Cultivating Audacity with Anne Marie Anderson

Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're running on liquid IV and Vitamin C powder. With all this traveling, I'm going to need all the help I can get to avoid a reappearance of the plague. It's Wednesday, February twenty sixth, and then on today's show, we're skipping the news to get you right to my conversation with Emmy Award winning ESPN broadcaster, speaker, and author Anne Marie Anderson.

So I hope you all do too. That conversation's coming out right after this joining us now.

She's a three time Emmy Award winning ESPN broadcaster, a speaker, and author of the new book Cultivating Audacity, Dismantled Doubt and Let Yourself Win. She's covered six Olympic NBA and MLB playoffs, the Super Bowl, and more, and has served as a play by play announcer on major networks including ESPN, ABC, NBC, Fox,

It's Anne Marie Anderson. Thanks for joining us. Thanks Sarah, good to talk to you.

You've been on a whirlwind for the book and I can't wait to get into that. But I want to start with Love Volleyball because you're part of the broadcast team for this inaugural season. How has this met or maybe differed from your expectations coming in?

It's incredible. These are the best athletes volleyball athletes in the world. You've got ten of thirteen US Olympians. Well, you also have Olympians from like Germany, Korea, Japan. It's been unbelievable, the best volleyball this country has ever seen.

Yeah, and it was five years in the making, this league, and I remember hearing rumors about it a couple of years ago. Obviously, Love is a part of this much

Yeah, because of course I don't see those shots, right, I'm going the game from the floor. But that's the thing that's so great about Love is that they're trying to do things different. Look, we're all athletes. What are you going to do if you're not coachable through it?

Yeah, which we didn't have a lot growing up, which is crazy. What have the crowds been like at the Love Games?

They're great.

It's been somewhat small arenas that they just sell out.

At this point.

I think they need to go to bigger arenas because the demand has been so huge.

That's really cool that that's already happening. Yeah, we had some folks from Love on before the league's first launched this year, and that's what they said. We wanted to do manageable sizes to really make the environment great for the games. But if they're already selling out and needing to expand, that's fantastic. What do you make of the

No, Oh, Sarah, I cannot explain why the field is so crowded. I mean, just like any lever of sports, you kind of wish it was all consolidated into one, but it is what it is, and at this point we will see kind of hoopervails and my money's on love.

Yeah. Have you spoken to any of the athletes about it, because on the one hand, it's so great that at one point you had to go abroad to even continue your career, and now there's all these opportunities in the States. At the same time, that's resources, money, opportunities, quality of play, that's being sort of split amongst many instead of focused.

Yeah.

Jordan Larson, who's the goat of volleyball, four time Olympic medalist, she plays in League one Volleyball and they had their home opener in Omaha recently and she said, I cried on my way to the arena because I've never slept in my bed before a game before. And then she'll go back and sleep again. It's in terms of talent being spread around I mean, again, there's so much talent. League one volleyball tends to go for the Olympians PVF somewhere that people that aren't quite that same level maybe

Yeah.

Yeah, it feels like on the one hand, it's like great that everybody's interested, but also, let's find out if the people who are launching all of these are wanting to be at the top of the pyramid instead of making sure that the pyramid is a solid foundation and one that will sustain, which usually means collaborating and working

The game while you were watching it.

But that's a lot of power to have to wait, you know, they have to actually wait for y'all sometimes. How have you personally looked at that and how you want to approach it?

Well, we've gone away from it a little bit because, as you said, taking feedback, what we do a lot now is mike the players, mike the announcers, and then are able to explain that afterwards. You get some great stuff of course in the huddles, and then some players on the floor as well. It's just a different way

Yeah, So there was more of that at the beginning, and lately you haven't done it as much.

You're saying no, not pausing play right.

I think what would be fascinating to your point, and we work on this on our show as well, is how do you balance the people who already know a lot and want to get a little bit deeper and then the folks who show up and listen. And we don't want to scare them away because they don't know all the nicknames and all the acronyms and all the whatever.

So we try to do a little bit of both.

In your case, I wonder if it might be useful for love to take one of the great games that's already happened and have a couple analysts rewatch it being able to and walk people through so that if you do want to get into the league and understand better and be a better fan of it, you have this opportunity via something that you can just go to on their website and rewatch with them explaining and walking you through it.

I love it. Have you brought that up to them now, but you should.

I will take the idea run with it, because I would watch that. I love watching volleyball, but it's not my wheelhouse, and so to have someone actually tell me what I'm looking for and how I can see positioning or strategy or things like that would be would be really cool where you could pause the game and not feel like you're missing anything.

For that so my wheelhouse. Sarah too that I'm kind of loving it. My son plays college volleyball and I just came back from his matches and it's always like the other mothers sitting next to me, going, what's happening, Yeah.

What's happening? So I do it anyway, I'll bring it up to them. Why not.

Yeah, what do you think the landscape's going to look like for pro women's volleyball?

And say five or ten years.

I think it's going to settle into one.

I really hope.

So. I do a lot of traveling overseas during the summer calling Volleyball Nations League, which is the professional teams from each country competing against each other, and the crowds overseas are insane. Brazil, Thailand, the Netherlands, the Philippines have been all over the place, Turkey, and I think that once the US gets one super strong pro league, and like you, that's my hope that things will consolidate into one. I think we're going to start seeing big crowds getting

That's really cool. You also cover NCAA volleyball.

How do you explain the massive spike in popularity for what we're calling college vibs.

I think we've got a couple of female leaders both at ESPN and Erica Galbreath and at Big ten in Sue Maritt, who understand the game. And I think when the high level folks understand the game, they understand what it is that viewers want to see. And I think between the two of them, creating more and more of graphics and helping people attach kind of like you were just talking about, gives people something to root for. Plus, Sarah, I've been doing this for thirty five years. The athletes

It's a lot of fun, yeah, because they hit hard, but not so hard that you can't possibly return it, so that allows for them.

I can't go on more. Well, we couldn't. But yeah, but.

Those great players, can you know the state? I think to your point, we often blame the product when we don't supply it with the context necessary for people to get attached to it.

We're so good at doing that.

In men's sports, we give all the shoulder programming and the pre and post games and the stories and the features, and then you watch the game and you have all that information that you bring to it. And then women's sports a lot of times, especially more so even a decade ago, it's just like, here's the game. We're not gonna tell you anything before or after. We're not gonna

It's paying off. One last quick thing about NCA Volleyball.

Some incredible retirements that we're getting all in a row here from some of the biggest coaches in the game, John Cook, Mary Wise.

There's another one. I'm forgetting right now. But what is this?

This seems like of course, I mean they've been coaching twenty five years. Mary Why's thirty four years at Florida, John Cook twenty five at Nebraska. Obviously, they've been in a long time and they've earned it if they want to retire. But of all times, when it's peaking like this, are you surprised to see them step away?

You know? The honest truth is no. The transfer portal is brutal, And how would you like to be somebody who's an absolute legend coaching in the game begging your eighteen year old to stay because.

They didn't play.

I mean, the transfer portal for me, in my opinion, is out of control, and it's taken away the ability of these legendary coaches to develop players. At this point, it's a constant emergency trying to keep your players happy, and you can't really develop because everybody's so impatient. So I think we're going to see some more longtime ogs retiring.

I don't blame the coaches, especially after thirty twenty five years, reacting to this drastic change and being ready to kind of move on. But I think I still prioritize the player experience, particularly when you might only have those four years, right, and when there was no transfer portal, there was no recourse for someone that was unhappy or even if they weren't playing, and that was right, they didn't deserve it at that school. Maybe they just want to play somewhere

Yes, exactly. I mean again, I think you played college sports as well when we played. At least the role when I played was you had to sit out a year. That's tough, right, And you're talking about the player experience, But I think we got rid of some protections that maybe will help people not or would help people not jump so fast. Transferring within a conference could be one

And it just clouds the field.

I will say this though, Sarah, there's great parody across the country. Yeah. No longer is it just a couple of teams that are going to win. This past season was as wide open as we have ever seen.

Yeah, I'm still in favor of the athlete, but I do think sometimes they.

Might even move too quickly for their own good.

So you're still centering and prioritizing the athlete, but in a sense of protecting their ability to see their movement for what it might be, as opposed to just bouncing when things aren't going their way.

But yeah, it's.

Complicated for sure, especially complicated for the coaches trying to develop players and grow programs.

We got to take a quick break.

When we come back more with Anne Marie Anderson, stay tuned. Let's talk about this book, Cultivating Audacity, Dismantle Doubt and let Yourself Win.

Why did you want to write it and why now?

I wanted to write it because I have seen so many people. It kills me when somebody says, ugh, I don't like my job, It just makes me so sad, like, what are you doing? Because of course your life isn't about your job, but a lot of us are afraid or we have another barrier that we let drive the bus. And I think, Sarah, we've been told like, conquer your fears,

Yeah, you know, I say this all the time, and I know it's not easy for everybody, and there are definitely stretches of life where you will have a job you don't like out of necessity. But I always say to people, if you are at a job for long enough that the complaining never stops, but you're also not actively trying to find a way to make it better or do something else.

Put up or shut up.

Either find the joy and every day do a gratitude practice of coming back from this job you don't like and reiterating the things you love about it so that you train your brain to find the good or leave, because if it's a constant stream toward the negative, you're just telling your brain to keep looking for the worst.

And it's going to get even worse.

And so yeah, I mean, I think we spent so much of our lives working to hate.

It is such a sad existence. So you've got to find a way out of that.

And I think that there are some lessons in this that would apply to everyone. And I want to start with the fear you just mentioned. You have a way of three ways actually of making friends with your fear, figuring out how it might be telling you something, and how to bring it with you instead of fighting it.

Can you tell us about that?

Sure? I was terrified my first time on air, absolutely terrified, and what I ended up doing was kind of catastrophizing. People love to say what's the worst that can happen? And I was like, you want the worst that can happen? And I went all the way to dying, destitute and alone, you know kind of thing. But I feel like sometimes when we catastrophize, our fears take it all the way

Was tragic, awful. What game were you calling?

It was a college football game. My first time ever live was in seventy million homes on ESPN two. I know I was supposed to be on regional televisions and stuff happened. I'd already been a producer, and so I was literally crying outside the stadium.

I cry when I'm frustrated.

I was crying outside the stadium. Well, I went on air. I was indeed bad, exposed, you know, judge, embarrassed. But you know what, I survived. Yeah, And I think that's a big part of audacity and taking those actions is that once you fail by whatever definition you want to use for fail, and you survive it, you can go back and try again and maybe get better. I always say my second time on air the next week, the only thing that was better was that it wasn't the first time.

Well, but also to your point, like we're so afraid of failure that we don't recognize that if you fail and it's not the end of the world, then the next time you don't have as much fear of it because you're like I survived that. It wasn't that big of a deal. I did one college football sideline reporting.

It wasn't for me. I did for Big ten Network. It wasn't for me. But I was trying to talk about a statue that the.

Illinois players run by and rub on their way onto the field for good luck.

And I'm not great with numbers, which.

Is why statistics storry's very clearly written out for me when I'm going to use them, I don't like try to mess about with them if I don't have a plan.

I like words, not numbers.

But I tried to say how much the statue weighed, and it was like way off. I was like eleven hundred tons or something like just completely wrong.

And I afterwards was like, oh my god.

One person on Twitter was like eleven hundred tons, like pretty sure that's and I Google like, oh my god, abs cletely wrong. I'm so embarrassed I made a huge mistake on television. Ever, literally no one else mentioned it. The boss has never mentioned it. Probably no one else even heard it or paid attention or knows whether it was eleven hundred tons. And I realized after that, like, even if I make an actual mistake that is inarguably wrong,

So I love that kind of like.

Derek, can I tell you one thing about that. The most generous thing when I was going on air was that a very well known Side nine reporter called me right before I went on air just to check on me, you know how. I was waing, like check on each other, and she said, how you doing?

And I was like, not good.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to vomit on national television. And she was so generous because she said, to me, no matter what happens, it's not going to be as bad as my first time on air, and I thought, oh my god, what does that mean?

What did you do?

Basically for her? When they tossed down to her, she was told, as we all are, you're the eyes and the ears of the year. What would they not know if you're on the fee? So she said, guys, I know you're talking about Omar Jacobs as a possible Heisman contender, but the fans down here disagree. They are chanting Heisman my ass, you suck you suck Bob back to you.

That's not exactly what they were looking for.

I was dying because that took me right out of my own head because I thought, you know what, you're right, I'm not going to curse on live television. And if she was still, yeah, he's really successful. So I thought that was so generous of her to share that with me.

I had that issue of like, I wish I had had someone giving me advice because I forgot that like what I was seeing and hearing down there, of course, wasn't what the fans at home were seeing and hearing. They had announcers throughout calling everything. So the starting quarterback got hurt, the backup went in. I knew his name. But when the coach came out to go to the half and I'm supposed to do the quick two questions, I said, you know, blah blah blah, and how about

Yeah, that's horrible, Sarah.

That's horrible, because how can you add otherwise if you're not like hey, like.

I said, it wasn't for me. Also, that job doesn't allow enough opinion giving, and I'm full of opinions, so I knew it wasn't for me from the beginning.

Exactly.

Mean, I do think I have such a producer me shoes on with us.

We've talked about this.

Our fear of failure gets in the way of us trying some things, and we need to learn how to microdose failure, like intentionally put ourselves out there and do things that we're going to suck at so that we stop making it so precious, which is something that I do. I struggle with being bad at things, so I just stop trying things that I might suck at, which is bad.

Okay, so let's get tood.

I want you to fail as many times as possible to desensitize yourself. I went out and sought out failure, like applied for jobs that I didn't think I would get because I wanted to desensitize myself.

Yeah, for sure, fail failed.

Okay, let's talk about another thing that you that you are sharing your wisdom about in this book, urgent versus important.

Urgent but important is how you get to your dreams.

Explain that, yeah, this is this is big because our whole lives are urgent. Right answer the text, respond to the email. You know, whatever it is everything we've been sold this bill of goods that like, if it's urgent, it must be important, but it's really not. Things that are urgent are reactionary. Right, we're responding to a request

It's so true because if you don't take out the garbage or some other little thing that feels like it has a deadline because it's overflowing, right, you'll survive, yep. But if you constantly put all those tasks ahead of starting to write the book you've always wanted to and then you keep putting it off forever, then you never

Checking off the list.

Yeah, daily micro habits. So outside of your nine to five, the things that you're doing to help you lead a more fulfilling life.

How did you come to decide what.

Those things should be and what your limited time should be devoted to when you're not at work.

Well, time and money are twins in my opinion, you have to know how much you have of each before you can distribute it. So for me, that's a lot about writing down exactly what I'm doing, then deciding the things that I don't enjoy doing expense reports and deciding I could trade money for energy, I could buy back time by putting some of that money in and then spend more time prospecting or getting better at play by

I have a friend who got a life coach after she left her job of eighteen years. She was ready to move on but didn't know what she wanted to do yet, and they were doing the opportunity to take a payment to leave, and she was ready to go.

So she met with a life coach to figure out what she wanted to do next.

And the woman said, over the next week or two, throughout your day, write down what mood you're in at various times, set a little alone, and when it goes off, say what mood am I in? And what am I doing? And then start to see if there's patterns. What are you around people whenever you say you're in a good mood or are you alone? Are you working by yourself? Are you collaborating? Are you in the car? Are you

Well, first of all, the definition of audacity is a willingness to take bold risks, So the fact that it can be used as an insult is ridiculous. My sister in laws from Argentina and it's not at all has no negative connotation there. But somehow we've got the old audacity to ask that question here. Part of it's reframing it for ourselves. You know, Sarah, my father was the best. When I was eleven. One time, one time he said to me, Amory, I think you're getting a little bit cocky,

Yeah, deal with it, right, You.

Should get confident in your own abilities, Yes, exactly.

But once I realized that that set me free because I'm not worrying about them. And City is a compliment, and I take it as a compliment, and I give it as a compliment. It's about reframing our ideas of what.

It means to be audacious.

I ask really powerful women this all the time, because I think there's a choice to live in the world you wish you were in, and then there's an acceptance that the moves you make and the decisions you make and the person that you are is still operating within a system. You're not in a bubble of what you

I don't believe in being audacious just to swing for the fences. Right. There's worth it risks, and there's reckless risks. They changed throughout your life, so you have to really look at it. When I was twenty six years old and working at ESPN and Connecticut, I loved my job, I hated the snow, and so I ended up asking to be La Bureau producer.

They said no.

I quit write the dream job at ESPN, moved to La. My intention was to have my days and nights be better. I didn't move for more money.

I didn't.

My decision to do that audacious move was intrinsic. It wasn't for anyone else. I ended up getting hired back as La burea producer. But even if I hadn't, I would have still survived. And that's the thing I always ask people, examine your motivation for wanting to make an audacious move, because if it is to have the revenge body, to make somebody else notice you, to prove someone else wrong, it's never going to work. I've never made a decision

Yeah, my audacity has more often come in the form of rejection than it has in the form of acceptance. In the sense of Ever since I was maybe twenty seven making not a lot of money, but had my first job in the sports world doing updates for a local radio show, every opportunity that I was offered I filtered it through will this make me happy every day? Or will this make me more money and more fame?

Coming out in June. Everyone can pre order it.

Runs in the Family Sarah Spain, June third, But about emotional DNA, which is the language that our family uses that becomes ingrained in us as a reality instead of a statement of opinion, and if it's repeated enough times, we just buy it.

Right. So, like, let's say your dad had always said.

To you you're too cocky, you're too confident, and had said it repeatedly, and you internalize that, and then you moved through life with an opinion about how you should behave. That's so common, especially for so many women, and so being able to reframe the things we've always heard and internalized and decide whether they serve us anymore is the magic. It's the magic of life. And I feel like this book is probably doing a whole lot of that.

You know, Sarah, It's what I call your front row, right, I mean, who are you listening to in your history? You have to dive into it, but your front row should be really small. And they're people that you've invited who are going to push you forward, you know, lift you up. It's probably not your mom, and it's probably not your best friend because they want you to be safe. And so I say, get a front row who's doing their own badassory somewhere, and who are going to give

So the front row isn't the people you put in front of you and our closest to It's if you're on a stage and they're sitting up front and they're going to give you an accurate read on what you're doing and how you're doing it.

That's how you're picturing the front row.

Yeah, it's really not necessarily your best ease at all. It's people you trust to tell you the truth. They don't have to be in your same area of focus or.

Anything like that.

They just have to be somebody that you trust to say. Look, Sarah, you're feeding into your own fears. Nobody actually said that to you. It's something that you're telling yourself. Let's dig in to why you're believing your inner critic in this moment.

Though, or even the opposite, which is, hey, you're fantastic at this, but this needs another rewrite. Yes, you know, the opposite two of like, hey, I'm going to be honest with you because you know I love you and respect you.

This isn't quite it.

You know.

The research actually tells us that if we want to embark in a significant behavior change or set a major goal for ourselves, the number.

One thing to do is to seek someone that.

You respect and that you consider to be slightly above you and tell them about it, because you're more likely to actually want to follow up on the goal to actually pursue the thing that you said you want to do. If you feel like somebody that has a little bit higher status than you might check back in and see. If it's a friend, if it's a mom, you know that they'll take it easy on you. All. You never actually ran that marathon, but that was cute that you

Yeah, And it might be a little audacious for you to reach out to somebody you don't know who's ahead of you, but the fact is we've all been there, so most of the time that person will help because somebody helped them along the way.

Absolutely that's the case.

Well, it feels like this book's going to help a lot of people, and you might be getting some calls, and Marie, from folks maybe me too, who are reading this book and saying, Okay, wait, I need more on this, Tell me more about this, help me with this cultivating audacity, dismantled doubt and let yourself when you were just on GMA talking to your pal Robin Roberts about it. I hope the rest of the publicity goes great. Thanks so much for hopping on chatting with us. Thank you, Sarah,

Welcome back Slices.

We love that you're listening, but we want you to get in the game every day too. So here's our good game play of the day. Grab Anne Marie's book Cultivating Audacity, Dismantle Doubt and Let Yourself Win. I don't know about you, but everything we talked about, from making friends with fear to urgency versus importance really hit home with me, So I think we could all gain a lot from the book. Also shameless plug number two of this episode and probably.

Four overall so far. Pre order my book Runs of the Family. It drops June third, which all of a sudden, feels really soon, So if y'all could go ahead and do that, that'd be great.

We'd love to hear Hit us up on email good game at wondermedianetwork dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two o four fifty seventy.

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I am once again asking, nay begging for somebody to bring a chop Shop franchise to Chicago. Every single time I come out West for cbspring training. I eat as many meals as possible. There, salads, bowls, smoothies, juices. Everything is amazing, delicious, nutritious. They are not paying me for this, but they really should holler at me.

Chop Shop.

I love you so much. Now it's your turn, rate and review. Thanks for listening, slices, See you tomorrow. Good game, Anne, Marie, Good game to all my fellow audacious women out there.

Cute to anyone who's got a problem with us.

Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Rutterer, Britney Martinez, and Grace Lynch.