Ali Krieger

Welcome to Carry the Fire, a podcast where we explore the big questions of life through the lens of the good, the true, and the beautiful. I'm your host, Dustin Kensaroo.

And my hope is that through these conversations with people of diverse and divergent backgrounds and beliefs, we can glimpse the world anew through each other's unique perspectives. I feel like we also... want to win and be successful and continue to push the needle because people listen when you win and you're successful and I think it's so important to continue that success so that we can finally

you know or continue to fight for for these beliefs that we you know fight for and these issues that we believe in because you know people then listen and you can continue the conversation Hey everybody, today we are joined by professional soccer player Allie Krieger. Allie has been an integral part of the women's U.S. national soccer team over the past few years, winning two World Cups, and she also plays for the Orlando Pride.

In our conversation, we discuss advances in LGBTQ rights and women's rights and the responsibility Allie feels to use her voice for good. We talk about the difficulty of not deriving your identity completely from the things that you pour yourself into. And Ali shares what it's like to represent the U.S. on the world stage. Let's dive in.

It's so nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Just to give you a recap on what I try to do on the show is I'm kind of getting in roundabout ways at the, the good, the true and the beautiful, basically like. what it means to be human from all our different perspectives and awesome but i like to get under that in the beginning by asking about wonder as specifically

Growing up, what would cause you to feel like a deep sense of wonder about the world? Oh, gosh, that's such a good question. I think just going through and experiencing different types of people.

and different traveling around the world i feel like at such a young age i was so excited to kind of get out of my hometown and that's what really excited me and really opened my eyes and brought in my heart broaden my horizons on just recognizing that there's more out there in the world than just what's in your little comfort zone and bubble at home and in like suburbia so yeah

I was really happy that I was able to travel around and get a better sense of individuals and being human and seeing the world in a different way, learning a new culture and language. traveling overseas to Germany, living there. I think like as I was young, I was really happy about that because I think it helped shape me as a better person. I feel like living in my small bubble.

I don't know where I would be today doing that and what excites me about the world is traveling and meeting new people and that's what inspires me and seeing beautiful places and just different cultures.

and languages it's incredible to explore and um yeah it's it's nice to be a part of something bigger than just inside of our little comfort zones yeah i i definitely I feel like looking back in my life, had I not traveled as much touring, I think it would have been harder to break out of certain views of the world that I had.

grown up with um just because you you know we all have the yeah bubbles like you said whatever however you want to call that you have a list of things that you're exposed to and ideas about those things and until you experience otherwise like uh it's very hard to think about those things any differently so for sure for sure and you got to kind of get uncomfortable to be comfortable so

I learned a lot being in such uncomfortable situations and traveling and not really understanding my surroundings as well. But you learn by doing, and I think that was really encouraging at a young age.

I know you've talked about wanting to have kids in the future. Have you progressed on that thought anymore or still in a holding pattern kind of? Yeah, it is in a holding pattern because we do, you know, because the Olympics got pushed back another year, we both definitely still want to try and play in the Olympics. For us, that would be a dream come true.

excuse me because we don't have a gold medal at the olympics and it's like the one thing that i feel like um you know we're missing for the collection of championships um that you know obviously have been incredible achievements, but I just feel like I would love to just try one more time because 2016 didn't go so well. So we've kind of pushed everything back a little bit in the plan.

You know, I'm sure everyone has this year because it's just been so crazy and unexpected. That's great. I have a question from one of the patrons of the show, Brian. saying, playing, watching sports are often activities that are seen as inherent goods, as joyful diversions from our day-to-day issues in life. And he says, with more focus in recent years on activism and peaceful protests within sports.

do you see this as a further extension of the good that sports can bring to everyday life? Um, so I might kind of piggyback on that and just say like, do you feel it's your responsibility in some sense to use your position for advancing, uh, certain issues yeah absolutely i feel uh definitely a certain responsibility i feel like it just kind of comes along with it and goes hand in hand with the job um

and I feel like it's amazing to use our platform specifically to kind of talk about issues or about issues that we truly believe in and some of us believe in obviously different things and different issues and we fight for different um you know beliefs that we have and i think that's what's so attractive about our national team and being individuals and really fighting

for what we believe in on the platforms that we have and then the extension of, you know, the national team platform and then the NWSL platform and then our individual club platforms, I think is really beneficial for us. And I do feel like, you know, using your voice.

is really, really important because people are listening and you can amplify other individuals' voices who don't necessarily have the platforms that we have. And I feel like it's somewhat of a duty for us to do that and continue to fight for women, for...

um you know um women's rights gay rights um anything that you know um fight for you know black lives matter movement that we've been you know such a big part of especially this year um and yeah those things that i feel like are super important for us to really focus on and You know, it attracts people and it keeps the conversations going on all of these important topics. And I do really feel like as athletes, we have a lot of power.

We can use our voice really loud and people listen. And so I think it's crucial that we can help amplify what we believe in.

and what others believe in by using those platforms yeah 100 you spoke about women's rights um and i have three daughters who just got to meet the youngest yeah And I'm always trying to both encourage them to step out and to lead and not be afraid to assert themselves and that they can do. whatever they set out to do, as well as trying to have them appreciate, um, I mean, there's still struggles ahead, but, uh, how much work has been done by so many people to, to bring things to.

where that is today. Um, I don't know. It's, it's so interesting to, I mean, just, it was such great TV these days. So like just seeing little snippets into like different time periods of what, uh, women had to deal with and. I'm curious, like in your own life, maybe what are like a few of the ways that you've seen things change a bunch? And then what are a few of the things that you see as like major hurdles still ahead?

Yeah, great question. You know, I feel like visibility is huge and is so important. And when I was younger, I didn't realize that. you know um there could be individuals in same-sex relationships like that just wasn't wasn't you know, visible to me and it wasn't talked about, I guess, when I was younger. And I really found that out as like a senior when my brother actually came out.

as well and so i was kind of like oh oh wow that's like that's great like i love you no matter what you know this is this is you and i'm super supportive but i didn't I didn't even think that way because I never saw it on TV. I never read it in books. I never saw it in magazines. And that was... And that was such an eye-opening experience for me because I had to really like kind of delve into that and like take it all in and be like, oh, this is like okay.

you know obviously people's feelings it wasn't as accepted you know back in 2003 or i mean since you know ever but um you know it started to be you know in for me personally more known and um and you know accepting i guess in my life so anyway besides that i mean women's rights have obviously you know have come a long way. I mean, seeing female athletes just break those barriers.

continuously since I was really young not only the national team but you know tennis star like Serena Williams and really holding their own and standing on their own two feet and really battling and speaking out for women's rights and obviously now Megan Rapinoe is leading the charge for our team and all of us frankly have our back and are continuing that down that path. And then with the Me Too movement with actresses kind of having enough of, you know, really being discriminated against.

and sexually harassed at work and really standing up and fighting and for what we deserve and and what's right and i think that It's just incredible to see the evolution. Obviously, there's still a lot of more work to be done because we still aren't paid equally to the men's side.

and so we are continuing to fight for that just women in general i feel like a sense of um i guess just a sense of power and um I guess just empowering each other right now um recently in the past you know five ten years of really coming together and kind of creating our own movement of really fighting for what we deserve. if that's in the workplace or on the soccer field or on the basketball court, a lot of women are really paving the way for us to kind of continue in those footsteps.

i think specifically talking about your children um i mean girls are the best and um i really believe that because we have more visibility now for the younger generations to kind of look up to. They have many more examples of role models who can be gay, straight, you know, trans and I think that there's just so many different avenues that young women can kind of take and really follow and feel whole and feel enough.

feel that they can do anything and be whoever they want to be and that's going to be accepted and so i feel like it's getting there there's obviously a lot more work that needs to be done and we're continuing to fight every day

But yeah, it's, it's obviously a daily work in progress. Yeah. And I think, I don't know. I want to encourage everyone out there who isn't, uh, a soccer star or someone in a public position that it's uh it's such a group effort like i think like it can't the needle can't move with just one

loud voice saying something like it's it's the echo of that voice like right throughout a community and back up and around and like uh and that is what's been cool to see with the women's team like how much solidarity there is and it it creates um i think a sense of community and uh safety in a sense but but not a passive safety like a safety with which you can like

gain ground and move forward and yeah when you especially when you said the me too thing it's like it's things like that where it's this silent struggle for so long and then finally people are able to voice it enough to get out there and then everyone's like how did this everyone live with this for so long like and obviously there's so much work to go there still but

the seal has been broken in a sense. It's like, we're not going to live like this anymore. Right. Right. Like they've had enough. They're like, okay. I refuse to, yeah, exactly what you say. I refuse to continue to live like this and feel this way. Yeah, it's such a long struggle and I think it's good to keep that in mind because the little things that you do every day, they add up to such a bigger thing in the end, even if you can't.

you know, see the fruits of it right now. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. I want to go back to you coming out and your brother coming out, um, before you, um, Like you were talking about visibility and it's interesting how having language or images for things like opens our realities up in certain ways.

uh that's why like 1984 is like the scariest book to me because it's talking about controlling people's thoughts by controlling the language they have access to which is right super scary um it is but like with So with seeing your brother, did that open up possibilities for you going forward in thinking? Or did it make sense of feelings you'd already had? Or kind of a little bit of both? No, it was absolutely feeling of like thinking more forward and being more open.

and not really understanding what that meant for him. And I was just really... I was really kind of caught off guard and just like, oh, I didn't, not necessarily just about him personally. It was more so like, oh, like two men can be together. can two women be together like I was just like so insane that I would think that way that I had no idea um and this is me being really honest like I

it sounds crazy, but because I've never, I had never experienced that in my small, you know, vanilla town growing up. It's like. I don't know. I just wasn't, yeah, there wasn't visibility on TV like there is nowadays or in magazines like we had mentioned before. And I just feel like, yeah, it made me automatically think, okay, like. wow, this is opening up my eyes to like so many other things. And then I met friends at college who were in same-sex relationships. And so I was then like, oh.

So two women can be together too. And like, that's okay. And like, this is interesting. And I don't know. So yeah, that's kind of. exactly what you said it was more so like forward thinking rather than like oh now my feelings make sense yeah that's super interesting yeah because i i mean everyone's so different like there's i think especially with issues around being gay there's so many stereotypes and I think it's it's cool to hear stories that break from

you know all different kinds of molds so that's yeah cool yeah i'm curious if you were from such a small town was that a big deal like when your brother came out yeah it wasn't like a small town i grew up in dumfries virginia it's close to dc it's about 30 miles south of dc But it was like we were in this small neighborhood community in Montclair and it's, you know, it's...

I don't know. I say vanilla. I mean, it was, my high school was actually really diverse. It just, I don't know. Like it was a lot of middle-class, upper middle-class families. And I don't know. I just feel like maybe just the visit.

visibility aspect about it um you know wasn't wasn't there it was was very absent um and it's not like we talked about things like this as a family growing up so yeah and that's why probably why it took my brother so long to you know come out with his feelings and you know and who he really is and his truth so

It's not that my town was super small. It just was not really talked about. I hear what you're saying. I am also not from a super small town, but it's more diverse now. Where are you originally from? I actually grew up in Irvine and I live in Irvine again after. Okay. Yeah, so it's not small, but it, I don't know, it has a certain quality, especially growing up. Right, right.

I want to talk to you a bit about identity as far as like something that you do. Like I've had this, you know, been in this band since I was. back to 17 i think at the very beginning of it but um and i just just turned 40. um it's been such a huge part of my life and it at times i've had to like uh try to extricate myself from like the identity of being like i am the guy in this band or whatever and what does that do to like my self-worth when

People do or don't like this thing that I'm so involved in. And I feel like you put so much of your life into soccer. I'm curious how that struggle has been for you in finding identity in and outside of. Soccer, especially I was reading an article, I think you put out in 2019, but you were talking about in 2017 when...

You weren't picked up for the national roster and you kind of struggling with that, but I'd love to hear more about how you, how you deal with it. Yeah. Yeah. It's really good question. I like, I like these questions and it's like, you know.

obviously exactly what you said just more so touching on the human element of individuals because a lot of people think athletes are just like you know stone cold and they can handle everything and anything and they don't get hurt by anything that's you know said to them or said about them or you know going through whatever they're going through um

and you have to perform at your best every single day especially at the highest level so i'm sure you understand that as well like you're having to give your all every day and I don't want to call them sacrifices because it's a choice, right? Like these, this is the choice to do what I love to do. But there's a cost to it. There is a cost. And I feel like at the end of the day, you know, Ash and I speak about this too, sometimes where.

You feel like you're giving, giving, giving for 10 to 15 years to, you know, being a professional soccer player. And the sport doesn't necessarily give you so much in return other than... something i'm very grateful for these lifelong friendships with my teammates and um you know a few gold medals along the way but at the end of the day it's like when you're done that's it

and you've got to just kind of like figure out what you're going to do next because we can't retire and just chill the rest of our life we actually have to find another job or another passion to do but at the end of the day you give give give and you're missing out on just like i'm sure you understand weddings and funerals and birthdays and you know i don't know any other celebrations or events in the family um holidays like we just for years and years and and then um

It's really difficult to not be defined just by football. So that's a goal of mine to not just be defined as a soccer player. I want to also, you know. be defined as a really good human being, a great person, an amazing wife and daughter, sister and friend, most importantly. Back in 2017, when you brought that up, I started to figure out other things that I've always wanted to do, which was continue to get my coaching license. And in case that.

you know, soccer wasn't going to work out for me anymore. I was at least going to be able to, you know, do something else. With all this work that I've put into, you know, the sport, why go into anything else, right? After you've tried to perfect.

um your knowledge of the game for 30 plus years anyway um yeah then i then i started you know um AKFC which is you know my camps and clinics and I started to do that and work with a lot of kids and try to you know go around the country and see kids and help develop them at a young age.

during my camps and stuff because i know not everyone can come to the games and see us so i felt like hey this is my chance to kind of go out and you know teach the game a little bit and what i know and give back to the communities that have supported us through and through so Little things like that. You know, I really wanted to see what I really like doing. And then now doing broadcasting for Orlando City has been great because that's another piece that, you know.

I can be identified as you know just an analyst for the men's game and hopefully future women's game. So you know all these little things are really exciting to kind of you know jump into to see what i like and what i don't but yes just being defined as a footballer is something really difficult for us um i think that's why we have to go back to what we were speaking about before and using your platforms for issues that you believe in and figure out what you

really is your passion and what you want to do after football is done. Because when it's done, it's like you sit here and I see some of my you know former teammates at all different levels kind of struggle with the fact that they're finished or you know and they haven't thought about what's next And they've only done that for however many years. And now they're kind of just like, what now? So I'm trying to kind of figure out that process towards the end of my career now.

you know and not just wait till the very end and only have that soccer identity so it's it's a difficult balance and it's a great question i think we'll continue every day to find purpose

i mean each and every one of us in life but yeah i mean how i know this isn't you know this is your show but i i'm wondering how you you know find other identities outside of musician I think the hard thing for me, I don't know, there's like multiple levels because I'm, I'm pretty like, like socially.

phobic i don't know if that's what the best way to put it like just like uh social anxiety um yeah but i do still like crave community and so part of that has been i think fulfilled for me in feeling a sense of community with our fans which is great um but it's not like a good place to put like your self-worth you know so right um i think i i honestly think the

most recent kind of health and development for me in that sense has been just doing stuff like meditation and um growing in my understanding and experience of being a part of everything in the world and not just a separate mind which is like kind of my natural like movement and so Yeah. Being able to kind of see through the ego from that angle, um, is helpful because you can still enjoy all of the fun things about whatever it is that you are putting your time and effort and love into.

it gives you a little bit of a buffer and a distance from clinging to them. I think so. Yeah. I don't know if you feel this way either, but going along with that statement, I feel like it's, Sometimes it's difficult to not get stuck in this egotistical... I don't know, this lane of, okay, I play football and like, look at me, we're so great and grand. And I don't know, I feel like I try to stay as humble as I can.

because I just love the sport and everything else is kind of just coming along with that. And you don't really ask for all the attention. You just want to continue to play at the highest level. And so I feel like it's... you know some people at the highest level they still I feel like struggle with that and I'm sure you see it often as well but yeah that's also why I try to stay humble so I don't lose my identity that I've

you know I've held on to for so long ever since I was young and I think my high school friends keeping them around constantly every day in and day out it really helps as well yeah that's great um yeah i think there's there's definitely something to be said for not like you can control it a lot of times but i feel like people who have put in

maybe this is less a thing in sports probably probably is a lesser thing in sports but in like music or something like that there's definitely people who have kind of popped into the the limelight and not really had a path of struggle towards it and it ends up kind of eating them in the end a lot of times because there's there's kind of there's nothing to fall

back onto when everything doesn't go your way you know i feel like for anyone in professional sports there's just so much time that's been put in yeah yeah yeah you're absolutely right

I actually wanted to ask you about that. Just the dedication and drive that it takes for so many years to be in the position that you've achieved.

have you just had that internally was that kind of imprinted on you when you were a kid or i don't know yeah i think i've always had that drive and that determination to want to be to be good at something whether that be soccer or you know just in school or you know making my parents proud or whatever i just feel like i always had that and i was born with that drive to want to be successful and to want to be good

and at whatever i did so once i finally figured out that i was actually good at soccer which was around like high school i guess i mean that's when i was like you know getting more um accolades then when you know from when i was younger when you're younger it's like more of a team thing and you're like okay we won state cup or we won i don't know uh this tournament that tournament whatever and you know we're champions of the league but it's i guess when high school you start to really um

you know you're playing ODP and you're you know getting called up to the state team and the regional team and I didn't quite make it to the national team when I was young so I figured I'll take a different path. and so then i i guess i feel like i always had that drive once i really knew okay i could be really good at this and maybe i can turn this into you know a true like a real thing like i can go to go into college and get a scholarship and then maybe be pro

You know, at that time, the national team, I remember in 99, I think I was 11 years old, watching the Women's World Cup. And that was like my aha moment. Like, I want to be them. I want, I have that same drive to, you know. i'm watching them on the field and how you know badass they look and how powerful they were and how confident and consistent and i was just like this is so cool and i want to do that i want to be exactly that so

I felt like since then I was really striving to get to the highest level. And so I put all my energy into that. I also played volleyball and basketball, which I really enjoyed. And I also... like treated that like super hardcore as well and gave everything but i think in the end soccer kind of won out and and i went through college and and then turned pro after that and it just was kind of you know

happening all at once and every level I was just refocusing and continuing to enjoy it, most importantly. So yeah, I think I've always had that when I was young. always just wanted to be good at something and so with football i you know really loved playing it i loved the team mentality and having friends on my team so that's also what attracted me You know, playing an individual sport, I don't think I could ever do that. But yeah, I've always had that drive at such a young age.

and maybe my brother helped a little bit i would chase him around and um you know he would play soccer with me so he would kind of beat me up along the way and so i kind of built that strength So I was happy about that. And I just wanted to do anything that he did. So we would always compete. So I think I've always had that competitive nature. Do you just have one sibling? Yeah, I just have an older brother. We're only 13 months apart. Oh, nice. Yeah, we're really close. Our youngest two are...

15 months apart 16 something pretty pretty close yeah it's uh it's great most of the time yeah i know right there's gonna be those days but in the end we're now we're we're really really close so it's good We constantly are reminding them, like, look, this is going to be your friend your whole life. You've got people coming, going like, yeah, I know you're mad at them right now, but like, you're going to grow up and you guys are going to be.

tight yeah yeah and they're already i mean they're already so great to each other when they're not killing each other you know it's definitely on on or off

Kind of side note, I'm just going to ask you since I'm talking to you. So my oldest daughter is, she's a great keeper and she's playing club right now. She's going to go into... high school next year um did you play club and high school did you do yeah okay i i get um upset when kids nowadays can't enjoy both and i feel like with this whole ecnl thing and this whole like i don't even know what that is the whole model it's just this it's just a small like um system in the club system so

there's like five or six different like affiliations to club teams that you can be in like different groups and that's just one and it's probably one of the most popular and And I feel like a lot of teams now think if you're not in the ECNL, like you can't, you're not good enough or you can't like make it to the highest level or it's just kind of, I don't know.

I feel like there's so many different ways to get to the national team and so many different pathways to even just be a professional player that so many of us have taken along the way that there's not one right way to do it. And I mean, I quit ODP when I was...

16 and i was like this isn't fun this is too much money and from my parents and they're also dragging me around all up and down the east coast for what like i'm not even enjoying it and i can find a different way to get to the highest level so I feel like I get upset because a lot of parents or a lot of club coaches aren't allowing those kids to play high school.

I loved high school. I thrived in high school. I thought it was so cool to kind of have that different experience with a different coach and different players on a different level and I think I learned. a lot during both. I feel like club team, we only trained like twice or three times a week. And then high school was every day. So I feel like it was just, I don't know. And it's a short amount of time.

We were in the spring for high school. I don't know what it is for your daughter, but I don't know. I get a little upset because I feel like... playing different sports as well in high school really helped, you know, helped me learn different footwork skills or different hand-eye coordination skills or playing volleyball and getting my you know footwork right and playing basketball it's a similar style to soccer

just obviously less amount of people on the court and I don't know I just feel like I learned a lot of you know techniques and and specific like technical things that I now apply to soccer and that's what has helped you know me and be so successful and so good um individually so I feel I don't know. I, I love high school and I think it's just a cool experience for everyone. Yeah. I think the hard thing for us is trying to figure out like.

like i don't love club just personally because it's so intense but like right the only the only reason she's doing is because she was like doing really well at her like aso thing and then there wasn't a team for the year that she was going into and we're like oh man like i guess we gotta do this but she's done great in it and i i feel like

Part of me wants to be like, yeah, just do high school and yeah, you can play another sport or you can do the off season or whatever and not do club for a bit. But do you think that's like, is that like ruining her opportunities? Like, uh, if she wanted to play in college or something.

I feel like with club team, you get seen more from college coaches. But now during the pandemic, they're not really like no one's really allowed to go to these tournaments or I don't even know if they're happening. And I think they're doing like, you know, FaceTime visits now with like college players. And so I feel like it's a bit adjusted now. I do think that club, the only reason why club is great.

for college is that a lot of college coaches go to these club tournaments uh scouting and that's how you get seen so i feel like you know it depends on what tournaments that you enter but you can also reach out to those college coaches and send like videos they do a lot of parents do that now send video clips and things of games um you know that your daughter plays in yeah that they can see or i don't know things like that but

Yeah, I think club is really beneficial, but I also think high school is just enjoyable because it's like this camaraderie that you build with your school and your team. And I don't know, it's just a different... kind of mentality and motivation of what you're fighting for yeah i think because it's more so like you're fighting for the whole student body rather than just like you know your club team and i just i think that's really cool

yeah i think in the end of the day just got to keep doing what we're doing which is kind of letting her decide what she actually wants you know like if she wants to push for it cool exactly support you and but i don't i don't want to be running around and doing club if it's not like...

right what you're loving doing right my parents were exactly like how you're how you just said it um they just said listen like we're here for you and we're supporting you you got to tell us what you want to do and what makes you happy and that is most important like if you're having fun great

let's do it but we're not pushing you either way and i really respect that and i think that's the way to go because a lot of players if they do too much they stop playing at like 15 16 and they're like i'm burnt out i don't want to continue this has been a lot and like it's not fun for me anymore so they just yeah especially you're like developing like your social life and like yeah trying to figure out what

you actually like doing and if you have no opportunity to do that right yeah i wanted to ask you about what it's like representing the u.s in like a global sense both the good and bad because i imagine there's a really great feeling and then there's a complication to that with just what yeah this actually looks like a lot of times and how that's perceived abroad um yeah i'm so proud to represent our country um It's been difficult this year and within our leadership of the country has been hard.

You know, but when you put on that jersey and you've worked your entire life for those moments and you never know if you're ever going to have that opportunity again, I think that you just think of all the people who you're playing for, not only yourself, not only your family and friends, but you. as a whole and all of our supporters and fans and just represent our countries like a whole different level. And it's a different sense of pride that I have and I carry.

um you know don't take it lightly and i'm so grateful every opportunity because you know you never know if it's going to be your last game so you have to you have to give everything every single day

And you could go into one camp and then not go into the next and start one game and then come off the bench the next. And so you really, when you put on that jersey, it's like a whole new feeling of, wow, I'm not only just playing for... you know myself and my family but i'm playing for you know you and um your friends and your family and in our country as a whole and so it's a whole different level and i think especially at a world cup

You feel like you're on a whole new level and you're so powerful and you're so motivated because you know every single individual in the United States has got your back. And it's rooting for you and it's cheering for you. And so I think we use that a lot of times as motivation to just go out and crush it. So it's an amazing feeling. Obviously, it's difficult now.

you know, with the leadership and, but pushing that aside, it's about the team and it's about winning and it's about finding success and moving forward as a group. And I think, you know. Anything we give as individuals to help the team be successful is, is, you know, what's most important. And, and we all carry that with such pride. Yeah, that's cool. I feel like it's a unique opportunity to.

represent in sports in in a way that you're able to because the there's like the reality of a country and then there's like the ideal and the idea of a country and i think whenever you get too proud of like the reality like things get get bad rather than always pushing for like the ideal and saying like what we are striving to be is always better than where we're at. And, um, I feel like you're able to, in that kind of arena represent and call people up to, um,

You know, the, the, the ideal that, that, uh, I would hope we're all striving for. Yeah. Um, have you experienced much anti-American cinema when you've been overseas? Only when we went to Brazil, because one of my former teammates had made a big stink about Zika at the time. And that was just an unfortunate situation and kind of started off the whole trip.

um pretty poorly so that was the only thing i think all of brazil was just attacking us left and right um or just not brazil as a country but just you know fans and supporters of of the game and i think they were you know they had a bad taste in their mouth you know when we were kind of showing up around so i feel like that was the only time that i felt

You know, it was bad. Any other time, I haven't really experienced it other than just like, you know, going to countries or playing in a World Cup and fans just supporting their own team. A lot of fans around the world support us too. So you always feel like it's a home game anyway, no matter where you play. But no, I think that was probably worse in 2016 at the Olympics. Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like I've never really felt it in general either, traveling. There's always been a sense of a welcoming of us as individuals and not as representative of everything. bad that's going on uh right in our country so i've been appreciative of that and also i feel like before we move on just to um finish on what you had asked initially um

about feeling that pride and playing for your country. And I feel like we also want to win and be successful and continue to push the needle because people listen when you win and you're successful.

um i think it's so important to continue that success so that we can finally you know or continue to fight for for these beliefs that we you know um fight for and these issues that we believe in because you know people then listen and you can continue the conversation if we weren't as successful i don't know where we would be right now but i think it's so great that

No matter what's going on within our country and our leadership, we continue that work and continue being successful so that we can get what we deserve eventually. Yeah, no, that's great. I mean, I think you can see that.

you guys were able to represent in a way that was very much, uh, your own way and not, um, not a way of just acting like, um, I don't know how to put it, but I think just getting back to like, you, you were always pushing for that ideal and not settling into like, Oh, Hey, we're going to, I mean, obviously. Megan was very outspoken about that herself, which was great. But I just, I loved, you talking about winning is getting at that where it's like,

you can say that stuff when you're not winning and it's like, okay. But when you're, when you're winning, you have, you have like a bigger voice to say it with. It makes a bigger impact. So yeah. People are listening. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting in the way that you see that as you guys have been fighting not just for yourselves in this and not even just for the idea of... uh the country but for the way that it then impacts all the people that come after you right right absolutely absolutely

Hey, everyone. If you're already supporting the show through Patreon, thank you so very much. If you aren't yet, I wanted to let you know that you can now become a patron and support the show for as little as $5 a month. Becoming a patron can provide you with a variety of perks, including access to additional content like song lyric breakdown episodes, Q&A episodes where you can submit...

questions for me to answer, additional conversation episodes that won't show up in the public feed, and access to our Discord board where we're building community and engaging in deeper conversations around the show. Last year I spent some time talking with my good friend and guitarist of my band, Thrice.

Tepe Taranishi. We talked about photography, bread, skateboarding, and how he finds beauty in the world. Here's a few clips from that episode. When you're taking a photo of something that you think is cool, you're trying to document, at least for me, Something that you've seen in real life an actual life. Yeah that you think is beautiful and worth capturing So you pull the camera up to your face you take that picture and then you move on use you stay in the moment you stayed

involved in what is happening. You don't get sucked into an image of what you were looking at now. Yes, whereas a digital camera, you take the freaking picture, then you're sitting there, you're reviewing it on the back of the camera, then you might retake it and look at it again, and then it just pulls you away from that moment completely.

In a grain of wheat you have pretty much everything you need in life, but you don't get any of that practically unless you Ferment it which then unlocks all these amazing things for you and makes it not only more digestible but also more healthy for you and i just the idea that you can literally take flour in water and then ferment it using the like natural bacteria just like

around you in everyday life and then create bread out of literally just that was like really fascinating to me and that is actually better for you yes If you're digging this podcast and want to join me and others like you in our pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful, then joining us on Patreon is the best way to do it. Sign up today at patreon.com forward slash carrythefirepod. All right, let's get back to the show.

Do you have any consistent practices or habits that are helpful for you? Yeah. Actually, I do. This year, I have done more. you know mental um work i guess um for you know we ash and i actually go into the gym we'll work out or we're going on the training field we'll work out but then we do um you know like a mental stress relief kind of session um to really um like a little mental therapy session to really help kind of you know

lower our anxiety and just kind of do these breathing exercises which has really helped and i know you mentioned that before you know you've done some meditation but i feel like specifically after training will do that which has really helped me kind of just come back down to zero and you know like just end the training off really well and just very calm.

and then i can kind of continue the day so it's been great doing that um i need to do it every day i don't necessarily do it every day but i think that has really helped me especially playing at the highest level and all the stressors kind of that we experience so that's been great and um just trying to eat right i know now the holidays like i can you know drink a glass of wine

uh often um so i you know obviously i have to just focus on that and making sure every single day that's consistent so my nutrition is consistent because you know being an athlete is a 24-hour job So it's not necessarily just a two hours a day you're training or actually having to do recovery and, you know, lifting and on field training and, you know, off field training. And it's just, it's just a lot.

So, yeah, those two things have really helped, especially in the off season now. And then sleep, too. Sleep is important. I'm bad with that one, but I'm slowly learning how important it is.

getting older just being like oh it actually hurts now i know i know and uh and i'm grumpy if i don't sleep enough right right yeah um yeah it's funny like it was a couple years ago when i really realized like i think it was ages of my kids too and i would just i could feel how short my like wick was i didn't i was just like this is not good i need to sleep

Yeah. Yeah. And it's crazy. Sleep's one of those funny ones where it's like, yeah, everyone you're like, I know, but there's study after study that comes out every year. That's like, no, no, no, no. It's like way more important than. Right.

we've understood anything else yeah yeah yeah that's great i was wondering with you talking about doing like breathing and stuff after working with how hard you work i almost wonder if it would be helpful too in um like physically as like not getting like keeping like tension in the body after you're working obviously physical physical stretching but just how

how connected our, our brain and mental state is to like our actual body state at any given moment. Yeah. Yeah. All right. This is my last question. Okay.

What are some of the ways that you regularly encounter beauty or seek it out in your life? Oh, cool. That's a really good question. I've never really thought about that. Beauty in a very broad sense. Yeah. could be hanging out with your dog i saw you had a cute puppy yeah that honestly i i was just gonna say that um i think taking the dogs to the park and letting them just like

run all over the place and get their energy out. I've really enjoyed that. And also going on long bike rides with Ash. That's been really nice because, you know, we obviously can't do much. We don't really leave the house too often.

i know a lot of people don't but um you know we don't go out and about too much but going on those bike rides either at sunset or mornings is really nice and i find beauty in a lot of things this year that um kind of figuring out that we don't really need a lot of other things that we have and we can live with a lot less and so I think it's been nice to kind of clear out some of the nonsense in the house and some of the things that we don't need give them to people who do need them and then

So probably those three things, I guess. And then you ultimately, like, I feel better. All right. That was so fun talking to you. Thank you for taking the time. It was so fun talking to you, too. I appreciate it. Thanks for inviting me.

All right. Thanks. Bye. If you have a moment today, it would help a ton if you could leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. And share this episode with a friend. Be sure to follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at CarryTheFirePod. I want to thank my producer, Andy Lara, and all of our executive producers, Chris Reeves, Tony Panaro, Sam George, Reed Duchess, Thomas Fortcourt, Shamir Hassan, Amy Armstrong, Luis Rivera, Gabe Munoz, Cameron Lane. I'll see you next time.

Josh Malara, Eric Gonzalez, Matthew Alcon, and Tiffany Payne. Thank you all so much for carrying the fire with me and I'll see you next time.