🎙️ Growing up Michelle Reed wanted to be the best athlete in the world!  Having older brothers and a Mom that were all athletic meant being an athlete was just in her blood! Michelle would explore every sport there was.  No one ever told her that she couldn’t try!  She played basketball, softball, football, flag football, volleyball, kick ball, everything that you can name, Michelle played.  She would eventually narrow down to her #1 being basketball then #2 being softball.

🎙️ Michelle would make the Genius Book of Records in junior high school for being the only girl to play every sport that the school offered and maintain an “A” average!

🎙️ Michelle was the only girl on the boys junior high team.  Then, once she started playing with the girls in high school, she would practice with college girls.  Michelle always positioned herself to play up which would make her that much better!  She loved the challenge of always playing with people that were better than her. 

🎙️ The biggest challenge for Michelle would be going from always playing with guys to now just playing with girls!  However, Michelle was very humble when it came to how advanced she was compared to her teammates.  She would always mentor other teammates to embody the true meaning of being a ‘team player’.  

🎙️ Since Michelle was so athletic this would make it difficult to select which college to attend because she would receive 100’s of letters beginning in her sophomore year of high school.  

🎙️ Branding and Marketing was foreign to Michelle.  She now understands that the game films should be used for marketing and promoting your brand.  

🎙️ Once you decide that you want to pursue a career as an athlete, that’s when the branding starts.  You must have a vision for where you want your business to go so that you don’t fall victim of someone else’s vision for your life.  Being an athlete is a business! 

🎙️ If you don’t have a vision already, go get a vision board and create one!  You have a limitless ceiling.  You are the brand!  You are the vision! When it gets hard and you want to give up, DON’T QUIT!  KEEP GOING! 

1. Have a DON’T QUIT mindset
2. Surround yourself with people that will keep it real with you
3. Don’t just keep ‘YES’ people around you

🎙️ Everybody’s agenda is not in your best interest!

🎙️ Silencing the noise is a daily practice!  You can’t take other people’s opinion personally.  Listening to the opinions of irrelevant people will break you!  Depending on what you tell yourself, the noise can turn into facts!

🎙️ Out of all the college courses that Michelle took, none of them taught her how to survive economically.  

🎙️ With the NIL (Name Image Likeness) money we need to educate the athletes about their finances more than ever.  Save some, have fun with some and then invest some is the formula that Michelle shares at it relates to athletes receiving NIL money.  

🎙️ Michelle didn’t take the traditional path to the WNBA.  Listen to her story as she unpacks the difficulty of being an All-American athlete without having the support of her family in the stands.  

🎙️ In order for Michelle to still make it to the league and honor her initial vision board she would have to change her mindset.  Continue listening to hear how!

🎙️ Michelle wishes that people would stop associating negativity with seeking out a therapist.  We don’t know how much we need to talk until we start talking.  She is now able to ask the Lord what lesson is he trying to teach within a situation instead of taking things personally.

🎙️ Michelle’s book “What Happens After The Game” unpacks her journey of learning how to look at money differently, relationships, and to be vulnerable with who she is.  The book is about her being as transparent as to can to empower, inspire, educate the reader through every journey of her life.  

🎙️ Be sure to follow Michelle and participate in her sneaker drive!  

🎙️ When times get hard push yourself harder.  Post your dreams not your drama.  Network with the people that can help you to get to the next level.  Follow the colleges that you want to attend and see how they operate.  Use your social media platform to build up your mind instead of breaking it down.  Connect with people that are doing what you want to do.  Read books now that are going to help your life 4 - 5 years from now.  

🎙️ Let your legacy be the biggest thing you leave behind.  Your dash is the most important part of your life.  That space between what you do from the time you were born until you expire.  

🎙️ Links mentioned in this episode: 

Website:  www.whathappensafterthegame.co

Amazon link: https://a.co/d/bHRNKKZ