The Mindset of a World Cup Champion | Carli Lloyd

With the World Cup underway, it feels like the right time to revisit a conversation with someone who knows exactly what it takes to perform on that stage. In today's episode, Ryan talks with two-time World Cup champion Carli Lloyd about the work behind a championship career: learning to handle pressure, raising your own standards, staying disciplined when talent is no longer enough, and knowing when it’s time to move on. Carli is a former American professional soccer player who retired in 2021 and was inducted in the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2025. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, two-time FIFA Player of the Year and four-time Olympian, competing in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020. Carli scored the gold medal-winning goal in the final of the 2008 Olympics and both U. S. goals in the gold medal match at the 2012 Olympics. She also helped the United States win the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cups, earn bronze at the 2020 Olympics and finish as runners-up at the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup. 👉 Follow Carli on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/carlilloyd/?hl=en | @CarliLloyd https://www.instagram.com/carlilloyd/?hl=en 📚 Read Carli's memoir: When Nobody Was Watching: My Hard-Fought Journey to the Top of the Soccer World. https://www.amazon.com/When-Nobody-Was-Watching-Hard-Fought/dp/0544814622 🎟️DAILY STOIC LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/| Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you https://www.dailystoiclive.com/! Grab tickets here https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ | https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ 🎙️AD-FREE https://dailystoic.supercast.com/| Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 VIDEO EPISODES https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos| Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos ✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

• 0:14Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. It is the World Cup. I know this because a lot of people are talking about it, and I see it on TV everywhere. And we were at the drive-through for McDonald's the other day. My kids were being maniacs, and my son asked for a World Cup Happy Meal. And I thought, oh, yeah, the World Cup's happening. I don't know that much about soccer, and you can tell that because I called soccer. I've been to an Austin FC game. It was very cool. But what is the connection between the World Cup and Stoicism? Well, back in 2023, we had one of the greatest American soccer players of all time, Carli Lloyd, on the podcast. She had retired in 2021.

• 0:59Ryan Holiday?

  She's in the National Soccer Hall of Fame. She's a two-time Olympic gold medalist, a two-time Women's World Cup champion, two-time FIFA Player of the Year, and a four-time Olympian. 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020. Crazy. And we were talking Stoicism, what it takes to be a great athlete, what it takes to perform at the highest level. And she's also a starring character and subject of one of my favorite books about leadership and sports, Sam Walker's The Captain Class. I think the subtitle is New Theory of Leadership, but also The Driving Force Between Some of the World's Greatest Teams. Great book. I think you'll see from this episode why Carli Lloyd is in there. Carli has her own great memoir, When Nobody Was Watching: My Hard-Fought Journey to the Top of the Soccer World.

• 1:44Ryan Holiday?

  You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter, @CarliLloyd. And let's get into it. Going to obstacles and sort of the growth mindset, I was thinking about this as I was preparing. It's 20 years ago that you were cut from the under-21 team, and you've talked about this. That's kind of amazing, but you thought that was it for you? Like, you've talked about how you thought that was the end of the road. Obviously, it wasn't.

• 2:13Ryan Holiday?

  But talk to me about that moment where you're sort of like, is this as far as this thing takes me? Or, you know, am I going to double down and figure out who I'm going to be and how I'm going to get past this?

• 2:24Speaker 01

  It was a pivotal moment in my career, in my life, and I kind of break up my life into two halves. The first half, you know, being born and then up until this year 21 point of getting cut, I was one player and person. I relied on my talent a lot. I had a lot of coaches who supported my talent. And even though one day I would show up and give 80%, it was still better than most people's 100%. And whether that was, you know, right or wrong with some of the coaches that I had, they would constantly play me, you know, they would constantly need me. I was the best player on every team I played on. And I never

• 3:08Speaker 01

  really kind of went through anything that was a little difficult or a little challenging or, you know, hit an obstacle per se. And I was pretty lazy, in fact, and didn't have like the best workout ethic, pointed the fingers, blamed a lot of people. There was never that, again, that growth mindset, that, that internal motivation to say, all right, I'm going to look myself in the mirror. What do I need to do to be better? It's not anybody else's fault. What do I need to do? So when I got cut from the under 21 national team, the easy way out for me was to quit. Of course, my parents didn't want to see that happen.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  They had, you know, spent numerous weekends and hours and money giving me the opportunity to kind of lay this foundation. And they did know that I loved it. So I finally, you know, figured out that I just had to face it. And I really believe that the only way through any challenge and obstacle in life is through it. And you become better when you just go through it. Exactly. Um, I remember that from your book. And so I started to just change my mindset, started to work hard, started to work on a lot of things that I wasn't necessarily good at. I got myself fit. I hated running, um, but I just, I just did it and I knew

• 4:30Speaker 01

  that I had to do it and, um, have now grown to lo- love running. It's therapeutic for me. It's, it's my outlet. Um, so it, again, that, that first half of my life, you know, was, was pretty much relying on my talent up to that point. And, and like anything in life, talent only gets you so far. And so that second part of my, my life from the under 21 days, you know, all the way in, until this point, yeah, it's, it's a tale of, of two different people, two different Carli. And, you know, right now, it's been about, you know, digging deep and I had the motivation, I had the passion, I just

• 5:09Speaker 01

  needed to learn the necessary tools to not only get me to the top, but allow me to stay there for so long. And yeah, it's been, it's been an incredible journey, but that was a pivotal moment in my career and my life.

• 5:23Ryan Holiday?

  There's a story about Roseanne Cash, uh, Johnny Cash's daughter. I think I heard about it from Steven Pressfield first, but it's, it's in her memoir, which is, which is really, really good. But she was, you know, sort of coasting. She's obviously naturally talented. Her father's like sort of music royalty. So she's just sort of doing her thing and she'd put out a couple albums and they'd done okay. And she has this dream one night and you know, dreams are like sort of weird. So she's in this dream and she's at this party and she sees the singer Linda Ronstadt talking to this man and the man has like a name tag on and it says Art, right? This sort of symbolizing like her craft, what she does. And, uh, she goes up to them. She's this huge Linda Ronstadt fan and, and

• 6:06Ryan Holiday?

  she, um, she tries to talk to her and the man, Art, looks at her and he says, "We don't respect dilettantes." And then they both turn her back, their back on her. And she sort of has this wake up call that

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 6:20Ryan Holiday?

  She, she hasn't, she's been doing okay, but she had, she's been a bit of a dilettante. Like she wasn't all in on the thing. And then, you know, she ends up hiring better collaborators. She demands more of herself as a lyricist and as a musician, you know, hires teachers, et cetera. And I, I think about that moment, it's like, are you being serious about this thing? Or are you just enjoying the fact that you're pretty good at it? Or that you're getting rewards for it? Or, you know, that it doesn't ask that much from you. Cause life doesn't, ultimately the craft or the profession or the thing, it doesn't have much time for dilettantes. You're not going to get very far.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  No, no, and you're not going to be handed it. And, and I think the biggest lesson is, you know, I don't know that I necessarily even had the, the most belief in myself that I could do it. So maybe there was a sense of, of fear that crept in, you know? What if I start running? What if I start working hard? And then what if I don't make it? But I committed to it from that point on. I was, like you said, I was all in and just consistently living a lifestyle. You know, throughout that journey of taking care of my body, getting enough sleep, eating well, training as much as I can, double, triple the amount of other, other players and just committing to that.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  And you don't know what the, the journey is going to be like, and you don't know how it's going to play out. But just a big believer in just being consistent with everything that you do and, and giving it all you have. And the journey will right itself.

• 7:56Ryan Holiday?

  Well, obviously in athletics, there's a sort of a legal distinction between amateur and professional. But it strikes me that that's, that's the moment that you turn pro.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  You know, I, I think timing is everything in life. I think that there is the higher powers or whatever your beliefs are that, you know, need to collide and need to kind of all come together. But the under 21 national team for me was the four years throughout my collegiate career at Rutgers University.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  And then in two thousand and four, when I finished up, two thousand and five was when I first got into the national team. I had two camps. They were actually um not as busy that year because they were going through some contractual stuff. So I had my first two games being played on the national team and and it was almost like, hey, you're rolling into this and you you better learn fast and take this opportunity and and figure out what you need to do to to be able to stay there.

• 8:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, and and the idea of being a professional at what you do is is sort of secondary or independent of whether you're getting paid for that thing or not, right? Like, obviously, being being a pro athlete means that you're getting paid to be the athlete, but like, there are plenty of people who are getting paid that are not professionals. Do you know what I mean? Like, they they don't treat it like a job or a calling or a craft. They are continuing, maybe because they're maybe they had different assets or whatever. They didn't. They don't run into that thing that you happened to bump into there early on, which is like,

• 9:32Ryan Holiday?

  hey, my natural talent isn't enough anymore. There has to be some other driver or system that'll it's gonna allow me to continue doing this.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. Yeah, because you you reach a point where, you know, you're you're being funneled into a bucket of all the best players. Everybody that I was playing with were the same me, just in a different state, in a different section of the country. So there's gotta be some sort of separation of what's gonna keep you there and

• 10:07Speaker 01

  what's gonna allow you to to keep staying, you know, at the top. And um I think it it ultimately starts with passion. I mean, that that for me is a nonnegotiable. If you don't have any passion and love for what you do.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  It's gonna be just treated as a job. It's gonna be treated as, you know, this monotonous thing that you just go through life. But, I mean, I loved playing. That round ball was, was my first love, you know? And it was never about the money. It was never about the fame, the glory, nothing. It was purely because of the beautiful game. And, you know, that's, that's ultimately what it's, what it's all about. Now, when you're a youth, under five player, playing on a rec versus playing at a professional level, it, it does somewhat become a job. There's a lot of things that you have to navigate. You know, I, I think it's much easier when you're younger and there's not all this pressure

• 11:08Speaker 01

  and all these other things, you know, social media world and the media world and the doubters and, and all of that. So it's, it is a lot to navigate and, but when you step in between those lines, and I always stepped in between those lines, it was like everything else around me just, just paused, you know? It was just, it was like time stood still and I'm just playing this game and it was pretty amazing.

• 11:31Ryan Holiday?

  There's a Paul Graham line that I love. He's this entrepreneur. He writes these great essays about entrepreneurship and creativity. And his line is that it's very hard to be great at something that you don't think about in the shower, you know? Like if it's not something that you are profoundly obsessed with and consumed by, you are probably not going to be putting the resources in that's not just required, but that's going to allow you to compete with the majority of people in that field that are that way, right? For better or for worse. Like you're competing with and against people who are totally obsessed and live and breathe that thing.

• 12:14Ryan Holiday?

  And so if you don't have that, that is a huge competitive disadvantage.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. And I saw that and felt that firsthand from players that I played with, played against all throughout my youth days, up into my college days. Some of those players, I used to look at them and say, wow, they're, they're so much more talented than I am. They're, they're so much better than I am. But I got to a point where none of them were playing past college. Some hadn't even gone to college to play and. Suddenly, you know, I I remember kind of saying, you know, what was it that that, you know, I saw these players just all of a sudden stopping? And it's that will, it's that love, you know, it it is life consuming. You know, for for seventeen years of my professional career, I don't know whether it's right or wrong.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  My life was consumed by soccer. And now stepping out of that world and and being retired, I feel like I'm I'm blessed to be able to be retired at the age of, you know, thirty nine last year to still be able to do so many things. And and now I feel like I have just such a better balance on life. You know, I was I was all in and needed to do what I what I did with my career. But now I just have this different perspective of, you know, maybe not being as hardcore and and just kind of being in the present and just taking life in. So, yeah, I don't know if that's just, you know, getting older and not playing anymore.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  But I I definitely have a a shift in a mindset in in this new retired phase.

• 13:50Ryan Holiday?

  I was with Dante Hightower, the the football player the other day. He he just sort of retired and I was talking to him about that. And I was like, you got to find an outlet, man. Because like, I was like, the intensity that you brought to this thing that you've been doing since you were ten years old. Right? Every day, it's what you're thinking about in the shower. It's what you're spending literally hours in the gym, on the field, watching film. And then also like your competitiveness and your satisfactions. That was all directed at this thing. And that thing is now gone, right? That energy cannot just be vomited on the people around you

• 14:34Ryan Holiday?

  who have gotten to know you over the years as being the person who had an outlet for those things. Right? Like, you have you have to find a a productive, healthy place, I think, for that energy. Or it turns on itself.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I that's what I heard. I heard a lot of stories about athletes in particular that have retired that haven't really transitioned well into that retirement phase. And I think it's it's interesting. And I'd almost like to dive deeper into it. Because I was someone who was able to dictate when I left the sport.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  It was no career ending injury, or I was too old, or it was a coach's decision. I said, I've done it all. I've got nothing left to prove. It's time for my next, next step in life. And, um, and that was that. And so to be able to peacefully walk away from something you've done your whole life. You talk about this outlet and this release. I don't really have those competitive foaming at the mouth juices that I'm longing for anymore, which I think is a good thing. I mean, I play, I play golf now with my husband and I'm getting into that. And, but it's almost like a peaceful journey. Like, I'm just kind of, all right, it's gonna take time to learn the swing.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna, I'm gonna be patient with it, but I'm gonna enjoy the process more because I don't know that I necessarily took in and enjoyed the process in my career. And again, maybe that was good, maybe that was bad. I reached heights that I wanted to reach. But, um, it's just an interesting perspective to, to kind of compare the two.

• 16:19Ryan Holiday?

  See, like, there, there's two different Ryans. There's the Ryan who's writing a book. And then there's the Ryan who has recently finished a book, right? And so like Ryan who is writing a book is like a dog that's getting walked, that's going outside and playing a lot, you know, that's sort of very like, or like a kid that like had a full day, right? Like, I had a productive, healthy, generative, you know, like thing that I got a lot of that energy out. But then also because I care about this thing so much, I don't care about a lot of other things that don't really matter. I'm just sort of like, I don't care what the weather is when I'm writing.

• 17:01Ryan Holiday?

  I don't care what's happening in the world. Like, I'm not noticing whether the house is messy or clean because like I have like a kind of a tunnel vision that is my thing. And then sometimes my wife will catch me when I'm like between books, or I've just stopped a book, or I'm waiting for edits back on a book. Like suddenly I'm like, I'm up in everyone's business. I have a lot more. Like now, all of a sudden, I'm I'm looking for stuff that I would have, I would have been totally oblivious to before. And I think that is the beauty of having a kind of a life's task, like a thing that you do that fulfills you and challenges you and stimulates you. Being involved with the game, I think probably generally is that for you.

• 17:43Ryan Holiday?

  But I think people struggle when either they don't have that thing. Like, just imagine how frustrating it would be to be you having never discovered the thing you were meant to do, like if you just never, if you had walked away from soccer after you got cut. Like, you would be the same person, but you would have never found that fulfillment and meaning and sense of self. So I think it's frustrating to never have it. And then it's also frustrating when the way you're involved in it changes. You have to find a new way to adjust and calibrate, or else you're a you're not pleasant to be around.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I would probably say throughout my career, I mean, with my husband and, I mean, talk about the tunnel vision and your mood is is a reflection of wins and losses, you know, success and failure. And and it tended to not be good when there was failure and, you know, losses and all that. But you have to be all in. And I think that, you know, I do, I look at the people around me, you know, friends, family. And I couldn't imagine, you know, not not really going after a dream, right? You know, you're just kind of cruising through life and you go to college and you get a job. And then you're just kind of, you know, you're just just going about life.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  But yeah, I'm very fortunate to have been able to do something that I love for so long and follow that dream.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  And I think what I take most from everything is, again, you know, the books, the lessons, the, the journey and everything that I've learned in between that, um, that's what I treasure most because I'm a better person, I'm a stronger person. And I don't think that you, you get that just kind of going through life is just like it's your job in a sense.

• 19:37Ryan Holiday?

  There's obviously the people who choose not to, and then the people who can't, right? Like, I think, I think all the time of, um, the Langston Hughes poem, What Happens to a Dream Defer? Do you know that one?

• 19:50Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 19:50Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, it's so good. It's really short. I just pulled it up. He says, what happens to a dream defer? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Or maybe it just sags like a heavy load? Or does it explode? And then, so you think about the people who, because they didn't have the teachers or the coaches or people because of the color of their skin, or what country they were born in, or the economic circumstances they were born in, that have this potential or this calling or this gift, but they never know it. It's not even an option to explore it

• 20:34Ryan Holiday?

  or make it real. Just how terrible a fate that is and how tragic that is for someone to like, not even, not even have like a chance that they walked away from, but like to not even have a chance.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. And that's why I'm so grateful and thankful. But do you think those types of people realize that through, throughout life? Or do you think that not knowing is kind of that unknown of not being fulfilled and realizing you haven't had that opportunity or, or chance?

• 21:06Ryan Holiday?

  There's probably different ways of knowing, right? There's like the, I could have, you know, I could have been somebody. I could have been a contender. You know, there's like sort of that kind of like, I didn't pursue it or I didn't get it. Then there's like, you were talking about people who have injuries who like, they were great. And then, you know, a freak fall or an accident or, you know, violence done to them takes that away. But then, yeah, there's probably a larger contingent that just sort of has a lack of fulfillment or meaning or some sense that like, they were meant for something more. But because they were born in this impoverished area or like, I mean, how recently it even was

• 21:50Ryan Holiday?

  possible to be a professional women's soccer player? Like, how many people just like, it wasn't even a thing? Like, I'm sure there were generations of talented, athletic, you know, ambitious women who, it wasn't even a thing that they weren't thinking about. They were given a kind of tunnel vision about the kind of career options or life that they could or couldn't have. And there must have been kind of just a profound dissatisfaction or a sense that there was more to life that they couldn't fully realize because of just how things were.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, even speaking to my mom, I mean, she had said, you know, soccer was never, never an option, never a choice for her to play. I mean, she was a cheerleader. There wasn't much. And then you have Title IX, you know, that allowed women and more women's sports in college. So, yeah, it's, it is interesting. And then you look at, yeah, I think it was, yeah, it was not a go. It's interesting. And then, and then, but then you hear stories of, you know, just incredible people who grow up with. Nothing and and somehow find find a way through that, which I think is incredible too. So yeah, it's just a life. Life is definitely a journey.

• 23:08Ryan Holiday?

  Totally. Yeah, it's um, there are the people who persevere through things that they shouldn't have to persevere through. And then there are the people who, you know, maybe they were just one degree less determined, but that didn't mean they couldn't have been great. Had there been fewer barriers, less resistance, you know, a different path. And and I'm sure there's even, as I've talked to athletes, uh, I remember I was talking to Marty Bennett about this, uh, who also played for the Patriots. But he's like, there was a very clear path for a big black dude like me to be a professional athlete. Like, there was a whole system that encouraged people like me to go towards sports.

• 23:53Ryan Holiday?

  But he's like, I also liked drawing and art. And there was not a system that said, how do we make you great at that? You know, how many sort of sparks are there? And which sparks as a society do we, or green sprouts, whatever? How how many of those do we make into something? And how many of those do we sort of, you know, stamp stamp out? Like, there's the famous story about Malcolm X. Malcolm X is a young boy. And he said, his teacher asked him what he wants to do. And she's like, he says he wants to be a lawyer and she's like, she laughs at him. She's like, you must think of something more realistic. And I think there was a racial slur involved also.

• 24:36Ryan Holiday?

  But the the point is, like, he becomes a criminal instead, right? Like, uh, because the thing that he should have been encouraged to think about is humiliatingly slammed in his face.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  So say with kids too nowadays, I would not, yeah, you hear so many stories of of professional athletes in particular, just because that's kind of the world that I'm in where, you know, their teachers have laughed at them when, hey, what do you want to do? Oh, I want to be a professional football player, want to be a professional soccer player. And it is just interesting because from my perspective, you know, I would be like, hey, yeah, dream big, go for it, you know, shoot for the stars. It is in a, in someone's particular environment journey, you know, what is said or done can literally have life changing effects on them.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  And what way they go in life.

• 25:28Ryan Holiday?

  You know, this discussion lately about nepo babies. You know, this one about like people who's like parents are actors or actresses. And then they become an actor and actor. Like a lot of the people that are like famous or important or good today. You know, it's not so much a pulled up by their bootstraps thing. It's like their parents were in the industry. Right? And so people are saying that's sort of unfair and there's a and that's true. There's, you know, football, super nepotistic Hollywood, super nepotistic. Lots of professions are, but I've always thought I think about this from a parenting standpoint. Cause I think about my own childhood, like nobody I knew was a writer, nobody I knew. I don't think there's a single parent of any of my friends growing up. That didn't have a salaried job.

• 26:13Ryan Holiday?

  They were all like employees. I didn't know anyone that was like an entrepreneur or a creative or an artist or something. And so I've always wondered if part of the, the thing about what we call nepotism, like, how does Steph Curry and his brother both make it to the NBA? The fact that their father was in the NBA, is that a biological advantage? Is that an advantage that he, he pulls strings for them? Or is it that they woke, they lived in a world where it was possible to be a professional athlete? And their, their dad was like, here's how you do it. It's not rocket science.

• 26:52Ryan Holiday?

  Like in the sense that like you grow up not thinking that it's insane to make your living, playing a game. Right? And like my kids will have a different relationship with books and entrepreneurship and things that I do, because they've been normalized like by them growing up around a person who did it. And so I wonder how, how many people's options are closed off by the fact that the things that they want to do are just outside the experience or even the ability to conceive like by teachers or what like, the teachers like you can't become a professional athlete because they've never seen that before. It seems impossible.

• 27:36Ryan Holiday?

  It's like you can't win the lottery, you know?

• 27:39Speaker 01

  No, yeah, no, it it's interesting. I've had the same kind of chat with my husband about it. Um, and you look at, you look at Tiger Woods and his son, and now in the, in the Super Bowl with the Eagles and Chiefs, you've got the Kelsey brothers. So I was talking to my husband about this, you know, I was very athletic growing up. I'm one of three. I'm the oldest. I have a younger sister and a younger brother. And my husband, uh, Brian was very athletic and we kind of, we, we kind of go back and forth with one another. Like, how much of that are you, you born a bit athletic? And then how much of that is your environment? Like, you know, he was put in front of four wheelers, dirt bikes, wave runners, you know, every sport imaginable.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  I wasn't put in front of those, you know, action type sports, uh, and those riding sports. But, you know, swimming, softball, football, soccer, I mean, every sport. Um, and my siblings, you know, we, we grew up in the same households. Um, my brother went on to play college soccer and then that was it. And my sister played soccer for a little bit, but it's just very interesting. The dynamics of, because we talk about it all the time when, you know, we want to start a family and we would want to give our kids the opportunity to, to just try everything, you know? Maybe more geared towards sports because we're sports people, but because I feel like that's the only way you, you truly can kind of find a passion and know what you may be good at.

• 29:09Ryan Holiday?

  Well, speaking of books, have you read David Epstein's book, Range?

• 29:12Speaker 01

  I have not.

• 29:13Ryan Holiday?

  I think you would really like it. He wrote a book called The Sports Gene several years ago, which is really good. But then Range is basically, he's contrasting Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. So like Tiger Woods, uh, is basically from two years old is told you're going to be a golfer and is basically raised in a kind of science experiment to, um, to do nothing but live and breathe, you know, hitting a small white ball, whereas like Roger Federer like plays a bunch of sports. He doesn't even really get serious about tennis until his like late teens. And he just, he has a different relationship with. But they're both dominant, both, you know, all time greats.

• 29:53Ryan Holiday?

  One has sort of more of a resilience and a flexibility and a lightness to him. And the other is like, kind of imprisoned in this thing. And his point is that range, having a range of skills and interests and being exposed to different things, not just in sports, but in all things, is a, is a better, you know, is a better way to be.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's interesting. I know it is. I didn't, I didn't realize that off the, I just wrote that, that book down. It's very interesting. And then you kind of think of someone like Tiger, who, I mean, greatest of all time. I mean, transformed the, the sport of golf and then kind of hit those, those rocky patches. You know, was, was that because he was just too, you know, one dimensional in that, you know, was there that feeling creeping in of wanting to experience other things? And there's a lot of athletes that, you know, are athletic, um, that have played multiple sports and it is kind of an interesting comparison to, most of the greats do seem like they, they

• 30:59Speaker 01

  are a bit more dimensional than, than just that one sport. But then you've got the rare occasions that, you know.

• 31:07Ryan Holiday?

  And he was drafted as a baseball player also, right? Like, uh, you can be so good and good at multiple things. And like, I, I also think there's probably an argument, if you're really getting into it, it's like, there's something wrong with a high school baseball player having to get Tommy John surgery. Do you know what I mean? Like, that you've thrown so many pitches by the time you're 17 years old, that you're wearing out your arm. Like, like what I love about what I do, and I think we talk about it less as a society, is like, like burnout, right? Like, I love that you can be a writer, a professional writer up until the day that you die. You know, like you had an incredibly long career and you're not even 40 and it's over.

• 31:52Ryan Holiday?

  Like, you, you just think about like how, how small the window is for some of these things, but is, is part of the reason that people get these repetitive injuries or it's so short, is that they're, they're thinking about it in such like a, a finite, they're not thinking about it, how can I, like, they're thinking about, how can I be great at insert thing now? We don't think long-term in a lot of the decisions we make.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  No, not at all. And that's, you know, a lot of athletes that that I know that I've played with. You know, some of them need knee replacements. Some have already gotten them. So, you know, my quality of life, I'm I'm grateful that I'm able to still golf, hike, ski, um, you know, do all of these things because that'd be a really crappy life to played soccer for, you know, thirty four years and then not be able to walk or do anything after that. Um, but I I am, you know, I think it's a high debate amongst youth sports now. In general, we just, we talk about the specialization and and I'm all for, you know, if you want to be the best at something, you've got to put the time,

• 33:02Speaker 01

  you know, and and energy and hours into that. But I look back on my youth career and I didn't get that burnout because I wasn't playing four or five soccer games on a weekend. It was one, maybe two max. So during that week, you look forward to that one or two games and then you get back at it and practice and I did some other sports as well, but you develop different muscle groups and I really believe that it's every parent now seems to to want to get their child into some sort of specialized training at the age of four because they think they're going to be the next biggest star. And I'm like, it doesn't work like that.

• 33:45Ryan Holiday?

  That that's totally what the book is about. And and like, it's not just, hey, you could burn yourself out. You could get, um, you know, different injuries, but it's also like you learn things being in these different situations, having these different experiences that ideally, when you do ultimately specialize, and you're right, at some point, you have to pick a lane and you're like, because you can't be, you can't be world class at like seven things that you're half-heartedly pursuing. You have to pick your thing. But like, you, the more experiences and environments that you have to draw on, um, the better you're going to be at that thing.

• 34:26Ryan Holiday?

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

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, and just the expectation is hard, you know? Once people see something that you've done and they expect it every time, over and over and over again. But everybody's different and there's, there's always, you know, more. But then you, you've reached that level and the expectation is just, people want it every single time. And I think that's what, that's what gets, gets hard.

• 35:32Ryan Holiday?

  I'd be curious, like, okay, the, the discipline of like, one more, one more rep, you know, one more burst of energy, you know, one more drive, one more season. Like, that's a pretty simple kind of discipline, right? You're drawing, you're drawing deeper in yourself. Like, what do I have left to give? How much gas do I have left? Can I do it one more time? That, that requires a certain amount of discipline. But I, I imagine actually the more challenging discipline was for you to say like, "All right, I'm, I'm done. I've had enough. I'm gonna call it here." Like, as you said, my decision as opposed to a coach's decision, and, uh, you know, a doctor's decision, a financial decision or whatever.

• 36:15Ryan Holiday?

  You, you had to have the discipline to know and then to act on your feeling that you had, you had taken it as far as it should be taken.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that, you know, your ego can definitely get in the way. Who doesn't love a lifestyle of being in front of crowds and... You know, being on social media and being highlighted and winning things and having success. I mean, but again, that that wasn't why I did what I did for so long. I did what I did for so long and had the consistency and the discipline and the will and the love. Simply because I wanted to never put limits on myself and push myself as far as I could go. And the way that the soccer world works, which is, you know, a little different than the NFL or the MLB or the NBA.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  You know, we have cycles where every four years there's a World Cup and every four years there's an Olympics. So in my head, I envisioned my career originally only going three cycles, which would have put me at the 2016 Olympics to finish up. But when I got to the 2012 Olympics, I said to myself, I don't want to do one more cycle. I want to do two more cycles. So essentially that was four, four World Cups, four Olympics. So with 2020 happening and Tokyo getting pushed another year into 2021, I knew in my mind that that that was going to be it because the next cycle that came around was this year, this 2023 Women's World Cup.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  And then, you know, again, you're you're getting into the, could you push more? It's more travel. Everybody's going to be talking about your age, you know, they're going to want, they're going to want the old ones out and the new ones in. It just was for me, it was, it was actually an easy decision. You know, when we lost our, our hope of winning another gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, we lost to Canada. That then put us into the bronze medal game to compete for that medal against Australia. There's this picture of me sitting on a ball after that game.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  And in that moment, I knew that once this Olympics wrapped up, I was, I was gonna tell the people I needed to tell that I'm gonna be retiring. And so it was kind of just, it was an easy alone moment that I had that I knew that I would never compete on the world stage again, and I would never get a third gold medal. I would have to settle for bronze. And I was okay with that. I, I had felt like I had given it all that I had. We talk about that discipline. It just, it got to the point where I gave so much of it from 2005 to 2021 that when I finished, I didn't have much in me.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Like I was, I was operating in my reserves and was just fully at peace to turn that next page. And I'm, I'm grateful for that because like I said, I don't think a lot of athletes in particular get to enter that phase feeling that way. And, uh, you know, there's a lot of factors. I had a, you know, falling out with my family for about 12 years and they came back into my life in 2020. And again, we, I talk about kind of the, the timing and the things that the higher powers bring you per se, and everything was just kind of wrapping up the way that it should have been. So it was almost like picture perfect. Aside from, you know, not winning a gold medal and, and all that.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  It was a, yeah, it was, it was an easy decision for me to make.

• 39:58Ryan Holiday?

  But you can come up with ways to not listen to that voice, though. Like I think what you're talking about is self-awareness. Like you had this sense, you had this notion, you'd come to this place. But if you're also one of those people that had turned yourself into a machine, let's say to be able to do what it is that you do, it can make it possible to sort of override that. That's why people, you know, sort of go out for the bank robber, one more job, you know, or the, you know, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna run for an election one more time. Like you, it's knowing is one thing, and then sticking to it is probably another because I imagine.

• 40:39Ryan Holiday?

  There were people who it was in their interest that you keep doing it. Do you know what I mean? Like, I imagine you make the decision and then you you have to face, you know, all the, all the things that that entails, right? Like, there's agents and support crew and but like, you know, there, there is the reality of it. It still probably wasn't easy. And then to sort of stick with that trust or that sense you had with yourself, that was probably a took a certain amount of fortitude, I imagine.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true. I never really kind of looked at it that way, I think, because I had just come to peace with it all. And there was no real ego in my head telling me like, oh, you know, come on, chase one more. And I was talking to a friend the other day about this. We're talking about somebody who is working all the time right now. And it's like, you know, if I can just get to this next stage at my job, you know, I'm going to be making X amount. And at what point does that chasing ever stop? You know, like, do you then get to that point and say, oh, if I can just get to this point? And that's how I sort of felt in my career to a point.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  But yeah, I guess I could have, could have talked myself out of it and could have kept going. But yeah, just for me, that, that perfect timing of, of just going out on my own was, was my way of saying, you know, this, this is how I want it.

• 42:08Ryan Holiday?

  Enough is such a powerful thing, right? Like, having enough. And yet, to be great, particularly at sports, you have to be the kind of person that there, like Tiger, um, there's fascinating biography about him. But his dad, um, who would put him through these like crazy, you know, ordeals and sort of tortured him and put all this pressure on him. He would, he would say like, I'll stop. You just have to say the magic word. And the magic word was enough, like I've had enough, right? So it was like, he basically made that word like a sign of weakness, right? And, and there, you know, it's like, hey, I've had enough criticism. I've had enough pain. I've had enough. You know, all the things that you have to push through to be great.

• 42:53Ryan Holiday?

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

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's, it's very true. And, and I got to the stage at the end too, where I felt like I had been trying to prove people wrong throughout my career. Which, you know, in a sense, added some, some fuel to my motivation. To then end with realizing I don't, I don't need to prove another thing to anybody else. And it was a, it was a very freeing feeling. And when I announced my retirement, at the point that I did, I think it was in August. I had a couple of months to, to sort of go on this farewell tour with my teammates and, you know, play a couple more games with the national team, with my club team. And, and I think that's when, you know, my teammates were, were really able to, to kind of see that mask off

• 44:00Speaker 01

  that I had on for so long that I just never let anything penetrate. And, and I think that that's, that's sort of what I was looking forward to in this, in this next chapter is, was to, to really live, be able to live life, to be able to do all the things that I couldn't. You know, I, I put soccer as, as number one forever and it was all enough for me. And that essentially is the most freeing feeling, you know? And now it's like, I get fulfillment in other places.

• 44:31Ryan Holiday?

  Well, how much for you also, though, I imagine, having, you know, basically won all the great prizes of your profession? That must have been immensely satisfying and, you know, rewarding and, you know, validating. But you also left the game like a lot better than you found it, right? Like, um, not just the public profile of the game, but some of the stands you took and then the lawsuit that you filed. How, how much of that also allowed you to sort of go like, enough? Because you were leaving the thing better than you found it. Which to me is kind of the meaning of life, right?

• 45:09Ryan Holiday?

  Is that we leave the place, people, you know, the thing that we do, we leave it in, you know, in a, in better hands than we, uh, than we took it from.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, you know, I, I look back to the moment I came on the national team in 2005. I mentioned before where I only played two games that year. They had been renegotiating their collective bargaining agreement with US Soccer. And in there, they were asking for guaranteed salaries and health benefits and pregnancy leave. And all of these things that I simply, you know, had, had no idea about. I just played in two games, received two checks and I'm like, oh, wow, this is amazing. But little did I know that they were fighting for the next generation to be set up.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Essentially leaving the sport better than when they came into it. And then, you know, you fast forward to myself and my other teammates and, and kind of what we had to, to fight for. It, it just became necessary for us to then take that step. Like the, the pioneers did, you know, prior to me and several other players. Knowing that, you know, this is, this is the, these are the necessary steps we had to take to make the sport better. And, uh, yeah, it was, you know, it was really tough, challenging to be part of that, to be fighting with your employer. Filing lawsuits with them and then stepping out on the field and, and having to compete. Uh, but I think that we, we set the standard and we gave the rest of the world, you know,

• 46:49Speaker 01

  female soccer players, countries, teams, the confidence to know that they've got to fight. And, and they can now fight because look at the standard that we set. So, yeah, it's, it's incredible to be, to have been part of that. And, you know, I, I think it's, it's going to be evolution to that because, you know, there's still. Leaps and bounds that we can keep pushing and making it better.

• 47:13Ryan Holiday?

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

• 47:58Ryan Holiday?

  We should try to zoom out and think about how we're going to think about it in a long time from now. And that should hopefully allow us to be a little bit more, I think, courageous and civic-minded in what we do.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would, I would totally agree. I think, yeah, the friendships, the camaraderie, the struggles, you know, the, all the things that, that had to, you had to fight for. I mean, that's, you know, people always ask me, what, what's the best thing from your career? And I can't pick one, you know? It's, it's the whole complete package. It's, it's everything in between and the lessons, the journey.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Every person that was kind of put in my life or, you know, in, in, within the team, good or bad, you know, I'm, I'm able to extract something from them. And I think that's what's, that's what's pretty cool. And to be able to kind of have that, that perspective, you know? And I don't know that I necessarily would maybe have that, you know, being younger. But I think the older you get, you just have a bit of a different perspective on, on life and situations.

• 49:05Ryan Holiday?

  I think that's right, and that's a beautiful spot to stop. So Carly, thank you so much.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Thank you. Enjoyed it. Appreciate it.