Episode Transcript

Julia Landauer 0:00 hello and welcome to season three of if I'm honest with Julia Landauer, you guys, we are in our third season. That is so cool. Thank you so much for being along for this journey. It has been an incredibly satisfying passion project. I have had great feedback from you guys. It's been really interesting to hear you disagree with me or agree with me. It's been cool to have this outlet to be able to dive into topics that I'm excited about. It's been incredible to be able to talk with so many really cool and accomplished people as our guest. You guys have really enjoyed those episodes. And yeah, here we are. Season three is going to be a little bit different than season one and season two, not just in thematic stuff, but we are going to take it back a little bit. Gonna be doing one episode every two weeks instead of every week, and they will still come out on Wednesdays, but we're gonna do one episode every two weeks, there's going to be 10 episodes that's going to take us through the end of 2024 still going to be a mix of topics that I'm excited about and guests, which I will get into more later, but this is something that I think will be helpful as I balance work and keynote speaking and having a life and doing the podcasting. So really excited for this new format. It's going to keep it fun. Going to keep it free. Keep it fresh. And yeah, so I've missed you, and it's been two months roughly since we had my last episode, and quite a bit has happened since then. If we look at the world at large, a lot of stuff politically has happened. It's very different political ground for America right now than it was back in June. Sports wise, we've had some twists and turns with NASCAR and Formula One and the Olympics, which I want to get into. Personally, we were able to go celebrate two friends marriages in Europe on two weddings in three days. It was very aggressive. We had to go from Corsica to Hamburg, Germany, during the global IT outage, which we made it like, really, really unexpectedly, really grateful. We made it there. No problem. It was so nice to celebrate love. I am such a sap. I love love, and I cry a lot. And even at the wedding, where I wasn't as familiar with the people they were Ben's friends from college. I was crying, even though a lot of it was in French, and I didn't understand everything. And then the second wedding we went to, which was in Germany, was for two of our friends, where Ben pointed out that it was the first wedding where I know both the people personally and have developed the same relationship with both of them, and so it was just really beautiful. I really ugly cried with hot tears that were painful. It was just it was so incredible to see their appreciation for each other and their loved ones and friends and family, and we all flew out there to see them. And I just love it so much. I just love weddings anyway. So we did that. We made it back. Work has really ramped up at NASCAR. It's really exciting. I'm I'm having to learn a lot, you know, some of that basic business and corporate information, and navigating a lot of new things. So that's been really cool. And yeah, speaking is going to pick back up again here at the end of the summer, and I'm working on a new keynote that's going to be a completely different narrative arc, different stories. It's the first real revamp of keynotes that I have done in many, many years. So it's daunting. It's a big task. It's a lot of creative time, which is hard to find when you're working nine to five, but I'm, I'm really excited for all of that. So for the first part of this episode, I want to dive into some sports related things that have happened since June, so that I can give my opinion, some big things that I think about, including the Olympics. And then I'll close out this this episode by talking about some of the specific topics I'll get into in season three. So let's talk about NASCAR first for a little bit. Obviously, I'm biased, obviously I am working there, but I still love the racing. I still love what the series is doing. I am so happy that Chicago, for the second year, was more or less a really great show. We saw some really incredible racing. Weather was a little less of a factor, still a factor, still a pain in the butt. I don't think NASCAR can catch a break when it comes to Chicago weather for their spectacle race, but at least they were able to get concerts in. They were able to get a lot of new fans to the track. NASCAR also unveiled their partnership with ABB and the electric vehicle. It's really cool to see what we're doing with that. And, yeah, it's just a fun race. Shane Van Gisbergen is so fun to watch, not only on the track because he's so aggressive, but so clean, but then he's also really great from an interviewing perspective and personality perspective, and I think NASCAR is really lucky to have him being part of our sport now. Yeah. And on the lesser, great news with NASCAR. Unfortunately, at that same weekend, it was announced that Hailie Deegan and her team were parting ways. Now, Hailie Deegan is the only full time female racer in any of the three NAS national NASCAR series, and it's just disappointing. Regardless, there are rumors as to why they they parted ways. I'm not going to look into the rumors or speculation because I do not know firsthand what happened, but either way, it's a bummer to lose that representation, especially because at least in the immediate aftermath, the team had cited that they wanted to be able to get a veteran in the car, to be able to help them improve from a technological standpoint and from a car performance standpoint, and they got eighth with joey logano at Chicago, but for the two oval races after that, they got 20 something and a DNF. So they're not really getting the development and I think that they were hoping for. So NASCAR has been on a break for the Olympics because we share a broadcast partner with NBC, and so I'm going to be really paying attention to how that team does moving forward, and just kind of seeing personally what what's going on. Because either way it's it's a bummer to not have any women racing full time. I'm very saddened by that, because I think again, racing is one of those really cool sports where we can be co-ed from an from a physicality standpoint and from a performance standpoint, and I think we just have a little ways to go. So we will see. In positive female racing NASCAR news, I am really excited by kind of the next generation that's coming up. There are a lot of women in their late teens who are winning in midgets and sprint cars on dirt, and who are winning super late model races and competing up front in the Arca series. So I I'm looking forward to seeing how those women do in the coming years, jumping into Formula One. For my fellow Lewis fans, this has been a fun few races for us, hasn't it? Because starting in June and July for some of those races, I think we were seeing Hamilton, Mercedes were doing incrementally better. And then there was that breakthrough win at Silverstone for Hamilton, which is so powerful, the fact that he gets to win at his home track, at his team's home track at Silverstone on his final year with Mercedes. It's just it was really poetic. It's so fun to watch. I think he's really graceful, really, really generous with his team and fans and all the support that he gets. And then he inherited the win at Spa when, unfortunately, George had his problem. But it's fun to see them come back, and it's really fun to see multiple teams competing up front. I know there are certain adverse situations that verb found himself in which handicapped him a bit, but in general, I love seeing more teams being competitive. So between McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull, we're seeing some real feisty fights on the f1 track. So excited to get back to that when we're back from their summer break. And the last sports related thing that I want to talk about is the Olympics. The Olympics have been delivering on so many levels this year. It has been so much fun to watch Simone Biles, Ilona Maher, like there are so many storylines, Team USA, the French love for their French athletes, which I'm now kind of tangentially invested in because of Ben, there's so much going on. So let's first dive into Simone Biles, I will admit, and it pains me to admit this, but when Simone withdrew from Tokyo for the Olympics because she cited her mental health, I I had weird feelings about because I feel like the way it was communicated did not really do the severity of her issue justice. So it seemed like she just pulled out. And reality is, obviously she was experiencing a disconnect between her mind and her body, almost like a sense of vertigo, I think is a way to describe it to non gymnast, but the twisties is what she had. And when we learn more details, it made a whole lot more sense why she withdrew. If you can't safely know where you are in the air, you could dangerously land on your neck. You could break your neck, you could become paralyzed. Like, obviously that is a huge issue, but it was a it was communicated in such a weird way. So anyway, once I learned that, I was like, oh my goodness, I hope that she can come back. That's got to be such a tough way to end your Olympic career with that withdrawal, right? And so to see her come back and to dominate on the team and dominate on the all around and get that gold medal, it was such a beautiful, powerful redemption performance that she got to do to claim the gold in a couple of different competitions. And I know that all of us older people in our 30s are like, Oh, everyone there is young, but at 27 she's she's old for a gymnast. And it's really cool to see her just be peak form. It's really great to see. Her team rally behind her. The power in her moves is so incredible. And I just like I get tired watching what she's doing. And let's talk about the beam. The beam is a routine that absolutely blows my mind, because I cannot imagine walking straight and balanced on the beam, let alone flipping, jumping, doing cartwheels, doing handstands, jumping and doing splits. I can't imagine doing that on the beam. Oh, my goodness, that thing's several inches wide. It is so, so impressive what they are able to do. And yeah, more power to them. I would hurt myself very badly if I tried to do anything on the beam. So that's Simone. Super happy, super happy for team USA and gymnastics next on the Olympics, I want to give a shout out to Hans Henken. So Hans and his teammate got bronze in the men's Skiff sailing event. And Hans is the husband of my friend Helena, who is also a sailor. We were really good friends in college. She went to Rio, placed 10th. I believe I am such a big fan of Helena. She was a mechanical engineering student. She got a master's. She's doing incredible work in the engineering sailing world. I'm just such a big fan girl of hers. And so to to know that her husband was able to secure the bronze, I know that they are such a great team, and it's a great team effort. So just big shouts to them. There's so many things we talk about with the Olympics, whether it's the French pole vaulter that, you know, didn't get to keep the pole on the bar, I guess, because of his well endowment, or if it's the shot putters and like, or the meme of the the shooter for for China. She was really cool. And the South Korean woman who was really, really cool. I mean, so many fun social media gems with the Olympics in addition to the sports or the backdrop of the volleyball tournaments being played right in front of the Eiffel Tower. I mean, no offense, LA is going to have a hard time keeping up with the incredible backdrops that Paris offers, but Culver City, here we come. And the last thing I do want to talk about, though, in more depth, is Ilona Maher. So she is a US rugby player. She, I think, had a pretty good social media following going into the Olympics, because she's very raw and vulnerable, and she's a bigger woman, and that allows her to play rugby really, really well, but it means she gets bullied online for not being in shape or being overweight, and she's done a lot of body positivity work through Tiktok and Instagram, and she's really funny and she's self deprecating, but she's also really empowering, and she embraces everything about her. And so she's been on social media throughout the Olympics. And not only was she part of women's rugby team that got bronze in their tournaments, which is the first time that US women's rugby has ever gotten a medal at the Olympics. So go, ladies. That's incredible. She supported her team mates to be able to score goals or points or whatever the terminology is, and then the whole time, she's advocating for embracing yourself and body positivity and measuring things in how you're able to accomplish your goals. So I'm a big fan. Will be forever, and I'm really happy to see her being able to not only excel at the sport that she loves, but to make it more than just herself and make it about something bigger and inspiring a lot of people along the way. So thank you, Ilona, for everything that you do. The last thing I want to talk about with the Olympics is the fact that we are a mixed allegiance household, so I, as an American, am rooting for us, and then my husband, as a Frenchman, is rooting for France. And it's always a lot of fun when we have these international competitions, because we get very obnoxiously into our respective home countries. And sometimes France wins, sometimes the US wins. But with with these games in particular, it got really heated with the gold medal matches for basketball for both men's and women's. Men's Basketball had some close moments, and we were watching with other European friends, and so I was the only one rooting for the US, but we were victorious, which was awesome. But then the women's basketball game got more emotional for me, and I can really appreciate you know, the French women's team how incredible it would be to win with the home crowd in this incredible Olympic platform at Paris, but I felt really, really invested in the US women's basketball team coming home With the gold, because those athletes have been doing so much to try to fight for more equal representation and media coverage and sponsorship deals and compensation for athletes. And so women's sports, especially in the US, has been having this incredible moment, and I really wanted that. US women's basketball team to win, to be able to carry that momentum, to be able to continue to have this really incredible platform, and to just cap out what feels like a few years of really forcing the issue and doing what's right for women athletes anywhere. So I was really happy for them, but oh my goodness, it gets heated between me and Ben, and you know, because the US has been winning a little bit more, it's a, it's a, it's a touchy subject. So we might be, we might be a little, a little sassy with each other for the next little bit, but now it's, it's incredible, and it is really fun, and adds a whole new level of stress to have this mixed household when it comes to international competition. So that is my recap of the Olympics. I love the Olympics so much. I love human excellence. I love human performance. I love that, especially because I feel like the world at large is in a really divisive place. Has been for a while now, the fact that the sports of the Olympics are able to bring us together and have us looking towards positive performance and just sheer brilliance and thorough preparation and all of these good qualities that sports bring out in people. I'm really happy that we're able to rally around that and have these moments that feel much more cohesive and unified than I feel like we have felt as a as a country for a little while. So it was really good. I'm very sad it's over, and I'm already excited for the Winter Olympics to come so that we can keep rooting and for LA in 2028 to round out this episode, I want to give a glimpse into some of the topics I'm going to dive into this season and what I decided to do for season three is to dive into kind of human performance and human related things that I find interesting. I realized that while I was actively racing, I was doing a lot more research on human performance, on how to increase sleep, on how our our brains work. And so I'm going to dive into a little bit of that. Some of it's stuff that's, you know, kind of neutral, like how we deal with natural highs and coming off of a natural high, and what causes that feeling of euphoria. Some things are a little more personal, like grief and processing grief. And I think that's something we've all had to do at some point in our lives in different ways. So I want to tackle that. I also want to get into daydreaming and some of my thoughts and realizations around that. And then we're continuing to bring in really cool guests who I'm excited for you to hear from. So that is the Welcome Back Episode for season three of if I'm honest with Julia Landauer, I hope that you'll do me a solid and go and subscribe to the podcast, share episodes that you like. I'm gonna try to do a better job of posting video clips so that those can be easily shareable. And sharing is so valuable for me as a podcaster and for my producers for all the work that we put in. And I'm excited to get this season rolling. So every other week, come back for an episode of if I'm honest with Julia Landauer, thank you for letting me be honest with you, and I look forward to seeing you in two weeks.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai