Sylvia Crawley Spann: From WNBA To Confidence Mastery – Overcoming Adversity, Leadership & Success (Motivational Speech)

What does it take to turn setbacks into confidence, challenges into triumphs, and a dream into reality?

In this episode, Reginald D sits down with Sylvia Crawley-Spann, former WNBA player and coach, multi-gold medalist, and best-selling author of The Confidence Playbook: Strategies For Life Long Success. From winning the first-ever women's slam dunk contest blindfolded to coaching and inspiring the next generation of leaders, 

Sylvia’s story is one of resilience, faith, and fearless determination. Whether you’re an athlete, entrepreneur, or someone struggling with self-doubt, this episode will teach you how to build unshakable confidence and step into your greatness.

• Discover how confidence is a skill, not a feeling—and how you can build it in any area of life.
• Learn Sylvia’s game-changing mindset shifts that helped her rise from struggles to success.
• Gain powerful leadership and resilience strategies from a basketball legend turned motivational speaker.

Hit play now and learn how to break through fear, own your confidence, and win in life—on and off the court!

Sylvia's Information:

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/coachcrawley

Website: - https://www.slamathleaders.com

Purchase Syvia's Book on Amazon: The Confidence Playbook: Strategies For Life Long Success - https://www.amazon.com/Confidence-Playbook-Strategies-Lifelong-Success/dp/B0DJ5TRZ95

Text the Word “Book” (740) 757-4353 for a 25% discount.  Or for an autographed pic of the Blindfolded dunk text “SLAM”

Transcript

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Welcome to Real Talk with Reginald D. I'm your host, Reginald D. On today's episode, I have Sylvia Crawley-Spann. Sylvia is a former WNBA player, coach, and a multi-gold medalist. Sylvia is known for winning the first ever women's slam dunk contest, and she won it with a blindfolded dunk. Now, Sylvia is currently a public speaker and a best-selling author, and her book is called The Confidence Playbook, Strategies Thank you. Thank you so much. So, Sylvia, can Yeah, so I grew up in Steubenville, Ohio, home of Dean Martin. And I don't know what the population size is anymore, but back when I lived there, it was about 20,000 people. It's less than that now. You blink, you'll miss it, but a very special place near and dear to my heart. I had a true village there. I grew up the youngest of three. The youngest of every generation of my family is the tallest. So I'm the big baby of my family. So I'm the baby, but I'm the tallest. And my parents reside with me here in Durham, North Carolina, which is where I live now. My husband is a pastor here in Durham, North Carolina at the Church of Apostolic Revival International. And this is home. Durham is home for us. I came here by way of the University of North Carolina. So I'm a Lady Tar Heel. And I was on full scholarship to play basketball there. Was fortunate enough to win a national championship with my team. And That's awesome. So you took on basketball. What made you decide to play basketball? And how young were you when you You know, my first love was dance. At age two, I was taking tap, ballet, jazz, and acrobats. And my dad really wanted me to play sports, but I was into dancing school. I was a cheerleader and he was just praying that that phase would wear off. And so when I was maybe like a, when I was in the sixth grade, I was six feet tall with a size 12 men's shoe, Reginald. And so I would have grown people ask me if I played for the high school. And I was like, no, I'm a sixth grader. And you couldn't even play at my school until the seventh grade. They didn't have a fifth grade, sixth grade team. So when the time came for me to be able to play sports in the seventh grade, I said, well, let me give it a try because everybody keeps asking me if I play for the high school and I'm just a kid, you know? So I tried out for basketball, volleyball, track. I was just looking for what I was good at, you know? And I was used to doing multiple things as a kid. Like I said, at age two, I was in dance school. I also took piano, I took karate, I was modeling by age five. My parents really did a good job of exposing my siblings and I to a lot of different things, like a variety of things. If my neighborhood had it, we were doing it. just to keep us active, keep us positive, keep us out of the streets, you know. But really she was exposing us to see like, okay, let me see what this kid is good at. Let me see, you know, which thing is she going to excel in. And so after trying all of those things, I really loved volleyball, actually. But volleyball didn't suit my my athleticism and personality, I'll say, because I tried to hit the ball. Everywhere the ball went, I was there to hit it. And they were like, no, Sylvia, that's in her area. She's going to hit that ball if it comes over there. This is your area. So if the ball comes over here, then you hit it. And I just didn't trust, like the ball would hit the ground, nobody hit it. And I'd be like, I'm going over there to hit the ball. So with basketball, I didn't really have those restrictions. They let me just run all over the place and block any shot. So basketball kind of stuck with me because I was tall and I was closer to the basket and I could make layups. That was the sport that I was doing well in, even though my heart was kind of with volleyball. And then I eventually got to high school. I played on the JV and varsity team as a freshman. I didn't get a lot of minutes on the varsity team. And I liked junior varsity because all my friends were on that team. And we kind of grew up together from the seventh grade, eighth, and now we're in the ninth grade. And so then by the end of my freshman year, I was playing a lot more minutes varsity. And then I was just kind of full-time varsity after that. By like my junior year, I was being recruited by over 250 schools in the country. Yeah. And what turned for me is that I went to a camp at Ohio state and that was our big, you know, I'm in Ohio. So our big school is Ohio state and my team was going. And so it was time for me to turn in my application and pay my money. And I went home and I was like, mom, can I go to camp? And she's like, how much is this camp? I said, it's $175. She said, what? For one game? I was like, yeah. She was like, no, we're not doing that for you to decide that you're going to do something else and change your mind and don't want to play basketball. And I was like, no, Mom, I'm really going to stick with it. So my mom, Reginald, she was a hairdresser. So she did a couple of perms. She could sew clothes. She was a seamstress because I was tall. I couldn't shop anywhere for age-appropriate clothes. She made a couple of prom dresses, did a couple of jerry curls, baked a couple of pies and cakes, and got the money for me to go to camp. Yeah, so my mom was into multiple streams of income before that was even a thing, you know. And her parents were like that. So at this camp, though, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because in my little city, I was taller than everybody. We call it the tri-state area. So it's Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. So you place schools kind of in that area. And I'm six foot three in high school. So I'm towering over everybody. And that made me lazy. So I didn't jump for a rebound. I didn't jump to shoot. I was thinking like, why would I jump? I don't even have to jump, you know. But at this camp, I couldn't get a rebound. I couldn't get a shot off. Like, there were girls my size, bigger than me, faster than me, tougher than me. And so I really had to, for the first time, like put together all the things my coaches had been teaching me that I just didn't think was cool. Like they wanted me to bend my knees on defense. I was like, that's not cool. My knees hurt when I bend them. I'm not doing that. But at this camp, I had to bend my knees and play some defense. And so when I got home from that, so, okay, there was an all-star game at this camp and I didn't make the all-star game, but somebody got hurt and they needed one more person. So they added me to the all-star game. And that was like humbling for me to not make the all-star game at first. And then when they put me on, I felt like I had a second chance. So I got out there and I did my best. Like I was hungry. And when I got home from the camp, I got a letter saying, thank you for coming to our camp. And we think you could play collegiately someday. Will you fill out this questionnaire? And I was like, ooh. What? They think I could play for a college? Like this was the first time that thought had even entered my mind. So I went to my mom and I said, mom, I got my plan on how I'm going to go to college. She said, how? I said, read this letter. They think I'm good enough to play in college. I said, I want to get a scholarship. And so she said, all right, go talk to your coach tomorrow and tell him what your goal is and ask him if he'll help you. So that was my first time seeking out mentorship. I went to my coach and I said, and he's already coaching me, right? But he's coaching all the kids. I went and asked for extra special help. And I said, um, I showed him my letter. I was very excited. And I said, you know, I want to try to get a scholarship. To go to college, will you help me? He said, oh, it's going to take some work. We're going to have to change your shot. You're going to have to bend those knees. All the things that we've been telling you, you got to do it. And I was like, I told him about my experience at camp and how I really had to apply some of the stuff that they taught me. And that kind of started it. And so I was very fortunate to have a high school coach that was very invested in me. So he wrote different colleges. He sent out tapes and stuff like that. And my city didn't have an AAU basketball team, which is a travel ball team. So my coach called a couple of his buddies across state, and they said, sure, we'll take kid 6'3". We need some height on our team. We'll take her. So I drove three hours across state every weekend to go to practice in Urbana, Ohio, on the other side of Ohio. I stayed with my aunt in Columbus, Ohio, and got up in the morning and drove to practice on Saturday and Sunday. And playing AAU basketball is how the University of North Carolina discovered me. They also got one of my tapes from my coach. And so that was kind of confirmation, like, okay, there's this kid from Ohio. She's tall and she's lanky and she's raw, but she's athletic. She loves the game. So we feel like we can push her hard and she won't quit and she won't bend, you know? And so, so yeah, I went on five official visits and And so, yeah, so that kind of started my love of the game of basketball. I actually, in my very first game, shot at the wrong basket. And Reginald, the score was zero to two for a very long time. And I remember my coach calling a timeout. Now, I have no idea what she said. All I was doing was looking at the scoreboard thinking like, dang, the score's still zero to two. Only one person scored, and that's me for the wrong team. My dad was in the stands like. But I will tell you this, my first game, even though I shot at the wrong basket, before I made that basket, even before the game started, my whole family came to the game together as a family unit. And I'm 10 years younger than my sister, right? So my sister went to college when I was seven years old. So to have my brother and sister come home from college or, you know, probably by then my sister had her first job. She was working a job. But everybody came home to come to my game and be present. For little old me, I'm the youngest, I'm the baby. And my dad, my dad was an alcoholic growing up, but my mom wouldn't let him drink when he came to our games or came to the school. She didn't want him to embarrass us, right? So to see my family there together and my dad sober, I took a mental snapshot of that picture and I kept playing again and again to get that picture over and over again. And so that's kind of how my love, I didn't really love the game of basketball, but I love what it was doing to bring people together. And to this day, that's what I love about sports, how it just, it brings people together. different people of different faiths and different cultures and different races. If you love the Steelers, y'all coming together to root for the Steelers. If you love the Tar Heels, everybody's coming together to root for the Tar Heels. And that's what sports did for me. It brought Yeah, that's the thing about it. That's a magnificent story, because here's the thing, you know, you said you really didn't love it that much, but there was a purpose that was in it. You know, and that's incredible. People don't think about it that way, a lot of times. So, So you So by my junior year in high school, I started to be recruited by over 250 schools in the country. And that was mostly due to, one, the number one reason. I had a very good high school coach that was very invested in me, as well as other players. But he felt like if there was some talent in our high school, he was going to let the world know about it. And because we came from a small city, he felt like I couldn't get the word out. Nobody had heard of Steubenville, Ohio, so they didn't know I even existed. So he sent out tapes and my stats to a lot of different schools across the country. So that was one reason why I got highly recruited. The second reason was that I started playing AAU basketball, which my city didn't have, so I had to drive all the way across state to Urbana, Ohio. which was arranged by my high school coach. He knew some coaches over there. He asked them if I could join their team. They said, sure. She's tall. We'll take her. So I started playing AAU basketball, and I started going to basketball camps. So, I mean, we've had some schools in the state of Ohio who had summer camps. And so that's kind of how colleges started finding out about me. And coaches know coaches. but they're all friends with each other. So word started to spread and boom, I'm highly recruited because of my athleticism. Now, mind you, my background is in dance. So I'm super agile, I'm super graceful, I'm super coordinated for a big post, you know? So all dancing school did was help my step back and my spin move be more graceful, Reginald. So I'm averaging 18 points, 19 rebounds, 10 blocks, triple, double. I'm being recruited by many schools. I narrowed it down to my top five schools and went on my visits and came down here to North Carolina. And I wanted to go to someplace far from Ohio. I felt like, I want to see the world. These people are going to pay for me to go to school. I've got an opportunity to travel, right, and see a different side of the country. And so when I came down here, the Southern hospitality and the sweet tea had me hooked. We got lost trying to get to the campus. And we stopped, rolled down the window, and we said, hey, how do you get to University of North Carolina? They said, oh, it's down that way. I'm going this way, but I'll turn around and you guys follow me. So they went out of their way to show us how to get there. We felt like, wow. And so walking down the street, when I passed people, they spoke and asked us how we were doing and they were waiting on an answer. Like that blew us away. Because in Ohio, if I don't know you and you don't know me, we'll pass each other and we might not speak. It could be like a chin raise and that's it. or if we say hey how you doing that's not a question that's just a saying a salutation you know that's a greeting but it's not a question down here it was a question and they were waiting on the answer and we were like Oh, fine. And that was so refreshing for me. And then what was important for me is I was looking for a family away from home because I come from a very close-knit family. So when I went on my visits, I was looking for that. Like if it was any kind of separation, upperclassmen versus the underclassmen, or white girls and black girls, if I didn't see everybody was like one big family, I was like, take them off the list. And so when I came down here, it was like one big family. And I just fell in love with just the atmosphere. It was a basketball town, you know, with all the schools. There's 16 different colleges in this area. So I felt like, you know, this is the place where I want to be. So I chose to come to the University of North Carolina. Tough transition from high school to college because I had never lift weights. Graduated at age 17. So I come down here to North Carolina, 17 years old, I'm still growing. So my doctors told my mom, I had growing pains, I was growing faster than my joints and ligaments and stuff like that. They literally had to rub horse ornament Horse, um, it was called Maine's tail or something like that It's it's ointment that you rub on horses legs after they trot for miles and miles That was the only thing that could give me relief. I had shin splints so bad I mean severe severe shin splints and my knees were hurting so I Graduated six foot three. I'm now six five. I grew two inches in college and So because my growth plates were still open, I couldn't lift weights. They said, you'll start her growth. You start lifting weights while she's still growing. Plus I was having all those pains. So I had never lifted weights in my life. And when I got to North Carolina, they were lifting like men in the weight room. They had a mirror and people would be in the mirror like, they'd be grunting and stuff. And I was like, oh my God. So we had to max out on the first day with our strength coach. I was maxing out So I'm maxing out with the bar. And my left arm is not going up. I'm just like, no weight. So the rest of the team, they're crying around you. And they're like, go, go, go to the chair. And I'm like, can everybody turn around? I don't want everybody to look at me. Because I knew I probably couldn't lift the bar. I never lifted a bar before. So I'm like this. And the strength coach has got to save me and just put the bar back up. I was like, all right. And move me to the next exercise. It was pull-ups. I couldn't do not one pull up with my body weight. So it was a disaster. But our coach used to say, we're only going to be as strong as our weakest player. And Sylvia, we need you to get stronger. And I was thinking like, am I the weak link? I am. I'm the weak link. And on top of that, North Carolina was the last team in the ACC. That's when we got ranked that year. They voted us last. So we're the last team in the ACC, and I'm the least strongest person on my team. In my mind, that equated to like, you're the worst player in the ACC league. So my coach took me to the strength coach and said, listen, can you put 25 pounds on her because she's not tough enough for the ACC. The centers in our conference will eat her alive. So our strength coach was like, oh, this is a piece of cake. We give football players that are scrawny and puny and by the time we get done with them, they're defensive tackles. So the strength coach took me and a guy named Marcus Wall. And every meal he fixed our plate. We couldn't just eat a bunch of junk food. We had a nutritionist that pulled food groups and stuff like that. So we had very balanced meals. Plus we drank protein shakes after each meal. Well, that football player graduated and went pro. Me, they took me back to my coach. I was like, coach, we can't do nothing with her. We've never seen a metabolism like this in all of our days of training athletes. And she said, well, can you just make her bones strong, make her mind strong or something until we can get some mass on her? Because I said, she doesn't have mass. Until we get some mass on her body, then we can turn that into muscle. So they just made me tough. Like they got this pad out and they hit me like I stole something from them every day. And so it got to the point where I learned to hit you before you hit me. And so that's what I did. I hit people. before they realized that I did not like contact. I went my whole collegiate career with very few people realizing like, oh, she don't like to get hit, because I was going to hit you first. And if you hit me back, I would flop. And that's a foul on you. Now you're in foul trouble. You're sitting on the bench. So I learned to be smarter. I learned to run faster. I learned to jump higher than everybody else because of the fact that I wasn't strong and so because I started out my playing career shooting at the wrong basket watching my dad go like this and then I started my collegiate career with my coach saying can you put 25 pounds on her because she's not strong enough and we're only as strong as our weakest link and Sylvia I need you to get stronger I started to internalize these voices and these things that were being said about me, and I started to not believe in my own abilities. Even though I graduated with a triple-double, when I got to college, I couldn't even catch. They put me on the side and said, you just work with the strength coach. The rest of the team was practicing, and the strength coach was just firing balls at me, trying to get me to catch them. And so what they realized is that my fingers weren't strong. So I had to dig in buckets of sand during practice every day until I got my hands strong. And then I can palm a ball. I learned how to dunk a ball. My whole game changed as my hands got stronger. So confidence was a huge issue for me. I did not always feel confident because I was that tall person. You ever see a team where they got like a seven footer And if somebody 6'5 is like rebounding over them and they just look like they don't love it, they're just out there because they're tall. I was that person all of a sudden. And so I eventually, Reggie, had to learn how to silence those voices. And those voices were external and even internal. These were things that I was saying to myself. And so what happened was I started to develop this playbook for confidence. And I realized that confidence is a skill. It's not a feeling. It's not like, I don't feel strong, or I have butterflies in my stomach, or I'm nervous. I got the bubble guts. It's none of that. It's a skill. And like any skill, confidence can be learned, practiced, and perfected. And so the book that I just wrote called The Confidence Playbook started years ago. And there were certain things that I had to do to make sure that I performed in a very confident way. You know, in the ACC, we got to play some televised games. So if you weren't confident, you were going to embarrass yourself, your school, your family on national TV, right? So I had to learn how to overcome it. And so now I offer that same playbook because I use it in business. I use it as a wife. I use it as a caretaker to my two parents who live here. I use it as a co-founder of Monarch Magazine, and That's awesome. Because you talk about confidence, I think a lot of people can get a lot further in life if they just have that. You know, the preparation it takes, I get it. All the stuff you've been through, you're looking like, man, I'm like one of the only ones going through this and everybody else is practicing like regular people and I'm over here doing this and doing that. And it can take your heart, you know, but at the end of the day, you got to understand, you know, first of all, why are you here? Why did I show up? You can't take it from there. You got to build confidence, because you know it's Yeah. I talk about strategies within my book for confidence. And the two, I won't tell you all of them, but the two biggest ones is practice. You got to practice to have confidence. If you think about even in school, If you study, which is equivalent to practicing in sports, right? If you study, you felt good about waking up the day of the exam. You know, you got up early, got you some breakfast and you walked in the classroom and you felt confident. You took the exam and you might have zipped through it quick, right? You were one of the first ones done because you studied and you know the answers. put that paper down, I would go home, go back to my room, and my mom would be like, how you think you did? Good. I'm feeling whether I did good or not, I feel good about it. I'm confident about it, right? Until I got the paper back and realized what the real grade was. But prior to that, I felt good. When I did not study, equivalent to practice, I was nervous about waking up because I know I didn't study. And it took me forever to finish the exams. I'm one of the last ones in the class, right? And then when I handed in, I'm like, You know and then my mom's like, okay, how do you think you did? You don't feel good you don't feel confident Right. So when you put in the time and you put in the work and you practice it breeds confidence So that that's the biggest thing like even as a speaker. I I still get butterflies. My hands are still, my palms are sweaty, you know, before I go out to that stage. That's adrenaline. I think that adrenaline is supposed to be there. And if you channel it right, it can work in your favor. If you're thinking positive thoughts like, ooh, I'm so happy for this opportunity. I'm getting ready to go out here and just impact lives. I'm going to kill it, you know, then adrenaline works in your favor. But if you are tanking out with that adrenaline, if you're saying, if you're like, You got fear and doubt and worry. You can spiral out. You can just freak your mind all the way out and bomb out on your speech. So it's just a matter of how you channel that adrenaline positively or negatively. But it's there to empower you and to help you and to push you so that you have energy when you're out there. And so you just got to make up your mind. Is this going to be good energy? Is this going to be bad energy? So practice, I mean, I can't tell people enough. If you practice, then you're ready. The other things, those are just feelings, but confidence is a skill. And then the other thing, the other strategy is when you learn from lessons. Like people who are confident, they understand that when you fail or when you lose, That helps you win, you know what I mean? So learning from losses breeds confidence. I told a story the other day, I had a speaking engagement, and I talked about how I got to work Michael Jordan's camp. The University of North Carolina sends two players from the men's basketball and the women's basketball every year to Elmhurst College to work Michael Jordan's camp. back when he had the camp. And so I got to work at two years and the camp is for boys and girls and all the college counselors come from all over the country and we're the ones that work the camp. We teach the kids the drills and stuff like that. Well, at night they have like pickup games and this is like in the summer. So this is, I was a rising sophomore at the time, right? So we're playing pickup and Mike would get out there and play with us, right? And so my team, I was the only girl on my team. So I said, all right, everybody match up and I'll take whoever you don't get. Well, they matched up with everybody but Mike. And I said, oh, okay, y'all scared of Mike, I'm not scared of Mike, I'll guard Mike. We got this North Carolina thing going, we both played in Chapel Hill. We play, the game's going on, and then all of a sudden, Reggie, Mike is in the air, like jumping over me and getting ready to dunk. Now, the key is, is to get out of the way so that you don't get posterized. Like that will land you on SportsCenter, right? I stood there, I was frozen. I stood there and I just watched as he jumped over me. And I'm taking the biggest L. Talk about an L. I'm taking an L right now. But during this L, he jumped up. Let's say this is the rim. He jumps up, he's palming the ball, and he takes it over the rim and he pulls it back to the front of the rim. And I said, That's what I'm not doing. Every time I tried to dunk, the ball would bounce off the back of the rim and pop out. Every time, back of the rim, pop out. And I said, one day that ball's gonna fall. And that's the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same exact thing and expect a different result. But I feel like one of these days that ball is just going to mysteriously fall. Well, that's what I wasn't doing. I wasn't pulling that ball back to the front of the rim so that it can drop in the net. I couldn't wait to get back to school. I got back to school. I was in the gym by myself, nobody there. And I went and I pulled that to the front of the rim. and I was able to dunk. And then I had like some teammates and some coaches that were like, okay, you're taking off too early, you're taking off too soon. But in terms of like what to do when my hand got there, I took an L because sometimes you win and sometimes you learn, right? Not lose. If you learn from the loss, it's never a loss. Right? And so when you understand that losing is a stepping stone to winning, you don't have a fear of failure. This is how Steph Curry can shoot the winning shot as if he didn't miss the last 10 shots. He can miss 10 shots in a row. His coach will put him in the game at the end because he's capable of making that shot. Why? Because he's not afraid to pull that trigger. Because if he makes the shot, good, we win. If he misses the shot, guess what? He's going to go watch films and figure out what they did to stop or why he didn't make that shot because he knows the next time he's going to make it. It's a stepping stone to the next win. People with confidence, they understand, they overstand that. They know that, they get that. That's how the light bulb was invented. That's how the cell phone was invented. They made mistakes and they failed and it didn't Right, exactly. Yeah, and you can see that in Steph when He'll go out there and shoot it with confidence. A lot of shooters, shooting is very mental. So a lot of shooters, you go a whole game and you don't make shots, or you miss 10 in a row, it can mess with your mind. Whereas, mm-mm, he gonna shoot that ball with confidence, because he understands that you Deion Sanders, same thing. That's a man who learns from losses and now he's teaching his players that. And so a lot of people mistake cockiness and confidence and when I see it, I understand it. I'm like, oh yeah, he's confident. So these are some of the things that I touch on in my confidence playbook, but these are things I lived. These are experiences that I, and every time I do a speaking engagement, I pull a different experience. So I sat down and said, all right, what are some experiences from me, how I learned that practice breeds confidence? And I got like three examples that I came up with. All right, what are some examples of learning from losses? I got like three of those and probably more, but I wrote down three for each strategy that I have so that, depending on who my audience is, I can tweak my speech to match Right. So Sylvia, now you Okay, so listen, when I graduated and I talked about this in my slam Academy right so the M stands for mindset so I talked about set unlimited goals like just take the limits off when you set goals and don't let your Your house, your city, your state, or your country limit what you do. So in our country, when I graduated from the University of North Carolina, we had just won the national championship. There was not a professional league for women's basketball here. Did that stop my goal of being a pro player? No. I played in 16 different countries. I learned to speak four different languages, right? While I was overseas in Spain, I got a letter saying, hey, are you tired of playing overseas where your grandparents can't watch you play? And I was like, yes. They said, are you tired of playing where your high school team can't come to the games and cheer for you? I was like, yes. They said, well, there's a league coming, and it's called the ABL. And it's the American Basketball League. And they wanted to know my input. Like, should we have a small... They sent me a survey, and they said, we really value your opinion as one of the few women in the country who could slam dunk. So he said, do you think we should have a smaller ball? I said, no, I don't think you should have a, I mean, a women's ball is already small. I don't think you should make it smaller. And they thought that would be good for women to be able to pump, more women could palm the ball so that they can dunk it. Cause that was the biggest hurdle for most women. And I said, no, because you got people who will never be able to dunk, who learn how to shoot the three point shot at a certain weight for the ball to be a certain weight. So now you're going to affect their shot. Now the score is going to be low and now nobody wants to watch women's basketball. And they asked different things about the height of the rim, the length of the court, different things like that. And then I got another letter saying, there's another league coming. If you wait for us, and it was going to take two years for that league to start. And if you wait for us, we've got the backing of the NBA. We've got TV contracts, commercials, and all kinds of things. And I wanted to play right away. So I said, I'm going to go to the ABL. And then I was like, is it possible to switch to the other league? And we're trying to find out all this information. So I played in the ABL. And that's where I won the Slam Dunk Contest blindfolded. That league eventually filed bankruptcy. They could not get the TV contracts because they were a competitor of the WNBA, which was combined with the NBA. So if you broadcast these games, you won't get these games. Well, people want to broadcast the NBA. So they said, no, we're not touching the ABL. So the league filed bankruptcy. 90 people lost their job, Reggie. The WNBA had 20 spots for the 90 who lost their job. They put us in a little dispersal camp And I forget what they called it. It was some kind of combine. They gave us a jersey, put a number on our backs, and said, made a best 20 win. And all 90 of us were friends. We all know each other. People who play in the league, you're all friends with each other. We fought each other like cats and dogs with us 20 spots. Now mind you, when the league filed bankruptcy, this was a turning point in my life because I had no resume. I had no plan B. I had no work experience. I had never even worked at McDonald's. I didn't have a little job at high school. My parents was like, get out there and shoot them shots so we can get out the hood. I didn't have chores. My sister did the dishes, my brother took out the trash, and my mom was like, get out there and shoot them baskets. So I had no work experience. And the league filed bankruptcy. Where are we going? And that was the case for 90 people. None of us had work experience. You know why? Because we play AAU basketball in the summer so we can get a scholarship. We got our scholarship, and then we stayed at school all year round lifting weights. because we had to get stronger, and we wanted to go pro. We went pro, and now the league folded, and we have no work experience, you know? So it was... My family sat me down. They had kind of like an intervention meeting, like, let's regroup, okay? Like, what did you major in? I was like, communications. They were like, what? Why would you major in communications? You had a full scholarship, and you... I was like, well, I wanted to be Oprah. of my own talk show and you know and back then that was crazy now everybody's got a podcast everybody's got a tv show that's the thing but back when the league folded in 1998 that wasn't a cool thing and so it was just a very um eye-opening moment, humbling moment, humiliating moment, all wrapped in one. And I said, if I get a second chance to play basketball, never again will I put all my eggs in this one basket. I had just been hooping. Period. That's it. And I had nothing to fall back on. So I got into multiple streams of income from that experience. And so they did have a draft for the 20 people that they were going to select. My name was never called. My agent said, if this is what you want to do, keep your dream alive. I'm going to put you in Italy. So I had a contract to play in Italy. And he said, you can try out again next year for the WNBA. That year, they started four new teams, four new franchises, Portland Fire, Cleveland Rockers, Miami Soul, and Orlando Miracle. So my agent got me invited to the Portland Fire training camp. She got somebody to do her a favor, and this was like, can you just do me a favor and let her come to training camp? So they let me come, and they said, look to the left, look to the right, don't make a friend. We got three practices a day. And after every practice, there's going to be names on the coach's door. If your name is on that door, you get your suitcase. You're on the next flight smoking. So we, they're like, there's no starters here. This is a new franchise. You have a chance to be a part of history because this is the inaugural season. So it was wide open. And so me not being drafted, that was really the first loss I have really experienced. That was the first time I set a goal and never achieved it. And so I have been groomed to win trophies and national champions and gold medals and rings. But nobody prepared me for when my name wasn't called in a draft. Nobody had prepared me for what I perceived as failure. In hindsight, had I been one of those 20 who immediately went from the ABL to the WNBA, I perhaps would have got drafted to the Sparks. Well, that's Lisa Leslie's team. You're not knocking her off her spot. Maybe Houston Comets. Well, that's Tina Thompson's team. You're not knocking her off. Every team had an established center that I would have played backup to. At Portland, it's wide open. It's a new franchise. I was like, oh, word? So I ended up making the final roster. I was a starter. So I won the very first jump ball for Portland Fire. I grabbed the first rebound. I believe I scored the first bucket. I got the first gold tenning. Probably to this day. First gold-tetting violation. I was excited about that. I was like, what? They were like, so you do know that's a negative stat, right? I'm like, yeah, but nobody's ever done that before. So I was able to make history. And what I saw as the worst day of my life turned out to be the biggest blessing, that I didn't get drafted. So I'm playing for Portland Fire. In 2000, the year 2000, the NBA opened it up for every NBA franchise to buy their sister WNBA franchise. So the Indiana Pacers bought the Fever. The LA Lakers bought the Sparks. But the Portland Trailblazers said, we don't want Portland Fire here. They're in our way. We want our weight room. We want our practice facility. We want our staff. We want them gone. So that team folded. So now I'm back in the dispersal draft and I get picked up by San Antonio Silver Stars. And that's the team that I eventually retired from. That team relocated to the Las Vegas Aces. So I'm now in the lineage of Aces. And so every year, Mark Davis, who's the owner of the Raiders and the Aces, flies everybody who's ever been a part of Utah Stars, which relocated to San Antonio Silver Stars, which is who I played for, which relocated to the Las Vegas Aces. So that's the lineage of the Aces. He flies us all there, whether you play one game or whether you are a starter your whole career. And he looks us in our eyeballs and he says, thank you for your contributions to this program. And I'm telling you, I have a friend, she played in one game for Utah Stars, I think. And then she got traded and played the rest of her career somewhere else. But he literally treats her like he treats everybody else. And she cries every year at alumni day, like, I only played in one game. She didn't even play the whole game. She played at the end of the game. So yeah, in a nutshell, I had an incredible journey through basketball as a pro player. It wasn't always easy for me. I was still the one that was very skinny, not strong. But by then, so in college, I focused on my weaknesses. I focused on getting stronger, getting tougher, getting bigger as a center. And the pros, I said, all right, bump that. By now, if I'm not thick by now, I ain't going to be thick. I'm just kidding. I got to accept it. But here's my strengths. I can jump over most post players. I can run and beat my man down the floor or foot fake him and beat him to the basket. And I got a high IQ. So I just got to be clever. I got to think the game. I got to be smarter, quicker, faster, jump higher. And so that's what I did. I started focusing on, you know, what my strengths were, and I had a much better career in terms of just like a confidence level and just loving the game more Yeah, and it's crazy now you got, you know, people like yourself. And now you look at the WNBA today, man, I feel like it's still not where it needs to be, but it has came a long way. It came a long ways, and it's because of resilient people like yourself and things like that. And man, I'm hooked into it. Every time Oh, the world is watching, Reginald. And this is the day we pray for. Because I played for the ABL that folded, I was very paranoid when I came to the WNBA because in the ABL, we stayed at the Ritz Hotel. Okay, like for example, in the ABL, I made $210,000 back in 1996, 97. And the salaries weren't as good in the WNBA as they were in the ABL. That's part of the reason why it filed bankruptcy, right? They put all their money into salaries and they weren't getting the TV contracts to get more money to replenish that. And so making $210,000 in the ABL, and then it's like, When I switched to the WNBA, I made $74,000. That's the max that I've ever made. But it's a summer league. It's for three months. So it's a part-time job versus the ABL was during basketball season. So it's six months, seven months. So you got more months to work, you get more pay. But when I switched to the W... Oh, so in the ABL, we started staying at the Ritz Hotel. And then a couple of years later, we were staying at the W, which is still nice, but it's not the Ritz. We went from charter buses going to the airport to a 12 white passenger van going to the airport. We were like, whoa, what's going on? We used to get per diem for meal money. And then we got to use our own money to buy meals. We're like, wow. And then we got a letter saying, which percentage of your salary would you be willing to donate back to the league? And people was like, 0%. I feel like I should be getting more money. And then all of a sudden, the league filed bankruptcy. So when I went to the WNBA, I started seeing similar signs. The rosters went from like 14 to 12. And I was like, wait a minute, I've seen this before. You know, like our hotels that we stayed in started to change. And I started just seeing like different budget cuts happening. And then rumors were saying like 10 years from now, the league will never be here. because the NBA didn't want to buy those franchises and they couldn't find owners. They were looking for people who had to come together to buy one team in Chicago. So it just didn't look good for a long time. But we prayed. We said, years from now, we want people our age who have kids, we want their daughters to be able to play. I grew up without a league, so I watched NBA basketball with my dad. So I looked up to Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley and Chief from the Boston Celtics. I wore double zero like Chief because I didn't have role models. Whereas I wanted little girls to be able to turn on a TV and want to play like Asia Wilson and want to play like Diana Taurasi and women that they see play and try to, you know how Kobe studied Michael Jordan. I want a little girl to be able to study a women's basketball players game and pattern their game or create their own game even. And so we pray for this day. And so to see like the games are sold out. packed out crowds. I went to the WNBA All-Star game and I saw like players on billboards as soon as I like I took an Uber to my hotel and as I was riding through the city of Phoenix and this is not even a city where they play. They're on the side of buildings. They're on billboards. I'm like, wow, we have arrived. You got men with WNBA shirts on and hats. All the gear and apparel sold out. People just got shopping bags full of WNBA gear. I'm like, this is the day we pray for. And we don't want credit. We just want to see it fly. We want to see it go. And I'm like the auntie of the league. I just got out of Instagram jail because If I see you talking about Angel Reese or Caitlin Clarke or anybody, and you're a new fan, you don't know the history of women's basketball, so be quiet, do your research, because you don't know what you're talking about, right? But I see people being attacked because, like, it's bad right now. Like, we've never received this much media attention, social media as well as regular media, but there's players that have death threats on their families right now because... Wow. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. So, when I see that kind of stuff, yeah, that's when I start mother henning. I'm in the chat rooms like, you don't know her like that. Leave her alone. Her eyelashes aren't stopping her from making shots. Why do you care? Get a life. I'm upset. I'm defensive. So they put me in Instagram jail because of something I said, and they claim it was threatening. I said, I would have to hear that from her before I just threw her under the bus. They were talking about a former player that's my friend, and I know her. I was like, she would never do that. What are you talking about? I'm not throwing her under the bus, and I don't even know the facts about what happened. I would have to call her and ask her. But the term throw under the bus was a threatening term that threw up a red flag on Instagram. put me in jail. My pages are monetized. They took away my monetization. I was like, what? I can't get paid off for real? I wanted to make a shirt that say free big seal. So when I had my speaking engagement, I was like fresh out of Instagram jail. It's like, I'll take you to the mall, baby. I'm back. So yeah it's been a pleasure to kind of watch to see where it's growing and there's a lot of things going on right now too as we speak. I heard that the like the collective bargaining agreement there's some players that are kind of sitting out for more money and there's people that feel like they don't deserve to make more money and because it's a three-month season so With the increasing popularity, they feel like now is our time. We got the bird in the hand, so we got to just capture it. And the world's watching. I got a t-shirt for sale that says, everyone watches women's basketball. And that's true. I mean, I can go to the grocery store and people are like, did you play in the WNBA? I'm like, yeah. They're like, what team? I love Caleb Clark. I love Asha Wilson. And it's a whole conversation wherever I go. So I'm like, yeah, this is amazing. It is just amazing to watch and see it grow, because little girls now Right, exactly. That's the biggest thing. So I want to back up on something. Let's talk about this medal you won dunking It wasn't a medal. I actually won a lot of money. Oh, OK. Yeah. So all right, so I was playing in the ABL, and there was this race to be the first woman to dunk in a game. But people are ignorant. What they don't realize is that the first woman to dunk in a game is my cousin. Her name is Georgianne Wells. She played for West Virginia University, and she dunked twice in college. So she literally was the first person to dunk. She didn't get credit for years because the team she dunked on did not want to be known as the first team to get dunked on. So the coach kept the tape. It was at their school. So back in the day, wherever you played, the home team recorded it. And they would send a copy of the tape to the visiting team. Well, he kept it. He didn't release it. And eventually, he passed away. And his sons were cleaning out his house. And they found the tape, sent it to ESPN. So now she's credited as the first woman to dunk. But before they knew about her, there was like this race for a woman to dunk. And so I wanted to keep it in the family and be the first woman to dunk in the pros, because I knew it had already been done. And so they had this, they wanted to have a slam dunk contest. In the ABL, we had about five players who could dunk. We needed six players to have a dunk contest. They were like, we can't have a dunk contest. And it was just like four or five of y'all dunking. So we need at least six. And if you have six, we can have a contest. So I taught Kara Walters, me and my best friend Charlotte, we taught Kara Walters how to dunk. That made six people. So we had a dunk contest, and it was at Disney, the Walt Disney Resort. It was during the All-Star Game, and the dunk contest was at halftime, right? And so I was favored to win it. I think I have been dunking the longest, and I could spread my legs and all this stuff by now, because, you know, I learned from Michael Jordan how to dunk initially, right? So I can spread my legs, I can dump from the side of the room, the front of the room, and all that kind of stuff. But I was in Colorado because I played for Colorado Explosion. Some of the Denver Broncos were my friends. They lived in my complex. We lived in a condo that was sponsored by the team. So we're in the gym of our condo complex and they're helping me with this. And they were like, okay, what kind of dunk you going to do? You should do a tomahawk 360. I was like, I can't do that. They were like, you should do a between the legs. You know, I was like, I can't do that. So they said, well, what kind of dunks are the other girls going to do? I said, the same little right-handed dunk that I'm going to do. Jump off one leg, right hand. They're like, you got to do something different. Everybody can't have the same dunk. So we came up with the idea that I was going to do a blindfolded dunk. And so I practice and I practice. I'm talking like to this day, I have like calluses right here from dunking so much. I had the rim, you know how the rim is orange, a piece of the orange paint got stuck in my hand. I had to go to the doctor and get it. It was like a splinter, but it was deep down in there. They had to tear my skin, get that out of my hand. So by the time of the dunk contest, all these fingers are taped because they had been bleeding callus. splinters, all kinds of stuff. I had the floor marked where I was supposed to take my two steps, right? Cause I had this down to a science. The day of the contest, my sister ties the blindfold way too tight. I'm supposed to be able to kind of like have some vision inside this blindfold, but I have my eyes closed. She ties it tight and all I could see is down my nose and to my feet. And my sister's like, oh, do you want me to retie it? I'm like, mm, then people are going to know, like, we're up to something. So I was like, we just got to go with it. So I say a little prayer, like, dear Lord, sweet baby Jesus, you never do another thing for me, like, please. Let me do this dunk on national TV in front of a sold out crowd even. So I go, I take my little steps. I go to, I see my mark on the floor and I'm like, there's my mark. I take my two steps. I dunk it. I'm praying that I'm connecting with the real, right? I dunk it and I'm cheering Reggie louder than everybody in the arena. And my sister, me and my sister were cheering. But we almost had a heart attack. We couldn't believe I pulled it off. And moments after that, so they give me this big check. I got $5,000 from the ABL. But my Nike contract, they paid me $45,000 for the dunk. And had in my contract, if I ever dunked in a game, for each game, they was going to pay me a certain amount. It was crazy. So I get shut up in this room. The door closes by. It's me, my sister, my boyfriend, and my agent. And the door closes. And it's like the WNBA has called my agent and said, we want her to switch leagues right now. We just saw the dunk on TV. We will blow this up larger than life. And the ABL was like, we don't want you to leave our league. You're now the face of the league. What do we have to do to keep you? And so they basically asked me what I wanted. I got to spell out my contract. I was like, well, I'm going to need some commercials. They were like, all right. They contacted me with Dunkin' Donuts and legs pantyhose. I had the most outrageous endorsements ever. And then they were like, so when do you think you'll be able to dunk in the game? I said, I don't even play for my team anymore. I need to be traded. I got traded to Portland Power right on the spot that day. Like traded myself. That's never happened in the history of sports. So it was just crazy. I went on tour. I was on a Keenan Ivory Wayans show. Sinbad had a show called Vibe at night. I don't know if you remember that show. I was on Vibe. I was on Good Morning America. I was like traveling. They were like, do you want to bring a friend? I was like calling my best friend. I was like, hey, let's go. We on the road. I called my new head coach, because I had just got traded. I was like, coach, don't we have practice tomorrow? She's like, don't worry about it. You're the face of the league. When we pass you the ball, just shoot it. I was like, OK. It was crazy. And so I signed this, like, just crazy contract. Never got any of it. So the contract was supposed to happen the next season, right? So I finished out the season with Portland Power. That year, the league folded. So I never actually got any of that money. So yeah, that's kind of the story behind the blindfold dunk. But wow, this time of my life. And for a long time, the dunk kind of went away. And it wasn't until maybe about three years ago Oh, so the year that I won a dunk contest was the first year that the NBA took away the dunk contest. I don't know if you remember that. Yeah, they said, it's starting to be redundant. Nobody's doing nothing new. So they just took it out and they started focusing on three point shooting and all that kind of stuff and all the different games and stuff. And so that's why ours got so much attention because If you wanted to cover the dunk contest, it happened on the women's side. So it wasn't until about three, maybe four years ago, I'd say three years ago, my husband and I were at Kickback Jacks. You're from Durham. You heard of Kickback Jacks? By Durgate Mall? We love to go there on the weekends and have their wings. So we're eating wings and we're watching the NBA all-star game, the dunk contest. And it was terrible. Like people were booing and kickback jacks. And my husband was like, you should post your blindfold dunk. Like just resurrect the dunk and show them how to dunk. So I posted it that night. It went viral. Like people were reposting it. I posted it on Instagram. people started reposting it. It was on my story. And it would be in my inbox that they reposted it. So I put it on my story and it just was circulating, circulating, circulating. And so I started getting calls for Black History Month to come speak at schools because they're like, you're a pioneer. You're the first woman ever done. And it started getting so much attention. And I was like, Y'all do know this happened in 1997, right? Somehow it just resurrected. So every time I went to speak at a school or read a book at a school, and I could be talking about any topic, they were going to play that blindfold down before I got up to speak. They would introduce me and then they'd play that video, never fail. So I was like, okay, I might as well just embrace this. I'm never going to escape. I'm just going to be forever known as the blindfold dunker. So that's kind of how I came up with the acronym SLAM. And so I thought, okay, what could the S stand for? So sometimes the S stands for self-care. Lately it's been self-confidence because of my book. But sometimes I'll go to a women's empowerment conference and they want me to speak about self-care. The leadership part always stays. The L is always for leadership. I could talk about leadership all day long, every day of the week. The A stands for accountability and the M stands for mindset, but sometimes they can stand for mental toughness depending on what that team or whoever I'm speaking to needs. So yeah, that's kind of how Slam was birthed out of the whole blindfold dump, but that's the entire story. And yeah, I've been able to reach a lot of people across the country. And my goal is to just impact more, have more impact. I want to reach people, I want to inspire people, and I want to ignite leaders. I have a website called slamathleters.com. And we are learning how to follow people on social media, but very few people are teaching the Gen Z-ers how to lead, how to really be leaders. Not just social media influencers, but like true leaders. And I feel like this generation has potential to really change the world as we know it. Like they just are so, They had access to so much information early that they're brilliant. They're brilliant at technology. They're brilliant at a lot of things, right? They don't need us to teach them anything. They got YouTube university. They got chat GPT. You know what I mean? Like they got AI, they got whatever they need. So they don't need to learn anything from us. They just need guidance and wisdom. They kind of need to know the past so history doesn't repeat itself. But those are the type of that they need support from us. That's what they need support and guidance. So I want to ignite leaders, you know, like help them help them to become the leaders that they need to be to push our country to the next phase because it's turning into a crypto world like that's coming. I did an event and somebody sponsored with cryptocurrency. And I said, how do I get that in my bank account? Like, okay, you're going to put that in my crypto wallet, but like, we got to pay for the venue right now. And they said, just go to the Bitcoin ATM machine near your house. I said, we don't have that in Durham. They said, Google Bitcoin ATM near me and see what pop up. Reggie, I promise you not. There were like 20 of them around my house. And I said, what? I was like, okay, this gas station, I go here to get gas like every week. So I went straight, I got out of my bed, I went down to that gas station and I said, do you have a Bitcoin ATM? He said, yeah, right behind you. I said, oh my, because we use our card outside to buy gas. We don't go inside anymore. It's a whole movement happening. right around us and we don't even know it's happening. Bitcoin is moving in and it's not really like Bitcoin, it's just like a cryptocurrency. You can get Ethereum, you can get, you know what I mean? Like you can convert anything. It's like, oh yeah, the crypto is coming whether you want it or not. So I have an NFT of the Blindfold Dunk. If you Google the blindfold dunk, the picture costs Getty Images charges $499 a pop. If I wanted to put that picture on my book, I would have to pay Getty Images for my own image. It's me. I'm the one dunking blindfolded, not Getty. They've been selling it since 1997 and I never got a dime. In fact, they got 121 pictures of me on Getty Images that have been sold for years for $499 each. So I have taken back my name, image, and likeness. I created a NFT, a blindfold dunk. It's a collection. It's called a dunk. It's called a slam collection. So if you buy one, you get the blindfold dump in your wallet. And people say like, why would anybody buy NFT? People collect them just like they collect Barbie dolls, just like they collect, you know, car figurines and Cabbage Patch dolls and G.I. Joe, man. They're obsessed with it. I don't know why they collect them. They just do. So now, like this generation, they collect NFTs. So if you get one, that goes into your wallet. If you get the second one, you get a digital autograph card that goes into your wallet and it matches the NFT. If you get the third one, you get a smart t-shirt that says SLAM, which goes up in value as the Ethereum goes up in value. If you get the fourth one, you get two tickets to a WNBA game of your choice. If you live in LA, you may want the Sparks tickets. If you live in DC, you may want the Mystics tickets. And then if you get the fifth one, you get 30 minutes in my metaverse space with me. So I'm heavy into the crypto world because that move is coming. Ready or not, coming. And these Gen Zs, the Gen Zs generation, they Get it. They get it. They got, they already got their crypto waiting on the switch, you know? So I think that what's going to happen is eventually you'll go to target and Walmart and you know, now they got the self check. Okay. But it's like, you're just paying with your cards. You can get in line over here, but if you got cash, then you get over there. Eventually, it's going to be like, we're accepting crypto and cards over here. Cash is going to stop printing cash and coins and all that stuff. They don't even print pennies anymore, I don't think. That's going to eventually run out and it'll be crypto and cards. Everything will be digital. We're already digital. People use their cards for everything. They're just getting us ready for the whole crypto. You're dealing with a digital wallet with Cash App. See, Yep. Yep. So it's happening. So I'm ready. NFTs, yeah. So that's what I love about Slam. I come in as a speaker, but I've got some products on the back end. If you want the book, you can get the book, let it bless you. You want the NFTs, you can get that. So when people ask me, what am I doing lately? I say Slam. I don't say like, oh, I got NFTs and I got my clothing line and I got... Slam. Because when people, when Tabitha Brown tells you that, oh, I've got hair products, I've got my clothes in Target, I got McCormick seasoning salt, I got the... The people are like, wow, you're doing it, you are in your bag, girl. T.D. Jakes tell you that he's got movies and this and that. Because you don't know these people, you think like, wow, that's great. But people that you know who say they're doing multiple strings of income, it's like, I thought you said you was doing this. You a jack of all trade and a master of none. No, you didn't say that to Tabitha. Why you judging me like that? You didn't say that to Jake. You asked him for his autograph, you know? So it's like, so for me, just, and it was more from my own focus. because it is hard to do multiple things. And now that I'm a caretaker for my parents, I really had to streamline what I was doing. And so SLAM is just, that's my number one thing. That's the thing that I'm trying to grow. That's the thing that I'm passionate about. And that's the way that I'm able to kind of like use my gifts to bless the world, to give them what I have to offer. And I think everybody has something to offer. And if you don't offer that to the world, you do the world a disservice. There's something that you uniquely can do, Reggie, that people need. They're looking for it. They're on the internet right now searching for what you have knowledge about, because you live through it. And you can speak firsthand to it and tell them the shortcuts to it. Because they're like, I was going to do this. And you're like, you don't need to do that. Just do this. And save a bunch of money, a bunch of heartache, But if you sit on that information, you do the world a disjustice, you know, like they need what you have to offer. So once I got a hold of that, that freed me because I do wanna make an impact and I do wanna make a change and I do want people to move confidently in the That was awesome. So Sylvia, lastly, On Instagram is at Coach Crawley. At Coach Crawley, that's it. And then I'm on Facebook, obviously under my name. I'm on TikTok. I'm on YouTube. I'm on Pinterest. I'm on Etsy. I'm everywhere. My website is slamathleters.com if you wanna book me to speak. I also have sylviacrawley.com which lets you know like everything that's going on in my world. Yeah, so that's pretty much how you can find me. But if you go to my IG page, I have a link tree page where you can pretty much find Oh, so you can text the word book to 740-757-4353. And if you text the word book to that number, we will send you a link on Got it. Everybody go get the book. The Comfort is Playbooks, Strategies for Lifelong Success. Sylvia Crawling Span. Sylvia, thank you so much for stopping by and hanging out with us. I really enjoyed Thank you. I enjoyed it too. And given that we're in Durham, we're going to have to get together and do part two, maybe live and Oh, yeah, exactly. And then go to Kickback Jax too. Meet up We can go live from Kickback Jacks on the patio if you want to. Right. Sylvia, thank you so much. And Thank you for tuning in to Real Talk with Reginald D. If you enjoyed listening to Real Talk with Reginald D, please rate and review us on