Katrina Adams, OWN THE ARENA
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[0:35]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:38]Katrina Adams is the author of Own the Arena, getting ahead, making a difference, and succeeding as the only one.
[0:44]Katrina competed on the Women's Tennis Association tour,
[0:47]reaching the quarter-finals or better in doubles at the Grand Slam events.
[0:51]She also chaired the International Tennis Federation's Gender Equality and Tennis Committee.
[0:56]And we can Forbes name her one of the most powerful women in sports,
[0:59]and included her in Ebony's Power 100 list.
[1:02]She is Executive Director of the Harlem Junior Tennis and Education Program.
[1:06]She currently lives in Yonkers, New York.
[1:07]Welcome, Katrina.
[1:08]Thank you so much for coming on Momstone Have Time to Read books.
[1:11]Oh, thank you for having me, and moms do have time to read books.
[1:15]I agree, and they have to make time.
[1:17]Well, they can listen to this.
[1:18]Yes, yeah. They can listen to the books. There we go.
[1:20]That's true. They can listen.
[1:22]There are so many ways, as long as they hear about great books, like yours, right?
[1:25]Which is the point of this podcast.
[1:27]Your book, Only Arena, Getting Ahead, Making a Difference and Succeeding as the Only One.
[1:32]Katrina, I am like a huge, huge tennis fan,
[1:36]and my husband was in the professional tennis world for over 10 years.
[1:39]I hung on every word of this book.
[1:41]I was so excited to read it.
[1:43]So anyway, thank you for writing it.
[1:45]Tell listeners a little about the book and what inspired you to write it.
[1:49]Well, first of all, thank you for those kind words that really inspires me
[1:53]as the word starts to get out.
[1:55]And the book starts to get read preliminarily, anyways,
[1:58]before it drops on February 23rd.
[2:00]But you know, it was an interesting scenario for me
[2:03]that people for years felt that I should write a book,
[2:05]that I had something to tell that I was, you know,
[2:08]with all the glass ceilings that I'd broken,
[2:11]being the first of many in so many areas,
[2:13]particularly within the USTA is the first African-American,
[2:17]the fourth woman, the first former athlete, you know, a lot of first.
[2:21]And then the first to do two terms that I had something to share.
[2:25]And so it's not a biography or autobiography.
[2:28]It's more of, and it's not a memoir,
[2:31]but it really is using the life skills that I've learned through the sport of tennis
[2:36]from the beginning of my career at the 10th or age of six through today
[2:40]that prepared me for a lot of different scenarios and situations
[2:44]that I encountered throughout my career that's far.
[2:48]And part of it is in the subtitle, get it ahead,
[2:51]make it a difference and succeed in as the only one
[2:54]is either as the only woman or the only African-American
[2:57]or only person of color in either the room or at the table.
[3:02]And what that felt like and how did I overcome situations
[3:07]or really use it to my advantage to get ahead.
[3:10]Amazing.
[3:11]And I love how you talk about even from the beginning,
[3:14]how you discovered your love of tennis and how you were attracted
[3:17]to tennis balls because they were just so fuzzy and nice
[3:20]to face to feel and that you realized when you played tennis
[3:24]and your brothers were there and couldn't grasp skills as much
[3:27]that you were such a visual learner and anything your coach taught you,
[3:30]you could immediately do.
[3:31]I mean, that is such a gift.
[3:32]And then you just continued to pursue it.
[3:35]That's amazing.
[3:36]Yeah, and I'm very fortunate.
[3:37]I am a visual learner.
[3:38]I picked up tennis that way.
[3:40]Initially, I picked up golf later in life that way by watching others.
[3:44]And it's something that is innate.
[3:47]Not everyone has that talent, but I did use it to my advantage.
[3:50]But I think for anybody, those long as you have the passion
[3:54]to want to do something and succeed, you can.
[3:57]And those are the things that I kind of talk about throughout the book.
[4:00]I'm very keen on recognizing that I didn't get here alone
[4:05]that I stood on dozens and dozens of people's shoulders
[4:08]along the way to help me succeed.
[4:11]And it's important that you recognize those
[4:13]and get back.
[4:15]I'm about reaching back and pulling forward, particularly in working
[4:18]with youth of today and for tomorrow.
[4:21]But it's also recognizing those that came before you
[4:25]that gave me the opportunity because many of those people
[4:28]weren't in the right place at the right time.
[4:31]I might not have succeeded.
[4:32]You know, there are parts of the book where you're talking
[4:35]about your sense of quiet confidence and how people say you have
[4:39]like a strut to you in this inner confidence.
[4:42]And yet there are other parts where you're breaking out
[4:44]in hives because you're about to take on a new responsibility
[4:47]at the USTA or something like that.
[4:49]Tell me about projecting and even having the sense of inner
[4:53]confidence, but then how sometimes these things
[4:55]catch up with you.
[4:57]Yeah, I mean, you know, I always, I used to describe
[4:59]myself as very quiet shot because I am.
[5:02]I'm really am.
[5:03]And in the arena that I'm not familiar with,
[5:06]I like to kind of sit back, observe, feel out the crowd
[5:10]and the people before I actually thrust myself into that stage.
[5:15]When I became the president of the USTA, I recognized that
[5:19]I couldn't just sit back.
[5:21]I literally had to thrust myself forward and be the center
[5:25]of attention.
[5:26]But you know, I will say that yeah, I broke out into hives,
[5:30]given the biggest speech of my career at that time,
[5:34]just with the stress of wanting to give the right message
[5:38]to want to be received and to want to have the support
[5:42]needed following that speech.
[5:44]And so that was a learning learning process for me in that.
[5:49]But then yet I can be on center stage and given a speech
[5:52]to millions of people in a different light.
[5:55]And that confidence really comes from what the sport of tennis
[5:59]taught me, you know, all the training and all the hours
[6:02]put into it and being prepared.
[6:04]You know, as long as you're prepared, you can kind of
[6:06]of eliminate some of the stress words that come with it.
[6:09]It doesn't take away the nerves.
[6:10]But I always say if you're not nervous, then you're not,
[6:13]you're not living because you should have some butterflies
[6:17]before any big engagement because of shows that you care.
[6:21]If you don't have the nerve, you can just go out there.
[6:23]Then it's just all words.
[6:25]And it's not something that you really stand behind.
[6:28]And I try not to take the podium or the stage where the mic
[6:32]without having some passion or some real feelings behind
[6:36]what I'm saying.
[6:37]I feel like if I'm ever about to get up on a stage,
[6:40]I get this like complete like you were talking about the butterflies.
[6:43]It's such a physical thing.
[6:44]And I have to tell myself like not to let that affect me emotionally
[6:48]or intelligently.
[6:49]Do you know what I mean?
[6:50]Like, oh, I'm just going to watch as my body freaks out here.
[6:52]And it's going to go away as I talk.
[6:55]And I'm just going to like be aware of it.
[6:58]Not let it get me off course.
[7:00]Yeah, no, absolutely.
[7:01]And I mean, you know, some of the things I talk about
[7:03]in the book is really about owning your voice.
[7:06]You know, recognize that your voice matters.
[7:08]You know, owning your identity, male, female, black, white,
[7:11]Asian, Hispanic, LGBTQ, whatever.
[7:14]You know, own your identity.
[7:16]Don't be ashamed of it.
[7:17]Use it to your advantage to make sure that you can have diversity
[7:20]of thought in that in the room or in the meeting or at the table.
[7:25]You want to own the table, not just be a member at the table.
[7:29]You know, you don't want to just be invited.
[7:30]You want to come in prepared.
[7:32]And be able to own it someday and because you're prepared
[7:36]and understand what it takes and you're learning along the way.
[7:40]And there's so many other anecdotes that that are within the
[7:43]book that hopefully those of you that are buying it or will read it
[7:47]will, you know, really kind of take ownership of it and see
[7:50]yourself in those positions.
[7:52]So true.
[7:53]You had a whole passage.
[7:55]And I just want to read a sentence or two.
[7:57]You said that sense of owning the arena is an entitlement.
[8:00]It's not arrogance and it doesn't announce itself with
[8:02]brashness.
[8:03]It's more like a quiet confidence.
[8:05]I've had a silent yet unwavering belief in myself as a leader,
[8:08]but I'm well aware that it's not the way everyone sees me.
[8:11]Intentionally or not, people judge me differently is a woman
[8:14]of color.
[8:14]I must hold myself to a much higher standard than someone else
[8:17]in my position.
[8:18]Never allowing myself to relax or let my guard down while I'm in
[8:21]the public eye.
[8:22]I can sometimes present as guarded to prevent people from
[8:25]coming at me being micro aggressive or beyond.
[8:28]Unfortunately in America, most white people's rare
[8:30]exposure to black people is through news programs, not on a
[8:33]regular personal level.
[8:35]And then you continue on from there.
[8:36]Can you just talk a little about that passage?
[8:39]Yeah, no, it's true.
[8:40]I mean, you know, again, I think some of my sense mechanisms
[8:44]come from being a professional to athlete of being in
[8:48]bigger arenas and people always wanting to get to you for
[8:51]something, whether it's an autograph or just a conversation
[8:55]or what have you.
[8:56]And I was always wanting to stop for autographs all the time,
[9:00]but there's a time and place for everything.
[9:03]And so I think that someone described me as having such a
[9:06]stoic look or not being open or being approachable.
[9:12]And that's from the tennis competitive side.
[9:15]And then when you get into the business side, you have to
[9:18]soften up.
[9:19]But I think what the latter part of that is what we've
[9:22]witnessed in America this past year, particularly with
[9:26]the racial pandemic, it's important for people to realize
[9:29]that, you know, the unconscious biases are conscious, in my
[9:34]opinion.
[9:35]And if you are raised in a certain environment and you don't
[9:38]have experience of being around people of color, no matter
[9:42]what color that is, you only know what you've heard or read.
[9:46]And so therefore your defense mechanisms automatically go
[9:49]up if it's a negative experience that you've watched or read or
[9:53]heard.
[9:54]And so, you know, at the end of the day, we're all humans and
[9:58]where we bleed red.
[10:00]And we are trying to survive in this place called Earth.
[10:04]And then we need everybody support
[10:06]to be able to accomplish the goals that we have.
[10:09]And so those are the microaggressions
[10:10]that I was referring to.
[10:13]And you also do a really good job of explaining
[10:15]what has been in sort of popular parlance right now a lot,
[10:18]but you I think do a particularly good job of clarifying
[10:21]why it's so offensive when people say,
[10:23]when they see you, well, I don't see you as a black woman,
[10:26]I don't see color.
[10:27]And you do such a good job of just being like,
[10:29]well, then you're not saying me.
[10:31]Like that's part of me.
[10:32]You're ignoring a piece of who I am.
[10:34]It's like saying, I don't know.
[10:36]No, it's true.
[10:37]And I think there's a time that I would say for myself,
[10:40]I mean, I've been told this for many years.
[10:42]And I think there was a time that I actually
[10:44]thought that that was a positive,
[10:46]that you didn't see me as black.
[10:48]And then as you get older and you recognize,
[10:51]that's my strength, that's who I am.
[10:53]That's why I am.
[10:55]That's why I do the things that I do and how I do them.
[10:57]And it's OK for you to recognize me as black,
[10:59]because I'm recognizing you as white.
[11:01]It's the first thing I see when I walk in a room,
[11:05]it's not a negative.
[11:06]It's just to say it's how we identify one another.
[11:11]But if you are accepting my talent and my words and my wisdom,
[11:17]and you don't want to recognize that it's coming
[11:20]from a black woman, then that's a problem.
[11:22]And that's what I'm trying to relay in that.
[11:26]Give me the credit for that.
[11:28]I mean, we all want to be equal.
[11:30]But at the end of the day, this is America.
[11:33]And that's how we identify one another.
[11:35]But it's also globally, how we recognize one another
[11:40]with who, by the color of our skin.
[11:42]I mean, it's as if somebody walks into a room
[11:45]and someone's extremely short, like perhaps me at 5.2,
[11:49]or someone's really tall.
[11:50]It's like, well, yeah, I'm not going to hide it.
[11:54]Like it is what it is.
[11:55]But now, let's get that out of the way
[11:58]and just go on and have our conversation, even though I'm
[12:00]only 5.2 in your job.
[12:01]Absolutely.
[12:03]It's just like a part of the book.
[12:04]And I don't know if I put this in the book,
[12:06]but I always use an example of most people of color
[12:11]in the corporate world when we go to big conventions,
[12:15]or big meetings, et cetera.
[12:18]We may be 5 or 10 or 12 in certain groups.
[12:24]And we tend to gravitate to each other.
[12:26]The first people that you speak to,
[12:28]you connect eyes with one another and acknowledge them,
[12:31]and then you end up gravitating.
[12:33]Or if we are a group of small women in a predominantly male
[12:39]room, what do we do?
[12:40]We first reach out to the other women in a room.
[12:43]We recognize because we're familiar and we're comfortable.
[12:46]So I try to tell people to reverse the scenario.
[12:49]If you are a white person and you are in a minority
[12:54]in a majority black environment or Asian environment
[12:57]or Hispanic environment, what's the first thing you do?
[13:01]You recognize those that look like you first,
[13:04]and you gravitate to them.
[13:06]So if people can just kind of reverse the roles sometimes,
[13:11]they'll understand what it means to be in our shoes
[13:15]or in our skin, the majority of our lives.
[13:19]Particularly in corporate America.
[13:20]I'm on a board of a hospital and our board meetings are like,
[13:23]there must be like 65 people in the room.
[13:25]I don't know.
[13:26]I'm like, what is even the point of this?
[13:27]Why are we all sitting here?
[13:29]But anyway, they're only like maybe, I don't know, 5, 10 women.
[13:33]And just like you say, I'm always like, you know,
[13:35]a little extra like, hey down there.
[13:37]You know, you're I am in my skirt.
[13:39]Well, they're all in suits.
[13:40]Anyway, so I think it's a human nature to you know,
[13:45]when I connect with people and you start with the people.
[13:47]Anyway, okay, enough on that.
[13:49]Let's go back to tennis because, you know, as I said,
[13:51]I'm a huge tennis fan and I love how you even describe
[13:56]like step by step as if I'm watching the movie of you
[13:59]going through this whole Serena Williams Naomi drama
[14:03]that played out the US Open that I was actually there for
[14:05]and got to witness.
[14:06]And now that I can remember where I was
[14:09]and now I can picture you like scurrying around
[14:11]and in the president's box and running around
[14:13]and all the aftermath of that that you had to go through.
[14:16]Tell me a little bit about that and how you woke up
[14:19]trending and had to figure out how to handle it.
[14:22]Yeah, I mean, it was just a real moment.
[14:24]I mean, it was something that, you know,
[14:25]I could replay in my in my head over and over again
[14:29]because I think for me it was probably the first
[14:32]thick crisis, if you will, that I had to deal with
[14:35]in that role in that position.
[14:37]And here it was my final year as a president and chairman,
[14:40]you know, you want to go out with the bang.
[14:41]Well, I went out with a bang.
[14:43]You know, was having been a player.
[14:46]You know, it was also a situation of putting myself
[14:48]in both their shoes and trying to understand what they
[14:52]were feeling on the day at the end.
[14:54]That's so much during the match because everything is real
[14:57]time and you don't really know what's happening sometimes.
[15:00]And again, I missed the big part of that,
[15:03]which is what I explained in the book.
[15:05]But you know, it was a moment of just trying to bring calm
[15:09]and peace to everyone first of all in the stadium.
[15:12]And those that were watching on television.
[15:14]And as I think I said, you know,
[15:16]the people at home probably saw and heard more than those
[15:20]of us that were actually there in the stadium.
[15:23]And so I wanted to bring clarity to the situation,
[15:27]to my thoughts, to my words, to my intent.
[15:32]And, you know, and I'm at peace with that
[15:33]because at the end of the day that the people,
[15:36]the person that was affected the most in my opinion
[15:38]was Naomi Osaka, who I had a chance to speak to.
[15:42]And, you know, following the events and brings me peace.
[15:46]And I can move forward and talk about it freely.
[15:48]If there's nothing new that's in the book
[15:52]that people didn't know about except for my thoughts,
[15:55]perhaps that I feel that I articulated pretty well
[16:00]on the interviews following that evening.
[16:03]And, you know, but hopefully it kind of,
[16:06]like you said, brings you closer to the event.
[16:09]And maybe, you know, you can come to your own conclusions.
[16:13]And I know you do a lot now still helping younger tennis players
[16:17]sort of find their way and all that.
[16:18]Tell me about the nonprofits you're involved in.
[16:20]And also like, do you play tennis still yourself at all?
[16:24]Do you get out there?
[16:25]So the latter part is I'll be back on the court soon.
[16:28]I had a knee surgery this past November
[16:31]that I've been putting off for about six or seven years.
[16:34]So I've had nothing but time to do physical therapy now
[16:38]whereas before I never really had the time
[16:40]to shut down for two or three months to do so.
[16:43]So I will be back on the court, hopefully,
[16:45]a lot more in the near future than I have in recent times.
[16:49]But, and the first part was, yeah,
[16:51]I run the Harlem Juneteenth and Education Program,
[16:54]which is an NJTL chapter
[16:56]and National Junior Tennis and Learning Network chapter,
[16:59]which is overseen by the USDA Foundation
[17:02]as far as funding is concerned.
[17:03]But we were celebrating 50 years next year in 2022.
[17:08]I've been there 15 years and we really focus on
[17:10]our inner city kids more so in the Harlem community.
[17:13]We do work with other kids in a metropolitan area.
[17:17]But it's really to get kids engaged in our sport
[17:20]and introduce it to them.
[17:21]And hopefully that they can learn the life skills
[17:23]that will help them propel and be successful in the long run.
[17:28]Not everybody becomes a professional tennis player.
[17:30]James Blake actually is a product of that program
[17:33]way back when we put a lot of kids in college,
[17:35]many on college scholarships that are playing tennis.
[17:39]But that's really what I'm focusing on right now
[17:41]on a local basis.
[17:42]I'm involved in a lot of nonprofits,
[17:44]but that's where my passion is.
[17:46]And it really requires raising the funds
[17:49]to make sure that we can provide a top quality program
[17:53]because we don't, you know, we have a registration fee.
[17:56]So we're not charging kids $1,000 a week
[17:59]like some New York programs do.
[18:01]We raise the money so that we can support them
[18:04]in these efforts.
[18:05]And it's tennis, education and wellness components
[18:08]that we provide for them.
[18:10]That's amazing.
[18:10]And tell me just a little about writing this actual book.
[18:13]I am grateful or happy that you listen to the people
[18:16]who suggested you should write a memoir
[18:18]because I'm so glad you did.
[18:20]And this is great proof of why
[18:22]because it's a great read among other things.
[18:24]Tell me about writing it.
[18:26]And sitting like, did you sit down to do it?
[18:27]How long did it take you?
[18:29]Did you dictate like, what was the process like for you?
[18:31]Yeah, it was a collaboration.
[18:33]I did work with a ghostwriter that gave me the direction
[18:37]if you will on on what to think about,
[18:39]what to talk about, what to write about.
[18:41]So, you know, over the course of Googobs of conversations
[18:46]with the ghostwriter and emails and recordings,
[18:50]a lot of this came together.
[18:52]They on the other turn, on the other hand,
[18:54]did a lot of interviews with, you know,
[18:56]a long list of people that I felt could articulate
[19:01]their experiences with me
[19:02]from the beginning until today
[19:05]to be able to put those words together as well.
[19:07]So it was definitely a collaboration.
[19:10]It was a lengthy process, but it's something that
[19:13]I didn't appreciate early on.
[19:15]I really appreciate it on the back end
[19:18]as it was really starting to come together
[19:20]and look like a book.
[19:22]It was a lot of peacemaking together
[19:24]of different thoughts, different ideas
[19:26]and trying to figure out where they actually go.
[19:29]So I'm really proud of the end product.
[19:32]It's awesome, so great.
[19:33]What advice would you have?
[19:35]I would say both to people hoping to write books themselves,
[19:38]but really people who find themselves
[19:42]maybe as the only one in a lot of circumstances,
[19:45]what would you say to all of them?
[19:48]Well, I think, you know, those that are the only ones
[19:52]is recognize why you're at the table,
[19:54]why you're in the room, why you are a part of that.
[19:57]And you know, my goal is not to be there.
[20:00]Only one I like being the first and it made me that there's others coming behind being the only one, you know can can be daunting and there's a lot of pressure on that but if you're working to make sure that you can bring others along the way with you.
[20:14]Whether it's in a board room or in you know your C suite or whatever that might be and then you're doing your duty to yourself and you're being a mentor to others or you're being a sponsor for other so so that's very important.
[20:28]If you're interested in writing a book, I think you need to identify what your end goal is, you know my our goal kind of change midway through and writing for one direction and then ended up going in the direction that we finalized it to be, which I think is was the right path, but you know sit down and write that outline out what is it that you're trying to accomplish, what is it that you're trying to relay.
[20:56]within the messages of the book and you know just start writing I think you know in the middle of the night I will wake up and yeah I did most of my my greatest thinking was while I was sleeping.
[21:08]You know and I will go oh my gosh there's no way I'm going to remember this in the morning so I had a notepad by my bed and I would just scribble sometimes in the dark or just trying to write key words that would trigger what I was thinking about or dreaming about for that matter.
[21:24]Or even being able to do a voice recorder always you know these phones have the voice memo on that utilizing and in over time you'll be able to put it together and it come out with hopefully a bestseller.
[21:36]Well, this is great all you have to do is keep going back to sleep and you'll get more.
[21:40]I don't hear enough sleep that's the greatest excuse to just go to bed early I love it.
[21:47]Katrina thank you so much thanks for your book the inspiration it's so well written I feel like now it needs to be a movie and I'm sure you're working on that but anyway and thanks for chatting with me about it I really appreciate it.
[21:58]Thanks for having me really thank you.
[22:00]Alright bye bye bye.
[22:03]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books.
[22:12]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week.
[22:19]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact textures sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and outroom music.