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“When I was five, I was sexually abused by a man.”

In the third episode of Victoria Azarenka’s “Think About It,” former football player and New York Times bestselling author Lewis Howes opened up to the two-time Grand Slam champion about the sexual abuse that shaped his psychology.

“As an eight year old, I'd been sexually abused, my brother was in prison, and I felt like I didn't have many friends. I was struggling in school,” said Howes, who dove deep right away. “They almost held me back a grade, but my parents decided to keep me in the same class with the age range that I was in. But I was just in the bottom of my class.”

Howes, who hosts a hugely popular podcast, “The School of Greatness,” didn’t hold back as he talked about the trauma he endured growing up. Realizing that he was following in his brother’s footsteps, the 37-year-old Ohio native made a conscious decision to make positive choices.

“That's when I just made the decision like, ‘I'm going to try to improve my life. I'm going to go down a path of positivity, a path of connecting with the right friends who are doing better things that inspire me,’” he said. “I started doing this at 13 because I just knew the other outcome wasn't going to be positive. If I went down the track than my brother did, it wasn't going to be positive.”

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The fellow athletes bonded over their respective lonely childhoods. While Howes had to leave his home to find some solace—he begged his parents to send him to a boarding school in a different state—Azarenka felt all alone while traveling to junior tennis tournaments without her family.

“I wouldn't say I didn't really have friends because I was around kids all the time in tennis and stuff, but I felt really lonely because my parents really couldn't afford to travel with me,” she said. “So I was always traveled with somebody else's parents. I always felt like a bit on outside.”

The two also discussed the love for the Olympics. The two-time Australian Open won two medals at the London Summer Games in 2012—a gold in mixed doubles and a bronze in singles. Howes, who switched sports from football to handball after he got injured in his rookie year, is hoping to someday qualify for the Olympics, even though he’s aware he’s running out of time.

“Everyone's 22, 23. I'm 37,” he said. “It's getting harder and harder. And they just play all day. I play once every few months. So it's hard.”

Think About It: Azarenka discusses positivity with Lewis Howes

Think About It: Azarenka discusses positivity with Lewis Howes