#261: Mental Performance, Work-Life Balance, and the Rise to the Top - Maria Sharapova

Maria Sharapova (@MariaSharapova https://twitter.com/MariaSharapova) is one of the best tennis players in the world. She is the winner of five Grand Slam titles (two at the French Open and one each at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and US Open) and an Olympic silver medalist. Forbes named Maria the highest-paid female athlete of all-time in 2005 -- a title she's held for 12 years. Off the court, she's an ambassador for many of the world's top luxury brands and a number of Fortune 500 companies including Porsche, Nike, Evian, and Head. In 2007, she became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Program http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home.html (UNDP) and has made significant contributions to Chernobyl-related projects. Her first book, Unstoppable: My Life So Far http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374279799/offsitoftimfe-20, comes out this year. In this conversation, we went deep into tactics of training, mental performance, mental toughness, and much more. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Kettle & Fire https://kettleandfire.com/tim, the first shelf-stable (never frozen) bone broth that uses 100 percent grass-fed, organically grazed animals. Recommended by past guests like Dom D'Agostino and Amelia Boone, Kettle & Fire is slow-simmered for 20+ hours so the bone broth is packed with collagen -- 19 times more than its closest competitor -- and other key proteins and amino acids. Need that slow carb diet boost? Take a look at kettleandfire.com/tim for 20 percent off your entire order https://kettleandfire.com/tim! This podcast is also brought to you by Ascent Protein https://www.ascentprotein.com/tim, the best protein I've ever tried. Ascent is the only US-based company that offers native proteins -- both whey and micellar casein -- directly to the consumer for improved muscle health and performance. Because the product is sourced from Ascent's parent company, Leprino Foods -- the largest producer of mozzarella cheese in the world -- it's entirely free of artificial ingredients and completely bypasses the bleaching process common to most other whey products on the market. If you want cleaner, more pure, less processed protein -- which I certainly do -- go to ascentprotein.com/tim for 20 percent off your entire order https://www.ascentprotein.com/tim!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Maria Sharapova?

  Now would be an inappropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Kettle and Fire, which makes some of the best bone broth and certainly the most convenient that I've ever found. And I have a big stack of them on my kitchen counter right now. I have one container every morning. And this first came highly recommended to me by past podcast guests, such as Amelia Boone, who's a four-time world champion in World's Toughest Mudder, Spartan Race, etc. And Dr. Dominic Agostino, the incredible Hulk of scientific research. You should check him out, too. But there are a few things that make Kettle and Fire special. Number one, they are the first shelf-stable, in other words, never-frozen bone broth that uses bones from 100% grass-fed, organically-raised

• 1:04Tim Ferriss?

  animals. So you are what you eat ate, if that makes sense. So it's very important that you understand, if you're consuming animal protein, what they consumed. They also use longer cook times, 20-plus hours, which means more collagen and other nutrients. For instance, they contain 19 times more collagen than one of their close competitors, and an independent lab confirmed this. I'll leave the competitor's name out of it, because I don't want to get sued, but that's the case. And it is not frozen. So thanks to many millions of dollars of packaging equipment, their bone broth doesn't require freezing or shipping with dry ice. So like I said, it's just sitting on my kitchen counter in these boxes, and then I can heat them up. They're basically ready to drink. Heat them up on the stove

• 1:49Tim Ferriss?

  top or in a microwave, and you are ready to rock and roll. And you also get a nice payload of glucosamine, glycine, along with the gelatin and everything else that I mentioned. So check it out. I have been hugely pleased with this, and like I said, I've been consuming it every morning. It gives you about, I want to say, 20 grams of protein, which is a nice little slow carb diet boost, if that's what you're looking for. And I'll typically sip this out of a very large camping coffee mug as I do some writing or journaling. So there you have it. Check it out. It's delicious. I favor the chicken, but each to his own or her own. So check it out kettle and fire.com forward slash Tim and you can receive

• 2:34Tim Ferriss?

  20% off of your entire order. Take a look kettle and fire.com forward slash Tim.

• 2:43Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Ascent Protein, the cleanest, least processed protein I've ever consumed. And I have tried just about everything since well before the four hour body. I've started my day with 20 to 30 grams of protein. First thing that has been part of my routine. But I don't always have the time or necessarily the desire to cook an entire meal. So what to do? Protein powders can be a fast way to get this protein need met, but most products are full of crap. They're bleached, they have excess sugar, terrible artificial sweeteners, or just straightforward, low grade, low quality protein. Ascent contains zero artificial ingredients and the parent company is actually a cheese

• 3:27Tim Ferriss?

  manufacturer. So they produce their own native proteins. It's, it's really fascinating. And I've looked at their processing. It takes, or it took them about five years to develop. You can mix the protein as little as four ounces without any clumps or issues of mixability whatsoever. And they nailed the taste. They tested, for instance, for the chocolate version, 282 different versions. They put a lot of money and a lot of time into R and D for this particular product. And they have both whey and mycello casein. So if you want to say, improve body composition and recovery overnight, slow release, you can take the mycello casein, or in my case, whey protein, I would take post workout, for instance,

• 4:10Tim Ferriss?

  or in the morning. So check it out. These guys are really fascinating. Visit ascentprotein.com forward slash Tim. That's A S C E N T P R O T E I N dot com. Ascent like first ascent going up. Ascentprotein.com forward slash Tim, and you will receive 20% off your entire purchase. If you want a very quick 20 to 30 gram dose to start your day or after workout, this is a fantastic option. It is arguably the best that I've found. So again, check it out. Ascentprotein.com forward slash Tim.

• 4:46Tim Ferriss?

  Hello my little Magui, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show where it is my job to distill, extract, deconstruct the habits, routines, and tactics of world-class performers of all different types, whether they are billionaires, chess prodigies, elite athletes, or otherwise. And in this case, we have elite athlete Maria Sharapova. And man, oh man, did I have a lot of fun with this conversation. We got deep into the tactics of training and mental performance, mental toughness, and much, much more. You can find her on Facebook, Sharapova. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram,

• 5:28Tim Ferriss?

  @maria sharapova. Who is Maria Sharapova? She is the winner of five Grand Slam titles and is an Olympic silver medalist. She is only one of a handful of players to hold all four Grand Slam titles, including Wimbledon, US Open, Australian Open, and Roland Garros. She has held the world number one ranking for 21 weeks and has won 35 singles titles in her career. Forbes also named her the highest-paid female athlete of all time in 2005. She's now held that title for a record 11 years, or 12 years? That is a long time. Maria garners worldwide press coverage on and off the court with a social media presence

• 6:12Tim Ferriss?

  that includes 15.5, probably a lot more at this point, Facebook fans, more than 6.5 million Twitter followers, 2.7 million followers on Instagram. She serves as an ambassador to many of the world's top luxury brands and a number of Fortune 500 companies, including Porsche, Nike, Avion, and Head. In 2007, she became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Program, UNDP, and has made significant contributions to Chernobyl-related projects in her native country. In 2012, Sharapova flexed her entrepreneurial muscles and debuted her eponymous couture candy collection, Sugar Pova.

• 6:50Tim Ferriss?

  Most recently, she is the author of a book titled Unstoppable: My Life So Far. It describes her story in detail and was done in collaboration with an incredible writer named Rich Cohen, which we'll get into. But a few things that we don't get into, we don't talk about Maldonium, we don't talk about the sponsors, we don't talk about a handful of things that have been talked to death in the media. We dig into more of the specifics that you can use, the specifics that will inspire you and also instruct you that you can apply. So that was the focus and I really hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

• 7:34Tim Ferriss?

  It was a blast and it inspired me, in fact, among other things, to come to Florida where I am right now. I have compression sleeve on my right arm. Why? Because I'm doing tennis camp. I'm doing an intense immersive tennis program at the Human Performance Institute with Jim Loehr. That's L-O-E-H-R. And you should definitely check out the Human Performance Institute with Jim Loehr. It's phenomenal. And I've been playing my little heart out in tennis, which I've always wanted to do my entire life for the last two days and I have a few more days to go. But Maria really piqued my interest in this sport, which I'd wanted to do for so, so long and put off.

• 8:19Tim Ferriss?

  And I realized, you know, rather than doing jiu-jitsu and all these things that break my body, the gentle art, maybe I should try something like tennis. Golf, not my speed. I'd rather just go for a hike. But tennis? Yeah, I like the sound of that and I like watching it. So even if just to get a better appreciation of the sport so that I can see the nuances and details when watching tennis on TV. Tennis, said Sean Connery. Alright, I need to go have a drink and dinner. In any case, without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Maria Sharapova.

• 8:57Tim Ferriss?

  Maria, welcome to the show.

• 8:58Maria Sharapova?

  Thank you.

• 8:59Tim Ferriss?

  I am so thrilled that we were able to carve out time and I have so many questions. I will start with a rather simple one. I'm sitting here drinking tea. I'm having Charleston breakfast tea and I have heard that you also enjoy tea. Is that true? And if so, what type of tea do you prefer? What are your go to teas?

• 9:22Maria Sharapova?

  So I grew up in Russia where tea, it's a big part of our cultures, drinking tea in the afternoons with your grandparents. So I drank black tea, a Darjeeling type of tea that was made in the mountains in Siberia. And I would have it with raspberry jam that my grandmother would make.

• 9:45Tim Ferriss?

  That sounds amazing. So would you put the jam on a piece of toast and have it?

• 9:48Maria Sharapova?

  No, I actually, I put it in my tea and I still do that. And people look at me very strangely and suspiciously and I get it. But it's just so many memories of my childhood and yeah, I do that instead of sugar, which is pretty much the same thing. But

• 10:06Tim Ferriss?

  But it allows you, it gives you permission. And you mentioned Siberia, which is where I want to go next. You were born in Siberia, as I understand it.

• 10:15Maria Sharapova?

  Yes.

• 10:15Tim Ferriss?

  But your mother was pregnant with you while in Chernobyl. So could you explain what happened exactly?

• 10:23Maria Sharapova?

  My parents were from Gomel. It was a very small town, very close to where the Chernobyl reactor blew up. And during that time, just before my mother was pregnant with me in 1986 and they fled. There is not a lot of information about what happened during Chernobyl. My grandparents were living in Siberia at the time from my mom's side. And they said, you need to get out of there. They were able to get more information about the disaster itself than my parents were able to get to being so close to to the area and they left and that's why I was born in Siberia.

• 11:05Tim Ferriss?

  Your family fled to, I guess, Russia right after the explosion, but you ended up.

• 11:12Tim Ferriss?

  In, I guess, a warmer place, or at least depending on the season.

• 11:16Maria Sharapova?

  Yes, much warmer. Yes, when we're about two, my parents realized, well, this is not going to work out over here. And they moved to a resort town, Sochi, where it just had the Winter Olympics. And one of the, I mean, I still consider it one of the most beautiful places to visit because you have the Black Sea and you have the palm trees in the summer and just an hour away, you have these mountains where the Olympics were held and some of the best skiing in the world. My dad still skis there all the time. So, yeah, I definitely, it's one of the most peaceful places as well.

• 11:52Tim Ferriss?

  If I go to Russia, I've never visited Russia, I've always wanted to. Are there one or two places that I absolutely must visit in your mind? Are there any particular things that I cannot miss? I know it's a gigantic place.

• 12:06Maria Sharapova?

  Right. I would say Skip Siberia. And there's definitely not much to see or do over there. But I think from a cultural standpoint, I would definitely visit St. Petersburg. And it is still a place that I've never been to, if you can believe it or not. As much as I've traveled around the world, but my mom goes almost every year. A lot of my relatives are there and I just have this enormous, you know, respect for the culture and just the city and the people and the way they live. It's very different. And people always ask me, as I was born in Russia and I spent the first seven years of my life there. And I've lived in the United States ever since.

• 12:50Maria Sharapova?

  And, you know, I've never really looked back into living in Russia, but so much of my heart still remains there. And obviously, all of my grandparents and my cousins all still live there. And so it's a very big part of my life. And when people ask me what I think about the country, as much as I want to have an opinion, it is so large and it is so vast and there's so many opinions you can have about it. And I really just want to let people experience it on their own and come to their own conclusions. Because I think that's one of the greatest things of travel, is to not have expectations and to get there. To experience a new place, but St. Petersburg is on my list and that's definitely a city that comes highly recommended.

• 13:34Tim Ferriss?

  Why have you not been there? And I mean, maybe it's something like the, me growing up in New York, I'd never ever visited the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty until a friend from Germany visited. Is it like that or is there another reason?

• 13:48Maria Sharapova?

  Um, it's because of my schedule. It's so, I mean, I compete 10 months out of the year and it is, I pretty much go to the same cities every year because the tournaments are all situated in those same cities. When I have a holiday break, which usually consists of a couple of weeks only in November, I go somewhere warm, I just escape, you know, I put my phone away, I put just everything on hold a little bit and just let my body and my mind recover and it just never has been, never has come into, um, yeah, into my schedule.

• 14:21Tim Ferriss?

  Warmer places, we talked about a few and of course, there's California, there's Florida, and then there's Sochi. So going back to Sochi, is that where you were first noticed?

• 14:34Maria Sharapova?

  Yes.

• 14:34Tim Ferriss?

  Can you tell the story of how you were first found, as it were, as it relates to tennis?

• 14:41Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah, so Sochi, um, in the summer, it was very much a happening place. It was a scene and it was a lot of, a lot of people were coming there on vacations. We had a lot of little parks and outdoor tennis courts and Ferris wheels and all these types of attractions. And my father, who was not a great athlete, but he played hockey in, in school, um, he enjoyed playing tennis, he was not very good at all, um, did it for fun. And when I was old enough to go with him, and my mother had me when she was very young, she was only 20 years old, so she was still studying at the time. So on, on weekdays when my father didn't have to work, um, he would take me with him

• 15:23Maria Sharapova?

  to the, the local park and I would just follow along and we'd take the public bus to the courts and, um, and I'd just sit there and I'd watch him, you know, grind it out with, with a competitor of his and, um, and then I'd, I'd see all these little kids playing on. On the side and they were just hitting balls against the wall and um I didn't have I mean I I didn't have a racket of my own and and the one that I was able to get was so much bigger than than myself. So that didn't really work out, but I I immediately something like something drew me to it. Something drew me to this like repetitiveness of seeing these kids try to hit the ball against the strings of the racket and see it come back from the wall um. It was very fascinating. It was like I I had this immediate feeling of

• 16:07Maria Sharapova?

  I want to be in front of those kids and I I want to show them how it's done. Yeah, it was a very, even though I had no idea what I was doing. So I think that competitiveness kind of developed then where I was just sitting and bored and watching my father play. Um I just wanted to be out there.

• 16:24Tim Ferriss?

  Was it a feeling that you could do it more correctly and just something that you intuited? That you felt intuitively or was it because you noticed flaws in their technique or things that they were missing? I I'm always curious about this because one of my closest friends, his name is Josh Waitzkin and the book and the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer uh were based on him. He's thought of as a chess prodigy and he had this experience very, very early on with chess. What did it, I mean, of course, it might be difficult to recall what was going through your head at the time, but can you elaborate at all?

• 16:58Maria Sharapova?

  I think from my perspective, when you're that young and when you don't know anything about that particular activity or that sport and it was tennis in that moment. It was really this like question of can I do that? I see all these kids doing it. Do I have the ability to be better than them? And after observing for so much of what my father was doing, just not on any professional level at all. It just came to my mind that I wanted to do it and I wanted to do it better. I think there is times in life where things come instinctually and and you just grasp it and you notice it and I think my father definitely noticed. I could have kept sitting on that bench and I just could have kept watching my father, but

• 17:43Maria Sharapova?

  there's something in me that was, that said, "No, I wanna be out there. I wanna be playing and I wanna be competing and I wanna be learning." And when I got myself out to that the wall where all the kids were hitting the ball against, I remember a coach, um, there was one coach there, um, and he, all the locals were, all the children were going to see him, um, all the parents wanted him to tell them that, that they're gonna be future stars, um, they're gonna be the next Pete Stamper, so the next Andre Agassi. And he noticed me and only after a couple of weeks of when I was playing. And he pulled my father aside and said that, "This girl can play tennis." And after that, I started taking lessons with him.

• 18:27Maria Sharapova?

  And a couple of years after that, there was a an exhibition that Martina Navratilova was a part of and I was about five and a half years old at, at that time and the exhibition was being held in Moscow, so my father and I went to Moscow and I was probably one out of 200 kids in that clinic that she was holding for these kids and after hitting a few balls, I, I noticed that she had come up to my father and I don't quite know in what language they spoke because my father didn't speak any English and I'm pretty sure she didn't have much Russian, um, but between the two and, and after she left, um, I spoke to my father and he said, "Well, this legend, Martina Navratilova, just

• 19:11Maria Sharapova?

  came up to me and said that you're talented." And this was only after her watching me just hit a couple of balls in the midst of so many other kids and And that's, you know, I look back at that and I, cause I see so many kids now. I, I, I practice at a country club and, you know, there's all these, just today I was practicing next to, um, two little girls are probably seven or eight years old. Um, just enjoying the game on, by themselves and kind of trying to hit the ball over the net and it's hard to, to, to envision that talent. It's hard to see it. So for her to be able to see that when I was only five and a half years old, um, was pretty incredible.

• 19:52Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any idea, have either of these, either the first coach or Martina later told you what they saw? Have you any idea what it was that they picked up on?

• 20:05Maria Sharapova?

  I haven't spoken to Martina about it too much, but the first coach that I had in Sochi, when I just started playing, he unfortunately passed away um, a few years ago, but I definitely had this tenacity and I had this will of, of focus at a young age and um, and tennis is a very repetitive sport. So you, it, it's grinding, it's just hitting the ball. And when you're that young, um, your concentration and focus is, is just all over the place. You play with, with the ball for a few minutes and then you wanna play with a truck or you wanna play with a doll and you, the consistency in, in your mind is, is very limited. Um, at, at least that's what, when I observe kids, which is

• 20:50Maria Sharapova?

  completely normal, but I had this, I had this fascination with being able to hit the ball and, and seeing somebody else hit it back at me and trying to find a way, um, and, and the racket that I first had was actually, we had to cut the grip by like four or five inches because it was, it was so much bigger than I was and I could barely hold it and it was so heavy. And so it's just this really funny scene of me trying to figure out how to, cause when you're just given a ball and a racket and like, well, what do I do with this now? Um, so I just picture myself there just trying to find a way to get the ball over the net. And I had this determination of of doing it better and better every day and I, and I stuck to it. It was never,

• 21:33Maria Sharapova?

  I don't remember one day where I didn't want to go down the steps of our apartment and walk the 20 minutes uphill to get to the bus station and then have to change buses to the, at the next station. There's never a day where I said, you know what? I don't, I don't wanna do it. Um, and I think there's, You know, that's not something that just that you had that you can really teach or that you know, you could develop it. But I think I just, I really loved it and I carry that passion.

• 22:02Tim Ferriss?

  This idea that you were able to hold constant in your mind, this fascination of tennis and practice consistently. What did your, as context for myself, what did your dad do for work? And you mentioned your mother was studying. What was she studying? If you could tell us a little bit about them?

• 22:21Maria Sharapova?

  She was studying communications and business. And I had a very interesting childhood because my parents were both, they were very young and they had no knowledge, you know, what to do. I was the first child. I'm still the only child. But they were very careful of what the decisions that they made and where I was going to go and if I was going to go to kindergarten or how long they wanted me to be there. And I spent so many hours in the library with my mother while she was doing her homework or she was studying for an exam. And then I'd go with my father when he would usually play tennis. My father worked in construction.

• 23:01Maria Sharapova?

  Had a fairly normal job. I would say we were an average family, getting support from, from both of our grandparents, from my mom's and my dad's side. And, you know, we lived a very basic and, you know, at that time, a very normal life.

• 23:16Tim Ferriss?

  Did they expose you to a lot of other things besides tennis and some things you had zero interest in and you had that kid like distraction or ADHD like inability to focus or jumpy focus? And then tennis was the one thing that you gravitated towards and really locked on to? Or were you like that with everything?

• 23:38Maria Sharapova?

  Well, it happened so fast. And because I had only started picking up the tennis racket when I was four years old, at the age of six and a half, I was already on an Aeroflot flight to America.

• 23:53Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 23:53Maria Sharapova?

  So.

• 23:54Tim Ferriss?

  You didn't have a lot, a lot of time to test things out.

• 23:57Maria Sharapova?

  Time to really test other things.

• 23:59Tim Ferriss?

  And.

• 24:00Maria Sharapova?

  I love the, I love to play with dolls. I love to play doctor. I love to read. My mother was very much into education and she's um, she didn't want anything to do with tennis. She didn't want anything to do with sports. She danced ballet a little bit and she was, she brought a lot of the cultural, um, the educational, the learning and the growing, um, in your mind, experiences to me. I mean, she would read passages and novels that I was way too young to, to understand. But she made me um, memorize a lot of those passages and something about that, that repetitiveness, I never, I never liked to do it.

• 24:44Maria Sharapova?

  But it was a sense of discipline that, that she taught me in a way that had nothing to do with sport. And I think that really, I mean, I would spend an hour in the evening just memorizing these poems um, by Pushkin and thinking to myself, when am I ever going to use this? And little do you know, with years and especially now that I'm older, you know, discipline doesn't always come so easy and it, you, you have to build its foundations and you have to bu- build the trust with the people that help you with it. And I think her influence and her ability to, to acknowledge that as a young mom was so inspirational.

• 25:23Maria Sharapova?

  And that, that discipline really comes into play as a tennis player because you have to have so much of it. I mean, there's sacrifice and there's, there are the long days, but the discipline that you have to carry on with, whether it's a good day or a bad day, um, just beats everything else.

• 25:41Tim Ferriss?

  So I got chills about forty seven seconds ago because I, I'm looking at the time. Because I found what I was digging for and it, I wasn't looking for any particular answer, but I want to just. underscore a few things that you said for people who might be parents because of the 250 plus interviews that I've done for this podcast, there are a couple of patterns that have emerged in people who've become really, really, really good at something really early and ultimately really mastered anything, even if at that age 10, 15, 20. So the first is that I've noticed, and it's not for everyone, but their parents talk to them at least part of the time about

• 26:25Tim Ferriss?

  subject matter above their heads, so to speak, or as adults. And number two is a lot of exposure to books. Number three was what you brought up, and this is what I got excited about, which is developing a tolerance for repetition. And in some cases, for that type of, I'm not going to say boredom, but lack of variety in some capacity, because I think that that, like you said, you're training that so that it can then be applied to other things. So you might say, why am I memorizing these poems? I'm never going to use these poems. But at the same time, you're developing the ability to tolerate the thousands of hours that you're going to put into hitting a ball against a wall.

• 27:08Maria Sharapova?

  Yes, and it's the it's the persistence that you're building. It's the will that when, I mean, I believe in any job that we do, any work that we have in front of us.

• 27:21Maria Sharapova?

  There's a lot of moments that are that we look forward to. There are projects that we love and that we want to be a part of. But then there's the tedious work. There's the things that the repetition as a tennis player where you have to just where it's all numbers and where it's just a feeling that you get to a certain number and you just feel it and you let go and you don't think. And that's time, you know, and that it's you could say, I don't want to do it. I want to stop. I don't want you feeding me any more balls. But that that mental persistence, I do think you could you can develop earlier. I certainly was able to with the help of my mother. And also, I mean, I

• 28:04Maria Sharapova?

  When you're young, you, she was a very young parent and, you know, with the help of her mother and also culturally, I would say thirty years ago or twenty-five years ago, it was very different. And I felt like I was in her cocoon and I was, I was grown up in her hands. Um, which also, I think, explains the bond that we have today and like the friendship that we were able to have from that. And I think that's one of the most, um, important things in my life. Um, as I, as I travel around the world today and I, um, I meet a lot of young girls and boys, um, whether they play tennis or not, and I, and I hear their stories and

• 28:44Maria Sharapova?

  so much of their experiences, um, is a very tough and rough childhood where they wanna, they almost wanna escape from, from what, what they knew as their family. And so sad, um, personally, because the experience that I had in my childhood and it was not, I'm not saying it was all butterflies and rainbows. Um, but as I look back at that experience and how they were handling that situation, how they were sacrificing so much for myself, created this bond within my family. That was very important, um, and it's, it's priceless. And I know that those are not the people that we, that we are able to choose in our life, but they are the people that know us the best.

• 29:27Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:28Maria Sharapova?

  And that relationship, um, can do so many wonders in your life.

• 29:32Tim Ferriss?

  Because I feel like your mom is such an important figure in relationship. I noticed that you've been reading memoirs written by women, and feel free to correct anything I get wrong, but most notably Love Warrior by Glennon Dohm Melton.

• 29:46Maria Sharapova?

  Yes.

• 29:46Tim Ferriss?

  And Jeanette Walls, The Glass Castle. And you called them, quote, "very strong, tough, emotional books," end quote. What, what did those two books mean to you? Why were they tough and emotional? Like, what did you take away from that?

• 30:01Maria Sharapova?

  I'm very, I get very inspired by women. I get very inspired by their, their brain, by their actions, by their toughness. I think in today's world and in today's working environment, and I face this a lot in my sport, where, you know, I could be going into a press conference six times in a week and I'm faced with equality questions and I'm, you know, you almost have your back against the wall so many times and you have to explain yourself and, and you feel that you've done it so many times and...

• 30:36Tim Ferriss?

  Can you explain that just for a second in terms of explaining yourself for equality questions? Would you tell us a little bit more about that?

• 30:42Maria Sharapova?

  You know, we, I mean, equality has been a big, a big subject in women's tennis for, for many, many years. And Venus Williams and Serena herself have done an incredible job of getting to where we are today with the helps of the pioneer Billie Jean King, who's the reason why we, we make such an incredible living from what we do. And the one thing that we as, as professional athletes have to realize is we're not just, we're not only fighting to win a tennis match, we're also fighting to be an example. We're fighting for our voice, we're fighting to have a pedestal, to create that pedestal and to raise awareness of how incredible and how difficult and how each path is so unique

• 31:27Maria Sharapova?

  and personal and how we're all able to come through it, how we are able to share our stories, how we're able to inspire other people and not just women, it's, it's women and, and men as well. Do we get enough credit for it? I don't believe so. And when I say that that's what we have to explain, I believe that that's, that's the feeling that I have at least. And I don't feel that we have the amount of support that, that we should be having.

• 31:55Tim Ferriss?

  I was having a conversation with a very... Learned man, I guess would be the easiest way to put it today and asking him for advice for on a few things. And he said that to help the greatest number of people become an example. So in other words, you don't have to work hand in hand with each individual person. But if you have the visibility and exposure as you do to become an example of potential, I think that's extremely important. But I had very unusual beginnings, all of this in many respects, right? And you ended up at a very young age at the Nick Bolitieri Tennis Academy in the US, which has produced, you mentioned the Williams sisters, Andre

• 32:38Tim Ferriss?

  Agassi, Boris Becker. How did you end up there? And could you tell us a bit about the coaching methodology? Because that's always what I'm just so endlessly fascinated by.

• 32:52Maria Sharapova?

  So I think my father's point of view after that children's clinic that Martina Navratilova held was tennis is not, was not a big sport at that time in Russia. We didn't have many champions coming out of the country. I believe at the time it was Yevgeny Kofelnikov and Anna Kournikova. But other than that, it was hockey, it was figure skating, it was all the Winter Olympic sports. And I mean, one, it was very expensive to, to find the right coaches, to find the right facilities, especially in the winter time. So the only real option was America. And my father started reading books and studying the game. And

• 33:35Maria Sharapova?

  he knew that he wasn't a tennis coach, and he knew that he wasn't a great tennis player. And the smart, I would say, one of the biggest gifts that my father gave me, and started from a very young age, was that he realized that he, he wasn't the one that was going to be my main coach. He wasn't the one that knew everything or believed to know everything. He wanted to get the help from others. And so he started doing research and next thing I knew, just before my seventh birthday, I was on a flight to Miami, Florida. And from there, we made this crazy bus journey, four hours north to the Bolitari Academy in

• 34:14Maria Sharapova?

  Bradenton, Florida, which has, as you just mentioned, so many of the stars, past and present and future at the moment. It's really a factory, this tennis factory that's grown into other sports as well. But at the time, it was very tennis specific and Nick Bolitari was someone that came with a lot of experience and coaching experience. And he as a person was a mentor to me, more than anything, with a guidance, with this experience of seeing so many people come in and out, so many people come in wanting to be champions, turned into good, some people come in, they turn into great and some just turn into champions. And he's seen it all.

• 34:56Maria Sharapova?

  So knocking at the door of Nick Bolitari Academy in the dead of the night was probably one of the toughest moments in that journey. And it really began there. They told us it was a little too late or a little too early to be knocking at an academy door. So they sent us to a hotel and we ended up coming back in the morning. And they put me in a group of kids with probably six or seven kids and an instructor watched me hit a few balls and called over Nick Bolitari and said, "You have to see this girl play." And then Nick saw me play and that's kind of where it took off.

• 35:35Tim Ferriss?

  And what makes that place so special? And I ask because I always wonder, I mean, in the beginning, there must have been something special in the sauce because there comes a point where the best in the world gravitate to your center if you've produced a lot of champions. So then there's a question of, is it created or is it sort of a selection bias? But what makes that place unique in terms of training, in terms of principles, or anything that makes it stand apart?

• 36:03Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah, that's a great question because I see it in two different ways. And from a positive view, I saw it and I still see it as, first of all, it's located in a place where... There's nothing else to do.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 36:18Maria Sharapova?

  So you are, you're going there to be committed to become a tennis player. Or another sport that you might be practicing over there. Um, you have no distractions. The second greatest thing about it is the amounts of, of kids that were there that were older than I was, against whom I was able to compete. And so every afternoon, six days a week, I would play matches against them and I would play sets and it was the best learning experience because creating that understanding what you do and who you are as a tennis player and, and those mechanics, the basics, the mind, the brain of setting up the next shot, um, before

• 37:01Maria Sharapova?

  you even hit it, that knowledge you get by playing. And so I had this, this opportunity, I'd play a kid from China, I'd play a kid from Europe, um, that were, I was most likely, I was, I was not most likely, I was one of the youngest ones at the academy. At, at one point I wasn't even allowed to board there because I was so young. And so I had this incredible experience of, of coming in terms of competition, of seeing someone across the net that was two feet higher than I was, that was stronger than I was, and I had to figure out how to beat them if I wanted to, you know, have my self-esteem or be confident or be a better player. And, um, and the other great thing was that Nick himself, he knew what to say and he

• 37:45Maria Sharapova?

  knew when to say it. And I think you can be a great coach, and I've, I've had many throughout my career, but they're not very good business people. And Nick, Nick understood that you only need just a handful, maybe a couple or, or a few players that could really make the academy what it is. And, you know, I boarded with eight other girls for a long period of time and

• 38:16Maria Sharapova?

  And they weren't excited to be there. They knew that that wasn't their future. They sometimes didn't even know if that was their college future. But the money that was going into that academy based because of why they were there and practicing and competing was the reason why Nick Politer was so, so smart. Um, and when you needed him, he was there. I mean, five AM, he's there on the courts. He's the one that locks the place until this day. And that dedication and that love and, and passion for what you do. I mean, that's, it's incredible. I, I just saw him a few months ago. I spent a few weeks there training, um, part of my comeback and he was out every single day. He'd come out for a few minutes. He'd

• 39:00Maria Sharapova?

  sit down next to me. He, you know, he'd speak to me like I was 10 years old again and, and he's the same Nick as he was. It's so rare. It's really rare to see that. And I go there for the same reasons. I go there because of the atmosphere, because you see other athletes and, and it doesn't matter if they're, if they're in college, if they're young, if they're not gonna make it. Just to be in the environment of everyone training with a purpose, it makes you better. It makes you, um, I love playing in front of, you know, a little crowd would would kind of get around the court that I was practicing on and, and since I hadn't been in competition for a long period of time, it was so great to just to have people huddle around the court and, and watch my every move and, and

• 39:44Maria Sharapova?

  and I felt that adrenaline again, um, because usually in between tournaments, I like to practice where it's a little bit more private and a little quiet and because at a tournament, you know, it's a zoo. You, I always compare it to being, being in a cage of a zoo where everyone's around you taking your picture and there's sort of no escape until someone just takes you out on a golf cart and and away you go. And so, um, when I'm home, whether it's in Florida or California, I, I just love the, the stillness and the quietness of just being on my own. I don't have a court, but I, I go to a country club and I practice on a corner or, or I train at a private court as well and, um, just have your peace and quiet a little bit, just to have your mind only see your team and the members of your team and then do your work and leave.

• 40:29Maria Sharapova?

  Um, but being there for that period of time was brought back so many memories.

• 40:33Tim Ferriss?

  So a few things. Number one, Nick, I'm sorry. I always mispronounce your name anytime I try to say it. I always, I think part of my spirit wants to be Italian, so I try to really throw a spin on it and say "Bolitieri", but it's, I always make that mistake.

• 40:48Maria Sharapova?

  You know what? He would love that. If you said "Bolitieri", he would love that. He goes to this little Italian restaurant every single, every single day of the week, so he would absolutely appreciate that.

• 40:57Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, fantastic. Alright, well then, you're welcome, Nick. Not, I'm sorry. And the next question is related to your experience early on. You mentioned that you had these giants cross the net. Meanwhile, you're this tiny kid, holding this gigantic broadsword, basically, because it's so big compared to your body. I've heard that you had some experience being teased when you arrived in the US.

• 41:21Maria Sharapova?

  Yes.

• 41:22Tim Ferriss?

  And I'd love to hear you talk about that, if any particular examples come to mind, and just talk about what effect it had on you. Because what I have just been mesmerized, might sound weird, so don't take it as being creepy, but like, just focused on when I watch you play and compete is just the toughness. And you mentioned the grinding and just the toughness that I see is something that I'd like to explore. So could you talk about the teasing when you got to the US?

• 41:52Maria Sharapova?

  I very much felt like I was an outcast from the beginning. And one of the reasons was because I had arrived in America with my father and our story just didn't make sense to anyone. So from the very beginning, everyone just assumed we were crazy, which if I look at that now, yes, we were absolutely, my parents' decision was crazy. The fact that we come to America and you have this seven-year-old girl with a dream to become a tennis player, that's never gonna work out. And so I sensed that, I felt that, I felt that I was different. I always felt like I was there on a different mission. And because I was one of the youngest ones, I never had the same interests as the other girls.

• 42:37Maria Sharapova?

  And I always knew that my interest and my passion was very different to theirs. And while I boarded um at the academy, I remember coming back um, you know, from practice and my my little locker would be open. And and the only thing I had in that locker was this giant jar of of little animal crackers. And

• 43:01Tim Ferriss?

  The fuel of champions.

• 43:03Maria Sharapova?

  Right.

• 43:05Maria Sharapova?

  Which by the diet these days has changed tremendously.

• 43:11Maria Sharapova?

  I don't even know where to look when that when new diet is coming out next. But back then, I just remember that giant jar of animal crackers um that I believe a friend from the academy um gave me for my birthday. And that's the only thing I had in that locker. And I didn't have many belongings. I didn't have a lot of outfits or skirts that the girls had. I didn't really have anyone to do my hair or braid my hair. You know, my father would sit me down and um on a chair and just cut my bang straight across. And they never looked great, obviously, you didn't know what he was doing. And so I was always a little off. I I didn't speak English in the beginning. Um, I was learning through just speaking with all the other kids because they

• 43:55Maria Sharapova?

  they talk so much, you just pick it up and you learn. And um it just made me feel very much alone. It was um, not that I didn't have, it it felt like I had a lot in common because we were all there to play tennis. But the mission that I was on, and I felt like I was, was very different. Um, and it wasn't that I had to be a champion or I didn't have to be a champion. It was that I was learning and I was growing to be a better tennis player. And I didn't know where that would take me, but I knew that in order to get there, I had to wake up at six AM and I had to practice through the day and then I would take a thirty minute nap from twelve to twelve thirty.

• 44:40Maria Sharapova?

  And at one PM, I'd be back playing matches and sets until four or five. And then I have a little bit of homework and then I have to do it again. And so There was a lot of other interests that the girls had and then posters and glitter and pictures and David Hasselhoff, Janet Jackson, and I had no clue who any one of those was at the time. And so I was just a stranger. I was sort of in my own little bubble from a very young age. And I look back in those moments and I've gotten that question a lot, like, how did you feel? Did you feel lonely? And one of the other things was that I didn't go to America with my mother because she didn't have a visa. So I spent

• 45:23Maria Sharapova?

  the first two years in America without seeing my mom at all. And I look back at that time and I, there's nothing about it that, it's sad. Obviously, it was very sad to not have that support and not have your mother cut your bangs instead of your father or him buy you shoes that are so ugly and you can't, you don't know how to tell him, but he doesn't have enough money to buy you a better pair, so you just keep your mouth shut. It just, it didn't feel, it didn't feel like we were doing the wrong thing. I felt like I was on this path that I was meant to be on. And I didn't feel lonely. I didn't feel sad. It

• 46:04Maria Sharapova?

  was a lonely time because I look at that and of course, I was an outcast. But when you're on a mission to do something or be something, it's not so much about success. I think it's just, you know, we always think of having a vision and of course, we have goals and we plant it in our minds. But I never remember one time where my father told me that I had to win Wimbledon or that I had to win the US Open. He never made me feel like if I didn't, that the world would end. And I always remember thinking that if this doesn't work out, we would go to Russia. And that's absolutely fine because I felt like I had a completely normal childhood when I was living there.

• 46:45Tim Ferriss?

  Did you feel any pressure in the sense, not from your parents directly, but in the recognition of what they were sacrificing for you to take a stab at tennis? Or was that just not a factor at all?

• 47:01Maria Sharapova?

  Whatever they did, they never made me feel like it was. And I think that's one of the reasons why I never felt the pressure of having to win things or having to earn money. I, I knew that

• 47:16Maria Sharapova?

  I didn't know how much money I I could earn. I I was never really interested in that. I I didn't know anything that would come with being success, with being a successful tennis player. And you never really do. And I think that's one of the great things in life is that you you don't know and that it's it's an experience and it's for you to experience and for you to acknowledge and for you to learn from it. And whether you want to take it or not, that's that's up to you. It's in your own hands. But the fact that they gave me this this opportunity to create a life for myself um is incredible. And now my father's, my father remained kind of the leader and the coach of um of my tennis until I was twenty one years old.

• 48:00Maria Sharapova?

  He traveled with me to every single tournament. And after I won my third Grand Slam, it was um very mutually, um he decided to stop and and now he's on a permanent vacation and he thinks he's training for the Senior Olympics. And he loves to ski and hike and and do all those great things. And I and I'm so happy. And it makes me just incredibly grateful that I I can support that. And I that I can do that for my mom, that I could do that for my dad, that they for for my extended family and um and they're the reason why I'm able to do that.

• 48:37Tim Ferriss?

  Is it true that you've never used the word rejection? Or that you don't believe in that word? Is that true?

• 48:46Maria Sharapova?

  Well, I don't, I mean, it's a very

• 48:51Maria Sharapova?

  it's a very tough word to believe in. It's a very tough word to accept. I think one of the reasons is is because I I saw in many different scenarios where my father would say no because he would open up an opportunity to say yes. And

• 49:08Tim Ferriss?

  Could you, okay, please explain.

• 49:12Maria Sharapova?

  So there are many situations, whether it was a coaching opportunity or whether it was receiving money from an agency. He had this ability to say no to the things that seemed that like they made sense, like the easy way out. Because he believed that later he'd have a better opportunity to say yes to bigger and greater things.

• 49:36Tim Ferriss?

  So he said no to the small shiny objects in front of him.

• 49:39Maria Sharapova?

  Well, at the time, I'm sure they didn't seem so small.

• 49:42Tim Ferriss?

  Not small, not small. I don't mean at the time in perception, but the short term shiny objects maybe.

• 49:48Maria Sharapova?

  Right. So rejection, it wasn't, um, there was never a, because I always had, I mean, I always was following and kind of next to my father and seeing the decisions that he would make. I was only a kid. And even when I, even when I won Wimbledon, I was only 17 years old. You're still a kid and you're still following the guidance. And, you know, I'd, I'd win a match following that and I'd call it, or I'd win a tournament and I would go shopping in a store and I would call my mom because I, there was something like quite pricey and I, I didn't know if I could buy it. So I was still asking permission, even though I had earned that money, if, if I could purchase a piece of jewelry

• 50:31Maria Sharapova?

  or shoes or whatever it was at the time that I wanted. So I was always, um, watching and observing and they never, rejection, I mean, you're, of course, when someone says no to you, it's easy to say, oh, yes, I was, I was rejected. But if you can open up a different opportunity from that point of view, then you're turning a no into something that's, that brought you to a better place.

• 50:58Tim Ferriss?

  It sounds like you did that with your interactions with some of the other players who were boarding at Nick's Tennis Academy in a way.

• 51:10Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah.

• 51:10Tim Ferriss?

  Do you consider yourself an introvert, an extrovert, a blend? How do you think about that?

• 51:16Maria Sharapova?

  I think from a very young age because of sort of the process that I, that I went through, um, and the success that I

• 51:27Maria Sharapova?

  Earned from a young age and winning a major and a grand slam at such a young age. And because it became so unexpected, I went from being someone that was, you know, that someone that people scouted to being someone that everyone had analyzed and knew about and wanted to know more of. And I created this, um, you know, I definitely put on these horse blinders. Because if I had not, my mind would have been everywhere. And I, I think it, it would have been so easy to be distracted in, in those moments and situations and be pulled in different directions, which, uh, it's, it's a slippery slope.

• 52:10Maria Sharapova?

  It's very dangerous and a- as a young girl, it, it could have been a disaster to say the least. And so I definitely remember, I, I remember the moment and it was just a few matches before I, I won Wimbledon where I was sitting down with my coach and all of a sudden, I think, I think it was before the semifinals of the tournament and all these tourists who had gotten credentials, they seemed like tourists. I didn't know who they were. Maybe they would have, maybe they weren't, maybe they were important agents or sponsors, but at the time they just seemed like tourists that wanted a picture with me. And, and it really came overnight. And that sense of, wow, everyone all of a sudden wants something.

• 52:53Maria Sharapova?

  Everyone wants something that you have. Everyone wants to be a part of your success. I didn't like that feeling. You know, I, I love the feeling of being in a position of, of showcasing what I could do with my tennis racket. But that feeling of everyone wanting a piece of that and the feeling of your opponents, all of a sudden, all of a sudden feeling like just by beating her, they're not just winning a quarterfinal or the final of a match, but they're winning so much more.

• 53:24Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 53:25Maria Sharapova?

  Um, it made me. It made me feel like I needed to kind of put myself in a bubble to concentrate, to focus, that it was going to be that much harder, that much more difficult. And I did. And I don't know if I could have done it another way.

• 53:43Tim Ferriss?

  What were some of the, or what are some of the best practices or decisions that have helped you with that? Because for instance, my friend Josh, I was mentioning earlier, who became well-known effectively overnight, particularly with the movie about his life, for chess, he could no longer compete effectively after that because he would go to a chess tournament and there would be, I'm making up the age, but he's something like 13 or 14, and all of a sudden there are 20 girls who want his attention and a bunch of reporters. And he removed himself completely from the competitive scene. He's one of the most private people I know at this point. So what helped you?

• 54:27Tim Ferriss?

  What kind of decisions or advice or practices?

• 54:30Maria Sharapova?

  I think it was surrounding myself with good minds and good people that had my best interest. And it's so easy to say those words, but I know how difficult it is to find those people and even harder nowadays than it was. And I saw it in so many different examples of other tennis players and of their success and their paths after that and the people that you all of a sudden associate yourself with. I think as an individual, it's very easy to be affected by the voices that are next to you because we listen to that and we process that information.

• 55:12Maria Sharapova?

  And all of a sudden, we, I wouldn't say we want to be like them, but we interpret it in our way. But like when I read, when I read a funny book, all of a sudden I feel like I'm a comedian. Or, you know, when I watch this, an incredible acting by someone, it inspires me to be an actor. You know, it's like there's moments of this that happens. As an athlete, you surround yourself with people's opinions or choices or money and wealth. And it's very, it's such an easy distraction and...

• 55:49Maria Sharapova?

  And I surrounded myself with good people and I, the friends that I have today were my friends when I was a young girl that my manager has managed me since I was 11 years old. And my mom is still very much my best friend and another really good friend of mine I met when I was 11 years old as well. So I have, um, I have this fondness of, of developing those real connections with people. And I think it was so helpful for me as a young girl because I competed in front of thousands of people and I still do. And the walk to the tunnel and the walk to a press conference and the walk back in the hotel room.

• 56:32Maria Sharapova?

  It's a very lonely journey and that it's a difficult. You know, you're in your mind a lot and you're, you're thinking a lot. So when you have, when you have voices next to you that are the right voices, um, then it's so helpful, but I know how hard it is to find, but I do believe that that is a big part of my success.

• 56:54Tim Ferriss?

  I have some public exposure and have found, I've made a lot of mistakes and I've found it really difficult to identify in some cases, what ulterior motives are, or if people start doing me tons of favors, I now realize there might be something coming six months later. So I'm very hesitant to accept favors, but I can't even imagine the level. I mean, I'm playing T-ball and you're in the major leagues in the world series when it comes to how many people want a piece of you. And how do you, for instance, assess someone if you say have coffee or lunch with them?

• 57:37Tim Ferriss?

  What do you look out for or look for? I mean, how do you decide whether it's someone you want to see a second time or talk to a second time? If, if anything comes to mind, and this is just because quite frankly, you've had a lot more practice.

• 57:52Maria Sharapova?

  You have a lot of requests.

• 57:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, well, no, you've, you've had a lot, you've had a lot more practice than I have.

• 57:56Maria Sharapova?

  You sent, I was like, whoa.

• 58:00Maria Sharapova?

  That automatic reply, I was like, oh my goodness.

• 58:02Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:04Maria Sharapova?

  I don't know who's emailing you.

• 58:05Tim Ferriss?

  I'm afraid I have 4,091 unread email in my inbox currently.

• 58:10Maria Sharapova?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 58:11Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it was released into the wild.

• 58:12Maria Sharapova?

  Oh, I can't do that. I need to keep my inbox clean. Then I feel like I have a mess in my head.

• 58:18Tim Ferriss?

  All right, well, we'll talk about that next, but in the meantime.

• 58:23Maria Sharapova?

  So, how do I choose? I think it's about, I love meeting people and I love having conversation and I love being inspired. And you can get so much out of a conversation or about, by exposing yourself to being in an unfamiliar territory. So with people, and I'll give you a big, kind of, an example that was, I felt like it was important because I'm very much, I'm always around the same people. So I have my team, which is my coach and my fitness coach and my trainer, and we travel. I see them more than my family. We travel probably 260 days out of the year together, breakfast, lunch, dinners, practice, training.

• 59:08Maria Sharapova?

  We know so much of each other and then you have a manager and then you come home and then you have your friends. So I'm always surrounded by people that I know and that I trust and that I love, which is incredible. But I always think that as a, as a human being and from a perspective of the mind and growth and intellectually, when you're put in a situation where you're unfamiliar with people and you're unfamiliar with their stories or who they are, and you have to ask questions and to get that out, it makes you a much more interesting person.

• 59:45Maria Sharapova?

  And so last year, I put myself in this position where I had all this time off and it was during the summer and I signed up for these two business courses in Boston and Harvard Business School. And I was one out of the 40 students, I believe, in each of these courses and I stayed on campus and...

• 1:00:08Maria Sharapova?

  These were individuals who were CEOs and COOs of companies, of airlines, of Microsoft, of all these incredible brands. And I was by far the youngest and, and probably the silliest and the less, the least knowledgeable one in the room. But just by being with them, just by sitting with them, just by sitting with them at dinner, by asking them questions, by feeling a little bit uncomfortable, I felt like at the end of those three weeks, I grew and I grew. And, and it wasn't that, I mean, there were definitely things that I learned that I, I'm applying and that I wanted to apply in my business.

• 1:00:50Maria Sharapova?

  But the biggest thing I, I got out of it was that I grew as a person. I, I became familiar in, in a very unfamiliar territory. I still keep in touch with people in those, in, in, in the classes. We have completely different lives. They're CEOs of companies. They have, you know, three or four kids. You know, they travel all over the place and here I am, a thirty year old athlete. But there's so much respect in that room because we're all trying to learn and to grow. And so when I, when you ask me like, who are the people that you want to meet with or speak to or have a coffee with? I always think of that. And the people that I choose to be with are the people that I want to learn from and

• 1:01:35Maria Sharapova?

  that I want to have a conversation with and not just about what they bought at the flea market or, you know, what they're gonna, how they're, how they like their coffee, but it's about the world and it's about education, it's about people and, and it's not about right or wrong. I don't always have conversation because I want to know what makes someone perfect and not, I, I like to hear opinions. And I got out of that experience in Boston and I, no, I felt like I grew. I felt like I stepped up and I got out of my comfort zone and, and I followed up with them and, and we still keep in touch about business and projects and things like that. So it was a very interesting experience personally for me.

• 1:02:16Tim Ferriss?

  What I like about your answer and what I think is healthy for me to hear, quite frankly, is that I framed the question.

• 1:02:27Tim Ferriss?

  By focusing on what to cut out, how do you avoid this? How do you find red flags for that? What do you look for? Slash slash alter your motive, fill in the blank. And somebody said to me two days ago that that is a very male way of approaching trying to solve problems, to find the cancer and cut it out, to remove it, to cut it off. And the way you answered the question was, you didn't explicitly say this, but like, here's how I choose who to spend time with, not here's how I decide who to avoid.

• 1:02:58Maria Sharapova?

  But by no means does that come with guarantees that you're, that you're not going to be disappointed at the end of it, or that they're going to want something from you that you weren't expecting.

• 1:03:08Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:03:08Maria Sharapova?

  But you do, in order to, to have, you have to put yourself in a position to find out.

• 1:03:14Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:03:15Maria Sharapova?

  And what's the worst thing that, what's the worst thing that can happen from it? You don't reply, or you don't answer, or you don't get back to them? Okay.

• 1:03:21Tim Ferriss?

  Right, right. It's an acceptable, acceptable cost or tax to pay. Now, the, so the reframing that you just did, this is, this is for me right now, in my life at least, the really important stuff. And I suspect this is true for a lot of folks. And I'd love to switch gears a little bit and just ask you about self-talk. So what you are saying to yourself, and I'll choose something very specific. When you are in a competitive situation, if you look back at your, your competitive career up to this point, when you've been down and then come back to win versus when you've been down and then lost, how does your self-talk differ?

• 1:04:06Tim Ferriss?

  Can you think of any examples? Are there certain things that you repeat to yourself consistently when you come back and win versus maybe things you forget to say, or ways that you slip up when you end up losing? Is there any pattern to that or consistency?

• 1:04:22Maria Sharapova?

  There, I wouldn't say there's a pattern because every, what's great about the sport that I play and the situations that I'm in is that they're all very unique. And that's what, that's what makes it so exciting to do this after so many years. And after being this child prodigy, and when I think of like the motivation that I'm able to have till this day, and until that, that fire is burning, I'll always keep playing. But. That's the unique part of it is that you, every day is different, every match is different. You might be confident, you might be ready, you might be healthy, but you never know what's going to happen.

• 1:05:00Maria Sharapova?

  And, and I'm someone that loves certainty. I love certainty in my life and I, I love, I do enjoy having a plan. But, that's not realistic, you know, and, and there's so much uncertainty in what I do. So, I know that I can prepare my best, I know that I can prepare my body, I can prepare my mind. But in any situation that I'm in, it's always different and you have to react to it differently. And it doesn't always, i- it doesn't always go according to plan and I don't always find myself being positive, but. Something that I noticed in, in my mind, was actually in the last match I played and it was in a match where I, I got injured at the end of it and had to. Actually, I was up in the third set in Rome.

• 1:05:43Maria Sharapova?

  And, I came into the match being, um, being a little bit upset, I was down, um. And, just for other reasons. And I, I knew, the frame, the framework that I had in my mind was that. It was something along the, the words of, I can't, I can't, I can't. I'm not able to, I don't, I, I don't feel well, I'm not there, my mind is not present. And, the second that I changed that and I changed it to, I will, and I kept saying to myself. I will win the match and I will win the match. It was like, the instance, I remember being down a break point and.

• 1:06:27Maria Sharapova?

  The, automatically, there was something in my body language. Where my mind, just the repetition of what I was saying to myself, it just triggered my body, I became more aggressive. I stepped into the court, I took her second serve and I hit a winner. And from that point, it just, it, it changed. In the end of the match, I was up, I believe it was two zero or something, I, I tore a muscle in my hip, but, and I had to, I had to give her the match. But. I noticed this this crazy change, which I I don't I don't really notice as much. And um, it was amazing that it just came. This was a question that you just phrased, but it was the last match that I had played. But it happens a lot. I do, I'm a very, so I take, I I do take my time in between uh, in my service games.

• 1:07:12Maria Sharapova?

  I walk to the baseline. I I move my strings around. I I do a little pep talk and it's very automatic. I wouldn't say there's it's something crazy or something.

• 1:07:23Tim Ferriss?

  No, it doesn't have to be crazy.

• 1:07:25Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah, like something that.

• 1:07:26Tim Ferriss?

  What is the pep talk? What is the pep talk?

• 1:07:28Maria Sharapova?

  I think it's more, it's more of like of putting my eyes onto my strings and and having this repetition that it doesn't matter if I won the point or lost the point, but I'm just on this level, that I'm on this path, that I'm on this like river that is gonna get to where it's going. No matter what rock is in the way, no matter what storm is on the way, the water is ultimately gonna go down the river.

• 1:07:56Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:07:57Maria Sharapova?

  And that, and maybe pep talk is not the right way. I don't always, I mean, I do think that our mind is always working, always saying things, and you're not always so conscious of it. But it's this routine that I have, and I think it's kind of a safe place for me. Because in a match, it can be an hour match, or it can be a three hour ma- match. And in tennis, momentum changes so much, just like in in life. One second, everything's positive, then you get bad news. And you know, someone is leaving the company, or someone's not gonna work anymore, or someone's not healthy, or and all of a sudden, you go from a great day to wow. And it's just a way for me, I see those strings and I see my fingers playing with those strings.

• 1:08:40Maria Sharapova?

  And and I just, I think of being level headed and being not overly excited, not down, but being in this like medium frame of mind.

• 1:08:49Tim Ferriss?

  I would love to dig into specifically, and this is related, serving. And you'll start to notice a theme here that uh, this is also very self-interested because I've never learned how to play tennis, despite the fact that I grew up. Out on Long Island, surrounded by people on tennis courts, most of which I was not allowed on, I would serve their coffee. But I'm going to my first tennis camp in the next few months to try to learn to play tennis. And what recommendations would you have?

• 1:09:24Maria Sharapova?

  Don't do it.

• 1:09:27Tim Ferriss?

  For, besides, besides don't do it, because I've already sort of

• 1:09:30Maria Sharapova?

  Wear sunscreen.

• 1:09:32Tim Ferriss?

  Jumped, jumped off the cliff and I'm trying to grow wings.

• 1:09:36Tim Ferriss?

  For serving, because I think you've hit up to 121 mile an hour serves, which just makes my eyes spin inside my skull. I can't even imagine what that looks like.

• 1:09:48Tim Ferriss?

  Any tips for the people out there, I'll depersonalize, not Tim, but actually for Tim, the people out there who would like to be better at serving. Do you have any recommendations? Do's or do nots?

• 1:10:01Maria Sharapova?

  Um, I mean, the one thing that I noticed a lot with people that are just starting to play tennis, and it's not just about the serve, but it's in all, all strokes, is that they take their eye off the ball in order to see the result or the, where the ball is going. Which is, is a big mistake in the beginning, especially because the more contact, eye contact you have with the ball, um, the more the strings of your racket are going to be on the ball itself. So seeing, seeing the lines of the ball, visualizing that will really help you. Kind of maintaining, like when you lift your arm up to hit a, to hit a serve, sometimes we want to bring it right back down, um, as we make contact. So keeping

• 1:10:45Maria Sharapova?

  that left arm up is something that I focus on when, when I make a few errors and

• 1:10:50Tim Ferriss?

  As a right-hander.

• 1:10:51Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah, as a right-hander, or if it's a left-hander, then keeping your right arm up. Um, yeah, I would say those are the two, two top things. By the way, I am the wor-, I am the worst at coaching, or I

• 1:11:05Tim Ferriss?

  I don't believe that. I don't believe it for a second.

• 1:11:08Maria Sharapova?

  Please do, please do. Cause it's so true. Someone asked me the other day,

• 1:11:13Tim Ferriss?

  You just gave good advice.

• 1:11:15Maria Sharapova?

  I was like, oh my goodness.

• 1:11:18Tim Ferriss?

  You're like, I've had enough tennis on one side.

• 1:11:22Maria Sharapova?

  I'd probably rather commentate.

• 1:11:26Tim Ferriss?

  I think you just don't like talking about yourself.

• 1:11:29Maria Sharapova?

  I think. I don't.

• 1:11:30Tim Ferriss?

  But you are, I think you probably are a very good coach. If you're a good player, you can be, I think, if you get the right questions, maybe a good coach. So I'm gonna try. So where do you think tennis players don't, let's just say novice, intermediate, waste a lot of time? Like, where do they focus too much or spend too much time on? And where should they spend more time?

• 1:11:53Maria Sharapova?

  I think they spend a lot of time on the outcome.

• 1:12:00Maria Sharapova?

  I think that a lot, a lot goes into the result. Is it in? Is it out? Is it long? Is it in the net? And it all of a sudden becomes your focus. It becomes your focus point. That's why I mentioned like watching the ball as long as you can, because it takes your mind away from thinking if the ball is going to be in or out. And therefore, I always feel that your attitude and your, your body language, and I've always thought that that's a very big part of, of the game itself and how you, how you're able to transfer this body language

• 1:12:41Maria Sharapova?

  from a mistake into a winner that you hit in just the next ball or in a few balls. And sometimes it's all it takes, because tennis is a matter of really millimeters. You could do the same thing and the ball, just the wind takes it and it's long. And if you're playing in the conditions where it's not windy, you do the same exact thing and you have the same technique, but it goes in. And one day, you're cursing at yourself and you're upset. And the next day, you think you just won a grand slam. So. It's a very, it's a very thin line. There's no doubt about it, but I do, I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of attitude that needs to calm down when I watch, when I watch,

• 1:13:24Maria Sharapova?

  um, you know, when I watch junior tournaments, when I watch body language, when I see facial expressions and looking over on the sides of the court. Um, and a lot of it is because tennis is so emotional and it's so in the moment and, and every single point counts and, and you want it to count. And of course it shows how passionate you are about it. But the attitude and, um, is a very important part of, of being a tennis player.

• 1:13:52Tim Ferriss?

  So in addition to the attitude or layered on top of the attitude, and I, I, I half promise this will be my last question about technique. Uh, in the first month, if you were, if you were coaching your son or daughter in tennis, and, and let's just assume they said, last thing I want to do is tennis. And then at age like 20, they're like, you know what? Actually I want to do tennis.

• 1:14:15Maria Sharapova?

  Well, they can just get an instructor.

• 1:14:18Tim Ferriss?

  Just because dealing with a little kid is a whole thing in and of itself.

• 1:14:21Maria Sharapova?

  Right.

• 1:14:21Tim Ferriss?

  But, uh, we could also depersonalize it and just say you're teaching someone you care about, right?

• 1:14:26Maria Sharapova?

  Right.

• 1:14:26Tim Ferriss?

  What would you make sure they get right in the first four weeks? What would you really focus on?

• 1:14:32Maria Sharapova?

  So I think the, the basic techniques, I, I, and even when you're young, like that's, that's the main thing. Those are your fundamentals. So if you start, if you start, if you're, if you need to go right and you're, you're going to big serve, but you turn left from the beginning, you're, you're done. And that's how I, that's how I've always seen tennis is the, the mechanical, mechanics are important and they need to be easy. Like sometimes I, I see strokes that are so complicated and that are so, the backswing is huge and the spins are crazy and. I think it definitely can be much more simple and it's not about

• 1:15:11Maria Sharapova?

  power, it's not about hitting a winner. A lot of it is controlled power. Like, um, I mean, I play a very aggressive and powerful game. But when I play the best is when it's controlled power, when I don't want it to be power. But when my, when my strokes are simple, um, when they're not complicated, when I'm not trying to grunt as loud as I can, even though I grunt very loud. When it's really compact, you know, keeping your elbow, keeping your elbow close to your body.

• 1:15:40Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:15:40Maria Sharapova?

  Instead of having this huge loop, um, and really zoning in on the ball. I, I always, I always see people take their eyes off the ball.

• 1:15:50Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I hate to say it, but I think your next book might be about

• 1:15:54Maria Sharapova?

  I

• 1:15:55Tim Ferriss?

  tennis technique.

• 1:15:55Maria Sharapova?

  I don't think, I doubt it.

• 1:15:58Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna forget to mention it, but I do wanna mention it. Uh, you have a new book and I have more questions. I won't keep you here five hours as much as I want to, but you have a new book, Unstoppable, which I am actually extremely, extremely excited to read and I don't, my, my listeners know, I do not actually always say that. I'm very excited to dig into it, but can you tell us a little bit about it? And then I will give one of many reasons why I'm excited to check it out. But could you tell us, uh, A, why write a book? Uh, and because books, books are a pain in the ass and I can speak from experience.

• 1:16:39Maria Sharapova?

  Know that, but now that I've just finished reading the audio version, I know that it's completed. I just took a deep breath and I said, wow. I said, wow. I have so much respect for every book that's on that shelf in front of me right now.

• 1:16:53Tim Ferriss?

  Like, I can't believe people do this for a living. Who would ever do that?

• 1:16:58Maria Sharapova?

  But you know what? I, about three years, uh, two, two and a half years ago, I, I had a meeting with a, with an agent and I sat down and she, she came into the meeting, um, talking to me about a potential memoir and it was so far, it was just an idea that she had. It was not really even a vision or a plan. She just wanted to talk to me about it. She knew a little bit about my story, about moving to America. She didn't know everything. And we had this conversation. I came into the meeting, um, actually just taking the meeting because I, I wanted to be nice.

• 1:17:39Maria Sharapova?

  And I never thought that I was ready to write a book and to, to share so much of what I share in this book about, about moving to America, about facing my rivals, about my personal life, about all the experiences that I've had in the thirty years that I've lived. Um, and I wrote a few paragraphs myself and she, I, yeah, she was very, it was interesting because I left the meeting feeling like, wow, I'm really gonna write a book, aren't I?

• 1:18:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:09Maria Sharapova?

  And it wasn't anything that she said. It was just the conversation and her asking me about my story. And as I started speaking about it, she was, her eyes like lit up and she said it was incredible. And I looked at her like, huh? Really? Because I, I don't know, I always, I kind, I think that everyone's story is special and everyone gets to where they are in, in their own certain, unique ways. And I, no, I just don't go about my life thinking that I know that it's very different and that it's maybe one in a million and that we, my family took a chance, but I don't walk around thinking, wow, this is brilliant. And so I walked out of that meeting thinking, wow, I might, I

• 1:18:54Maria Sharapova?

  might be a writer. I might write a book. And so I wrote a few paragraphs myself and, and just a few weeks' time, we got this offer with no questions asked, no, is this gonna be gossip, no, who's, who's gonna be part of the story. Um, I signed with Sarah Critchton at FSG and she wanted to hear my story. And

• 1:19:17Maria Sharapova?

  I don't know, it just, it inspired me. It made me feel like there was a lot of inspirational work that I could put on paper for, for people to read. There was a writer that I had in mind, whose name is Rich Cohen, who you're very familiar with.

• 1:19:32Tim Ferriss?

  I am very, you made such a great choice. That was one of the things I was gonna bring up. Just for people who don't know, and I hate to interject, but this is another thing that made me so excited. So, Rich has written just some incredible books.

• 1:19:47Maria Sharapova?

  Jerry Weintraub's book was incredible.

• 1:19:50Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and also, I mean, The Fish That Ate the Whale,

• 1:19:53Maria Sharapova?

  Right.

• 1:19:53Tim Ferriss?

  which a lot of people have heard of, you know, one of my, actually, two or three friends, one of their favorite books of all time. So, I'll let you carry on, but Rich, you made, you made a great choice.

• 1:20:05Maria Sharapova?

  When I read Jerry Weintraub's book, it's somewhere on holiday during my off-season in November, probably, I'd say, seven years ago, I said to myself that if I ever write a book, that Rich Cohen would help me do it. And when I made the decision to write this book, I had my agent find out who Rich Cohen was, where he lived, what he did, if he had time to do this. I didn't even know if this was a possibility. So, I met him, and this was so fascinating, because I, I met with three writers, and I met him at this swanky

• 1:20:45Maria Sharapova?

  New York hotel, and, and he walked in there just looking like he did not belong. And I knew exactly that this was my guy.

• 1:20:56Tim Ferriss?

  That's my guy.

• 1:20:57Maria Sharapova?

  That's my guy. I knew that he, he knew where he was going, he took the train, he had a shoulder bag on, and he was just looking around, he was simple. And our conversation was very simple. It wasn't anything over the top. And I knew, but I knew from just meeting with him for 30 minutes, that he, he was a genius in his literature, and that's where his genius has come out. It's on paper. And I got that sense from the beginning. And another reason I, I chose to work with him was because I- Throughout my life, I have, I've been influenced by a lot of male figures. So my father, my coaches, Nick Bolitieri, Robert Landsdorf, um, my manager.

• 1:21:40Maria Sharapova?

  And I wanted, I wanted Rich to sit down with these people. I wanted him to spend time with these people to really get an understanding of the characters that were part of my life, that, that made me who I am today. And I knew, and I thought of these people. I thought of my father and I thought of the person that he would give the time to, that he would open up to, that he would share with. And that, I think that was one of the biggest reasons that I, I mean, he and my father spent, I mean, over a week together, just talking and talking and, and it wasn't even eh eh life, life talking stories. And then my father was able to tell stories that I, that I read in the book and I'm,

• 1:22:25Maria Sharapova?

  I was like, wow, wow. I was so young that I don't, I don't remember it. And yeah, he was, we spent so many weeks together. Um, I loved the way that he worked. I love, love the questions that he would. I just love the simplicity of him as a human being.

• 1:22:45Tim Ferriss?

  I love the filter also. It wouldn't have even occurred to me, at least in this conversation, if you hadn't mentioned it, but the fact that it's not just who you like and who's writing you like, but who other people will talk to.

• 1:22:57Maria Sharapova?

  Because a big, a big part of my story is the other people that influenced my life. And because I started my life at such a young age, I started this, you know, this crazy move and this crazy profession. And, and these people were so influential and they're very much a part of this, part of the reason that I'm here.

• 1:23:19Tim Ferriss?

  Unstoppable subtitle, My Life So Far. Man, you have a lot, you have a lot of decades left.

• 1:23:25Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah. Well, you know, I, I wanted, I wanted it to be called To Be Continued.

• 1:23:33Maria Sharapova?

  And I got shut down really fast.

• 1:23:37Maria Sharapova?

  They're like, that's basically telling everyone to get a new book. I was like, wait a second, that's been my dream ever since I was, because I, when I would see memoirs written by, or autobiographies written by young, you know, to younger individuals, I would think to myself, do they really think that their life is over and that this is all they have to tell? So of course, when you say that, you have a book come out, a memoir, when you're 30 years old. And I, I was just so, like, I had this vision of, of calling it to be continued. Oh, but they're like, that, you, you have to explain what's inside the pages and not what's coming out next. And I was like, no.

• 1:24:15Tim Ferriss?

  What you could do, you know, you say you could have this unstoppable, my life so far. Then you write your, your coaching book that you promised me you'd write. Then, then the third book can be unstoppable, my life continues, or it continues. So I think you could get a number of things.

• 1:24:31Maria Sharapova?

  I can play with it. I know.

• 1:24:32Tim Ferriss?

  You could play with it. You could play with it. So.

• 1:24:33Maria Sharapova?

  We had many different titles.

• 1:24:36Tim Ferriss?

  I'd love to ask some, some micro questions just about routine and perhaps a couple of other rapid fire questions that I'd like to ask. Before I get to that, I know you've had, you've had some shoulder issues in your life. I've had shoulder reconstructive surgery and improved sort of mobility and recovered largely.

• 1:24:58Maria Sharapova?

  Good luck with that, Serf.

• 1:24:59Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Yeah, I know. Now fortunately, it's on my non-dominant arm.

• 1:25:05Maria Sharapova?

  Oh, that's good. Okay.

• 1:25:06Tim Ferriss?

  But I was gonna ask you, you mentioned some of your team, the fitness coach and so on.

• 1:25:11Maria Sharapova?

  Right.

• 1:25:12Tim Ferriss?

  What have you found to help most? Or are there any particular exercises that have made you more resilient against injury? So for injury prevention, what are some of the components of, say, your fitness program that you think have helped most?

• 1:25:28Maria Sharapova?

  I like that you use the word prevention because a lot of, a lot of the makeup of an athlete is about prevention. And it's, you know, we, we do so much to try to prevent injuries and we don't always succeed. But a big part of the little exercises and the tedious things and the repetition is, is that. And. I would say the biggest component of uh because I went through shoulder surgery is the consistency of keeping up with the exercises. You know, there's a lot of exercises out there and they're all great exercises. But it's very rare that you keep doing them.

• 1:26:07Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:26:07Maria Sharapova?

  And I I start every morning after my shoulder surgery. Before every practice, I have a routine with a rubber band. Um, it's not that that's not a rare routine for a tennis player. We all warm up. We do about a thirty minute warm up before we even get to warm up on the court before a match. So there are a lot of little scapula exercises that you do.

• 1:26:29Tim Ferriss?

  Um. And this is with a Theraband, one of those.

• 1:26:31Maria Sharapova?

  Theraband, right. Yeah, and a lot of it is not even about the weight that you have or the resistance of the Theraband. But it's the repetition that you do. So the feeling that you have in the back um of your scapula or um in the tendons of your shoulder um is that it starts burning.

• 1:26:52Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:26:53Maria Sharapova?

  That's when you really know that the little muscles in between the big ones are firing. And the the more consistent you are with that, the bigger chance of you getting healthy and also preventing something else to happen. Because your body always compensates. So if I have an injury um in one place, you your your body's like the brain is so smart that it starts using other parts of the body.

• 1:27:20Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:27:20Maria Sharapova?

  And all of a sudden you feel it somewhere else, so.

• 1:27:23Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:23Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah. So the consistency of following through and really keeping at it is, for me, is always the most challenging thing, and I see people give up on it.

• 1:27:35Tim Ferriss?

  What about uh for the lower body? Are there any particular exercises that you wish you'd incorporated earlier?

• 1:27:42Maria Sharapova?

  So I grew very fast, and that's something that I speak about in the book as well. Um, because none of, no one in my family is tall. I'm the tallest one. And I talk about the struggles that I had as a teenager um during that period of time. And and my father says it was I grew because I had this will to grow and that I needed it for my sport and that it was everyone's wish, including mine, that I would be taller, so I could be served from a higher angle or that I could be more powerful. But with that comes, you know, you're a little bit less explosive, you're not as mobile, you're a little stiffer. And I think movement, um, you know, in tennis, you have so many movements that are just back and forth and changing direction and

• 1:28:27Maria Sharapova?

  so I work a lot on the joints, I work a lot on balance, um, balance of the core and then ba- balance on um, on little unstabilizing um platforms where I really work my ankles and my knees, um, make sure those are all aligned and not wobbling too much when just gaining the confidence, um, and sometimes they seem like the most the simple exercises. You know, if you take a picture of them or a video of them and you, they're the ones that you don't want to post because with someone will think you're not doing anything, you know what I mean? Like they're not impressive looking.

• 1:29:01Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, you're not, you're not doing an Olympic weightlifting maneuver.

• 1:29:06Maria Sharapova?

  No, not doing any RDLs, but the little things that are that that take time and that look so simple and that are boring are the ones that really you know, that they ha- they, not only do you keep your focus, but you keep your strength and the balance, so. Yeah, and I work, I work on my core a lot because I, I do believe that that's, you know, it is the center of your body and it controls so much of um, it puts the body together, it's like the glue.

• 1:29:34Tim Ferriss?

  If you could only choose one or two core exercises to do, what would they be?

• 1:29:38Maria Sharapova?

  Oh, wow, um, I love using the TRX band and do that yellow band.

• 1:29:45Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:29:46Maria Sharapova?

  And putting it up, um, hanging it and and putting my feet in it and then doing a plank.

• 1:29:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yes.

• 1:29:53Maria Sharapova?

  And then um, sort of doing like bicycles while you're in a plank when your feet are in the TRX, I like that.

• 1:29:59Tim Ferriss?

  So you're crossing your midline with your knee?

• 1:30:01Maria Sharapova?

  Yes.

• 1:30:01Tim Ferriss?

  Yes, that's a fantastic exercise.

• 1:30:04Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah, I'd say, I mean, that's a little bit on the advanced side, but I know that your audience can do it.

• 1:30:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and and you can also, folks, if you have really tough top of your feet, uh, you can do that. I actually have some rings that I'm looking at outside on my patio set up at sort of push-up height and you can do something very, very similar.

• 1:30:22Maria Sharapova?

  Exactly. Um, and I do a lot on the physio ball and that's always simple. Most gyms have it. Even just the

• 1:30:30Tim Ferriss?

  Also known as a Swiss ball if people

• 1:30:32Maria Sharapova?

  Swiss ball, physio ball. Yes, there are a lot of terms. Um, yeah, I like, I like doing all different types of planks where, you know, just floor planks and extending your arms or extending your legs one at a time out.

• 1:30:46Maria Sharapova?

  So it's like an element of surprise and imbalance, or it's not just static.

• 1:30:51Tim Ferriss?

  Right. And for those of you who have heard my conversations with Dr. Peter Tia, he is a huge fan of doing, uh, different plank motions on the physio ball. And just to your point about unimpressive exercises. So I have completely changed my lower body performance and just stability in the last six months using slant boards, which, which make you look like you're on the most unenjoyable drug imaginable.

• 1:31:20Maria Sharapova?

  Right.

• 1:31:21Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, but it's this tiny, tiny adjustment that I feel like has changed my entire lower body by focusing on the feet. Uh, so

• 1:31:32Maria Sharapova?

  Exactly.

• 1:31:33Tim Ferriss?

  Here, here. Uh, now,

• 1:31:39Tim Ferriss?

  I have two, I'm also looking at them right now. I have a bottle of geranium essential oil. I know it's not a smooth segue, but bear with me. I have a bottle of

• 1:31:48Maria Sharapova?

  I was like, where are we going with this?

• 1:31:50Tim Ferriss?

  I have geranium because it was recommended to me by someone named Nicholas McCarthy, who is a one, a one-handed concert pianist who uses geranium when he is writing and composing because he found it helped keep him alert without overstimulating him. So he was relaxed and alert. So at, at some point, uh, I saw a video of you when you were 14. A star in the making.

• 1:32:16Maria Sharapova?

  Essential oils.

• 1:32:17Tim Ferriss?

  That's right. Candles and aromatherapy.

• 1:32:20Maria Sharapova?

  Candles and essential oils. Oh, I love.

• 1:32:22Tim Ferriss?

  Are you still into that?

• 1:32:25Maria Sharapova?

  I am. I mean, you should see the room that I'm in right now. I have, um, I have all these oils and all these candles and yeah, I, I, well, I, for me, it's about like this feeling of being in your like home environment. Um, and comfort. And that's something that you don't get when you travel so much. So when I do, it's kind of my way of feeling like every morning I turn on my incense and my candles and I have my coffee and it's just the smell. It's like the smell of being home.

• 1:32:54Tim Ferriss?

  What's the go to morning incense?

• 1:32:56Maria Sharapova?

  It's a Moroccan, um, scent.

• 1:33:00Maria Sharapova?

  It, I don't exactly know what's in it, but it smells like I'm in Morocco, even though I've never been there. Another one that's on my list.

• 1:33:07Tim Ferriss?

  Do you not bring those smells with you when you travel?

• 1:33:12Maria Sharapova?

  I don't. It, you know, interestingly enough, I, when I go on a trip, like I know that that's my work.

• 1:33:19Tim Ferriss?

  Ah.

• 1:33:20Maria Sharapova?

  I like, I like leaving those things behind.

• 1:33:24Tim Ferriss?

  Makes, it makes perfect sense.

• 1:33:26Maria Sharapova?

  It makes me feel that I'm going there for a reason. And I'm not going there to be comfortable. I'm not going to be there in my environment. I'm there to do my job. And I will come back home and I'll have everything. I'll have my friends and I'll have be around my family. But when I leave, it's like, there's so many times when I've left. And I've gone on a plane and it's the middle of the day in Manhattan Beach and the sun is shining and everyone's playing volleyball and, and I look at that and I'm like, it's hard. It's definitely hard. You know, my friends are out there and I want to be out there and I want to be enjoying the sunset, but I know what I'm going out there for. I know that come a time when I have five days off, I'll be able to

• 1:34:11Maria Sharapova?

  take my friends on vacation and, and treat them to a beautiful time. Um, but now is my time to work. And so I like leaving those things behind because it makes me feel that there is a, there is a prize at the end of it. There is something that I'm. That makes my job different.

• 1:34:27Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:28Maria Sharapova?

  I don't know if that makes sense.

• 1:34:29Tim Ferriss?

  It makes perfect, it makes perfect 100% sense to me. And it actually relates to something that made me smile when I read it. I was looking at a transcript of a conversation that you had. And this requires a little bit of context, but I'll shorten it. I hate the word balance. What is balance? Because it's 50 50. That means you're only giving 50% to both things. So I've always disliked the phrase work life balance because it implies blending to me. And I like to keep them very, very separate.

• 1:35:00Maria Sharapova?

  Right.

• 1:35:00Tim Ferriss?

  Do you think that's something that has helped you more than hurt you or challenged you in terms of relationships, outcomes and everything else? I mean, do you think there'll be a point where you trade that or change your mind about that?

• 1:35:11Maria Sharapova?

  I definitely think that it's challenged me. It's challenged the way that I think. But I do, you know, I read the one thing a few years ago. Like Carrie Keller. And I really, it kind of hit home for me. When you saying that you, when you wake up in the morning, you put your focus on this one thing of what you want to accomplish during the day, which seems like a no brainer, right? It seems like, okay, that's, that's the way that everyone should do it. But it's so much more complicated than that. And for example, when I leave for a trip and, you know, one of my good friends is getting married in August

• 1:35:54Maria Sharapova?

  and I'm going to be either in Cincinnati or Toronto, competing at a tournament.

• 1:36:01Maria Sharapova?

  I know that I'm not there for my friend. It's a big, it's a big day. It's a big event.

• 1:36:08Maria Sharapova?

  And yet I have this career in front of me that is taking priority. And I could say, you know, I could give many examples of my personal life as well. But those are choices. Those are your choices. And those are, I think. I don't think that there is a fifty fifty balance. I don't, that hasn't worked for me. I've always felt that I've had to let something go, or I sacrifice something. If I'm just fifty fifty, I'm never a hundred percent. And I wanna be a hundred percent. You know, when I train, when you train hours on end, when you give so much of your, of your body and your mind to this one profession, and whether it's me playing tennis, whether it's something else,

• 1:36:49Maria Sharapova?

  I don't wanna come into one of the biggest moments and biggest stages of my career and feel that I didn't do everything that I could.

• 1:36:57Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:36:58Maria Sharapova?

  And, and some, I, I do think that some people are okay with that feeling, but I am not, and that's my choice. And it all comes down to choice. I think we, we all have them, but as long as that we're, as long as I'm able to say, and, and I do believe that it's for other people as well, as long as we commit to that choice and not regret that choice, or don't give, don't allow ourselves to regret that choice, then that's when, that's when it's the right formula for us.

• 1:37:28Tim Ferriss?

  Now, you have many, many, many choices that are put in front of you, and you have people to help, but I would love to talk about choices in the morning. So first thing in the morning has come up a number of times, and I'm rather obsessed with morning routines. So you mentioned the incense, Morocco. You mentioned the tea, Darjeeling. When you wake up, do you eat breakfast right away? What is the first sixty to ninety minutes of your day look like and what are, what's the script? What is the, what is the algorithm for you?

• 1:38:04Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah, it's different all the time.

• 1:38:07Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. What about breakfast? Is breakfast consistent? Do you have sort of the, for instance, for this week, like, what is your go-to breakfast?

• 1:38:15Maria Sharapova?

  So I'm in training right now, and I'm, I'm getting ready to play all these hardcore tournaments, and so for the last weeks, I've been healing an injury. Now that that's, that's all good, I'm back into the routine of just intense training every day. And so, you know, I started at a particular time in the morning. I like to wake up early, I like to go to bed early, so I wake up early. I like to get about eight to nine hours of sleep. Sleep has been a big part of, I just feel like the makeup of how I feel, of the energy level that I have. Yeah, I wake up at six thirty. I usually have to be ready by nine um for practice. So I use that time and it kind of depends like um.

• 1:38:58Maria Sharapova?

  Right now I have a few, I have a couple of businesses that I'm a part of. So a lot of like the first hour, hour and a half. I spend um maybe on a conference call because that's usually, you know, afternoon time in Europe. So I'll do. One of those, I'll answer a few emails that's coming in from Europe. Um I have a candy brand, so we. Have to make a lot of decisions on that on a daily basis.

• 1:39:21Tim Ferriss?

  Sugar, Sugar Pova?

• 1:39:23Maria Sharapova?

  Sugar Pova.

• 1:39:23Tim Ferriss?

  Is it, is it true, I'm not going to interrupt beyond this, but is it true that you can, you were considering legally changing your name? Your last name?

• 1:39:32Maria Sharapova?

  Idea.

• 1:39:34Tim Ferriss?

  For the two thousand thirteen US Open?

• 1:39:36Maria Sharapova?

  It was an idea.

• 1:39:37Tim Ferriss?

  Genius idea, genius idea.

• 1:39:40Maria Sharapova?

  It uh proved to be very difficult, but.

• 1:39:44Tim Ferriss?

  Alright, so you're taking.

• 1:39:45Maria Sharapova?

  It was very funny.

• 1:39:46Tim Ferriss?

  So you're taking conference calls?

• 1:39:47Maria Sharapova?

  I do that work um for the first hour, hour and a half with a cup of coffee. That I have to have in the morning um with lactose free milk.

• 1:39:55Tim Ferriss?

  What type of lactose free milk? Sorry, I'm a nerd.

• 1:39:57Maria Sharapova?

  Just straight on lactose free milk.

• 1:39:59Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I see. So it's not almond milk or coconut milk. I see. Lactose free real milk.

• 1:40:03Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah, lactose free real milk.

• 1:40:05Tim Ferriss?

  Preferred coffee?

• 1:40:07Maria Sharapova?

  Um I do Nespresso. Um, simple.

• 1:40:11Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 1:40:11Maria Sharapova?

  And. Yeah, I think it's all, for me, it's all about the foam. So I have to have like the right foam.

• 1:40:20Maria Sharapova?

  Um, so I do that and then. And then I usually, when I'm getting ready, I turn on a podcast. And I listen, kind of depends on the mood I'm in, whether it's about health or I want to hear. About someone's life or someone's experiences. Um. I'll turn that on. So by the time I get my stuff ready for the whole day of practices and. Kind of brushing my teeth, um, I, I listen to other people share.

• 1:40:48Tim Ferriss?

  What are some of your favorite podcasts?

• 1:40:51Maria Sharapova?

  Uh, well, a good friend of mine is Lewis Howes, so I listen to his. I've listened to yours a bunch in the past, uh, six or eight months, I would say.

• 1:41:02Maria Sharapova?

  To Dan Harris's, um, I listened to, um, a, a fashion one. Yeah, a little bit of everything.

• 1:41:10Tim Ferriss?

  So Dan Harris, this is Dan Harris of 10% Happier?

• 1:41:13Maria Sharapova?

  Yes.

• 1:41:14Tim Ferriss?

  All right. Why do you listen to Dan Harris? Because I was going to ask you if you have a meditation practice of any type.

• 1:41:20Maria Sharapova?

  It's, it's interesting. Someone asked me the other day, do you meditate? And I said, I don't, but I really feel like I do because I listen to so many people speak about meditating. That I, I really, I feel like I do. I, I had to think for a second. I almost said yes. And I was like, no, no, no, actually I, I don't meditate, but I listen to people speak about it. And I've, I have a little bit. I've tried, I've done it and I, I enjoy it. Some of it is a little, it feels a little cultish to me.

• 1:41:53Tim Ferriss?

  Sure. Plenty of that floating around. Oh, yeah.

• 1:41:57Maria Sharapova?

  But.

• 1:41:58Tim Ferriss?

  You didn't like the like cat's paw and black roses I sent you? Is that what you're trying to tell me?

• 1:42:03Maria Sharapova?

  I like when people, um, I like to hear about people's experience of life-changing experience. And I think that's what, that's what really interests me is how something can affect a person, whether it's reading a book, whether it's hearing a mantra, whether it's meditating. So that's why I like listening to people speak about their practices or how it's influenced their life or what they were going through that required that. Yeah, I love learning from people's experiences. So I think that's one of the reasons I listen to his.

• 1:42:31Tim Ferriss?

  So I think, I think you've been meditating your entire life because of your comfort level, your comfort level with repetition.

• 1:42:40Maria Sharapova?

  Right.

• 1:42:40Tim Ferriss?

  I think that that is one and the same in a lot of respects.

• 1:42:44Maria Sharapova?

  I do. I mean, the one thing that I've, and I don't, I don't really know where I got it from, but I, one thing that I do, I realize that our thoughts are so spread out and that they go in so many different directions. And when I, when I notice that my mind goes to places that are so unnecessary when we, when I create my own stories that are so far from the truth. I bring it, I bring it to, I bring it back to the center of my breath. So I do think about just breathing. And that's not like me sitting in a chair and having thoughts or saying, okay, now I'm gonna meditate for ten minutes. That's just me, whether it's on a practice court and things are not going well, or I'm making so many errors.

• 1:43:25Maria Sharapova?

  And all of a sudden, I just create the story that is so, that is so far from the truth or the reality.

• 1:43:31Tim Ferriss?

  What would be an example of that?

• 1:43:32Maria Sharapova?

  So say I, you know, say my coach has me, you know, say I've studied some video analysis and he showed me a particular stroke that he wants me to work on. Or a particular movement. And he, you know, he's, this is, that's incorrect. And, and this is, he shows me an example of what he thinks I should do a little differently.

• 1:43:53Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:53Maria Sharapova?

  And so I go on the practice court, I start doing that. And with repetition, I'm not getting the outcome that I, that I wanted. And so I plant the story that, no, he's incorrect, he doesn't know what he's talking about. And, or, you know, or that, no, actually, this is not, I, this doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel natural. I'm not gonna feel nat, if it doesn't feel natural now, it's not gonna feel natural in a competitive state of mind. And, and no, all those things are completely not true. Those are all things that I'm putting in my brain.

• 1:44:26Tim Ferriss?

  How do you catch that? What do you say in your own head when you catch it?

• 1:44:30Maria Sharapova?

  I'm so aware of, of my surroundings and I'm really aware of, of like, the choice, the kind of the inside choices that I make. I've had sort of this feeling from a young age where I know how my mind can affect others or like my surrounding and myself included without having to say one word. Yeah, so I try to bring it back to my breath and, um, or sometimes changing those words completely, even though those are also not true, but they're much better than the negative outcome that you're putting out into the world.

• 1:45:05Tim Ferriss?

  I interrupted at some point, which I'm prone to doing, because I get all excited. I also want to recommend, well, I want to recommend Hardcore History with Dan Carlin. If you haven't heard it, I would recommend starting with

• 1:45:18Maria Sharapova?

  Tomorrow morning.

• 1:45:19Tim Ferriss?

  Wrath of the cons is what I would recommend starting with. It is my favorite podcast of all time and he does one episode every six to 12 months. But you will see why they are incredible. And also, I want to, I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to Louis, a mutual friend who made, who made the introduction.

• 1:45:40Maria Sharapova?

  That's possible.

• 1:45:41Tim Ferriss?

  Very good man.

• 1:45:43Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:44Tim Ferriss?

  I, I think we didn't get around to it because I got all hoppy and jumped in. Right now, you do this, you have the espresso with very important foam. You have some conference calls. You take care of sugar pova and so on.

• 1:45:58Maria Sharapova?

  Then my phones goes, my phone goes in my bag for the next few hours. And I train.

• 1:46:05Tim Ferriss?

  When do you eat? What do you have for breakfast?

• 1:46:08Maria Sharapova?

  Um, I eat probably 30 minutes before I get to, to practice. So I

• 1:46:14Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. So for two, for the first two and a half, three hours, you're not having breakfast.

• 1:46:18Maria Sharapova?

  I have a liter of water.

• 1:46:21Maria Sharapova?

  And, and a cup of coffee.

• 1:46:22Tim Ferriss?

  Is it special water?

• 1:46:24Maria Sharapova?

  No.

• 1:46:24Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 1:46:25Maria Sharapova?

  It's Evian water.

• 1:46:26Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, got it. It's not like $27 Southern California water. It's just

• 1:46:29Maria Sharapova?

  No, no, it's just, yeah.

• 1:46:31Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 1:46:32Maria Sharapova?

  And so I drink that. I drink my coffee and then breakfast. I usually make myself a smoothie or, or a green juice with spinach and kale and chia seeds and coconut water and all the other greens cucumber, kiwi. And I always have a piece of rye bread. Kind of, that's kind of the European. I love rye bread. So I start with that. And I either put some goat cheese on it, a piece of protein or avocado, um, and some berries and that's it.

• 1:47:09Tim Ferriss?

  Sounds delicious.

• 1:47:10Maria Sharapova?

  Thanks. Pretty straightforward.

• 1:47:14Tim Ferriss?

  I love rye bread, but I my tendency is to eat a whole loaf of rye bread if I allow myself a little bit. I'm not very good at that moderation thing.

• 1:47:23Maria Sharapova?

  Well, the thing I will the thing about rye bread is that I I don't think that it's so good, so that I I mean, I I think it's better than some other breads, but it's not like like sourdough I love, but I don't I don't eat regular bread that much. So if I was eating a piece of sourdough, I'd probably have three pieces, but rye bread is kind of in between. It's edible.

• 1:47:45Tim Ferriss?

  It's digestible and good, but it's not a Snickers bar.

• 1:47:50Maria Sharapova?

  Exactly.

• 1:47:51Tim Ferriss?

  That's a good point.

• 1:47:51Maria Sharapova?

  But you don't want too much of it.

• 1:47:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. All right. No, this is this is a smart approach. All right. So just just just a few more things. In the last few years, or just in recent memory, what is what is a new belief or behavior or habit that has greatly improved your life? Does anything come to mind?

• 1:48:12Maria Sharapova?

  I mean, one thing that I had to go through in the past 15 months was being away from my sport because of a suspension that I faced. And I went through this time period, obviously, with a lot of questions and questions of whether I would return to sport or whether I turn to the sport that I played. But during that same time, I also realized and I had a chance to stop and really recognized how and what I've really done in my life and my career to inspire others and to I I've used the word inspire a lot because that's how

• 1:48:52Maria Sharapova?

  I kind of see other people inspire, you know, my life. But I had so many moments and instances where I would come across people that would. Start a conversation with me and tell me kind of how I've influenced their kids or how I've, how they've seen me compete and that I'm, you know, they admire my, my spirit so much and that they can't wait to see me back. And I don't, I never had that realization before, which sounds crazy and, but I never really understood, or I don't, I don't think I really understood, um, maybe it was selfishly, how much I impacted other people.

• 1:49:34Tim Ferriss?

  Did you notice that because the PR madness was stressful and you saw that as a counter, a counterbalance? Or why do you think you noticed it?

• 1:49:45Maria Sharapova?

  I think I noticed it because people, so many more people came, had, had the courage to speak to me. And which, which usually, um, you know, people would come up to you and ask for an autograph or ask for a picture and it would just be, you know, what, a few seconds of your time. But these were instances where people would come and, and have a proper conversation with you about how they're so, they can't wait to see me back and they can't wait to see me play and what, what I mean to them. And it was just different. It was a different communication. It was a different way of talent of, you know, and, and every person helped me feel better. There's no doubt.

• 1:50:30Maria Sharapova?

  But it, it was, um, it was chefs coming from the kitchen and there were pilots coming from the cockpit and it was just an experience I, I don't think I would have ever felt. And maybe because I never wanted to feel that like huge responsibility that I did have this impact and that I always wanted to keep impacting and always be the right example. Maybe that, that's why I never quite, but I do think that subconsciously, I didn't want to give into that because maybe that would have added more pressure, you know? Cause as I said before, like my parents never made me feel that if I did or I didn't make it, that it would be all right to go back to where we started. Yeah, it was just, it was a very eye-opening moment.

• 1:51:16Tim Ferriss?

  Now you, you had your first sponsor, as I understand it, when you were 11. So when you, when you, we, so.

• 1:51:24Tim Ferriss?

  So when you are getting that amount of attention and when you have adulation from fans and chefs and so on, it's, it would seem to me a very human temptation and very easy to get a very big head and for that to affect your life and performance and so on. How do you, how do you counteract that? Or how do you avoid that? Because that's been the downfall of many, many people who've been in the limelight for various things.

• 1:51:54Maria Sharapova?

  I will say that I'm, I'm a fairly realistic person and I know I've been through a lot. And so I, I face, I faced a lot of grief. I faced a lot of press. I faced a lot of success. I faced a lot of boardroom meetings. I've seen a lot. I've seen a lot in my years. And at the end of it is, it's all, a lot of it is superficial and a lot of it almost seems not human, like superhuman. But behind everything, there's a very human person.

• 1:52:34Maria Sharapova?

  You know, there's a very normal, there's a, I'm very much a simple human being that I'm like, I've been fortunate to make good money for my career, but those things are never things that make me the happiest. And I know that and I realize that. The values that you have in your life are, are much smaller than that. And they bring so many more rewards than money could ever, could ever bring you. Of course, it's helpful and knowing that I, you know, it puts a huge smile on my face that I can, that I can support my grandparents and that I can buy them a home and that I know they're going to be comfortable and they can have their garden and grow their cucumbers and that my cousins

• 1:53:16Maria Sharapova?

  can have a proper education. And that feeling is incredible. But that's, and that's a feeling that of course money brings you. But I think the value, I mean, like I said, the relationship that I've had with my parents, you know, they're they're also very strong people and they they will tell me if if something, you know, if they're if they see that something's going on or if my my decisions are not correct and they're very real and I I surround myself with real people. You know, I wanna I'm a very honest person myself. I think that's part of the Russian character. I say it like it is.

• 1:53:57Maria Sharapova?

  Like I I'm very straight on about what I feel and and that's sometimes gotten me into trouble. You know, just based on maybe I should keep a few opinions to myself, but I I like this idea of tell me how you feel about things. Tell me, tell me straight up. You know, don't go around, don't, you know, maybe I this this word maybe is is brutal.

• 1:54:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:22Maria Sharapova?

  It's like neither here nor there. So it's hard. It's definitely hard because from a young age I could have made so many different decisions and that could have got me to different places.

• 1:54:33Tim Ferriss?

  What is one of the worst decisions that you avoided making? Or one of the best decisions that your parents helped you make?

• 1:54:41Maria Sharapova?

  I mean, at that age, there was a lot of decisions that my my parents made, but I think from a a business point of view, I've been been able to be associated with many great brands. And there is a lot of opportunities, especially when I was young, to make what I like to call quick money.

• 1:55:01Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:55:01Maria Sharapova?

  It's like wire, wire in the bank. You show up for a shoot and you do it and you smile and and you leave and and there you are.

• 1:55:12Maria Sharapova?

  And that is it's not that it's it's great that you have this company and this brand that, you know, has tracked you down and has seen you and has studied you and wants you to be a part of their brand. But I've always felt like the best decisions I've made are based on real partnerships, like real understanding of what a company of what myself wants from each other and why we want to work together. And I I really believe that's one of the reasons I've I've had these partnerships for such a long time. I mean, one example is with Nike. I mean, it's it's so much more than just me wearing a swoosh on the court.

• 1:55:53Maria Sharapova?

  Like I, I go into a store and I, I take pride in, in the fact that like I was wa- actually I was walking um, around the other day and someone came up to me and said, wow, you look like you could, you could be like a Nike billboard. And I was, you know, and you kind of, and I, I looked, I didn't know like if that was, you know, funny or not, or they were like making fun of what I was wearing. But I looked at her and I was like, yeah. And then so, wow, you're Maria Sharapova. Of course you are. They pay you to, they pay to wear that. And I said, no, actually, you have no idea how happy I am to wear this. Um, like you, you kind of grow a fondness of the people that you work with of the, there's so much that goes

• 1:56:33Maria Sharapova?

  into a campaign, a, a product, a, and I love that stuff. Like I pers- I love knowing, like I went to the Nike campuses um, after my Harvard experience and I followed around. Um, I, I went into meetings and I kind of shadowed. I was like a little ghost in all these meetings because I wanted to learn about like product development.

• 1:56:54Tim Ferriss?

  That was at Beaverton or?

• 1:56:56Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:56Tim Ferriss?

  Nice.

• 1:56:58Maria Sharapova?

  So I went into these meetings and I just, I, I wanted to know why a product is dropped and why this material is used and why that material is being developed. And um, there's just so much incredible technol- like I just, I love fashion. I love creativity. So I got to learn a lot about that. But you take great pride in the people that you work with and, and the decisions that I, that I made, um, that started with either friendship or a partnership where you understand the company and you know, the people have, are the ones that have grown.

• 1:57:32Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, you're playing the long game in a lot of ways. And I think there are many people who feel like they know a lot about you. So my last two questions are about things that people might not know about you. And hopefully there's a lot of that in this conversation already. But the, the first one is, if you had to give a TED Talk about something you are not known for, no tennis.

• 1:57:54Maria Sharapova?

  Right.

• 1:57:54Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, for instance, what would you talk about? What is the, the personal obsession that few people know about, or, or something you're good at that few people know about that you would talk about? Or anything?

• 1:58:07Maria Sharapova?

  Oh, I don't know if I'm good at, but I, and I don't know if I'd necessarily do a TED Talk on it, but I have this, I have a huge passion for architecture. And um yeah, I've I think I've always said that if I wasn't a tennis player, I would love to um. I would love to be an architect. I find it's it's like my it's my happy place like when I am able to drive around Palm Springs or drive around Tuscany and see like the differences and beams and windows and um like I love studying that. And I just I spent a few years building a home myself and that process like I feel if I had the time, which I don't have at the moment, I would just do for fun.

• 1:58:52Maria Sharapova?

  Um so yeah, that would be something that I'm passionate about, but not many people know.

• 1:58:57Tim Ferriss?

  What do you like about it? And do you have any favorite types of architecture or architects? Anything books that have influenced you?

• 1:59:04Maria Sharapova?

  Yeah, absolutely. Um some from Noitra to Frank Gehry. Um I love like the indoor and outdoor feel and I I love when when architects are able to to bring nature into a home and make it feel like you're living outside, but you're kind of in this cocoon environment. I don't know if that makes sense.

• 1:59:25Tim Ferriss?

  Makes perfect sense.

• 1:59:26Maria Sharapova?

  But I've oh yeah, I've just always been fascinated by how someone can have an idea and draw some lines. And two years later, you have structure and you have placement and you have a floor plan. And you have this maze and it it actually started from a young age because I growing up in Florida, I went I was I was invited to um for a few sleepovers and I would go to a sleepover. You know, at a rich per at that time is like a rich person's home that had four or five bedrooms and I I'd never seen a home that had four or five bedrooms. Before it was like, what are all these rooms for? Why is there like two dining rooms? Like, why isn't one enough?

• 2:00:08Maria Sharapova?

  Um and that's when I became fascinated with floor plans and um how like something connects to another thing and like the usage of space and and then details like colors and materials. Um yeah, it was just always really appealing.

• 2:00:24Tim Ferriss?

  What is your personal favorite color?

• 2:00:27Maria Sharapova?

  Um, I love neutral colors, so I love grays and darks and no browns.

• 2:00:34Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 2:00:35Maria Sharapova?

  I don't want to say black because that's, I mean, when I say someone, a little girl asked me the other day, what's your favorite color? Because she wanted, she wanted to draw something for me and I was like, I was about to say black and I was like, oh no, that she's not going to like me if I say black. So now every time someone asks me my favorite color, I'm like, ah, yellow.

• 2:00:58Maria Sharapova?

  It sounds so much happier than black.

• 2:01:00Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I guess it's hard to say to a little girl who wants to draw you something, black, like the Grim Reaper's cape.

• 2:01:07Maria Sharapova?

  Exactly. So I, I ended up with yellow.

• 2:01:12Tim Ferriss?

  That's your cover story?

• 2:01:16Tim Ferriss?

  Very last one and we'll see what we get is what is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love? And I'll give you an example, an example of this. I asked Cheryl Strayed this question, who wrote Wild, which was made into a movie and amazing woman. And she said, every sandwich I get has to be in uniform layers. So every bite is as similar to the next as possible. So if she gets a sandwich and like all the avocados are kind of over on one side or whatever, she'll reopen it and rearrange it so that every bite is the same. Now, I'm not saying you have to have something like that, but does anything come to mind? An unusual habit, a weird object, an absurd thing, anything that you love that is a little odd?

• 2:02:01Maria Sharapova?

  A few random things like I, I always put my left shoe on before my right and not be, not just a tennis shoe, but like any shoe. It's like I never, when I'm in a store and I'm trying shoes and they hand me a right shoe, I'm like, ah, I'm sorry.

• 2:02:17Maria Sharapova?

  Like I'm, I'm fine with like opening the box again myself. I'd rather get the left shoe. Give you a strange look.

• 2:02:27Maria Sharapova?

  Then like for my out, my match court outfits, I don't like to wear, usually people like to wear the same outfit. So if they like did well in it, they wear it again. Um, I mean, they wash it, but then wear it again, or maybe they don't wash it. I don't know. So I, I do the opposite. I, I don't wear it again. I alternate.

• 2:02:48Tim Ferriss?

  So you never, you now, does that mean?

• 2:02:49Maria Sharapova?

  I don't want to wear the same exact one. I'll wear the same looking outfit, but I have a few different ones. So.

• 2:02:55Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. But never the exact same outfit again.

• 2:02:59Tim Ferriss?

  I love it.

• 2:03:00Maria Sharapova?

  Not in that same tournament.

• 2:03:03Tim Ferriss?

  When you win a huge, I, you know, I feel like I'm making a liar of myself, but when you win a big tournament, do you have a favorite cheat food or anything that you celebrate with?

• 2:03:13Maria Sharapova?

  I love sweets. I love, um, I love dulce de leche.

• 2:03:17Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, my God.

• 2:03:20Maria Sharapova?

  I love, um, we have this cake in Russia. Um, it's called the nevavik. It's a honey cake. Um, I could eat that every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

• 2:03:30Tim Ferriss?

  Is it like baklava or is it different?

• 2:03:32Maria Sharapova?

  No, it's a little, it's not as crunchy. It's a soft cake.

• 2:03:36Tim Ferriss?

  I see.

• 2:03:36Maria Sharapova?

  It's a layered cake, but it's a soft cake. And yeah, I, I love cherry, like when my grandmother makes cherry jam, I could eat that by the spoons. Um, that's like a childhood memory. Yeah. So I love, I love sweets.

• 2:03:51Tim Ferriss?

  Well, it makes sense for sugar pova.

• 2:03:54Maria Sharapova?

  For an athlete, right? That makes a lot of sense.

• 2:03:57Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, well, it's great for glycogen replenishment, right?

• 2:04:00Maria Sharapova?

  Yes.

• 2:04:01Tim Ferriss?

  For those people wondering, dulce de leche, also known as the crack cocaine of Argentina. Delicious on vanilla ice cream. And, uh, if, if it's going to keep other people up until four in the morning, cause it'll drive them nuts, RDL's Romanian deadlifts, right?

• 2:04:17Maria Sharapova?

  Yes.

• 2:04:19Tim Ferriss?

  Just so that doesn't bother anybody. Maria, this has been so much fun.

• 2:04:23Maria Sharapova?

  Thank you.

• 2:04:24Tim Ferriss?

  I really appreciate you taking the time.

• 2:04:25Maria Sharapova?

  Oh, no, thank you so much.

• 2:04:27Tim Ferriss?

  I really encourage people to learn more about your story. I cannot wait to read Unstoppable. And people can find you at Maria Sharapova dot com, Facebook.

• 2:04:37Maria Sharapova?

  Yes.

• 2:04:38Tim Ferriss?

  Facebook dot com forward slash Sharapova. And then Twitter and Instagram are both at Maria Sharapova. Do you have any final ask of the people listening or a suggestion for the audience? Anything that comes to mind?

• 2:04:52Maria Sharapova?

  Oh, no, I just, I hope that they continue listening to your work because I've, when I started, I was so impressed by your interviews and the way you're able to get a lot out of people in a conversational form. And so keep listening. And yeah, and I'm so, I'm really excited about, you know, the the opportunity that I had to share my story with other people and to share my journey. And, you know, sometimes we think that our story is not special and everyone's story is very special. And I've just been so excited about being able to put it on paper and for everyone, you know, to read,

• 2:05:32Maria Sharapova?

  to read it. So, yeah, it's a big, it's a, you know, I've always been a very personal and private individual. So it's sort of a big moment for me because I share a lot of the frame of mind that I had as a young girl and as an athlete, as a person, as a daughter, in relationships. So there's a lot I share that I never thought a few years ago I would be able to. It's exciting. It's a little scary. It puts you in a vulnerable place. But I'm very looking forward to, to hearing what people think of it as well.

• 2:06:03Tim Ferriss?

  And A, congratulations. B, we talked about toughness as one of your defining competitive advantages. The fact that you recorded your own audiobook?

• 2:06:15Maria Sharapova?

  Oh, my God. No, I was like, no one's giving me enough credit for this.

• 2:06:20Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, my God. Like, you think walking through or running a marathon in the desert with no water is hard? Like, recording an entire audiobook?

• 2:06:29Maria Sharapova?

  I had to take a couple of days off after that because I was training in the mornings. And then I'd go and I'd record six to eight hours for three days.

• 2:06:37Tim Ferriss?

  Good God.

• 2:06:38Maria Sharapova?

  And I, I called my team at the end of the third and I said, I, first of all, I have no voice. And second of all, like you have off tomorrow because I'm not coming.

• 2:06:49Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it is. It is one of the most comprehensively exhausting experiences you can imagine. And which is why I've never recorded one of my own audiobooks. I've all I've done bits and pieces and then I've tapped out. So.

• 2:07:01Maria Sharapova?

  Right. So I, well, what I liked at the end of it was that after I read it and when you read out loud, it was, I didn't want to change a single thing.

• 2:07:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:12Maria Sharapova?

  And that was when I.

• 2:07:13Tim Ferriss?

  That is incredibly rare.

• 2:07:15Maria Sharapova?

  Big milestone.

• 2:07:16Tim Ferriss?

  Incredibly rare, incredibly, incredibly rare, which means that the book has to be really, really good. I just, that isn't a really clear, no, no, I'm telling you, that's a really, really clear indicator. If you didn't change, A, it means that it's good. B, it means that our dear friend, Mr., well, I'm kidding. I don't know. But Rich Cohen, I know of his work, really got the voice right.

• 2:07:42Maria Sharapova?

  Right.

• 2:07:42Tim Ferriss?

  Which is really, really hard to do. So.

• 2:07:44Maria Sharapova?

  Absolutely.

• 2:07:46Tim Ferriss?

  I'm excited to check it out. Everybody.

• 2:07:47Maria Sharapova?

  Thank you.

• 2:07:48Tim Ferriss?

  Check it out. And Unstoppable, you can find it everywhere. And thank you so much for the time, Maria. I know that your time is precious and I know you have a lot of demands on your time. So I really appreciate it.

• 2:08:00Maria Sharapova?

  Of course. Thank you. I appreciate it.

• 2:08:01Tim Ferriss?

  And to everybody listening, you can find the show notes as usual, links to everything we talked about, links to the architects she named, links to Unstoppable itself, links to everything in the show notes at tim.blog/podcast. And as always, thank you for allowing me to make this my job, I guess. And until next time, thanks for listening.

• 2:08:30Tim Ferriss?

  Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include. Favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short.

• 2:09:13Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Ascent Protein, the cleanest, least processed protein I've ever consumed. And I have tried just about everything since well before the four hour body. I've started my day with 20 to 30 grams of protein first thing. That has been part of my routine, but I don't always have the time or necessarily the desire to cook an entire meal. So what to do?

• 2:09:55Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:10:39Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:11:04Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:11:49Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:12:34Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:13:19Tim Ferriss?

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