Leading the Charge: Inside Sports Law with The First Lady of NFL Representation - (Ft- Jill McBride Baxter)

Episode 3, Season 2: Leading the Charge Inside  Sports Law with The First Lady of NFL Representation - (Ft. Jill McBride Baxter)

In this episode of Kelly Minds Her Manors, host Kelly Robinson sits down with Jill McBride Baxter, a pioneering sports agent, attorney, and author who has blazed a trail for women in the sports industry. With a background steeped in football—thanks to her Hall of Fame coach father and college football coach husband—Jill brings a unique perspective on sports law. She opens up about her journey to becoming the first female NFLPA-certified contract advisor, sharing the challenges and victories along the way, along with her guiding principles: protection, advocacy, and trust.

Jill also dives into the latest shifts in sports law, including NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) changes, and discusses the critical role of ethics in client relationships. She previews her latest book, Born to Be a Sports Agent, offering listeners a firsthand look into her extraordinary experiences. Beyond the professional, Jill shares insights into her personal life, family, and love for travel, as well as valuable advice for women looking to break into the sports world.

Through Kelly’s signature ‘Fearless Five’ questions, Jill’s candid and humorous side shines, making this episode a must-listen for aspiring sports agents and fans alike.

Episode Breakdown:

•00:00 – Introduction to Kelly Minds Her Manors

•00:12 – Meet Jill McBride Baxter

•01:45 – Jill’s Athletic Upbringing

•03:44 – Balancing Family and Career in Sports

•06:08 – Becoming a Sports Agent: A Woman’s Journey

•09:50 – Building Ethical Client Relationships

•16:16 – NIL Impacts and Negotiation Skills

•19:16 – Navigating Contract Talks

•20:33 – Empathy  in Real Estate and Beyond

•21:56 – Advice for Future Sports Agents

•23:37 – Mentorship and the Power of Connections

•25:14 – Hot Topics: The Michigan Sign-Stealing Scandal

•26:03 – Managing Career and Personal Life Balance

•28:07 – The Fearless Five with Jill

•34:11 – Final Reflections and Takeaways

Tune in for an inspiring conversation with one of sports law’s most influential voices.

Contact Jill McBride Baxter:

Website 

http://jillmcbridebaxter.com

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100063563054728

X (Twitter)

https://x.com/agentjillbaxter?s=21

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/agentjillbaxter?igsh=Ymd6dmpwa2xoNXU1

YouTube

https://youtube.com/@jillbaxterAGP?si=LBR2QiTEfH_LPzHm

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillmcbridebaxter

Blog and Podcast

https://www.jillmcbridebaxter.com/blog

Book: Born to Be a Sports Agent

https://a.co/d/eEs0cc3

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to Kelly Minds Her Manors, a podcast about real estate and entrepreneurship with a twist. Here's your host, Kelly Robinson. Welcome to another episode of Kelly Minds Her Manors. Today I have Jill McBride Baxter with me. She grew up on the football field with her father, Ron McBride, who was a Hall of Fame football coach for Utah. She's married to John Baxter, the associate head coach at Fresno State. She is a sports agent and attorney with her own firm When you read her clients reviews, they are really happy to have her on their side. She clearly has their back and focuses on what's right for her clients. Sometimes she has to turn down a client if she doesn't feel like they have the same values and I really respect that about her. Jill also is an author and she's got a new book out called Born to Be a Sports Agent She is the first sports agent who is a female So here she is paving the way for other females in sports and I love it I can't wait for you to hear her answers to my fearless five. She is so fun, so funny, so real, and just a spitfire. I absolutely love this interview and I hope you will too. If you're happy with this podcast, then hit and make a comment below. Please welcome Jill McBride Baxter. Jill, thank you so much for being a guest on my podcast. I've been really excited to interview you for so many reasons. I'm really excited for the guests to hear your story. So I like to start from the beginning. You grew up in a family surrounded by sports. What were childhood and your teenage years like, as the daughter of a hall of fame football coach? I was very involved in everything because I was very athletic. I played about every sport I could think of. I played volleyball. I played softball. I also was, very involved in being a cheerleader I loved school and I ran track and I skied. and then on set, we went to game. So I, I basically played every. Every sport I could possibly play. I like sports just as much as everybody else in my family. Saturday always revolved around, a football game, or football practice and recruiting. what people don't realize is football is a lifestyle. It's not even a job. It's a lifestyle. Sports is a lifestyle. It's seven days a week. 365 days of the year and everything revolves around the football season. That's just the way it is football practice football season and those cycles. Right now it's December and I'm married to a college football coach what are we doing? recruiting dinners, coaching changes. I'm dealing with my clients and I'm dealing with his recruits. And, I've been doing that my whole life. So I could say what I'm doing now is what I did as a kid. I've been doing it the whole time. Nothing's changed, Kelly. I love that. out of all the sports you played, what was your favorite? I loved volleyball. I was a setter So of course you got to touch the ball all the time because you're the setter and we had a really good team. That always helps. I really enjoyed volleyball. Now I really enjoy kayaking and walking I like golf. One time I took up windsurfing, and I played racquetball all the time in college when that was in. Now pickleball's in. I don't have as much, whatever's going on, I'm probably going to be involved when it comes to an athlete. And you have two daughters, Kelly and McKenzie, right? Yes, I do. Yes. Do they play a lot of sports as well. Are they really involved like you were as a kid? Truthfully, they're both very different. We also have horses. Our one daughter, when she was five, decided she loved animals. So we moved out to property and got horses. Now she's 25 and we still have horses. So we have three horses on our property. She's into barrel racing. That's her sport. She's a realtor actually and a barrel racer. Yeah. And then my husband likes to rope, so they all have their horses and that activity. Kelly, our oldest she's a teacher now. She was very involved in cheer and was really good at swimming and diving. She also played volleyball. What I would do is put them in everything and then see what they emerged as right. I had them signed up for everything, basketball, volleyball, whatever, track. They tried everything. And it's, they always pick what they, would emerge as. And one emerged as a barrister and one emerged as a, she was really into, she was in the competition chair. She did great in competition chair. she went undergrad to us city. She did teach for America and got her master's at Loyola she's a teacher and she absolutely loves it. Every day she calls her dad to say, this is what I'm teaching because coaches are teachers, right? So every day she calls her dad before he gets to the classroom. This is what I'm doing. What do you think? So I don't know. That's the wrong answer to your question, but. everybody's involved in something. I love that. when the girls were growing up, what were the dinner conversations like at your home? what was dinner like? Because your husband is a football coach at USC, right? Oh think we had all dinner together? Not so fast, Kelly. when you're married to a college football coach, they actually eat dinner at work, especially during the season, they eat dinner with the team. The girls and I would be running around I would be working and then getting them to, from their stuff. That's just, I don't know that we just always. We're in a rush if you really want the truth. So I don't sit down dinner every night, like a normal family would do. You're going to ask me, okay, what are you going to have for dinner? I can tell you right now, I have to call John, see what he says. Cause he's a way better cook than me. We just talked about whatever anybody had to get done and then executed those things really. When did you know that you wanted to have a career in sports? To be honest with you, I always knew I wanted to be a lawyer. When I was in eighth grade, I knew I was going to go to law school. I was very focused on that. I knew what I wanted to do. So when I was in my second year of law school, I was president of the woman's caucus and president of the sports law forum at my law school, one of my dad's players was getting a contract with the Rams They were the Los Angeles Rams at the time. That tells you how long ago it was. That particular player needed help and my dad's you need to help him because he needs representation. He goes,"You need to find out what you have to do." and I was like,"Well, okay." So I had Leigh Steinberg come speak to my law school. I just called his office. I was like, what do you have to do to be a sports agent? They're like, oh, all you have to do is get registered with NFL PA. I called there, paid money, went to one meeting and that was it. I was like this isn't that hard. It's completely changed now. There's a lot more guardrails now, but back then there wasn't very many of us doing it. And there certainly were no women. I was definitely the first woman. I didn't know it at the time, but there was no woman in it, but I didn't care. There was a client that had a need. So I got my first client. And then what happened to me is as our girls got older, it was really easier to be self employed and have my own company. So the sports agent thing, like I would maybe have three jobs. I'd be like a prosecuting attorney and maybe teach a course and do my sports law. Then when I had kids, I was like, Oh, I'm just going to do sports law. We were always around a university, so it was easy to teach at the law school or teach undergrad, but when the kids were little, that just, no. You know sports like the back of your hand, so it makes sense. Sports have evolved so much, like now everybody has representation. When I first started, some players had representation. Some, not even all the players did. Now, coaches, athletic directors, media, they all have representation. That's why I represent all those different groups, right? Because, you don't it's completely changed my industry. And most people now want a sports agent who has a law background, correct? That's the way to go, right? I would never hire a non lawyer to do what I'm doing. That doesn't even make sense. It's contracts involved. There's a word in a contract that completely changed. How you get paid and it scares me actually because there are a lot of non lawyers that do what I do but if I was a client, I wouldn't do that. Some people are good at sales You were the first female NFL PA certified contract advisor. which is absolutely super impressive. I love strong women. I love supporting other strong women and, I find it really inspiring. Was it difficult at first with no other women in a male dominated industry? I didn't think it was because I'd already grown up in it. And the guys if I had what they needed, they don't care. And if you don't have what they need, believe me, they're not calling you back. That's the way it is. I didn't find it to be all that difficult. I didn't really honestly even know there weren't any women doing it. I had a client, And you gotta know, the agents are all in their own little, we don't hang out or anything. They're all over the place. They're all over the country. It's not a, profession where we see each other very often. So until you go to the meeting and realize, Oh, I'm the only female, the once a year meeting, that's it, and I'm like, who cares anyway? I didn't really care. You've built up a strong client base over, was it 30 years now? Your core values are, protection, advocacy, and trust. your clients have nothing but rave reviews about you and trust comes up constantly They feel like you have their back. it's just a theme I really, admire especially in this day and age, I think ethics and trust and having people's back or, so important. When I was reading about you, this theme really stuck out for me In an industry where there's so much hustle, how have you maintained your values? I think it's pretty easy. What you do is look for clients that have the same values, and then you're going to attract that same kind of person. If I get involved with the wrong kind of person, it doesn't work out. So what I have to do is be very careful and mindful of, when I say I'm about protection, advocacy, and trust, especially the word trust, if they start to talk about how much money they're going to make. that's not a good reason to do something. You better love what you do and then all of that will, come to you. But if that's their goal, I run from that because I already know, they're going to think I'm a bank and they're going to think I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. No, I'm not doing that. So I'm trying to be clear about who I am and I get a lot of referrals. My business is a big referral business. I'm sure yours is too, right? You're in real estate. It's referrals. And that's really what it's about. Yeah, I agree. referrals speak so much about a person. and how good they are at what they do. I'm truthful. People say, Oh, you can get me a job. I'm like, wait a minute now. Market you to certain people, but if you're not what they want. They're not going to pick you whether it's a coach or a player or anything else. I can protect you contractually for sure. I know how to do that. I can do that in my sleep. I can look at a word and go, no, we need to get that out. But if they're not willing to fight to get the word out, I got to listen to the client too. and if things aren't working out, I think this is the one thing, and maybe you've had this happen too, where you're like, I didn't listen to what they said from the beginning and that's when I know I need to get out, and it's tricky, if you get involved in something and you realize, I don't think these people are ethical. I am lucky enough to be at the point in my career where I can say goodbye. And I have no problem doing that because ethics are extremely important to me. even if my involvement in what they're doing is not going to come back to me I still feel like there's karma You have to be true to yourself and everybody else and there's a moral higher order Yeah, so yeah, so that's, so I think really got to listen to what they say, because every time I haven't listened, it doesn't go well, When I was younger, I was like, Oh, gosh, you can't lose a client. No, it's better if you lose them, meaning go be with somebody who's like you, I don't even feel good telling somebody that they should take this person. If I don't feel good about it, If I'm referring them to my friends. No, I have a lot of clients who are also friends and, recently we had this situation where somebody made a really strong offer, but I could tell that they were just going to be a problem. And I didn't want, to go down that road and I just said to them, I think this person's a liability and I know we don't have another offer right now, but it might be worth waiting So did it work out? It did work out actually with a different person that's a risk, but you have to protect people. And it must also be hard to hear NFL rookies, right? Talking about the money aspect being the most important part, because what's the average lifespan of an NFL career? It's what three and a half years? People get injured, which I personally find sad and try to educate, athletes on building wealth through, passive income, on the side, because you never know when you're going to get injured, but it's gotta be for a love of the sport, right? The bottom of the roster is constantly being turned. There's a few people at the top that are protected, but I'm telling you the rest of the 53 men, they're not so protected because every year there's a new group of guys coming in. Those guys are all going to be trying to take one of those spots on the 53 man roster. I might ask a player, who are you going to beat out next year? If you think you're so good, cause they all think they can make it right. And I say, by the way, you have to take another person's job that just did it last year. So how are you going to be better than that person? That usually stuns them because I don't think that's what most agents say. I think they just sit and tell them, I can do this, I can do that. No, I want to know how you're going to beat the guy out because I don't really want to represent you unless you can. Period. You know what, Jill? I love the tough love. I do. I think it's so important. They don't always like it though. It's so necessary, right? and if they don't want to believe you, then that's on them. Then you should figure it out. So what is most fulfilling about your job? What aspect of your job is most fulfilling for you? What I like about my job is I have a lot of flexibility and I've always been self employed. I've never worked for somebody else. I started my own company. I was like 23 or 24. I don't know what I was. I was really young and I just was like, yeah, no I don't really want to work for somebody else partially because I would do other things and I just, I don't know, I just did it myself. So I really like being self employed. I like the flexibility it has. I can take my computer anywhere in the world and work. I like sports. It doesn't really feel like a job. I was on the phone till 10 o'clock at night last night, but that's okay. During this time of year, between about November 15th to the middle of January, that's just how it is. And then it calms down. I just want to thank you again for being part of this podcast during such a busy time for you. It is busy, but it worked out. I'm so glad. I would love to hear your take on how NIL has changed the industry and your job. NIL has completely changed everything, but that was a combination of things. It's a combination of the Transfer Portal, NIL, and Collective. See, NIL started because there actually was two cases, the O'Bannon case and the Austin case, where the NCAA did not win, right? And then there was a congresswoman in California who passed some legislation allowing kids in California to have name, image, and likeness rights, She wasn't even going to put it in effect for a year Everybody got scared, and started putting in legislation a year before her bill was going to go into effect. So they amended the bill, so that everybody could, have their rights starting on July 1st of the same year the NCAA was passed and all of a sudden, boom, what nobody thought about was this collective situation. I don't know if you know about collectives, but collectives are at universities where maybe a group of booster gets together. They then offer the athletes kind of a group licensing deal. then they use them as a group for this company and they pay them a certain amount of money. So I don't think they anticipated that was going to happen because that was an evolution of something. And now it's insane because now kids are saying I'm going to go on the portal and see if I can get some money. That kid could get nothing and then not have a scholarship because they left their other school. There's 7, 000 athletes, football players on the portal. That's a lot, meaning they're like free agents. See in the NFL, we have rules. We have a collective bargaining agreement. This is like free agency with no rules. It's not good. the NCAA today actually came down with a new model. So we'll see if that gets implemented and how it goes, because there's going to have to be some guardrails Wow. That's really interesting. Your knowledge is so powerful. you're also known for your sharp negotiation skills which I can tell just from speaking with you. What do you think makes a great negotiator? The best thing to do in negotiation is one, or this is my process, is I look through the contract and I redline the whole thing, like all the words I don't like and need to get out. I then have a meeting with the client and I say, here's all the things I don't like and why, and then I say, what do you want to fight about? And are you willing, because they're in the building, right? And there's politics involved. What are you willing to fight about? They'll tell me, okay, yeah, I'm willing for you to fight about this, not about this. And then once we pick our battle, I, go to bat for him. Cause it's usually the words, they're problematic. I know how to, figure out what somebody's worth economically really easily. That's easy. What's not easy is sometimes convincing the universities to take out language that's, advantageous to them and not to the client. A lot of times, especially with coaches, they like, take, the job, they take the job and they never looked at the words. So now they're in the building. Now I'm getting the contract and now I got to try to get it fixed. You've just got to be open and honest with your client and then, the other thing I do is a lot of research, like figure out the employment laws to see if what's in the contract is not legal, which a lot of times it's not So I just say, this needs to be taken out. It's not legal. It's against case law That's the best way to handle it. Cause most of the bad language isn't legal. Interesting. Wow. Yeah, so you never know how negotiations are going to go, but for the most part, you just got to get what your client doesn't get, I have to make sure my client feels comfortable, and if they sign something, I say, by the way, this is what it's going to look like when you get fired, because you didn't want to fight about this. They might just say, hey, I just don't have the political clout to do that. Fine. You see what I mean? So that's how I do it. I don't know how everybody else does. What do you do? In real estate, it's a little different in New York City. we don't, write up our own contracts. So we negotiate the terms and then an attorney actually comes in and has a much bigger role than they would in most other places. I tend to really focus on empathy when negotiating a real estate deal because it's residential real estate and there's emotion attached to it. I think in residential real estate, it's really important for both sides to feel like there wasn't a winner and a loser, but that everybody gave up a little something and everybody got a little something. Because feeling really warm about a real estate deal is going to make everybody happy. When it comes to residential, your home is a primitive thing, it's a shelter. It's a need so I think empathy in negotiation works best in residential real estate. Okay and part of learning that came from one of my favorite negotiation coaches Chris Voss. I don't know if you've heard of him He was a former FBI hostage negotiator. Oh, wow maybe I should write that down. I'm sure you probably, also have to look at all of those words because you're working with the contracts, whereas that's not something that I'm redlining or rewriting as an agent. So I'm dealing with more of the fluff. You're dealing with the serious stuff. What advice would you give to young women who want to work in your field? I would say you don't just have to be a sports agent. There's a lot of things. You could work on the team side. You can work in an athletics department. Sports is really broad now. If it's something you want to do, you really should get your law degree. You only need a minimum of a master's degree, honestly, to be an NFL PA certified contract advisor. But I would advise that you get a law degree. And then after that. You probably should go work for somebody. I didn't have any mentors. I just, oh, that's what you got to do. Okay, I'll figure it out, which I'm pretty good at figuring stuff out. Start asking a lot of questions. But I think I would try to go work for somebody who's been doing it for a while and then venture out on your own. if you want to. I didn't do it that way, but I don't think anybody would have hired me at the time, right? A second year law student and a female. Leigh Steinberg told me women can't do this. And I was like too bad. Cause I already got a client and I'm doing it. When he sees me now, I think he goes, and he's a nice guy. It's just like when he sees me now, I don't know if he even remembers him saying that or not, but I was like, oh, it doesn't really matter what your gender is, dude. It makes no difference. They don't care. And I love that you just went for it. I really do. I had a client. It's what are you supposed to do? You go for it.'cause the hardest thing to get is a client. I didn't know at the time that it's actually hard to get a client. I didn't know that. And so you didn't have a mentor, but was there ever somebody who gave you a piece of advice that you take with you to this day, or did you not really get that because you had to do everything on your own and learn by doing? I would call my dad a lot. Even yesterday I called my dad. I said, I need this guy's phone number. I don't have his right phone number. And so he's okay I'll get the phone number. I'll find out where he is. So he did, he got me the phone number and I had the phone number by this morning. So my dad helps me a lot. Sometimes my husband, but my dad actually is the person I usually call and go, okay, this is what's happening. What's your take? Is this person a good person? If I don't know the person and I'm trying to get my guy's information to the guy, cause right now we have coaching changes, I have a lot of football coaches, but anyways, If I just needed help. I'd call my dad and then I might call my husband, It depends on who it is. Like I know who my dad's connected to. I know who my husband's connected to. So I'm sure you have a lot of other connections growing up the way you did. I have a lot of connections. When the whole sign stealing thing happened at Michigan, I was like, Oh, we used to be there. John worked for Jim. I bet you Jim didn't know. Jim didn't even like having meetings. I bet Jim did not know what was going on. Got into this huge discussion about it. My husband and I, he goes, how could he not know? I said, John, he didn't even he didn't like having meetings. He worried about the offense. and who benefits from sign stealing the defense. I don't think every, when you have a big organization like that, there's no way, everything going on every single second, what people are doing. I don't, have you followed the sign stealing thing at Michigan or not really. I know a little bit about it, but I don't know about it in detail the way that you do. The head coach responsibility rule in the end and the NCAA is that there's a presumption that the head coach knows everything. And so if something happens under your watch, there's a presumption that you know, but I'm going to tell you right now, there's no way those guys know everything. There's too many people. There's 18 to 22 year old males. You don't know what they're doing. There's all these coaches and staff. There's too many people. To know every single thing that they're doing all day, right? Yeah. Now if something odd landed on your desk, would you maybe ask them, where did this come from? Maybe, you might. So we have debates about that I have debates about that with my husband all the time, Not only are you a sports agent and an attorney and you have a family and horses but you're also an author now. So I would love to hear more about your book and and I would love to read your book, Born to be a Sports Agent. That's a great photo too, by the way. Born to be a sports agent. Yeah, because I literally was born on a football field, Kelly. I'm just saying my mom has pictures of when my dad was playing and she's pregnant with my brother. I should say, and then I was born, let's see, we're about a year, about 15 months apart. And so my parents lived in the student housing at San Jose State where my dad played. So if you go to where used to be the student housing, the football field was right outside the window. So that's what I'm saying. Like we literally, were on campus living there. That's what my parents did. So we all were always at practice and at games. And so that's why I say, yes, I was literally born on certainly born next to football field. So anyways I think, when you're in it, you understand. I'm an insider in a business that nobody else is an insider, meaning I'm living it just like they are. And I think that's the key difference. I understand how hard it is to win a football game. I also understand what it's like when a player gets cut and how they feel. I also understand what somebody feels like when they get fired and their whole family has to move, it's, it's upsetting. It's heartbreaking. It shifts their whole lives. And so it's just, it's hard. What inspired you to write your book? Because I kept getting questions like,"Hey, will you tell me how to be a sports agent?" And I'd be like that's like a whole 30 years worth of information. I have an online course called Sports Agent Academy, and then I also teach a course at my law school for one week Sports Law and Practice. So I feel like that's how I mentor people because that's what I have time to do. Now it's time for my Fearless Five Questions. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. All right. So number one, this is something that I ask everybody because I think there's a different answer, but it's a pretty deep question. So we can pass or come back to it if you want. What is something that you feel most people value that you don't necessarily value or subscribe to and why? I don't really, I'm not a very materialistic person at all, so I don't really value that part of my industry because everything about my industry is money and that's not really what drives me. And I think that's a value that is heavy in my industry I think it's more important to be working for the right person and having a good day to day lifestyle than how much money you're going to make. You're gonna make money. Okay, I can negotiate a good deal to get you the money, but that's probably the one thing that I don't value as much as people in my industry. I like that. This is always an interesting question because Sometimes you don't know the answer, even if you think you know the answer. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? That is a tough one with me. Because I can spend days and weeks by myself, and I'm fine. But I'm also great in a crowd with lots of people. But I think I think I'm a combination of both. Because, like I said, I can read a book all day, I can not come up for air for a couple of weeks. And people are like, Jill, where are you? I'm like, gosh, I just got really busy with work, but I always make sure every morning at seven o'clock that I go and walk with, I have a group I created in my neighborhood that we walk for one hour. So I got my friends here and we go over what's ever going on in our workplace and solve problems. And that's really helpful. So I'm a combination of both. But I do need downtime. This year I spent six weeks traveling internationally. I went all over the world for six weeks. Maybe I was even seven weeks gone. Wow, that's actually the next question What is next on your bucket list? I'm going to tell you that I did my bucket list this year, because I wanted to go to Bali. I wanted to go to the McKenzie. I wanted to go to back to Ireland. So I went to Bali, then I came back for literally 16 hours and flew to Rome. No, I went to Lake Como cause I wanted to go there. So I spent a week there. And then I met my other friends at the McKenzie. And then I flew from the McKenzie. I went, which was in Rome, which is, the golf. And then I went to London, met up with another friend and we went to Scotland and we were going to hike, but then it poured rain. So we couldn't hike, but we, we were there. We toured around and then we went to Ireland and toured around there and then I came back. So I did a bunch of stuff on my list this year. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, I got to create a new list. What don't I want to do? Okay. All right. What I don't want to do is ever drive in Scotland again when it's pouring rain with my left hand on the left hand side of the road. That's dangerous. I bet. I really did a ton of stuff because, I know when my downtime is. And so the minute I get downtime, I'm plotting something that I really want to do and I just bring my computer with me. If I have to work for four hours, I do. So many people have it on their vision board or, their walls, whatever, and they do it. You did it. I love that. You're a doer. I swam with the manta rays in the Indian Ocean and I called my husband afterwards. Oh yeah, by the way, I was out in the middle of the Indian Ocean and swimming with the manta rays with no life jacket on. I told him afterwards the part about the no life jacket. But you can't dive down with a life jacket on. I'm not scuba diving. I was snorkeling. You know what I mean? So yeah. That's so funny. So that actually also leads to my next question, which is, would you rather ask permission or ask for forgiveness? Who do I need to get permission from? I'm an adult. I can make my own decisions, so I guess the latter because I don't, I don't know. It's a little hard to tell me. No, I told my husband for six weeks, maybe seven. He's happy if I'm happy. And I have the best husband on the face of the earth. I'm telling you, he's like really great. So I got there more now than I ever have in my entire life. Because, oh and so 30, I can say th I think we're 32 years. I have to ask him. He knows all the years, but like I love him more now than I did when I married him a long time ago. You know what I mean? Oh, I love that. He lets me be me. Yeah, no, I don't think I ask for permission very much. I know I didn't, but he doesn't need, yeah. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's good. That's healthy. What do you prefer? Communication wise, do you prefer texting or talking on the phone? Talking on the phone. Talking on the phone. I know it's probably hard with a lot of these, young college kids They're all about the texting, but, so much gets lost in a text or misinterpreted. I would rather get on the phone with somebody and say, Hey, this is what I'm worried about, or this is what I think you should do. What do you think you should do? And then we can work through it really quickly because texting back takes too long. It's also you can't read tone over text. It doesn't matter if you use 12 emojis to convey what you're, feeling. You can't read tone over text. Things get misconstrued, just like you said. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't like text as much. Yeah. No. Okay. So that was my fearless five and you killed it. I have one last question for you. Is there any specific question that you wished I had asked you? And So what is it? What would you say to your 21 year old self? That's a good one. So what would you what I would say to my 21 year old self is move on from things quicker and what I mean by that a lot of times people get caught up in I'm upset that this happened and they spend way too much time and energy on that. And that's what I would tell myself too no, move on, whether it's a loss of a game, let's say somebody gets cut from a team. If you can be resilient and move on quickly. You will not get so caught up in whatever's going on and be able to be more productive quicker And that is the thing that I really wish I would have done sooner I do it now, but I don't think I did it as well when I was younger You know what? It's fabulous advice. And I think that it's something that even if you didn't do when you were younger, the fact that you can do it now means that you are, an emotionally intelligent person who grows because, a lot of people never get past rejection or those things that are hard to just be like, next, about. Yeah, it is hard. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not, but I'm, but I would say that is the, and don't ever blame somebody else's behavior. Don't take somebody else's bad behavior on, onto somebody else. That's the other thing sometimes happens. Somebody in your family does something that's not nice and you take it out on a different family member. It's don't do that either. That's their problem. yeah, so that's the question. Yeah, but be fearless. I'm not really afraid of much. So that's sometimes trouble. You know what? I like that. And I, that's why you are where you are today, because you just went for it at a time when there weren't other women and. I just, I admire you a lot. So I appreciate your time. It's so much fun interviewing you. I can't wait to read your book. I'm really grateful for you. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Thank you for watching and listening to Kelly Minds Her Manors. Make sure to subscribe to the show and don't forget to leave us a review to tell us what you liked about the episode. You can connect with Kelly at Kelly Minds her Manors on Instagram or on her website, www.kellymindshermanors.com.