A Resilient Googler: Pippa Saunders

D1, Abroad & French Nationals:

I played water polo for 15 years starting when I was 8 years old. I had experience playing on the USA women’s national team which gave me some great looks for college recruiting. I continued on to play D1 polo as the team captain for Cal Women’s Water Polo. After graduating with All-American honors, I continued my sports career abroad playing for a professional team in Lille, France. I ended my professional water polo career with a French national championship title!

Googler:

Currently, I’m living in San Francisco, CA and working in sales as an Account Executive for Google. Specifically, my job entails selling Google Cloud products, like G Suite, to businesses in the United States and Canada. I still haven’t gotten over the “imposter syndrome” (that feeling that you don’t deserve to be there because everyone seems way smarter and more accomplished than you) being at Google but from what I’ve heard from my colleagues, I guess this feeling never goes away! 

Travel & Polo:

When I came home from playing professional water polo in France, I took a few months to unwind and travel around to different countries in Asia and Europe before looking for a job. I have absolutely LOVED transitioning into this new part of life without water polo because I’ve been able to experience a new way of life without so much regimented structure and have made amazing new friends outside of the “athlete world”. Especially now working at Google, the general culture there promotes minimal structure. Sometimes I find this strange as I’ve always been on a strict schedule all my life, but I find that life after sports gives you a lot of freedom to explore new things and spend time creating new hobbies.

Of course though, there have been without a doubt some trade offs to this life after sports. I think the most significant thing I’ve struggled with is how your body changes. In my water polo career I struggled to put on weight and even had coaches encouraging me to eat a pint of ice cream every night. I went from swimming around 5 miles a day and eating as much as I want to now getting upset with the number I see on the scale (but at the same time laughing to myself because my coaches would be so happy now about my weight now if I was still playing!). Now that I’m not an elite athlete my body is different and it’s been hard to accept this at times. But gratitude changes everything. When I take a step back and realize all that I have in my life right now, it makes these pointless and superficial thoughts insignificant. I find that there’s a lot more things in life to be thankful for than worrying about the negatives.

Water polo has given me so much and I am so lucky to have been a part of that tight knit community for 15 years. It taught me how to be resilient in times of physical and emotional struggle. It gave me a strong sense of discipline and execution that has helped me out big time in the working world. It led to incredible international opportunities and has given me best friends from all around the world. Although it may be hard to transition from a sport that gave you so much, having gratitude for everything in life helps you keep a positive mindset!

Connect with Pippa Saunders on LinkedIn here.

Follow Pippa on her Instagram: @pippasaunders