E226: Going for Your High-Level Goals with Pro Athlete Kia Nurse

A 2-time NCAA National Champion with UConn, 2-time Olympian with Team Canada and current WNBA player who doubles as a broadcaster for TSN’s coverage of the Toronto Raptors in the offseason. More importantly a full time dog mom who loves a good book and some Netflix… please welcome Kia Nurse to the podcast…

[00:59] Valerie LaVigne: Welcome back to The Women's Empowerment Podcast. Thank you so much for being on the show today. I am very excited to have you as a guest.

Kia Nurse: I'm excited to be here finally. Thank you.

VL: You know, I am not gonna lie. I was like geeking out when you came to the Pilates studio, exhale Pilates. So that's where we met because I'm like, Oh my God, she's so cool to have her on the show. So true story. I was very nervous to ask.

KN: I don’t know why?! I’m very open to these things!

VL: Ugh and you're so nice. Everyone, well not everyone, my best friend and my boyfriend were like, just ask her You're so weird. " I'm gonna do it today and then I did it. You're like, Oh my god. Absolutely. Like, oh my god. She said yes.

KN: Of course. Why not? I listened to the podcast once I met you and saw it on Instagram. Like, okay, let me listen. I drive for like an hour a day. So I have to listen to something.

VL: I love that I'm so happy to hear that and it's just one of those things where I'm like, you just have to go.

Just have to go and do the things that excite you or that make you feel a little bit nervous and excited and you just have to go for it because I feel like so many times and unfortunately I find this with women especially is that they just don't go Their big goals because they're too scary and you know, whatever the mindset is behind that. it's like, I'm not enough or I'm not good enough or someone's better than that or, you know, I can't do that or whatever. it's a shame because I feel like so many people and reaching those huge successful goals I may have just taken those leaps. Like I did asking you on the show. Hahaha

So like I said, I'm so grateful that you're here. And going back to how we met with Pilates, you do Pilates at the studio, and I know that movement is a huge part of your life. So I wanted to kind of start with this point of how you incorporate all these different kinds of movements to support you and what you do. So can you share a little bit about the different styles of movement that you practice? Maybe how it helps you? I'd love to learn about them.

[03:10] KN: Yeah, so obviously part of a big part of my life is movement. It's funny when I talk to people, sometimes it actually happened at the studio on summer Meadowview. And someone asked me like, guys went back to work after this and I was like, This is my job. So I did my job for the day I did my Pilates and coming to the studio was actually pretty terrifying for me because I am so used to I'm good at basketball, right? So I know what I'm good at. I stay in my lane. I go to the gym and play. I know that things are going to be not super easy, but I'm going to be comfortable and I know that a drill or anything that I might do there might push me outside of my comfort zone but I know that I can get through it. With Pilates. It's like this is a brand new thing. And so I tried to implement different types of movement to keep it exciting for me, because of exercises my job doing the same thing every single day becomes kind of tedious and I like to try to change it up. So typically my weekly fly week will look like Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the offseason at this point so early right before my training camps. I'll do three times a week on court. And then I will go from my 9am core workout to 10:30am Lift. I lift my weights and then I drive home so I'm done for the day, usually Monday, Wednesday, Fridays. On Tuesday, Thursdays I do Pilates, so I have my hour session with all of you. And then right after Pilates I head straight to an acupuncture chiropractor kind of session. so a treatment session on whatever body part needs a little bit of extra help. And on those days I try to either ride my peloton or do a peloton treadmill class over at the good life in my house.

And then Thursday or Saturday Sunday are basically kind of my off days or my rest days. And as we get closer to season I'll start to kind of move more into four or five days on cord and continuing to get more back into my usual T and seventh season. I'm on cord usually six days a week. So getting back into that feeling of understanding my body, getting back into that soreness and working through that.

But I've just tried to add so many different things. So cycling is another big one just came off an ACL surgery and tear. So biking became my life for about six months because that's the only thing I could do to feel sweat like legitimate sweat that I'm used to. And then I've taken up a lot of stretching as well. Nighttime stretching before bed. I find this helps to calm me down a little bit more and allow me to kind of just find a nice sleep. And then my dog I have a puppy. She's 10 months old. she's forcing you to walk every single day and it has been one of the best parts about having her is going out feeling fresh air pretty much the moment after I wake up.

[05:42] VL: Wow, you've done so much. I've worked out like four times this week…

Not for four hours a day though. That's so cool. And I love that you're implementing all these different things because yeah, as someone who's in the fitness industry and understands that all these different exercises complement each other and you can't just be doing the exact same thing every day because one it's probably boring for you but to your body gets used to doing the same motions and so when it needs to change something, it doesn't have that. Maybe, maybe it has the ability but it's not as agile. We could say. So how do you stay motivated to do all these different types of exercises? Because I'll tell you right now, when I have new clients coming to the studio, they're like, I just haven't found an exercise that I like or that excites me that they want to go to. They just sign up for the membership and then they don't go. How do you get motivated?

KN: It's a fair question. I honestly find that a lot of my motivation has always come from my family and my parents specifically because I know how much they sacrifice for us to be able to play organized sports growing up. I'm always jokes about it, but somebody had asked me a while back. Were your parents while off when you were growing up? And I was like, I think we were okay. Like I didn't feel like we were struggling in any way. My mom's like then we did our job because you didn't worry about that kind of stuff. And so that always kind of sticks with me. So I was like your dad probably didn't want to drive a minivan and probably wanted a nice sports car. But you know what we sacrificed? We got the minivan, and we drove everywhere. I live almost two times a week when I'm in season at the WNBA. And I see all these young kids and they're on their iPads and they're flying and their families are on vacation. We didn't fly anywhere. I have two other siblings. So there's five of us and it just wasn't economically sound for us to fly to all these different tournaments. We were playing again. So those long drives that my parents took were another sacrifice back in the day when there was only Google Maps. So they had the paper printout, Google Maps driving around. And I think you know, I look at them in the stands when I play and I see them and I see how proud they are. That's my best way to say that I am here living out my dream because of the things that you were able to do. So I try to remember that every single time that I stepped on the court, and then I tried to just remember that I've been labeled kind of a role model from a really young age, and I was really grateful for that label. I think that was something that was really cool, but there are a lot of young women and young athletes who are playing sports nowadays and they're coming up through the look of basketball specifically coming up for the system to possibly go play at the NCAA or the CIS are used for and then probably professional as well either the WNBA or overseas. So I'm trying to create these pathways and make them easier for them than it was for me. And that's something that keeps me going every single day. And I know there are days when I don't want to get on with it. And I still feel like doing it. But I always feel better afterwards. It makes me so mad because like you know you're gonna feel better afterwards. So you have to go and do it in the future. of habit. so that's something that's really helped me is having a schedule and seeing it laid out knowing what I'm doing each week.

[08:48] VL: I love that. It's really powerful for you to recognize how your parents helped you and supported you from that young age like that you don't really didn't really know where they were up at that time and I think a lot of us take our parents for granted especially as kids but definitely as a mature I've noticed with my own relationships with my parents.

Like I my mom would have been if I had a baby the same age as my mom, I would have almost two years old now which I'm like, Oh my God. I am a baby. So but it gives you perspective, right of like, wow, this is what you've done for me. So was basketball something that I've always been doing or was it a different sport?

KN: Any sport we wanted to play was kind of how we grew up my parents and you can try anything if you like good we can kind of stick with it. So I actually started in soccer, like little tidbit soccer with my brother a year older than me so we did everything together.

They put us on skates just to kind of go skating. I think I was really good. That's what they told me that you were good at skating. your brother did not turn out that it really worked out for him. so he stuck with that. And then my whole life. I played basketball in the winter and soccer in the summertime. So those were like my two back boards, but I love to cross country and track field, like I said on the next flight football, like I tried to do whatever I could. Because it was just like I enjoyed playing volleyball with the only sport I really mentioned, but it thoroughly enjoyed my time playing volleyball. So yeah, it's always kind of just been, if you like, that we can get better at it. But if you didn't like it, there's like, okay, that's fine, move on.

[10:34] VL: That's awesome. So even at a young age you're already doing so many different kinds of movements so that's, that's really cool. And you mentioned how you're creating these pathways for young athletes. Can you share a little bit more about how you're doing that or what you're doing for that?

KN: Yeah, so my sister is nine years old, Tamika, and she is my version of Michael Jordan because I saw her playing from a really young age and I wanted to be just like her. And at the time when she went to college, she went on a full ride scholarship to the University of Oregon in the States. And it wasn't popular to come from Canada and get a scholarship to play in the NCAA. So as we continue to grow up and I got older, I want to follow in her footsteps and do the same thing. And it was getting a little bit more popular, but people still didn't really know much about Canadian basketball players. And so now I think if you look at the NCAA tournament, and you look at the number of women that we have in the NCAA Tournament out of Canada, number of men as well, it's astonishing and people are really now looking to Canada to see if they can find some kind of hidden gems. They consider us basically. And so what I've done is I've created an AAU program, which is the only program that goes out of Canada for girls into the AAU system in the States. In the summertime and they play in what's called the Nike by VFL League, which is one of the top picks there so Kindersley is created to allow them to find and have opportunities to play in front of all of these college coaches on the highest level against the best US players and then hopefully get scholarships and you know, have their opportunity to play in the NCAA tournament or when national championships or conference championships. We try to build up those opportunities for young women. And when I was in high school it wasn't popular to stay here in Canada. You're supposed to go to the States to a prep school and that's how you get seen to go to the best colleges. And my dad sat me down one day and was like if you're good enough, they'll find you. That's just how it's going to have to work. And so we ended up staying at St. Thomas More here in Hamilton and ended up at the best college that you could have gone to for women's basketball. So I tried to just make sure that my pathway is visible for these young women so that they can see you can do what I did. And you can probably do it better. You can probably have even more to it now as we continue to grow our game to then get to, you know, the WNBA or wherever it is that you want to play in the NCAA. So we tried to just make sure that all young women know that it's it's a possibility. I put my pants on the same way they do.

[13:02] VL: That is so incredible. And I think that's a huge part of like what we were. What I was mentioning at the very beginning was going for your dreams and taking those leaps is just knowing that someone has done this before you it's like oh crap, what's that thing that everyone talks about? Like a four minute mile. It's all right. Where they said it was impossible to I'm gonna say it wrong. They said it was impossible to run a certain amount of meters in a certain amount of time and then someone broke that record. And once they knew that that person broke that record So many people were just breaking the record over and over and over again, even though for decades people couldn't run that fast or run. run that fast. so I love that you're doing that and that's really incredible, especially for these young athletes and really for anyone who wants to strive for something better or do something bigger, with the weeds and they have so that's so amazing. Congratulations.

KN: Very excited. The kids are so cute.

VL: I also just love that you were a little timbit!

KN: It was really the best pictures and videos from it. it's back in the day when people used to have a camcorder. So we have little old camcorder videos and we put it in the VCR. We go to Grandma's, it's great.

VL: Oh my god, I love it. I've also wanted three kids and used to do on road trips to the States. That's where my cousins live. But we didn't have iPads and headphones and cool things like that. We had like the Discman and if we didn't have the right batteries ready for it. Then we were Sol on their seven hour road trip.

KN: We have the audio splitter so that we could put two pairs of phones in so we could watch the little fold up DVD player that was our big I was a big change for a while there.

VL: I love that. That's so cool. We had something similar to, yeah, I just, I gotta say like, with all of the things you do, and how are you leveling each time, like you're not just doing it because you're doing it because you love it but then you're going after more and bigger and better. How is it that you are able to accomplish all of these goals like what? How does this work in your brain?

KN: It's funny my brains are really funny place to live. It's very nice to me some foods. It's not very nice to me other days and you know, I think a lot of it comes from I forget sometimes to sit down and write out everything that I've been able to accomplish at the age of 26 because it's been a lot and I've been really grateful for it. But sometimes I think it moves so fast in the way that women's basketball works. You go from college two weeks later you get drafted to the WNBA then you playing your WNBA season. Then at the time I was going overseas so I'd have a week at home, but I go overseas, so everything happens so fast that you actually forget to sit down and think about what happened to that last season. And so I try to remind myself that it is a blessing and sometimes also a curse that I never think that I've done it. but I'm never satisfied with where I am. so if I went to championships at UConn, which was great. I loved that, but I lost the last two and that bothers me still.

I went Panem gold medal but we weren't able to finish at the World Championships and won a medal this year. And so every time I accomplish something and you know that finish at the World Championships was historic. We haven't done that in 70 years. I think it was still okay, but there's more like there's more to be. I had a goal to get to the Olympics at one time. I've never been to the Olympics twice. And I know my goal has changed to try to come home with a medal. And so I think a lot about where I am, it's just from having little goals along the way and then once I reach those goals, I kind of reevaluate them and change them into something else. That's a little bit bigger than when I got a sports Psych. She's fantastic. And I tend to when I first started working with her she was like you are an all or nothing kind of person. You're either like I'm up here or way down here. And I'm always preparing for the worst case scenario. And so I think the biggest thing that happened when I tore my ACL and I was not allowed to play basketball for 11 months was I turned into a single small goal every single day. So the first eight weeks of rehab on ACLs are literally sitting in your chair and moving your leg out straight and pulling it back in for like eight weeks. You don't do anything else or a person who moves as much as I do. That drove me sick. And so I started to think about what am I gonna do that day. I could get three sets of that. That's great. If my goal was to get one calf raise, if I could get two conferences. That's great. If I could get out of bed by myself, I could walk without my crush, right.

So each day I journaled down what my win was on that day. and that helped me with my smaller goals.

And so I think that's probably part of the reason is that creating these goals but then being able to transform those into why, I just don't always feel satisfied with where I am, but it's helping me get there. And it's helped me get to more and achieve more. At the same time, sometimes you have to sit down to do this and be proud of it. When your confidence. I go back to my journals and I look at the things that I do, like I'm proud of this place.

[18:24] VL: Wow, that is so incredible. I like that you're doing that because it sounds like especially in this industry and I think even just with people in our society, it's Go-Go-Go do-do-do- do not stop, just keep moving. And it's always like, what's next? What's boring, but if you don't take that time to reflect, you don't need that time to pause. And what's the point? Like, do you even know what you're striving for anymore? So, that's really powerful to just say, Okay, this is what I did today. Can I have it? That tiny bit more of that? One extra rep. And then also to have those wins because, yeah, like, life is hard sometimes. And there are moments where you're going to struggle if your competence is going to be low, or your self esteem or whatever it is, and you can look back and be like, Wait a second. I am capable of big things and that I've imagined. I imagine there's another huge motivating motivator for you to keep going and strive for more.

Because I can't tell you how many stories I've heard of athletes getting injured and then it's like they lose everything in their life because like their life is their movement is their practice. And then all of a sudden, it's like it takes a toll. But for you to move through that and the way that you've done is really incredible, because you went from 100 to zero that way.

KN: I was like yeah, no, no, we're not doing anything now. And the worst part about ACLs before you go into surgery, you feel normal, like I was on the bike, and I was I was perfectly fine and they kind of keep you out of surgery for a couple of weeks to build up your strength before you go in. So I was lifting right in the back doing the cardio, and then you get hit by the surgery like I didn't sit there for like weeks.

VL: So one of the things that I talked about just before we hit record was that someone who is very competitive, but you do it in such a healthy way. you share a little bit about how this works with you. How do you stay in that mindset, being as competitive as you are?

KN: I've had to find the healthy part of it.

I grew up with two siblings. My sister, like I said, is nine years old and my brother's only a year older. So pretty much everything I did growing up was like a competition. And I come from a family of athletes. Everybody plays sports. And so it's like, I don't want to do the dishes today. I don't want to be like I don't either. So we go outside and play 21 Whoever loses to do the dishes. That's kind of just like how we always work. It was always like a competitive nature growing up. And so I've had to learn that like you don't to compete in everything in life. But there's also ways to do it. Like for instance, the other day I was walking in the mall, and this lady was walking beside me before she looked at me and she was like, are we racing and I was like, no, but if we were racing, I would have loved you at my desk by now. And she was like, I would have thought you would. I just kept walking. That was it. That was our whole conversation. And so I probably was raising her but didn't want to tell her to her face that I didn't win, but it was totally fine. And so I found that there's got to be different ways that I can compete. So a lot of the times I find that I'm actually just competing with myself, which is good to a certain extent. And then I can promise you that there will be nobody in this world who has bigger critiques about my performances or my games or if I was productive today or not if it was an off day than I do. I might be own worst critic. But I've also learned to be my own biggest fan at the same time. So I find that there's ways like hustles love puzzles. I open the 1000 piece puzzle that I believe will be done within a week. I will race myself; nobody else will be doing the puzzle, but I will race myself to finish that thing as fast as I can. And I will sit there for hours and then just go and it's great because it actually takes me out of anything else that's going on in the world because I'm so focused on that puzzle. I find it's pretty similar to books. I'm big into books. I have a goal every single year on how many that I want to read for the year. So my goal this year is 30 because I got 24 last year. And so I've already read for not even through January yet, but I'm just like I'm moving right now. Am I behind on all my Netflix shows? Absolutely. Moving through the book. So I'm gonna reach this goal. That's kind of how I feel about it. So I find that it's just if I can compete with myself or I'm gonna compete with my dog like we're on a walk and I want to beat her to somewhere that I can do that. And that's me getting that feeling because I'm really scared of finishing my career and not being able to find that same level of competition or trying to find that same level of I just love competition. And I have a really healthy way of expressing it right now through playing to go into practice. And when I go to train by myself or with my trainer, I make him play against me one on one, or he'll make me do a drill that's like, you have to make five in a row. So it's me against me or me against the rim basically. So basically me against me, and finding ways to win.

And now I'm trying to take out a sport and win in life. So can I create this program? What's the best top program for these women to have the best opportunities possible? How do we make it as high level as possible? Anything that I do, like TSN broadcasting as well. It's like I'm going to sit down and I'm going to study film and I'm going to practice my stuff here in the mirror the same way that I would do before I started entering a game and preparing in that sense and so can I be the best broadcaster that I can possibly be? Not that I'm competing with the arcade beside me, but I'm competing against myself every single day. and learning from the pros who have been there for longer than I have.

And so it's just about finding different wins in life every single day. if I made my bed, that's a win by opening my windows. That's a win for me. If I checked one thing off my to do list as a winner and it could be tie your shoe, just so that I can see that something is completed today, that's how I kind of healthy release some of that competitive energy that I constantly have.

[24:34] VL: Yeah. Wow, you yeah you're very inspiring. I love this. And I especially love what you said about how you can be your biggest critic but you can also be your biggest fan.

And I'm wondering like not only what do you say to yourself but what do you say to those young athletes who are going to experience and experience that same level of mindset where they're getting hard they're hard on themselves or getting down on themselves. But then how do you help them flip that script to know you are you're, you're also your superfan. How do you do that?

KN: Well, I'm continuing to work on different ways for me to be able to have a lot of positive self talk because I have had a lot of times in my life where I haven't been very kind to myself or I don't think that my performances are up to living up to my potential and so one of the things I'm trying to really work on is figuring out what triggers those negative thought processes and where does that come from? Someone I spoke to the other day, she mentioned to me, I sports. She's like, What is the worst thing that anybody could possibly say to you think about that. Write it down. Really flush it. out as to why you would feel like that's the worst possible thing you could see. And then remember that that's kind of like where you go. So when I start to have mental or internal thoughts on the court, I typically start to go to she's overhyped, or it's it's a fluke that she was ever an all star, but that's where my mind starts to go. And I can stop myself and remember that that's where I'm going. I can kind of bring myself back out into the here and now in the present. And so I find that a lot of times it's being able to identify when you're going to kind of start rolling downhill because everybody's going to go at some point. It's hard. To bring yourself back and then focus on being present. It's so hard nowadays. And I think it's because there's just so much going on around us. We've got our cell phones in our pockets, which are basically our portal to the entire world and everything that's going on there as well. And then we have social media. I like anybody else getting stuck in comparison, type of vibe as you're scrolling through other people's lives. As an athlete, I think that's something that's really difficult for young athletes. So I try to bring that up to them very often, and remind them that we only put our best foot forward on social media, and you're gonna see somebody with a similar sport as you have been posting their highlights. They're going to show you the five baskets they made and I'm going to show you the 10 baskets they missed. It's always going to be best. And so I try to remind myself of that as well that I'm not gonna post a picture of myself crying because I have a very ugly crier, but I will post a selfie of me smiling and that's okay. And I understand that. but to remind myself that it's not my journey. It's very different from everybody else's journey. there might be some similarities that I can ask questions about that I can learn from, But ultimately, the decisions I make are going to be very different from those of anybody else's. And so when I start to deal with some negative self-talk, I have to remind myself of the good things.

The biggest thing that I've learned with a little bit of meditation as well, has been thoughts like the clouds. So sometimes I have to remind myself like it's impermanent. This is temporary. I'm gonna forget that I'm thinking this way, probably by tomorrow. And so if I start to have a thought that's really negative and like this so they're not real, I made it up in my head, or I'm assuming somebody's thinking.

And remember that it is going to pass, that at some point, your clouds are going to be gone.

So I tried to remember that the one piece of ice has operated on athletes right now it's it's not that serious. like growing up. I felt like everything was so serious. Don't do this. Don't post these things on Instagram. Don't like, like sometimes get a laugh at yourself. Like sometimes. If my friend wants to post a funny video of me falling down the stairs. I think it was embarrassing in high school and now I'm like, it's funny. like, you just gotta laugh at yourself sometimes and allow yourself to just enjoy the fact that this life is short, but like, funny things happen to you. Things that are either embarrassing to you. they're probably really like my nephews are teaching me. They think that I will be embarrassed if they just laugh at me and I'm like, That's great. Thank you.

[28:40] VL: That's so great. I think it's, you've said so many things and touched on so much great advice. And I feel like what's really cool about how you do all this is it sounds like there's so much preparation involved for when you're in those tough times. So it's not like you're learning meditation when you're in the thick of the clouds so to speak. But you have these tools ready for when you need that water that's on the quarter, but it's a lot of preparing and then again, you're taking your experience and then you're saying okay, how did I learn from this today and how can I grow from Wednesday? and you really are this role model this inspiration this mirror for a lot of people to say. Oh, yeah, I because I mean every time A lot of the things are saying I'm seeing a lot of myself in you and thinking like I've been there before I've done that before in my own way, obviously, but so easy to forget that our thoughts are just like the clouds, and in the moment where you're having that really tough moment, and someone says, Remember your thoughts are the clouds are like, shut up – It's not what I want to hear right now, or like you said you're, you're bearish at the moment but then looking back on it, you're like, No, that's hilarious. It's all good, and being able to brush those things off, because, yeah, I mean, how often do we take ourselves so seriously and then we forget to enjoy what we're doing and who we were with and that experience itself. So, yeah, really, really great advice and I feel like so, so easy to forget and yet so easy to practice as well so that's perfect. Thank you.

I do have one more question, and it kind of goes back to, I guess a little bit of everything that we're saying, in a sense of how this all ties together and how this makes you you. What would you say to someone who is just starting out who sees you? And it's like, you know, heart eye emoji, I need to do that. What's the first step or what's the first thing that they can do?

And maybe it ties back into something that we already talked about, but yeah, that's my question.

KN: Yeah, I mean, first thing I would say is it didn't happen overnight. Like this place I am today is not my perfect ideal world. So I'm not even sure that actually exists, but it's as perfect as it can be right now. And it took a long time and it took a lot of ups and downs to get there. And to figure out how to kind of control what I could control. Like, that's my, you start with where you can control right? So if you want to be in a place where you're more organized, you have your movement, and it's something that you find that drives you or you're looking for something that drives you. Think about something that you can do that is very within your control. So if it's a movement thing, obviously, there's a lot of different ways to move. Right. And it can be literally anything, there's apps and YouTube makes it extremely easy nowadays to find little classes that you can do might just be a stretch anything you go outside for a walk, you walk around your block for the first day. It's, you can control when you do that you can control how long you do it for. You don't have to be breathless and feel like you did a whole three hour workout. But any piece of movement started five minutes to 10 minutes and 20 minutes and increase it as you go and it'll become something that's more routine based for you. I think that's probably the number one place to start. And understanding that every day is not going to be perfect. There are days when I feel like my body is really broken down and I probably should have worked out and I will push through it. And then there are days when my body gets really broken down and I say to myself, you need to sit you need to fix it you need to let it heal for a minute, or it's going to bite you in the butt later down the road. And so, being patient with yourself is another piece of that. Being patient with the journey, which is like I said going to look different from anybody else's journey in the world is really important. And I am the least patient person in the world. Something I can admit about myself, I know my flaws. I want everything to be I want to reap the benefits of what I celebrate away because I work my tail off to get there. And if it doesn't happen right away, then I get frustrated or I just go back and I work harder. I just keep grinding and grinding and grinding. And the best thing I learned was you work smarter, not harder. So if you're gonna go and you need to feel like it's gonna burn you out. You're doing too much. You do just enough to make sure that you get your dopamine fix or you make sure that you feel good about what you did. So for example, we usually do basketball workouts. I'll do 20 minutes before I go in there. I shoot as many shots as I can. Or I make devotees first. I hit 150 attendance and I did my job. If I don't and I'm there for 20 minutes I'm out. I started my work as smart as possible. As opposed to grinding it out. I got to live in Australia for two years. They very much go with the flow kind of people. And they also kind of just end their day, like three, four or five o'clock. Everybody leaves work set for work in a restaurant and they go home. They spend time with their families. They don't grind it out from supposed to be nine to five to midnight. What we do here in North America sometimes, and I think that's really important. Being able to decipher, and sit down and be patient with yourself and the people around you. So find a group of people or your family members or just teammates or friends that are worth it that are worth your time and your energy and stick with them. because at some point in this entire journey you lean so heavy My whole ACI leads so heavy on everybody that is really in my close tight knit circle to pick me up and be solid for me when I couldn't be solid for myself.

VL: Yeah, WOW. The patience is huge because I think going back to the highlights, highlight reels that people post on Instagram on social media, what we see that we need to get somewhere tomorrow or right now. And knowing that the journey isn't overnight, just like you said, but being able to enjoy your time along the way to enjoy your company.

Knowing that the company you keep is really part of your success and your joy through life. So that's great. You're very wise for 26 Do people tell you that all the time?

KN: It's weird I do get that a lot. My producer was like, you're like a 45 year old body

VL: Haha you’re like I'm gonna take that as a compliment. Thank you.

KN: Totally fine. It's good. It's working. They're like, we can't compare it. 25 year old kids to my sorry, I didn't mean to but I didn't mean to but that. That's so funny.

VL: Where can we find you, follow you, and support all the amazing things you do?

Instagram @kianurse www.instagram.com/kianurse

Twitter @KayNurse11 https://twitter.com/KayNurse11

RAPID FIRE ROUND:

1. What are you currently reading? OR Favourite book?

KN: Currently Reading: Colleen Hoover - Layla

Favourite(s): Colleen Hoover - Verity + Taylor Jenkins Reid - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

2. What does “empowerment” mean to you?

KN: Wow. I thought this was a rapid fire? Empowerment, I would say, means feeling like you have the power to do whatever it is that you want to put your mind to. And I think sometimes we get a little confused with thinking empowerment is that somebody else has to empower us to do something, or an organization has to empower us. I think it's empowering ourselves and empowering the ones that are around us. The people that we can relate to the most because we see them the most or we have conversations with them. being able to show that there is a pathway when that pathway seems like it's covered by a lot of trees and rocks. It's as clear as can be, you just have to keep searching.

3. What is your longest standing habit?

KN: Do you know, am I being honest with you? I think I've read my first thought no, and it was my first class that I failed and I was really scared.

Do you know why am I being honest with you? I think I've read my first thought no, and it was my first class that I fail and I was

4. What are you currently working toward?

KN: I am currently working toward getting back on to the basketball court through my ACL playing in my first ever WNBA game. What will be two years by the time the season starts year and a half. And we're working towards the 2024 Paris of the national team. So we went towards that as well.

VL: So awesome. I'm very excited for you. Thank you again for being on the podcast. It is an absolute pleasure to have you here and I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge how you're helping women and honestly just inspiring everyone who's in contact with thanks very much.

KN: No thank you, I’m glad you asked!

Podcast Host

Valerie LaVigne

Valerie is the creator and founder of Valerie LaVigne Life and the Women's Empowerment Show. She helps busy and empowered women create healthy habits so that they can become the best version of themselves and transform their lives. Learn more about Valerie here!