Sue Bird’s Best Advice for the Next Generation Involves Leaning Into Authenticity

The former WNBA point guard urges everyone to stop scrolling and stop comparing.

Sue Bird was photographed by Yu Tsai in Hollywood, Fla. / Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrated

When it comes to the ills of comparison, not even WNBA legend Sue Bird is immune. According to the former league point guard, comparison (and particularly in the age of social media) is a significant affliction—and one that can hold you back if you’re not careful.

Earlier this spring, the iconic athlete joined SI Swimsuit for its 60th anniversary issue and an accompanying brand photo shoot at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla. While there, we took the chance to solicit her best piece of advice for the next generation (athletes or not).

Her response was simple: the key, according to Bird, is “finding out how you are and really leaning into that and being as authentic as possible.”

Comparison is the antithesis of authenticity, and a trap that has become that much easier to fall into thanks to social media. “You open up the apps, you start scrolling and you start comparing,” Bird explained. “As a basketball player, I could open up the app, I could see another player hitting a certain shot, or making a certain move or having a great game, and immediately you tend to compare. That is a trap. Comparing yourself is a trap.”

And it isn’t really logical, either, Bird said. After all, we would all be worse off if everyone were the exact same. Or, in her words, “as great as a career as I’ve had and as great of a basketball player as I am, if you took five of me and that was a team that you were going to put on the basketball court, it would be terrible—it would be a terrible team.”

It is our differences, says the former Seattle Storm star, that makes for “better teams,” “better board rooms” and “better decisions.”

At the end of the day, trying to become just like another person isn’t “authentic,” she explained. “I think it’s really important to try to love the uniqueness that is you.”