837 Jamie Mittelman: Flame Bearers

The first surprise for me was loneliness. The second one was how much excitement there is around this, but really how actually hard and  gritty it is. Everyone glorifies the idea of being an entrepreneur, at least from the outside, but I didn’t realize really how gritty you have to be and how many different hats you have to wear. I used to think that I wore a lot of different hats in my corporate job or my nonprofit job. And now I see that you are literally the CEO, the CMO, the CFO, all those things rolled up into one. And it’s incredible from a learning perspective, but it’s like drinking from a water hose.

Making the transition from corporate executive to tenacious entrepreneur is never easy and as Jamie Mittelman shares today about her journey building the media company Flame Bearers it can be lonely as you drink from that water hose. Today Jamie shares all the lessons learned along the way, and her vision for telling the stories of female athletes.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of Podopolo, the AI-powered interactive app revolutionizing podcast discovery and discussion and making podcasting profitable for creators. I’d like to invite you to take a minute, download Podopolo from either app store, listen to the rest of this episode there, create and share your favorite moment with our viral clip sharing tool across social media, by text, or any messaging app, and join the conversation with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice … Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who is changing the game for women athletes.

Jamie Mittelman is the founder and CEO of Flame Bearers, the world’s first dedicated media platform specifically for women Olympians and Paralympians. Today we talk about her mission and motivation, the challenges of female athletes and why the narrative must change so they can ‘own’ their own stories, plus how Jamie transitioned from the corporate world to build her own company.

Jamie will be here in a moment, and first,

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Many of us know the stories of soccer star Megan Rapinoe, gymnast Olivia Dunn, or tennis phenoms Serena and Venus Williams. Or do we, really? What are all the stories we’re missing?

Some 96% of sports media coverage goes to male athletes, along with the lion’s share of the sponsorship money, and then there is the palpable difference in how people talk about female athletes. It’s often sexualized, often focused on cattiness between women, and rarely if ever about the issues that actually matter to women athletes themselves. And all too often the narrative is taken away from the athletes.

That’s why Jamie Mittelman founded Flame Bearers, a global media platform dedicated to changing the story for female athletes. A deep believer in the power of stories to change lives with a background in media managing a $30 million portfolio for Yahoo, AOL and Huffington Post, Jamie is deeply committed to elevating as many diverse voices as possible within the world of elite women’s sports. Flame Bearers is active in 48 countries and recently received multiple Awards in the categories of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Public Service & Activism.  Jamie was also instrumental in inspiring US high school girls to pitch and implement tech ideas to empower the #62milliongirls movement in collaboration with the White House and Peace Corps.

Today Jamie shares her own entrepreneurial story, her vision for Flame Bearers, and everything she’s learned along the way.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Jamie Mittelman and download the podcast app Podopolo, check out the Flame Bearers podcast there, and let’s keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock (00:06):

Jamie, welcome to Wings.

Jessica Mittelman (00:11):

Thanks for having me, Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock (00:13):

So what was the inspiration behind starting Flame Bearers?

Jessica Mittelman (00:17):

So I’ll give you the professional answer and then I’ll give you the personal answer. So professionally, my background had been in the media space, specifically working with women and girls internationally. And I think my conclusion is that we’ve basically been living in a world created by men for men, and that doesn’t just relate to the area that I work in. If you look more broadly, women in car crashes are 47% more likely to be injured. On average office temperatures are five degrees colder than they should be for women. My area of expertise was working with women and specifically in media, and I realized that the same issue of being by men for men was in this space. Historically, 96% of sports media coverage goes to male athletes. So that means less than 4% goes to female athletes. And I said, “This is the world that I can make a difference in.” So I realized that this was a problem that I had skillsets that I could directly go into this world and actually make a difference in.

(01:27):

There was a real need and no one was doing that. On the flip side, there was also a quality problem. So it wasn’t only the quantity, it was how people were talking about women athletes. In general, they were sexualized, they were talking about their cattiness. They weren’t talking about the issues and things that really matter to the athletes themselves. So I thought that there was quantity and quality. And then the third piece is how it’s being done. A lot of times the narrative was taken away from the athletes themselves, and it was really important for me for these athletes who’ve historically been marginalized to own their stories. So it was quantity, quality and how it was done.

(02:10):

The more personal story is that I had just lost my dad to brain cancer, and I had almost lost my mom within the same year. And I had come to this moment of saying, “What matters to me? What do I care about and where am I investing my time?” And I realized that life was frankly too short to be doing anything that I don’t fully 100% believe in.

Melinda Wittstock (02:39):

So true. It’s tragic to me that so many people find that out late in life, and the earlier that we can find that out, the better, but also often, and I’m so sorry about your dad.

Jessica Mittelman (02:56):

Thank you.

Melinda Wittstock (02:56):

Also, often it’s a tragedy of some kind or it’s getting sick or burning out or having some adverse thing happen that wakes people up to, just like what you said, life is short, so double down on what you love to do and where you can make the biggest difference.

Jessica Mittelman (03:18):

And if you fail, you fail, you get back up. You have a couple bruised knees, but at least you went for it. And I think that that was what I realized. I had been in the corporate world and before that in the nonprofit space and learned incredible lessons from there, but also didn’t necessarily agree with everything I saw. And I said, “I’m in a very lucky position. I want to go for exactly what I want. I basically just have to stop being a chicken.”

Melinda Wittstock (03:45):

Right, because it’s a big leap to make into entrepreneurship, and some people, like me, make it blindly like “How hard can this be?” And I quickly find out. And other people take a more, I’d say, measured, tempered approach to like, “Okay, I’m going to research everything about it” and like, “Oh, everything before I go in.” And even if you do that, you still don’t know. What was your transition like? What was the thing that surprised you the most in launching this?

Jessica Mittelman (04:15):

Sure. There’s a couple different things, and I think if I’m being totally honest, I was shielded from a lot of the realities of real entrepreneurship because I was in graduate school when I launched Flame Bearers. So I think being in a graduate school environment actually in certain ways softens what it is to be an entrepreneur because you have access to funding, you have access to incredible resources such as mentors and experts. So I think that was actually a very smooth entry for me into entrepreneurship, and I think I was very, very lucky in that sense. Yes, I’m absolutely an entrepreneur, but I do like to give credit where credit is due and own the fact that I was not doing this as my full-time job when I started. I was getting my Master of Policy at Harvard. They honestly helped me a lot in the very beginning.

(05:13):

A couple things that I definitely did not see coming. Number one is how lonely it is. And that sounds probably pretty obvious to someone who’s a seasoned entrepreneur like yourself. But as someone who was used to grabbing drinks with my colleagues after work and meeting people at the water cooler, I was not expecting the day in and day out on your own. Especially during COVID, frankly, where I was working in my apartment. And that was very tough for me, and I think I realized that I really need to build in supports and structures to be able to come up with new patterns and ways to really support myself from a mental health perspective.

(05:53):

So the first surprise for me was loneliness. The second one was how much excitement there is around this, but really how actually hard and gritty it is. Everyone glorifies the idea of being an entrepreneur, at least from the outside, but I didn’t realize really how gritty you have to be and how many different hats you have to wear. I used to think that I wore a lot of different hats in my corporate job or my nonprofit job. And now I see that you are literally the CEO, the CMO, the CFO, all those things rolled up into one. And it’s incredible from a learning perspective, but it’s like drinking from a water hose.

Melinda Wittstock (06:35):

Oh, completely. And what’s interesting about that, that whole transition is because you start and you’re everybody, and after a while you get used to being everybody. But then there’s a moment in your business where you can’t grow if you continue to be everybody.

Jessica Mittelman (06:49):

Totally.

Melinda Wittstock (06:50):

And you have [inaudible 00:06:51] letting stuff go. And a lot of entrepreneurs falter there because it can easily become like, “Oh, you got to do it my way.” Or controlling or just especially women’s perfectionism plays into this, whereas [inaudible 00:07:06] let go. How big a team do you have now? Are you growing in that way? Are you relinquishing some of these things or are you still everybody?

Jessica Mittelman (07:16):

Oh, no. I am very eager to not be everybody. I have a team. There’s seven of us, and we are women from around the world. We have every consonant covered, which is really special and important to me because we work with women athletes from around the world. So I wanted my team to be representative of the people that I work with. I am very eager to find people who I can work with to offload what I’m doing. I think it’s important that the quality is there, but as soon as someone proves themselves and shows me that they’re completely aligned with our values and our mission and that I can trust them, I am very eager to say, “Great, go run with it.”

(08:00):

I think that that was one of the skillsets that I had learned before in the corporate space, also getting my MBA, is the importance of delegation. A company as you scale that the CEO or the leader is usually the first person who can hold things back. And I never want to be that for my company. I want to be the person who’s giving my company wings and saying, “Perfect. You three people, you go and you run our social media, you run our blog, you run our sponsorship department, because your capacity is so much greater than my super stretched thin capacity.” And I think that that was a realization that I came to before I started, because I’ve worked with micromanagers in the past. It drove me crazy, if I’m going to be honest.

Melinda Wittstock (08:49):

Nobody likes a micromanager. It’s a really interesting thing to just repeat because anyone who’s worked in corporate has been micromanaged and everybody knows how they feel when they’re being micromanaged. So when you make that transition to entrepreneurship, I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs make those same mistakes often unwittingly without even consciously knowing that they’re doing it. But no, you’ll never have a great team if [inaudible 00:09:17] need to micromanage-

Jessica Mittelman (09:18):

And the flip side is it has bitten me in the butt, to be honest, where sometimes being the opposite of a micromanager, where I put too much trust into someone too early and there are stumbles, and I take responsibility for that in the sense that I didn’t set my teammates up to succeed in a more risk-free environment where the stakes aren’t as high. So I would love to say that I have it all figured out, but no, I’m definitely still figuring it out.

Melinda Wittstock (09:45):

That’s been one of my biggest challenges too, because you come into it saying, “Okay, I really want to trust people.” You go through this hiring process, but it takes a while before you really know whether your team members are going to fit into an entrepreneurial culture. And the getting, like something you mentioned a little while ago about making sure there’s alignment, making sure there’s trust, that’s a process. It’s easy to get that wrong and you can trust people and they can really be the wrong person. Or [inaudible 00:10:20]. I’ve had misfires, I think in all my businesses there’s at least been one, sometimes more, people who just haven’t worked out. So trying to figure that out and it’s not easy. So tell me a little bit more about that in terms of how you actually qualify the people that you’re going to work with, because you suggested you had a little bit of a process there.

Jessica Mittelman (10:45):

Yeah, and I think to your point is that it’s been evolving and changing as we’re growing and have more resources. Historically, to be honest, it’s like who has the skillsets that I am looking for? So the concrete, I’m looking for someone to help me with brand sponsorships. Who can do that? Someone where there’s no language barriers, where we’re able to communicate clearly. Does the time zone difference work? That’s a big one, being able to actually sit down and speak with people so scheduling is not a pain in the neck consistently.

(11:21):

And then I think the biggest one is harder to quantify, but I think it is equally, if not more important, is the values piece. Does this person believe in what we’re doing? Are they going to, if they’ve had a bad day, roll over and say, “I don’t need to do that because it’s not working for me today”? Or are they going to say, “No, I need to do this because this is really important work.” And I think I usually sort that out through asking a couple questions about why they believe in what we’re doing, what are their hopes for the future of women’s sports and things like that. But to your point, you don’t really know someone until you’ve worked with them. So I think it’s a constant evolution.

Melinda Wittstock :

(12:22):

So Jamie, where you’re at right now, and you look at the next phase of growth for Flame Bearers, what are some of the biggest challenges? What are some of the biggest things that you’re working on right now in terms of where you’re taking this ultimately?

Jessica Mittelman (12:35):

Sure. So we started as a podcast and we are now moving full steam into becoming a media company. So we tell stories of elite women athletes, Olympians and Paralympians, but we do so in multiple ways. So podcast is one channel, it’s one spoke of the wheel, but you can tell stories via video, via live events, via social media. So I think the main opportunity for growth right now is really moving away from people knowing us as, “Oh, the podcast that works with Olympians and Paralympians” to really becoming the go-to storytelling platform for women athletes. So that is… I think it’s a perception issue, but also a massive opportunity.

(13:24):

With that comes a ton of opportunity for sponsorship. So that is how we are the model that we are moving towards from a funding perspective. Historically, we’ve been funded by grants. I mentioned that I was very fortunate to be a graduate student at Harvard. They were very, very kind and supportive of our work, which was wonderful and helped us get off the ground, but really with a massive increase in attention and demand around women’s sports, there’s a lot of companies who are beginning to invest in this type of work. So we’re seeking sponsors who want to bring in a number of athletes to their corporate offices to talk about resilience, to share their stories. We’re looking for corporate sponsors to sponsor video work and podcast work for athletes who are trying to make the Paris Olympics and Paralympics. So that’s where we’re going. It’s incredibly exciting, completely daunting, but I know we’re up for the job.

Melinda Wittstock (14:22):

I love that you started the business from a podcast.

Jessica Mittelman (14:26):

It’s interesting because it’s the inverse of what most people do. They start their business and then they have the podcast become a feeder into their business. I think I started it because I had actually been pitching a role to the International Olympic Committee, and this was my COVID adoption. So it’s not glamorous. I had been pitching a role to the IOC that frankly didn’t exist, and I thought it should. They spend so much time and energy with their diversity, equity, inclusion work, but frankly, you wouldn’t know about it unless you go onto their website and view a report that I think is not very beautiful, is not very effective in communicating with people of different generations, if you will.

(15:12):

And I said, “Hey, my background in marketing communications can help tell the world all the awesome stuff you’re already doing. You’ve already invested in it, and now let me help tell the world.” And then COVID happened, and I realized that the Olympics and Paralympics were going to be postponed for a year, and I was in an environment and a place where I could do this on my own. So a podcast was a way that you could connect with people in a time where you couldn’t really go and see people in person because of COVID. So it has definitely evolved, and I’m excited to see what we could do in the future.

Melinda Wittstock (15:45):

It’s so funny the parallels because I started this podcast as a big give forward to women, the podcast I wish I’d had as a female founder, but in podcasting, I learned so much that was holding podcasters back from growing their audience, being able to be easily discovered, being able to monetize their content. And the result was also a business that started in the pandemic, which is my main business now, Podopolo which is an AI-powered platform that does all that for podcasters as well, creating a better listener experience. So it was interesting that a podcast led me to this huge fast-growing business that takes… Oh my God, it’s an obsession now, right?

Jessica Mittelman (16:35):

Exactly. Totally.

Melinda Wittstock (16:37):

But it’s so interesting. Podcasting is such a cool thing. I would be saying, that I’m a podcast or I have a podcast, app and platform, but it really is because it connects you to people in such an authentic way, and the best marketing is just authentic storytelling. So [inaudible 00:16:56] why it’s the fastest growing media of all time.

Jessica Mittelman (16:59):

I completely agree. It’s also, I think for some people less daunting than video. So I know a lot of athletes who I work with, very few of them are frankly media trained. They know how to play their sport incredibly well, but it’s intimidating to get in front of a camera. But if you’re just talking and you get to hear their voice, it is way less scary than going into a studio, having to put on makeup, put on all this stuff. They’re way more accessible and they feel more comfortable via podcast.

Melinda Wittstock (17:29):

Oh, completely. I think it’s so important for women too, and it’s actually one of the reasons why I do this podcast audio only. Because I was originally going to do it as a video podcast. I’m an ex TV anchor among other things, and so it would’ve been natural for me to go do video and do that whole production, but there’s a big difference in how intimate the conversation can be when it’s audio only. And also I just wanted… It was just less hassle. I was thinking of all my guests, they’re going to have to put on makeup, they’re going to be thinking about how they’re [inaudible 00:18:01] on camera, and it’s going to get in the way of the conversation.

Jessica Mittelman (18:05):

I completely agree. In my field where I’m working with women around the world, many women in areas with poor internet connection. Also, there’s a massive benefit to having it be audio only, even though we are now beginning to introduce more video work. But I know in areas where the WIFI is poor, it’s hard to get clear video.

Melinda Wittstock (18:29):

Oh gosh. It’s true. Even in Los Angeles, sometimes. And so I want to ask you about this because I’ve just been noting the misogyny towards so many female athletes. I’m thinking most recently or just politicization, most recently around US women’s soccer. How do you handle a story like that? What’s your take on that? Because here’s this amazing athlete, and certain parts of our politicized society don’t agree with her position, so they take her down.

Jessica Mittelman (19:08):

Are you talking about Megan Rapinoe?

Melinda Wittstock (19:09):

Yeah.

Jessica Mittelman (19:10):

Yeah. Megan I think is an incredible role model. People love to hate her. They love to love her. She’s one of the most polarizing people, and I think that that started several years ago when there was the back and forth with her on Twitter with former president Donald Trump. And I think what’s really challenging about someone like Megan is she leads with her heart, and some people love that, and some people hate that.

(19:40):

I think it’s really unfortunate that people read into her reaction at the World Cup and frankly just jumped on her for that. If there’s anyone who wanted this more than any of the fans who’ve never even kicked a soccer ball, I guarantee you it was her. So I think it’s always a little ridiculous listening to the trolls who love to hate on her. To be honest, I just disregard it. I think that our world is full of so many people who are looking for opportunities to spread hate, and I only listen to people who I think can carry on intelligent conversations and who can back what they’re saying up. And a lot of people who are hating on Megan right now, I just don’t give them the time of day.

Melinda Wittstock (20:26):

That’s really the way to go about it. It’s the only thing we can do. It’s a conscious choice.

Jessica Mittelman (20:32):

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock (20:33):

[inaudible 00:20:34] be derailed by all that noise or not. The only thing that I worry about with something like that is to what extent for a female athlete who… I don’t know, we were just talking about your fear of going on a video podcast, what kind of chilling effect that has on female athletes in terms of being able to, especially as their career is starting to come to an end, and what’s their next life and how can they capitalize on their success in sports? What do they do? And so how do they navigate that?

Jessica Mittelman (21:06):

Yeah. One other comment on Megan, and I think it takes a super special type of person who’s willing to put yourself out there like her. She knows she’s going to get throttled from all directions. She’s a very intelligent person who is well aware of that. So this is a conscious choice on her decision.

(21:24):

In terms of how they navigate the next part, it’s really tough, and I think that’s compounded by the fact that they are not paid, most of them in most sports, a livable wage. We just saw the pay equity lawsuit with the United States soccer team. But if you look at sports globally, there’s still so many sports where men and women are not being paid equally, even within the United States. So the jobs that they have to take after are largely going to have to be based off of basically being able to live.

(21:59):

Many professional athletes also have to work full-time in something else in order to just get by. So it’s less of the glamorous NBA retirement that we see in the news. And for most people, it’s finding the next gig that pays the bills, which is just really sad. A lot of the athletes who are household names like a Megan Rapinoe or an Alex Morgan have established brands with millions of followers that they’re able to capitalize on, and I think that’s fantastic, but that’s not the reality for most elite female athletes, let alone aspiring female athletes, Paralympians, so that’s athletes with physical disabilities, or athletes in regions that have historically not had the structural support that we are currently starting to see more in the United States.

Melinda Wittstock (22:45):

Right. The other thing that happens too is I think the sexualization of women in sports.

Jessica Mittelman (22:54):

Totally.

Melinda Wittstock (22:55):

Whether it’s golf or gymnastics, or I don’t know, figure skating or whatever, how do women deal with that?

Melinda Wittstock (23:38):

Particularly very beautiful golfers or gymnasts or figure skaters or whatever. Talk to me about that.

Jessica Mittelman (23:45):

I can put on my Jamie gender studies minor hat, or I can put on my Jamie founder of Flame Bearers, which is a storytelling platform for all elite women athletes, which is historically the hat that I wear more in these conversations because we elevate the voices of all women athletes. Personally, it is hard for me to see anyone who leans into any part of their identity that could be portrayed as undermining or could be portrayed as not uplifting all of them. That said, at the end of the day, I like to walk the line professionally that it is their choice. Because we work with athletes from all walks of life, I think this is part of the evolution of getting to a more equal world, that people are going to try to do things to build their brand that other women or other people look at and say, “That’s maybe not the decision I would take,” but we try to elevate all voices, even if I wouldn’t do that myself.

Melinda Wittstock (24:58):

Yeah, because I think there’s so many influences. Say, a really successful female athlete in some area is blessed with physical beauty, and then she’s looking around at our society and she’s looking at all the influencers on Instagram or Kim Kardashian or whatever. That’s a path, and it’s a proven path, but on the other hand, what does it mean ultimately for her and ultimately for all other female athletes?

Jessica Mittelman (25:29):

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock (25:30):

It’s a tricky one to navigate.

Jessica Mittelman (25:32):

It is, and it is that individual going to forego the opportunities that come with that. On an individual level, you’re going to say, “I don’t want to do that. I’ve been given this whatever, this body, this physique. I want to be able to make that work to my advantage.” And I understand that, it’s probably… It’s not something that I would say feminism in general is always gung-ho on, but it is another path that I think I don’t like to quickly shoot down.

Melinda Wittstock (26:04):

It’s so interesting how sports has changed. My mom, who passed away recently, she was 96, she was in the Olympics for figure skating in like 1948. If it had been today’s rules, she would’ve won because she won the free skate But she was an amazing skater and an artist, and it was hard for her, I think back in that day because there wasn’t a sponsorship money. There was no path post competing that you could really capitalize on. Ultimately, she became a coach and such. So that world has really changed, and I think looking at it through her lens historically, but what it means now, what the opportunities are once your career is coming to an end. So how can women athletes turn what they’ve done into something, whether it’s a sustaining business or personal brand, or leveraging their story to what’s their next act? Is that something that very top of mind that you focus on?

Jessica Mittelman (27:13):

It’s super top of mind. And to circle back to the earlier question, because I don’t think I verbalized it as well as I would’ve liked to. I think in general, women are super critical of each other, and I want to be the person who lifts and supports everyone up, even if they’re making decisions that I wouldn’t want to make.

Melinda Wittstock (27:33):

That’s true, yeah.

Jessica Mittelman (27:34):

Historically, women are the ones who point fingers and say, “Oh, you’re doing it wrong. This is not real feminism.” And that is not the direction that I want to go in. The direction is-

Melinda Wittstock (27:43):

Oh, it just keeps us divided, and it’s-

Jessica Mittelman (27:45):

Yeah, it holds everyone back. And if someone is playing a professional sport, but maybe going about it wearing clothes that I wouldn’t wear, they’re still trailblazing, and I want to be the first to go to bat for them, even if I don’t agree with all their personal decisions. Take two for that. That is more the direction that I meant to go in.

(28:05):

In terms of careers. This is what they’re all thinking about. To be honest, I think so many players are coming into their prime and they are already establishing brands. This is why we’re seeing athletes like Mia Fishel who is a professional soccer player, very young, come out with Mia Fishel Energy, a company about her personal brand before she’s even made the World Cup team. That never would’ve happened 20 or 30 years ago.

(28:35):

So players are now looking at their careers and seeing the potential longevity there and viewing it as an opportunity for growth to say, “Okay, how can I monetize an area that historically just meant I got to play soccer, just meant I got to figure skate.” But now it’s actually an opportunity to establish yourself as a woman who stands for A, B, or C that X, Y, or Z company wants to invest in. And I think that’s really cool. I hope more sponsorship dollars flow in that direction.

Melinda Wittstock (29:08):

That was my next question. Is there more money available for that now? Because at the very beginning of the interview, you’re saying you look at television, you see only men’s sports. It’s really hard to really… Women’s sports just don’t get the airwaves or attention anywhere near that of men’s sports. So the sponsorship dollars are going to be tied to that to some degree. Is that changing? How is that changing? What needs to happen to make it change?

Jessica Mittelman (29:36):

It is. This is so sad, less than 1% of total sponsorship dollars go to female athletes. That is changing though. I think in the United States, we saw the WNBA and the fever around that. We’re seeing the World Cup, even though the United States was kicked out early, people are tuning in and bars are showing them. It’s sad that is taken so long, but we are seeing corporations begin to walk the walk, and I think that people are holding them accountable. I think people, what we’re seeing is people are really putting their money where their mouth is and saying, I’m only going to shop or spend my money at companies who align with my values, and I hope we see more of that.

Melinda Wittstock (30:26):

Oh, amazing. So where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Jessica Mittelman (30:30):

My hope is that Flame Bearers becomes the go-to storytelling platform for elite women athletes. That when you think of the stories of real trailblazers in sport, that you think of Flame Bearers and that you think of a company that has these athletes’ backs, that we are a place of trust and a place of community building, and a place where we go to bat for the athletes. We’re telling their stories as they want them told, essentially. So flipping the model historically of journalism where people are coming in looking for a specific narrative and then putting an individual into that narrative. We actually approach it from a very different direction of going to the athlete and asking what it is that they want to talk about. So I hope that in the future, when people think of trailblazers in sport, they think about us.

Melinda Wittstock (31:28):

That’s just so wonderful. I’m so inspired by what you’re doing. Sorry, I’m just going to say that again.

(31:36):

That’s so wonderful. I really am very inspired by what you’re doing, and it’s so, so important. I want to make sure people know how to follow your podcast and all the other things you’re doing. What’s the best way?

Jessica Mittelman (31:50):

Sure. So we are flamebearers.com, flame as in the torch, the Olympic torch and bearers as in the people who carry them, the bearers of the flame. Flamebearers.com. On that website, we have a contact form. If there’s any part of what I said today that resonates with you and you think you want to work together in some way, please fill out that form and we would love to discuss how we can partner with you. I’m also personally reachable at jamie@flamebearers.com. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on social. Flame Bearers is across every social media platform, so you can find us there as well.

Melinda Wittstock (32:25):

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jamie, for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Jessica Mittelman (32:29):

Thank you for having me.