TED Talks Daily - Sunday Pick: After the Glory Fades | Good Sport

Episode Date: August 17, 2025

Competitive sports give athletes structure, community and purpose. And an outlet for their passion. So what happens when, because of injury or age, they can’t play anymore? Does the competitive drive find a new home? Or get slowly extinguished? Jody talks to aging expert Tracey Gendron, Olympian, turned chef, Dawn Burrell, and soccer legend Carli Lloyd about finding grace and direction when closing a chapter. Transcripts for Good Sport are available at go.ted.com/GStranscriptsThis episode originally aired on Good Sport on March 29, 2023.For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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So next time your gums feel sensitive, don't shrug it off, help take care of it with Colgate Periogard. Healthy gums, Confidence, Smile. Hey, TED Talks Daily listeners, I'm Elise Hume. Today, we have an episode of another podcast from the TED Audio Collective handpicked by us for you. Competition can be healthy. For athletes, competitive sports can offer structure, community, and purpose. But what happens when, because of injury or age, they can't play anymore?

This week, we're bringing you another great episode from Good Sport. Host Jody Avergan talks to aging experts and former professional athletes to ask where the competition goes when you can't compete anymore. But this episode isn't just for athletes. It's for anyone who could use some grace and direction when we realize that we must close a chapter in our own lives. If you want more sports content from TED or just want to see the world through a new lens, check out good sport wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn more about the TED Audio Collective at audiocollective.com. This is Carly Lloyd, four-time Olympian, two-time World Cup champion, a legend of U.S. soccer. There's this picture of me after we lost to Canada in Tokyo 2020. It was a really bad game played by our team, and I just had a moment with myself on the field. In the photo she's talking about, Carly's sitting on a ball in the middle of a field. Her head is in her hands. She's staring down at the green grass in front of her. There's no one else in the picture.

No spectators, no teammates. It really looks like Carly's alone and in despair. I was upset. Yeah, I was pissed. Most people who saw that photo were probably thinking, oh, she's just really upset. The U.S. lost in the semifinals. They're not going to get a shot at the gold medal.

But there's so much more going on there that we didn't know. Yeah, that was me just having a moment. moment just reflecting that this was my last world event. Her last world event. Before the Olympics, Carly had decided it was time to hang up her cleats, time to retire. No more Olympics, no more World Cubs. And I'd imagine she hoped her last game on the world stage would have ended with a gold medal around her neck.

But it was not to be. You know, it was, it was heartbreaking. It was gut-wrenching. You always have this image in your mind of how you would. like things to play out. And life doesn't always give you exactly what you want. Well, it's like sports teaching you one last lesson on the way out, you know? Exactly. Carly didn't get her storybook ending. Not every career can end on a high note. But that's sports. It's simply the fact that for all of us, there comes a time when the sport we play in love and our ability or desire to play it at the

level we're used to passes us by. In sports, retiring is kind of a strange and humbling thing. You spend years devoting yourself completely to training, competing, chasing that next gold medal or championship or record. And then one day, usually with most of your life still ahead of you, you're done. When they face retirement, athletes put something we all face aging into sharper relief, both in terms of the body, it breaks down, and something more existential. I was one type of person defined by the things I love.

Now that that's over, what am I? I've been going through this myself lately. For most of my life, playing top-level sports, which, as I've talked about on this show, was mostly Ultimate Frisbee, it shaped my life. Every day was filled with playing or training for tournaments. My social circle was made up of people I played sports with. The field was where I could focus my drive and work out my frustrations.

And it was an ego boost. I'll cop to liking the fact that I knew that I was very, very good at something. And then my body started giving out. A couple torn ACLs, continuously pulled hamstrings, Achilles surgery. I just couldn't bring it anymore. I needed to stop playing. I knew that. But then it's like all those things that I love.

They just go away. What a racket. My name is Jody Avergear, and this is Good Sport from the TED Audio Collective. This episode will get some guidance from athletes much wiser and much more accomplished than me who face this change and found their own answer to the big question, what comes next? I promise this isn't just a therapy session. You'll meet some great athletes. You'll learn something, too, about how all of us, athletes or not,

can think about aging and the years ahead with a little more insight and a little more optimism. So, what comes next? Well, for one, the show's theme music, and then, you know, more podcast. This episode is sponsored by Airbnb. It's finally summer, the season of road trips, lake swims, and making memories with the people we love. I have been thinking about exploring Canada for a while, and for a trip like that, staying in an Airbnb just feels right. Whether it's a getaway with extended family or a few close friends,

I'd want a place that feels like home, but with better views and more space to unwind. Airbnb has some incredible spots across Canada that go way beyond the basics, cottages with hammocks, fire pits, even canoes. Imagine staying somewhere with enough room for everyone, including the dog, where bedtime for the kids doesn't have to be bedtime for you. It's just a different experience relaxing in a cozy living room instead of a hotel lobby. This summer, my aim is to check out some of Canada's most loved homes from

lakeside cabins and Bruce Peninsula to breathtaking escapes in Banff or Cape Breton. Because some trips in Canada are just better in an Airbnb. Say hello savings and goodbye worries with Freedom Mobile. Get 60 gigs to use in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico for just $39 a month. Plus, get a one-time use of five gigs of Rome Beyond data. Conditions apply. Details at FreedomMobile.com. As a top pro athlete, Carly Lloyd practically lived on the road. And that grind got more and more grueling, the older she got. You know, there were several years in a World Cup or Olympic years where we were on the road 250-some days. And I definitely felt it getting tougher and tougher the older I got.

Tough to be away from home, leave my husband and not really see my family and friends. And, you know, I'd come home for short little window breaks and I'm trying to cram everything in in a week or 10 days. It's tough. But at some level, it's like the highs are worth it to put up with the 12 hours a day of grind and BS. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I would sacrifice everything for it. You can't do what we do and what players do on the professional level if you don't have that sense of commitment and willingness to sacrifice. I asked Carly if she felt like she had to give up any semblance of a normal life.

in order to play at that highest level. I've asked myself that. I've thought about it. I think that there's a very small percentage of people that get to the professional level. And then there's an even smaller, smaller percentage that are up on that peak, on that mountaintop alone, for the most part.

I had to be that extreme. Carly lived in that extreme almost her entire life. But now she was in her late 30s. And for any athlete that age, you inevitably ask, every season, is this going to be my last one? It's one of those strange things about retiring from sports. You make this huge life transition pretty early in your life, way before most people consider their careers over. And it can be hard to know when to call it quits. You know, sometimes it's a coach forcing you out.

Sometimes it's an injury. Sometimes you're just, you don't have what it takes. You know, you're slowing down and you're not performing well. But Carly never wanted to get to that point. She wanted to choose for herself when to walk away. I always wanted to dictate my ending. I always wanted to be the one to decide when I was going to hang up my boots. And I'm very grateful because there's not a lot of people that get to do that.

After the Olympics, she played a few more games. Her last match with the national team was in Minnesota. The stadium was full of people chanting her name, holding signs that said things like, Thank you, Carly, and happy last game to the goat. We'll miss you. The stadium was electrifying. The only complaint I had would maybe have to play to a few more minutes,

maybe come out with like one minute remaining in the game, maybe banged in a goal. Yeah. But everything else was picture perfect. And I was able to take everything in. I was able to listen to the crowd, to look at all the posters around and the people cheering and be in that present moment.

When Carly came off the field, she hugged her teammates, took off her cleats, and looked into the stands for her husband, Brian Hollins, her high school sweetheart. She had a surprise for him. Probably my most favorite part of that moment

was being able to take my jersey off and show my husband, Holland's jersey, that I had on my back. because without his support, I wouldn't have been able to do all that I did. And now, about a year since her last game, Carly has found her answer to that big question of what comes next. I'm a normal, everyday human now. I weed. I just pulled some weeds right before this.

Oh, come on. That's what comes after a Hall of Fame career, weeding? But really, Carly says that since she walked off the field, her days have been filled with lots of things that give her meaning. Some new business ventures, a little media work, and time with her husband, who's a professional golfer. There's no Uber competitive drive there. I'm picking up a sport because it's something that him and I can play together and it's good exercise and you can play it for a really long time.

And it's fun and it's challenging. As Zen as Carly is about her next phase, I did ask her about one thing I've struggled with. something I suspect she struggled with, too. Motivation for working out. For athletes, workouts are absolutely critical. It's a cliche, but what separates the best athletes is how hard they train. The training gives you purpose, confidence, steady improvement.

But you're always training for something, a big game, the next tournament. But now, if you're no longer playing a sport, it's like you're supposed to just work out to work out? To me, that feels really unsatisfying. Before I was retired, I thought about this, and I remember having conversations with, you know, people about it. And I'm like, it's going to be easy. You know, I'm conditioned to run and work out. I've always dedicated myself to that. And I've become kind of addicted to it.

Well, as soon as I ended in November of 21, I had nothing left in my tank. I was completely dead. But that competitive drive and never really. really goes away, does it? Soon after her retirement, a chance to be on a reality TV show came along for Carly. The premise of the show is that it dropped celebrities into the middle of the desert, then test their ability and endurance as they try and make it out. I'd watch that show, by the way. Anyway, the instant this offer came along, Carly's workouts changed. It was amazing how my runs, my mileage pace went from like eight and a half, nine minute mile pace

start training for the show, I'm down at 7.7.30 mile pace. You know, it's just, it's crazy that your brain, or at least my brain, when there's a goal and there's, you know, something in play, that it just triggers your mind to just dig deeper. I spent a good month and a half, you know, really training for it. And it was nice to have a goal again. It was nice to have a goal again. Interesting. What Carly is describing here isn't unique. A lot of people feel it.

They need something to work for. I actually think this is one of the reasons that we've seen the rise of things like CrossFit. You're not working out to prepare for competition. The workout is the competition. I flirted with CrossFit for this very reason. I got injured, of course. I've tried swimming and rowing and freaking Peloton.

Anything to try and give myself something. to train four. I'll tell you what, though, I'm not going to play golf. Oh, God, should I run a marathon? Please don't let that be the answer. Like, you just go out there and run? Sure, for Carly, it helps to have something like the Special Forces show to light a fire under her workouts. But it's also clear that she's in a different phase, a phase focused on outcome more than process, on the joy of learning a new skill on pushing her body and mind in new ways, beat by beat. Now, I would say that in my younger years of my playing days, it was hard to enjoy the process. You're always kind of looking to the future.

You're always wanting that goal of yours to happen. But as my career went on and the older I got and the more experience I had, I started to kind of embrace the process a little bit more, enjoy the journey a little bit more and really try to immerse myself in that present moment. It's only later in your career where you enjoy the process. You feel like you figured some things out. You're still learning. I mean, I feel like that also applies to across the board. Like you learn how to train better. You become more efficient. You just sort of are like, well, I guess what I'm saying is youth is wasted on the young. But it's kind of like, oh, that that comes at the end. Yeah. I know.

you're saying it's almost like even in the soccer and the football world if you could play till you were you know 40 50 you know we'd be incredible players because you've you've learned the game so much and you're so much smarter but obviously the body body plays a role in that it all comes back to that stupid body huh very very frustrating youth really is wasted on the young or good knees are wasted on the young all right we got a snap-out out of it, because there is a healthier approach out there. Starting with this, athletes are reframing how we think about retiring. Carly's doing it, and so is Serena Williams.

When she talked about the end of her tennis career, she didn't even use the word retirement. She called it evolution. Yeah, I mean, I like the term she used. I think that it is an evolving next chapter, you know, it's a weird, odd thing as a a professional athlete to retire. You know, I've retired the same year that my parents retired in. Like, it's just, it's odd to me. And I'm not really retired because I'm still working and doing other things. And I need to grow. I need to evolve. I need to keep getting better and keep putting myself into uncomfortable positions because that's exactly what I did as a player.

All these things that make an athlete great, continually learning, lessons, constant refinement, pushing yourself. Maybe they're the answer to the what next question. It's hard to overstate how much the whole retiring on your own terms thing is really critical. Carly got to do that, and it has helped her transition. She's also got a healthy mindset as you've learned. But for other athletes, as you're probably noticing, for me, it can be much more abrupt. If injury forces you to grapple with what comes next before you're really ready to, it can feel more like a void, not a transition. When I've thought about the void left by the end of playing high-level sports, I've often

thought, well, maybe I can just fill it with some other sport, some other athletic activity. Like, sports is all I know. I have to find some way to keep playing. But maybe one answer is to jump into another lane entirely. Take that drive and love of competition to a whole new pursuit, something like cooking. If you walk into my kitchen, you will smell bread baking. You will smell a lovely aromatic side, just caramelizing. That's what my two favorite smells. Butter, you'll smell butter.

These are the things that I love the most. This is Don Burrell. I am chef partner of late August here in Houston. Wait a minute, you're more than just a chef. You're a former Olympic Union. And I'm an Olympian and, you know. Okay, so I'm Don Perel, Olympian. I'm a former world champion of the Long Jump in 2001.

And it's nice to have more accolades that you know how to squeeze into an intro, huh? You know, I'm focusing on what I'm doing now. So, but it, but I should honor it because it's made me who I am today. When Don's long jump career ended, it was brutal. She didn't get to end on her own terms. She tore her ACL. She tried to recover. She tried to keep competing.

But she just couldn't get back to the same level. I decided if I did not make that Olympic team, then I would have to find something else that I really love to do. It was time to stop. What was that like when you were sort of laser-focused on athletics and then all of a sudden you started to shift your gaze a little bit? Really, it was like, oh my gosh, I'm in survival mode. What can I do?

You know, because I suffered a death of my athletic career. The death of her athletic career. Dawn's whole world and identity was gone. But as she was grieving that loss, she also knew she had to figure out what to do next and quickly because she'd also lost her main source of income. My thoughts landed on going to culinary school. I didn't have the easiest start

because I started cooking when I was 34 years old, which is very late. And I just needed to figure out how I can grow quickly into who I needed to be to cover the expenses that I accrued as an adult. I was in culinary school with teenagers. You were just starting out in their careers, and I just could not afford to slow down. I had to find really good kitchens.

I had to cater. You had to do things that would make me money so that I could survive. Dawn found that what she learned in her athletic career really helped her in the kitchen. get to problem solve, react on the fly, bounce back from a mistake. There are parallels between being a chef and an athlete. There's a lot of technique. Plus, being a chef is really physical. Kitchens are hot. You're always on your feet. Don was building her new career, but like Carly Lloyd, she couldn't completely shake that competitive spirit. And like Carly Lloyd, she turned to reality TV. After years of applying, Don ended up on Top Chef. Tell me more about that. I mean,

have just been a chef in the back room somewhere. Right. But you went back to competition. I did go back to competition. And I think that the competition is always within self to challenge myself and to push myself in ways that, like, real life does not bring. It's not real life to be a long jumper. It is something that you seek out to do just as, you know, being on top chef is something that's solid after. And in that arena, it's when I challenge myself to be the best I possibly can be unlike any other place.

On the show, Don was known for being fiercely passionate and competitive and sometimes setting the bar a little too high for herself, which Top Chef fans will remember meant that she didn't always get the plates out on time. She'd make this complex, amazing dish, and then just not have enough time left to get the sauce on the plate for that one judge. She competed on the show the way she competed in the Olympics, going for it. And she did. She made it all the way to the finals. To me, this all seems like what Serena called evolution, always pushing for more, a new record, a new personal best. And if he can get on a reality TV show, I guess that helps too.

And now, after Top Chef, Don is still setting the bar high, really high. For this next concept, I would love to win the James Beard Award. And I want to, I mean, I wouldn't be mad. if I was on the Michelin Spectrum, you know, that I can't say that that's necessarily been my goal, but it would be nice. Over the course of a decade, since she retired from Long Jump, Dawn strikes me as someone who has finally figured out this thing that I've been grappling with. Though I will say, it's kind of comforting that she didn't immediately feel okay about

her Long Jump career ending. She did mourn it. She struggled. One more lesson from Dawn. I asked her if when she first retired, she'd consider doing what some athletes do. If you can't compete at the highest level, you compete at a different level.

In her case, that would mean the master's circuit. Long jump, but, you know, for old timers. That was not for her. I mean, there would have to be that complete transfer into something else. Because my mindset then was that there was no way. way that I would be interested in competing in master's because it would no longer be my job, it would then be a hobby.

But now that Don has satisfied that need for competition with her cooking career, it's actually put long jump back in perspective. Now I would like to compete, you know, but that's, you know, I have kind of recovered from the death of my career as an athlete, but I still had athletic drive. And so I look at the seniors like, oh, I would like to do that one day. Maybe when I'm 60 or 65, I'll get back out there. What are the things about that that you most miss with a little bit of distance? You know, propelling my body into a pit of sand.

I love that. It feels like flying. You know, there's something about that velocity that I just love so much and I miss it. If Carly's advice can be summed up as enjoy the process, take it one. one day at a time. Then dawns is, you might have to try something totally new, and it might take time to be okay. Evolution isn't an immediate thing. But here's where I'm still stuck. As wonderful as these perspectives are, the fact is, when you end one chapter and you move on to another, sorry, let me rephrase, when you evolve from one chapter to another, you're still

losing something you loved, right? As you continue to get older, you still have to say goodbye. to more and more. And that, at some level, still makes me sad, mad even. And folks, I'm talking about more than just sports here. It's aging in general. I don't think I've evolved to where Carly and Don are. After the break, I get some professional help sorting through these very grouchy feelings about aging. This episode is sponsored by sell-off vacations.

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Get tickets now. Say hello savings and goodbye worries with Freedom Mobile. Get 60 gigs to use in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico for just $39 a month. Plus get a one-time use of five gigs of roam beyond data. Conditions apply, details at freedommobile.com. Right off the bat, let me play you something that blew my mind. This is a piece of insight that changed how I think about getting older.

Aging is so individual. And actually, the truth is the older would get, the more unique we become, the less like other people we become. I'd never really heard a phrase that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, and it's cool to kind of realize that nobody can have the life that you, had with all of the nuances and all of the, you know, specific events and things that you've

experienced. This is Tracy Gendron. She's a gerontologist and the director of the Virginia Center on Aging. She hates the way that our society talks about aging. All that, you're only as old as you feel or you look great for your age type stuff. I'll tell you, my personal hell is actually the birthday card aisle anywhere. That is some of the most ageist bullshit that exists. I laid out my story to Dr. Gendron about how I devoted my 20.

in 30s to ultimate. And now I'm hitting my 40s and I can't play the same way anymore. How I feel washed up and I'm facing the void. And a lot of it just really bums me out. You know, the kind of stuff you lay on someone when you meet them for the first time. And so I wonder if any of what I just said, you know, resonates in whatever way to the work that you do. Absolutely. It does. And I think there are a couple aspects to it. We, we tend to think of aging really is a process of decline. And we tend to really focus on the losses that we experience as we age. But the truth about aging is that while loss is one component and the way that we age in our bodies is one component, aging itself is about simultaneous loss and growth. Aging is not just biological. It's psychological. It's

emotional. It's social. It's spiritual. So we could just as much say, you know, yes, now you're in your 40s and you can't do or perform the way that you could before. But I could also ask you a question like, well, Jody, what are some things that you really like about yourself better now than you did 10 years ago or 20 years ago? How have you grown? What have you learned? How are you more comfortable? Turns out, as we were doing the interview, I kept being reminded about something that I do now that I didn't do 10 years ago. Parenting. Sorry, one second. Oh, shoot, my daughter now has come in with an iPad. boy, one second. No, let, you gotta have the headphones on, remember?

My five-year-old daughter kept interrupting our interview, and yeah, she's wonderful. I love her to death. And yeah, children, they keep us young, yada, yada, yada, yada. But a child can't heal my hamstring or make me dunk again. But I will say, this idea of loss and growth balancing each other out, it really is the key.

And then we're not so caught up and, well, aging is just all of the losses I've had. I appreciate that answer, and I think I've been asking myself some of those questions. And certainly, I think I've grown in some ways, and I don't want to just be the, you know, super-driven myopic, probably not best friend and boyfriend, you know, that I was in my 20s. But I will say, like, to be a little grumpy in response to your very nuanced point, all of the things you've said, which is, okay, yes, you're losing.

something, but look at all the other things you've gained. That's still at some level to me strikes me as concession. And so I wonder how you talk to someone who's as stubborn of me about being upset about getting old. I think it's a great point and a great question. But I guess my challenge would be, but we experience that at all different stages of our life, any time we transition. I mean, if you think about even just graduating high school, and moving on to what's next, graduating high school is a loss. It's a loss of some structure. It's a loss of friends that you had in a certain way of life that you had. But we don't talk about it that way. Yet it's just as relevant that we had to adapt. We hit all of these transition points

at multiple ages in our life, but it's not until we get older that we really start to mourn it in a different way. And it just becomes all about no aging just sucks. And yes, be sad about what you've lost, but turn it into, well, what now? Continue to ask yourself kind of future-oriented questions and to see that you're aging in and of itself isn't, you know, the problem can be really constructive. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about that asking future-oriented questions? Because I do think there's more of this sense of like, let me look back at all the things

that I still want to hold on to and find another thing that will check all those boxes, you know, let me do a census of the past. But you're saying it's more about looking forward. Definitely. Who are you right now and who are you continuing to become? Part of what I would suggest athletes should do who are really focused is just to probably think early about what comes next for them. And I mean, just like a reflection in kind of the back of your head, what are my interests outside of this? Or how can I adapt to still participate in this sport, but maybe in a different way. You know, maybe move to either not so competitive, but more rec-based, or maybe move to coaching or whatever it may be. But thinking that, you know, we're going to have the

expectation that this is not where I'm going to stay forever and planting the seeds in my own mind of what might come next. Some athletes approach what comes next a little differently. Instead of not competing anymore at all, they do it at a different level with a different bar for success. There are long-distance runners like Olympic medalist Dina Kastor who still get out there and race, even though they know they're not going to win a medal anymore, but why not run anyway? There are 90-year-olds who run triathlons and 70-year-olds who compete in ultramarathons. It seems like there's two paths. You find an entirely new pursuit or you get it comfortable with shifting your expectations. Is it kind of like find a new bar or change the bar that you're

looking at. Do you have thoughts on either of those? I bet you can guess my answer. It depends on the person. It really does. I don't think either one of those is right or wrong. And I think both of those could actually be a really healthy way to adapt. And I mean, I've certainly been like the one I've been hardest that I've had the hardest time grappling with has been the lowering of the bar. Just like, gosh, how depressing would that be to just be doing the same thing, which is not doing it at the level that I know in my head, a new bar. And that could be totally healthy. It could also be worth it for you to examine, you know, why is that depressing for you?

Oh, I'm doing a whole podcast. Oh, I'm examining. Start to challenge the internal dialogue that you're having and how you define success. Start to challenge the internal dialogue and redefine success. Dr. Jengeron is talking about aging here, but that's advice that could apply to any athlete. the best athletes are continually challenging their internal dialogue. They work on self-talk. They work on staying in the moment.

And they're continually redefining success. It's not just about wins and losses, but it's how you go about practice, training, your diet, the mental game. Sports gives us a framework in which to do all these other things that are probably good for us anyway, that will make us healthier and more well-rounded people. And the flip side, not controlling your emotions, not staying in the moment, not being purpose.

about the process. It can be really bad, on the field, and as you walk away from sports. There's been research for decades as to why this matters. There's this amazing study that shows that people who embrace their own aging live seven and a half years longer than people that fear their aging. Seven and a half years is a really long time. In that particular study, it was a longitudinal study, which means they followed people over a couple of decades,

and they asked them questions not only about how they felt about their own aging, but about their health, about their lifestyle, about all kinds of things. The research has found that how people felt about their aging had more of an effect on longevity than things like wealth or loneliness or functional health. So the seven and a half years was an effect that was above and beyond some of those things. That's what makes it so powerful. In your best guess, what is the thing that is so powerful inside of that kind of of thinking? So, you know, I think what ends up happening when we carry stress around, and this

could either be emotional or physical stress, it takes a toll on our body. And I think that when we walk around with anxiety and stress about aging, we're more likely to actually manifest the very things that we fear. So if we think that aging is all about decline, if we think it's about memory loss, if we think it's about loss, we're going to feel the physical effects of that in our bodies. Plus, we're then kind of putting ourselves more at risk for the development of those things, like depression, like memory loss. The mind-body connection is very, very powerful. So it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy that we can actually manifest these things just through our attitude about it. This all does make sense to me. Like if Carly was so bummed about turning

40 that she decided not to try anything new, she wouldn't be out there working on her golf swing or weeding or training for a TV show. She's pushing herself. And clearly, Don Borell is too. And so am I. If I'm being honest, this show is a little bit of that for me. I've never really written or spoken about myself in my work before. I'm trying to open up, trying something new. Thanks for coming along for the ride. And I am changing. I see that. For a while, I was so worried that I'd be stuck in time. My personality and worldview trapped in the amber of the last day I played sports at the highest level. But of course, I'm different now than I was a month ago, a year ago, a decade ago.

Since we talked, I've been thinking a lot about what Dr. Gendron told me, about how we become more and more ourselves as we get older. Actually, I'd been thinking about it so much that I brought it up with Carly Lloyd. And then she was like, listen, every day of your life, you be able to be. become more unique from everyone else. I was like, what? She's like, yeah, you are accumulating every single day. The older you are, the more unique you are from every other person. That's amazing. Oh, my God. I love that. Yeah, it was great. That's a great perspective. And for the 34 years that I played soccer my entire life, I just grew so much as a person.

And I'm, I'm forever grateful for this sport and to have been able to play for so long, there was no greater teacher than being immersed in all that I was immersed in. And that's really the heart of it, no greater teacher. If my love of sports, the whole purpose of this show, is based upon the idea that sports has a lot to teach us about the real world. Well, here's the real world. Time to take what sports taught you and put it to work. Experiment. Start a new chapter. Focus on process more than the goal.

Learn from your losses. And don't forget to stretch. Definitely stretch. Good Sport is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective. It's hosted by me, Jody Avergan. This show is produced by TED. This episode was written and produced by Camille Peterson. Our team includes Isabel Carter, Ponce Rutch, Sarah Nix,

Jimmy Gutierrez, Michelle Quind, Ben Ben-Banchang and Roxanne High Lash. Jake Gorski is our sound designer and mix engineer. Fact-checking by Hana Matsudaira. An extra special thanks this season to Colin Helms. Thank you for all your support. Since this is our last episode of the season, we also want to thank some of the people

who helped make this show happen. They include Daniela Bala Reza, Valentina Bajonini, Jeff Dale, Nicole Idenei, Mike Fimia, Jimmy Gutierrez, Will Hennessey, Nancy Hu, Marie Kim, Antonio Lee, Jen Mihowski, Annie Odell, Diana Petersak, Anna Feelin, Julia Ross, Casey Walter, and Peter's Wife. And yeah, this is the final episode, so I just want to say thank you to everyone who took a chance on this show, all those people who took a chance on making it, but especially you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for spreading the word about the show. Thank you to all of you who've reached out with feedback or ideas. if you have any thoughts about this season or maybe stuff that you'd like us to explore in the future

or you just want to get in touch and say hello please do our email is good sport at ted dot com you can also find me on social media i have a newsletter etc etc etc you'll you'll track me down i'd love to hear from you okay that's it for this season of good sport my name is jody avergan and we'll see you soon This episode is sponsored by Colgate Periogard. You know, when we get a paper cut or nick a finger while prepping dinner, we don't hesitate to grab a bandage or clean it up right away. But when it comes to our gums, a little tenderness or bleeding when we brush, we tend to ignore it. Why is that? Especially when the fix can be so simple. Use Colgate periogard to

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