Anne-Marie Anderson

Coming up next on Passion Struck. I think in working with your inner critic is acknowledging it's always going to be there, John. Your inner critic is always going to be alongside you chirping away. You need to be able to recognize when it's talking and take away its ability to make decisions for you. You can explore the ideas, but your inner critic does not get to be a decision maker.

Yes. So here's the first thing to consider. When I talk about risks, I define in the book that there's risks that are reckless and risks that are worth it. And risks that are worth it is anything that drives you closer to your values, vision, and who you want to be. That leaving my job and moving across country was worth it to me at 26 when I didn't own any property, didn't have a family, no kids.

If I were to do that same thing now, that would be reckless. So first define those two. Then as you're talking about, you may have somebody who's making a nice living and really not enjoying their work, but they're thinking, well, if I leave this, that could be reckless for my family.

Then you want to explore what it is that you really enjoy and that you're good at and how you can get there in a worth it kind of way. And for me, if you have someone who's unhappy, let's say in their job or their current situation, what exactly is it about it that you're unhappy with? Is it the actual work? Is it the location? Is it the people that you work with? Is it the field altogether?

Because you need to pinpoint what it is in order to change it. And then I have a series of exercises throughout the book to help you narrow the focus. Because I'll tell you this, John. There's always, after all my research and everybody I've talked to, there's always one of four things that stands between us and the thing we want to do, the life we want to lead, what we want our life to look like.

It always comes down to one of these four. Fear, time, money, or your inner critic. Every time. And so diving into those and exploring what it is that's been stopping you can be incredibly powerful in breaking free.

Absolutely. I mean, if you think about the example I gave you moving to Los Angeles, had I done that for money, I really think I wouldn't have had the money. It wasn't about that. It was internal the way I wanted my life to be. Look, if you're doing and taking a risk because you want to impress somebody, understand they may not even notice, right? You're thinking in your head, Oh,

I want them to be proud of me. They may not even notice. And the easiest way to check yourself about whether your motivation is of pure intent is, is it going to give you more of what you love in your life? Whatever that is more time with your family, more autonomy, even if it's going to give you more money in your life, why do you want the money? What are you going to do with the money?

But that's the easiest check. Does it give you more of what you love in your life? If it's an external motivation to make somebody proud, doesn't fit that definition.

Why did you start the podcast? Why did you start it then? With people telling you like it's futile.

And that's exactly what you've done. Perfect example, John, of like pure intention. It gave you more of what you love, which was helping people. That's the same way I feel about the book. Like I get so excited when somebody does the thing or takes the risk. And so for me, I always tell people, some of us build backwards. I wouldn't have gone into accounting. I can't add.

I faint at the sight of blood. I don't like the idea of working inside all day. I started eliminating things. All these professions, I love sports. I like talking to people. And so when the professor said that. I didn't have a plan B. I heard him and I thought, well, that's really a bummer. For you guys literally, I can't believe it.

When I look back, that's my thought when we were in there, but I don't have another choice. And that's why I kept pursuing it. What's your other choice? I always tell people, if you have a plan B, go do that because plan B is always easier. But for me, I knew this was the only thing I ever wanted to do.

And so I was going to have to figure it out no matter how many times somebody told me no or what the odds are.

Yes.

I love that question. Because if you ask anybody in television about me, they will say that I'm prepared. I'm known for my preparation when I'm preparing for a game. And it's all a safety net. It was interesting when you were talking about the person giving the TED talk. that you said she did it 200 times and failed. Whereas I would ask, is it really failure?

Is it data or information she's getting in order to get it to exactly where she wants to go? Preparation is everything. And here's the thought when it comes to audacious moves. I don't want anybody leaping off the cliff to, oh, I'm going to succeed at this. I'm going to put all my money in this and just jump into it. It's about the careful preparation.

What are the steps I need to take in order to get there? What are the backup plans that could go wrong? That for me is where all the good stuff is in terms of planning and preparing. When I go on air to call a game, because I'm still a working broadcaster for ESPN, people will see me on the air for two hours calling a basketball game.

But it's been four days of preparation or researching, talking to coaches, talking to players, interviewing before I ever get on air for those two hours. The game itself, the speech itself, the cog is the reward. It's the preparation where you really dig in and grow the most.

Absolutely. Barbara Walters, for example, and her team. Careful preparation, and then the ability after that to be flexible. Because you can prepare and have all your questions and then you get an answer you don't expect and you want to just stay with your questions. I see that all the time with the ability to be flexible. Well, you can apply that to any profession, right?

Here's what you plan to do. Here's something that comes in that's different, some data, and you need to be flexible. in order to take your preparation and adjust to the current situation. Yes, I think it's both of those things. It's the preparation and then the flexibility within it.

For sure. The other thing is when something does not succeed, show that to your children as well. An example immediately comes to mind where I had been booked to be a play-by-play announcer for a series of games and I was waiting for my contract. And my contract didn't come and finally I asked the producer, hey, is there a problem? And they said, yes.

They said the general manager and head coach decided that He wanted somebody else. And I thought, well, I haven't even met him. You offered me the job. I cleared my schedule. You told me you were the person hiring and now somebody else. And I was so frustrated by that, John. I tend to cry when I'm frustrated. I don't hide it. That's just one of the ways I release it.

So I'm crying in my office afterwards, frustrated. And I decided I wasn't going to let that happen. I have no control over whether or not he hired me, but I did have control about being able to talk to him and say, here's who you're not hiring. And so I walked out of my office through the kitchen. My children were pretty small at the time. They see me upset.

And I said, never just let somebody deny you something without asking questions. And I went to the airport, bought a ticket at the counter, flew up to as a short flight, met this particular boss and said, Hey, I wanted to have a conversation. with you about that. And it was really important for me to show the kids that I was going to have that conversation with him. I did.

And he said, look, it's not personal. I said, of course it's personal. I'm a person. I just wanted you to know who you're not hiring. At the end of the meeting, he did hire me. He gave me a raise as a matter of fact, before I even started and I came back. And my kids got to see that. Those are my favorite moments.

When they get to see their parent, their father is the same way, be resilient, be resourceful. I'm hoping that on my gravestone, my kids will see the words, work the problem. Because that's what I tell them all the time when there's an issue. Okay, do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged? And if they say they want to be helped, I say, great, let's work the problem.

The fourth barrier that I find really common, and everybody has it, is your inner critic. That voice in your head that is telling you, ready, you don't have all the qualifications. Maybe you're not good enough. Other people are more qualified for the thing that you want to do. And in picking my 12-year-old up from school one day, and she gets in the car, hi, honey, how's school?

And she says, I'm stupid. I can't do math. And oh, by the way, I'm fat. And I was like, yo, that's a lot in one moment. And when we talked about it, I asked the questions that a lot of people would ask at that point. Would you say that to me? Would you say that to somebody else? No. Why would you say it to yourself? But we went a step further.

And I said, okay, if that's not something that you would normally say, then that's not your voice. And a lot of psychology experts I realized have advised the same thing where you separate that inner critic from yourself simply by giving it a name, just the simple fact your brain will recognize another name. So I asked my daughter, what would you want to call that voice? And she said, Jerry.

And I said, okay, so if Jerry were to come up and whisper in your ear, You're dumb. You can't do math. And oh, by the way, you're fat. What would you say to Jerry? And she said, I would say, shut up, Jerry. And so if I hear her struggling doing homework saying, oh, I can't do this. I will literally yell for my office. Shut up, Jerry.

Just to take her out of the moment and recognize it's only one thought. It's just a thought. That's all the power that inner critic has. It's a thought and you can get curious about it and explore it. But the most important thing I think in working with your inner critic is acknowledging it's always going to be there, John. Your inner critic is always going to be alongside you chirping away.

You need to be able to recognize when it's talking and take away its ability to make decisions for you. You can explore the ideas, but your inner critic does not get to be a decision maker.

I think that they are absolutely brilliant with not giving a vote. To anyone who shouldn't have a voice that's a saying from Laura Gassner, who's a friend of mine and an author and I love that phrase because. People want to talk behind your back. They want to criticize what you're doing and everything. They don't get to have a they shouldn't have a voice in what you're doing.

So you don't give them a vote. I think what I see with the elite athletes, I know what I see with the elite athletes. They're not even thinking about the person criticizing. their performance or the way that they're doing because that person isn't going where they're going. So they're especially astute at blocking out anything from someone who they don't give a vote to.

They have very small circles. the elite athletes do in terms of who gets to have input on what they are doing. And it is a tiny circle. It's what I would call your front row. The people that you trust to give you feedback, everybody else is out of the equation.

Absolutely. The front row, by my definition, consists of the people that will push, challenge, uplift, tell you the truth about where you're going. And the front row maybe doesn't contain your mother or your best friend because they want you to be safe. They're the people who want you to be safe. They don't want you to be hurt. It's a great support system to have, but not necessarily your

front row and you will find once in a while you let somebody in, you start listening to someone's advice who really doesn't have your best interests or maybe has jealousy or competition. You pluck them out of your front row and you'll be able to know who's in your front row by this. We always talk about friendship as the person you would go to when things are really bad.

Your front row consists of people that you would go to as well when things are great, when something big happens and you want to share it with the world. And you're not going to tell everybody because people might get jealous or brag. Your front row are the people that you can call and say, this happened and I'm so excited about it. I wanted to share it with you.

And your front row will say, heck yeah. The mosquitoes, the gnats, the people who don't even deserve to be in the room have to be weeded out of that garden.

I'm so glad you asked that. And John, here it is. Nobody's ever asked me that. So great question. All right. We have a very increasingly individual society, right? Every people working from home, you can order things to your house. You can ask chat GPT for some suggestions. We're able to be in our own bubble and it leads to what our surgeon general has called a loneliness epidemic.

So if you take that into a corporate setting, where you are separate, maybe not even working in the same space, you're going to get this kind of isolation by developing a front row of your trusted advisors, people who are challenging themselves. They don't even have to be going the same place you're going. They just have to be going somewhere, trying to grow.

you are able to give significance to them, right? Significance. They have a worth and a value for you. You hopefully are bringing a worth and a value for them and it reconnects. So when you've got disengaged employees, it's because they don't have that connection to other people who they believe are also trying to better, trying to engage with themselves, with, I mean, with each other.

When you ask somebody, hey, John, I'm trying to write a book. I know you've written books. And I'm wondering if you would be in my front row, if I can ask you some questions. When you ask them, and I do use those words, front row, it gives them a place in your life and a connection. People take it very seriously once you tap them. And say, I'm going to need your help with this.

I can't do it alone. It's remarkable. The investment people will have within corporation, create corporations, creating those teams, allowing the best leaders. Like Phil Jackson, for example, I think was an excellent coach. They weave individuality into a powerful group culture by creating systems within that allow for front rows.

Well, that's brilliant by you. And it's about, again, giving them significance. So these employees with their former supervisor didn't have really worth as I'm listening to you because their ideas weren't valued. And so it's about letting them know. Here's some ideas that I have. I want your individual strengths.

Thanks, John. I'm excited to talk with you.

You have a different strength than you have and you have a different strength and I want to hear all of it so that we are building upon each other. Employers have to create a space to be able to have a yes and, like an improvisational attitude.

where your ideas are welcome no matter how outlandish they are, because even though we may not use that idea specifically, it may lead us as a team to something else more innovative. The innovation happens in groups. The innovation does not happen no matter what people say, on chat GPT when you're alone. Innovation happens when you're talking with other people about ideas.

And yes, you can get some help from AI, but the innovation is the back and forth of ideas. And as somebody who has a staff underneath them or people that they are overseeing, you have to welcome their ideas and make it open.

So audacity in my mind has three components to it. The first is mindset, which really John is just about optimism, believing that you're going to be okay. No matter what happens, you will survive that outcome. The second is audacious action. It's behavior. You have to do something. You can sit around and be optimistic all the time.

When people start to take an action, no matter how small they take control, whether they're saying no to something, whether they are carving out time to look for a mentor, to ask questions. When you combine those two together, the mindset and the action consistently, the optimism that we're going to try this. And if it doesn't work out the way I want to, I'm going to survive it.

I'm going to learn something. And here's the action again and again. you start to build an audacious identity. When you have an audacious identity, one bold risk leads to another, leads to another, because you feel a freedom to try new things because you are comforted knowing you'll be able to deal with the outcome.

I think that's the most important place for people to start when they're building an audacious life.

It's about all that planning. You talked about preparation earlier, what we were talking about. That's it. It's not just your front row. It's making sure that you have the finances set up so that you're not making a reckless risk. That's very important. It's about going through time as one of the barriers, the urgency fallacy.

I started ESPN when I was 21 years old in a temporary position. It was only guaranteed for six months. And I think to start my professional career in a competitive way, knowing that I needed to compete in those six months and really shine and stand out and be bold and different, shaped the way that I approached my career.

And listing things that are urgent and things that are important because important leads you closer to your values and visions. And making time for what's important instead of getting caught just on urgency. It's about money, which is another barrier. And recognizing that sometimes you're going to have to spend some money to get some energy back.

Maybe have somebody do some things that you don't enjoy doing so that you can continue your audacious stream. You don't just jump saying, here's what I want to do. And so let's throw caution to the wind. You have these systems in place along with your front row. So you have checks and balances really for lack of a better term to help you stay on the path.

Instead of one reckless swing of the bat, you have many different options. in terms of trying again and again, as you figure out the best way to get where you wanna go.

Absolutely. That's exactly it. Look, playing B is easier. It's always easier. Just keep amending plan A is what I did throughout my career. Just, hey, if this isn't working, I'll make an amendment here or there. But we're always going to default to what's easier. And here's the problem with plan B. It wasn't what you wanted to do anyway. It's your second choice.

So you're really not going to be that fulfilled doing plan B. So that's why I keep saying just amend plan A.

Thanks so much for having me on, John. My website, annmarieanderson.com, will tell you a lot of what you might need, especially if somebody wants to hire me to come speak at a keynote. The book, Cultivating Audacity, is available wherever you buy your books, Amazon, Target, Barnes & Noble. And you can always find me on Instagram as well, annmarieandersonTV or cultivating underscore audacity.

Thanks for having me. I enjoyed talking with you, John.

As a former athlete, I'm used to competing and to be able to, there's no time to warm up. There's no time to be shy, which I was when you're pitching story ideas for ESPN's Sports Center. I think right out of the gate, I learned quickly that I needed to be willing to take some bold risks in my career if I wanted to succeed.

I totally agree with you. There's so much that can be learned from being part of a team at any level. That you take into business, I had a little bit of a unique situation going into college. I was a pretty good volleyball player and I was being recruited by a lot of the West Coast schools. I had talked to Hawaii and Long Beach and UCLA and such and then I broke my leg. And so all of my offers.

West coast went away. I literally went on recruiting trips on crutches with a broken leg. And that's how I ended up at Hofstra, a school I had never heard of before up to that point. Cause I'm a Colorado kid and I live in California now. And I think what I learned being there was the value of adaptation. It was a different level of volleyball at that point.

And I look now at all the kids transferred from one school to the other to get the best opportunity. And what I learned there at Hofstra was really how to work within a different system, how to embrace. I mean, New York is a different culture altogether, how to embrace a different culture. And I feel like that resilience, because we didn't win a lot.

And I learned how to reframe my relationship with failure, with losing at times, until by my senior year, we were winning quite a bit. I think if I had gone into a really winning program and sat the bench, by the way, I'm sure I would have. I maybe wouldn't have been quite as resilient as I ended up being by the time I graduated.

Yes. And thank you for your service, by the way, which academy did you go to?

Thank you very much for your service.

Completely, because I think in this country, we have this negative connotation of audacity. All right. I mean, it's you have the audacity to ask me that or the audacity to say that. Who do you think you are? I mean, my parents used to say that once in a while to me when I was a teenager. And then I looked it up and audacity by definition is the willingness to take bold risks. That's not negative.

Doesn't have any kind of a negative ringtone to it to me. In fact, my sister-in-law is from Argentina and she was surprised to hear that there is sometimes a little bit of a negative undercurrent with the word because in Argentina, audacity is all the positive things. Looking at taking bold risk, which is audacity, I don't think it's something you're born with, John. I think it is something...

that you have to cultivate and grow. And that's why that's the title, Cultivating Audacity, because it takes practice in order to take bold risks and have the confidence to do so.

sure because again it's about reframing what failure looks like i tell people that like to be oh i just i don't like risk i want to stay the same that's great if you're completely happy with every aspect of your life your health and fitness your relationships your work everything but the only thing that staying the same ensures is that there's no growth possible so if you want to grow in any one area of your life staying the same is not an option you're going to have to risk

Take information from that leap, whatever it is, and keep using it to drive you towards your vision and your values. That's really what it's about, is anything that brings you closer to your vision, your values, and who you want to be.

It's an interesting question. I feel like none of them paid off at the beginning. It was all about learning. I mean, my first time on air was in 78 million homes and I was horrible and I was afraid that I was going to be horrible and exposed and judged and embarrassed. And when I went on air, I was all those things, but I survived it. I mean, in terms of a bold risk that doesn't work out,

It depends on whether you're looking at the outcome. I mean, the audacity is in the action. The victory is in the action, not in the outcome. So I went on air and everything that I was afraid of was true and I survived it. And I got some resilience and some data to try to be better next time. As I look through my life and I look at any risk that I took, they all led me somewhere.

Does that make sense? I don't count any of them as failures or not working out at all, just became information for me.

I think that's a great example, John. Isn't that the worst? First of all, my sympathies, right? You give the speech and then it falls flat and you're standing there like the emperor has no clothes. But you got information from it. And there's nothing you can do. There's nothing you can do. You're standing there naked in your head. Exactly. But you got information from it and rebounded.

The incident you're talking about with my husband at the time was I was terrified that first time going on air, standing outside the stadium, sobbing. You want your reporter sobbing outside the stadium right before you go on ESPN2. It was terrifying. in 78 million homes.

And what I tell people is that if you catastrophize the absolute worst that can happen at some point, you're gonna realize that it's probably not gonna go that far. So the story that you were talking about, I said, I could be so bad that not only will I never be on television again, But I'll never be able to produce again, as you talked about, because nobody will listen to me.

And I'll lose my entire career in television. And if I lose my entire career in television, this is all I've ever wanted to do. So I will be a miserable person. And you will have no choice but to leave me because I won't be able to be a good mother to our children who haven't even been born yet. And I will die destitute and alone.

And he was like, wow, you went there, but once you catastrophize it, obviously I'm not going to die destitute and alone because I'm bad on a television camera one time. So once you take it to that ridiculous level, you can survive anything. And that's really what it's about is taking the action. And no matter the outcome, knowing that you can survive and make another decision.

Sometimes I feel like when we're going to make a decision, it feels like the last one we're going to make if this doesn't work out and it's not the case catastrophize, it'll make it seem a little bit easier.

The most audacious thing I did looking back, and I almost can't believe it, like that, the hubris of young people. When I was 26, I lived in Bristol at ESPN's headquarters and loved my job. When I was 26, I took a vacation to Southern California to visit my brother in February. And I was thinking, man, people are playing beach volleyball out there in February and I'm shoveling snow.

And so I went back to the headquarters and I said to my boss, I'd like to be LA Bureau producer. And he said, well, we already have an LA Bureau producer. And I was like, I know that's what makes this conversation so awkward, trying to chuckle it away. And as we discussed, he said, how about this? Give me two more years here.

And in two years, if we haven't made you LA Bureau producer, what have you really lost? And I thought, well, two years in my 20s. And so I gave him my notice. He called me impatient. I just knew, John, that I wasn't enjoying my life. I was enjoying my job, but not my life, my free time. And so I gave him my notice and I quit ESPN, an absolute dream job and drove cross country.

And I didn't know what I was going to do. I just knew I wasn't going to shovel snow. And when I got to Los Angeles, ESPN gave me some freelance work. As soon as I arrived and by the end of the year, I had been hired back at ESPN as LA bureau producer for double the salary. And that taught me because I didn't make the decision for money.

I made it for my life to be able to enjoy the quality of my life and having more money was an unexpected consequence.