Renee Montgomery: Moments create momentum

A conversation about confidence, conviction, daring to be different – and redefining what beauty really means.

Ladies Drive: Hand on heart: did you never dream of becoming a pilot, an astronaut or a veterinarian?

Renee Montgomery: It might sound crazy, but I never had any other aspirations. I knew the WNBA was what I was going to do. A lot of people told me I needed to have something else in mind, just in case it did not work out. But I did not have a Plan B. I was ten years old when the WNBA actually started, and I felt as though my whole life had aligned. I was so excited to realise that I could now play sports for a living.

And it worked out. You have had a remarkable athletic career and are now also established in the business world. You are vice president and co-owner of your former team, the Atlanta Dream, and the first former WNBA player to hold both an ownership and executive role in the league. Where did you find the courage to make the transition from the court to the boardroom?

Sports prepared me for everything I have had to face in life. In sports, you are taught to work through problems, to communicate at a high level, to achieve goals and to have discipline. All these athletic characteristics translate so well into other areas of life, including business. Sports helped prepare me along the way for all these different business and life endeavours I am involved in today.

How can mental toughness be translated into the business world?

If you are going to be a top athlete, you have to overcome a lot of obstacles. You need a great deal of confidence in yourself because, in a way, you are betting on yourself to be in the top two percent of all athletes. That is the group that makes it into professional sports. So it takes a little bit of craziness, a lot of confidence, a lot of work, consistency and discipline.
I am only 5'6" – around 168 cm – so I did not really have the physical attributes typically associated with elite athletes. But I had the work ethic, the discipline and the confidence to make it.

What do you observe of the younger generation of women today, including in your role as a mentor with the CC League by Chanel Beauty?

Observing the younger generation has been eye-opening for me, because the things I wish I had had when I was younger are exactly what I wanted to give to the CC League. As a young athlete, there are times when you may doubt yourself: should I even continue? Should I stop? Am I going to make it? With the CC League, we can talk openly about doubt, setbacks, work-life balance and all the things athletes are not always supposed to say out loud.

Where does your confidence come from?

My confidence comes from my upbringing. My parents always let me believe that whatever I wanted to be, I really had the possibility of becoming that. And I carried that with me. They never said anything like, “But baby, you’re too small. Maybe you should try something else.”
When I told them I wanted to play Division I basketball in college, they said, “Okay, just put in the work and you can do it.” It was the same when I said I wanted to become a WNBA player. Later, my confidence also came from the work I put in. The more I worked out and the more I practised, the more confident I became as a player.

It’s often said that you weren’t the tallest player on the court, but perhaps the smartest.

Sometimes you have to use what you have. Basketball is a team sport. How well you work with others, being a great teammate – that was one of the things that I really focused on because it’s something that I could control. With the CC League, that’s what we are representing. We’re just making sure that we’re good teammates. We ask each other: what do you need? Are you good? How are you processing having a bad game? We can talk through things that I know I’ve been through and I know that they are going through.

Now that you are the role model: what role have role models played in your own life and career? Did you also have mentors who taught you how to get up after a setback?

Definitely. When you’re on a team, there are a lot of older players who have been through more than you’ve been through. So if you’re having a bad game and they see you in the locker room sad, they’ll pick you up and they’ll tell you: forget about it, focus on the next game. It’s OK. Those little comments and words of encouragement meant a lot because when you’re an athlete and you have a bad game, it feels like the end of the world. It feels like everything is falling apart when you just had one bad game. I use those words and interactions and try to pass them along to the CC League to help the next generation put into perspective that we do play a sport and the world watches us. It feels like it is a very heavy task to handle that. But when you really think about it, we are playing a sport, like a game. We have to keep the playful mindset.

Coco Chanel once said: “In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.” How have you embraced being different?

I love that quote because a lot of times the thought process, especially when you’re younger, is that you just want to fit in. But if you want to be a top athlete, you have to be different. Most elite athletes didn’t have a typical childhood. We trained while others were going to parties. We had a different focus and a different lifestyle. If you’re the same as everyone else, you’ll get the same results as everyone else.

Coco Chanel revolutionised fashion. She freed women from the corset that used to be worn back then. What mental corset would you like to free people from?

Women’s sports used to have that mental corset around them when it involved businesses, investments and brand deals. We just weren’t making as much. We weren’t getting as many eyes behind the game as we are now. Today, it’s growing. People are beginning to realise that women’s sports are simply sports. It’s fundamentally sound. It’s physical. The players play tough. Breaking out of women’s sports and men’s sports and just making it sports would be the mental corset that I would love for fans to get out of.

How would you like to develop yourself as a leader and also as a human being?

There’s always room for growth in your life. If you’re a player, you should always be learning. Today, I’m learning from the CC League athletes. They live in different countries. They have different cultural rules that they have to abide by. I love learning, especially from people who have achieved the highest levels, like some of these athletes who are Olympians. They’ve already won gold. What was it like? What was their journey like? And how did they get to where they are? I ask a lot of questions. That’s how I’m always trying to grow.

Looking back with the wisdom you have today, what advice would you give your younger self?

I would tell my younger self to keep going. I was so focused on my goal, I didn’t do a lot of things that all of my classmates or people my age were doing. In the back of your mind, you can really wonder: is it worth it? You only get one high school life. You only get one college life. So you always question: am I sacrificing too much? I would tell my younger self that everything is going to be OK. Keep going. It’s worth it.

Do you sometimes have the feeling you have sacrificed too much?

I was worried that I would. And now that I’m retired, I can honestly say I had a great time. I enjoyed the ups and the downs of being an athlete. And I definitely don’t have any regrets. It was so worth it.

You are very busy after your athletic career. Why did you choose to be part of the CC League? What does this connection between elite sport and beauty mean to you?

In the beginning, I was pretty surprised to hear that CHANEL wanted to get even further into women’s sports. But I was not surprised that CHANEL wanted to support women, because CHANEL has always been a brand that champions women. Coco Chanel had a tennis court at one of her homes, she did break women free of the corset, which allowed freedom of movement, which is exactly what sports is. Once I learned more, it made perfect sense to me. Even when you think about athletes and how we take care of our body and what we put in our body. We eat the healthiest that we can eat. We take care of our body at the highest level. When you look at luxury and fashion, CHANEL uses the best products and the best ingredients. So once I started to learn more about the brand CHANEL, it made so much sense. So yes was the automatic answer.

Has CHANEL always been a love brand to you?

Yes, CHANEL has always been the top-tier brand. I’ve won six championships in my life. CHANEL and the CC League are among the biggest things I’ve ever been part of, because it’s such a global landmark not only for women, but for what it means to be luxury and the highest. To be able to collide with a brand like that, it was the Super Bowl for me and my family, for sure.
What kind of impact would you like to create through your work? What’s your vision as mentor for the CC League?
Many people focus on the ways that we are different. But with the CC League, we are able to communicate freely off of the ways that we’re alike. We all speak the same language of sport. That language connects all of our upbringings. We all have similar stories of what we’ve experienced. We all have a similar thought process of how we felt before and after games. We all share many of the same life experiences. What I would love to just keep tripling is that people continue to see that no matter our differences, we need to focus more on the ways we’re alike because we’re all alike more than we are different.

Do you have three takeaways for our readers, who are mostly non-athletes?

Yes! And I’d like to start with #3: Find wins whenever you can. You can get caught up in the daily routine of life and feel like nothing is exciting. You might not have noticed that you’ve had growth in certain areas if you’re not looking for it. So always look for a win. Always look for something to celebrate.

#2: Find your tribe. A lot of times, you may feel either that the way you think or the way you feel or something you want to do is a hard thing to start. But there are so many people that probably think the same as you. If you have a hobby that you want to do, just connect. A lot of times we hold ourselves back because we just don’t even try. Try, connect and find your group that works best.

And my #1: Moments equal momentum. A lot of times we don’t realise how powerful we are and how powerful just adding moments to something can be. You can add a moment every day, give yourself a moment of grace or peace or give somebody else a compliment. All of those moments add up and create momentum. And you start to realise that after seven days, after 14 days, after a month, there are real changes that happen when you put a mindset to just adding a moment every day.

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