Episode 14: Leadership Through Sports, with Sarah Lesko

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (00:01.324)
Well hello, yah storytelling mind movie makers. This is Melissa. We are back for another episode and I am truly

excited to have Dr. Sarah Lesko with us today, who we met doing the Seattle Sports Commission's big event. It's the Sports Star Awards. This is the 91st awards. And Sarah is the founding director of the Bras for Girls organization that helps give girls support, literally sports bras to

help them be more comfortable and to be playing safely. She is a doctor. She has a degree from the University of Pennsylvania as well as her Yale undergrad. But what I really found very interesting is Dr. Lesko or Sarah is that you also coach the cross country girls in high school and you really saw this. So first, welcome. Welcome to the show. Such a pleasure to work with you in the way that we did. But why don't you say hello and could you tell us also a little

bit about the first time you noticed that girls in sports needed the proper support.

Sarah Lesko (01:17.438)
Thanks Melissa, I'm super excited to be here and chat with you and I loved working with you so much preparing for the big awards event. It was so fun. Yeah, so, you know, really coaching. I coached middle school for almost 10 years and that's an age when the girls, you know, there's all different kinds stages of development at that time. You've got some people who just haven't started developing at all and then...

Other girls are already kind of in their adult form. And so what you really see is during that time of transition, it can be awkward for girls. And if they don't have the support and the education at the time that they need it, it's one of those times when they can just kind of quietly take an off ramp from sports. So that's really the purpose of our organization is to make sure they have the support and the education they need at the time when they need it.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (02:05.343)
It's so important. I mean, when I met you and I learned what you were doing, it really, as a woman, you know, that once was a little middle school girl, you know, and let's just face it, the girls were all obsessed with what's going on there. You know what I mean? Like, Jenny has some. I don't have any. And it's like, it's as much of a physical thing as it is a mental health issue for some of these girls. And so,

Sarah Lesko (02:24.572)
Yeah.

Sarah Lesko (02:31.058)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (02:35.481)
I really appreciated that you paid attention to that. So the girls that do develop sooner, I mean, they're going through their own things too, right? Like they have to deal with it. They have to like, yeah.

Sarah Lesko (02:45.52)
Exactly. It's a whole social emotional issue and you know, it's also that time of when a girl's body starts changing, you know, she starts getting different types of attention from people, strangers and people who know her. And so the more confidence that a girl can have in her own body at that time, it's more, you know, it's a more of a preventative effect for like some of those negative interactions because as we all know, you know, sometimes people say things that may not be appropriate. And so when you have the

the education and the confidence yourself, you can kind of ward that off a little bit, you know.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (03:21.389)
But it's such a challenge too though, because this isn't just the girls, it's the society, it's the messages that we get in the magazines that we look at, in the feed that we read. There's so much that goes on that tells a girl to either love her body or to hate it.

Sarah Lesko (03:44.819)
Yep.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (03:45.155)
You know, and it's just so unfair. I'm sure you've thought about that one a little bit. Like what are your thoughts on helping us groom confident girls, no matter what bra cup they're wearing? you know, like what can we do as a society? Like one of the things that happened in your speech.

was you did a very gentle but firm call out to the coaches out there, especially the men. Let's go there. Is that one of the steps that we can do to help girls feel more comfortable?

Sarah Lesko (04:16.945)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's essential to our work is that we really try to position a sports bra as a piece of necessary equipment. It's more just gear, you know, and one of the things that we call out, especially, especially in talking with male coaches, because they may be more in that kind of, you know, hardcore athlete mind is that we know that if a girl doesn't have the right fitting sports bra, if she's not properly supported, it puts her at higher risk for an ACL tear, for instance. And so sometimes positioning it more in that

you know, necessary gear, this is how you can help prevent injuries. That makes it resonate with people who maybe wouldn't resonate with the other messages. But you know, the other piece of it is that we know is so important is that a girl feels comfortable and that she just accepts the changes that are happening. And so, you know, we really try to position it not around how your body looks, but what your body

can do, how it feels, and what you can do moving your body. And so we really try to take away that external appearance portion. even in the sports profiting education that we do, we don't focus on how it should look from the outside. We focus on how it should feel. This is how the band should feel. It should be not too tight, not too loose. This is how the support should feel when you're moving your body, jumping, when you're breathing.

And so to really center it on that inside feeling rather than the external gaze.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (05:47.439)
When you started tapping in to this being a problem that you had some expertise to help solve, what was it like when you first saw a girl who got her first real support chest gear? Let's call it what it is, right? What kind of changes did you see in those girls that were now able to feel more confident because of it?

Sarah Lesko (06:11.379)
It's so dramatic, you know, and a lot of the PE teachers that we work with, they've had this experience too, where a girl will actually be in a PE class holding her chest physically with her arms when she's doing an activity. Obviously you can't perform in your athletic body if your arms are bound to your chest. And so the change between a girl who is not gonna engage with an activity versus one who all of a sudden when she feels supported, she's just gonna join right in.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (06:22.071)
Yeah.

Sarah Lesko (06:39.419)
and then be able to access the strength that her body has and do the activity that's being asked of her. We especially see it, mean, in track and field, a lot of times I would see it with some of the jumps and throws where some of these girls, it doesn't feel comfortable to be aggressively planting and then trying to throw something if your breasts are not properly supported. So even the change in the technique that we could teach was so different once they had that sports bra.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (07:05.998)
so they could improve their athletic skills because they didn't have something in the way like that. That's awesome. That's amazing. That's really great. And the confidence and whatnot. So let's talk about why we want to keep girls in sports, because that was the thing. Let's talk about the story of the moms. So in your speech, so I'm sure the audience is going to be shocked to hear that I love to put stories into speeches.

Sarah Lesko (07:10.65)
Absolutely.

Sarah Lesko (07:15.783)
Thank

Sarah Lesko (07:26.756)
Hahaha!

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (07:30.006)
Are't they just a playground for storytelling an acceptance speech it really is because people are there you walked in this there was a thousand people who love sports this was this this was head coaches this was you know the athletes themselves media broadcasters anyone in the Seattle sports scene pretty much is gonna be at that event and you know

When you told the story of the mom, could we just kind of rephrase that story a little bit? Because that was one of the impetuses for you to realize that we had to do something bigger than you had even planned. So what happened on that day? Yeah.

Sarah Lesko (08:10.291)
Yeah. Yeah. And this is something that, you know, we, this experience, it was easy to talk about because it's one that we've seen replicated so many times. So we just isolated out the one mom, but really that has probably happened like 30 to 50 times in the last couple of years where an adult will be so impacted by the work that we're doing. So we were at the family fair, the PBS family fair is in the central district in Seattle last year. And

You helped me talk, you know, personalize a little bit more. We talked about the weather and it was snow flurries the same as at the event. So that was fun. And exactly, exactly. And the chicken and waffles truck. That was funny because I was like, oh, this feels very awkward. But people definitely laughed. They're like, oh, yeah, chicken and waffles.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (08:41.998)
You

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (08:46.06)
You mean sensory recall? Okay.

We did.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (08:59.758)
Well, let's just do a time out before we go. The reason why we want to bring food into a speech, if we can, and it's organic, and it did work, because you said it, you told me, you were like, we got great positioning that day at the fair because we were right near the chicken and waffle booth and everyone was smelling it and kind of coming over and it was really working. Well, the thing is, that with the audience, they started tasting and smelling chicken and waffles as soon as you said it. And that means that we had oxytocin going on in their neuro

transmitters and we really want that because we want them to zero in and so that mind movie really starts to ignite when we do those sensory sort of calls so the snow the chicken and waffles etc okay so that was just a technical this is a teaching podcast so continue

Sarah Lesko (09:40.307)
Yes.

Yeah, so we were at the booth and a mom and her daughter who was about 11 walked up and you know the girl looked at our table and saw that it was sports bras and you know information about sports bras and she just kind of shyly slipped away. She did not want to engage with this but the mom stayed and she started looking at our signs. The signs about how sports are so important for developing leadership skills in girls. All the beneficial effects of sports that we know about.

and you know started looking at this information about sports bra fit and she started she her eyes started walling up and she kind of looked like she was overcome and she turned away and started walking away and so I followed her and asked her if she was okay and she just started the tears were streaming down her face and she said when I was a girl and I started developing breasts I didn't have a sports bra and I was so uncomfortable and embarrassed

that I stopped sports and I've always regretted it.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (10:53.088)
Amazing.

Sarah Lesko (10:53.101)
And that's something that we really hear so frequently because sometimes the girls that we work with, you and they're in that awkward age, they're not gonna give us the feedback right then of how important this interaction has been, but it's later. And we've just started, we've been around long enough now that we've been able to have a few girls come back to us when they're in high school, later high school years and in college and say, hey, actually that changed my life.

But it just takes, you know, it takes a while. This is something that people only will realize maybe in their late 20s or 30s of like, hey, this was such an important event for me. I mean, I have one other similar story. There was a Div. One track and field runner who had never had this conversation. she, her coach actually asked me to come and do a special sports bra fitting with her.

And so we arranged this whole thing and I brought 10 different bras and we found her some bras that worked for her and her entire season, her entire running career actually turned around. It was this very impactful moment for her and she was already a freshman in college but had just never had that and didn't know and it impacted her racing so much. It was actually shocking. So even, you know, even at a later stage

you know, for these athletes, if they don't have the right gear, it's going to impact them.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (12:19.79)
That's right, that's amazing. mean, and it's just, it's a bra that gives them the support that can change their life.

And then those that dropped out, like so when the mom said that she dropped out, you know, we had another line in there that said something like, she's gonna have to learn leadership in another way. Because let's talk about what does, you started to touch on it a little bit, but like let's talk about why sports matters for future leaders. What are your thoughts?

Sarah Lesko (12:50.13)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, all of the research has been so great on that. And I think Women's Sports Foundation has done a fantastic job of kind of collecting and then also doing the research. But we know that of women who are in leadership positions in their companies, in their jobs, 94 % of them did sports. Many of them did college sports. So we know that the more time you have in a sports environment, the more comfortable you feel, you know, being in that position of leadership.

making decisions, working effectively as a teammate, being able to take tough feedback, you know, it's all of those things like you have to be gritty when you're in an athletic situation and you really learn those skills of coming back from adversity, you know, it really, teaches so many things. And if you don't have that sports experience, how are you going to learn all that? It's just much harder, you know, like if you're working on a group project in an academic setting, it's different than when you're

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (13:46.914)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Lesko (13:47.545)
in a team and you you're in a what feels like a high stakes environment and you're all working together it's just like a heightened level of learning that happens when you're in the sports setting and we know how good that is for girls also it's good for it's good for everyone right youth who participate in sports have better mental health they have better academic outcomes very well proven

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (14:09.954)
Awesome. And do they have to be the actual athletes? mean, because there's also people who are around the teams, but they're not necessarily being the athletes that can still witness the power of what that team is doing, because there's no I in team, right? Like you really, you get into the business world. I'm not surprised that 94 % of the executives, females, were in sports. Probably even the men too, right?

Sarah Lesko (14:18.225)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Lesko (14:35.996)
I would imagine, I don't know that research as well, but yeah.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (14:37.838)
Yeah, that would be interesting. yeah, no, so it's so super important.

There's another group though, so I did softball when I was like nine years old and I did love it. But what's really funny is I got a detention in my freshman year in high school for taking a picture in science class and Mr. Jensen was not happy. And he's like, that's it, you're staying after school and you are going to clean the chalkboards, right? So I'm sitting there and as I'm cleaning the chalkboard, someone said, hey, do know that today there's auditions for the musical and the softball team?

Sarah Lesko (14:48.998)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (15:15.664)
And I'm sitting there like, which one do I go with? Because I'm like, I like softball and I'm pretty good at it. But musical theater. So I'm going to say I went to the musical theater and that launched me and I've been an actor since I was nine, right? So yes, but, but I think theater kids also get the discipline of leadership because you have all of it.

Sarah Lesko (15:20.452)
I'm like, top-notch.

Sarah Lesko (15:32.667)
Amazing.

Sarah Lesko (15:40.946)
Absolutely. And that the teamwork and all of that. Absolutely. Yep. Yep.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (15:44.641)
And all we care about is the audience, right? And so you have a director who's watching you and all we care about is the audience. And then the sports kids, I think sports theater kids and military are some of my favorite individuals to work with in this work, right? Because the discipline, the vision, the willingness to want to try something even when it's uncomfortable, right? Because public speaking can be very uncomfortable for people.

Sarah Lesko (16:00.838)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Lesko (16:07.62)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I felt...

The first time when you introduced, you know, you were introduced in that group call like, and here's, you know, a coach who can work with you. That made me feel very uncomfortable because all of a sudden it raised the stakes so much, you know, at first I was like, this is fine. I mean, I do, you know, some speaking on behalf of Bras for Girls. So I didn't have this heightened sense of, this is a big deal. But then once we started talking about you and the work and the mentoring, it kind of ratcheted everything up. So then I did get very nervous.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (16:40.526)
Well, hopefully it was just before our first call because we ended up having so much fun, know, putting it together. Did you learn anything different? Because you do do some public speaking. What are your thoughts now about the power of storytelling in a speech?

Sarah Lesko (16:46.886)
Yeah.

Sarah Lesko (16:56.87)
Yeah, absolutely. I I think it really honed in that, you know, I have all of the stats in my head at all times of, you know, how many girls we've impacted and the demographics of the girls and the coaches that we work with and, you know, the schools and all of that. But I think it's just a reminder that it's really the stories that hit people the hardest and and that by sharing a story, it's going to make someone remember what you're doing much more than just talking about numbers.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (17:23.298)
Well, in my approach, I call it putting heart behind the chart because numbers are important. They're what run business, but they are to the brain a number and it's a very rational, reasonable, non-emotional event that happens, right, doctor?

Sarah Lesko (17:28.178)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Lesko (17:40.006)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (17:42.883)
But the limbic system part of our brain is where we see the picture. So we were all at that PBS fair. We all saw that mom's eyes well up. We smelled the chicken and waffles. We heard her crying. And then everyone in the audience, then after you say that, you could say this woman represents 75 % of the women who stop sports. you know, like all of a sudden now that woman becomes the stat. It becomes that number. And so now we have heart behind that chart. So that's where

Sarah Lesko (17:50.502)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Lesko (18:04.529)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Lesko (18:10.094)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (18:12.836)
we're coming from and I can't tell people enough all day long how important that is because I do a lot of investor pitches and you know that's how I started actually and they would start with a number everyone would start with a number and I'm like you got to start with the numbers talking about humans right so so get a story and then when you say that number it's gonna mean so much more because we have a character that we've just fallen in love with that mom

Sarah Lesko (18:20.05)
Mm-hmm Right, right

Sarah Lesko (18:30.609)
Yeah.

Sarah Lesko (18:41.618)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (18:43.042)
Right? So that's why, I'm glad that we had fun with it and that I didn't scare you off.

Sarah Lesko (18:50.482)
No, was great. Yeah, it was great. I think, I mean, the other thing was it just forced me to rehearse it so many times that it did, I really didn't feel uncomfortable at all. I mean, it was such an honor to have Hope Solo introduce me. And I think I was more nervous to meet her than I was to actually give this speech.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (18:58.254)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (19:08.174)
Yes.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (19:13.11)
you, you stepped on with so much confidence. was like, watch her go. Like you were, you were prepared. And that is because you did practice. We practiced a few times together. like we wrote it. We agreed on the content, right? Cause it is your speech. Like, so I'll use Missy AI. She helped along the way as well. So, but you told the story. I put it into Missy AI. We got it nice and succinct because we had to stay with originally we were only going to get two minutes and I got us bumped up.

Sarah Lesko (19:16.262)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sarah Lesko (19:27.962)
Yep. Yep.

Sarah Lesko (19:36.614)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Lesko (19:40.304)
Yep.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (19:42.997)
Three and that was perfect. That was actually perfect timing But at that point all of its handed to the speaker The one thing that I cannot do is make someone rehearse I can encourage it but you did you did rehearse you did and it was very clear like you stood up like when the lights came on I mean you looked gorgeous and you walked up on that stage and you just owned it and I was so happy and proud for you

Sarah Lesko (19:51.11)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Lesko (19:57.415)
Yeah.

Sarah Lesko (20:09.062)
thank you. I mean, it helps to have, had, we had a friend come do hair and makeup for a few of us. And for me, I, you know, I'm not a big like self hair and makeup person. So I was like, if I'm going to do this, I need to have someone else make me look so I can feel just so confident. And so that was fun too. Cause we, know, just to be able to have that feel kind of glam was fun.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (20:14.808)
Yeah.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (20:30.346)
Isn't it fun? It's like, you know, I've done a little bit of movie stuff and whatnot. I love hair and makeup day. I do. think it's just so fun. But yeah, no, you look smashing. So whoever did it, hats off to that person. You look great. But you know, you want to you want to feel confident inside and out. And when you've rehearsed it and you believe in what you're going to say and you have the room, that room needed to hear that.

Sarah Lesko (20:47.824)
Yeah.

Sarah Lesko (20:54.491)
Yeah.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (20:57.74)
You know, that room, those were rooms filled with parents of daughters, filled with coaches of young women, you know, and you so gently said, so now let's talk about this to the coaches, especially to the men, you know, and then you so eloquently addressed it. So yeah, hats off, really fabulous. So let's, what's the future now? Like what are we doing with bras for girls? How can we be of support to you? What do you need? Let's hear it from you.

Sarah Lesko (21:06.727)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sarah Lesko (21:27.29)
Yeah, I we have so much going on. think one of the big challenges right now is that we are in a position of manufacturing most of the inventory that we're...

distributing just because there's been so much instability with tariffs and just so many things. So I think some of our in-kind donations have tailed off a little bit. So we still work with over 35 different brands that donate inventory to us or let us purchase at cost. But then we're also we have three different manufacturing sites where we manufacture sports bras. And so it just takes more funds, right? So these are hard dollars that we're actually paying for manufacturing sports bras. So that's been, you know, we have a

fundraising challenge and that we're trying to be able to meet the demand that's coming in and you know last year we distributed over 88,000 sports bras and this year maybe fewer than that just honestly for financial reasons but we're still you know we're still getting all those requests coming in and we want to meet the requests that are coming in so I think that's one thing of just financial you know that is always helpful we also we are really trying to work on the education piece of it so we've developed a curriculum it's a

We have 20 and 40 minute downloadable options for teachers and coaches and we're working on a video press play version as well and that's going to be free and downloadable from our website. you know any help with kind of distributing that curriculum, getting it adopted so that girls are then getting the basic information about how to fit a sports bra, here's how to access one if you can't afford it. So that is super helpful and then we just have so many amazing volunteers that work with

us around the whole United States. know some in Seattle we have a great volunteer base here but in other cities and other parts of the country as well that can go and help fit sports bras for girls. So yeah we love to have people be involved and on our website it's just brasforgirls.org. So very easy to find and we have all the information there. Yep how to get involved all of that.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (23:24.11)
for girls dot org as perfect. That's what you do.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (23:34.434)
Yeah, well thank you. mean, it's exciting. I mean, you're a doctor and you're an entrepreneur and you're an executive leader and a public speaker. And I'm sure your days are really full. And I just want you to know that we really are grateful that you reserve time to join us. Because I think your mission is amazing. I mean, you're changing the world. That's what entrepreneurs do.

Sarah Lesko (23:56.316)
Thank you. It's been so fun to talk with you and work with you.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (23:59.648)
Okay, well thank you again. I want to see you in the future, you know, like we live in the same city. And do let me know when you are doing some galas. But listen up everybody, our world is made of future leaders, right? Our future leaders depend on all sorts of moving parts that sometimes they don't even understand. And when you meet someone like Dr. Sarah Lesko, who sees something that most people had not even taken a second to even notice.

did she notice look what she's doing? Did you plan that you'd be manufacturing?

Sarah Lesko (24:35.377)
No, no, it's, you know, it's that realization of, we have to pivot here, we have to do that. So just kind of allowing, you know, the natural evolution of what we're doing really.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (24:38.68)
you

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (24:48.248)
Yeah, that's the beauty of entrepreneurship is just flowing with it, you know? Like, I get it. Well, thank you again and congratulations. Congratulations on the accolades that you received and thank you on behalf of all of our future leaders and the athletes of today and tomorrow, what you're doing. Really, bravo.

Sarah Lesko (25:09.563)
Thank you.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition (25:10.924)
Alright everybody, we will be back with another episode. We will watch for us on LinkedIn. you know, when we post this, you're gonna wanna see that. We're hopefully going to even have the actual speech. That's one of the goals that you can see Dr. Sarah Lesko working on when she was presenting her gratitude for the award. So, alright, so keep telling your stories. Tell your stories, tell them well. Make sure you get food in there.

And we will see you at the next episode.