Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:00:00) – The views, thoughts and opinions expressed by the host and guests on this podcast are their own and do not represent the views, thoughts and opinions of UCLA Athletics, UCLA gymnastics, or the Bruin Gymnastics alumni community. The content of this podcast is strictly for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:00:21) – He said when he was in his little cell and he could see a sliver of the sky. He was so grateful to be able to see that sliver. And we live at a time now where research and brain research has shown us that the brain does chemically change when we infuse gratitude. And it is a choice. It’s not just something that happens.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:00:49) – Welcome to the Bruin gymnastics edition of the Resilience to Brilliance podcast, where you’ll be inspired by riveting behind the scenes stories of UCLA gymnastics legends. I’m your host, Kim Hamilton Anthony.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:01:03) – Here we go.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:01:09) – Valerie Kondos Field entered the UCLA gymnastics team as a dance coach on floor exercise and balance beam. 37 years later, she retired from being the head coach after winning multiple national titles and coach of the year awards.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:01:24) – It was a lot of fun sitting down with my former dance coach from 30 something years ago and discussing some key actions she took to propel her on her journey of resilience. Miss Val, thank you so much for being here.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:01:45) – Kimmy. My pleasure. This is so much fun.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:01:48) – Awe, well, I appreciate it. Well, I have to start off with your career accomplishments. Okay? 519 career wins, seven national NCAA championship titles, 18 conference championship titles. You were voted coach of the year four times for the NCAA, and you were voted Pac 12 coach of the century. That’s wild. I guess you can only get that one time, right?
Valorie Kondos Field (00:02:18) – And I think it means I’m really, really old. Like, you can’t get coach of the century if you’ve only been there for a year or two. Yeah.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:02:25) – That is too funny. The thing about all of these accomplishments that is most amazing to me is the fact that before you became a coach at UCLA, you had zero gymnastics experience.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:02:40) – When you stepped into the head coaching scene, you didn’t shine right away. You had some bumps in the road. You had to be resilient. So tell me about those first years and what that was like for you.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:02:53) – You’re so kind to say I didn’t shine right away. I sucked really badly. That was horrible. We had a ton of talent like UCLA has always been able to attract talent, and I had no clue what I was doing. Zero. And the interesting part is, now that I’ve been like, you know, three decades out of it, it wasn’t the gymnastics part. That was the issue. It was, I didn’t understand culture. I didn’t understand how to develop a thriving team culture. And it’s not the same type of a culture you have growing up on stage. So as I did. Um, so anyway, I did what one of the worst things that I think people can do in life, especially leaders or parents, and that is mimic someone else.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:03:49) – Yes.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:03:51) – And so who was who was the most successful? Who were the most successful coaches at that time? 1989, 1990 Bell and Márta Károlyi.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:04:00) – I must act like Márta Károlyi.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:04:02) – Oh.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:04:05) – So I was dictatorial, I was authoritative, I was, if I, I cringe when I see my videos from back then or photos, I’m like, I grew up on stage, I can act. People have asked me like, why Márta? It’s because she won. And in my mind, coaches are hired to win. We’re not hired to be your mentor. Coaches are not hired to be your second mom. We’re not hired. We’re hired to win. That’s it. So at least that’s what I thought back in 1990.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:04:14) Just.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:04:38) – Okay. So you. Figure it out. You start to learn how to be a good coach. You had mentors along the way, but your resilience was still tested when you were diagnosed with cancer. What were the circumstances surrounding that? When did you find out? And, uh, what was that like for you?
Valorie Kondos Field (00:05:02) – Horrifying. Just fearful. Just this cacophony of noise, of fear in my head. It’s an interesting timeline that I got diagnosed.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:05:13) – Oh, gosh, I was 54 and I we all know anybody that’s in the gymnastics world knows that I’m not good at math. Um, I know. Um, but had I gotten diagnosed earlier on, I didn’t have the tools to be able to work through this, I don’t, I think I would have been so scared that I would have just gone into a hole. And what I learned through coaching and shifting my idea, my idea of coaching to win. I scrubbed that early on, and I’m going to. I realized why I coached, I’m going to develop champions in life, I’m gonna go out in the world and make the world a better place through sport. So that and the gym was my classroom. Um, and what I realized in doing so was when you coach like that, instead of being a dictator and authoritative, you have to walk your talk. So as I’m developing these champions in life, I’m checking myself off on all those checklists as well. So by the time I got diagnosed.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:06:22) – And, um. Through this cacophony of fear, I heard very clearly be anxious for nothing and grateful for all things. Um, I paid attention, and when I speak about this, I let my audience know, you can translate this any way you want. You can say, this is the universe that spoke to me, this is cosmic energy that spoke to me. I knew it was God speaking to me, and I heard it twice because I was still so, still so fearful. Be anxious for nothing. Seriously. I just got diagnosed with a potentially fatal tumor in my breast and grateful for all things. I don’t think so. So I knew it was a commandment. Kimmy, I didn’t know how I was going to obey. And when I went to my doctor and she told me, had I gotten diagnosed ten years prior, um, I got diagnosed in 2014. In 2004 or 2005, the type of chemotherapy was was created that saved me and killed my my tumor. So she said, if you choose, that’s why I love the word choice.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:07:35) – Choice is my favorite word if you choose to get chemo for a year. We know it’s going to work. And in that moment I understood the commandment, Be anxious for nothing. By being grateful, I reduced my anxiety through gratitude that I lived at a time that had the chemotherapy. And I used to call it going to my chemo spa.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:07:52) Ah.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:07:57) – Your chemo spa.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:07:58) – My chemo. Because a spa is some place you go to get better, feel better. And sometimes it hurts, you know, little things. They hurt. Um, but I remember some of the girls, Ariana Berlin, saying to me, Miss Val, it’s okay. You don’t have to put this positive spin on it. I said, I’m not putting any spin on it. I am so grateful I get to go to chemotherapy. Because it’s giving me more days. So when what I love about, you know your podcast here is resilience to brilliance is. Underst. taking the time to understand that one little nugget of be anxious for nothing by being grateful didn’t just affect my year with cancer.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:08:42) – It’s affected every decision and every choice I’ve made since then.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:08:45) – Ah.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:08:47) – That’s pretty powerful.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:08:48) – Mhm.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:08:49) – What kind of person were you before cancer and how did cancer change you? I’ve interviewed several people who have had cancer, and they talk about the change that takes place in them as a person. What was that like for you or, or I can’t assume that that happened, but I can imagine that in um addition to the things that you just shared, maybe you changed as a person and if so, how?
Valorie Kondos Field (00:09:15) – I’ve always been really grateful. I’ve always. been able to look at life with gratitude, but not to the extent that I do now. Because of that, and gratitude literally became my default from the moment I wake up in the morning, I am not overexaggerating when I say, I don’t think that there are three seconds of the day that go by without me being grateful for something. I’m grateful for toilet paper. I’m grateful. Literally, Kimmy. I when I go to bed at night and when I want to.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:09:49) – When I wake when I wake up, the first thing that goes through my brain is I am so grateful for this the safety, the security, the warmth of my bed.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:10:00) – Um.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:10:02) – And it’s literally become my default.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:10:05) – As I think about that. I’m a very grateful person as well because of my own resilience story. I’ve been through so much and and I’m just grateful to be here. I’m grateful to be looking at you right now and having this conversation. I’m grateful to be alive because there were plenty of opportunities for something different to happen. But as I heard you talk about that gratefulness, I thought about all the people who spend more time complaining and searching out the faults of others and the faults in themselves, and how toxic that is. So what do you say to the person who is just living in that toxic space? Maybe they want to get out of it. Maybe they’ve tried but just don’t know how to. How would you advise them to become more grateful? How do they do that? I know you had cancer that helped you.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:10:57) – You had the chemo that that helped you and you were able to see that. But how do others see that when they may not have something as uh important as you experienced?
Valorie Kondos Field (00:11:10) – I do feel that gratitude is the great elixir. I would go on a limb here and say all of the people that think negatively, speak negatively, want to tear other people down or that they’re hurting. It’s not coming from a place of health and strength it’s coming from their past history and their trauma and their triggers. Um, and in any situation in life, if you are alive, there is something to be grateful for. And I know right now, you know, we don’t have to look far to see what’s going on in our world. But I think about that all the time. I think about the people that are sex trafficked. I think about people who are prisoners. I think about all this, and I’ve read books like one of the best books out there is Man’s Search for Meaning from by Viktor Frankl, who was, uh, he was a prisoner of war in World War II.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:12:01) – And his beautiful book is all about choice. And he said when he was in his little cell and he could see a sliver of the sky, he was so grateful to be able to see that sliver. And we live at a time now where research and brains research has shown us that the brain does chemically change when we infuse gratitude. And it is a choice. It’s not just something that happens. It’s like I’ve had people tell me I’m just not a very grateful person. It’s like, well, we’re not born grateful. It’s a choice. And so think and I, it’s like, I always like, especially with younger people. I had this darling little girl the other day say to me, I just can’t help it when my mind goes to mean girl. I’m like, okay let’s talk this through. And so I just had her put, you know, different thoughts in her brain, especially of gratitude, of the fact that you have friends and the fact that you do get to go to school, that you do.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:13:03) – And I said, is your brain thinking negatively right now of mean girls? She goes, no, I go, that’s you know, I explained to her when, what an elixir was I’m like, that’s the great elixir.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:13:13) – That is interesting.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:13:16) – I have a very funny story considering this is a UCLA podcast gymnastics podcast. Nikki Shapiro is one of the most wise, intelligent, fun humans I ever got to coach. And her freshman year she wasn’t going to class. And so I called her in my office and I say.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:13:37) – Just not going? Just.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:13:38) – Not going.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:13:39) – Okay.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:13:40) – We trained in the morning. Um, we train like seven forty five, eight, then we’re done at 11. Then they, they have to walk up to their dorm and change or shower. Then they have to walk across campus to go to class. And so I call her in my office and I go, Nikki, I just don’t get it. Are you that arrogant that you don’t think you need to go to class? Are you that ignorant that you don’t understand what going to class does for you? And she looks.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:14:07) – She goes. No, Miss Val, I think it’s something else. I’m just lazy. I don’t want to walk up to my dorm to get changed and then walk back all the way down, and I went. And don’t say anything. And she says to me, what are you thinking? And I said, honestly, I’m thinking about those 250 girls I heard this morning on the news were abducted by the Taliban. And what they would think if they heard you say you’re too lazy to walk to class.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:14:36) – Mhm.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:14:37) – And so she, she was like, okay got it. And then literally about six weeks later, I was out to dinner with her mother. And her mother gets this text and she goes, what’s my daughter talking about? She’s going to her class tonight, even though she’s really tired because of all the girls around the world that can’t go to school. I’m like.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:14:58) – Oh. She listened. She heard you.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:14:59) – Yes! You go Nikki.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:15:03) – It’s wonderful that you get an opportunity to help others, to have a more grateful attitude, to really think about the world, think about what they are going through, doing or not doing so that they can realize just how grateful they should be.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:15:22) – You talked about the the mean girl, the, um, person you worked with who was saying, I just can’t help but go back into being mean, which makes me think about social media. Of course, there’s a lot of mean things that happen in social media. Coaches are being scrutinized like never before. And. It’s like they’re under a magnifying glass. Everybody’s watching. Everybody has an opinion or thought as to what they need to be doing. Sometimes it’s fair, sometimes it’s not so fair. And you as well have had some scrutiny on social media. How have you handled that?
Valorie Kondos Field (00:16:00) – That’s a really good question, because anybody that gets to a certain level of a platform, you’re going to go through the same thing, um, at some point. And um, the hard part is not reading what was said. The hard part is not having a platform to discuss. And to not to say. Yeah, but. But to discuss the situation. And in going through that the number one aha moment that came out of that for me, looking back on my 37 years of coaching at UCLA was.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:16:40) – I do believe that champions are made through this struggle, and I do look at the student athletes that I went head to head with, but that we talked about it and we cried through it and we worked through it. We both got better from it. And like Jeanette Antolin is a great example of that. She got kicked off the team. She hated me. She blamed me the whole bit. But how we talked through it, how her parents talked with me through it. Um. It literally changed her life for the better. And we talk about actually we do speaking engagements sometimes together now with this. But the interesting part, and I speak about this a lot with leadership is the importance of relationships. Because relationships build trust. And so if I’m taking the time and I’m not saying the relationship, I go to coffee and shopping. I’m saying I’m coming in the gym today, I see you and I take that much time to say, Kimmy, how are you doing today? And you say, you know, Miss Val, I gotta be honest with you.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:17:44) – I’m struggling a bit. And I say, you want to talk about it now? You want to go outside. You want to talk about after gym. What do you want to do? You know, and just knowing that someone cares is the first start of that relationship. But when you have that trust, then you can go through the hard stuff together. So the student athletes that I really never developed a trusting relationship with are the ones I wish I could go back and do over or redo.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:18:14) – Is there any reason why those relationships weren’t developed that you can see? In retrospect, I guess.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:18:22) – I always believe that there’s not just two sides to a story, not there’s three there’s multifaceted to anything. And so when you’re working, especially with 18 year olds that are coming and especially like the majority of the athletes that we got were top, top, top, top, top athletes. They’re coming in with their own history, their own trauma, their own triggers, their own damage.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:18:45) – And. Also then flip the other side of that facet. I’m hired to galvanize this team and to try to win a national championship every year. So there have to be certain standards for everyone, regardless of what your own personal trauma was. So, um, I can only speak to myself. I wish. You know, I can’t remember the saying about whatever is wasted on the young wisdom or whatever, but I wish that I could go back because I’m going to say the majority of the student athletes I coach, I had a great relationship with to this day, do. I wish I knew then what I know now about the importance of just calling that person in my office and sitting there and saying, okay, we’re at a rut or there’s friction. What would you like me to know? And I’m giving you the space to say anything you want you want. And then just shut up and listen. Regardless of what they say. I don’t have to answer. Just say I hear you.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:19:55) – So being available. And just allowing someone to speak their minds, so to speak. Hopefully respectfully, of course.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:20:04) – I had a wonderful, uh, this reminds me of the conversation I had with Hallie Mossett. Actually, I had it with you as well. Um, for five years ago, um, with George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement and all of that. And I called you I called a quite a few of the, uh, black student athletes that I coached. And Hallie Mossett was amazing because she said, I want to share with you some things that you said that were hurtful. And she gave me an example. And my intention was not to be snarky or funny or hurtful or anything. It was to help her in that situation and she said, I can understand that. But in the moment it was really hurtful.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:20:53) – And we had an hour and a half conversation about this. It was so wonderful to be a. Like I said, with social media, the problem is there’s no it’s not even a rebuttal.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:21:01) – There is no ability to respond. And so when we had that, we responded and and I apologized and she flat out said, clearly said, Miss Val, I accept your apology and we have the best relationship now.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:21:18) – That was a very difficult time for a lot of us. And I think about just resilience overall. And you talk about the relationships. I believe it’s very difficult to be resilient in isolation. You need those relationships. You need, you know, the coach’s relationship. And I remember when, gosh, I broke up with my first boyfriend at UCLA and I was a mess in practice, and I went to the bathroom for the umpteenth time to cry my eyes out. And I was in the stall, and you knocked on the door to the stall and you said, Kimmy, let me in. And I was like, what? Let me in? So I open the stall. You come in, we’re like, face to face. We’re like this. Our noses are touching each other practically.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:22:10) – You shut the door behind you, and then you proceeded to let me know, as you said before, that you see me. You understand what I was going through, and you gave me words of encouragement that made me walk out of that stall feeling so much better about myself, so much more confident. And I was able to overcome that little thing. But I walked away a different person. So I appreciate the fact that you see that even looking back on some of those strained relationships that you might have with some of your the athletes that you coached, I appreciate and love that you see that that relationship and having a hard conversation, or even allowing yourself to sit across from someone who may say some things that aren’t kind, but validating the fact that, hey, this is how they’re feeling and listening and hearing.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:23:12) – And I appreciate you not saying crazy lady, get out of the bathroom stall.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:23:17) – It was it was weird when we walked out together because there were other people out washing their hands and they kind of looked at us funny, so.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:23:28) – I I I forgot about that. And you telling that story, it all came back so vividly. I remember Kimmy let me in. Like knocking on the bathroom. Who does that?
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:23:40) – Miss Val does.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:23:41) – I did. Yeah. It was important.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:23:43) – Uh. So let’s talk about one of the ways that your brilliance has been demonstrated. We’ve talked about some of those times when you’ve had to be resilient, when you had those first few years of coaching and then the breast cancer situation, and then also just handling some tough scrutiny on social media. But let’s talk about some brilliance. UCLA has become this global brand, known for doing beautiful gymnastics and having fun at the same time. How did that happen?
Valorie Kondos Field (00:24:17) – Oh, boy. Um. I really believe that happened when I made the shift of. Why I was doing, what I was doing, why I was coaching. And I remember telling our athletic director, I’m not focusing on winning. Okay, we’ll talk about yeah we should be able to win a national championship this year.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:24:35) – We have the talent. We should do that. And this is the steps we’re going to put into it. But now let’s put that up on up on the shelf. And now let’s focus on what is in our control. We used to call it the Bruin bubble. What’s everything in the bubbles in your control. Everything outside the bubbles is outside of your control. And if I was going to be the head coach of a gymnastics program I needed to bring, why would they need me when they can go hire someone that actually knows something about gymnastics? And so I remember sitting there thinking, what do I bring? It’s different. And I thought, you know what? There’s nobody else in the country coaching at this level that has my background. So I brought all of the performance etiquette. To our daily with what the student athletes like when you show up for ballet class, you don’t just roll out of bed, you prepare yourself, you do your hair, you may put on a little lip gloss.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:25:30) – You’re prepared for the workout. I remember teaching the student athletes, um, if when you’re standing in the wings on stage, it’s really fun when you’re growing up to to look around the wing and see who’s in the is my family there. And but you’re taught if you can see the audience, the audience can see you. And at any given time, if you can see the audience, someone is looking at you. And I remember telling our teaching our student athletes this because remember butt glue, do you remember pulling up your leotard and putting the butt glue on so that your leotard wouldn’t come up.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:26:01) – Oh. The sticky spray.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:26:02) – Like the sticky spray? They now call it butt glue. I don’t know what they call it now. That’s what they did when I was. So we’re in Pauley Pavilion, 12,000 people and they’re lifting their leotards up, like, and everything’s hanging out and they’re putting butt glue, but they think that if they have their friends standing right there, then nobody’s watching them. I’m like, oh my gosh, if you can see the audience, the audience can see you when somebody is always watching you.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:26:23) – They can see you. Yes.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:26:24) – And nowadays they have, you know, cameras and they’re filming you and they’re posting it on social media.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:26:33) – So all of those little things, why didn’t I let the student athletes chew gum?
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:26:36) – Oh, I remember that.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:26:38) – People think I hate gum.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:26:39) – I was like, I don’t hate gum. It’s the presentation. It’s, you know, and I used to have people say to me, you know, I don’t know when your team walks on the floor to compete, there’s a different look. And I think that was it. And then also how I choreograph the floor routines, how I choreograph the beam routines. You know, the beam may only be that wide, but it’s a stage. And we are performing.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:27:00) – It’s a stage.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:27:04) – I remember. Practicing floor and my floor routines all had stories and there were certain things that were happening. In, you know, with the movements that I imagined. And I remember doing that with you. And it was so much fun. It was a lot of fun.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:27:23) – The it was the stage.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:27:25) – Well when I first got there in 1982. Um, and I was telling Donna Kemp, I it used to drive me crazy because gymnasts would. It’s like they would perform floor like, this is what the movement my choreographer told me to do. There was no emotion and feeling and energy behind it. So that’s when I started choreographing stories. So with Donna Kemp and she did this beautiful I’m gonna sit down, she did this beautiful triple turn, she started to do doo doo doo dah. She finished. Then she would go like this and I’m like, where’s the, where’s the energy, you know? And I said, I want you to peel yourself like a banana. Janet Ferrari to this day will give me crap about peel it like a banana. I’m like, it worked.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:28:12) – Yes it did, it did. So you. We we touched on this a little bit, but I want you to go into it a little more. You know, you didn’t have the gymnastics background, but you bring that background of classical ballet into the situation.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:28:28) – How much of that do you believe contributed to your success?
Valorie Kondos Field (00:28:34) – I want to say. I think it’s two sides of a coin. I think the performance wise and and what you saw. With UCLA gymnasts. The majority of that was what I brought because even with the warm up, like I was saying earlier, when the athletes would go across the floor with high kicks, right, and their arms are supposed to be in high fifth or out. I mean, I was just maniacal about shoulders down, chest up, have face. I mean. They’re so sick of me saying face, face.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:29:11) – But it was that attention to detail. You know, it ribs in back, long tension in your arms constantly. So I think what you saw from us was me bringing that discipline of knowing where your body is at all time and putting your body exactly where you want it to be. You don’t go through like this. You know we don’t like this. No, no, no, no branches.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:29:14) – Yes.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:29:39) – We have feathers. We have feathers in our hands. Not branches. Yes. Feathers. No thumbs. No thumbs. We have. Okay. Um.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:29:47) – Feathers. Feathers.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:29:48) – Flip side of that coin was also the personal side. And that was what you didn’t physically see, but the personal side of feeling that you were valued as more than just an athlete.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:30:03) – Yes. So important.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:30:05) – Mhm. Mhm.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:30:07) – So you spent 37 years at UCLA which is rare for anyone to spend 37 years working at one place. When you, you know look around in the world, how is your transition away from coaching at UCLA been and what are you doing now?
Valorie Kondos Field (00:30:25) – It’s been a it hasn’t been hard, but I really miss coaching. I don’t miss the competitions. I miss the day to day. I miss like I say all the time, champions are made in this struggle. I miss helping a student athlete work through the struggle. I miss helping a team. Like I had no problem stopping workout, everybody upstairs, team room we’re talking this out.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:30:53) – We had so many team meetings and the girls would call them the cry meetings because once somebody started crying, everybody else would start crying. Um, but at that point, I knew that was that was like, you know, it’s healing. You gotta burst, and then you can start healing. So I really, really, really do miss that. I teach a class at UCLA, um, uh, coaching and philosophy class, which I get a little bit of that with the students, but it’s it’s kind of a one off. I only have them for three months. It’s not like I have them for four years, like a student athlete. So what I’m doing now is, um, I’ve got a little bit too many irons in the fire. Um.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:31:35) – Is the question, what are you not doing?
Valorie Kondos Field (00:31:37) – Yeah. My my manager’s like, can we narrow this list down? Uh, we are doing, um, a documentary on our 2018 national championship. Because I thought it was providence.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:31:52) – I thought there was no way we should have won that thing, because it literally is one of the greatest comebacks in all sports history. I thought God put on his blue and his gold and he wanted the Bruins to win that day. That’s how we won. And as as I am dissecting it, I’m realizing it was actually the pillars that we had put in place for the foundation that became a really strong cultural foundation for us. That was actually it was so strong. It was athlete led. Like the athletes held each other accountable. The athletes held us accountable. It was that, um, the mortar of all that was love and love for each other, love for the sport. You know, Pang talks about that a lot. Um, so we’re doing that documentary. Um, I’m teaching the class at UCLA. Uh, I am doing a lot of speaking on my story and how I went from being this authoritative dictator to a transformational type of coach. Everything I did wrong and everything that I started to do right.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:32:56) – Um, I am doing some team coaching with organizations I’m not keen really on. Like, people go, oh, you’re an executive coach? I’m like, hmm, it’s more like team building within organizations. It’s like, I just start I just got through working with an analytics company, which was interesting because half of them were analysts, half of them were salespeople. And how am I going to do this right? Um, so I love all of that. And this is why there are so many irons in the fire here. Um. My dream the last two decades or so has to produce an Urban Nutcracker film. And just to take the classics of Tchaikovsky and bring it down to the back streets of, like, Los Angeles and celebrate the street performance arts. Not highbrow, but just. I want to do that. I see it really clearly in my head and I also am. I am really annoying when it comes to trash and plastic. Like I have no problem going up to a stranger that just throws a plastic bottle and there’s like a in the trash and there’s a recycling bin right next to it.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:34:05) – And I’m like, oh, I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to put this in the, you know. So I have an animated film storyline about. It’s called trash. Isn’t that great marketing? Could you imagine the marketing for that? Trash?
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:34:19) – Trash, trash.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:34:20) – Well, that is a lot, Miss Val. But if anyone can handle all of those irons in the fire, it is you.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:34:29) – Thank you. I appreciate it.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:34:30) – Thank you. Well, I have one final question for you. And that is what does living in brilliance mode look like for you?
Valorie Kondos Field (00:34:39) – That’s a great question. I think that I would love to hear a compilation of all of the answers from the people that you have on here. When I think of brilliance, I think obviously of gems and jewels.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:34:51) – Yes.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:34:53) – But in order for them to shine, they need light from the outside. But when I think of personal brilliance, it’s that light from the inside. And that light is my my purpose, my calling. It’s why I was created.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:35:08) – It’s the spirit that’s inside of me. That energy. And when my work, my actions, I’m not even going to say are in alignment with that light when they’re when my work is generated from that light. Why I was created. That’s when the work is brilliant and it shines.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:35:30) – Wonderful.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:35:31) – Well, Miss Val, thank you so much for joining me. It has been a hoot, a blast and all that.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:35:40) – I know and we need to do a whole blooper section we need to get. We need to do a blooper section of of. We need to do a Kim Hamilton Anthony blooper section.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:35:52) – Okay.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:35:53) – Of all the Kimmy stories. Oh yeah.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:35:55) – My goodness.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:35:56) – We’re going to get Tanya Chaplin and Julie Andrews and myself and work. Okay, all of you.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:00) – Now I’m scared of that. That is just way too scary to to think about that.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:36:03) – Of all of you listeners out there. When you listen to this, I really want you to send back a reply. I’m looking all over because I don’t know where I’m looking at my listeners.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:36:11) – Okay, I’m looking at you. I want everyone to send a reply. Just say like. K, H, A. Yes.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:21) – You’re funny..
Valorie Kondos Field (00:36:22) – You can edit that part out later. Okay.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:24) – I know I got the edit button. No, no, no, I’ll leave it in. I’ll leave it in. But that is just way too scary. Uh, we’ll see what happens.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:36:35) – Oh, I think it sounds fun.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:37) – Of course you do.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:36:38) – We’ll tell more bathroom stories. I mean, it was a great story.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:41) – Yea, bathroom stories, there you go. All right.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:36:42) – We’re gonna tell the story about you falling off a beam.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:44) – No, no, we’re not going there.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:36:46) – Janet Jackson was staring right at you. We’re gonna tell that story.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:47) – We’re not going there.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:51) – Okay, well, Miss Val. It’s been great having you here. It’s time to go. I love you, Miss Val.
Valorie Kondos Field (00:36:57) – I love you too. Thanks for doing this.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:58) – Thank you.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:37:03) – There are a few things that I’m taking away from my conversation with Miss Val, but there are two realizations she shared that I find to be especially important when it comes to increasing our capacity for resilience.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:37:16) – The first was that gratitude is a choice. How easy is it for us to focus on the challenges, the setbacks, and the negative things in our lives and take all of that good stuff for granted? Sometimes we don’t even realize how blessed we are until those blessings get blown away by circumstances. So let’s not wait until it’s too late and miss the opportunity to be grateful for what we do have, and especially grateful for the people we have in our lives. Which brings me to another nugget of truth that Miss Val shared. The importance of relationships. We all need relationships. But the truth is, relationships can be ugly, messy.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:38:08) – And sometimes downright trifling. And sometimes relationships can be so frustrating that you just want to take your ball and go home. We wound each other. More often. It’s not on purpose, but sometimes we do it intentionally because we’re hurting and we want others to hurt with us. Or maybe because someone has done us wrong and we want to pay them back for the pain they’ve caused us.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:38:39) – But you know, there’s something about forgiveness that enhances our ability to be resilient. Unforgiveness keeps us stuck. It keeps us stuck in those funky situations as we hold on to our anger and refuse to let it go. There’s a saying you may have heard. Not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It’s not the one who offended you, and it’s not the one who offended me. But it’s you and me who end up paying the biggest price. Now. Forgiveness, let me make it clear, does not mean that you’re condoning what has been done to you or to others, and it doesn’t mean that you’re letting them get away with it, or that you continue to allow someone to hurt you time and time again. It’s important for us to have healthy boundaries, to make sure that we and our loved ones are both safe, physically and mentally. Forgiveness may not even mean that you reconcile with that person and become the best of friends. No, but what it does mean is that you’re making a choice to release that person from the debt they owe you, and you’re deciding to take back your life.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:40:08) – And you’re refusing to continue to allow that person to control your emotions, your actions, and maybe even what you think about yourself. So how do you think our joy levels would change if we chose to be grateful instead of hateful? And what would our lives look like if we decide to set ourselves free by forgiving the one who has hurt us? And by leaning into those healthy relationships we have with others in our lives. Who knows, it might just set us free. Thanks for listening. If you want to find out more about Valerie Kondos Field, check out our show notes on InBrillianceMode.com/podcast, and to connect with Bruin Gymnastics alumni on Instagram, follow us @UCLAGymAlumni. Any use of this podcast without the express written consent of BrillianceMode LLC is prohibited.
