As you seek opportunities to be a lifelong learner, you will quickly encounter moments when being resilient is a necessary skill. Molly Fletcher, entrepreneur, speaker, author, and host of the podcast Game Changers with Molly Fletcher, discusses how she used resilience to help her overcome learning obstacles in her journey as a sports agent.

You can listen to more of our conversation with Molly on our podcast, Work, Love, Pray! Listen below or click here to find your preferred listening platform.

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Obstacles are inevitable when you’re learning. As you work to embrace a love for learning, should you also be working on strengthening your resilience muscles? 

Absolutely. I’m actually releasing a book in August of 2024, and in that book, I talk about how resilience is a key ingredient (in my opinion) for peak performance. From what I’ve seen with great athletes and in my own life as an athlete, resilience is not just about recovering back to where you were, but recovering higher than where you were. So what does that mean? Athletes will have tough games. Broadcasters are going to say something that maybe they shouldn’t. Coaches will make bad calls. These things happen. What matters is our ability to flip that switch and recover quickly. When we want to recover, we’ve got to shift the messaging and our self-talk to help us do that. 

Is there a right or wrong way to be resilient?  

It’s important for you to look at the role you play in this moment you’re finding yourself in. In moments when resilience is needed, it is very easy to consider all the reasons why you shouldn’t be there, why it was somebody else’s fault, or why it’s not fair. Moments that need resilience are moments when you need to just own it. It’s your life and your moment, and it’s up to you to make the shift, to avoid blaming and complaining while in those moments.  

The other thing that matters is recognizing the people in your life who can help you. We need other people in our life, particularly when we have really big things to recover from. I’m very blessed with an amazing husband, incredible parents, brothers, children, family, friends, business partners, and people that I work with who I admire deeply. They all help me, and I hope I do the same for them. When something’s not clipping like you want it to and you need to recover, you need to have the courage to ask for help and to not try to solve those situations by yourself. One of my employees has been beside me for 12 years and I know that when she’s at the back of the room during a keynote I’m giving, there will be times where she’ll give me tough feedback. And I love that! Learning to lean into relationships when we find ourselves with an opportunity to level up is huge. 

What is the biggest learning obstacle you’ve faced? 

I would say it was the business acumen of baseball and golf when I was starting to represent players. I mean, I didn’t go to a Tigers game the entire time I was growing up in Michigan. I grew up two minutes from Michigan State’s campus, but we never went to a baseball game because my parents weren’t interested in the sport. So learning the game and the nuances and lingo as I got into the sports agent world was a challenge.

Now, I never tried to be somebody that I wasn’t. Instead, I used my disadvantage as an opportunity for connection. Thankfully, I had awesome people who helped me to learn. I remember sitting with a middle infielder that I was recruiting and I was referring to the catcher’s glove. The middle infielder knew I was early in my journey as an agent, and he just kind of said, “Hey, just so you know, they call them mitts behind the plate.” When you have authentic relationships, you have the courage and the space to get poured into in a way that helps you level up in your space.  

Hailed as the “female Jerry Maguire” by CNN, Molly Fletcher made a name for herself as one of the first female sports agents. During her almost two-decade career as President of CSE, Molly negotiated over $500 million in contracts and represented over 300 of sports’ biggest names, including Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz, PGA TOUR golfer Matt Kuchar, broadcaster Erin Andrews and basketball championship coaches Tom Izzo and Doc Rivers.  

As a World’s Top 50 Keynote Speaker, she delivers her inspiring message to audiences around the world. She is the author of five books, including The Energy Clock and Fearless at Work, and her latest TED Talk, “Secrets of a Champion Mindset,” has more than one million views.

Molly is the founder and host of the Game Changers with Molly Fletcher podcast, where she interviews experts and celebrities in every field including Arthur Blank, Dabo Swinney, John Mackey, Matthew McConaughey, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Simon Sinek. 

Molly recently launched her first on-demand course, Up Your Game, to help people unlock their drive and up their game. Her company Game Changer Performance Group helps clients unlock peak performance through training experiences on Energy, Negotiation and High Impact.