Miss Val & Sam Peszek on Coaching, Grit, and Leading Across Generations

Seven NCAA championships. An Olympic silver medal. A breast cancer diagnosis. A torn Achilles. Between them, Valorie Kondos Field and Sam Peszek have racked up more defining moments than most people face in a lifetime. What they've learned from all of it isn't what you'd expect.

In this conversation, Foster Mobley sits down with legendary UCLA gymnastics coach Miss Val and Olympic medalist-turned-entrepreneur and NBC broadcaster Sam Peszek for a frank, funny, and genuinely moving discussion about what leadership actually requires. Not the version you read about in business books. The real thing.

They cover a lot of ground: why "walk with them" changed how Sam leads, what happens when a safe space becomes an excuse to stop growing, how Val's battle with breast cancer reframed her entire relationship with choice, and why the most effective thing a leader can do is ask better questions instead of giving better answers.

There's also a story Sam tells near the end of the episode. About a young gymnast who stayed quiet through an entire session and then said something that stopped everyone cold. It's worth the whole conversation.

Topics include leadership development, generational differences in the workplace, building team trust, coaching philosophy, resilience, reverse mentoring, identity after sport, and what it means to lead from a place of purpose rather than fear.

Valorie Kondos Field is a Hall of Fame coach, 7x NCAA gymnastics champion, TEDx speaker, and author of "Life Is Short, Don't Wait to Dance." She coached UCLA gymnastics for 29 years without ever having competed as a gymnast herself.

Sam Peszek is an Olympic silver medalist, 3x NCAA champion, NBC Olympics commentator, and founder of Beam Queen, a confidence-focused gymnastics training program.

Foster Mobley is a leadership advisor, executive coach, and host of Step Wise. His book "Leadersh!t: Rethinking the True Path to Great Leading" is available at fostermobley.com.

Links: Foster's website: fostermobley.com Follow Miss Val: @officialmissval Follow Sam Peszek: @samanthapeszek Beam Queen: beamqueengymnastics.com

To find out more, visit our website: Mountain-mule.com

Go to ourwholenessatwork.com to learn more.

Hosted by Foster Mobley
Learn more about Foster at fostermobleymt.com or follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at Foster Mobley.
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Produced, Edited, and Promoted by Zettist

Additional support from Amber Jillard Consulting

Music for Season 3 composed and performed by Philip Aaberg. Courtesy of Sweetgrass Music.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You gotta front load everything so that you don't allow them to think the different story because it's really hard to change somebody's bias. First of all, they're everybody's coming with their own bias because of their own history. But once they believe something, research shows even when they are given proof, the scientific proof and the facts, they'll only dig their heels in deeper.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

Today's Stepwise edition features two extraordinary women, both who have attained the tops of their fields in competitive athletics. I'm speaking of Hall of Fame and seven-time national champion coach Valerie Condosfield, Ms. Powell, and Samantha Peschick, Olympic silver medalist and three-time NCAA champion in gymnastics. I've had the incredible privilege of working with them both and seeing firsthand their leadership and how it evolved. Interestingly, and not the original purpose of this chat, both have successfully created and are living in new careers, having navigated the challenges of significant transitions from one peak to the next. We'll learn about that. We'll also hear about how Miss Val's leadership resonated and influenced Sam's performance in the gym, as well as now as she is an entrepreneur and a top sports commentator with NBC. And we'll hear about how Sam influenced Miss Val's thinking and practice as a leader, which is something not often explored. A fun time, which I'm certain you'll hear, and a lot to learn about a leader's identity, narrative, core beliefs, and willingness to go first. So, as they say in gymnastics, chalk up, here we go. Welcome to Stepwise with Val and Sam. First, hey Sam, bring us up to speed. What are you doing now?

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Most people, if they heard my name in the past, they would probably associate it with the 16-year-old that went to the Olympics, uh, was part of the team that won an Olympic silver medalist, came back, had to do two more years of high school, um, and went to UCLA where Valerie Condo's Field or Miss Val was my college coach. And under Miss Val, I I won three NCAA championship titles. Um, and when I graduated, uh, I always knew that I wanted to do to do broadcasting, but it's a little bit like a struggling actor's life where you can't get a job unless you have experience, and you can't get experience unless you've had the jobs to show that you can do it. So um, you know, it's a it's a really tough road. It's definitely not a linear uh path as a career. But as I was building that, I had to figure out how to pay for my life along the way. And so I decided to just do one gymnastics camp. I had done camps to get some extra money in college and um something that I think was my secret weapon in the sport was balance beam. I used to hate it, almost quit the sport, and then taught myself how to love it and it ended up being my best event. And so I was like, if I could teach these athletes to think like a strong beam worker, not only are they gonna have confidence on beam, but that confidence is gonna transcend through the rest of their life. So as much as I wanted to help them in the gymnastics, and we do help them in gymnastics, uh, I am uh most certainly more interested in the life skills aspect and helping them be strong women in the future. And so that's what we get complimented a lot from parents is that it's not just about gymnastics, it's about all the other things that they carry through when they leave the gym. From our first event, we've done about 25 events a year since then. Uh we have an app, an online platform. And so um not only am I busy with broadcasting, but I also have uh the business that I had no idea I was gonna be so passionate about when I first started. But seeing them, you know, these young girls just have that light bulb moment and that aha moment of like, oh wow, if I tell myself I can do this or, you know, uh talk nicely to myself, to put it plainly, the shift from I'm not gonna be good at this, I'm gonna fall, I'm so terrible, to I'm great. Um, we get emails just about how much that affects them in school and and everywhere else in life. So it's been a really fun journey for me.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

How did your athletics training, uh a sport that is based on perfection, but to get to perfection, you've got to fail and fail and fail and fail. How did that affect your early stages as an entrepreneur and your thinking about stuff?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

I think it helped that I actually wasn't very good at gymnastics when I started. I loved it. I was really passionate about it. I told people I was gonna go to the Olympics when I was five, but the the reality was I didn't really have any in the any of the ingredients at the time to um be a great gymnast. I wasn't flexible. I was way too chatty. So I wasn't very disciplined in the gym, got in trouble all the time. I wasn't a prodigy at all. And so as I grew up in the sport, um I had to have a strong mind and I had to figure out what my secret weapon was as an athlete. And for me, that was learning from the best to best, figuring out how to set goals, figuring out how to push myself and almost manipulate my own brain to stay motivated on my goals and the vision. And so if you fast forward that to being an entrepreneur, like when I started my company, I was 25. I didn't have any business to start a company. I didn't know anything about business. And, you know, the irony is that I was starting a business to help young gymnasts be more confident. But there were moments when I started that I was like, man, I can't do this. Why would these parents trust me? Why would, you know, what credentials do I have to start this business? And so I just remember sitting there having these thoughts and then like laughing because I'm teaching these kids the recipe that I wasn't following at the time. Having to kind of start back from square one and work my way up. Um, I think it's really tough when you're when you finish at the top of your game and kind of have to start back at the bottom and have that learner mentality, which um I think I I ended up getting to.

SPEAKER_04 6:15

Most of the people that will be listening to this, at least initially, might know a snippet of both of you, but I promise you it's not about how you have learned about leadership, how you are leading, all that stuff. And my curiosity about having both of you here started one September day back when Sam was a freshman coming into UCLA, and I was hearing all the stories about this young hotshot leader who was marshalling the freshman class, running stairs at Drake Stadium, getting everybody moving in one direction because she was driven to her goals. I'd love you guys to talk about what leading means. You come at it from the gymnastics world, now Sam from the business world as well. But what does leading mean to you, especially in the context of today's student athletes coming in, NIL, mental health, physical health, transfer portal? You name all the pressures that these 18-year-olds are feeling. Talk about leadership. What does it mean to each of you today? And if you were a leader taking over a college program like UCLA today, what would be the most challenging pieces of it?

SPEAKER_02 7:24

The most challenging piece of today is, and I understand this because of teaching still, so I'm still involved with that age, is that when I, as a 65-year-old, say something, quite often, either how I've said it, the words I've used, I don't even know the vernacular now of some of the things that I'm saying that are inappropriate. Yeah, you know, and how they are translating that. And so the communication part of this is so vitally important to keep those, to be able to have those honest conversations. I remember Sam Peshick, I don't know if it's your junior your senior year, she's super, super smart, super driven, and not afraid of anything. And so that's how she just attacks whatever she does. And you're not gonna get a team of 22 young women that have all have that same mentality. And so when Sam first came in, she led from a place of just do like I do, just follow me, just like what's wrong with you? It's like Lisa Fernandez and software. You know, why can't you do it? Just do it like I do it. And we had a meet at the University of Utah, and we did horribly. She was always a very much a team player. She was so ticked off that the team didn't do better and wasn't more pissed off. And I remember walking out of the tunnel with you, Sammy, and I remember just really simply saying, Sam, this is how you lead. Just follow me. I said, There's that way of leading, there's the way of pushing from behind, and the best way to lead is to walk with them. And so that's gonna take you calming down, taking a pause, figuring out where they're coming from, and then having that conversation, but letting them know you are walking with them through all the muck and the struggle and and the parts that they don't understand, you're gonna be there right there with them. And that's when she literally flipped and became this undeniably uh effective leader.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

Wow. Sam, let's hear that same story from your perspective. Do you recall it the same way, or is Miss Val embellishing a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 9:42

No, no, I I do remember it that way. I she would always tell that to that to me of like, you need to walk with them. And that didn't always resonate with me because the world that I came from, the elite world, everyone was just as driven, had the same goals, worked just as hard, like there was all those ingredients that it was the same. And so the only thing that, like, to be a good teammate and to be a good leader on those teams was checking in and like, hey, we got this, and that like motivation piece. And so I feel like that I figured it out at that level in that capacity, and then coming to college and having gymnasts from different walks of life and different skill level and personalities and home life and just so many different groups of people, like that is what did not click for me that everyone had a different gymnastic upbringing. To me, it was like everyone had the same sort of style of upbringing, and we were all kind of coming together with this that the same ingredients. But I think the amount of times we had these talks about that, it started to sink in that like we didn't have the same perspective coming in. So we needed to figure out how to get on the same page together, not having the prior experiences that were the same as mine.

SPEAKER_04 11:03

Okay, leaders. So how do you do that? How do you empathize with people with different values, different gymnastics histories, different perspectives and values, different all of that stuff? How do you lead people who are very different than the way you think and act and believe and move through life?

SPEAKER_02 11:22

I believe the best way is to get them to talk, to ask open-ended questions. It's the only way. Otherwise, you're assuming that you know what they're thinking. Great cultures establish this space where people feel safe to speak their truth. What I feel it has morphed into or started as, I don't really know, is this safe space is a place where people can be brave. It takes a lot of bravery to speak your truth. But there's not necessarily growth in that space. And it's not until that safe space adds the ingredient of a conversation where the growth happens. And so we actually had this uh conversation come up two years ago in the class I teach at UCLA, and the majority of these students are fifth or sixth-year student athletes, and we were talking about the transgender uh athletes in women's sports. And I was like, great, because I love hard conversations. Let's keep it respectful, but I love hard conversations. And it was kind of going back and forth, and we were having this great conversation, and nobody had an answer, which was wonderful. This female athlete spoke up and she said she was born with the testosterone level of a male. Where does she get to play? And we're like, great, great question. And then another student said she got very uncomfortable, and she said, Can we just agree to disagree and move on? And I said, You just shut the conversation down. There is no growth in agree to disagree, and so that strength, in my opinion, it's got to be a safe, you establish a safe space, you add then the respectful conversation, and that's where the growth happens.

SPEAKER_04 13:17

So, Sam, um, how do you handle that question? Like, what are the biggest challenges on coaches or leaders leading, you know, a younger workforce today that might have different values?

SPEAKER_00 13:30

You know, when you started working with our team and doing Enneagrams was the first time that I really was like, wow, there's just so many different brains. It sounds silly now because it's been years of me knowing that, but I think up until that point, like in my head, you know, everyone wakes up with the same goals and has the same, you know, mentality around it. And, you know, it really, honest to God, didn't hit me that people wake up and have different desires and different wants and needs. And so it was like this aha moment for me of like, I really just don't know what it's like to be in someone else's brain. So I need to start asking. And so if I started feeling like I wasn't getting through to someone, hey, what's a better way for me to help you? Of just the most open-ended question, instead of me assuming that they want the same help that I need or the same help that I want or being led the same way. And I think that really opened a lot of doors for me because once I started hearing other things in my head, I was like, God, that would so not work for me. But like, wow, that is really cool that I'm now knowing that there's so many different like avenues and options and mentalities around the same thing. So, I mean, for my personal growth around leadership, that was a huge unlock because I don't think I would be the person I am today without realizing that there's so many different brains that come to the same table.

SPEAKER_04 14:50

This won't surprise you, I don't think, but for the first 20 or 30 years of my career, clarifying that misunderstanding was the number one thing that I had to do with leaders all the time. You coach or lead based on the other person's needs, not your need to coach. Right? So, what is what is it they need and want? How do you find that out? You listen, you observe, you give them a chance to, you create a safe space for them to have a conversation, you have a conversation with. And it seems so obvious now. So, Val, let me come back to this for you. The the question that we put a pen in is when did that shift for you? I mean, you've always been very interested in hard conversations and speaking truth and all that stuff. But when did this whole, you know, kind of leading us listening become more forefront for you?

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Well, I screwed up a lot when I was a first head coach, so we don't have to get into that. I could write a whole book on everything, not just.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

We did that in the last podcast.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Yeah. Thankfully, I had foster mobile for the last uh 10, what, 15 years? No, seriously, you you really did, as Sam just said, shifted that mentality. And that simple uh uh exercise you did with us with the Enneagram and taking our students, athletes, and our coaches through it. And we put that those results up on our in our gym. It was so effective that whenever there was a confrontation, whether between two athletes or an athlete and a coach or even two coaches, you taught us, Boster, to take a pause, take a breath. And then we someone would go over and look at that board, and then they would have the realization to give the person grace that as to why they're being triggered, you know, to figure this out. I feel that you need to be both a transformational leader, transformative leader, and a transaction leader. And as a coach, uh I felt it was important to develop their trust so that when I said don't go do that, they trusted it was coming from a good place, even though they didn't understand why. Um what has shifted is as I said, the generations and how they think and how they have grown up in this world that is uh so magnificently different than than what I grew up with, what you grew up with, Ruster, even Sam do up to a point, is explain first.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

Tell me the why. Why am I doing this?

SPEAKER_02 17:24

What's yeah, yeah, you gotta front load everything so that you don't allow them to think of the different story because it's really hard to change somebody's bias. First of all, they're everybody's coming with their own bias because of their own history, but once they believe something, the history research shows that even when they are given proof, the scientific proof and the facts, they they'll only dig their heels in deeper. So I try to avoid that. Now by you know, it was like you think about your time as currency. I'm gonna take that time I have within and spend that biggest currency on making sure that we're on the same page to start with, and not just assume I can no longer assume that we're on the same page.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

The business term for that craziness is alignment. You gotta start with alignment, and to get alignment, you're in conversation helping people understand the why. And you also mentioned something else we may come back to, which is how the leader helps shape the narrative for the team, for the individual, and stuff like that. Um that you know is kind of that default value. And if Phil Jackson, when he was when he was coaching the Lakers, said in the fourth quarter when the game's on the line, there's only one voice I want in their heads and it's mine. Like that's narrative. That is here's how we are, here's how we behave under pressure. And I want I don't want them to rethink all that stuff. Sam, as someone in her early 30s, you're still you know half a generation different from the newbies into college gymnastics today. And they do have this different set of values or some of the values that they have, where they're more willing to bring their own needs, their own humanity, their own all that stuff. How do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Exactly to what Ms. Val was just saying, in terms of being honest and fully explaining why we're doing what we do, you know. I also help coach coaches. And when I think back on my relationship, I had a really healthy relationship with my coach. Um, he was criticized a lot when I was coming up being too nice and too, you know, giving me too much of a voice. Um, and so he got in trouble by the national team coordinators for allowing me to work collaboratively with him. A lot of other teammates that had other coaches, let's say they're doing more conditioning. Well, the the girls just assume that it's because their coaches think they're fat. Instead of, hey, they need to build more endurance to have the energy and the stamina to make it through the end of the routine to stay safe. It has nothing about your weight and your in shape or whatever. And so if you don't explain, hey, we're doing it for this reason, then so many athletes and people will fill in the blank to their own narrative. And now everything you say from here on out, they're filling in the narrative with whatever they've already decided. And it's probably not true or most likely not true. And so I try to keep that in mind when I'm uh, you know, we have over a hundred staff members in the summer. Most are in college. So I am leading a ton of different personalities throughout the summer. And um I try to, I try to, again, ask a lot of questions and figure out like, hey guys, we're doing it this way because in the past, this is what's happened. Hey, we're doing it this way because I don't want this, this, and this to be the risk. I know this feels silly, but this is how we're choosing to do it to eliminate these problems. And I'm like, hey, if you guys have a better idea to solve this, let me know. I'm not married to this, but this is what we're trying to avoid. This is what we're trying to have the experience these athletes to leave with our camp with. So once I say that, I think it gives them permission, one, to give their own ideas, and sometimes they're better than mine, which is great. And also to understand, hey, everything I do has a reason. And even if I'm not explaining it in the future, if I say, like, we really need to do this, you can ask me later about it, but we don't have time for me to explain it. And and to Val's point, build that trust with them that, hey, it's thoughtful and intentional, and the doors are always open to have that conversation.

SPEAKER_04 21:34

You know, this notion about having them trust you enough so that when you have to just say we're going the trains headed north, you know, you need to need to do that kind of building. Sam, I loved your word. It's it is transparency, is it is overused, and it's I think it's occasionally under practiced. Transparency, communication, listening, showing compassion, care for the other person, trying to understand who they are as a person. Without just barking orders at them. Not a thing you guys have talked about is inappropriate for a business audience. Not a single thing. Everything you're saying will relate directly to a CEO or a manager in a company because it's all the same stuff.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

And you know, Foster, that what I'm sure you hear a lot as well is when I talk about the importance of trust, and that trust comes from developing a relationship. As soon as you say that word relationship, then they think they've got to go out to lunch with them and go to coffee with them. And it's going to take all this time. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. It's the drip method. It's literally you plant the seed that I, you know, am going to trust you with this information. And I'm just going to plant and drip, drip, drip, and and through, and I'm sure you speak to this all the time, Foster, through your my consistency.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

That's when the trust grows. That's when the relationship grows. And it's so funny you use that example of the train because we were in, like, this is where our transactional leadership is important. We were in the airport, all the girls were off deck giggling and getting coffee and the whole bit. And I'm the only one that heard that there was a change in the gate. And the gate was at a totally other end of LAX. And without any explanation or conversation, I said, Bruce, get your stuff. Let's go. Call your friends. Get them back with coffee. We're going to gate 52G. Go now. And they were like, okay, because they just trusted that I wasn't just barking orders to assert my leadership.

SPEAKER_04 23:31

In times of change, and Val, you've used the word transformational a lot, these are really disruptive times. It's not just college athletics, it's business in general, it's the world in general, it's the planet in general, it's all this stuff that we're having to learn new normal. Resilience is something great leaders teach so that their people are resilient. But people coming in, let's say the younger, like Gen Z or now the new Gen Alpha that's just starting to enter, they haven't necessarily grown up with that as an important value. So how do you build resilience in newer generations today that again haven't been exposed to some of that stuff necessarily earlier in their lives?

SPEAKER_02 24:16

It truly is the life of a stoic. That the obstacle is the way. I was telling a group of like 40, 50 year olds the other day, I said, you know what? First of all, show me where you were promised easy. Show me where in any philosophy, religion, anything where we were promised easy. We were promised the exact opposite of that. And the purpose of life is to learn and to grow, to be able to not look at those obstacles as poor me and having a pity party and why me, but to look at them as opportunity for growth. And I'll use that word, transformation. Like I'm gonna become a better version of myself through figuring this out. And I said to this group the other day, I said, it sucks when you're going along, life is going really good, and then bam, another life crap moment hits. But I've learned to look at it like I honestly look at it like life, kind of sitting back and going, okay, you got through the last thing I threw you. You got through breast cancer. Great. How about this? Let's see how you get through this. And it's like an invitation, and I go, game on, right? And you could not be talking to somebody who's more was born with that every ounce of her DNA than Samantha Petit.

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Sam, what do you think of this conversation? No, I I this notion about resilience, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

I think grit is the most important thing that kids can be taught. Um, I'm biased, but I think that the best and easiest way to learn that is through sports, getting critiqued and and having that have zero reflection on who you are as a person, your identity, your character. But hey, your coach is critiquing your form or critiquing how you throw the ball to help you achieve your goals. For me, it's important uh at Beam Queen when I'm coaching gymnasts to remind them, hey guys, why do you think that I am so tough and just keep repeating myself? Why do you think I'm doing that? And getting them to be like, oh, it's because you want the best for me. Yes, that's why. I'm not I'm not doing it because I think you're, you know, bad or mean or whatever. It's I want to help you because I believe in you. And so I know that you have what it takes, but you need these few critiques. And so helping them develop that when someone in the workplace or a coach or a teammate is critiquing them, it has just no weight on anything other than their performance. And to me, that is like the first stepping stone of building grit and developing grit. And then it's like, okay, next time something happens, that's what their own inner voice is gonna say. And it's like, oh, I can, you're right, I need to do that better. Okay, I'm gonna do that on the next one. So having that mindset, I think, is the most important thing for this generation.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

What Sammy does very well simply because I know her so well and hearing you talk about this, Sam. Um, and what I didn't learn until like the last maybe foster with you 10, 15 years of my career, was that information, it becomes toxic when it becomes personal. And so so many coaches either in a mean perspective make it personal. And why did you do that? Versus critiquing and giving the information on the skill. And then some coaches think they're funny, think that snarking is funny. I was like that when I very first started coaching in the early 90s. I thought it was funny. Well, my team did not think it was funny, and they sat me all down and told me they didn't think it was funny, and so I learned that don't cross that line from information to personal.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

You say that, you both say that very eloquently, and I will tell you that's for especially Enneagram threes, especially, and I'll speak from a male perspective, for male Enneagram threes who have had success in their lives, that separation of feedback away from a personal attack, more on the process or that one outcome, as Sam talked about, is not easy to as a receiver of feedback to take. Now, as a giver of feedback, it is so important that I be able to communicate it in a way that it is not personal.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Are you saying that even when somebody gives you feedback that's not personal, you still take it personally?

SPEAKER_04 28:41

A lot of time that's what I've had to overcome. When I turned 50, I decided I was gonna try one new thing a year. Every year. And it's been magic. It has been magic. Unfortunately, one of the things that I wanted to try was I wanted to learn how to play the piano. And I suck at it.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Yeah, you do. I've heard you.

SPEAKER_04 29:01

Yes, you have, and I get it.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

But I love your heart.

SPEAKER_04 29:04

Well, I I just love it.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

No, I'm serious. I'm a piano player, but I've sat down. When you sat down and played, it was like a five-year-old.

SPEAKER_04 29:14

Yeah, it is. I'd be happy if it was like a five-year-old.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Oh my god. No, but Foster, I'm not just blowing smoke right now. You were so excited to show that you were taking piano lessons that that inspired me, probably I was 60 at the time, to go learn something else.

SPEAKER_04 29:36

Yeah, so I've had to learn how to separate who I am, my identity as a person from the performance. That's not something that came earlier in my life for some another reason. I think part of it because I was an entrepreneur and I didn't have to get all that kind of feedback and stuff like that. I was in the giving, not the receiving side. But today, both of them are so important. And so I love what you're saying. I that just makes total sense to me, resonates with me personally. And I will say it's not easy, not easy on the receiving side, unless you grow up in that kind of environment.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

I'm laughing because I think a lot of times kids are learning something new all the time. They're they're still a novice in most everything in life. But you graduate college, and once you start getting comfortable in your career, there's really not much, unless you're trying something new, that you go back to that mindset. And so last year was probably my best career year ever. Commentating for NBC, primetime, the Olympics, that was a dream come true. I couldn't even imagine. Beam Queen is very established. It's like this is like the first year that I'm not creating anything new. I'm not trying to learn something new in my career. And so I woke up this year and had a similar thought. I was like, I really need to go to the bottom of something. And so I have chosen paddle or padel, however you like to call it. Taking lessons. And I have a coach, I'm 10 weeks in, and I'm so bad. I'm so bad. My fiance played tennis growing up, like recreationally, and just has the fundamental skills. And so it's frustrating having him always be better than me at this lesson. But it's kind of fun to remind myself all of those things that I had to remind myself when I started my business and when I started gymnastics of, hey, this is that's okay. I'm not getting it right now, but I'm gonna get it next time. You're not gonna wake up and be an expert in this. And I think it's just anyone listening that is maybe in a rut or too comfortable, if that's the way of saying it. Um, I just encourage them to try something new because it's hard. It's hard to go back to the beginning and have to learn that all again. But I think it makes you the best version of yourself to always have something that you're an expert in and to also have something that you're a newbie in, so to speak.

SPEAKER_04 31:57

I love that. What great advice, and thank you.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Yeah, I have a question for both of you.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Good, good, good.

SPEAKER_04 32:06

I'm so surprised by this.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

Shocker. Um so Cluster Mobley, Dr. Mobley. Um, if I would if I had a doctorate, I wouldn't want to be called Dr. Miss Vell. Dr. Miss Vell. Dr.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

Miss Valley. Dr. Professor Miss Vell.

SPEAKER_04 32:22

Um Val, I'm gonna put that on the label for the title for this, Dr. Miss Vell.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

We're talking about generationally, and I don't I can't stand it when people rag on the younger generations, Gen Zs and Gen Alphas, and even some millennials, because it's not their fault. Part of your insecurities comes from this phone. But your generation, my generation invented this, and then the generation below me invented social media, but I'm not a casualty of it. You're the casualties of it until you take ownership of it. So what a lot of people talk about with this generation is they want it fast, like like Brene Brown always says, cheap, fast, and easy. And it's like they don't want to put in the reps. How do you help switch someone's mindset? That it's not a negative, it's not a sacrifice, it's not something that's going to be horrible to put in the reps. It's actually the fun part of life. Like Sam's saying, you try something, you fail, you pick yourself back up, you figure out what to do next better next time than you do today. That's that's life at its most brilliant. How do we make that shift from reps being painful to reps being invigorating?

SPEAKER_04 33:40

These are the first generations that have grown up entirely with access to the internet and and social media, of course, but um they have access to information at their fingertips that they don't have to wait. They don't have to research, they don't have to, whatever. So there is something, some research that's said their brains have been rewired. Kind of the dopamine hits when they get their like on social media, or you know, they can I'm gonna tell the story on Kathy here. We're driving down the road, we're going somewhere, and I'll just think a random thought or have a random question. Gee, I wonder what the weather's like in Innis, Montana. She's on it. Because she has to know right that minute. So I don't know if it's a generational thing, but you know, like we do have access to that. So your question's a great one. How do we build that resilience by doing helping encourage the belief that reps are are good? I'm gonna shut up. Sam, you have thoughts on this one?

SPEAKER_00 34:34

To me, it's it's that introspection of what makes you feel at your best, you know, and and when I'm thinking about myself, it's setting goals, maybe achieving goals. And when I've thought back of the things that have brought me the most amount of pride and joy in my life, it's not the things that have come easy. It's the things that I've, you know, had a struggle and had to put that hard work in and had to build the grit, and it wasn't easy, and then it started getting easier. Maybe it's through gymnastics or um maybe it's through the mindset or or really having to be reflective of myself. But now in my adult life, it's it's the the you're I'm not putting routines together in the sport of gymnastics. I'm not going through a a difficult preseason. And so you go through seasons maybe in a rut where you have to think like, okay, like I I'm missing X, or I'm not feeling that dopamine to a higher level because I I haven't had discipline lately. And so I'm doing all these things that are fun, but like I need to get back to the drawing board of what I really want. And sure, there's seasons where you have fun, there's seasons where you have work. And so I think really thinking about your goals and if your goal is to run a marathon, you're gonna have more pride and happiness and joy if you spent two months, I don't know how long it takes, maybe four months, to train for the marathon versus waking up one day and just saying, I'm gonna run a marathon. You're probably gonna be more proud of yourself and have more confidence in yourself and be rewarded with your dopamine at a higher level than if you just woke up and tried to run a marathon, whether you ran it or not. Even if you did, I don't think you would have the amount of pride as if it was really hard and you spent a lot of time working towards it.

SPEAKER_04 36:29

You know what fascinates me, Sam, is that is a perfect Sam answer. Seriously, and I love that because you are wired to think about goals and accomplishments and tasks and organization. You know, I'm overwhelmed at times by the number of people that don't think that way. That for them, setting a goal in place and having a plan to get there is I'm speaking French now. Like they don't quite get that. And this kind of gets back to both what both of you said earlier. And this is the narrative that the coach or the leader helps to put in the brain of others, you know, like this is the way we do this, this is our goal, here's why we do it. Let's find out about how you best think we can accomplish. I'll add my experience and wisdom to you, and let's come up with a reasonable plan. You know, Val was kidding about the stoic stuff, but there's a lot of teaching of life that a leader has to do with younger generations. And by the way, I don't like to disparage younger generations, they have a whole different skill set, they're freaking brilliant, and and they're not one big block of people. There's a lot of variability in there as well, so I don't like to generalize. But teaching them about life, teaching them about being organized, teaching them about goals is something I don't think people used to have to do, but it seemed like an important thing to do these days.

SPEAKER_02 37:50

I will never forget one of the greatest lessons that any student athlete on our team gave to their teammates was the year Sam tore Hercules. And it was the last day before we were going home for spring break, for Christmas break, the last event. I promised myself I will never forget how impressed I was with her ability to look at the life situation the way she did. Because she just didn't say, Oh, it's okay. Bad stuff happens to everybody, you know, it's all right. Or this was supposed, this was meant to be, you know, it wasn't any of that sunshine. She didn't do any of that. It was like, well, this sucks. You know, I'm not gonna be able to compete this year. Basically said, I'm gonna give myself till tonight, the rest of tonight, to be pissed off, mad, sad a little bit. And then tomorrow I'm waking up and I'm attacking this. And we used to call it Raw, ruthlessly attack your weakness. And Sam said, she came in, she goes, Okay, my weakness, and she said this early on, my weakness was my flexibility. And she said, I'm going to ruthlessly attack my weakness. And she didn't just do this outside of the gym, she spent three hours in the gym coming up with every flexibility exercise she could think of. She went to hot yoga. It's the first time we ever had any athletes go to hot yoga because they went to Sam Pitchett. And she literally comes back the following year. She's I'm sorry, Sammy, how tall are you?

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Five one on a good day.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

She's five point one on a good day. And she literally came back the next year, and some of the judges came up to me and said, Did Sam grow? She looks so much taller. I was like, No, it was the hot yoga. So I remember during COVID, I remember uh Coach Saban telling his team, you're gonna either go through this time or you're gonna grow through this time. Sam Peschik totally exemplified that. She grew more in that time of suck and struggle than she did the first two years that she was at UCLA.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

Because of how she chose to look at it, nothing from what I did. First of all, thank you. Second of all, I disagree because I still hear maybe the most impactful quote that I still hear from you is everything in life is a choice. And it's like, I think it's a a different way of saying everything happens for a reason, but it gives you power to make the next move. And so even now I find myself where something happens and I'm just like or it doesn't go your way. Like the first thing I say is, okay, everything in life is a choice. And it's like I have the power to make my next move. Do I want to, you know, throw a fit? Do I want to give up? Do I wanna, you know, and what and and think about it, what message does that send and does it get me close to the goal? What message do this does this option send? Does it get me closer to the goal? And then it helps me decide on how to proceed with whatever decision I'm I'm trying to make. Even if I at first didn't think I had any options, you always have a choice. And even if you don't really like both outcomes, you still got to pick one and you still get to pick one. And so I think in those moments, I think that was the first time where something really bad had happened that I think I quickly snapped out of it, but had a different frame of mind because you continuously reminded us that everything in life was a choice.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Understanding that, and that was a lot came from a lot of my discussion again with Foster. Some people believe everything in life happens for a reason. I don't believe that, but I believe that we have the choice to be able to choose our response. Here we go, Foster. I learned so much from you.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

You also have a choice to give the situation meeting later on.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

I feel like I don't always love that everything in life is for a reason. I do believe that everything happens for a reason. I think those are two separate things, but you just don't know what that is until later. And you can choose to have the perspective on it that it happened for no reason, or you can choose to look back and say, Oh, I learned this, this, and this. And because I went through that, I have these new tools in my toolbox to help me moving forward. So it's like the mindset of however you want to think about that tough situation.

SPEAKER_04 42:20

There's an old Kenyan prayer that says, There is no use preaching unless our walking is our preaching. And so, you know, that says to me that the example, Sam, you have no idea how many athletes you've affected by how you approach that. You know, it will continue to affect a lot of athletes. We we don't know, but you lived it. That's leadership. We didn't didn't take a lot of words. Took a courageous act by someone who was in a lot of pain at the time. But to make a choice and to move and to continue to grow through it, uh that's powerful leading. So let me stay on that one, Sam. With your roles today, you are an entrepreneur with a very successful organization, you're a broadcaster who influences a lot of people on that team and on the staff and and all of that stuff, along with the other roles in your life. Um if people were to use three or four adjectives to describe your style of leading, what would they say about Sam Peshik?

SPEAKER_00 43:15

Oh man, I mean, from probably when Val saw me lead to now, I I think it's changed a lot. I think I have a lot more grace. I think that I had never watched the leaders in my life as a young kid were the ones you read about in the news for USA gymnastics. I think collaborative is a word that I would use now. I think the smartest thing about me is that I find other smarter people in whatever their expertise is, um, versus I don't think I'm the smartest person in the room ever. And so learning from other people, I think, has helped me grow in my leadership style and also just as a business owner. And then reminding Everybody, the why. I think that's probably my strength is like, don't forget, we're doing this because you know, we're we're changing lives. And I I have to tell you guys a story at one of our beam queens, uh, I was doing the confidence session, and this girl was looking around, she wasn't paying attention. I was trying to call on her, hey, over here, you know. They rotate. I was kind of like, uh, like I couldn't get through to her, you know. A couple rotations go by at the end of the event, and she calls me over and she's like, Hey, Sam, can you come come over here? And I'm like, Yeah. All of a sudden she starts bawling. And I'm like, what's going on? Did I miss something? Did you have a fall? And she cuts herself, but she calls it scratching. And she was like, I've been scratching myself for years, and I've never had the confidence to tell anybody about it until today. And I've never felt more confident in myself than I have after your session today. You know, I always tear up telling that story because like that's what it's really about. And it's like I always tell that story to our staff because I'm like, it's the kids that you think aren't paying attention that actually need it the most, that are paying attention, that are, you know, in it. I think just reminding everybody of the why and like why we're doing this and why we're coaching them helps keep I don't know, the the train on track, if you will.

SPEAKER_04 45:21

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, thank you. I love that story, Sam. That's really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yeah, that was a couple years ago. And it still like, you know, hits home. I was like, oh my gosh, like this is no other reason. You know, who cares about gymnastics? It's like the stories like that that like hopefully she's gonna remember that for the rest of her life.

SPEAKER_04 45:43

Well, and for every story like that you hear, there are a hundred that you don't, and you're still influencing lives hugely. You know, it's like she had the guts to come up to you and tell you, but you know, the the seeds you are planting for the rest of their lives, you're helping people really think about themselves and life in a very different way.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:03

Yeah, very cool.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

And and I think reminding everybody their importance in their role and in this world, and and this is another quote that that I I remember from Ms. Foul a lot is like everything you do has a positive or a negative effect. And it's just so important because for the people that don't feel like they have significance or they don't feel like they're they're down on themselves, it's like, okay, well, you have you have a couple choices here, you know, and reminding them that what they do does affect others, it kind of helps get them again moving, moving on the right train track.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

You know, Sam Sam has used the word grace a few times, and I love that word, and I know you do as well. And I always make sure that when I use it, it's people think you can't use it unless you're speaking from a religious standpoint. And it has it's that's not about it at all. It truly is giving somebody the benefit of the doubt that what you're assuming they're thinking is not the truth, that they have their own truth. And I'm sure, Sammy, that you learned a lot from that one experience. Now you said that happened a few years ago. I'm sure there are young girls that you've been coaching and you're being queens that are looking around and to not assume that they're not interested.

SPEAKER_04 47:18

How do we do all three of those? How do we learn to honor self, learn to honor the other while we honor the organization? And I think that's leaders' challenge today, to be able to do that. And I I've chosen the word honoring very specifically, because it means a deeper relationship between leader and follower than traditionally was taught in business schools. But it is that stuff. It's really listening, it's providing grace, it's suspending judgment, trying to understand their point of view, all that kind of stuff. So I love really love what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

I yeah, I remember that was the shift I made when I stopped saying my team, my coaches, my this, my that. And it obviously came from a conversation you and I had, Foster. And I remember sharing with our assistant coaches saying, we are stewards of the University of California, Los Angeles. It's not my team. It's they're not, we are stewards, and so that helped keep the big vision in in focus for us by honoring that vision for you, Cela.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

I also like that word too, because to me, the word that goes hand in hand with honor is respect. And I feel like respect is a necessary ingredient for a successful team, a successful leader. And another, you know, level of that is figuring out what your team's genius, each person's genius is on your team. And what strengths do they bring to the table and how can you bring those out? Because what their strengths are going to be is probably different than yours and different than the next person. And so, how do you figure out what each one is and then you know, celebrate their genius to encourage them to blossom the this, the that? And so uh that's what I try to do on my you know small team is like, hey, uh Megan's amazing at this. Sid is our social media, anything questions we filter so that we create lanes for each other and then we work collaboratively on design and this and that, and being really um structured in that way, where we can encourage creativity and sharing, but one person is in charge of this particular bucket, if you will.

SPEAKER_04 49:38

And I love the word genius, the con that whole concept about bring being letting people play at their highest and best, what they're uniquely good at, and then finding a way to integrate that into the goals that you've got for the organization.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

I just keep bringing it back to you because everything we're talking about is like what I learned from you, Foster. And I remember for your re your listeners that don't know, yes, I won seven national championships, but I've never done gymnastics in my entire life. I was a ballerina. So I kind of always had this imposter syndrome thing going on. And I contacted Foster in 2009 because we hadn't won a championship in a while. And one of the things that you illuminated for me was that one of my um geniuses, one of the things that made me super successful was that I was extremely collaborative with our assistant coaches because they actually knew how to coach gymnastics, which I didn't know. So that was something like by default, I was collaborative. And you always brought that up, Foster, that um that was one of the reasons why our team was and our culture was so successful. And I hadn't connected those dots because I just thought I was kind of masking all the things that I didn't know how to do. And you're like, no, no, no, illuminate all that and be transparent to go back to Sammy's word, be transparent with all that because it empowers your assistant coaches, as Sam just said, to be in their lane and to feel a value.

SPEAKER_04 51:07

Miss Val, as a public figure, what are the nuggets of wisdom that people most want and need from you?

SPEAKER_02 51:13

I get most asked to talk about full setting, to talk about um adversity, disruptives, to talk about all the things that the Minutia that they're dealing with on a daily basis. And then every single keynote that I give, regardless of what the context is, I will always tell my story of getting breast cancer and hearing from God, or you can say the universe, I don't care how you translate this, but I thought it was God saying to me, be anxious for nothing and grateful for all things. And how I translated that and have embedded that gratitude has become my default. Actually, Sam was on the team when I had breast cancer, and how I shifted the word, like Sam just said, I got I chose, I get to get chemotherapy. I don't have to get chemo, I get to because I lived in a time that actually had the chemo. And shifting that one word have to to get to, not just changed my entire year with cancer and chemo and surgeries, but it's changed my entire life since that choosing get to versus have to. And inevitably, at the end of all of my, I can talk about goal setting and disruptives and everything. And at the end, people always come up with tears in their eyes and they say that story really resonated and hit hard.

SPEAKER_04 52:34

Yeah, it's powerful. Two powerful women, two powerful leaders. I am grateful to you both. I appreciate the generosity of your time. Um, always the chance to learn from you guys. You can help me connect a couple of thoughts today that had uh been disconnected before. Um, fantastic. So thank you both. Any final kind of words, comments that you'd uh love to share?

SPEAKER_02 52:58

I just love the fact that, Foster, you're continuing to have these conversations that help shape my life, help shape Sam's life, you know, and and it's as we keep we've said from the very beginning of this, it's the conversations, and you helped us understand how to have those hard conversations and bring them all to life and create a better culture because of it.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

I think knowledge is power. And so for anyone wanting to deepen their own understanding of their own brain or what brings them joy or how to be introspective or the questions to start asking yourself, it's like just seeking out information of podcasts like this and more conversations that you have like this foster. What I say might not click, but maybe when Ms. Fowl says it, someone's gonna have the light bulb moment and vice versa. And so just figuring out who you can look towards, or what you can read, or what research kind of lights that fire in you to help you be the best version of yourself. And sometimes it's not the first thing you look into, but just keep learning and you're gonna find the answers that you're looking for.

SPEAKER_04 54:11

I'm grateful to Val and Sam for sharing their thoughts about their journeys and about their practices as leaders. I'm struck by a couple of moments. First, the moment when Sam discovered that the best way to lead is walking with others and not in front and not behind, and understanding that people have different styles, beliefs, backgrounds, and they don't all think the way that she did. And second, when Val shared that she loves hard conversations, as that's where the real learning and growth occurs. So many great moments. I hope you enjoyed this and will follow Val at officialmissval.com and Sam at Samantha Peshick.com and Samantha Peschick on socials. If this conversation was worth your time, and I hope it was, do one thing for me before you close the app. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It takes 60 seconds. It's how people like you help people like me find this show. And if what we talked about today sparks something in you, good, that's the whole point. There's a book called Leadership Rethinking the True Path to Great Leading. Yes, that's the real title, that goes deeper into this territory. It's on my website at fostermobley.com. Check it out. And then sign up for our email list to be notified when my next book, Honoring, goes into pre-sale in 2027. And if there's one person in your life who needed to hear this episode, send it to them. Not because we need the numbers, because they need the conversation. Set the table, invite cool people, magic happens. I'm Foster Mobley. As always, friends, stepwise. Our music for season three is composed and performed by Montana musical legend Philip Auburg, courtesy of Sweetgrass Music. Phil's recent passing was felt by many, including those of us associated with this podcast. If you're not familiar with Phil's Grammy-nominated music, do yourself a favor and follow him on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your music. We thank Patty Auburgh and Sweetgrass Music for access to this beautiful piece.

SPEAKER_01 56:21

Thank you for listening to Stepwise. Stepwise is produced, edited, and promoted by Zedist with support from Amber Gillard Consulting. Find more episodes and resources at fostermobli.com. And follow Foster on social media at FosterMobley. We'll see you next time.