You Don't Build a Career from the Sidelines (Malika Andrews & Taylor Rooks) | Aspire With Emma Grede – Transcript

00:00I am not going to be a man. And most importantly, a man is never going to be me. Taylor Rooks is the host of NBA on Prime and Thursday Night Football. Malikica Andrews is an Emmy-winning journalist and a TV host for ESPN. Between them, they're speaking to millions of people every week and interviewing the most famous athletes in the world in an industry that was built for men. Ambitious people are competitive, but competition doesn't

00:25mean that you are going against each other. Whenever I say I'm going to do something, I do something much bigger. >> Nobody hands you a career like this. So, what does it take to reach this level and earn the trust to stay there? What's the work of the work?

00:39Knowing that what I want is the real story. It's not that I am looking to make a headline. Trust is a daily deposit. When a person needs to be pushed, it takes someone with trust sitting across from you to do it. But the more visible you become, the more people have an opinion. And there's a lot to take away from how they've learned to know their value without letting everyone else define it for them.

01:01>> Women need to negotiate from a place of knowing deeply your value and then work to be a bargain. You can act like someone else and half of the world won't like you and act like yourself and half the world won't like you, but the numbers are the same.

01:16>> How do you separate that useful feedback from what is just noise? Okay, guys, I need to just level with you and tell you a little something.

01:36Over 77% of people that watch this show aren't subscribed. And I need you to get on YouTube, click that little button. It's really quick, it's really easy, and it's so worth it. So, just do me that little favor and subscribe today.

01:50Malikica and Taylor, welcome to Aspire. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. So happy to be here. >> Honestly, I am so happy to have the pair of you here. I cannot tell you how much I've been looking forward to this specific episode because you ladies have built the most incredible careers for yourself in the space that you're in.

02:09It's amazing to have two women at this level doing exactly what you do. But also, you know what kills me is that people want to come and listen to exactly what you've got to say, and they gravitate towards your shows for as much of the information that you're giving, but also just to see you, too. And I think that we're all looking at you going, "How did you build these careers?

02:30What is it all about? What does it take? What does it feel like to sit in your seats?" And so I'm really excited to be able to have the two of you together today to really delve into what it takes to be in this highly competitive maledominated space where the two of you are shining like two beautiful lights that you are, but also just killing the game. And I also love that you even grab each other. We actually don't get to spend as much time together, I think, as people might assume

02:55because we we sort of work on opposite days. The days that Amazon has or opposite the days that ESPN has. We don't actually like get to see each other that you can thank me for this. >> Yeah. No, I'm so happy to be here with you. I think you are incredible, but being here with you is also great because I feel like we have had these parallel paths in a lot of ways. So, to be able to sit and speak with you, but really talk to you is a highlight of my year. So, you guys both have jobs that I think millions of

03:22people find completely enviable. And it does feel like you're living the dream to some extent, but I wonder if when you're in it, it actually feels that way. I would say it did not start feeling that way for me until pretty recently.

03:36>> Okay. When >> when I started hosting NBA on Prime. Yeah. >> I had a conversation with Jared who is one of my bosses and we were just talking about how important it is >> to look around and realize that what I'm doing right now is a destination job.

03:50>> Like for so much of my career, it has been like what is next? There is more to do. You are not doing enough. What's the next show? The next interview. And so you don't stop around when you're like on the mountain and look at the view. You're kind of like, well, there's another mountain over there.

04:05>> But now I see that like this is the thing that I have worked for for so long and the thing that I feel like I deserve. So >> I wasn't really even considering the fact that >> I've lived the dream until pretty recently.

04:18>> I completely empathize with that that feeling. Mhm. >> And also I think that ambitious people you're coded to go for the next and to look at what else there is. But at the same time, you have to remember that these are the things that at one point you could only imagine, right, that you were going to be able to do. And when you're looking at your mentors or people that you

04:44admire and then all of a sudden people you you get these emails from students asking you the question me like I'm I'm the person that is looking you're looking for the answers and and so I do think that that is a part of the journey but that's never >> I don't think that's what either of us set out with the thought of doing and it's also fragile right it's something requires daily care and so I think that when you sit and say well this is the

05:10dream and I'm content with that. That can negate the care. It is this balance of understanding that you are where you earned >> but acting out of this kind of survival mode that something can be taken away also feels like why I got to where I am.

05:28So it's hard for me to get out of the mindset that okay tomorrow >> this could all go to >> because I feel like considering that is why I stay on top of everything. And so you're having to balance exhaling and saying, "Okay, I did it." With, okay, this thought that you maybe weren't going to do it is what got you to even the exhale. I mean, I want to talk to you guys a lot about competition and contentment and how you actually feel given the roles you're in. But what's so

05:54nice about you two is that you've been able to watch one another come up. And I wonder what you think the other person does exceptionally well because it's sometimes so much easier to look at somebody else and go, "She's really excellent." But what do you see in one another? First and foremost, >> Taylor's an incredibly kind person. And not a not just nice, I mean deeply deeply kind.

06:22We're only a couple of years apart, but I knew who Taylor was sort of when I was coming out of college, and I saw her as someone who I wanted to emulate in a lot of ways. She's a fantastic interviewer.

06:38When I was a reporter covering the Milwaukee Bucks and living in Milwaukee, there was another beat writer that I became friendly with and had a deep respect for and he would sometimes write these stories that it was like, gosh, I wish I wrote that story. I wish I wrote that story, but I also have enough respect for you that I respect the job that you did here and man, you did it well. So, we had a shortand for these stories. We called them FU stories.

07:00Like, we would just walk in at the end of of a practice and be like, "By the way, FU, you got that story and it was awesome." And so I told Taylor about this when she started at Amazon and I said, "I think we're going to be swapping a lot of those a few stories now." She always lets me know.

07:13>> I always tell her in the best way. When you interviewed Jason Tatum after his first interview when he came back from his injury, >> that was an FU story. And so that's sort of our shorthand because to your point, ambitious people are competitive, but competition doesn't mean that you are going against each other. It just means that this is a ladder and we are going to continue to use each other as measuring sticks.

07:36>> And I love that. >> No, that is so kind. Thank you. I mean, I think Malikica does so many things. Well, the first thing that sticks out to me though is it is clear every single time that I watch you on TV how prepared you are.

07:49>> And there was a time, this is maybe 3 years ago, four years ago, but we were on the same flight to New York for the draft. >> Okay. and she was sitting maybe two rows ahead of me and from takeoff to landing she was in this binder >> highlighting >> on our computer talking to honestly what I believe was your producer maybe next to you >> and I mean she worked the entire way and

08:17I know that she was working on things that she probably already knew but she just wanted to be sure that she knew them for this big moment of the draft and whenever Malikica is on a program you know that you're going to be getting the right information um because I know how deeply you care about the job. So, your preparedness for sure sticks out to me. You're incredibly poised on air.

08:36You're never rattled. Um even if there's an earthquake, [clears throat] you are you are there and ready. And I don't know if I ever if I have ever told you this, but I also think you are a resolute person. And I think that so much of your career when you think about kind of the middle of ESPN in many ways you were kind of thrown into a fire and you had to figure out how you were going to do this thing and be this person. And I think sometimes we don't give ourselves enough credit for the things

09:04that we have been able to do and accomplish when our backs are somewhat against the wall. And you absolutely did that. And so I hope that when you consider just what you were thrown into in that moment in 2020 that you made it work and you excelled even more than maybe you thought that you were going to. So many things I admire about your path, but that's what sticks out.

09:24>> Oh, I love hearing this from you too. So Malikica, let's just talk about it because you actually started as a writer before moving into TV and now you do this beautiful bounce between live TV and one-toone interviews and I wonder what you actually had to learn at each stage of your career. I started as a a newspaper reporter and that's all I ever wanted to be. I wanted to work for the New York Times. I started out of school as an intern for the New York Times and

09:52I loved it. That's what I wanted to do my entire career. And so when the New York Times told me, you know, working for the New York Times is like a Supreme Court justice seat. It's a seat for life and you're not ready. I was so crushed and they were right. I needed some time and some experience. But what I think is important to know about me, when I was growing up, I had a really difficult time making sense of the world and my