Resources:

·       https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanjayowens/

·       http://www.ryanjayowens.com/

Full Transcript

Jason: Well, Ryan, so happy to have you here with us. Just to give you a little bit of a background, and why we’re doing this podcast: Part of the inspiration for this podcast is to really be able to share some of the amazing insights we gain from individuals like yourself with a larger audience of diversity, equity, and inclusion practitioners; enthusiasts; activists in the diversity, equity and inclusion space; etc. And we’re really excited to have you on this podcast. So I’ll kick it off with our first question and get right into it. I would love for you to share a bit about yourself, your path, and the coolest thing you’re currently working on.

Ryan: I grew up in Chicago after I was born in Colorado to a father in the Air Force and a mother in high school. And then I went on with my father to Chicago. We moved from the West Side to Evanston, Illinois. It was fantastic and diverse and very interesting. And I was no longer the “mixed kid” on the West Side of Chicago, the white kid who would get beat up by a bunch of kids, and then I’d need my eight savior cousins to jump in and just take care of me and help me get through that! So I fell into sports first with Tony Hawk and these guys in extreme sports. I really loved the adrenaline and the heart-pumping moment. And then I started conforming a little more as I started realizing I was really not an outcast, but as an outsider, I wanted to be included or include myself more in the social life as a kid, because moving from the West Side of Chicago to Evanston, there was so much fun.

Ryan: I wanted to be a part of it, but I felt so different. And I had been used to only being attacked as a kid as being different. But now I just was different like everyone. And then I started trying out for some team sports when I hit high school. I fell into volleyball because actually, a guy in math class – a Filipino friend of mine, LOVE him to death – he was skateboarding on my street when it was my birthday. He saw my skateboard and that’s how we became friends. We were in high school together in class and he said, “Have you ever thought about playing volleyball?” And I said, “What? The top gun type stuff?” He’s like, “Yeah, totally.” And I said, “Okay, sure. Where are we going to play? Like, we’re going to the beach?” And he was like, “No, bro, it’s indoor.” And I said, “Indoor volleyball. What does that even look like?”

Ryan: And he’s like, “There’s six people, whatever. Just come. You’ll love it.” I loved it! In my skateboard shoes, imagine, lanky, 6′ at the time, 6’4″- ish. ..I’m 6’6″ now. And just no idea what I was doing. All of these kids at volleyball for pretty much, I don’t know, five years at that point. I fell in love. I fell in love with how diverse the team was, the ages, and I quickly progressed from there. And so I ended up being this scrawny high schooler with no friends to all of a sudden I’m playing high school volleyball. I’m playing club volleyball. Luckily they got me in on a scholarship because financially it was way too expensive like it is for most people these days. And that really opened my mind to what was possible because to be perfectly honest, I had heard about college and blah, blah, blah…

Ryan: Obviously, I’m a human, but I was never thinking, “What is my path?” We had been moving around and I’d never really even thought about it. And then an academic advisor said, “Well, what are you doing?” And I said, “I don’t know. What should I be doing?” He said, “Well, you’re in sports and you’re doing these things. You can go somewhere with that.” And I was like, “I’m just learning how to play volleyball.” So I went from JV in my junior year, to varsity my senior year. But during that transition of a JV to varsity volleyball, this academic advisor said, “You really need to think about what you’re going to do. And if you can’t use this sport, what are you going to do if you go to college?” And so I took a bunch of honors classes.

Ryan: And then that really got me interested more in the world because I took Latin. I didn’t want to take French because I got my heart broken by my freshman year French teacher! And so then from there, I graduated high school and I went into playing volleyball for three different schools, but I went to four different universities if you can believe that. One four-year, a junior college, and back to a four-year. And from there I went overseas because I just wanted to keep pursuing volleyball. Volleyball for me quickly became this vehicle for anything that I wanted in life. I understood I could go to school. I could play it professionally, play with this German guy on my junior college team in California. It got me out to California. It got school paid for, for three of the time that I was in school.

Ryan: And then I transitioned to volleyball professionally. I moved overseas in 2002 and from 2002 to 2005, I stayed in Europe. Actually, I think that’s right around the time that Oana and I met. Somewhere in there, I joined the national team because I was just waiting for something to be disturbed with the national team because I thought I truly believe when I look at these athletes, I can do that. Okay, most of them were white, first of all. And I’m this mixed athlete. I don’t identify with any of them. I didn’t have a friend who had done it before. There was no path to get there. It was just, how do you do it? And for me, it always made sense to go with the simplest thing. It was like, if I want to go there and that is the person that’s there, I’m going to write them.

Ryan: So when the National Team coach changed, I’d already written the ex-National Team coach. He never wrote me back. (The new) one wrote me back immediately and I got this call. Actually, I was in Evanston, just north of Chicago, and they said “Come try out. We’re interested in you.” I tried out. And from there, I really got exposed to everything because I made the National Team, the 18-man roster, which is the Olympic roster. From there I started learning, “Oh my gosh, it’s crazy! This is a business for sport. And I don’t know all these things. I’ve already been screwed over by these teams and, how is this happening?” And I felt very excluded from the knowledge base of what is to be an elite-level athlete, but also a business. There are a lot of things that are not accessible to you as a human unless you reach certain milestones, right?

Ryan: So there I learned I didn’t know much about the business side of it. I was very different than everybody else and I needed to keep asking questions, and I wasn’t sure how to go about my professional career and who could really help me without hurting me. Because a lot of the agents and teams in my experience from 2002 when I turned pro to 2005 when I joined the National Team had screwed me over. Whether it was me with a stupid but very rookie move of signing a German contract that I couldn’t read. And I asked friends, does this look good. All the professional athletes that looked at it were like, “Yeah, it looks solid.” There was one clause that basically said I was actually responsible for my visa procurement in Germany.

Ryan: So imagine I’m in Eastern Germany, so we’re talking German, Russian – these are the languages. I’m in the foreign exchange visa office and I’m trying to get this visa, and I’m calling my manager on the phone and it turns out this guy really sticks it to me because he tells the person, “Yeah, give him a student visa.” But I didn’t understand. And this is how they were able to really screw me over. And so when I was asking all these National Team guys, “What do you do?” They said, “Just fend for yourself. Get as many agents as you can. Just don’t let them hurt you first. Just use everybody.” And I said, “There’s got to be a better way!”

Ryan: And so I was looking for other agents and then I was like, okay, A, it’s only men. It’s mostly guys who have really not played the sport at a high level. And I said like, who’s going to solve this issue? And I found a guy through a national team teammate. He was an Olympic speed skater. We’re talking like Apollo Ohno. This was his teammate, literally. And he was also a lawyer in two states, California and Missouri. And he was doing athletic endorsements. After a year and a half of working with him, he was like, “You’re really resourceful, let’s talk. I’ve got a business idea.” And he threw down this idea about an agency and I said, “You’re amazing! I’ve been thinking about making this website and just creating this platform for athletes to not only connect with opportunity but to be educated about opportunity and how to go about this, how to be professional and blah, blah, blah….” So we started together.

Ryan: This is how I started EliteVolley. Then when we split off because he went to the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, there’s no way he could work with an agency. This is against the rules. So I bought him out and then I started thinking that a website is not just the only solution. How do I really solve this dilemma? Is the issue really with the teams? Is it really with the other agents? Is it with the coaches or the other players? I was like, no, it’s with us. It’s a human problem. We don’t know these things and we don’t know ourselves and we’re going against all of these different obstacles. And as athletes, we’ve been in this box for so long that we’re just thinking people are going to do it for us. I said, “I’ve got to educate athletes on how to educate themselves about not only the world, but first themselves.”

Ryan: So this is how I got on the whole Beyond Athletic thing. Just started a podcast. I started a nonprofit for this in Serbia. And really, this is where I’m at now. I decided the agency had to be…let me test out educating athletes and empowering them, equipping them with this stuff, and see if it works. My first athlete, (I’m really excited to share this actually because it just happened 48 hours ago), is an athlete that’s been with me for seven years. She’s the first young woman who decided to be my guinea pig. Literally, I said, “Please be my guinea pig because you just wrote me an eight-page email about how you dream big and whatever. And you’re super athletic like I was, but you don’t know how to get there.”

Ryan: I was like, I got some ideas on how to do some stuff and it was messy. It was crazy. But I’m going to tell you without a shadow of a doubt, I love this human. I love her like a little sister. She loves me like an older brother. It’s crazy how close we’ve gotten. She’s a young black woman and I’m so excited because she just played against one of the top teams in the world, 48 hours ago and had a lights-out match as an undersized player, playing in a position that normally a player would never play and emotionally and socially the path for her to get there was incredible. On top of that, my other player, another ethnic player, a Black and White mixed athlete from Iowa, got MVP. So I’m super excited because here we have an agency, but I’m coming at it from an athlete’s perspective. Let’s empower and equip these athletes and let’s surround them with support and knowledge and Olympians and women and men and specialists.So that’s where I’m in today. I’m living in Croatia. I’m like, where am I? I’ve been here since 2002 in Europe and yeah, the rest is history.

Oana: Oh my gosh. I feel like we can just unpack your lineage and your path and your journey. One of the things that really excites us, and you’ve set us up for my next question, Ryan, is we’re working with a lot with fitness companies right now, and I’ve shared that with you before. There’s this huge emphasis on borrowing from core values from pro athletes and athleticism and aligning that into their company culture. And I think for many companies it’s really relatable. You want to see values like commitment and determination and perseverance and all of that celebrated and being baked in. But I think there are parts of it that are really missing, right? And so I think it’s one thing to benefit from those tendencies or from those values, but how do we start talking about the experiences BIPOC athletes have in Europe or in Asia or frankly, in the US? But I think there’s this miss on the education piece and there’s a miss on the perspective of we may all share these values and it does not show up for me this way. And that is not how I have to battle it to be “resilient”.

Oana: So I’d love for you to share as a professional athlete, as a Black and Indigenous man, which is a whole other story, what are the things that came up for you in your experiences? What are the top three things that you would say for an athlete of color beyond the US, because we often hear “racism is a US problem,” right? And obviously, we debunk a lot of that in our sessions. But what could you share with companies that are really honing into athleticism and that kind of spirit. What would you want them to also make sure they’re capturing?

Ryan: I think, first of all, you have to give athletes the chance to actually have a voice. Many people will say, “Let’s give athletes a voice and et cetera, et cetera, and let’s give them a platform,” but then they give them a very strict guideline on what to say and what to talk about and blah, blah, blah… And they never just ask something very simple like, what do you feel is underrepresented about your journey? It’s never asked, but should be asked. Like, what is most important to you that you feel people need to hear about this and know about this and to go side by side with what’s romanticized. I just had a fantastic podcast episode with an athlete. And if you don’t mind, I’ll just kind of throw that out there. Simone Lee, Penn State, all American, playing in Japan right now, which is a whole other thing.

Ryan: So we were talking about the same thing. And I said, “What would you like people to ask you? Because I understand that so often people are just like, “Ooh, you’re interesting and you look different and you are this,” but they want me to tell the story that they think is the prettiest. And it’s not pretty. It’s not pretty for any of us athletes, but it’s definitely not pretty for us athletes who have been chased down a German street, (I hate that it was Germany because I get it), but chased down a German street by a neo-Nazi and really worried for what the hell is going to happen to me? And this is me. Or my female athletes who are in different countries, whether it’s Istanbul. Had a player in Istanbul and in the beginning, it was like, “No, I don’t want to pay this player this much money because, what? She’s not like these other girls on the National Team.”

Ryan: And I said, “How is she not like these other women on the national team?” Well, A, she hasn’t really made a roster. She hasn’t done these things. I said, “But she has. Is it because she’s just not this star that everybody is shining that light on that you don’t want to give her this type of money? This was one thing. The second thing is that if you’re trying to get these people into your businesses and you’re trying to have them endorse things, allow them to tell you how it’s hard in terms of being a woman or a man in different places and ethnic and these other things, and the discrepancies in pay, the discrepancies with how they’re treated.

Ryan: I had this one athlete, in this case in Istanbul, they turned off her heating in the middle of the winter in Istanbul. They changed the times for her. The group message for when the bus was leaving to catch the Champions League. If anybody knows worldwide sports, Champions League matches for volleyball…they changed it! So why? Because they wanted her to look like the one, because they knew people would believe, “Oh yeah, she’s different than everybody else. She’s the problem.” So when I had dealt with this crap before, like being called “sonnenkinder” in Germany by my team manager, which means like “sun child”…skin tone. It was stupid because it’s not even a real racial slur in Germany. So whenever I tell German friends, they’re like what? And I show them the article and they’re like, “Oh my God, how village do you have to be to make that up? You don’t even know how to make a racial slur!” These athletes are up against that. So let them tell that story. So, A, ask them what has been unsaid. B, let them tell the story the way that they really truly connect with it, which is struggle. Struggle, man! And then, C… I don’t even know because those first two are just so huge. You want three things, but I feel like you’ve got to start with those two.

Oana: That was going to be the follow-up question for accomplishing the first two. That’s powerful. Thank you for sharing that. You see, Jason and I are nodding, and I think that those two lessons are pretty big for companies in general right now as we think about the pivot towards going from inclusion to anti-racism work and how that is a struggle. The analogy I use is, I think a lot of companies have signed up for the Olympics and now they’re like, “Oh, what? “You want me to run around the block?” And I think that’s really hard, right? For example, in the context of our work, you can’t do anti-racism without touching white supremacy culture and characteristics. And that is not a personal attack. That is showing up with love and heart and respect and appreciation for an organization to say, “We believe in you so deeply that we want to help you solve for this.”

Oana: And so when you say it’s about the struggle, I think that’s the hard part, especially in the context of some organizations that, and Jason and I talk about it all the time, they want to do the after photo when you’ve lost all the weight. But what we’re saying is this work is ugly and sweaty, like you fell off your treadmill or you fell down the stairs where you’re like, I busted my stuff and it really hurts. And maybe you can give advice on this, but I think that’s what we’re really struggling with as Firefly, is to show up with the compassion and passionately challenge to say, “We can’t go to the next place without this pain. And we can’t shut it down because it hurts too much because this is the growth that will get us to that next level of where our customers, our users, and our listeners are expecting us to be as an organization.

Ryan: Totally. Yeah. Okay. So those first two parts are really important. It’s allowing yourself to talk to this athlete, you understand what are the missing pieces and then allow them to really tell that story and then to understand. So you start to understand that it is not pretty. It’s really hard every day. I love Daniel Goleman‘s new podcast because he wrote the book on emotional intelligence, right? And so much has come from that. And that’s moving forward so much, but when it comes down to it, this is all about internal and external struggle. And you have to find a way to allow athletes to let you understand how they connect with those things.

Ryan: And so one of the things is like, what do you do every day showing that, showing how hard that is, showing them slip, showing them miss days or weeks? There’ll be times where I’ll go, like, four days on a Netflix binge and I’m like, what just happened? I don’t even know, but nobody sees that on social media. But I try to be really accountable to myself and hold myself to the standard that I say, I have to be able to show this side of myself because nothing is pretty. And if I really want to resonate with other humans, I’ve got to show them I’m human. I’ve got to show them I’m vulnerable. I’ve got to show them, not only am I vulnerable to the external world, but I’m vulnerable to myself, to these pre-programmed things that are going on with me. So I would say, show that messy side of things, but then also let these athletes, and ask them, and find ways to show the stories of love and fear. When were you most afraid? When were you most afraid of something that was totally internal, that you’re self-aware, that you understand that’s coming from this place of childhood trauma or whatever?

Ryan: Or is coming from a place of external trauma that’s happening with your team, where a coach is like gently rubbing your lower back and you’re like, what is this? And you don’t know what to do. I mean, there’s stuff happening all the time, right? And we’re trying to adjust to these things. Give them a safe space or a way to show that they were afraid or they love some part of their journey, but not just the pretty side of it. And I would say that is probably one of the key ways that I’m working right now. We’re working on a miniseries for EliteVolley, where it’s like, how can we show that this is really hard. So when you wake up, when you miss something, when you don’t do your daily routine, when the coach yells at you and then you’re crying in training, which, “A man is a man. I haven’t done that!” I don’t care, I’m a human! Female, male, none of this stuff matters anymore.

Ryan: It’s just…feelings exist. We either know how to deal with them or we don’t. And I think that’s a really important thing for them to look at is go, okay, let’s talk about the moments of fear. And let’s talk about the moments of love. When were you giving it, when were you receiving it? And this, I think you’re going to connect with everybody on because I think if the internet is doing anything these days, it’s showing us the wrong way. And there are people that are going to be attached to it for a while, but there are so many people who are like, no, there’s a way to use this platform in such a special way and really truly connect. And that’s scary. Lean into that fear. Lean into that scariness. I don’t know if I hit it, but I hope I did.

Oana: You really hit it. You seriously hit it. Just to reemphasize this piece around the fear and the love, I think is very, very, very important and that it is applicable to all of our clients. All of us. Just hearing you say that, hit me personally. So I can only imagine. I thank you for sharing.

Jason: Absolutely! So much of what you shared resonated both with me just individually and in the place I am in on my own kind of journey. But also, collectively I think when I’m talking about Firefly and some of our clients. This fear element preventing them from being open to hearing those real authentic stories or pulling back the curtain to let everybody know that things aren’t perfect. And what we try to convey is that that’s where the world is going. People are tired of the charade. People are tired of putting this thing up as perfect because we all know it’s not perfect. So to try and put that out there literally becomes this slap in the face to the reality. And we’re not asking for professional, we’re asking for honesty. We’re asking for truth.

Jason: We’re asking for authenticity. That’s what we’re asking for. So to stop giving us this curated version of whatever reality you’re trying to sell. Right. And I love this point because in so many of our other cases, what I truly believe is part of that fear comes from denial. And denial of the truth, denial of the reality, and what I know about denial is that it’s truly the antithesis of our individual and our collective growth. And so I love where you’re coming from as somebody that sits in that space and holds that space, both for yourself as an athlete and for other athletes that you’re trying to support, to empower them to kind of maintain that integrity of sharing your truth, sharing your raw reality. So thank you so much for that work, and for giving that gift that you continue to give athletes and that you’ve been able to give us on this podcast. What is a question or a request that you have for us as inclusion champions and practitioners? What can we do? What can we continuously bring to the table that you feel would really be supportive?

Ryan: Yeah. One of the things… just to touch on a little bit of what you said before, it just keeps coming to my mind. I feel like I have to say it: beauty is chaos. And a lot of people don’t understand that. That is true, and that is truth because we are so chaotic inside, but we’re so beautiful inside. But we can’t see it because we’re so stressed out by not only ourselves and not understanding ourselves, but this external world. So I just wanted to lean into that and help people understand. Please look at that and think about that. Beauty and beautiful things are chaotic. You look at beautiful birds or animals, and there’s all these colors and textures and movements. This is life on every single level. So if you really want to take all that in, that’s where you got to go.

Ryan: What could you guys be doing? A, having a podcast about it and sharing this with people. Thank you. Love it. Fantastic. Hit that on the head. B, making sure that people out there understand how to trust their gut, lean into what’s hardest. If I’ve learned anything from sport and being an athlete, which is truly a vehicle for everything in life I feel…I mean, I can only imagine it! Sometimes as humans, we were just like, oh, we can do this thing and it’s competitive, to prepare us for these really, really important things like living or dying. It all of a sudden became this training ground for life. And that is essentially what it is. And so for me, when I look at all of this, I just think there’s so much to learn. And if we can have people out there that are pushing that learning is hard and it must be intentional.

Ryan: And that if you want to start, first off, you have to really truly hold yourself responsible and accountable for yourself. And then you have to try to know yourself. And then you’ve got to learn as much as you can about everything that you can, that you’re interested in. Lean into those things. Don’t run away from them, because if it’s scary, it means something. And as athletes, we learn one thing on the court. Ooh, man, those big games! The butterflies, the people throwing up, the stuff that’s happening and you have this decision. There’s flight or fight, but there’s also a freeze in neuroscience. I have been in the flight and freeze side so many times. And the best part about this journey is that the fight part is usually what the world just sees, but the most important part of it is how you respond to how you freeze or how you run away from things because that is true growth, right? So I feel like leaning into that and having people talk about that and be comfortable with that is really the way to go.

Oana: What I wanted to share here because this is critical is, it’s the point of choice. In Transformation, it’s the upset, and then there’s the awareness, and then the choice you make. It’s literally make or break. For companies, for leaders, for athletes, it’s how you choose to show up in that moment, or what you choose to let go of that is no longer serving you. Whether it’s the external narrative or how you’ve coped with the trauma or the bad day you had… Whatever that is, it’s this piece around showing up for yourself, showing up for your potential, showing up for that future version of you. That is the hardest thing to do. Or the future version of your company. Which again, is the throw-up moment for some leaders! Because “This has worked for me so far. Look at what I built! Look at what I did. Who are you to tell me that I have to deal with these issues now? “ I don’t think people understand how hard that is from a DEI practitioner standpoint, but also from an individual leader standpoint because they’re human too. They get nervous and they have these hard times. I can’t tell you how important what you just said is in the Transformation space.

Ryan: Yeah. I think one of my mottoes, is to stay uncomfortable. Don’t get comfortable. Oh my goodness. It’s the worst! I will get comfortable on my couch and I’ll get comfortable outside and whatever, but in life just never get comfortable. That last podcast I did, I was talking about the exact same thing. You have this immediate reward of amazing Six Glags amusement park, like a rollercoaster. Beyond Athletic taught me this and I had that feeling. The most valuable part of these journeys, when you ask athletes, what’s your proudest moment? This is one of the things I ask on the podcast. It’s almost never winning the freaking medal or doing the big thing, what everybody wants to show.

Ryan: And we all know this, but we all think that shortcut is so amazing because I’m here and that could be me, but the beautiful part for all of them was that struggle. The discomfort. Oh my gosh. Like, yes, Oana, yes, I think this is all so important. Learn how to be uncomfortable the majority of your life. That doesn’t need to mean that you’re so stressed and that you’re not going to be able to do things. That means that you’re constantly growing. And you’re actually able to not only process things but give things that are so much more valuable. And you start to understand that you’re going to give up a lot along the way. And I think these businesses need to understand that they’re going to give up some immediate returns, but they don’t matter. They don’t matter. Life, sport, business, it’s all about the long game. It’s all about all of these things, authenticity, and all of the things that we talked about. Yeah. Totally agree. Embrace the beautiful struggle.

Oana: Amazing. Well, I think you’re going to help us process for the rest of the day because that’s so much to take in, but always grateful to just be able to spend time with you and catch all this wisdom and these insightful things. So thank you for spending that time with us and for being on the podcast.

Jason: And thank you for the work that you do and what you’re putting in. It’s amazing. And let’s continue to follow your journey and your success.

Ryan: Likewise, I mean, what you’re doing, I feel like as a whole is so needed. Everybody knows it’s needed. Come on now. And I’m just very grateful to be on this podcast. I’m very grateful to have gone through all of this stuff. Somebody asked me, you know how you get those cards of humanity? I don’t know what it is, but it was like some game. And it was like, would you either this or that? And it was like, would you rerun the clock? And I was like, no, I would never. I’d do exactly what I did. I would lean into it even more and I would embrace it and love it because it’s so who I am and it’s so special. So I just wanted to throw that out there. Follow Beyond Athletic Podcast, follow @ryanjayowens on Instagram. These are the best places. And I try to just throw that out everywhere. I’m really appreciative of you. Thank you so much. What you guys are doing is incredible. If you ever want me to be a part of anything, I just want you to know unpaid, paid, I don’t care! I love this stuff. This drives me. Thank you.

Jason: Thank you.

Oana: We’d love to have you. Thank you, Ryan.