Equality, Teamwork, and Leadership with Activist and Athlete Billie Jean King

Michael Rivo: From Salesforce Studios, this is Blazing Trails. Welcome to another episode of Blazing Trails. I'm Michael Rivo with Salesforce Studios. Today, we deviate slightly from our leading through change series to bring you an interview with a very special guest, activist and world-renowned tennis player, Billie Jean King. King has been named one of the greatest tennis players of all time and holds 39 grand slam titles, including a record 20 titles at Wimbledon. And going hand in hand with her impressive athletic career is King's dedication to women's equality and LGBTQ rights. As she puts it," Unless I was number one, I wouldn't be listened to." King participated and won the famous 1973 Battle of the Sexes tennis match against Bobby Riggs, a match that played a significant role in helping women's sports receive greater respect and recognition. Today, she joins Pip Marlow, CEO of Salesforce Australia and New Zealand, to discuss her journey from young tennis player to global icon, her tips for how leaders can promote equality in the workplace and why being solution-oriented is the key to success. You'll hear all of this and more on today's episode of Blazing Trails with Billie Jean King.

Pip Marlow: Billie Jean King, I feel like I've become your best friend today.

Billie Jean King: We are today.

Pip Marlow: Loving getting to know you.

Billie Jean King: Your name is perfect for you, Pip. And you are a pip. You're great. You've got energy, and you care. You're fantastic. I can see why you're such a leader.

Pip Marlow: You started playing tennis young. Tell us when did you know that tennis was in your blood?

Billie Jean King: Well, I played all team sports first. I love team sports. That's one of the reasons I'm going to World Cup also after...

Pip Marlow: A Cricket world cup. Yes. Go ahead.

Billie Jean King: Absolutely, for the women. We really try to help all sports. And so Susan Wims, in fifth grade said," Do you want to play tennis?" And I said," What's tennis?", Because I played baseball, softball, volleyball, basketball was my first love. And I said," What is that?" She said,"You get to run, jump and hit a ball." And I said," Well, those are my three favorite things. Okay, I'll try it." So I tried it, and she plays at a country club because her dad had a great living, was making a great living. And my dad's a firefighter. I'm going," I can't go to country clubs to play, so I'm not going to play." Well, we also played on a softball team, and she told the coach, Val Halloran," I took Billie out to play tennis the other day." And Val says," We give free instruction here every Tuesday." I go," Now, we're talking." And so I go home, and I go," Dad, mommy, I need a racket. I want to play." And my dad says," Really? You figure it out." I said," What do you mean? You won't buy me a racket?" He says," No, I want to know if you really love it." So I worked all summer going to the neighbors, and they gave me pseudo jobs, and I saved nickels, dimes and quarters in the mason jar. So I had$ 8. 29, and I said," I can't wait any longer. Mommy, Daddy, come on, take me." So we went to the Browns sporting goods store, and I got my first racket, which I slept with, and I went out to Houghton Park for that free instruction. And at the end of it, I knew what I was going to do with my life. I go," Mommy, I'm going to be the number one tennis player in the world." She goes," That's fine. You have homework." I mean, my mother kept us really, really grounded. She was great that way, which I really appreciate now. And so, I was off and running. And then, when I was 13, I told you I had my epiphany, to fight for equality for the rest of my life. And I knew that tennis was global, and I could have an amazing life through it and maybe make the world a better place if I really fight hard. Because as a woman, as a girl, I already knew that it was going to be a tougher road. It just is. People listen to men more than they do women.

Pip Marlow: That's incredible. I love that story. We were talking earlier, I too played volleyball and softball. I just didn't end up number one in tennis, so I was a setter. I was a little short to be doing much spiking, to be honest.

Billie Jean King: Doesn't matter, you need everyone.

Pip Marlow: You do, but I was just fascinated then, just touching on your parents and the role they had in your life.

Billie Jean King: They're quite amazing.

Pip Marlow: Yeah, it sounded really exceptional. I can imagine my dad saying that to me too." Well, if you really want it, you have to earn it."

Billie Jean King: Yeah. Right. Well, he's very big on delayed gratification, which for millennials and Gen Z's and all, is really a tough concept.

Pip Marlow: I'm going to make my kids watch this later.

Billie Jean King: With technology, you just think something like this goes fast, but that's why sports are so great for you. They do teach you delayed gratification. It doesn't matter if you come from rich, poor or whatever. We talk about, you need at least 10 years to be a champion. That's a long time. I mean, you have people in the Olympics that have done something two years, would never happen in tennis. So it's a great sport for delayed gratification. You have to put a lot of time in.

Pip Marlow: Yeah, it's hard work.

Billie Jean King: And my parents had great values. And I think when you go through life, if you're brought up with good values and you believe in them and you embrace them, they really help you through life, through the tough times, the great times. But my parents were very good, and they never asked us if we won. My younger brother, I told you, played 12 years of professional baseball. And at 10, he announced, and I'm five years older, but when he was 10 at the dining room table, he said," Oh, I've decided I want to be a major league baseball player." My parents both went like this, not you too. What's in the water? So we both were off and running. So they ended up working three jobs, but most importantly, they didn't care if we won or lost. They were more interested in how was your day, and they didn't really get into it. And of course, we'd be just steaming if we'd lost, like," Oh, I lost, and I'm crazed." My dad would say," Calm down." My mother would say," Calm down, how'd it go? Did you try your best?" And I go," Of course, I tried my best." My dad said," That's enough."

Pip Marlow: That's enough.

Billie Jean King: That's enough. If you're all in and gave it all you had, that's enough. Every so on, they checked in with my brother and me, Randall James, and say," Do you still love it?" Because if you don't love it, you don't have to play it. They always gave us the way out, and of course, we were crazed. So we knew what we wanted. We never varied one iota, just loved it.

Pip Marlow: Having joy in your life that comes from that sense of purpose and believing in what you do. So you had this incredible, and what's great, you've continue to have an incredible career. When you reflect now, what's the moment you're most proud of achieving on the sports field to date, both on the court and off the court.

Billie Jean King: I don't really have probably one thing, but I just think fighting for equality probably and being loving. I hope I'm kind and good most of the time, which I'm not all the time. That's for sure. But just to try to be kind and good as you go through each life, and everyone matters and everyone has a story to tell. I mean, everyone's interesting. And if they're not interesting, I feel I'm not asking the right questions.

Pip Marlow: You've had to do a lot of firsts to get to where we are today. Talk to me a little bit about how hard was it to do some of those firsts.

Billie Jean King: If you're the first, the most important thing is you don't want to be the last. That is true because when you get an award, and you're the first woman saying," Okay, I'm the first woman athlete to get the presidential medal of freedom." And president Obama didn't even talk about my tennis. He talked about equality and LBGT community. So was I thrilled? It was the first time a president had even talked about anything gay, first president ever to mention LGBT. Harvey Milk's nephew was also there to get it posthumously for Harvey Milk who was assassinated, great LGBT leader in San Francisco. He was assassinated with the mayor of San Francisco back in the 70s. And he also received one, and I was thrilled for that because if you're gay, we'd never have been included. So it was first president. But I was the first woman athlete, but they didn't say that. Those are the things that go through my mind. It's like," Okay, as long as this is a start, even though it's really, really late, who else is going to get this? How can we push for others to be appreciated?" And women are not as appreciated as men. They've got tons of male athletes, and they were just the athlete. They didn't talk about anything off the field. I'm like, squeeze me. I mean, I think you have to do a lot more than just be great in your sport. I mean, I think you've got to give back to others because the lights shining on you when you're performing. But I think what makes life purposeful is when you can shine a light on others, and how can you make a difference? Because if you've had a blessing as an athlete to be number one in the world in something, boy, I think I owe a lot to everyone, and people in Long Beach, California, where I grew up, they believed in my brother and me so much and helped us in so many ways. We had free access first of all with the parks. We had free coaching. We got money from the long beach century club, the long beach tennis patrons for me to go back East, and then go to Wimbledon eventually. If you don't have that opportunity, I may want to go to Wilmington, but how am I going to go? It takes money. And that's another thing I want girls and women to think about when they grow up is understand money, follow the money. Money is good. It's not bad because I can't tell you how often this comes up. There were six women, young women, 18 to 22 sitting on a sofa the other day, talking to them, and they all want to either build a women's shelter, low cost of living, and I'm like," Okay." And I'm listening to them, and they're really just totally into this, and they're so caring and so wonderful. I asked them the magical question." And how are you going to do that?" They said," What do you mean how am I going to do it?"" Well, how are you going to build it for somebody?" And they start looking. They're like," I don't know." I said," Money. You have to have money to do these things, and that's why I fought so hard for women and men for pro tennis." Because I was an amateur when we started, and a few of us, very few, fought for pro tennis, got us in trouble. And then, after that, really fought for equality. But when we had pro tennis, my former husband said," The men will want to get rid of you." And I said," No, they won't, they're my friends. I practice with them every day." And Larry goes," No, they'll try to get rid of you guys. They want everything. They want all the money and the attention." I said," No way." He says," Way." So he was right. About a year and a half later, we lost all kinds of tournaments and places to play. And so the nine of us signed a$ 1 contract, but it was a huge moment. That is the birth of women's professional tennis the way you know it today. And so when you see someone, win the Australian open for millions of dollars now, it's because of that moment, and there's two Australians. There's Judy Tegart- Dalton, who's the oldest member. She's 82 now. And she was a great player. And Carrie Melville Reid. There are two Australians. As soon as the LTA, the national organization of tennis here, saw the photo of us with the the dollars, they suspended them directly. And we were willing. We didn't care. We were willing to never play again if we crosstalk There's three things we wanted, that any girl born in this world would have a place to compete. And number two, that she would be appreciated for her accomplishments, not only her looks because that's all they talked about with us in the old days particularly, and then the third one, the most important one, to be able to make a living. And that was our dream, and the players today, like the Ash Barty's of the world, they're living our dream on the WTA tour. Now, we're in 85 countries. We have women from every possible region of the world playing, and some making a living. You got to get good enough to make a living. Pro tennis doesn't mean you're going to take care of everybody, but there's a way to come up to the top, and Serena's almost to 100 million now in official prize money.

Pip Marlow: She's incredible. So many of us are lucky, I think, to stand on the shoulders of people who came before us who made a difference. And that's what you talk about is, giving more people a seat at the table and a voice at the table, fighting, even though you may not benefit for something yourself, fighting for the rights of others and for the people who come after. That is a sense of real purpose and courage that you do because you're not trying to necessarily benefit. You want to make sure that every girl on the planet can play tennis. That's a...

Billie Jean King: The way the boys have a chance, but I would have both. I like everyone being together, but the men rejected us. I still am praying that the WTA and the ATP, the two unions or associations, ATB for the men, WTA for us, I'm still praying that we'll be one because they rejected us, and I wanted us to be one. And it's funny, we're going to world cup cricket, and I applaud them because they'll do better together. And also, for the rest, they do better as far as making the world a better place.

Pip Marlow: 100%, and I love the work that Chris and Tennis Australia have done and the Australian open around diversity and inclusion.

Billie Jean King: Australia's been great.

Pip Marlow: It's great. I love seeing it in Rugby. I know the sevens, Australian seven girls also train with the man. Both teams say it makes them better. The girls are fast and agile, and boys play differently. So they learn some different skills, and that's what we want to do is say," Actually, we are better together. If we're only tapping into half of the population, then we're missing an opportunity to be better." Now, it's not always easy though, to get to this point.

Billie Jean King: We're not to this point yet.

Pip Marlow: Well, actually, we've still a way to go, but...

Billie Jean King: Your example of your leadership is an example of women doing better because when I was young, you never would have had this position in a million years, which is fantastic. So as I travel, and I see all of you, and I see all the women working now, that is inspirational to me that all this work has been worth every little drop of, every bit makes me so happy.

Pip Marlow: I know exactly how you feel. Now, I have to ask this question. Both in your fight for equality, where we're not there yet, but also on the tennis court, how do you get your head into the right place when you've had a setback?

Billie Jean King: Well, I put them in three different categories. I have mental, emotional, which I think is the most important one at the very top. And then, obviously the physical, but it's really about your head, your heart and your guts being together and working in unison. And you'll find when you're not having all three on all cylinders, that's when you're going to have a challenge, and most players never have three. They usually have two going, two other ones going. It's very interesting. The very best players in the world, the difference is the emotional aspect, how they think they deserve it. A lot of kids, I don't know what happens to them. They get to a point where they could win, like you're talking, and they don't believe in themselves. But I think a lot of it is they don't think they deserve it. So when I talk to players, I say, you deserve the best that life has to offer. You deserve the best. And they look at you like," Really?" So I can tell they have grown up with not great messaging because they do deserve it. Every human being deserves it. So it's the emotional side, but it's those three things working together that you know you're when you're in the zone, what athletes talk about. It's, you're in the now. You're in the process, but that's what you want for life. That's what you learn in sports. Okay. And then, you take it from the field or the swimming pool, whatever sport you're in. Okay. I'll say court here, that then when you get in real life and business every day, I use something I learned in sports. That's why I want girls to be in sports. I don't care if they're any good. They don't have to be a great athlete, but girls are not taught to trust their bodies. They're not taught to trust themselves, and they have to change, and they have to stop being perfect. They have to stop it. This is what happens typically in business. There'll be a work application to fill out, and a guy will look at it. Let's say there's 10 points to it. And a guy will look at it and go," I can do five of those. The other five I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. I'm going to go get that job." This is what a woman says to herself a lot of times. There's 10 there." I can do nine of them really, really well, but I'm not sure I can do that 10th one, so maybe I won't even turn it in if I can't do all of them." It's like," Oh no. Just go for it." That's one problem. And also women are hired on performance too much.

Pip Marlow: Yeah, you were talking about that before.

Billie Jean King: And boys on potential, men on potential, please, everyone in business. I ask this of you. When you go to hire, when you look at a woman, that you'll look at her potential as well, not just her performance, because with men, for some reason, they look at a guy, and they go," Oh, I wonder how you can be. Maybe you can be a great leader later. Maybe you can be a CEO, maybe be a head of marketing." They don't ever ask a woman that. They go," What have you done in the past?" basically. And that's how they hire you. And so I'd like every person who is in a position of power that hires people that they'll think about potential for everyone and not just for men.

Pip Marlow: And it's funny when you talked about your head, heart and gut being congruent. And I often listen to tennis players when they accept, they go," I worked hard. I know I deserve this." Part of me goes," I can't imagine saying that, but they're right. They do deserve it." It doesn't mean other people don't as well.

Billie Jean King: They work so hard.

Pip Marlow: They work so hard, and it's amazing to have that confidence to say that. And I think that's an incredible gift you get from working so hard like that is... And it doesn't mean other people don't deserve it as well. It's not an either/ or. It's," hey, watch out for that?"

Billie Jean King: It's very fleeting though. As an athlete, as a performer, it's very fleeting. It's extremely fleeting. So don't get caught in, this is going to be forever and know it's about gratification from the audience, not love. Some people need that. They think it's love, so they need that little hit every day of love like performers. So you have to be really careful you don't get into that even if it's gratification, not love. So, for the moment, half the time you can't remember who won the last tournament anyway. So you have to do it because I love to play. I love to hit the ball. I loved it. It's so much fun.

Pip Marlow: So in going for success then, I feel that sense of love and passion for it coming out of you. From a leadership message, from the sports court to the leadership you've shown in the community, what do you think is most important or one of the most important attributes of leading in something like this, in sports or in the community?

Billie Jean King: Everybody has a chance to lead. I don't think they realize it, and it might be in a very small way. It might be in a very big way. You don't even notice sometimes. Most of the time, people choose leaders, they push a person to the top. That's what used to happen in even primary school." Billie, you do it. You're the leader. You do it." Even with the tennis, all the players basically said," You're our spokesperson." When I embraced it, then I embraced it a hundred percent, and ever since then, it's okay. But it takes a lot of responsibility. You're alone a lot more, respect. But I think as a leader, even if you're going to work at a place, you have to buy into the dream. You have to own the dream. If I go to work for a company, let's say Salesforce, I would look at your values. I would look at all that, but I would absolutely embrace it and own it every day, 24/7 and try to make a difference in that company because if I make a difference than I'm happier. It's just that inner success, then good things usually follow. You don't even have to almost plan it. People will push, will champion you, if you do the right thing. It's amazing. Just do the right thing. It'll come out all right. You're not going to win every time. But I find leaders don't choose followers, followers choose leaders. So it's really about... what about you? I mean, you're in a leadership role now. How did that happen?

Pip Marlow: Well, I was very lucky that I have had some incredible mentors, and people actually believed in me before I believed in myself. When you said before, that girl thing. I remember having one of my mentors asking me if I ever aspire to do a particular job. And I was like,"Aw, I don't know." And getting you a bit of a wake up call and said," Well, if I was trying to offer you the job, and you said that, I wouldn't give it to you." I was like... because in my head I was like," Well here, I do want it." But I didn't know how to say that, that was what I wanted without either sounding arrogant because humility. I want to be a humble person, and I was in this tension between these things that I wanted to be. And I didn't know how to hold ambition and humility together at the same time. And since then, I've come to know that two things can be true at the same time. You can have a drive and be competitive and still be humble and gracious and kind. They don't have to be things that pull you apart. You can honor both things at the same time, but I needed a little bit of maturity and experience and help to get to that point.

Billie Jean King: So somebody championed you.

Pip Marlow: Yes. I've had a lot of people champion me.

Billie Jean King: Right, and you look at your own lives, everyone, if you start thinking about the person who you only need one person to love you unconditionally in your life when you get started. If just one person, maybe your parents didn't work out right. Maybe you had to choose your own extended family. I don't know. Everyone's got very different stories, but the point is, you only need one. And most importantly, you have to love yourself. So let's say you don't have anybody. Love yourself, be good to yourself. You deserve it and keep going for it. And also, I can't believe how often this still holds true. We don't ask for what we want or need. I heard that when you was trying to be humble, gracious. We're supposed to be girly. Just forget it, ask for what you want. There's a nice way to do it. Say," This is my dream. That's what I'd like to do. Maybe you could give me some help on that. I don't know. What do you think I should do?" I don't know, but it's okay to say," I want to be." It's okay to say," I want to be CEO." Why not? Or whatever. I mean, if I hadn't gone through all my sexuality challenges of the 70s. When I played Bobby Riggs, we had 90 million people watch it all over the world. It's a huge match, only a third year professional tennis, and women's tennis in particular, our tour. And if I hadn't all my sexuality challenges, then I think I would have wanted to be president of United States. But for a girl to think like that, this is just later thinking about it. But everyone used to come up to me after the match." Are you going to go into politics? You should go into politics." Everyone said," You should run for office. You should run for office." I mean, local and then state, and then up. I go," Oh, thank you. It'd be great, but I'm still playing, and I'm not going to..." But deep down, there's no way with my challenges of being gay and not knowing at that time what I was really. I didn't have a clue. I was trying to find myself.

Pip Marlow: It's incredible because you're talking about a number of things there. And for me, what resonated is this thinking that actually you've got to breakthrough. You got to give back. And when you get to a certain point, you get what I think of is the privilege and responsibility to change a system. At some point, you're changing at the micro level, and you're getting to be able to do that. But I think when you get to a position of responsibility and power, you have the ability to change the system. And that's what I think you have done is helped change the system at a macro level. Tell me a little bit about how you used your platform to change the system for equality, for women. How did you get to think that big?

Billie Jean King: I got the women to believe, and I think some of them believed already. We weren't thinking about nine of us making a living. We were thinking about the entire world. So when you think about equality, I don't think it's good just to think about," Our national team. We want equality." No, think about your league. Think about thousands of girls being able to play. That's what you should be talking about. That's true equality. Having the same money for 20 people is a good way to start, but to me, that's not the dream. And sometimes, I feel like we come short. We dream too small. You can start with that and say," We're going to start with that." But what really matters is our league. There's nine teams in the US. I want them to talk about that because that can grow from nine teams to 30 teams, 40 teams. There's no reason it can't keep growing like leagues in all countries.

Pip Marlow: So tell me, you talked about changing the system, wanting every girl to be able to compete, have a place to compete. So what advice would you give to people who are thinking about how they can agitate for change? What is it that they can do to help think big, change the world?

Billie Jean King: Well, you have to really, got to think a lot about it because just remember everything you do has a consequence, and it's really be careful. I'll give you perfect example. Before we signed that$1 contract, I went, I said," Just wait one minute." I went around this wall, payphone in those days, you don't see those anymore. I talked to the head of the USDA, which is our governing body and said, because we tried to get a tour, them to do a tour for us. And they kept saying no. So I told him," I want you to know this because I don't want you to read about it in the papers tomorrow. I want you to know that I'm calling you to tell you, are you sure he won't do a tour? If you'll do a tour for us, we don't need to sign this$1 contract, and I'm very happy to go back and tell everybody we're not doing it." He says," Oh no." And he said," Don't you dare do it because you'll never play the US open again. You'll never do this." I said," You've given us and me no choice, but I wanted you to know it. I want it to be diplomatic." So you've got to be careful. You can't just burn bridges all the time. Remember, relationships are everything. Relationships are everything. So if you tick somebody off today, they won't forget later. So you just, when you're going up the elevator in success, just remember when you come down, if you've been burning your bridges all the way up, nobody's going to give a you know what about you on the way down? Sometimes, we make the right choices. Sometimes, we don't, but you have to go for it. And it's okay to be a disruptor, but make sure they you don't complain, complain, complain. The women used to come up to me and go," Billie." And they go," Complain, complain." I go," I hear you." At first, I listen." More importantly, do you have a solution?" And they looked at me like," What?" I said," You guys, we cannot just complain." If you notice, I say we/ I don't say you because every time you say the word you, I started to say that, and I changed it to we. I caught myself. If you say you, it means you're attacking them. So I always included we. It's a we thing. I said," We can't just complain, complain, complain. We have to have a solution." Complaining is easy. Complaining doesn't take any thought. Just really come up with solutions. You're the ones that are going to advance.

Pip Marlow: Well, your sense of learning and growth and leadership has made you not just iconic on the tennis court, but I think iconic across the globe. And certainly, it has been more than a privilege spending some time with you today. So thank you.

Billie Jean King: Thank you.

Michael Rivo: That was Billie Jean King and Pip Marlow. To get more great interviews like this, be sure to hit that subscribe button. And if you're a business leader looking for resources to help you through today's COVID- 19 crisis, Salesforce is here to help. Head over to salesforce. com/ blog for practical insights, helpful tools and more information on how you can lead your business through change. Thanks for tuning in. We'll catch you back here next week.

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