From #1 Recruit to Youth Development — Lost the Game, Found the Lesson | Ep. 46

From #1 Recruit to Youth Development Strategist: Britt Hunter's Journey of Finding the Lesson

The path from being the #1 recruit in the country to becoming a trusted youth development strategist isn't typical, but for Britt Hunter, it represents a journey of transformation, purpose, and dedicated service to the next generation. Her story demonstrates that sometimes losing what you thought you wanted leads to finding what you were meant to do.

Britt played basketball at both Duke University and UConn — two of the most prestigious programs in college athletics. But when she "lost the game," she "found the lesson" that would redirect her life toward empowering others. This pivotal experience taught her that authentic success comes not from external achievements, but from understanding who you are and taking ownership of your choices.

After her athletic career, Britt built diverse experience across education as a charter school administrator, business with her Vanderbilt MBA and Microsoft leadership roles, and now youth development. This varied background gives her unique insight into what young people need to succeed in real-world environments.

In this episode of The Standard Podcast™, Britt shares:

• What it was like being the #1 recruit and how that experience shaped her perspective
• The transformative lesson she found when athletics ended
• How she helps young people ages 14-24 build authentic confidence and leadership skills
• The Own Your Adventure™ approach to developing resilient leaders who move with purpose
• What parents and educators need to understand about supporting youth development

Whether you're a young person figuring out your path, a parent supporting your child's development, or an educator working with the next generation, Britt's insights provide practical guidance for building confidence, character, and authentic leadership skills that stick.

This isn't motivation. This is a movement.

Connect with Britt: Website: betheexceptioncoaching.com Email: britthunter@betheexceptioncoaching.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Excellent. Welcome to the Standard Podcast team. We are here to raise the bar, rebuild the culture, and call out the lies or misconceptions that nobody else will. This isn't motivation, this is a movement. And I'm Thomas Rowe, joined by my host, Harold Sarles. And today we're sitting down with Britt Hunter in the house, leadership speaker, youth development strategist, and creator of your own adventure leadership program. Britt's Journey is one of transformation and purpose. Once the number one recruit in the country, she played at Duke and UConn before losing the game but finding the lesson. From here, she built a career spanning education as a character school administrator, business with her Vanderbilt MBA, and a Microsoft leadership role. And now youth development. Helping the next generation figure out who they are, what they stand for, and how to take ownership of their choices. Through her own, through her own your adventure program, Britt blends storytelling, strategy, and practical tools to develop resilient leaders who move with purpose. She serves student and young leaders, 18 or I'm sorry, 14 to 24, schools, universities, and organizations worldwide, trusted by Northwestern University, Vandy, Microsoft, Jacksonville Jaguars, and so much more. And she's going to get into that. Rich mission is clear. Help young people build confidence, character, and real-world leadership skills that stick. Her approach focuses on ownership of choices, growth, and the adventure that is building the authentic life. We're diving into the truth behind what it really takes to build identity, discipline, and legacy in sports and in life on and off the court. Let's get into it. Rick, you're such a rock star. Erin and I are super excited about having you here. Thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Excellent, excellent. Let's start here. You're a leadership speaker and youth development strategist who helps young people figure out who they are, what they stand for, and how to take the ownership of their choices. What does raising the standard mean to you and the work you're doing for the next generation?

SPEAKER_03 2:15

Yeah, raising the standard honestly comes down to just holding young adults accountable. So often I see adults trying to be friends with kids. And it's admirable, but it's not helpful. Right. Right. Young adults, kids all around are looking for structure. And I think when adults kind of get in their own feelings and are more interested in being liked instead of being respected, they don't set their kids up for success. And then you try to figure out they can't figure out why their kids aren't likable, why their kids are struggling with independence, why their kids aren't coachable. It's like because you've been wanting so badly to be their friend, their peer, that you haven't set them up for reality, which is the real world. You know, if I when I was a teacher for four years, you know, I came in with my Yukon basketball mindset, which is figure it out. You know, we we're going hard all the time. I'm holding you accountable or raising the bar. And every time midway through the year, I'd have parents calling me at night saying, you know, Miss Hunter, Nick's not doing his homework. I need your help. You know, and they put me on the phone, and it's real quick, quick and simple. Nick, you got some choices here. You could do it or not do it.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

You know, you know what my consequences are, but also what's going on. So you're gonna get the consequences. I'm gonna figure out what's going on, but you know, do you need a different plan? Do you need something different? But I'm I'm holding the line, and that happens so frequently because parents had struggled for so long with holding the line. They didn't want to deal with backlash, they didn't want to deal with difficult conversations. They got tired of repeating themselves. And it's like, that's your job. Yeah, that's the assignment, you know. It doesn't end. But what's at the end of that rainbow is just so much more important than how you feel right now. And I really try to empower students to do their part so that parents can do their part.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Agreed. I mean, that's so important because it's all about the journey, not the destination. What is the biggest lie you feel the culture or society has sold young people or athletes about success, leadership, and what it means to own your adventure?

SPEAKER_03 4:30

I think there's an assumption that as you get older, these things will come about naturally.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

Like, oh, leadership happens when I turn 30. Leadership happens when I get the first job, leadership happens when someone gives me the title. No, actually, it doesn't. If that were the case, we wouldn't see so many adults lacking those skills.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Agreed.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

High school and college is where kids need to actually practice leadership. It's where they need to practice putting themselves out there. That is one of the main things that I talk about when I go to a school is in order to be exceptional, you have to be the exception. Awesome. You have to do the things that might embarrass your peers. Sitting in a front row, introducing yourself to the professor week one, going to class, even when you're tired, communicating to the professor that you're not going to be there, having a solution for when you're about to drop the ball, like over-communicating, managing across, managing up. You have to do that in a safe space. And high school and college is the best space because once you graduate, the guardrails are off. Right. There's there's only so much time. There's only so much time somebody's going to work with you and say, hey, you drop the ball next time. Email me or an email your peer and email all these people so that we know they're going to do that once, maybe twice.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

But it should be automatic because you should be doing that when you have a support system to mess it up. And I just want to encourage adults to really like hold kids to the fire because they're capable of so much more. They raised, they rise to the expectations you set always.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Always agreed. You were the number one recruit in the country in women's basketball. You played at Duke in Yukon, and then you say you quote, lost the game but found the lesson, end quote. What was that transition like and how did it shape your mission to help others?

SPEAKER_03 6:22

The transition was rough. It lasted well beyond college. You know, going from the number one player in the country to blowing my knee out, third game of my freshman year did a number on my mind. You know, initially I didn't even think I was that hurt. I was rushed back. I also opened, I welcomed being rushed back, right? I wanted to contribute, I wanted to be counted on. You know, that that that athlete mindset is just go, go, go, go, go. And this better decisions needed to make to be made. Long story short, you know, yeah, I blew my knee out third game of the season, but what happened at the end of the season changed my life. Came out of my probably third or fourth surgery at the end of my freshman year. And they were pretty, they pretty much told me, you know, you're gonna have to have an osteotomy or you won't be able to walk, let alone play basketball. And an osteotomy, for those who don't know, is when they put a plate in your thigh and shift your weight over from one side to the other so that my damaged side of the knee wouldn't take the pressure and just the other side.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

And it was at that age that I had to grow up, right? So my mother forced me to go to Duke. I was 17 at the time. I didn't have the chance to make a decision for myself. Something I want parents to stop doing. Don't do that. Don't make decisions for your kids. Your time is up at 17, quite frankly. If they're going to college, that's it. Hands off, leave them alone. They have to live with that choice. So had a had a parent make decisions for me and put me in a school I didn't really want to be at. I wanted to be at UConn. Then I had adults, coaches, and doctors who I just trust, you should trust these people to make decisions for me to come back. And by the time everything came to a head, I had an aha moment, which was like, man, turns out adults are just people that are older than me.

unknown 8:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

But it doesn't make them more knowledgeable than me. It doesn't mean that they will do the right thing all the time. It doesn't mean that they're to be trusted all the time. And I had to make a decision. And so I didn't ask anyone's permission. I called Gino myself and said, Look, I got one leg. I need you to take me. You know, I don't know if I can play basketball, but you know where I've been trying to be this whole time, and I'd I'd like to come. And he he took me, uh, knowing that I probably wouldn't be able to play basketball. And so the lesson for me, that first lesson was I had I had to have some ownership. I had to have some agency.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

You can you can always, I can for years I blamed the coaching staff at Duke and and and the doctors at Duke and blame my mom for putting me in that situation. But at the end of the day, like what I did at 18, I wish I had done at 17 and put my foot down. And from that moment on, honestly, it's up to me. I and if anything doesn't go well, it's on me. And when you take that ownership and responsibility, you move differently.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

That has got to be one of the hardest lessons we try to teach. And that is where you are today is a direct reflection of the choices that you've made. It's not anybody else's issue or problem. And I'm so glad you touched on that. Now we're going to get into segment two, identity and legacy. And I'm going to kick it over to Aaron. Aaron, it's all yours. Take it away.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Awesome, Britt. So glad to have you here. Thank you for joining us. So I want to know who is Brett beyond all the accolades. Thomas has shared. We want to know who you are as a human being.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Yeah, I am, I like to say I'm a storyteller. You know, someone asked me what my superpower was, and and they said it was storytelling. And I said, storytelling is what I love doing. I think my superpower is extracting greatness from people who don't see it in themselves. I am somebody who, if you tell me I can do something, I will go try it. And it is paid dividends. And so I'm just a curious person. I tell everybody who will listen, you know, I've been a student athlete at the highest level. I coached at a high level, coached at Temple, worked in education for seven years in Harlem, one of the most challenging public school districts in the country. Did that successfully, got an MBA, that being my third degree, worked at Microsoft as a leader. And by the time I'm 50, you know, after my speaking career, I plan on being a pastry chef. Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

So I like that.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

I'm just I'm an explorer. Like I if once you once you see enough, what once you get to the lowest point that I feel like I have been at, you really can't tell me I can't do something. It's it's very hard for you to convince me that I can't do something. I know that it's me versus me. And I would say I'm I'm a storyteller, I'm a curious human, and I just want to extract greatness from other people.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Oh, I love that so much. That is so awesome. You're the first person that says they wanted to be a pastry chef after all this is over. So good luck, God bless you. I love to bake and cook, but I'm like in mass quantities. I'm like, okay, would I still enjoy this after all of that? So that's awesome. So I want to know. You have a tagline. It's always rooting for the next generation. After being the number one recruit and navigating your own journey through sports, education, and business. What does a legacy beyond personal achievement mean to you?

SPEAKER_03 11:54

Yeah, I compare it to the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? When I was younger, grew up poor. A lot of people did. A lot of people I meet, especially who are in athletics or the military, grew up poor and used military or athletics as a vehicle to get out of that. And so at the very bottom, you know, I just wanted, I just wanted money, but not even money. When I first got my first job, the only thing I really wanted was to be able to afford toilet trees, an endless amount of toiletries. Anyone who's grown up without can can attest to you get the basics when you when you go to a grocery store. You don't get the stuff you want, you get the stuff you need. And growing up, you know, especially as a young woman, we need a lot more products. And I we just didn't have them. And so getting toilet trees was like my baseline. And so then after that, it was like, okay, once I experienced that after my first job, got paid 50,000. I was able to just go to CVS and splurge 250 and get whatever I wanted. And that felt great. The next level then became, okay, now I just want to I want to come from the bottom and be respected in my role. And I was able to do that through education. My last year of teaching, I was able to get 100% of my students across the New York State ELA and math finish line. And I had no teaching degree. So that that was all that was all learning and adapting and doing what I needed to do to get my students across the finish line. So then I when I checked that box off, it became, I kind of want more credibility. And that's where the MBA came in. That's where working at Microsoft came at. And then once I got all those things, I was kind of like, all right, I've been at the bottom, I've been at the top. What else is there? And Maslow's Maslow's hierarchy of need will tell you is self-actualization. That's all it is. It's it's how do I get to the best version of myself? And that burst, that best version of myself is pouring in other people. It's it's getting something great out of other people and getting them to see it, getting them across the finish line. And that gives me all the energy that I need. So that's that's what it is. You know, I've hit all the wrongs, done all the things, and I'm like, what else is there to do? I guess help someone else out because hundreds of people help me, and they did it selflessly. And I'm sure I made them proud and I'd like to to help other people do the same.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

That's awesome. I love that. That's a powerful benchmark, too. It's funny how we create that in our mind, kind of what's our next thing. And then it's like, oh now what? And so, yes, in toiletries, I work here as a fellow woman. It's like, oh my god, the the Sephora trips are like, oh my god, get the hell out of here, Aaron.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

Get out, you could leave racking off. You can spend thousands of dollars, and it's never enough.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

It's never enough. No, I was just laughing with a girlfriend yesterday. She was teaching me about hair washing, and I was like, Oh my gosh, like I'm gonna go spend thousands of dollars on hair washing shit now. So, like, oh my god, no more, cut yourself off. So, with that, you created uh own your own and own your own adventure. So you help young people build confidence, character, and leadership skills that stick. What separates young people who take ownership of their choices from those who drift through life waiting for someone else to direct them?

SPEAKER_03 15:27

Yeah, the biggest thing I would say is probably courage and humility. Like it's not easy. It's not easy to do something that goes against what everyone else is doing. If if all of your peers are making the same decisions and you decide I want to go against the grain, it's hard. I mean, I just saw it last week. I was doing a presentation at a high school in Columbus, and that's my hometown, and I had an audience of about 150 freshmen. And I'm walking them through this workshop. And at the beginning, you know, it was a little loosey-goosey. I had to put the hammer down a few times. But as they got caught up into my story, you started to see there were two boys in particular, and they were both just chat, chat, chat, chat, chatting. And I had addressed it a couple of times, but like the third and fourth time, I'm done with it. You know, I gotta move on. I'm not gonna sacrifice the whole group for these two. But after a while, one of them stopped engaging with the other one, and I noticed it and I called it out because it's those small things that are not the norm for them. It's hard to look your friend in the eye and say, I'm not doing this with you anymore, or I don't know if we should be friends anymore, or I'm going this way, I need you to come this way, or that said it's really hard to do that. Adults don't even know how to do that. But but as a young person, you got to do that now. Your friend group will derail you real quick, and then you'll be blaming them, but it's really on you. And so just watching kids make decisions in the moment of like, I actually want to lock in here because I like what's happening and I and I see it and I want to be different starting today, those small changes are the things that turn into other things, and that's what I encourage. Make a small change. You're not gonna be a brand new person tomorrow, but every day that you wake up, make a different choice. If you get talked to eight times in class, tomorrow get talked to seven. Next week, make it five. Next month, make it one or two. Don't be perfect, that's not the expectation. The expectation is to grow. So, one is I would say courage, courage to do something that their peers probably wouldn't really encourage them to do or even be open to them doing. And the second thing is humility. Kids get humbled quite a bit, and it's sometimes it can be frustrating to feel like you're constantly being told what to do. But adults struggle with the same thing. There's a reason you're being told what to do, right? Not all, not all of it is always right, but the majority of it is. And if you don't have the humility to put your ego to the side to say, maybe I'm wrong here, maybe I should look at this different. It's gonna be hard. I give the students a framework, it's called the pivot framework, and it's super simple. You you you take a story that you've been sharing, because this is what I did at Duke, right? I I shared the story about how, you know, I was playing, and then I got hurt, and all these doctors and adults rushed me back. That's the version story. That's one version of the story I've been telling. I told for like 10, 15 years of my life. And then as I dug deeper and started working with youth, I realized there's actually a second version of that story that I didn't own. And that second version is when I actually got to campus, I had a new talent. And it wasn't dunking and it wasn't playing ball really well, although I could do both very well. It was being late. I was late everywhere. I was I was like the national champion of being late, and I didn't know why it was happening, and I couldn't figure it out. I also didn't ask for help, I just kept being late, and that that tardiness, that reputation that I was building caused a rift between me and the adults, and that broke down trust. And so when it was time for me to come back, they didn't consult with me, they told me because we don't have a relationship anymore. And when my knee was hurting the first time, I didn't say anything because we didn't have that relationship. So the second version that I share is that I actually played a role in that. I wrote it trust, which made it hard for them to work with me. And that's as an 18-year-old, 17-year-old, you're not really like all the way there all the time. I know I for sure was not. It it came across that I was a very mature adult, but I just didn't have it all the way together. And so I had to have the humility to say, I messed this up. Man, I had to pivot. I had to pause, think about the story with just facts, then tell the story with the impact, how it bothered me, talk about the values that I was that I was eroding. I was eroding my reputation. That was very important to me. And I just eroded it really quickly. The O ownership, I had to own the actual thing, the whole thing, own my part. And T, I had to have a takeaway. Well, I had to take action. What's the next thing that I need to do? The takeaway is the one thing that people always miss. You give the story, you have the feelings, I own it. What are you doing differently now? There has to be a different step that you take. And that's the part that I think kids always miss. And so my takeaway was when something's out of my control or feels like it's out of my control, I gotta, I gotta speak up. I have to ask for help. I have to say, hey, I'm late, and honestly, I don't know why. I don't know how to fix it. I've tried fixing it. And if those people don't want to help you, go find somebody who will because at the end of the day, it was on me to fix. So pivot framework is one of those things I share with students all the time. Um, and teachers love it because it changes the way they have conversations with students.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Agreed. I love that. I agree. Your T is the key. What are you gonna take away? What are you gonna do differently? So that's powerful stuff. With that, what's one truth you wish every young person, parent, or educator understood about leadership development and what taking ownership of your life truly means?

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Yeah, it's ongoing. I think there's this assumption like, oh, I took a course, so I'm good now. Life keep continues to teach you. It it doesn't stop. I'm learning lessons as of last week. I learned a lesson this morning. I'm not sure I've learned the lesson, the same lesson four or five times. I'm not sure why I have to keep learning it, but Amen, girl, I had the same thing happen.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Me too.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

You just got you you keep learning it, but I think sometimes adults think that I said it once, I said it twice, I said it three times. That's enough. No, you're gonna be you're gonna be coaching, teaching, coaching, teaching, parenting for life. For life, it does not end. You don't get to just relinquish power and be like, bye. You can withdraw, you can, you can pull back for sure, but you're gonna have to double back at some point. And that means not doing it, it doesn't mean doing it for them, it means coaching them through it. And and the coaching changes instead of telling them what to do, which is what you did when they were five. Now you ask them questions and you draw out the next step from them. You gotta you gotta pull things out of the kids as they get older. And ownership is something that again, it's some it evolves over time, it evolves over time. So it's not a checkbox thing. You can take a course and get a certificate. Great, doesn't make you a leader. Your everyday actions do.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

That is powerful stuff. Listen to what this lady just said and keep listening to it because it's gonna life is gonna keep happening. So that's so powerful. I'm gonna turn it back over to Thomas.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah. Awesome, Britt. That's some powerful stuff. Right now, we're gonna get into segment three advice across stages. You touched on it earlier, and I want you to dig a little bit deeper. If you could sit down with Britt, the high school number one recruit, before you learn the lesson that came from losing the game, what advice would you give that version of Brit?

SPEAKER_03 23:41

You know, I'll be honest, I think I'm really proud of 17-year-old Britt. I think I think I am who I am because of what I did as a as a young kid. I I mean that wholeheartedly. I became the number one player and after playing basketball for five years. I didn't play basketball as a kid, I didn't do anything athletically as a kid. But when adults told me to do something, I listened. Got it, and I didn't always want to, and I would I would vocalize that I didn't want to, I would do it anyway, but I would let them know I don't want to do this, you know. But I'm really proud of how I moved as a 17-year-old. I did what people told me to do, and I separated myself from people who weren't on the same path. You know, we had speakers come to our school, I had speakers come to camps that I went to, and you have all these adults telling you stuff, and it's something, you know, it's the same message, just coming across differently. And while I don't remember what everybody said, you hear something enough times, you got to make a decision at some point. Like, am I leading my life that way or am I leading it over here? And I was not perfect by any means, but I think the discipline that I had as a young kid, man, it's paid dividends because I got to learn, I got to experience firsthand what it means to put everything into something and get something back. To put all of my energy into going to the gym, being disciplined, playing against boys, playing against people older than me, not quitting, being a great sports, like having great sportsmanship, having great relationships as a student. I just, again, as I came back from that talk last week in Columbus, that talk was generated from my high school principal. Wow. He now works in the district, but I hit up my coach and I said, Coach Lee, you know I'm being inducted into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame this summer, but I really want to go to some schools in the city. He made one phone call and it was to my former principal. That principal not only put it out there across different schools, but I got that gig and he came to my talk. And I'll be honest, I don't remember, I don't remember interacting with my principal, but I was I was who I was, you know, I was humble, I was very nice, I was very respectful, and it's paid dividends. And so that's what I try to tell the kids like you're not gonna remember how you were acting in ninth grade. The adults will, right? You're not gonna remember, but if you plant those seeds now, when you need something, it's going to come back, it's gonna be very hard for you to ask for stuff later. So, so you need to build yourself up for future you that you can't see right now, right? And I I'm I'm I'll be honest, I'm very proud of 17-year-old me. I didn't take anything too seriously to a fault sometimes, but I didn't take myself too seriously, I didn't take basketball too seriously, I didn't take anything too seriously where where I couldn't listen.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Right. Those are a lot of pearls in there, and I'm just thinking about what would you say to people that are 14 to 24, navigating social media, college choices, career pressure. What do they need to understand about building authentic leadership and taking ownership of their adventure?

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Yeah, it's hard. One, it's hard. So let's just acknowledge that. I think that's the first thing. I think this generation gets a lot of flack, but no other generation would be able to handle what this generation is dealing with. I know for a fact I would be in a blender if social media existed. I person I also just didn't care enough about there. One, I didn't like being the model student. I hated it, I resented it. Okay, but that was the expectation. You can't do this because you're so and so, you have to be looking like this because you're so and so. I hated it. I did it anyway, but I didn't like it. I didn't like that kind of pressure and I didn't like that kind of attention. And social media would have just ratcheted that up. Brands wanting you to look and sound a certain way. I don't, I wouldn't have liked it. So I know that to be true. But it's hard. And again, at some point, you have to grow up, you have to make decisions. So, one of the hardest things I think kids need to understand, especially as a young adult, is boundaries. Yeah, nobody's gonna make boundaries for you. All these schedules of your time that are people are generating for you. You know, I didn't control my AAU schedule, I didn't control my class schedule, I didn't control much, but I could control how I spent my time outside of those spaces, right? And I had boundaries. There were kids in my high school that I was cool. I tell anybody, I was cool with everybody in my school, but I wasn't friends with everybody in my school. Sure, sure. And there's some people who want to be friends with everybody, boundaries. Everybody around you is not for you. Watch how people move, watch how people talk to other people, whether you're there or not, and believe what you see. If if if if you wouldn't want to be that person, you shouldn't be around that person. It's just that simple. Boundaries with boundaries with people, boundaries with your time, and boundaries with what you take in. You know, when I was going through my depression in college, I I didn't know it at the time, but my outlet was reading. So my teammates will tell you, they my my teammates will tell you they did they had no idea that I was upset, sad, depressed, anything. They would never know, but they did know I always had a book in my hands.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Always before, yeah. That's a constructive way of dealing with it, right?

SPEAKER_03 29:37

It was a constructive way. I didn't know that I was doing it, but I had so many, I had great foundational hobbies as a kid, and reading was one of them. That's awesome. And so it's just like you gotta have boundaries with what you take in. There's certain music I just don't want to hear because it's just it doesn't really represent me, it doesn't make me feel good. Even as a young woman, and I feel like I need to have this conversation more with young women, I'm six foot three and I've been this height since I was 12. It takes you a long time to get comfortable in your body as a tall woman.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

As a tall woman, it takes a while. And I feel like in my early 20s or even through college, there is an assumption being made about me that because I was attractive to them, that I felt that I was attractive and thus I should be dressing a certain way.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

No, the the the message I'm gonna tell all these girls today is listen, if you put on an outfit and you can't walk down the street with your hands by your side as if you're wearing sweats, don't wear it. Perfect. Your comfort is gonna come when your comfort comes. If you're not comfortable in that, don't wear it because you're bringing in a type of attention that you can't handle. That's it, and again, it's boundaries.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

That is so key.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

But kids kids have got to spend more time by themselves out.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Yeah. Well, that's hard. I mean, wouldn't you say wouldn't you say that that's hard now with social media? Go ahead, sorry. I'm sorry. Wouldn't you say that's hard now with social media, just get comfortable with yourself? Because you always you you feel like you have to compete with everybody around you. But the key there is boundaries, know who you are, you know, feel comfortable in your skin. And there's what is that expression when somebody shows you who you are who they are, believe them, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:29

Yeah, you you have to do that on your own. I tell I I got off of social media for five years, and I did that when I was in business school because I was reading case studies and I couldn't get through the case study without picking up my phone. This this took me forever to get my work done, it took me forever, and I loved reading, but because I'd been picking up this phone, like I wasn't getting it done, but that takes self-awareness, and so I had to say, I gotta get off, and I'm not announcing it just off of it, and you know what else it did? It changed my relationships because I was also only talking to my friends through social media, which is something else young people do.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Agree.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

That's not a conversation that's that, and so me and my best friend were only talking through Instagram, and I didn't like that because I wasn't really catching up. I was commenting on stories and she was commenting back, but we're not on the phone talking, we're not FaceTiming.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

So when I got off of social media for five years, it changed everything. I was more focused, I was more present. My anxiety was so low. Like my angst was through the roof, and I didn't know. Anxiety came down because I'm not worried about what if what if not. I'm I'm worrying about what's in front of me right here. And worry is just not what's happening. I'm just not worried anymore. You know, I'm dealing with what I have in front of me. And and more importantly, the way I was communicating with people changed. I was like, I was one of few people. Any any of my friends would tell you, like, they're like, Britt, honestly, you're the only person in my entire contacts list that FaceTimes me. And I'm like, I'm like, I don't know why it's a feature. We should use it, you know. And it's pre-pandemic. By the pandemic, everybody was on it. But before pandemic, they would say, You're the only person that FaceTimes me, and you're the only person I would answer a FaceTime from because I know this is the only way I'll see you because you're not on social media.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 33:23

And and I'll tell anybody, now, do you have the strength to get off of social media? You should if you want to be exceptional. You have to be the exception, you have to do the things that other people aren't willing to do so you can get closer to you. This is not about everybody else, it's about you. And too many people are ruled by these imaginary thoughts and people. It's it's it's tragic. I'm back on social media, but the boundary is so much better.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

That's awesome. What about young leaders who are trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for? What's the practical first step in owning your adventure?

SPEAKER_03 34:04

There's so many steps.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Let's hear them.

SPEAKER_03 34:07

I would say one of those things is say yes to opportunities. Okay, say yes to things that make you uncomfortable. If somebody says you should try out for varsity, try out. They see something in you that you don't see in yourself. If you're a young adult and you get a job opportunity, it's in Iowa, and you're from New York City, and you're like, I don't want to do that, wrong choice. Go to Iowa. Do things that make you uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

And I like to tell even my peers, I try to do something hard every 18 months. Whether it's run a marathon, which I've done, get yoga teacher certified, which I've done, quit my job, which I've done, start a business, which I've done, become a pastry chef, which I will do. Do something hard every 18 months because you're the only person that can go through that.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Right.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

And you're gonna show, you're gonna figure out who you are through that experience. But so long as you allow other people's opinions and mindsets and ideas, and you allow yourself to fall into groupthink, you can't become a leader because you're constantly doing what everyone else is doing. And I think the fastest way to figure out who you are is to take risks for yourself and then and walk through those those risks. Why 18 months? Why not a year? You need some time, you need some time, you need some time, man. 18 months probably really isn't enough time. You know, people want want change quickly. It takes a long time to get good at something. Yeah, and I think if you did a year, the overly competitive people would try to execute on it. Got it, and that's like, don't do that. Give yourself the space and time. Also, you may fall off of your journey, right? I always tell people I used to have this mindset about reading books, which was I have to finish the book. And it wasn't until someone said, You don't have to finish books that I went, huh? Really? Interesting. And they were like, Yeah, no, you don't have to finish books. If you don't like the book, put the book down, be done with it. And it never occurred to me that that was an option, and that's that's a problem high achievers have.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Right.

SPEAKER_03 36:38

That's that's their problem, right? And that was my problem. And you don't even know you have a problem because high achievers are successful. There's two in there's two ends of that that stick always, right? Right, and you can overdo it. And you you have to be open with yourself and honest and say, Life happens, and I'm gonna have this plan, and it may get derailed, but how how are you gonna respond? The the plan being derailed is part of the plan, actually. Sometimes that's part of the plan. Yeah, okay. Now what? That's that's who you are. The now what is who you are. You don't get caught up in oh, I didn't finish. What are people gonna say? Again, you worry about people, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Right.

SPEAKER_03 37:20

What are you gonna do about it? If you want to do nothing, do nothing, but sit with that and own it. But if you want to do something, bite the bullet and do something, but it's on you to do that.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

100%. Do you remember the first time you didn't finish a book? Because when you said that, I was sitting here smiling, thinking about a book. I'm like, you know what? I gotta finish it. I started it. You always what you started, but then after about two or three more chapters, I was just like, I'm out. I'm I just can't get into this.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

Yeah, there's this book called The Dresses.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

You just you're gonna put it on blast. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Listen, it's like a it's like a must read or something in some grades now. Maybe it's not. I I didn't really. The problem was the context was too far above my head.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Got it.

SPEAKER_03 38:04

And I was forcing it. And so, but it left a bad taste in my mouth, so I never finished it. But then I realized when I became a teacher, I saw that it was on the third grade reading list, or maybe it was fifth grade reading list, and I was like, ah, that makes sense because I was trying to read it at seven.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Bingo, bingo, yep, yep. We're gonna turn it over back over to Aaron, which is the rapid fire round segment for Aaron. Take it away.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Awesome. Okay, I'm gonna start the sentence and you're just gonna finish it, okay? Okay, okay. Discipline equals freedom, leadership equals knowing yourself. Good. Legacy equals. Oh, pouring into others. Faith equals consistency. What's one thing you would never compromise on?

SPEAKER_03 39:00

My integrity.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

And if you could have a message put on a billboard for the young athletes and people today, what would that be?

SPEAKER_03 39:10

In order to be exceptional, you must be the exception.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Oh, that's so good. Okay, Thomas, it's back to you.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

You're muted.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Okay, so before we close out, Britt, is there anything you would like to share with our audience that you have not shared with us at this point?

SPEAKER_03 39:45

Yeah, I'd love to one, I'd love to work with your students, right? I work best with students in their school setting, after school care programs, whatever programming you have. I've worked in high schools, I've worked in colleges, I've worked at major corporations, like I said, like Microsoft and the like. And I love working with kids in groups because I will always say there is more knowledge in the room than there is in my head. And I want to empower kids to learn from one another. That's where the learning takes place. Adults can talk at you, but your peers will talk with you. And it's best that I come to an institution where there's multiple children all at one time because I want them to learn from each other, from each other's setbacks, from each other's successes. That's how I learned. And I'm really hoping to get into more schools this year. I've been primarily on the East Coast and in the South, would love to get to the West Coast, the Midwest, go back to Midwest. You can find me my website, Brit Hunter at be the exceptioncoaching.com. And also, anytime I come to a school, all the students get a workbook. It's a choose your own adventure style workbook because it emphasizes the mantra of my life, which is you know, you're going to be faced with choices and decisions. And those choices and decisions that you make or don't make are going to determine where you end up. And so I allow the reader to jump around the book and make decisions about what they think I would do or would have done. And there's worksheets. It's you can doodle on it, you can color in it. It's uh it's a beautiful cover. So would love to just, you know, make my way to different sports teams, schools, and and and just to be clear, I know we're talking about sports, but I I despise when people tell me to come talk to just the football team at any university. I'm sorry, but the people in the C-suite are usually the the lacrosse players and the golfers and the soccer players, the hockey players. Like I'm here for everybody. And I I wanna I want to make sure I'm touching all of the students, not just the revenue generating sports NIO. It's beyond that. It's bigger than that for me.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Awesome. Awesome. We uh we had a little technical difficulty. And uh the final two questions, Britt. Let's take us back to 22-year-old Britt. You're super healthy, you're on the court, and you're gonna build an all-star team around you. Who are the other four female players that you would build around your all-star team?

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Wow, that's a huge question. I wasn't prepared for it. You know, you know what's so crazy? There were some, there's people I'm not gonna name, but there were a lot of WNBA players that I watched when I was in high school that I absolutely loved and wanted to be just like. And I'm not gonna name any of those people because their names are escaping me, but just know that the WNBA players from the from the late 90s were some hoopers. They're not built like this anymore. Everybody's floating around and shooting threes. These these girls were banging, and so respect respect to anybody who played college or or the WNBA in the 90s, man. It was tough. That toughness is real. Let's see, are these basketball players or just people in life?

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Any anybody that you want. This is this is your all-star list, top five.

SPEAKER_03 42:54

Oh boy, top five. You know, I'm gonna put Alison Bales on there. She might be shocked by that. She was the other freshman at Duke University when I was there. She was also my rival in high school. Alison Bales was one of the few people to call my shout. She's one of the few people to bring me to the mat. So I absolutely love her. Let's see. I'm gonna put my friend Kylie McLaren on there. Kylie, uh, she coaches at Vanderbilt now. Kylie's a people, people, man. She's she's the off-the-court person. She's she's gonna get to know every single person on the team. She's an empath, but she's finding her voice now where she's speaking up and telling people to do the right thing. So you you need an empath on your team. I'm also gonna put Barbara Turner on there. Barbara Turner scared, scared the crap out of me when I was in high school. She was my first like AAU teammate, and she didn't take no, she didn't take no sh. And she she didn't like me at first because I was bad at basketball. And she she only respected people that were good. And I gained her respect. I earned her respect by working on my game and getting better and finally was able to catch her passes. But Barb does not play, and I respect anybody who holds the Line on who they like and affiliate with based on how hard you work. I respect that. She doesn't care about how popular you are, she cares about how hard you work and how you show up. And that's how she is as a coach. She coaches for the mystics now. And everybody wants her on their team because she's she's she doesn't care. She don't care about who you are, she expects the best. Those are three. I guess I gotta pick two more people. Gosh. This is hard.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Um being a business, or a teacher.

SPEAKER_03 44:40

Oh, business? Okay. Listen, I'm putting my fourth grade teacher on there. My fourth and fifth grade teacher, Signora Rodriguez Muñoz. I went to a Spanish version school and we learned everything in Spanish. And this lady, if I was a teacher, I was probably her. I probably emulated her the most. She had a high bar, but she made everything so fun. She and she had a high, she just had a high standard for for you. Couldn't just answer a question. You really had to answer, answer the question. Um, and if you didn't answer it, she's not taking it. She's like, no, that's not it. But she was herself. And then I loved that about her. And then that's the kind of teacher that I was. And then finally, I'm gonna put my coach on there, Coach Lee. Coach Lee and I just did a podcast. He's my high school coach. He was indock inducted into the High Basketball Hall of Fame. I'm now going to be inducted into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame. But Coach Lee was one of the adults around me that didn't allow me to suck. He no days off, you know. And when you when you coach at a public high school and the girls can be, you know, iffy, wishy-washy, may come to practice, may not. His bar was so high everybody came. That's awesome. And he wasn't afraid to kick you off the team. And I respected that about him. And um, it's there's a reason he's inducted into the Hall of Fame. He he's not about being your friend, he's he's about making you a better adult.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

That's badass. That is awesome. I know you mentioned it earlier. Final question: where can people connect with you, whether it's a website, email, social media, where can they get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_03 46:08

Yeah, so you can email me. I know I said my I know I said the website was Brit Hunter, it's not. My email is Brit Hunter, B-R-I-T-T Hunter, H-U-N-T-E-R, at bexception.com. And that is also my website, www.be the exception coaching.com. And you can find me on LinkedIn with my name, Brithunter. You can also find me on Instagram at coach bhunt underscore. And I'm dropping some videos on there. Right now I'm doing a bunch of speaking, so you're probably only gonna see clips of me speaking or places I'm gonna speak. But yeah, those are all the places you can find me.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

That's awesome. Brett Hunter, thank you for showing us what it means to own your own adventure and help others do the same. Team, if this conversation hits you, do two things for us. One, share this episode with someone who needs to hear it, a young person trying to figure out who they are, an educator working with students, a parent helping their child build authentic leadership skill skills, and two, connect with Britt at be the exception coaching.com and check out own your own adventure. If you're working with young people and you're a young leader yourself, Britt's approach to building confidence, character, and leadership skills go do exactly what you need. And if you're an athlete parent or coach raising the standard, check us out at blueprintbluechip.com. Team, if this out if this episode resonated with you, do us a T do us a favor, do us a solid, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps us reach more athletes, parents, and leaders who need to hear this message. This is the standard podcast, and this movement only grows when we raise the standard together. Talent fades, but truth endures. Let's read let's raise the bar, rebuild the culture, and become the standard. Britt, Aaron, thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time, team.

SPEAKER_03 48:04

Thanks.