competing with younger people, life in different circumstances. Well, you mentioned, you mentioned passion earlier. It's like you're not just competing with younger people, but you're also always competing with people who are hungrier, who have something to prove, who potentially want it more like it must be hard as you, like, as you do more and more, as you have done more and more, like finding what is it inside yourself that's making you want it so badly? Do you know what I mean? Once you've done it, it's no longer, well, I'd like to do this before I stop. Well, okay, then you've done that. Like, what's getting you out of bed? What's putting you in the ice bath? What's putting you on the road again, you have to find

that thing inside yourself to motivate you because it's not it's not external stuff anymore. Yeah, yeah, no, and just the expectation is hard, you know, once people see something that you've done and they expect it every time over and over and over again and you look at someone like Tom Brady, you know, you would have loved to, I mean, he first year he came to Tampa, he won a Super Bowl, which I don't know. I mean, I would have been like, all right, Mike dropped there, you know,

that was amazing, but, yes. But everybody's different and there's always, you know, more, but then you've reached that level and the expectation is just people want it every single time and I think that's what gets hard. But yes, some incredible athletes that done it over and over and over again.

Well for you, I'd be curious, okay, the discipline of like one more, one more rep, you know, one more burst of energy, you know, one more drive, one more season, like, that's a pretty simple kind of discipline, right? You're drawing, you're drawing deeper in yourself, like, what do I have left to give? How much gas do I have left? Can I do it one more time? That requires a certain amount of discipline. But I imagine actually the more challenging discipline was for you to say, like, all right, I'm done. I've had enough. I'm going to call it here.

Like as you said, my decision, as opposed to a coach's decision, a doctor's decision, you know, a doctor's decision, a financial decision or whatever, you had to have the discipline to know and then to act on your feeling that you had taken it as far as it should be taken. Yeah, I think that, you know, your ego can definitely get in the way. Who doesn't love a lifestyle of being in front of crowds and being on social media and being highlighted and winning things and having success. But again, that wasn't why I did what I did for so long. I did what I did for so long and have the consistency and the discipline and the will and the love simply because I wanted to never put limits on myself and push

myself as far as I could go. And the way that the soccer world works, which is a little different than the NFL or the MLB or the NBA. We have cycles where every four years there's a world cup and every four years there's an Olympics. So in my head, I envisioned my career originally only going three cycles, which would have put me at the 2016 Olympics to finish up.

But when I got to the 2012 Olympics, I said to myself, I don't want to do one more cycle. I want to do two more cycles. So essentially that was four, four it because the next cycle that came around was this year, this 2023 woman's World Cup. And then, you know, again, you're getting into the, could you push more, it's more travel, everybody's going to be talking about your age, you know, they're going to want, they're're gonna want the old ones out and the new ones in. It just was for me, it was actually an easy decision. You know, when we lost our interesting, our hope of winning another gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, we lost to Canada. That then put us into the bronze medal game

to compete for that medal against Australia. There's this picture of me sitting on a ball after that game. And in that moment, I knew that once this Olympics wrapped up, I was gonna tell the people I needed to tell that I'm going to be retiring. And so it was kind of just, it was an easy, alone moment that I had, that I knew that I would never compete on the world stage again,

and I would never get a third gold medal. It would have to settle for bronze. And I was okay with that. I had felt like I had given it all that I had. We talk about that discipline. It just, it got to the point where I gave okay with that. I had felt like I had given it all that I had. We talk about that discipline. It just, it got to the point where I gave so much of it from 2005 to 2021 that when I finished,

I didn't have much in me. Like I was operating in my reserves and was just fully at peace to turn that next page. And I'm grateful for that, because like I said, I don't think a lot of athletes in particular get to enter that phase feeling that way. And there's a lot of factors. I had a falling out with my family for about 12 years

and they came back into my life in 2020. Again, I talk about the timing and the things that the higher powers bring you per se and everything was just kind of wrapping up the way that it It was, yeah, it was, it was, it was an easy decision for me to make. Well, you can, you can, you can come up with ways to not listen to that voice though. I think what you're talking about is self-awareness. Like, you had this sense, you had this notion, you'd come to this place. But if you're also one of those people that had turned yourself into a machine, let's say to be able to do what it is that you do, it can make it possible to override that.

That's why people go out for the bank know, one, but the bank robber, one more job, you know, or the, you know, well, I'm going to, I'm going to run for a election one more time. Like you, it's, no, knowing is one thing. And then sticking to it is probably another because I imagine there were people I imagine there were people who, it was in their interest that you keep doing it. Do you know what I mean? Like, I imagine you make the decision and then you have to face, you know, all the things that that entails, right? Like, there's agents and support crew and plot like, you know, there's the reality of it. It still probably wasn't easy. And then to sort of stick with that trust or that sense you had with yourself, that was probably a, took a certain amount of fortitude,

I imagine. Yeah, it's true. I never really kind of looked it at that way, I think, because I never really kind of looked it at that way, I think, because I had just come to peace with it all. And there was no real ego in my head telling me like, oh, you know, come on, chase one more. I was talking to a friend the other day about this, you know, we're talking about somebody who is working all the time right now. And it's like, you know, if I can just get to this next stage at my job, I'm going to be making X amount. And at what point does that chasing ever stop? You know, like, do you then get to that point and say, oh, if I can just get to this point. And that's how I sort of felt in my career to a point. But I don't know.

Just, yeah, I think that, uh, yeah, I guess I could have, could have talked to myself out of it and could have kept going. Um, but yeah, just for me, that, that perfect timing of, of just going out on my own was, was my way of saying, you know, this is how I want it. And enough is such a powerful thing, right? Like having enough. And yet, to be great, particularly at sports, you have to be the kind of person that, like Tiger, who's fascinating biography about him, but his dad, who would put him through these crazy,

you know, or deals and sort of tortured him and put all this pressure on him, he would say like, all stop, you just have to say the magic word and the magic word was enough, like I've had enough, right? So it was like, he basically made that word, like, a sign of weakness, right? And they're, you know, it was like, he basically made that word, like, a sign of weakness, right? And it's like, hey, I've had enough criticism, I've had enough pain, I've had enough, you know, all the things that you have to push through to be great, I've had enough rejection,

I've had enough doubt, you have to push through that to be great. But then that makes it hard to be like, I have enough, look at my wall of trophies, look at my bank balance, look at all the things I proved to myself. You know, I have people that I love, all the other things, like it can be hard to be like, I have enough, I'm good, I'm satisfied.

Yeah, it's very true. And I got to the stage at the end, too, where I felt like I had been trying to prove people wrong throughout my career, which in a sense added some fuel to my motivation to then end with realizing I don't need to prove another thing to anybody else. And it was a very freeing feeling. And when I announced my retirement, at the point that I did, I think it was in August. I had a couple of months to sort of go in the spare well tour with my teammates and play a couple more games

with the national team, with my club team. And I think that's when my teammates were really able to kind of see that mask off that I had on for so long that I just never let anything penetrate. And I think that that's sort of what I was looking forward to in this next chapter is to really be able to live light, to be able to do all the things that I couldn't. You know, I put soccer as number one forever and it was all enough for me. And that essentially is the most freeing feeling.

You know, and now it's like I get fulfillment in other places. Well, how much for you also though, I imagine, having basically won all the great prizes of your profession, that must have been immensely satisfying and rewarding and validating. But you also left the game like a lot better than you found it, right? Like not just the public profile of the game, but just some of the stands you took and then the lawsuit that you filed. How much of that also allowed you to sort of go like enough because you were leaving the thing better than you found it.

Which to me is kind of the meaning of life, right? Is that we leave the place, people, you know, the thing that we do, we leave it in, you know, in better hands than we took it from. Yeah, it was, you know, I look back to the moment I came on the national team in 2005, I mentioned before, where I only

played two games that year, they had been renegotiating their collective bargaining agreement with US soccer. And in there, they were asking for guaranteed salaries and health benefits and pregnancy leave and all of these things that I simply had no idea about. I just played in two games, received two checks and I'm like, oh wow, it's amazing. But little did I know that they were fighting for the next generation to be set up, essentially leaving this sport better than when they came into it. And then, you fast forward to myself and my other teammates and kind of what we had to fight for,

it just became necessary for us to then take that step. Like the pioneers did prior to me and several other players knowing that, this is the, these are the necessary steps we had to take to make the sport better. And yeah, it was really tough challenging to be part of that, to be fighting with your employer, filing lawsuits with them, and then stepping out on the field

and having to compete. But I think that we set the standard, and we gave the rest of the world, you know, female players, female soccer players, countries, teams, the confidence to know that they've got a fight, and they can now fight because look at the standard that we set. So yeah, it's incredible to be, to have been part of that and you know, I think it's it's going to be evolutions of that because you know, there's still leaps and bounds that we can keep pushing and making it better. pushing and making it better.

Well, I think it's also like at the end of one's career or life, you know, you're not just going, how are you going to measure whether you are successful or not? I probably, as you go on, as you get further from it, the sort of quantifiable things, probably matter to us less and more of the impact and the collective benefit of what we do manage matters more, which again, to go what we're talking about, are you valuing short-term things or long-term things. But then in the moment when we're faced with a choice, hey, do I want to speak up about this thing? Do I want to get involved in this thing? Then we go, let it hurt my prospects

here or make me enemies here. We should try to zoom out and think about how we're going to think about it in a long time from now. And that should hopefully allow us to be a little bit more, I think, courageous and civic minded in what we do. I think courageous and civic-minded and what we do. Yeah, I would totally agree. I think the friendships, the camaraderie, the struggles, all the things that you had to fight for. People always ask me, what's the best thing from your career?

I can't pick one. It's the whole complete package. It's everything in between and the lessons, the journey, and just kind of, yeah, every person that was kind of put in my life or, you know, in within the team, good or bad, you know, and within within the team, good or bad, you know, I'm able to extract something from them. And I think that's what's, that's what's pretty cool. And to be able to kind of have that perspective, you know, and I don't know that I necessarily would maybe have that, you know, being younger, but I think the older you get, you just have a bit of a different perspective on life and situations. Now I think that's right and that's a beautiful spot to stop so Carly thank you so much.

Thank you, enjoyed it, appreciate it. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode. Hey, Prime Members. You can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. The Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the

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