Empowerment & Courage Empowerment & Courage

For today's episode, we were lucky to get the chance to speak with Arianna Criscione. She’s an American-Italian football player, currently playing for PSG in France. She’s a former member of the Italian National Team and has previously won three Italian titles, one Italian Cup, and three super cups with Torres Calcio. Arianna is currently also working as the Women’s Sponsorship Manager at PSG. We speak about her taking the step of moving to Europe to play professional football after finishing her college soccer career in the US. She loves to travel and talks about the many places that football has taken her and some of her best experiences abroad, discovering new cities during local festivities. Looking back at her career, Arianna shares what her definition of success is and how her approach to what it means to be successful has changed over the years. She’s a big advocate for giving girls opportunities to play sports and hopes to show other girls that you can work within the sports industry even if you don’t aspire to be a professional athlete.

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For today's episode, we had the honor of speaking with Katie Hoff. She’s a former professional American swimmer, an 8x World Champion, a 2x Olympian and a 3x Olympic Medalist. Today, Katie is a bestselling author, a keynote speaker and co-founder of the company Synergy Dryland. We speak about her relentless attitude of wanting to become the best from a very young age and what it was like for her to compete at the Olympics when she was only 15 years old. She also shares how to deal with expectations and what she has learnt from managing the disappointment of realizing that not all things turn out the way you want them to. Retiring from professional swimming in 2015, Katie explains what it was like having to give up her athletic career because of a health condition, and how she found her identity outside of the pool after that. Today, Katie shares her experiences and learnings with others and released her bestselling book ‘’BluePrint - An Olympian's Story of Striving, Adapting and Embracing the Suck’’ in 2020.

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For today’s episode, we had the great honor of speaking with Cherelle Thompson. She’s a professional swimmer from Trinidad & Tobago, currently preparing for the Tokyo Olympics. Cherelle was a 2x NCAA All-American at the University of Tennessee and has broken both national Trinidad & Tobago records and regional Caribbean records. We speak about her childhood dream of competing at the Olympic Games and the crazy journey that would eventually lead to her qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics. She also talks about the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people, especially when you face adversity and need encouragement to keep going and stay positive. Knowing what a major impact sports can have on one's life, Cherelle is today a mentor for young aspiring athletes worldwide and started her own infant swim school back home in Trinidad, called Aquasense. She’s very passionate about giving back to the younger generation and wants to inspire them the same way that others inspired her when she was a kid.

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In today’s episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Vincent Bezecourt. He’s a French football player, a 2013 World University Games Champion with the French Team and is currently playing for FC Alashkert in Armenia. Vincent has previously also played for New York Red Bulls in the MLS and for FC Miami in the USL. Vincent speaks about his time playing college soccer in the US and how he ended up signing his first pro contract with New York Red Bulls after thinking he was already done with football. He also talks about the mental hardships that accompany physical injuries, and what he has learnt from overcoming two injuries during his pro career. Having lived abroad for many years now, Vincent also shares how important his international experiences have been for his personal growth and how he’s gone from a shy person to now being someone who loves traveling, discovering other cultures and making connections worldwide.

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For today's episode we had the big pleasure of speaking with Ana Gros. She’s a professional handball player and the captain of the Slovenian National Team, currently playing in Brest in France. At the club level she’s won the Championship and Cup in basically every country she’s played in, she’s been named the French Championship Right Back six times in a row and the All-Star Right Back of the EHF Champions League in 2018. We speak about her many years living abroad and how these experiences have impacted her, and also contributed to her now speaking six different languages. Ana also talks about the many lessons that handball has taught her and how it makes her happy to be able to give back and be a role model to the younger generation today. Having considered giving up on handball at one point in her career, Ana shares how she rediscovered her love for the sport again and she is now working harder than ever to realize a lifelong dream of hers: winning the Champions League.

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For today’s episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Molly Carlson. She’s a professional high diver and member of Team Canada, and a former college diver at Florida State University - where she became a 5x NCAA All-American. We speak about her time as a diver and how she ended up transitioning into high diving after graduating from college. With only about 20 girls worldwide being professional high divers, Molly shares her views of fear and what it’s like to deal with the mental side of such an extreme sport. Having previously battled mental health issues and body dysmorphia, Molly speaks about how those experiences contributed to her creating and growing the #BraveGang community - a community of over 2.3 million followers on TikTok that both inspires and celebrates bravery at every level.

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