I’ve always liked looking at faces, reading about people’s lives. There is so much to learn. I love learning. REAL learning, not the annoying stuff everyone has to get through FIRST, especially nowadays. You want to see a person’s real face. You want to find out where they come from, learn why they think or act the way they do…
I picked up Unstoppable – My Life So Far by Maria Sharapova because I was looking for how she dealt with her doping charges. Reformed cheater in a highly competitive sport where “everyone” does that? Fake-reformed, not-really-sorry cheater? It was nothing like that. Instead there was so, so much more…
pic from books.google.com
“…the need to win …less about trophies than about beating other girls.”
“I was not friends with the other girls… They could have been the nicest girls in the world, and I wouldn’t even have known it, I chose not to know.. I have no interest in making friends on my battlefield. If we are friends, I give up a weapon…”
She was then 6-8 years old.
First time I read about her childhood, I thought Wow Little Alpha Female. The more I read it however, the more I think 1) “defence mechanism”. She had an insecure childhood, and who can blame her? She describes arriving in the States (Florida, because they had heard about the Williams sisters) from Sochi, Russia, one night with her father who spoke no English, after wrangling a visa over. She was separated from her mother, who had initially provided emotional support. The car and team coach never show, her father proceeds to try and find their way, with just USD 700 in a roll in his pocket. They are initially told at the first place they find, with the help of a random Polish couple whose identity they never learn but who stay with them and act as translators, that to even use the courts so someone can see 6yr old Sharapova show her skills costs USD 1000. That, from some receptionist on a power trip. (Years later, Maria Sharapova, world-renowned tennis player later, ever thought what that looks like? 🙂 )
Sharapova describes one of her former coaches deliberately making her and her dad insecure so they would be more… controllable. He hired her dad and kept his passport. Required payments especially at times when he knew they were particularly broke. Then when they couldn’t pay came the binding, predatory contracts written in soaring legalese – served to the Russian immigrants who still struggled with rudimentary English.
“What was I? Eight, nine years old? I had been playing well and it had attracted a vulture.”
We wonder why bullying exists among kids, and that – the wondering – is almost laughable, because adults do it all the time to get what they want. How could they possibly expect kids not to be that way if they are? Kids can smell hypocrisy a mile away. It’s why we eat our candy and other junk while they’re in school 😀 (Fine, I’m kidding, ok? We don’t eat candy, we only eat vegetables)
For real though, I do not like people who breed insecurities in order to control others. It means that’s the tool they themselves understand. I don’t want to know that! (Yup, still an idealist.* More, far below.) Insecurity is the ugliest thing. It brings out the worst in otherwise good human beings. It’s a cancer, a parasite on people’s abilities, on how much they can really achieve. Performance enhancement books would tell you not to breed insecurity. Or well, make sure a child is secure. Because we are hard wired to first of all survive (otherwise we’d just all be extinct).
A brain and body with survival instincts kicked in is a brain and body not focussed on learning other stuff because learning only comes after the immediate threat to survival is sorted. (That’s not me, that was totally from some book written by an Actual Qualified Person <sheepish> that I read a long, long time ago, would take more work to find it and I have to finish this post that’s been sitting in my drafts folder for weeks and weeks quickly and go do real work, so…) And you’d be surprised at some of the things that really trigger “survival instincts,” it’s not all intuitive…
Anyway, back to Sharapova – she had a talent, had come all this way to one of the Tennis Capitals with nothing else, those girls living with her in the dorm talked and laughed at her, in a language she barely understood, went through her stuff… and she’s now supposed to let them win?
“I was younger than the other girls (at the academy)… and they punished me for it…”
And so she beat them on the court. What else would she do? Now go back up and look at her first quote about not making friends because she wanted to beat them. Looks different, no?
“These were rich kids… spoiled and sent down to live out a parental dream... I was… one of only a few on scholarship… we were the advertisement, we attracted the deluded wannabe parents.”
Now lemme step into the parent shoes: If I sent my fairly talented child to an exclusive academy to train and well, develop her game, play a few tournaments… I don’t want my kid picked apart by the hungry Russian prodigy with the huge chip on her shoulder and bone to pick (I’m just saying).
“…deluded wannabe parents,” Sharapova writes. She probably took extra pleasure in demolishing their kids. Of course she would. The parents probably took extra pleasure kicking her and her dad out. Of course they would.
“Tennis is a game populated by fierce parents…”
“…dozens and dozens of such girls (like herself), each with a father who considered his daughter destined to be the best in the world…”
2) be that as it may, for all her unapologetic court intimidations, she is not unbeatable. Yes she hates losing, but it wasn’t like she never lost. You’d think someone whose former coach says “don’t look Maria in the eyes before, after or during the match” is invincible, but she’s not.
Sharapova describes how Serena Williams beats her (and I very much respect her honesty*) Looks at her like she’s a bug – Do Your Worst. NOT Intimidated – kind of thing. (So if you ever came up with a girl who tries that, you undo them by not giving it to them.) A quick search of Serena Williams will give you her top quotes:
“Tennis just a game..”
“I’m really exciting. I smile a lot, I win a lot…..”
This is how Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova stack up (someone correct me, I think Sharapova is probably lower down than she would otherwise be, because of her 15 month exile due to doping**):
from wikipedia
Sharapova talks about “game face,” serious intimidation across the court. Now, what I know about tennis could fit on a pinhead, but I competed in taekwondo (free sparring) up to State level in my teens (I’ve won my weight category at State level before. I’ve also exploited qualified for medical exemption from PE – I was not blessed with naturally good health.)
So anyway where I was training, I mostly only ever had boys to spar with. And used to be any early attempts at “game face” didn’t work on my male team mates. As in, you try to get all “game face” and glare at them and what-not and I’m not sure how much even registers, they kinda just go H-uh (or maybe D-uh 😀 early affirmation re Men from Mars and Women from Venus haha). Then they’d keep pummelling, because God forbid they ever lose to a – yuck – girl in front of their friends. Fear of getting beat by “a – yuck – girl” in front of their friends overrides “game face” by any girl.
Jeff Kinney had the right of it at how much more scary this must be for the boys (pic from diary-of-a-wimpy-kid-wikia.com)
So my former all-boys team taught me that “game face” only works when the other person speaks the same language. And when you try to “game face” someone and it doesn’t work, it can backfire on you –
Sharapova says something like that about Serena Williams. Williams undoes her because unlike other girls, Williams isn’t intimidated. “Tennis just a game.” Not the same language. And it undoes Sharapova herself. Think also, that growing up a hungry, underprivileged Russian prodigy, she’s still honest enough to write all this. She tells you why her own chief strategy doesn’t work on her own chief rival. And that makes me also believe what she says about the doping charge**.
The charge nonetheless cost her a lot in her otherwise notably long-lived professional career. And as she was not a “friend” in the game, so too the tennis community was largely unsympathetic and unsupportive. Serena Williams yet commended Sharapova on her honesty, and it’s something I really respect as well. Two warrior women, two gladiators on the court. I might actually start watching tennis after this 😀
“At a few key moments, I have been spotted and championed by powerful women who came before me. They did not do it for reward. …anonymously… just giving a leg up to a girl who could play…”
“Salt and sugar.. bad luck… good luck. Every now and then some greed put us up against it… more often than not it was some person who, for no other reason than just because, saved us…”
I’ve mentioned I insist on being idealistic – I believe that everyone has a choice and an ability to either be mean, cruel, dishonest….. or the opposite. I mean. Everyone. You cannot help if someone else takes a “cheap shot”. But it’s entirely your choice not to allow it to change you. Those “powerful women” Sharapova describes as helping her – d’you think they never had a bad day/ week/ month/ year/ countless cheap shots taken at them? And I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of these amazing kinds of people too – surely their impact on our own choices, on who we choose to be, should outweigh that of the people we don’t respect:
3 years into my marriage, recovering from what Bloomberg reporters once dubbed World’s Largest – the ICBC IPO-fueled equity derivatives run of 2006/07 – as the senior derivatives dealer on the wealth management desk, I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant. I was also in the middle of two job interviews (this is quite normal, head hunters call “everyone,” “all the time”.)
Despite management’s best efforts in response to the unprecedented massive expansion in deal volume, getting in enough additional staff would likely take several more months of negotiations, contracts, waiting out the new staff’s gardening leave periods. The worst of the initial crush was over, and our exhausted team was trying to regroup, but I had lost a significant amount of weight off my 5ft 6in frame, weighing in around 45kg. Being newly pregnant ruled out the possibility I could stay at my current place if I wanted a decent chance at keeping the pregnancy. That left the other 2 prospective employers – a European securities house whose ads you’ve probably seen on CNBC and in finance magazines, and a British commercial bank with a strong retail presence in Hong Kong, looking to set up a private bank investment product desk.
This is what I told them:
“I’ve never tested pregnant before. I’m only about 5 weeks along and may not even still be pregnant in a few months. But if the pregnancy is healthy I would be having a baby before the year is out.”
I deliberately disclosed this before reaching the “offer” stage – they cannot easily rescind an offer they’ve made if I then tell them I’m pregnant. Did I expect to be turned down? Quite. But I couldn’t imagine working someplace without knowing if they would still have taken me pregnant, and without them knowing that I wouldn’t stuff them with a new employee who would be off for 2.5 months so soon after she was hired.
What happened next is why I wanted to tell the story initially on Women’s Day, what with HN having lotsa little girl friends who adore their baby siblings.. She’s asked for one and I’ve said no, she may instead have a hamster. Which of course means she wants to grow her own baby when she grows up..
European securities house’s response:
Head dealer: “Hah! I was over 6 weeks when I even found out! They called me very pregnant.” (This is a “nerd joke” because you either are or aren’t pregnant, yet we still insist on saying “how pregnant are you?” in conversations. Her son at the time was about 6; we kept loosely in touch for awhile, and if you wonder why I didn’t end up there, it’s simple – my experience was in derivatives, not vanilla equity, which is their strong suit and what they were considering me for. I simply couldn’t ask for as much money. I know it’s quite obvious, but I said it anyway – “I wouldn’t be worth as much to you, you can’t make me a better offer than the derivatives house.” 🙂 )
Commercial bank’s response:
(Then) Retail and Private Banking Product Head: “Oh. Ok, thanks for letting me know.” <rings off>
Several days later, bank HR calls. “(Interviewing Boss) told me you’re pregnant. When’s your due date?” I have to go annoy my gynea to guesstimate the due date on a 5+ weeks pregnancy. 10 years later, I would bring her a picture of HN and JD on the floor, sharing a laugh. She is a dog lover who has been known to adopt her patients’ Cocker Spaniels alongside rescue mutts.
When I go in again, bank HR would explain they had one of the best maternity packages around, but for me to qualify, I had to sign on quickly because I was already pregnant – I had to work for them 6 months beyond probation, something like that. I still had my own gardening leave to serve before starting with them. My immediate boss, the one who rang off quickly when I told her I was pregnant, was hopping off the line to tell HR to check. She then informed her boss, travelling for business at the time. They signed me on before I met the big boss, who would not be back in time for me to still claim full maternity benefits if I signed only after meeting her. My immediate boss bore the risk of taking flak if I should turn out to be a lousy hire, what with her boss not having met me yet. That’s why I would have taken a bullet for her.
That boss, no longer living in HK, is a mum of 2 girls – she left the market and a very aggressive investment bank for 4 years to be with her girls, returning to eventually head retail and private banking products when we met. One daughter went to Wharton, while the other is in medical school.
I served faithfully and with great pleasure under her, until new acquisitions and market-necessitated restructuring changed my reporting line away from her and ultimately a total of 5 times in 3 years. (Sigh, you know what they say – some are born bosses, some become bosses, and some have bosses thrust upon them 😀 )
As for my 5+ weeks unexpected pregnancy?
Rockstar was born at 39 weeks.
**Re Sharapova’s doping charge, she says 1) a supplement she had taken long term (commonly prescribed for coronary artery disease – she kept taking it after it was first prescribed to her in 2006 for abnormal EKGs) made the list of banned substances just 2 months prior, and 2) it goes by a different name in Eastern Europe where it is apparently much more commonly taken; her original sentence was reduced due to “no significant fault”.
