Meet Gabby Reece
Gabrielle Reece is not only a volleyball legend, but an inspirational health and fitness leader, podcast host, corporate speaker, New York Times bestselling author, wife, and mother. The former professional beach volleyball player and Nike’s first female spokeswoman is the definition of both athleticism and beauty. Gabby is a force to be reckoned with in the gym and on a microphone. She is the host of her podcast The Gabby Reece Show.
Gabby has become a force in the health and fitness category with and #1 in Mental Health in just 2 years. She interviews leading health, wellness, sport, psychology, and business experts to share their most valuable and actionable information to her audience. Together with her husband big wave surf pioneer and entrepreneur Laird Hamilton, they run health food company Laird Superfood along with many many other entities.
Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform.
Podcast transcript:
Welcome back urban monk podcast. Dr. Pedram. Shojai happy to be here and happy you are here. Gabby Reese. We talk about work-life balance. We talk about fitness in the pool. We talk about. Eating right. And being a good parent. And all the things that we’re all trying to juggle here. Um, I think you’re going to really enjoy Gabby.
Her and her husband have just a really cool active thing going down in Malibu, California. And, you know, they’ve been moving in shaken and doing stuff really. Um, In a really competitive levels of volleyball and surfing for a very long time. Uh, and I’d like to share how people who bring their a game. And what they do to get to their a game. With you because you are no different. Let’s help you find your a game.
Let’s enjoy what Gabby has to say. I’ll see you on the other side.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Gabby, it’s good to see you.
Gabby Reece: Nice to be seen. How are you?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Doing great. Doing great. Um, I am excited to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart, which is Work-life balance, and it’s something that y’all have been wrestling with for a long time. Um, I. Two professional athletes, lots, you know, three daughters, lots of driving, lots of, you know, life. And then there’s the business, then there’s the workouts, then there’s all of it, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: And so, um, no, it’s not easy, right? But nothing’s easy. And so, um, you just. I’m not gonna do it justice, and you’re probably going to undersell it, but just gimme a quick, uh, brief on your history as a volleyball player and all that.
Gabby Reece: Well, I sort of fell into sports. I grew up in the Caribbean and then kind of was a late bloomer and ended up playing, I’ll give you the super short version of it. Uh, I, I was six three at 15 and so, um, I went to a school transferred from the Caribbean to Florida and got involved with indoor volleyball and basketball and then was offered. Scholarships that I, I really had no plan on going to college period, but then getting scholarships, I ended up playing indoor, uh, at Florida State and, um, had a good career there. And, uh, ended up kind of playing professionally. I, I moved to Miami after college and picked up the beach game and moved to Flo and moved to California and, and had a, a long professional career with Uh, you know, the usual winnings and losings and, uh, you know, it’s, it was something that I think sort of set me up for everything else that I’m doing in my life. Um, but the important part of that was even early in college, um, and being a professional because. I was working in college even though I was on scholarship. Um, I actually ended up paying to play after my sophomore year. So I was in the fashion business. But then when I moved to California, because beach volleyball is such a small sport, um, because that platform was so small, I was always doing other things. So writing and doing television, and I only bring that up because, um, I I sort of parallel path. Developing other skills while spending 90% of my time training and competing, um, as a, as a professional athlete. So those things were challenging, but I think those set me up for probably some of the things we’re gonna talk about, which is the i the notion of, of, uh, balance.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah, it is a notion, ain’t it? Um, bring in your a game. You guys call it maintaining pro status in all aspects, uh, of life. Um, a lot of people don’t have that, that operating system, right? And, you know, to step up at that level, pro level and play any competitive sport period requires a lot of Mm-Hmm. Um, and then we don’t do it for our home lives, and then we don’t do it for our career lives.
Dr Pedram Shojai: There’s all these places where, you know, we’re either on or off. And, um, that to me seems like it’s unacceptable to you. Like you guys bring your game to all aspects of your life. And I wanna talk about that. That’s, it’s a very martial arts principle, right? Like you always bring your kung fu and, um, you know, Laird, your husband is, you know, pro surf, big wave surfer.
Dr Pedram Shojai: For anyone who knows, uh, Laird Hamilton is, um, he has, you know. Been doing this for a long time. So it’s kinda a power couple coming together. Um, and a lot of times work-life balance sucks in those households. And so I, I really appreciate that. That has become a big part of your platform and a big part of, you know, what you strive towards.
Dr Pedram Shojai: So, um, yeah. When did you realize that, oh boy, we better work on this.
Gabby Reece: I think, well, I think it starts with your value system first. And so, uh, you know, if you’re talking about as individuals before we met, it’s sort of developing your own, uh, code that you live by. So it’s how do I enter into work relationships? How do I approach my personal relationships? How do I approach my self care?
Gabby Reece: And then you, you know, being in a marriage, I’ve been with Laird since 1995, um, and you know, we can’t make People be a certain way. So luckily I think for Laird and I, one of the things is we’re very aligned in our values. And then when we started having a family, it’s, it’s kind of, and I know it sounds selfish, but I think individually we’re both sort of like self-care first, and then the priority of the family even over work. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t understand that work at times will get things really outta whack. Um, so, so, within that is, is you’re, you’re sort of Constantly pressure testing, like, Hey, how, how is this going? Can we sustain this? Is this going to have a, a positive long-term impact or a negative long-term impact? And, and sort of, you know, we always say not at all costs. And even in our business practice, it’s like we’re not willing. In certain ways at all costs. And so I’m not willing for the relationship I have or the development of my children to be more successful in work. Um, and conversely, it’s even being successful in business, it’s like having serious guardrails and bumpers that you’re always checking, um, you know, how you’re, how you’re practicing these things. But I learned something a long time ago, which was the notion of instead of buckets. Of Okay. Uh, exercise and nutrition and relationships and personal life and being a parent. Um, fun things like that, that it was more of that approach of the flywheel so that if I felt good that I was bringing that into my marriage and if I was enjoying my work, be it very difficult at times.
Gabby Reece: All everybody’s work is challenging. Um, but if I was enjoying that or I believed in what I was spending my time on That that was gonna feed my relationship and that was gonna make me a better parent or a better example. And so I think sometimes we, uh, we think it’s all supposed to be even, but I think it has different seasons.
Gabby Reece: So certainly for me as the female. When I have babies and small children, you’re kind of doing more of that. And then as my kids have become older and more independent, then it, it’s like I can spend more time and work, but certainly not at the cost of my health or my relationship with my husband or being there for my children, which is really, uh, it’s, it’s the constant dance. And, and finally, I would say it’s not about focusing on everything all at once. it’s about focusing on what you’re doing at that moment and being really focused and purposeful and clear and, and trying to be productive so that I’m not working when I’m trying to talk to my kids, even though sometimes that overlaps and I’m not worrying about something about my kids when I’m trying to train.
Gabby Reece: And I know that has a harshness to it, but that also seems to help.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we don’t. We think we have that kind of attention span. No one does, right? Like one thing, one thing at a time. Do it well. Uh, just on context, your eldest and your baby, like what, what are the ages there in terms of like where they’re at?
Gabby Reece: Uh, well, my, my husband, uh, had a, uh, sort of came, he came with a, a small child, so my oldest daughter is 28, and, uh, we have a 20-year-old and a 15, uh, actually no, a, uh, almost 16 junior in high school.
Dr Pedram Shojai: That’s a, that’s a big gap. And so, I mean, junior and high school, they’re pretty independent. You’re now, you could focus on business, you could focus on other things. Right. Um, but you know, at those, at those kind of critical junk, . Sure. Years when she was eight, you were probably doing other things, weren’t you?
Gabby Reece: Yeah. And there’s some really interesting dynamics that you learn as a parent is, you know, certainly as a, a nursing mother, you, you’re, you’re like, you’re there. You wanna be there. I. You know, all these things. And then when your children are little, but what is very interesting, you think, oh, as they become older tweens and teenagers, they have this, uh, vibration of like, Hey, get away from me, and you’re annoying. And then there’s conversely this other side that they actually don’t need you. They need you more than ever. So it’s, it’s also navigating paying attention to making sure that you’re in those car drives to school, because that’s when they tell you everything. Um, and so weirdly, they gain all this sort of like, I want to be in my room and I’m with my friends, and they’re always reaching back because they’re making transitions that are uncomfortable.
Gabby Reece: And so they wanna make sure that you’re there.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of times you miss it if you’re, you know, head down in something else. So that’s, that’s a big one.
Gabby Reece: Or you believe them, you believe, uh, you know, get away from me or, you know, I’m over here. You have to, you have to just sit there and be there and they kind of hover back around.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I love that. I’ve actually seen that with a lot of close friends and you know, it’s a very delicate time period, right? Like, I mean, Yeah. you’re growing up, you know, you get in trouble. But there, there are we weird things happening about, and the attention economy has kind of grabbed these kids.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And pulled them out. And that’s where I, I really wanna kinda transition into some of the cool stuff you do. I’ve never seen people at the bottom of a, of a pool as often as I’ve seen you. All right. You do some really cool fitness and some extreme fitness, you call it, right. Performance training. Um, but the, the paradigm shift that you’re holding, I think is a really important one.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And you say everyone’s an athlete. Right. And that to me says a lot because it’s, you know, I, I don’t like the sick care model. It’s a health healthcare model means you’re going towards health, not, not sickness, right? And so people work out not to just lose some weight, but to actually be fit, to actually build their athletic base and, and, and be awesome in some things.
Dr Pedram Shojai: So I, I would love . For you to expand on how that paradigm changes the way you behave as a human in, in a human body.
Gabby Reece: You know, it’s really interesting for me, coming from athletics, that’s how I was introduced really to sort of focused or purposeful movement, um, as well as eating. And, and then, you know, Laird is a much more curious and kind of artistic athlete. I’m, I have a sort of, I mean, figure, I have points and I was sort of linear and he was, he’s into nature and, and it makes sense, but What is interesting is you go through all of this thing about performance, right? Like jump higher, be faster, hit harder, hit, you know, whatever it is. But then what you realize is if you’re really talking about performance, and this is, these are things that you certainly talk about all the time, it’s how do I get the organism to be as resilient and adaptable as possible? That actually becomes a much more interesting. Process, then my vertical jump, my, you know, my vm, you know, my VO two max, which are all fine if that’s what you’re doing. But if you’re talking about the majority of the population, it’s like how do you create more distance between yourself and your reactions that you feel it, it gives you that breathing room to sort of show up the way that you’re hoping to and trying to, um, and so I think for me, certainly for the last 15 years. Or more. Yeah, that’s about right. I’ve been focused on, no. What’s really interesting about moving is also moving in a way that I can move forever. Um, moving in a way that I Don’t feel quite the gravitational load of gravity itself, but also aging. But more importantly is how do I use exercise in movement to have play, but also to create the space that I’m looking for so that I have emotional and physical resilience and adaptability to whatever’s happening and, and whatever I’m dealing with.
Dr Pedram Shojai: There’s a couple, um, things that y’all are doing that. Compounds, the hormetic stressors that we know are really important for our adaptive capacity. Um, I, I, you know, I I tend to call ’em fuse lengthening exercises, right? But Mm-Hmm. and training with hypoxia is one of ’em. Weightlifting is obviously one of ’em.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Eating bitters. And you know, so we, we have this, this, this understanding now that, you know, these things that don’t hurt us, make us stronger to, you know, to a certain extent. And so I just remember decades ago I had buddies coming out to Malibu, to your guys’ pool. And, you know, lifting weights from the bottom of the pool and swimming up and all sorts of stuff.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Why, what? Like, help my un my audience understand why compounding these things builds that which you’re talking about.
Gabby Reece: Well, it’s an interesting environment, one that it’s, it’s no gravity, so there’s a couple things happening. The fact that there’s no oxygen in an objective environment, right? Water is not for you or against you. It’s just a, it’s just an environment to let you know where you’re at. And so in Laird’s desire to be. More efficient, more effective in the ocean. Uh, we started messing around with pool training. And so for example, in the deep water, you can have a dumbbell where you can actually do reps, so you can jump with this weight. So you have to work, but you still can come up and get a breast. So now you’re, you can actually do reps. Um, so there’s ballistic training with no pounding of your joints. So there’s sort of that. Elements. So the vertical, the vertical component of pool training allows you to be ballistic without, you know, it’s usually very punishing. Um, and then you have kind of the horizontal training, which entails this hypoxic or breath holding, um, element of the training, which is fascinating because sort of, for example, like meditation, It’s, it’s even a bigger immediate feedback. And the reason I say that is, for example, if I give you a task and I say, okay, we’re gonna go there and back with no breath, with a weight. So you’re swimming with one arm and kicking, and you have, you’re holding a dumbbell if your eyes are wider, if your emotionality is on the stressful side, um, if you’re gripping your dumbbell too, too hard, the, these are all going to use oxygen. And so. There’s this other part where, how do I become more efficient with less air, but also how do I manage my reactions and my emotions, my thoughts so that I’m not leaking or burning air. And so the environment provides this en. This fe immediate feedback that, again, it’s not personal. Um, and then once you get used to it, you can push very hard.
Gabby Reece: It’s, it can be very uncomfortable, but again, it’s, it’s another opportunity to know yourself and become more efficient, like, oh. I, I feel stressed instead of, oh my God, I’m stressed out. I, okay. I, I can’t deal with this. It’s like, because you can’t afford that in the water, so it’s like, oh, I, I really notice that I am, I’m becoming towards the end, or I’m super uncomfortable. I still have to make good decisions. It’s all of those types of things. So there’s a lot of opportunity in the water.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I really like the high stakes element around that. I mean, obviously you’re not getting dropped in the middle of the Atlantic and you know, stakes are, stakes are a little lower, but the body
Dr Pedram Shojai: in a hypoxic environment underwater,
Gabby Reece: Mm.
Dr Pedram Shojai: freaks out. I. And, and is like, you know, you’re gonna die. You dumb animal.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And those are the moments where, you know, you have. Accelerated learning one would assume. It’s funny you say that when, uh, a lot of the Taoist Qigong that I’ve studied over the years, you look at the original Taoist cannon and these guys used to jump down waterfalls and allow, allow themselves to just drift under the water.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And, you know, they’re similar to big wave surfing. And unless you relaxed, you weren’t gonna make it. You had to . Utterly let go so that your energy expenditure went down to a very low burn. Right? And, and, and that principle can teach you a lot.
Gabby Reece: For me personally, as somebody who tries to force it, will it hammer it down? It’s been one of the, certainly besides children, one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had, which is And my desire to, to be task oriented, to be goal completion is greater than my desire to have control And so the willingness to really surrender and actually even feel it on a visceral level, like, well, what does that feel like? And when you train in the water, you actually know what it feels like, uh, and, and having a relationship. With, um, CO2 is, is interesting and getting that balance better because a lot of times that’s what you’re meeting first is the imbalance and your intolerance for CO2 and, and so for a lot of people who don’t realize, um. Most of us are, uh, you know, even great athletes don’t have what they call a good bolt score, which is a tolerance to CO2. So people who have breathing practices have a relationship with this. Um, but the water, you think, oh, I’m gonna surrender. And you think about surrendering when you’re in the water, it’s like you feel, it’s like it has to almost happen on a cellular level where it’s like, okay,
Dr Pedram Shojai: And, and it’s funny when, you know, a lot of these things are very abstract. Like, oh, you know, Buddhist philosophy, you have to die to this. Right? sure. sure. Right. It’s a, it’s a good Saturday night party conversation, Sure. I know. of a pool, dying to something means I. A very different visceral thing.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Right. And that training, I think is, I, look, I, I know people that swear by this. Obviously y’all have been doing it for a long time. I do have to ask if I, if I were to geek out, like what, are there any measurements that you guys have done? Or, I mean, have you tracked HRV? Have you tracked sleep? Have you track, you know, obviously BMI is gonna come down, but just curious to see where the scoreboard is on the results with this type of training.
Gabby Reece: I will say, uh, and this may not be a great measurement, my MBA guys who do this training, and we also put them in kind of More shallow water and have them do jumping and and shooting and all these things. They all do have measured increased vertical jumps, which is a weird thing ’cause I know we’re talking about breath holding. Um, and certainly your, uh, ability to hold your breath, uh, increases by minutes. You know, so we, we could take. Sort of, let’s say a householder, uh, just a person who isn’t doing this training and you could pretty quickly increase their breath, hold capacity. So we could, we don’t do, um, you know, you don’t do any scrubbing.
Gabby Reece: We don’t do any CO2 scrubbing. It’s a no-no, uh, in the pool. And we don’t do any weird, um. You know, kind of dramatic breath, holding in water. We can do that in land, but what I can do is I can take a person from land to water, have them train, you know, sort of get a relationship with them and then pop them back onto the land and easily get them to hold their breath for three or four minutes, things like, like that. Um, but as far as, um, you know, those other kind of measurements, we’ve done some of that. Um, But I, I don’t know that, you know, Laird and I both have this thing about measuring and he, he, because he is more connected to nature, is like, no, I’m trying to get you back into a relationship with yourself. So I think that that has also been the other side of that
Dr Pedram Shojai: Uh, you know, that’s very near and dear to my heart because there’s a lot of the, you know, dude bro biohacking vibe that’s, you know, like I got 12 devices on and I’m, you know, buzzing at night. And then there’s the how I feel and how I,
Dr Pedram Shojai: how I look, my wife in the eyes kind of thing, right? Which are very different levels of presence and, and all that.
Dr Pedram Shojai: So, uh, the. The way this training goes, the way people are now starting to step into hu superhuman selves, if you will. Um, you know, there’s a lot of hyperbole and then there’s a lot of, just really practical, I mean, the NBA guy, I mean, obviously that’s helping his career with a vertical jump, pure and simple.
Dr Pedram Shojai: But when your average person starts doing this type of work. We start to see what more energy, more clarity, more focus. I mean, I would assume many things, but I’d like to hear it from you.
Gabby Reece: It’s very interesting, so. People have a lot of fear around the water. Um, the other interesting thing is my, a lot of my NBA guys or even other athletes, they can’t swim. So let’s just put that in the mix that I have people that are not comfortable in water. There’s been, if I have ex-military guys, they have a lot of aqua trauma from their training.
Gabby Reece: If you have, when I deal with, again, people, they, many people have stories about almost drowning. So first and foremost there is, I always say water can pull you down, but it can also float you. First is seeing a different relationship in water. And it is so metaphoric to life, which is the water’s like, oh cool, you wanna put more energy, you wanna move harder and faster. Let me show you what that looks like. So what it does is it brings for everyone a level of awareness of your own personal state, uh, because you have no choice. So that’s one. Uh, two is Over and over. I didn’t think I could do that. I was really scared. I can now, and Laird is very, uh, I’m not, I’m not quite as open to this. Laird thinks we should do things that scare us often. Uh, he, you know, I think it’s a liberating thing in life and it makes us feel alive. And then you have growth curve. So you have all of these things that people really change and like, you can’t even have your phone in the pool, right? So now you’re at a place where you’ve got this Hour, 90 minute, we sometimes trains for two, two and a half hours ’cause we incorporate sauna. There’s kind of a playful element to it. There’s games, there’s sort of these weird drills that we add. So you’re also working with people where it’s like you are unplugged, you’re under, you’re in the blue. Oh, here’s a sun, here’s sunlight that goes through.
Gabby Reece: So what happens is you have people who oftentimes are uncomfortable, they’re overcoming fear, fears, um, and they’re getting a different relationship with something that is . Is a natural element that we are it and it it is us. And, uh, it’s really powerful. And for my people who can’t concentrate, all my high performing people, my big CEOs and all those guys who can’t, their brains are moving mi a million miles an hour.
Gabby Reece: Guess what? That doesn’t work. So that’s the other thing. If nothing else, when you talk about meditation, on some level, it is a forced meditation and you have to breathe correctly. Otherwise you cannot do it.
Dr Pedram Shojai: There’s a zen allegory, um, that comes to mind here. Um, there was a big storm and a big boulder rolls down in the middle of the temple, and all the young monks are fretting and saying, what’s go, what? You know, what’s gonna happen? What do we do? And finally the old, you know, Abbott comes out and they’re all like, well, you know, this thing, this thing.
Dr Pedram Shojai: He just slowly. Lifts this huge boulder and moves it aside and Hmm. back to his meditation. And that night the monks finally, one of them, breaks silence and is like, I have to ask, I have to ask. And, and the answer was simple. And he said, I simply relaxed as much as I needed to exert. And that, that concept of effort, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: And when you come from, you know, my, my, my dad was German, you know, educated, like, you know, effort, effort, effort. There’s so much effort we put into all of, you know, life, right? And all these CEOs and people coming to you, you know, it’s like we, we suffer from overdoing. Um,
Dr Pedram Shojai: and so this lesson of learning to relax to be better, I think is really profound and underwater.
Dr Pedram Shojai: It just, it seems like such a cool way to do it.
Gabby Reece: Yeah. And there’s another, uh, interesting thing that happens a lot. So let’s say for example, we set up a drill that’s, it’s long and hard. And the thing is, you can’t make it faster. You can’t make it happen faster. And there is something about sitting in that kind of discomfort, and I don’t mean torturous, it’s just hard. Um, and having a relationship, developing a relationship with like, I’m gonna be here a while. ’cause sometimes, and the thing, we’ve all experienced it in business, if you’re an entrepreneur, it’s like, Hey man. This, this year, this 18 months, there’s gonna be, it’s gonna be kind of hard and getting this relationship, not getting freaked out by it.
Gabby Reece: Sometimes you go through things with a spouse or with a child or a family member that it’s like, no, I wanna solve this. Let’s wrap this up. Let’s get it together. And it’s like, yeah, no, it’s not gonna work like that. Like this might be uncomfortable for a minute and getting sort of some weird peace with, uh, hey, yeah, this is, this is hard.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah, this is hard. Is not how the marketing world has sold us on
Gabby Reece: Yeah.
Dr Pedram Shojai: that’s the problem. This is hard as the missing ingredient. Everyone I know who’s kicking ass in life embraces this is hard. And works hard at whatever they, you know, aspire to be good at, I mean, you, you and volleyball, and then translate it into all the stuff that you’re doing.
Dr Pedram Shojai: You didn’t get. To that level by not working hard. Right. But that’s not the promise out there. It’s like, you know, eat sugar cereal and take my pill. And so how do you find, you know, people will come in looking for six pack abs and five minutes and you know, all this. How do you, when do you see that transition happening in people as they start to do the work and, and you know, when they shed the, you know, easy street deal and you start to see the results.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I’m just curious when you see that.
Gabby Reece: I, I feel like it’s when you get your butt kicked a little bit by, by life and, and, and in the training, because the training doesn’t care. Who you know, doesn’t care who you are or what you’ve accomplished or haven’t. And so I think it’s people that finally get a look behind the curtain and just take a moment to not be too afraid, to be humble, to realize You, you’re, we’re not in charge. We’re not. We’re just here doing our best. And, And, so it’s all the people that are, have become fearless enough to accept that and, and they’re the ones that’ll come back. The ones that aren’t ready, they actually don’t come back.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. Yeah. I would, I, I, I don’t wanna venture to guess your numbers, but you probably have a good drop off at the door, right? Um, this, this is hard, is not. You know what most people are looking for, but the people who stay get better.
Gabby Reece: Yeah, and, and also something they all have in common is they have enough curiosity and humility combined to say, Hey, I want, I would like to try and, um, I. And just that alone I think is sometimes a real success. Um, you know, versus the, sometimes there’ll be people that show up that wanna show up because they want to tell somebody that they got to come and do it. And they’re the ones who it doesn’t, it, it doesn’t really work out. It’s, it’s the people who show up. ’cause they really are curious and they’re, and they’re really humble enough to give it a go. It’s like they’ve already, something already happened just by that act.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. And that’s something happened is the beginning of all sorts of transformation. Right? Then you just put your feet in front of each other and work and all of it, right? But that’s something I think is, is. I see it in martial arts students. I see it, you know, in patience when someone decides to get better.
Dr Pedram Shojai: When someone you know is sick and tired of being sick and tired long enough to say, you know, what do I gotta do now? What are you gonna do for me, doctor, or trainer or Yeah. but what do I gotta do? Then it’s like,
Dr Pedram Shojai: bing.
Gabby Reece: Yeah. And, and I, and Laird is the same way. If people show up with that. Man, I’m here to protect you. Like I’m here to serve you in this little, this journey that you’re gonna be on. And I’m here to protect you. Um, and if, if you come with a different attitude, I don’t have to do too much to, to rock that boat a little bit, the water will take care of it. But, um, you know, if you come puffed up or whatever, it’s like, oh, okay, are we’re doing that? But if you come really open, I think the way it works is that the environment, the universe and the people around you will only stand by you and shield you and usher you in, um, as as kind of protected and safely because you’ve already shown that vulnerability.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Amen. Amen. I wanna transition to you and who you are for an entire gender. I. , um, and taking a stand for women who can step into their badassery. Right. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s very, it’s very easy to be like, oh, well she was, you know, tall, right. You worked your ass off, right? And so, and you probably had to swim against many currents and societal norms to get to where you’re at.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And now you’re standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder with your husband and just, you know, big things, cool things. And so, um, I, I would love. To help inspire my female listeners in particular with your story and you know, what it, what it took to overcome, and then what kind of mindset shifts puts you into the position where you’re not looking back.
Gabby Reece: You know, it’s an interesting thing. I think, um, you know, being tall, obviously, and I, you know, I didn’t always live with my parents and so I got, I was bounced a little bit as a kid, um, for about five years. And, and then living with my parents and being in this extreme avatar, um, you know, was, was not always easy, but this is what I’ll say. I. It was so great because it really forced me to focus on other things. And, um, I was saved, I was spared the opportunity to really try to fit in because I was six feet at 12 years old and six three at 15. It was like, okay, that ship has sailed. So I didn’t spend a lot of time as a young person being like, I’m gonna try to be like everybody else. Um, and so that took a, that took A lot of bandwidth and helped me have that bandwidth for myself. And I was so interested in other things like survival that I, I, I, I wasn’t sort of like, how am I pretty, you know, is it all those things? What I, what I would say to women that I, what I have learned from being in sports and being, and being with. Highly powerful women. So I modeled and played volleyball exactly at the same time. So I was with the most beautiful women and the most powerful women at the same time. What was great for me to start was to understand who was I. What was I able to contribute and how could I also celebrate the kind of badassery of these women around me and not feel threatened by it?
Gabby Reece: And to realize that if I could celebrate it and appreciate it, it also, especially when you’re on a team, was gonna help me. So that is a, is a starting point, was I, I never felt Competitive, um, or jealous. I could really appreciate it. And sometimes you’d be like, I wish I moved like that, or I wish I could jump like that. But you kind of get over it. And so first I would say is to, is to really know yourself. What do you wanna bring to the world? And trust that that’s good enough. And it doesn’t mean that we aren’t always working on things to be better, but it means like, Hey, I, I feel good about what I, I can contribute and I’m so excited about how many talented and amazing other women or people are around me.
Gabby Reece: That’s first and second. As you get older, I think it’s not to apologize, right? Like. I was smaller when I was younger. I have learned to, to not shrink and to not apologize for taking up space. But within that it’s how do I take up space and now make room for everybody in my life? Because something about being a quote and I put in air quotes, a powerful woman is also being able to really hold space for the people in your life. That nurturing element. And I’m not like, oh, sweetie, but within my real power, I can, I can hold a lot of space for my daughters, for my husband, for my coworkers. And um, and it’s not confusing that femininity is weak. We have made that word femininity or feminine. People have this idea that it’s weak. It isn’t. I, I consider myself feminine. And that has an apex of power for me that I think women confuse as being called weak. So don’t forgo forego your feminine to be strong. It’s developed both because it’s a real opportunity. Um, and, and it’s hard and it’s easier for me, I think as a tall woman to do that. But I’ve also learned too, like when I’m in work, So business is business. Family is family. I’ve learned to communicate with no emotion attached to it. In work I at, I drop off information I might make. I might offend people, I might make them mad, and I’m okay with that. And so what I tell my daughters is, I’m not interested in nice. I’m interested in kind. And so sometimes women, ’cause we are interested in being good, it’s like yeah, but Being direct or people being offended doesn’t make you a bad person. And so it’s kind of having relationships with all these interesting nuanced dynamics that really does make a, a female have this opportunity to express all these incredible sides of herself and to remember to choice. I choose to serve my family and my partner. I’m not a doormat. I choose and we have somehow. Because of a few bad apples, overcorrected, and we’re losing something that I think is so important to bring to the world, which is feminine power and energy. Um, and I don’t question if I’m strong, so I’m not worried about it.
Hey, quick podcast interruption. Uh, Dr. Pedrum back. We recorded something called the functional fitness master class. A while back, I have it in the urban monk academy. Just go to the website and you’ll see it. I got three of the best functional fitness. Teachers. Brought them to the studio and said, look, I’m tired of my patients getting injured every time they think they want to get fit.
I’m tired of people pulling. This are hurting. Matt, how do we establish a foundation and then build from it so that we can actually move and enjoy movement again? That’s the functional fitness masterclass go to the urban monk.com. You’ll see it in the store. Highly recommended. Back to the podcast.
Dr Pedram Shojai: You, uh, for those watching the video are, are sitting tall, right? And . Oftentimes with tall girls, you have that kind of hunched down, like I’m gonna hunch down to meet you at your level posture that comes from feeling awkwardly out of place in the crowd and. Either you did a hell of a lot of work in your later years, or you found something in your younger years that just never got you to hunch right.
Dr Pedram Shojai: To, to, to come down and, and stand tall. So is that kind of the grit of, you know, your circumstances when you were a young girl in the islands that just forced you to, to, to know that you were different? I’m just curious how early on you found that.
Gabby Reece: I, I, I think by the time I was already, you know, in high school, I, I was standing pretty tall. I mean, listen, kids are tough on you in middle school. There’s just no way around it, and girls are, are especially mean. But, you know, I just, I. I’m a realist and the notion of, is it, it is what it is. I think I got into relationship with like, Hey, it seems that you’re gonna be pretty tall, and like, I am not going to bang my head against stuff I cannot control or change.
Gabby Reece: Like I’m old, I’m getting older. It’s like, you know, it’s, it’s sort of really seeing something and going, it is what it is. What do you wanna do about it? How do you make it work in your favor? And after that it’s like you just can’t worry about it. And yes, it certainly got easier as I got older, but again, I, going into sports, that was something that was, everyone was like that and it was wildly celebrated, and so that certainly made it easier.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah. And surround yourself with people that you know, don’t make . That weird. Right? Or people who celebrate you in that,
Gabby Reece: Yeah.
Dr Pedram Shojai: and you’ve taught your, you have three daughters. How are they doing with this? Are they standing tall? Are they, are they learning to step into their feminine power the way you would foresee that?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Like it’s a different world, but it kind of isn’t. Right? I’m curious how that’s going.
Gabby Reece: they all, with the exception of the youngest one, because she’s a junior in high school, she’s sort of right on time. I think they all have a very beautiful blend, uniquely unique to who they are as people, different than me. Um, of this a, a beautiful blend of being able to float in and out of their feminine and masculine energy and knowing how to take care of themselves and be in possession of their physical selves. Um, you know, being able to communicate. Very clearly. Um, my youngest daughter happens to be the, she’s about six two. She, you know, she was doing this a little bit, but I see as she gets older, it, you know, she’s getting straighter and straighter and, um, and, you know, I appreciate a, you know. Them because especially her, she doesn’t feel the pressure to please anyone. Uh, that’s something I had to overcome. And she’s, you know, like she says, no, you know, it’s the same in every language and it’s the shortest word in, um, our language. And it’s, you know, she’s like, it’s not that deep. So she’s got to certain things way sooner, um, than I have. But yeah, they, they have it, but they’re certainly gonna be going on their journey and learning those lessons.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Is that hard having two parents as kinda. Legends in their own realm. Like, you know, well your dad’s a badass, your mom’s a badass. Like did, is it hard to have them not compared to you guys and your paths and you know, just allowing them to find their own strengths where they are. It might not be athleticism, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: That it’s a tough place to be.
Gabby Reece: It’s a great question. I think, um, I learned a couple things, but I would say two. One was more sensitive to this and is finding her way, like felt the pressure. Maybe I should be more like that. Um, I have a, I and I’d say two, not so much. They really trust themselves. Um, and, and we really have been like Parents, even around sports, like, I’m like, listen, I’m not your coach, I’m your mom. And so I have really, Laird and I have c have really consciously separated from that because by the way, we know if you don’t love sports and you don’t really want to do it, it’s hard. Don’t bo you know, know how to take care of yourself and move and get outside.
Gabby Reece: But you know, I did it. I don’t need to live through them. And Laird certainly doesn’t need to live through them. So I think that that’s an important, uh, differentiation and understanding. It’s their journey. It’s what’s gonna turn them on. What are they gonna wanna work hard for? Um, but I did learn something, and this is valuable for all par all parents. Um, I, we went through a pretty challenging time with one of my daughters. Very hard time. Some, some, you know, uncomfortable things went down. And, um, a therapist said to me, ’cause I thought, oh, we’re gonna We’re gonna have a as healthy of a relationship as we can. We’re gonna have a clean house, we’re gonna have good food, they’re gonna have opportunity, they got education, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Gabby Reece: All the stuff we didn’t have. So they should be fine. But one thing we didn’t grow up with Laird nor myself, was expectation. I. Nothing like that. It was like, if you grow up and pay your bills, that’ll be great. Laird left school in 11th grade. You know, it’s like, hey, no expectation. So I didn’t realize that when you are a kid to parents, that to the external world has accomplished anything.
Gabby Reece: So if people are listening, maybe they, they’re CEO or just whatever, your kid all of a sudden has a different bar that you don’t realize. The world is saying to them, and that does put a pressure on them. So I, I really became more sensitive to that and, uh, realized that Oh wow, they do ever have to deal with something different, even though they have kind of these other great things.
Dr Pedram Shojai: It’s funny, before the show started, I was sharing, you know, how my kids are ski racing with Gabby
Gabby Reece: Yeah.
Dr Pedram Shojai: it’s, it’s a difficult thing for me, you know, having been a martial artist and you know, . Pushed hard and all this. I see how some of these parents are with their kids and vicariously trying to win through their children and just the amount of pressure and stress around like, you know, winning and performing and all that.
Dr Pedram Shojai: And man, those guys are no fun at a party, let’s just say that. Um, and then I look at a lot of the gold medalists hanging around Park City, and you could tell they’re just not. Happy, right? That dopamine of like needing to win and all that. Not to, not to, I’m not gonna generalize and say none of ’em are happy, but you see a lot of that, a lot of kind of, you know, blown out expectations and, and you know, dopamine fatigue.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Um, and I’m like, man, I. I don’t think I wanna push my kids at all. Like if they stop enjoying skiing, I screwed this up. And so as an athlete mom, what would your advice be to people whose kids are, you know, playing basketball or whatever they’re doing and, you know, everyone around you is like pushing and working out their own crap on their kids.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Like, what do you, what do you do in those scenarios?
Gabby Reece: You know, I think I entered parenting with one kind kind of notion, and now what I’ve realized is, first of all, most of it doesn’t matter. I know people who’ve won everything you could possibly imagine. They’re not happier. Whatever. You know, that word means it doesn’t really matter. What would be amazing is if our children understood everything’s gonna take hard work.
Gabby Reece: There’s just no way around it, and that is the environment that we get to know ourselves. Great, but it’s creating the space, which really means to listen and expose ’em to a bunch of stuff and getting them to figure out how to discover. Who are they really? So that their external life has this shot of reflecting who they are. And if we think, oh, if they go to college on a scholarship or they win a gold medal, or if they get an NFL championship, that’s just gonna make it. It’s not, it’s, and in some ways what people don’t realize is there is a curse with that, which is Ladd. There’s a quote Ladd talks about from a military guy, which is never let your memories be GA greater than your dreams. So what you have is with people who win early and a lot or get attention, is how do they transition? Oh yeah. By the way, to the next like 45 years of their life. And so what I always tell young athletes is If you can do it and you like it and you enjoy it, great. Do it because in that environment, you’re, it’s, you’re gonna learn something really interesting about yourself. You’re gonna learn to lose and win and all these things that are so important in life, no matter what you do. But just try to remember this. If you can manage it, it’s like being a loaded gun that you can shoot that. At any target you wish. So most importantly, athletics should provide an opportunity for kids to do that.
Gabby Reece: But I always say, listen, first and foremost, I’m Gabby. One of the things I’ve done is play volleyball. I’m not a volleyball player and, and not wrapping your value into whatever it is. You know, the Big V, you know the fund, you’re a VC guy making millions. You’re some badass athlete. I don’t care. It’s like, make the entity, make yourself the badass and the rest is like something to do. It’s fun, it’s sexy. Great. And uh, but people are crazy. 1% of kids go from college to, from high school to college in sports, and 1% go from college to the pros. So it’s like, what are you guys doing?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Yeah, it’s funny, one of these dads, uh, I call Al Bundy, um, you know, it’s . It’s like there’s old Bundy again. You know, one, one won it in high school. Who Yeah. Who cares dude. And the kids are miserable. Um, and there’s just a lot of stress around all of it. And again, if you look at the KPI, who cares? So, you know, what, are you happy?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Did you win in marriage? Did you win in, you know, there’s a lot of other places where a lot of these people lose unless they find the work-life balance that we started with. And so I’d like to come back to that. It’s hard, right? Fitness. Falls off quickly. You got kids, you got shit going on. And it’s just very easy to like, not make the workout, go to the gym, do the thing.
Dr Pedram Shojai: So how do, especially for, for mothers, but you know anyone who’s listening, obviously, how do you find it in your busy life?
Gabby Reece: Well, I think it’s about first being realistic. So like I stated earlier, when you got little babies, I used to do 10 minute workouts when I had new kids. Like that’s what you’re doing. And so, because if we create stress around it, then all of a sudden now we’ve got cortisol, we have all kinds of other damaging things, being like, oh, I’m in this stage of my life.
Gabby Reece: That’s cool. I’ll get it when I can. To be an all or nothing is a no go. So I would encourage people to implement what they can, where they can. Let’s say someone’s going, oh, that’s cool, gab, but I’m on the road now five days a week, I’m in an airplane. Okay, fair enough. That means you gotta be super tight and diligent about what you’re eating and drinking. It’s just the way it is. ’cause when you’re traveling, it’s a. Really a bitch to try to figure out how to do it. If you’re in your hotel room, stretch, do some breathing, do some body squats, do some pushups. If you’re a chick and you, I can’t do pushups, do knee pushups. So just do it when you can, where you can and stay realistic. Um, and putting a negative framework around or stress around it is one more thing you have to do as a no-go for me. It’s like, no, that’s just part of what you do. Um, and I always We’ll say, and I can say this all nice, all these things I’m saying, I am ruthless when it comes to my self-care, which means I have this little piece of real estate that I know that I’m real, I’m responsible for. So whether I had young children or not, it was like, oh no, I’m working out. Unless someone’s, you know, arm is falling off, don’t nobody bugged me. And if it’s 30 minutes or 20 minutes, this is what I’m doing because it’s on me to get it done. And by the way, I’m sure if we all did a personal inventory of our weeks. We have time leaks everywhere that we could get it done. The scrolling time, the BSing time, go take a walk, go do something. And so, and finally, and more importantly, sometimes we have to ask ourselves, why is everything else more important than our self-care practice? And so really it has to arrive at, it becomes a priority. And why it falls off is because we can say, oh, I have the kids and I have work, and all these things. We can find the time.
Dr Pedram Shojai: There’s, there’s so much in what you just said. Um. I’m gonna start with the, the kind of obvious place Petra would always start is, I’m pretty sure Gabby’s not doing fad diets. I’m pretty sure Gabby’s not cleansing every weekend because of some new thing that came up. You’re a base hitter every single day.
Gabby Reece: Yeah.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Just taking care of you and that operates, you know, look, you’re in la you know it like, you know, the diets became called cleanses at one point when it sounded cooler, right? Um, people will swing the pendulum hard instead of have that consistent lifestyle that keeps them happy, keeps them healthy, keeps them fit, and then the byproduct is you’re probably not carrying too much weight because you’re doing the things that, that make your body happy.
Dr Pedram Shojai: So how do you. Transition people over from this hail Mary sin and ask for forgiveness health routine to like just daily baiting and tackling in a way that, um, is sustainable.
Gabby Reece: If it’s a beginner person, first and foremost, you have to schedule it. And I would say especially on the movement practice. You have to be with someone else. You have to, if you can afford a train or get a trainer, if not, get one of your friends and be like, okay, we’re meeting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at this time, and there’s no breaking it.
Gabby Reece: So none of us, including me, can do it alone. Um, I invite my friends to come train with me and because they all start showing up at my house, I go down and I train. It’s that simple, number one. Number two, when it comes to food and drinking, if you are kind of beginner or you’ve just sort of. Been busy in life. Start to write it down both ways. What’s your strategy for eating for the week? Don’t be like, oh, what do I feel like? Forget it. Try to have a system in place so that you can have some guardrails that really support what you’re doing. Don’t get starving and then somehow end up, you know. Pulling the car over and eating somewhere, but also conversely, write down what you’re eating.
Gabby Reece: Because we also don’t realize, and I, and I’ve interviewed a lot of people that have talked about this, that even nutritionists that are tracking people get the caloric. Um, I, I talked to Lane Norton and he was talking about they’re usually off by about 800 calories of what they’re really eating. When people, honestly, they’re not trying to be devious, they forget about like, oh, I had that handful of this or that. Just keep a track, because also what’s interesting is good and day, bad days. Well, what did I eat? Did I wor exercise that day? How did I sleep? So we can also start to, before we can feel it, we can start to go like, oh, that’s connected. So I would encourage people, get some, get a friend, write it down, get a strategy.
Gabby Reece: If you don’t want to eat it, don’t have it in your house. Separate the time from dinner to bed. Why are these people with these nine o’clock snack, like PM snacks? Like what? Why are we doing that? And, and I know that is harsh, but if you really want to fast track it, eat dinner as early as you can. And, you know, that’s it.
Gabby Reece: Have some water. You don’t, we don’t need a little like snacky, you know, ’cause you’re watching tv. It’s like at least till you get the prime, the pump and you get the momentum in your favor. And, and certainly it’s, it’s stress and sleep. I know it, we’ve heard it a thousand times, but it’s the only time we recover is sleep.
Gabby Reece: So I will give you a personal example. I’m Pretty lean. I’ve always been lean. I’m on it, whatever. If I have a few nights that I don’t sleep, or I can feel my stress is high, I will notice instantly a layer of inflammation, which looks like bloating on my physique. So I want to encourage people to get to bed and the hours before midnight. Are so valuable because we’re still connected to the sun. So it’s just getting back to basics. And by the way, hacks are only good if you’re doing the fundamentals. You’re not gonna hack your way to it. Now, if you’re doing everything really well and you get a little of this and that, great, but otherwise people defer to that. But that’s not really the, the way.
Dr Pedram Shojai: You know the irony is so many people listening are worried about their calories and their diets, yet they’re missing the workout that would’ve brought down their cortisol and got ’em to not even bother stress eating. At 9:00 PM Right? And so the one thing that you should have done that would’ve made you feel better all day is, uh, led to other behavior that are, you know, you’re now chasing downstream.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Uh, and you know, we have this, you know, you do this for a few years, it becomes a bad habit. And how do you fix bad habits? You start new good ones, right? So we’re running outta time. Uh, I did want to quickly talk about this kind of full circle. You guys have been in the fitness space for so long.
Gabby Reece: Hmm.
Dr Pedram Shojai: You’ve rounded the corner and you’ve gone full circle where you’re doing nutrition and fitness, and so you have some yummy stuff, um, that I finally got to sample.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Um, you got bars and shakes and, you know, just some, some wonderful clean, good supply chain products that I think, um, are a welcome ad to a market filled with crap. So just tell us what you’ve done in that space.
Gabby Reece: Thank you so much for even bringing it up. So we have a company called Laird Superfood. Um, and you know, it’s interesting how life goes. You live a certain way, long enough, and we organically fell into this business. Um, it’s actually coffees and creamers and we have proteins and bars. And if you want me to talk to you about, uh, ingredients, believe me, I know more about ingredients than I, I would like to. Um, and the idea was this. Laird Red somewhere. That’s for a lot of people, the most nutritional thing that they do in a day is drink coffee and it’s maybe ’cause of the water. And if you’re really having good, you know, good caffeine. And so he, he’s, he’s of the belief he used to make these coffee drinks that, um, he would then go surf for five hours and he, you know, nothing new.
Gabby Reece: It’s like. Fats. It’s like they’ve been putting fats in teas and caffeine, but then you don’t go up and down, you get sustained energy for your brain and body. And so we organically, you know, kind of made this formulation and it’s, it’s been very interesting ’cause we’re saying, Hey, we’re not asking you to do, add more. This is something so important that I’ve been learning in my life most. People who are really helping people be more successful in their nutrition and their movement aren’t adding more things, they’re saying, Hey, let’s take away the things that are hurting you. So with this, it’s, if you’re drinking coffee, great, we have something for you.
Gabby Reece: And so this business has been really fun. It. The stuff is ama. We use it in our home every day, and that’s our whole thing. We don’t talk about it or share anything that we don’t personally use, um, or that we would give to our children. And, um, I feel really good about, about this brand because it’s an opportunity to share with people and make that part easy. We said we’ll do the heavy lifting so you don’t have to think about it. We don’t even use, uh, you know, Natural flavors, because that is also a misnomer. Uh, so we, we’ve really tried hard to be diligent.
Dr Pedram Shojai: I appreciate that because it’s very, very easy. I have a lot of friends in the business. I, I know a lot of, I, I know more than I should yeah, you know, cutting corners, . Is the way of the world. I, yeah. I had cut down a, there was a deal someone brought me to be in like every CVS and all that, but all I had to do was just let go of my, you know, interest in having quality in the products, right?
Dr Pedram Shojai: Like, you have to, you know, you have to cut margins out for all the middlemen and then you’re like, well, what the hell would I do this for? But those are the products on the shelves, and so it’s, it’s hard to do the right thing. So I really appreciate it when people Yeah. Well, thank you. I did have a food scientist say to me, you know, if you put just a little of that, would do something with shelf life. You don’t even have to put on the label. And I was like, oh my gosh.
Gabby Reece: Like. the problem.
Gabby Reece: Yeah. So I’m like, okay, are you not, you know, hearing. So it’s again a great exercise. That’s, this goes back to our priorities. What do we define as success? And I think both Laird and I, um, feel pretty clear about, of course, I, I want my business to be as big and successful as can be. But this goes back to not at any cost.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Amen. Amen. That’s, and that’s a fundamental principle of conscious capitalism, right? Is people, planet, you know, there, there are other . There are other KPIs here other than just profit. And, you know, you need family balance, you need it all. So listen, what a, what a delightful conversation. Um, really appreciate who you are and where you’ve been and, and, you know, just invite you back anytime.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Just keep doing the good work that you’re doing. I’m, I’m, I’m really a big fan of the work you’re doing.
Gabby Reece: and thank you. You too.
Dr Pedram Shojai: Great to see you.
Okay. That’s it. Hope you enjoyed it. Give us a like, uh, if you haven’t subscribed yet, please subscribe to the show wherever you’re at. Uh, got a lot more goodness, coming your way. And I enjoy doing this. I just want to hear from you and make sure you’re enjoying the same.