Be Your Own Cheerleader: Sania Mirza's Message To Young Girls | EXCLUSIVE | CNBC-TV18

0:00 room full here of startup Founders entrepreneurs in many ways there are parallels between the journey that you've had and the journey that they're on because it's high intensity it's high pressure it's a lot of passion it's all heart uh but you know how have you been able to cope with the ups and downs and there's been plenty of them uh you know what is the coping mechanism is there is is there is there something that you've been able to design over the course of the years that's helped you to get through the really rough patches I think the belief I think that is probably what I'll say is probably the um the biggest strength that you can have belief in yourself and if you're not your biggest cheerleader God knows there's nobody else out there because especially as young girls um you know and and playing

0:45 a sport like I'm just trying to draw a parallel anytime you start try and start doing something new you're more often told you cannot do something than you can you know and that is just how it works that's the that's the nature that we live in and the society we live in the minute you say I want to do something outside but what makes you think you you can do it nobody's ever done it I mean yeah nobody's ever been number one in the world from our country but I got there you know so that is the belief that you need to have that you are um you know how to become the best version of yourself how to get the best out of yourself and I mean I've been through obviously as you know like any other athlete has been through so many we we lose on a weekly basis and we have to come back you know in a draw of of 30 32 or 64 that we play every week there's

1:32 only one winner everybody else loses so everybody at any given point has lost a match that week except the person who's won the tournament and some people win a tournament once a once a year some people win a tournament if you're Novak jok 10 times a year but not everybody's Novak jovic know so you go through those and you have to keep believing in yourself you have to believe in not just your ability but you have to believe in the work that you've put in the um you know the kind of um background search you've done about things that you want to achieve you have to believe in your team you know and the team needs to believe in you so it it's it's a huge team effort but it's also self-belief so that's what I think got me through most of my lull so to say you know I remember

2:18 you you said once and I it's it's important again it it seems like a uh like a comment that is a nice headline but there's there's a lot of Truth to that you said that uh especially as a woman you have to learn to develop a thick skin um it's not easy right I mean you know you're you're in in the public eye you're being scrutinized you're being judged you're being evaluated every single decision of yours on the court off the court is up for discussion and National debate uh how do you develop that thick skin where you say it's okay for me to make the choices that I'm making without seeking external validation actually at 36 today I can tell you that it's a lot easier but trust me when you put a 16-year-old that's when I first had my first trst

3:05 with media um you know and I'm like oh my God like all my friends are just worried about how to Bunk school and meet boys at a coffee shop and I'm here sitting in front of a you know press conference and they're asking me questions about world and I'm like what am I doing you know it's very difficult because you're you're almost thrown in into this this world that you're not ready for you are not you don't know who you are as a 16 17 18 old you're trying still trying to discover who you are discover yourself you're trying to I mean you have pimples on your face you're a little overweight here and there and there's comments about everything and it's very difficult as a young girl growing up to that in a complete you know like you feel almost naked um in many ways so it's very

3:50 difficult um and um at 36 though I find humor in it for most part of it um unless there'll be a day when I'll get up from the wrong side of the bed and I'm like you know what I'm going to reply to this guy but most of the time I find humor in it and and uh that's the way to deal with it because you know in today's day of social media and media where we are so exposed as public figures we are so exposed all the time like and and it's by choice I've put myself in this position so I'm if I'm going to take the pros of being in the media and in the spotlight I have to accept the cons and that's an acknowledgement I need to make but it's a lot easier for me with the experience of so many years to say I can do that so thick skinn being thick skinned is very important funny enough I'll tell you a story yesterday I was I was on a flight

4:37 to Mumbai and um uh Haren dool who's a 24 year-old cricketer the Women's World Cup cricket team was coming back and she was sitting right next to me I actually didn't know her name I knew she was a cricketer because I saw her and she started talking to me and uh she was so sweet and she was so nice and she started asking me you know just these questions because I've also signed with a cricket league just now so she was like I'm so excited you're coming to Cricket and she was I mean she was so young and I said you know bad luck you guys lost you had a solid tournament in the semi-final and she was like yeah but the media they were killing us they were just they were so after us and she's like it been four days since they lost and she was like you know they're still they're still talking about how badly we

5:23 played and I said but if you're going to let if you're going to take 4 days to get over a loss Haren is going to become very difficult for you like trust me you need to take a night and you need to get over it because that's the only way athletes can work so these are the kind of athletes that's the pressure you feel when you're 24 you know where she's thinking about it for 40 she's sitting on a plane and she's like I'm going for IPL now but they still imagine I have to face the media and it's so it is something that all athletes deal with and I think people sometimes forget that we are human um they forget that we have we feel emotion we're in a high pressured job um all the time you know uh if you have a bad day maybe you'll know about it maybe your family will know if we have a bad day the entire

6:08 world knows about it and they write about it and they have an opinion about it and imagine dealing with that as a young um you know young 24 year old 22y old with that much Spotlight on you so you have no choice but to be thick skinned because if you let it get you you're not going to get there I promise you you're not going to get there because you'll have multiple breakdowns in on the