Episode 86
How to Master Your Emotions When Stakes Are High with Groundbreaking Baseball Player Alli Schroeder
At just 22, Alli Schroeder has already blazed trails most wouldn't dare to walk. As the first woman to play in the Canadian Collegiate Baseball Conference and a 2X bronze medalist with Team Canada's national baseball team, she's no stranger to being the only woman on the field. But perhaps even more impressively, when she's not commanding the pitcher's mound, she's battling wildfires in British Columbia's challenging terrain.
Growing up in the small town of Fruitvale, BC (population: roughly 1,000), Alli learned early that resilience isn't just about individual strength – it's about creating positive change for others. Inspired by her mother, who also works in the male-dominated wildfire industry, Alli developed a unique approach to handling adversity: stay emotionless in the face of challenge but let your passion fuel your purpose.
Today, Alli's impact reaches far beyond the baseball diamond. When she returns to her hometown, she sees young girls playing baseball without hesitation – a stark contrast to her early days as the only female player. Her story is now featured in See Her, Be Her, a documentary chronicling seven remarkable women in baseball worldwide, which premiered on MLB Network last week.
5 Key Uplifting Lessons from Alli's Journey:
1. Turn Criticism into Purpose: Instead of letting negative voices derail you, use them as motivation to create better opportunities for those who follow. Alli transformed the challenges she faced into a determination to make baseball more accessible for future female players.
2. Redefine Work Ethic: True work ethic isn't about going hard 100% of the time – it's about strategic thinking, knowing when to rest, and understanding what you need in each moment to perform at your best long-term.
3. Lead with Resilience: Sometimes, showing no emotion is a form of strength. As Alli learned on the pitcher's mound, maintaining composure under pressure isn't about suppressing feelings – it's about channeling them productively.
4. Find Your Team: Whether on a baseball field or fighting fires, success comes from working within your strengths while supporting others. Recognize that some days, you'll operate at 30%, and that's when your team lifts you up.
5. Prioritize Recovery: The highest performers understand that rest isn't weakness – it's strategic. Taking time to recover, whether through cold water therapy, family time, or simply sleeping well, is crucial for sustained excellence.
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The Uplifters’ Web
Alli was nominated by Tammie Meaks, a wonderful member of our production partners at Produce Your Podcast.
This week’s opening is by the wonderful Lisa Crozier whose story was featured in episode 13.
Transcript
As the first [00:00:30] woman to play in the Canadian College Baseball Conference and a long standing member of Canada's Women's National Baseball Team, Allie continually breaks barriers and inspires countless young girls to pursue their dreams in sports. Her story, [00:00:45] highlighted in the documentary, See Her, Be Her, inspires young girls, including my own daughter, to pursue their dreams in sports.
ender equality in athletics. [:Allie is from rural British Columbia, Canada, and she grew up playing small town baseball [00:01:30] before rising to the Canadian national team as a 16 year old. She went on to sign with Vancouver Island University as the first woman to ever play in the Canadian Collegiate Baseball Conference. [00:01:45] Today, she holds two World Cup bronze medals for Team Canada.
h Columbia Wildfire Service. [:Thank you for having me on. It's an honor to be on here. Absolutely. Tammy Meeks, who nominated you, reached out to the show because of the [00:02:30] inspiration you have given her daughter and the force that you have been in their home as a pioneering young woman who has inspired other young women. And I think that's true for, for so many of the women I get to talk to here.[00:02:45]
the work that I've put in is [:And for what I stand for, the most meaningful moments are coming from my hometown and like hearing little girls in small town, British Columbia, realizing that there are no limitations for them as a woman. They can do absolutely [00:03:30] anything that they want to do. And the fact that they're able to use me as a mode of inspiration for that is just like so huge for me.
n order to overcome whatever [:Like, those are very real obstacles and until we see someone do these [00:04:00] things and we expand our own sense of what's possible, it's really tough. to imagine that we can do or be different. So who was that force for you? And what was the conversation like at your dinner table as a kid? You know, I think because [00:04:15] I am in such a male dominated sport, I really didn't have any females in that sport.
ways come back to is my mom. [:I've seen her go through struggles in life just like anybody would face and the way that she deals with it is so resilient and so driven to You know what? She's working towards and I had [00:05:00] that from the time. I was a little girl until now What did these acts of bravery and resilience look like? What did she show you or tell you about how to manage external resistance?
e biggest thing is just like [:This goes for like times of like great accomplishment and also times of great hardship. Like your emotions stay the same throughout that you don't [00:05:45] like show anything. And so that's been a huge piece for me on the baseball field for sure, but definitely in the workplace, like just showing like no weakness.
often I have female leaders [:Like, you win really big, and honestly, sometimes you lose really big. I'm a pitcher, and so pitching in [00:06:30] baseball is like, you absolutely do not want to show any emotion. It's like being a gambler in that way, I guess. It's exactly like being a gambler, yeah, and you know, you show emotion and the batter's just going to build off of that, but that being said, very important to celebrate wins [00:06:45] with your team.
our own self doubt and fear [:And I mean, I think that comes for me in a mode of [00:07:15] like, when I was younger playing baseball, I showed too much emotion and that, um, Manifested itself in like a form of self doubt, like I was very not confident in myself at all. And so I think now when I reflect on [00:07:30] that and I'm at where I'm at now in my career, resilience comes from knowing that I have so much confidence in myself and my abilities now that I don't need to show the negative side of emotion on the field per se.
Yeah. So tell me about that [:So at that phase of my life, I was questioning a lot of opportunities I was getting like, am I really the right person for this? And then I get put in the game and then. [00:08:15] One error, one mistake later, I'm like, okay, so I wasn't the right person for that. But now, coming back into my career, and I relate this to my workplace as well, mistakes are going to happen, honestly, bad games are going to happen, and it's really just the way it [00:08:30] is.
ut right now? Like it's okay [:And it's, I think about learning versus losing in that equation. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, [00:09:00] it would have been easy enough for me to still be in that mindset where I was then now and just not made any changes. That was probably one of my first big learnables in life was like, okay, you need to, you know, Calm down a little bit and then [00:09:15] after I got over that hurdle, it's like anything now is like, okay.
through when we want to Live [:That is what we want to cultivate in ourselves, the growth mindset. And that really is, it's the difference between I'm [00:09:45] taking my challenges, my failures, as a judgment or as a proof point. That word comes up for me so much with you because you are this proof point to little girls who say, Oh, I can do hard things.
sometimes they're external. [:Instead of, I'm bad, I'm a failure, I can't learn, right, because then it's all about you. It's not about the skill. Absolutely. Yeah. And it very much was not [00:10:30] about me making that change. It very much was like I'm not contributing to the team in a positive way when I am like down on myself and like dwelling on one error that I made.
age that I had to make. And [:I'm playing for a national team. Having that mindset is not benefiting the [00:11:00] people around me or myself. So what kind of change can we make here? But like you said, making it a positive thing, like what kind of change can I make that's gonna benefit the team later? And I didn't realize that at the time as a 15 year old, but What kind of change can I make that will also benefit me [00:11:15] like outside of sport as well?
space, absolutely, when the [:Absolutely. And I think waste of energy is a great way to put it. Like, the time that I spent [00:11:45] doubting myself, even though. I very much had skills to be on the national team and like recognizing that I deserve to be there was definitely time wasted dwelling on that but coming back to it as an adult once again I'm like okay I'm glad that happened [00:12:00] because I've grown into the woman I am now and taken the skills that I learned from that situation into workplaces and social spaces outside of sport which is so important because I mean you Take things away from sport, even if you just played through [00:12:15] high school or anything, you very much develop skills and abilities in sport and through sport that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
he Olympic runner? I do. I'm [:And it's exactly what you're saying. Um, as somebody who never played any sports, I guess I got to learn that stuff through, through theater. Right? [00:13:00] Through being in community. And I think that's really the takeaway for me is it's like whatever skills we develop in one area, whatever resilience we develop in one area is a wildly worthy investment of our energy because we can apply it in every [00:13:15] domain.
piece right now. I was never [:So having that patience piece that I learned through sport and like, I mean, nothing comes fast in sport. Honestly, [00:13:45] it's always a progression of developing skills. So, I mean, having that patience, I've definitely taken it into my workplace. There's a lot of hurry up and wait in wildfire and you work like my crew is 20, 22 other people and you're [00:14:00] with them for 14 days at a time.
nd having that patience with [:I know that I need to be patient in these situations, but I think biggest thing that I always think of is work ethic. So that's something that I've really brought into [00:14:30] my job in Wildfire is like, honestly, the unfortunate reality of it is that like, there are men that are going to carry more things than I am.
in otherwise to be patient. [:And so coming into Wildfire now, kind of a different way to look at It's funny, a lot of ex college [00:15:15] athletes and like, or just um, ex athletes end up working in my workplace. And it's just like the direct correlation between the two that you're essentially working on like a sports team, like 22 people is like a sports team.
And you have the same [:I mean, nowadays, my life looks a little bit different because I like [00:16:00] And I'm like, come back to adversity in sport. And I'm like, Hey, this is, it's fine. There's nothing at stake. Like there was two weeks ago when I was on the fire line. Right. But certainly when I was younger, there were teams that [00:16:15] my parents were aware of.
that young, but I mean, they [:I was like 10 years old. And I mean, it's such a tough one because I know girls that are playing professional baseball now in the States, and [00:16:45] they are my age or older, and they still get these things. And probably even worse now with social media. Women shouldn't play baseball, women are ruining baseball, those types of things.
gs because I'm like, this is [:Something my dad told me when I was really young was like, Uh, you can't react when the batters are saying something to you or they're calling you names. You can't react because if you feed into that, it's just [00:17:30] going to keep going. And so I think that's really where it all stemmed from. And now I realize that it's okay to have more emotion than that.
ve them two cents. Just keep [:And Now, like, suddenly people aren't happy that I'm playing. [00:18:00] I think the lesson in that for all of us is to know what we care about and what we really prioritize and not let these distracting stories and voices get in the way of us doing and being what [00:18:15] we really genuinely care about because that's what's happening there.
, and I'm dealing with stuff [:Maybe, Just maybe the girls that come after me will [00:18:45] have a more normalized environment for them to play baseball in, and they won't face this. So, I mean, I think that goes for a lot of the women that are playing baseball now, is that our goal is that these trails that we blaze are gonna be [00:19:00] easier for girls to find a space where they're comfortable playing baseball.
that we can all look to as a [:It's about what does this mean beyond you? It's so much more energizing to know that our actions are an [00:19:30] investment. Absolutely, and that just made me think of a time like I, when I grew up playing baseball in a small town called Fruitvale, B. C. The population is maybe a thousand people, maybe, but had a baseball team and a hockey team.
And I was [:They are probably not even thinking twice about the fact that they're the only group of girls there. All they know is that, oh, they're on the baseball team and they have a couple of their friends with them as well. So, it's a small scale type of thing, just focusing on my [00:20:15] hometown, but it means so much to me because that's where I started and that's where I want to be creating space for these girls.
ere is not just that you had [:And rarely do we build a habit of reflecting on the outcomes and the progress. But it is, you said, it's these little things. It is those tiny measures of success [00:21:00] and evidence that we are making an investment that's paying off that keeps us motivated and energized to keep going. Have you though ever had a time in your life where Either with sport or firefighting, these two big, hard things that [00:21:15] you choose to show up for over and over again that you thought about giving up.
t, like, I want to quit now. [:And I'm like, I'm kind of in a vulnerable spot where I'm the [00:21:45] only woman on the team. There would be some games that were just so rough with the heckling and the discrimination. I'd get in the car and I'd say to my dad, I'm done, I don't want to play baseball anymore. I'm grateful that he recognized how much I love it [00:22:00] and how happy it genuinely does make me because he would be like, all right, let's give it like a week.
ell. But, I mean, now. In my [:Balancing the national team [00:22:30] sport with fighting wildfires is very difficult, but it's also teaching me a lot of things that I maybe wouldn't have learned as fast otherwise, like caring for myself, sometimes saying no to people, like I'm sorry I can't coach, I need to take the stage for myself and recognize what [00:22:45] I need right now, which I think is just like we come back to the growth mindset, and that's something that has been super important in my life.
e so hardcore on so often. I [:So, I've really needed to, like, recognize the little things that I need to do to maintain myself in my sport, but also for fire. Um, with the longer fire [00:23:30] seasons, I do tend to more just be, like, honed in on work, and I'm like, baseball's gonna be there once this is done, but I gotta get through this. So, for me, unfortunately, there's only so much you can do with a job like that, but little things like taking my vitamins.
I don't want to get [:And so focusing on those little pieces, which I think quite often can get overlooked as well as an athlete, you know, you're so dialed in on like heavy lifting and hard 100 percent training sessions have [00:24:15] kind of been my way of taking care of myself. And then you kind of get out of the fire season and it's like, okay, we're cooling down a little bit here.
it's recognizing what I need [:I love that. I think one of the things that's coming up for me as I listen to you is I often [00:25:00] ask the question, what is this moment perfect for? And so often we are so wed to the training plan or the way everybody does this that we feel like we don't have an option to grow. [00:25:15] And yet what we hear in your story is, okay, this is not a good time for doing heavy strength training in that way.
vention in this setting look [:Absolutely, yeah. When I was younger, kind of knocking on the door of the national team, that looked way different for me. I was kind of training myself to burnout, like multiple training sessions a day and I'm like, gotta make this [00:26:00] happen, type of thing. But now where I'm like, Sport is a big part of my life, but I also have a job and have other priorities in my life and learning what my priority list should look like.
And a lot of the time, like, [:Whereas [00:26:30] prior, it would have been like, okay, I just got back. I haven't paid any attention to my baseball career in 14 days. I need to go work out and I need to go to the baseball field right away. Now that I've experienced life burnout as opposed to like an athlete burnout. I'm kind of like, okay That's not what I need [00:26:45] right now.
ssentially Become more about [:You cannot just say that it's going to happen. So I think it comes back to the [00:27:15] growth mindset. You just reframed entirely the meaning of work ethic. So often when we talk about work ethic, as you do, it's really about showing up and going hard all the time. But what we get to take from you is this [00:27:30] way beyond your ears wisdom that a work ethic is much bigger picture.
And what does this mean for [:So it's really exciting to hear that you've already learned. How to let yourself [00:28:15] recover for that next big effort. Absolutely. I started recognizing if I take a week off after hard training before I go to an event, I actually play way better at the event. And I prior never would have [00:28:30] even considered that.
s rest. Sure enough, you can [:I think it's so important, especially in my workplace. [00:29:00] You know, some days, honestly, you are at like 30%. And you got 20 other people to pick you up and that's totally okay. But understanding that's, you cannot sustain yourself like that for 14 days. So if you need to have that day, have that day, get a good eight hours sleep [00:29:15] tonight, but being able to bring yourself back up to a high operating level is something that.
w yourself and what you need [:Incredible. And you have a film coming out? Yeah, so it premiered last night on [00:29:45] MLB Network. It's called See Her, Be Her. I was in LA last weekend for the two events screenings of it. Very exciting. But Gene Kruf, very, very Renowned sports photographer in the States [00:30:00] and Jeff Idelson, the retired president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, had this idea a couple years ago to make a film about women's baseball.
m Uganda, Cuba, South Korea, [:In this world, honestly, and like how [00:30:45] we're growing the game, what we want to see from the game. Incredible. And I sincerely hope that you have lots more spaces and places to share your story with more people. Because [00:31:00] whether we are in sport or very far from it, we We need your mindset. We need to learn how to inherit the resilience of your mother that was passed on to you and that now you are passing on to all of [00:31:15] us so that whatever our playing field is, from a novelist to an industry leader, this is what it looks like to endure a challenge, to face it and turn it into power and purpose.[00:31:30]
that we can all be more high [:Like you said, it's about inspiring the next generation. I have women that have inspired me. So my only hope is that I can fit in somewhere in the middle there and be like growing women behind me [00:32:00] as well. Thank you for listening to the Uplifters podcast. If you're getting a boost from these episodes, please Uplifters in your life.
n us in conversation over at [:And I'm dwelling the perplexing, though you find it [00:32:45] flexing. Toss a star in half for beer around. Best love for relish in a new prime land, a tree in springtime dance. With that, all hindsight, bring the sun to twilight. [00:33:00] Lift you up, whoa Lift you up, whoa Lift you up, whoa [00:33:15] Lift you up Lift you up, whoa Lift you up, whoa Oh Lift you [00:33:30] up.
ul. I cried. Ha ha ha ha ha. [:
