Jenny Nguyen Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine.
I am so excited about today's show. As some of you know, I have been on the road a lot for Cherry Bombe this summer, and my travels brought me to Portland, Oregon. My very first destination was The Sports Bra. Some of you know about this place. It's the country's very first sports bar dedicated to women's sports. The team and I got off the plane, dropped our luggage at the hotel, and headed over there. We were so happy to see owner Jenny Nguyen and experience The Sports Bra for the first time. Since I was in Portland, I thought it would be great to sit down with Jenny and catch up. She was a guest on Radio Cherry Bombe back in May 2023, and a lot has happened since then. Namely, the whole world has come around to her way of thinking. Women's sports are finally getting their due and The Sports Bra will be expanding. Jenny has partnered with Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, or as we know him here at Cherry Bombe, Mr. Serena Williams, to expand The Sports Bra around the country. Very exciting news, and Jenny joins me in a minute to tell us more. By the way, the team and I had a great time in Portland. What a fantastic food city, people. If you want to see where we ate, drank, shopped, and hung out, check out my Instagram stories and thank you to the Portland Bombesquad for showing us a great time.
This episode of Radio Cherry Bombe is supported by OpenTable. As you may know, we've been on the road this summer with OpenTable for our Sit With Us community dinner series, which highlighted amazing female chefs and restaurateurs in the Cherry Bombe and OpenTable networks. Thank you to everyone who joined us and to the amazing chefs and teams at the featured restaurants. We kicked things off in early June in New Orleans with Chef Melissa Araujo at Alma. And then we headed to Atlanta for an evening with Le Bon Nosh with Chef Forough Vakili. We were in Dallas at Jose with Chef Anastacia Quiñones-Pittman, and we had a sweet ending to our series at Nostrana in Portland, Oregon with Chef Cathy Whims. It was such a treat meeting so many of you. Beautiful food, beautiful people, it's been so much fun. Thank you to OpenTable for bringing these experiences to life with us. By the way, if you're interested in curated dining events like the Sit With Us dinners, check out the OpenTable experiences on their app and website. Head to opentable.com/experiences to explore what's happening near you or use it to find fun events to enjoy on your travels, like OpenTable Summer Sets, a dinner series that combines music and food to create one of a kind evenings in cities like Portland, Oregon, Miami, and New Orleans.
A little housekeeping before we get to Jenny. We have two special Art of Entertaining dinners coming up. The first one is Friday, July 26th, with Chef Camille Becerra at the Soundview Resort in Greenport on the North Fork of Long Island. Then on Friday, August 2nd, we'll be at Crown Jewel restaurant on Great Diamond Island, I need to know more about this Great Diamond Island, near Portland, Maine with owner Alex Wright. Tickets are on sale right now on cherrybombe.com. We are covering a lot of ground this summer from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. It's been a blast seeing all of you, and I hope to see some of you at these last two events. Thank you to our event sponsors, Kerrygold and Pernod Ricard.
Now, let's check in with today's guest. Jenny Nguyen, welcome back to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Jenny Nguyen:
Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, I'm happy to be here because I am in Portland, Oregon. You are part of the reason we came here, in all honesty.
Jenny Nguyen:
Oh my gosh.
Kerry Diamond:
We flew here, we threw our stuff in our hotel room and we got back in the car and we drove right to The Sports Bra.
Jenny Nguyen:
Amazing. I remember you texted and you were like, "I was so excited to come see you that I forgot to tell you I was coming to see you." I was just like, "Oh, that's okay. I'm in the office. Just let me know when you get here." You're like, "We're here." I was like, "Okay, I'll be right out."
Kerry Diamond:
I really had such a sense of place and occasion arriving there.
Jenny Nguyen:
Yeah, thank you so much. That means a lot. That really does. I think it's interesting, because I hear it from people who travel to come to The Bra that they're big fans. They followed from the beginning and they watched us grow and they've put it on their bucket list. They've read every article, they've seen every video, they've watched every interview, every podcast. They feel like they know me, but when they walk in, nothing prepares you to be actually physically in that space.
Kerry Diamond:
It's emotional.
Jenny Nguyen:
It is. And people react so dramatically different, between laughing and walking in with a live stream, to just taking it all in. I watched somebody, we went to go help seat them and they're like, "No, I just want to walk around." And they just intently looked at every piece of memorabilia and they just really soaked it in and then was like, "Okay, I'm ready to sit down and enjoy myself now."
Kerry Diamond:
Congratulations again, on what you have built and done. You blow my mind, Jenny. Your story is so incredible. What you've built is so incredible and you have been really busy. You spoke at Jubilee and then a few days later you had a big announcement. So in case folks missed the announcement, tell them what's going on.
Jenny Nguyen:
About a month and a half ago we announced that we are franchising. We're going to take The Sports Bra and open nationwide and with a lot of help from our very first investor, Alexis Ohanian.
Kerry Diamond:
Alexis is the co-founder of Reddit. He is also known to some of you as the husband of Serena Williams.
Jenny Nguyen:
Most of us, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
And he has 776 Foundation.
Jenny Nguyen:
That's correct.
Kerry Diamond:
He cares a lot about women's sports.
Jenny Nguyen:
Absolutely. He's been investing in women's sports before it was the cool, hip thing to do.
Kerry Diamond:
He has a soccer team, right? In Los Angeles.
Jenny Nguyen:
Yeah, he's a major investor in Angel City FC, which is huge. And then he's launching this thing right now that's popping off, LA Golf. And then he just recently announced the 776 Invitational, which is a track event that is slated to be a very big deal, biggest prize money ever for track, and it's going to be all the drama, all the hype that it deserves. I feel like I'm pitching this for him, but I'm just really excited about it. But a lot of times people think about track and field once every four years, when these are elite world athletes that are doing this day in, day out, year round. It's going to be super exciting.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about what this means for The Bra. You're going to be franchising, so you are not a franchise expert.
Jenny Nguyen:
Definitely not.
Kerry Diamond:
But what does that mean, that you're going to franchise and how involved will you be?
Jenny Nguyen:
I want to be super involved and right now people are like, "Oh, who's all on your team?" All of this stuff. We're working on it. Right now it just feels like there's a lot on my shoulders and ultimately it's going to take, it always does, it's going to take a village to make this thing grow, but for me, I'm a people person and when it comes to The Bra, it is almost all about culture, mission, value alignment. And when you think franchise, a lot of people don't think about those pieces. They think about a way a place looks, what's on the menu, how to recreate these recipes word for word and make them taste the same. And for me, it's more about building community, giving representation, promoting, supporting, empowering female athletes and how can we do that? Those things take time.
So I feel like the trajectory of our expansion and our franchise is going to look a lot different from your regular bar or restaurant franchise or anything can be a franchise. Massage Envy is one of the most popular franchises. Speedy Auto Glass is probably another franchise. So there's different ways you can do a franchise, but most of them are based in some type of consumer good or product, and ours is more, it feels a lot more like a culture and how do we replicate that?
Kerry Diamond:
And the vibe, because you definitely have a very distinct vibe.
Jenny Nguyen:
Totally, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I've heard you and I think I've read a few times that applications will be open soon ish for franchisors, franchisees?
Jenny Nguyen:
I would be the franchisor and so applications would be open for franchisees.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who are like OMG, I would love to be a franchisee. That rhymes. Will it be open to everybody or will you be handpicking people who've already reached out to you? How is it going to work?
Jenny Nguyen:
All of the above. Once we announced we were franchising, and to be honest, I was just so excited to make the announcement and once Alexis signed on the dotted line, I was like, "We're doing it." And we launched the announcement. I think people were just like, "Sign me up right now." And I was like, "Oh wait, time out." We're doing it, but we're just getting started. We're just putting legal together. We're putting our legal team together, creating systems, making the manual, all of the things that happen on the backend before you can actually do the thing, so people are really excited.
So when we announced, we were inundated with emails, phone calls. 776 became a call center for us. They were just like, "Geez Jenny, what have you done?" So I was getting a ton of emails from them. So we basically are creating a list of people who are interested and then we'll blast out that list when we're ready to go live. And on the backend we're creating a website, a franchise website, that'll be whatever you want to know about a franchise, the application will live there. And it will be open to anybody to fill out and it'll have basic information on there and it will most likely start with a quick phone call and who, what, where, when, how, and me just giving them a baseline and then follow up and where we go from there. And then it'll be a whole system.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest.
Today's episode is also supported by Pernod Ricard, creators of Conviviality. Pernod Ricard is a worldwide leader in the spirits and wine industry and embraces the spirit of conviviality, as we all should, and is focused firmly on a sustainable and responsible future. Their prestigious portfolio of brands includes classic names beloved by bartenders and mixologists around the world. There's the Glenlivet single malt scotch, Martell cognac and Codigo 1530 tequila, just to name a few. If you are a regular listener, my preferred drink is always bubbles, so I love a glass of Perrier-Jouet champagne to kick off a special night out. And I also love a champagne cocktail. My favorite is a French 75, which you can make with Perrier-Jouet Grand Brut and some Malfy gin. That sounds lovely, doesn't it? To learn more about Pernod Ricard, head to pernod-ricard.com. And don't forget, always drink responsibly.
Our Paris issue is out right now. If you are headed to the city of light this summer or dreaming about a trip to Paris, our new issue is your perfect guide. Learn about the amazing women taking over the Paris food scene and discover all of their restaurants, bakeries, cafes, and more. We've got stories with some of your favorite Francophiles, folks like Ruth Reichl, Dorie Greenspan, and Mashama Bailey. You can pick up a copy at your favorite bookstore or magazine shop or culinary store. Places like Omnivore Books on Food in San Francisco, Bellport General in Long Island, kitchen Arts & Letters in Manhattan and Onggi in Portland, Maine.
What are you looking for in a dream franchisee?
Jenny Nguyen:
I believe in the person. So mission alignment, mission value alignment is absolutely core. People can throw money at the franchise, but if they're not mission aligned, it's going to feel very hollow and that is not the kind of partnerships that we want. What's interesting is going from being the "owner" of the Sports Bra to being the CEO and founder are very, very different. As a franchisor, franchisees become a part of your team forever or as long as they are part. So it's not a one-time only. Like, oh, you really impressed me, here's a franchise. Have fun with it. Make a lot of money, change the community, do all of those things and see you later. They'll become a part of my team. Just like my team at The Bra Portland, we're like a family. So the family's just going to get larger.
Kerry Diamond:
You're going to have to change your title to commissioner. You've got a league, you're going to have a league soon.
Jenny Nguyen:
The Bra is something that I had no idea. I grossly underestimated it and it's grown into a life of its own. I feel like a parent of a baby and I had these small goals or objectives for my baby to grow up into a successful bar and restaurant. That was my vision. And from a very young age, the baby showed that it had the potential to be a lot more than that. And as a parent, it's my job to just nurture it, care for it, and stand out of the way and just let it be what it's going to be.
Kerry Diamond:
Because when we spoke last time, you really weren't even thinking about expansion yet.
Jenny Nguyen:
I don't think so. I think I was just trying to figure out how to run a restaurant.
Kerry Diamond:
I think you were still amazed it was a success
Jenny Nguyen:
That it was going to work, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Because you had said to us, you had enough money, because you did a Kickstarter. We were proud part of your Kickstarter.
Jenny Nguyen:
Thank you so much.
Kerry Diamond:
You had said, we had enough money to stay open for six months, and if it didn't work out, you would close with dignity and do the next thing.
Jenny Nguyen:
And just say that I gave it the best try that I could have. It was a whirlwind from the beginning and I just grossly underestimated. And plus I'm pretty risk averse, so I never want to count my chickens or eggs before they hatch or however that phrase is, so taking it one step at a time. But even the day that we opened, people were already like, "We need this everywhere." And I was just like, "Everybody just pump the brakes. Seriously, just pump the brakes."
It was probably about four months in, four or five months in that I was just like, okay, I think this is the opportunity to decide how we're going to roll. Honestly, I was just like, you know what? I think this could work here in Portland. This is awesome. And to be the first, it's historical. It solidifies itself. Nothing could ever take that away. And so I was just like, you know what? I can run this, other people can open other things. We can just be this one spot that everybody comes to and I can go on vacation and have it be locked and loaded and that's that and be happy. Because clearly it's the best thing that's ever happened to me or that I've ever done or been a part of. I got great joy in that and I never imagined anything more than that.
But day after day, person after person would walk through that door and have some type of transformative experience. And the more I talked to those people, the more I realized that it just didn't seem fair to have one spot that had 40 seats in it that people would have to fly into to feel a certain way. Wait in line to get through the door and then walk in. What it boiled down to was just me being selfish, that I didn't want to work hard to give that space to other people. I was happy-
Kerry Diamond:
I'm going to stop you right there. I've gotten to know you a little bit. I don't feel like it was selfish. You had a tough few years. You were a chef and it was tough on you and you went through a lot. I don't think you're being selfish. I think you were more just tired.
Jenny Nguyen:
One step-
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. One step at a time. I'm going to slowly get back into this world of food and hospitality and see how it goes.
Jenny Nguyen:
I was unemployed for five years before I opened The Bra.
Kerry Diamond:
That's what I was alluding to.
Jenny Nguyen:
I would not recommend going from unemployed for five years to running a full on bar and restaurant for the first time. What I realized was that the only thing that was stopping me was me being like, I'm tired. I don't want to do it. But then every day witnessing people having that experience, I was like, you know what? When I really think about it, we opened The Bra for impact. And if I lead with impact being the driver, the driving force, then why wouldn't I want to open more of these spaces so more people could have that feeling and have all the access and representation and continue to build that community and that culture of women's sports fandom. So, the more I thought about it, the more I was like, you know what? We've got to bring this out to the people.
Kerry Diamond:
But again, out of fairness to you, one of the stories you've told about why you opened The Bra was you were at a sports bar and they wouldn't even let you watch a woman's basketball game with the sound on. And your own parents thought this was a bad idea. So I could totally see why you weren't sitting there planning for world domination.
Jenny Nguyen:
Right.
Kerry Diamond:
Another thing is there is no way you could have predicted the cultural tsunami that was coming, not just in women's sports, but Taylor Swift, Beyonce, the “Barbie” movie, the girl economy, and then women's sports on top of that. You just didn't know that was coming.
Jenny Nguyen:
No, it's wild. When I step back, I tell people, "Wow, what a time to be alive." For The Bra to be in existence and witness all of this change happening in real time, right in front of our faces. But then I take a step back even further and I realize that opening The Bra and being part of The Bra and creating that community is actually a part of that movement. And when I put those two things together, oh my gosh, my heart swoll. My heart is swoll with gratitude, and I just feel very, very blessed to be where I am doing what I'm doing.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have any dream cities? Like my neighborhood, for example.
Jenny Nguyen:
That's funny. Franchise laws are really strict, so I would prefer not to say, but yes, I do think that there are some home run cities out there that I think The Bra would kill in.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you want them to be connected to solid women's sports teams?
Jenny Nguyen:
Absolutely. I mean, having partnerships, the proximity to things would be amazing. But when I think about Portland and The Bra here, we have one popular professional women's team, and that's the Portland Thorns in the NWSL. When I think about the other cities that I think would be home runs, they would have at least a WNBA team and an NWSL team. But then I think about Portland, we only have one of those and it's been successful.
We've had hundreds and hundreds of inquiries, everywhere from those home run cities that have multiple women's sports teams, to cities that I was just like, "I've never heard of this town." But the most beautiful thing to me is that each one of these people that are writing, they're doing a pitch for their town and they truly believe that their town could use a space like The Sports Bra. And that to me speaks volumes about what we've created.
Kerry Diamond:
You have been traveling a lot, but you were in Paris and Cannes. Tell us why you were there.
Jenny Nguyen:
It's a crazy funny story. I was in New York for a different event and I went to a little dinner that was lovely. Laura Correnti, she's the CEO of Deep Blue, and I was in New York City because I was on a panel that she had asked me to be in at the BOWS, which is a Business of Women's Sports Summit. We had a dinner, met her, met some other really amazing people, did the panel, and there was this VIP dinner party on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange where I met some more people and it was great.
My flight home from New York, I get an email from Laura, she's like, "Thank you so much for being on the panel. I hope you had fun." She goes, "I was talking to some other people at the New York Stock Exchange, how would you feel about doing a pop-up in Cannes?" I think I wrote back one sentence and I wrote back, "Do you mean France? And she texted me, she goes, "Yeah." And I think when I read it was like, yeah, dummy. Cannes France. Because you never know. It might be like a Cannes New Hampshire or something that I don't know about.
I freaked out and right away I'm just like, "This is awesome. Absolutely, yes." But what's great about The Bra and the community that we've built is I have a lot of folks that have been there from day one or T minus day one, and they get it and they understand what we're about. And when I get rose colored glasses or when I get in the dumps, they're there to put me back on a level that is what's the truth. And so I reached out to one of these people and I'm just like, oh my God, this, that, and the other thing. And the very first thing she said was like, "Do you think it aligns with the brand?" I felt a little deflated, but also grateful because I can get really excited and it's an exciting opportunity. And she was just like, "Does it align with your brand? How will it help with impact?" Because that's what I always tell everyone that we want to lead with, is impact.
I was just like, okay, this is good. This is really good. I can wrap my mind around it. And so when I thought about it, I thought about how just around this time we decided to launch a partnership with the Women's Sports Foundation to do a global ambassador program. So the alignment of going global and doing the first international Sports Bra popup on top of doing something like a partnership with Women's Sports Foundation to do a global ambassador program, it seemed like very good alignment. And then I also thought about how a popup is really just a party. The Sports Bra throws a party. Great, sounds awesome. But what would be even more impactful is if I got to speak about what The Sports Bra is, what it means, because there could be hundreds and hundreds of people in Cannes that has never heard of The Sports Bra.
So I reached back out to Laura and I was like, "Okay, here are a couple of things that I would love to do in order to make this feel in alignment with our brand." We talked it out. She was like, "Absolutely, you can be on a panel. Absolutely, we can do all these things." She was just great to work with. She was very excited. And so that's how we got to France.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you spend any time in Paris?
Jenny Nguyen:
I did, yeah. We spent four days in Cannes, and then we spent four days in Paris.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you wee the Olympic Village or anything?
Jenny Nguyen:
We did see some of the Olympic build outs, the beach volleyball court right by the Eiffel Tower. I saw a really cool skateboarding setup that's right by Sacred Heart up there towards the top of the town, you can feel the energy getting hype. There was advertising marketing around, and also we didn't know, but it was also Paris Fashion Week while we were there.
We have a funny story about both of us being really distracted and then looking down and seeing red carpet and then looking to the side and seeing a red velvet rope. And then all of these photographers on the other side of the rope. We both look at each other and then we look straight ahead and there are two huge security guards coming towards us, followed by some very tall, eccentric looking folks, and we realized that we were walking on the wrong sidewalk basically.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, how funny. Cannes, Paris and then you were in my favorite city, but we didn't cross paths, Las Vegas.
Jenny Nguyen:
Las Vegas. Oh my gosh.
Kerry Diamond:
There are amazing women doing very cool stuff in food-
Jenny Nguyen:
For sure.
Kerry Diamond:
... right now. And the Sphere. I'm obsessed with the Sphere. I did not get to see the Aces though, the women's basketball there. Did you go to a Aces game?
Jenny Nguyen:
I wish. No, the timing just wasn't right.
Kerry Diamond:
What brought you to the city?
Jenny Nguyen:
I went straight from Paris to Las Vegas for the Girls on the Run International Summit, which happens every other year. They looped me in and asked me to be on a panel early on. I think it was May or something. And I was just like, "I think I can." And then the Cannes trip popped up and I was just like, oh my gosh, how does this timing work out? And so I just did them back to back.
Kerry Diamond:
What's Girls on the Run?
Jenny Nguyen:
Girls on the Run is a nonprofit organization that went international now, but they have coaches, and mostly they're trying to get all of the opportunities for girls to develop the skills and confidence that they need to move through life as best they can. And sometimes it's in the form of physical activity and sometimes it's not. But they do a lot of confidence building and they have a lot of resources and the coaches are volunteer.
There was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people at this conference and all of them had the same mindset, which was we need to invest in girls at this very young age and inspire them to continue to either join sports or to be in sports in order to build a foundation. And it could not be more aligned to what we do at The Bra.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about Portland. Your home city. I had not been here since the pandemic, and I've had the best time. I mean, half my meals have been with you.
Jenny Nguyen:
Indeed.
Kerry Diamond:
We've just hit so many great places. We were at Xiao Ye, Jolyn Ch, co-owner of that spot. We had a dynamite meal there. So if you're planning a trip to Portland, you got to go there. What was your favorite dish that we had?
Jenny Nguyen:
Oh my gosh. Everything was fantastic. The flavors, the combinations. I love the creativity of pairing things together, but it made sense. You see it on paper and you're like, gosh, I don't know. And then you put it in your mouth like, yes. And it doesn't feel like a stretch, but there was a nice storyline that weaves through every dish. my girlfriend and I both agreed on our favorite dish, which doesn't often happen. It was the Kanpachi Crudo, thinly sliced. It had just the right amount of citrus, the right amount of oil, and then these chiffonade sugar snap peas on top. Oh my goodness. It was so fresh and light and flavorful. My mouth is watering right now.
Kerry Diamond:
Everything blew me away from the Madeleines that we had at the start of the meal all the way up to the coffee service.
Jenny Nguyen:
Oh yes.
Kerry Diamond:
The instant coffee.
Jenny Nguyen:
Delicious instant coffee.
Kerry Diamond:
Some of you are probably like, wait, what did she just say? Instant coffee. That might be one of my top meals of the year so far.
Jenny Nguyen:
Amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
I would say. And then we had an amazing Sit With Us Dinner with our OpenTable friends at Cathy Whims Nostrana, which you had been to before. Beautiful Italian restaurant. I couldn't believe the team made cherry and ricotta ravioli.
Jenny Nguyen:
It was beautiful. It was fantastic. And again, not a stretch. You put it in your mouth and you're like, these two things belong together.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely. We had 80 people at that dinner. The community is so strong here.
Jenny Nguyen:
Absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
And you see it at things like that. You see it at places like The Bra, and it's just so nice to know that you all have each other's backs here and you're really supportive of each other. It's a great place.
Jenny Nguyen:
It totally is. I think we had a really good conversation while we were at the Multnomah Whiskey Library about the differences between cities and the culinary scenes. And in Portland, there is this collaborative joy that happens all the time. It isn't cutthroat. If you love what somebody is doing, you can reach out and you can call them, you can talk to them, you can do a thing together, you can do a popup together. And it's so uplifting and it's very welcoming.
There are so many things that when I opened The Bra, it was not in my purview to be a part of. And getting enveloped in the bar and restaurant community in Portland has been an absolute joy. But not only that, but there are a bunch of Vietnamese people doing the damn thing here in the city, and they've reached out, and they've put me into their community and wrapped me up. All of these ways that people connect has just been, I shouldn't be surprised, but I was surprised. I was expecting that kind of love from the sports community, but not from all these different dimensions. Portland is a very special place for that.
Kerry Diamond:
The Bra opened April 1, 2022, and you have been through so much since then. What's been the biggest takeaway for you?
Jenny Nguyen:
Oh my gosh, there's so much. I mean, when I think about what started out at the beginning as an idea has carried through all the way to now, which is that the tiny changes can make all the difference. That's how I named it The Sports Bra. That's how I thought about changing the channel. But when I think about the state of the world or the state of whatever community you're part of, there's all these big problems. And when you look at a big problem, you feel like it's impossible to solve it. Or that one person can't create any change and that it's too big for you.
My big takeaway with a Sports Bra is that I wanted to change one little thing, and when I did it, the ripple effect of that one change has been astronomical. To know that somebody like me had that kind of impact or that The Bra has been able to have that kind of impact in two plus years is a testament to the power of each and every person. I guess the biggest takeaway is that from the very beginning it was about these small changes making a big difference, and now we're seeing the big difference happening.
Kerry Diamond:
And how about believing in yourself? I know you were a little down on yourself when this whole journey started.
Jenny Nguyen:
I think it is an up and down battle. I think that imposter syndrome will be a constant journey for me. I think that I do get down on myself a lot. I would never consider myself a perfectionist, and I never expect perfection from myself, but I do always want to do what's best, and I do always want to make the right decision. And when those things don't happen, I get mad and I get frustrated just like anybody else. And I also am very risk averse, which we've talked about before. And so I think that with having The Bra be something that has been what it has been in the last two years, I have a little more ammunition to say, I'm capable, because this is what I've done.
So to be able to look back and say, okay, look what I've done. This is what I created, and it means something. That means something. I need to keep saying that to myself sometimes because I get caught up in the things that it's not great and I want to do better, or gosh, I made that decision, I should have done this instead. And then it just spirals. And there's always that kind of check back in. You know what? In the grand scheme of things, we're doing good work.
I think I saw a video recently with Pharrell Williams, a music producer, and he was talking to a kid that was coming up through music, and his advice to him was, "Take notes, address it, move on." Something like that. And I think that that is absolutely key. Whatever happens, take notes, address it, and then move on. Because if we continue to beat ourselves up about things, that's very important energy that we're wasting and that energy could be used to keep going and fight the good fight.
I take a lot of those little tidbits to heart when I'm losing sleep over a negative comment online. Even things like that really bother me. I've always been one of those people that wants to be liked. And when you get to this space, there's going to be people that disagree with you, for sure. There's going to be people that are going to hate whatever you're doing no matter what you do, and you just have to be okay with it and not use up that very valuable energy on worrying about those opinions.
Kerry Diamond:
Amen. I was just thinking about you. I mean, I didn't know you in college, but thinking about you in college, playing basketball, tearing your ACL and having to stop playing basketball, which you love so much, and today you are part of sports history. Not even just women's sports, sports history.
Jenny Nguyen:
It's bonkers. It's bonkers to see how things play out. I'm not really one of those people who are like, destiny, and it was meant to be. I'm not really one of those people. I think there are coincidences, and I think that there are things that you can grab a hold of and do. But when I think about my journey from sports to that injury and that injury leading me to a college that led me far away from home, that made me miss home so much that I wanted to cook my mom's food in order to feel connected at home and then falling in love with cooking. And then that cooking journey, taking me to Vietnam, that journey to Vietnam helping me realize that what I really was missing in my life was community. And then coming back from Vietnam and trying to figure out how I could create community for myself. And then that becoming a place where sports, food, and community all join together in The Sports Bra.
I don't know if fate is a situation or a thing that I really believe in, but all of those things are very aligned. I'll never forget that when we opened, our grand opening, a couple months in, an ex-girlfriend of mine came to the Bra, and I hadn't seen her in a long time, and she gave me a hug. She congratulated me, and she said, "I am so proud of you. This is exactly where you belong." It could not feel more true or be more true. There are so few people who find that space, they spend their entire lives doing something else, and it's fine. And there are a handful of people who get the opportunity to live out a dream and be a part of something meaningful. And that's my life now. And it is such a joy. I mean, it is obviously very hard work and exhausting and complicated, but overall, an absolute joy. Often days, I feel like the luckiest person alive.
Kerry Diamond:
And you have given us such a gift. I've told you that before. I treasure our friendship, and I just am so grateful for what you've given the world. I really can't thank you enough.
Jenny Nguyen:
Thank you, Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave a rating and a review. Let me know what you think about the show and your ideas for future guests. If you loved learning about Jenny, you can dip back into our archives and listen to her interview from May, 2023. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Elizabeth Vogt. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our content and partnerships manager is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, everybody. You're the Bombe.