Abby Wambach: Wolfpack
Rising Stars Series
EPISODE 132
Drawing on nearly two decades of teamwork and sporting successes, in her book; Wolfpack (buy on Amazon), Wambach shows us what teamwork looks like, what leadership stands for, and how you can achieve bigger goals, overcome any obstacles in your way, and unleash your true potential.
Abby Wambach has scored more international goals than any other player in history. Cristiano Ronaldo has 85, Abby has 160. Abby Wambach inspires the next generation to find their voice, unite their pack, and change the world.
"Make failure your fuel". Abby Wambach
SHOW OUTLINE
INTRO
Leaving a legacy is what drives Abby forward
Forget me (1m)
LET’S BREAK DOWN THE 4 RULES AND LEAD OUR TEAMS TO GOLD
Don’t ignore the valley’s of darkness, learn to use them to your advantage
Make failure your fuel (2m21)
If you’re not a leader on the bench, then don’t call yourself a leader on the field
Lead from the bench (1m54)
3. You will not always be the goal scorer
Champion each other (2m21)
4. Leadership means pivoting when needed
Demand the ball (2m24)
OUTRO
Courage is quick, kindness is a way of being
Wisdom is your long game (1m15)
What you do will never define you, who you are always will
The most important thing Abby has learn’t (1m47)
CLIP CREDITS
Forget me (1m)
Make failure your fuel (2m21)
Lead from the bench (1m54)
Champion each other (2m21)
Demand the ball (2m24)
Wisdom is your long game (1m15)
The most important thing Abby has learn’t (1m47)
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 132. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the goal score that king of the mountain. And Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark. Hey, good morning, Mike. I don't know whether I could ever claim to be a goal scorer. I think maybe at school, I was probably in defense, a pretty solid position, but I don't know whether I was ever the Stryker necessarily.
Well, you need to take some inspiration from a rising star. I would say. I do I do Mike, this is quite an exciting moment for us. Isn't it? Because this is our second rising star series. Our listeners might remember. We got into Michelle Obama, VIM, Hoff, James clear, but today we're marking the start of a new series, Mike, by revisiting the one, the only Ms.
Abby Wamback and her book Wolfpack (buy on Amazon). It was so funny when we did our first show on Abbey, we really wanted to do [00:01:00] a show on her. Amazing career. She's very articulate about how she did it. And so there's a lot for us to learn from her. But you know, what is crazy is we, we weren't sure if you, our listeners would find the connection with her.
And boy, did everybody answer in a very emphatic way? Exactly. The only way that one of our shows really gets onto the rising star series that we do is by the listeners as well as ourselves, perhaps being you know, taken, taken away and captured by, by what they have to say. And I think Abby really stood out to us.
Didn't she? She really. Demonstrated this idea of winning putting up with failure and actually just being a surprising moonshot or in general, a wonderful surprise. I mean, no wonder on her book Wolfpack Abby had another [00:02:00] moonshots, favorite Bernay brown do the testimonial on the front cover and Abby.
Is amazing. The fact that she had such an incredible career on the sports field, she's penned a New York times best seller. She is an amazing person. The listenership to her show was. Really huge for us. And she has so, so much to teach, but my what an amazing story. I mean, she was quite the thing on the soccer field.
Yeah. Well, you know, when we, when we did our show and, and really following her ever since then, she still holds all these incredible records. You know, she's an Olympic gold medalist as well. Well, as Mike, you might remember she's scared international goals than any other player. Can you believe that?
Yeah. And, and crazy thing is just to give you a sense of it. She's roughly double the amount of [00:03:00] international goals as Christiana Renaldo. She has one all silverware that there is to be one and wait for the twist in the story. Ladies and gentlemen, when she retired. She had to get a job so she could pay the bills.
That's how underpaid she was. And yet, and yet, despite all that, you don't hear a word of been business judgment or resentment. What you hear is purpose and clarity. Mark, how good is Abby? She had a lot to, to reveal and to teach us not only around teamwork, which is, which is fundamentally what Wolfpack really was about, but around how we can overcome obstacles and be the best version of ourselves.
But, you know, if that doesn't define what a moonshot is, I don't know. What is the Abby definitely belongs in that pack. Doesn't she? Yeah. And, and I'm not even going to pretend to ask you your favorite bit because you and I have talked [00:04:00] about Abby so much, we kind of both have a favorite clip from the show that we did on her.
Yeah, we really do, for me, it was the concept of leading from the bench. If you can't join your teammates with humility and you can't lead from the sidelines and not always have to be in focus, then you're not a great, you're not a humble leader. And that servant leadership, which we spoken about a lot, Mike, I think has a little bit of a, a part to play here.
Yeah. So she's like, look, it's one thing, like, you know, it's the big fancy world cup. It's the big moment you're on the podium. That's, you know, you can lead there, but you really can't call yourself a leader until you're prepared to have the same energy intensity contribution to your teammates when you're on the bench.
And there's this amazing story where in her final tournament, final game, she is on the bench. [00:05:00] This is someone who has achieved roughly twice that of someone like Christiana or an hour. And yet she's on the bench at the end of her career. And she brings her full self to support her teammates. So mark I mean, I am.
I'm ready to listen and to learn and understand what it takes to be part of the Wolf pack. Aren't you? Yeah, I'm on Abby's team. Let's let's blow the whistle. I agree. So I think it's about time to get into the world of Abby one bag.
Forget me.
Forget my number, forget my name. Forget I ever existed. Forget the metals one, the records broken and the sacrifices made. I want to leave a legacy where the ball keeps rolling forward,
where the next [00:06:00] generation accomplishes things so great that I am no longer remembered.
So forget me because the damn forgotten is the day we will succeed.
Ooh, Abby getting pretty to the point there that is obviously classic Abby Nike combination signature brand ad. But there's a lot in that. And I think it would only be appropriate mark, that an athlete would challenge us to forget her through our own achievements to surpass her that her legacy challenges us to go forward.
I think this sets the scene for really opening up the wisdom of epi one back and seeing what we can learn, seeing how we might be able to achieve some of the feats [00:07:00] that she has. I mean, this is isn't that great. I mean, the reason why I quite like that little let's call it a teaser. I'll tease angel he's because it's, it's a stark reminder straight off the bat.
The team is nothing without its players, but fundamentally the team should be in a position whereby the goals or the, the inspiration that exists, the energy that exists within the team. You can create, you can work on, you can improve and you can leave it behind once you leave. You know, a lot of these sports individuals that we've covered in the past in fact have obviously left their respective teams that made them world famous, but they aren't necessarily they don't drop the tools and then that's game over.
You know, it's all about leaving a spirit construct in [00:08:00] place so that these teams exist. And the individuals, I think that she's already told me into here is the young generation. They're the ones being inspired by her legacy, whether she's there or not, whether you know her name or not, maybe. You can still be inspired by the actions and the behaviors.
And I think that's a really good reminder as we get into teamwork today, that it's all about what you do and how you inspire those around you. Yeah. And I think I think we have the great fortune coming up in this show of her four key rules to being the very best version of yourself. They all come from her book, Wolf pack and a Wolf pack.
The subtitle of Wolf pack kind of really brings it all together. How to come together. Unleash our power and change the game. And it's got a signature opening comment on [00:09:00] the cover from none other than Brenae brown and other moonshot favorite. So this is, I am really excited to get into these four rows, but I feel that we need to actually and this is a bit of an indictment of, of where things are.
I think we need to just point out to folks, to our listeners, the achievements of Abby. I mean, she has a limpic gold medal. She has the world champs from soccer. She's been the FIFA world player of the year. Yeah. Right. So just so you know, that's across from me and women. Hmm. What an achievement. Right. So.
This, this athlete that we have to learn from, she has, we said it earlier, she scored almost twice as many [00:10:00] international goals of Christiane or Ronaldo. She was also watered the SP you know, something that's people like could be Bryant have also one, right? I mean, these, these achievements are off the charts.
I mean, as an athlete, she is at the top, right at the top, it happens to also be a new an author with a New York times bestseller. Right. She, I mean, mark, this is so phenomenal that we have the chance to learn from someone like this is just like unpacking Michael Jordan, isn't it. She really is the Michael Jordan of of soccer.
Yeah. It's, it's incredible. No, exactly. I mean, those achievements are fundamentally her legacy. [00:11:00] And what I love about that teaser intro is, well, don't worry. Forget me, because it's what I leave behind. It's it's, it's just something that she's going to naturally say. Cool. I've accomplished all that. What I'm really in what she's really calling people out and saying, I want to inspire you.
I want to inspire my viewers and my younger generation to go out and know that the impossible is possible. And ultimately what she's done, all those amazing accolades you just read out are seemingly. Impossible to go and get with her dedication hard work drive. Like you say, the power that she talks about within her book, unleashing that and changing that game.
That's what she's done. She's changed the game. So well talking about unleashing, mark. I think we've now set it up. I think we can get into her fall rules and these are big [00:12:00] challenging. I even feel a little uncomfortable as we explore them together, but this is exactly what we're here to do on the moonshots podcast.
Learning out loud, asking ourselves how can we do it? Like Abby? So mark, where do we want to start with these really, really challenging these Fascinating rules that could unleash our potential. Well, this is a fantastic story from Abby that really sets the scene about what inspired her from the get-go.
So straight off the bat, we're going to hear about Abby's first rule in leading teams to gold is about not ignoring the valley of darkness, but using them to your advantage throughout my life. My PAC has been my team teams need a unified structure and the best way to create one collective heartbeat is to establish rules for your team to live by.
[00:13:00] It doesn't matter what specific page you're all on. Just as long as you're on the same one, here are four rules. I've used to unite my pack and lead them to gold rule one, make failure, your fuel. Here's something the best athletes understand, but seems like a harder concept for non-athletes to grasp. Not athletes don't know what to do with the gift of failure.
So they hide it. Pretend it never happened. Rejected outright. They end up wasting it. Listen. Failure is not something to be ashamed of. It's something to be powered by. Failure is the highest octane fuel your life can run on. You got to learn to make failure your fuel. When I was on the youth national team, only dreaming of playing alongside me, him y'all know her. [00:14:00]
I had the opportunity to visit the national team's locker room. The thing that struck me most, wasn't my heroes grasping cleats or their names and numbers hanging above them, walkers. It was a picture. It was a picture sure that someone had taped next to the door so that it would be the last thing every player saw before she headed out to the training pitch.
You might guess it was a picture of their last big win or have them standing on the podium accepting gold medals, but it wasn't. It was the picture of their longtime rival the Norwegian national team celebrating after having just beaten the USA in the 1995 world cup in that locker room. I learned that in order to become my very best on the pitch and off, I need to spend my life letting the feelings and lessons of failure transform into my power.
Failure [00:15:00] is fuel is power. So, so very clear in these really almost stoic rules. Th this is what always strikes me about athletes. Mark is they're able to find these very simple mantras and truths about pushing your limits, having courage. And in this case, what Abby is challenging us to do is to make failure your fuel and what I like the most about what she mentions that is in the non-athletic world.
We have this aversion to failure, and what's really interesting is on the sports field, no matter how good you are, you will experience failure, you'll experience a loss at some point. And so in a way you become battle-hardened from that, it reminds me a little bit of. You know, Michael Jordan's ad where he talks about how many [00:16:00] times he's missed the word.
You remember that one? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great one. And how that feels he's fire and the same thing here with Abby. What she's doing is saying, look, whatever missed opportunity. If something doesn't work out, ask yourself, what do I learn? What am I going to do next? And get the hell over it. Don't hide it and be embarrassed.
I think this idea of embracing failure. Embracing hardship that not everything's going to be perfect is so essential because then we're prepared for the long haul. We're prepared to have a few misses. We're prepared for the hard graft of trying to start to do something big, to realize some of our dreams.
So don't hide from the failure, just embrace it. Be proud of it, learn from it. And I love the fact that the team goes [00:17:00] out in the pitcher, reminding themselves of a, obviously a loss that hurt them so much. And I think that is so important because those moments of failure, they mark you in insiders, that emotional memory is, this is the power she's talking about, because if you remember that you can turn that rather than into hiding it, you embrace it.
And in that embrace, you can find. This desire to be better. And I think that is the first of many gifts that we can expect from Abby. What did you think, Matt? It's just such a consistent, valuable lesson or bit of advice that our moonshot is have sent to us before, but where I think it's nicely different from Abby's perspective is it's true.
These values of darkness and learning from difficulties anywhere [00:18:00] in the world, whether it's in the boardroom, in your career or in the sports page, you know, it's a physical, I loved his story because it's really physical demonstration of visualizing the difficulty, looking at a photo of art that was us losing.
Okay, well, let's work hard. Let's remount. Remind ourselves of that emotion. Let's work hard at remembering it as we go into this experience, obviously it doesn't necessarily. Apps align with the way that you and I might do it. We're not going to have on a picture of our office a failed pitch or, you know, a particularly difficult meeting the minutes from a difficult meeting or anything.
But you know, what I think is, is what really wonderful there is. It just shows that visualization of, okay, well, what do we learn from that moment? And what are we going to go and do next? That's the tip here. And it's, it's such a welcome addition, I think, to this concept of difficulty and embracing it and making it your own thing and [00:19:00] owning it that I I just, I just find Abby's Abby's direction really, really valuable here.
This is great. Why do you think in the, in the non-sporting world, why do you think we hide from failure so much? Why do we feel so guilty and embarrassed about it? I think there's, there's a couple of different. Ways that I think about failure and there's two prongs. One is your internal concepts and you know, maybe the word is ego or pride and that's thinking, oh, I don't want to embrace or acknowledge the fact that I worked really hard and it just didn't work because it makes you feel like perhaps a failure, perhaps you think, ah, my best wasn't even good enough.
Well, I'm not going to consider that, you know, I know my best is good enough and that's it. So there's this element and pride is too loaded. A word. I think maybe it's just your own interpretation. Maybe your ego. [00:20:00] The second piece in my mind is more external. How do I look to others? How do I appear to my boss?
Do I want to acknowledge that I did something wrong? I'm going to own up to it. I don't want to be vulnerable. I don't want it to reflect badly on my earnings report or my quarterly review. So. There's protection from both your own internal narrative and acceptance of yourself all the way through to how others accept you is where I think there exists this difficulty with accepting failure, accepting valleys of darkness and accepting difficulties.
What do you think like a man? You know, I, I I'll tell you what really struck me about living in the U S when we talk about accepting failure is culturally, what Americans are so [00:21:00] damn good at is like, oh, so your startup failed or your business failed. Okay. What are you doing now? What's your next thing?
And it's such a stark contrast my time in England. When I lived in London, what was it really interesting as I noticed, because I went from London to San Fran is culturally the. The business environment in London was all about not making mistakes because of your status or how it might appear to others.
And what struck me as it came to America and everyone's like, oh yeah, my startup failed. So now I'm doing another one. And they're just so okay with that. And no brick would ever talk like that. Right. And so I think there is this this liberation that can come by just saying how, you know what perfection is impossible.
There will be mistakes. So if you can, you know, except [00:22:00] failures as just a natural path to greatness, then all of a sudden you get over all of those terrible feelings of guilt, embarrassment, and you can just be ready and present for asking yourself, what did I just learn? Right. What, what did, what would I never do again?
Or what's my playbook? What are my rules? And that's why it's so, so good that when we have leaders like Abby who are prepared to admit what they stuffed up and how you re re realize that whether it's Jordan that'd be one back or any other great leader, what the pattern that we're seeing in the moonshots podcast is how readily they'll say, well, I really stuffed that one up, but here's what I learned.
And here's how I got over it. And they're okay with the rough edges in the journey of life. I think rule number one, [00:23:00] make your failure, your fuel. So very good, but I don't think that's all. Abby's go for a smile. No, I mean, we've already done. Try to divide up lesson number one, but remember we've still got a number of gray lessons coming from Abby today.
So let's dig into the second one, Mike, because this one I think is really great. So the second lesson, the second big rule we're going to hear from Abby and she talks to us about leading our teams to gold. Is that the awareness, if you're not a leader, don't call yourself a leader on the field. If you can't also simultaneously lead from the bench.
Well, number two, lead from the bench. Imagine this, you scored more goals than any human being on the planet, female or male you've co-captain and led teen USA in almost every [00:24:00] category for the past decade. And you and your coach sit down and decide together that you won't be a starter and your last world cup for team USA.
So that sucked you'll feel bench sometimes too. You'll be passed over for the promotion, taken off the project. You might even be finding yourself, holding a baby instead of a brief briefcase, watching your colleagues get ahead. Here's what's important. You're allowed to be disappointed when it feels like life's bench.
Do what you aren't allowed to do is miss your opportunity to lead from the bench. During that last world cup, my teammates told me that my presence, my support, my vocal and relentless belief in them from the bench is what gave them the confidence they needed to win us that championship. If you're not a leader on the [00:25:00] bench, Then don't call yourself a leader on the field.
you're either a leader everywhere or nowhere. And by the way, the fiercest leading I've ever seen has been done between mother and child. Parenting is no bench. It just might be the big game Wolf pack, wherever you're put lead from there. Wow. Hmm. Can, can you imagine the, sort of the world's leading international goal score gets put on the bench?
For her last tournament. Oh,
wouldn't it. Oh my gosh. But it's so true because you know, you could easily imagine an athlete being just a little pretentious, you know, [00:26:00] you've ascended to the greatest Heights and then you're on the bench and you can have a little hissy fit. It could be a little grumpy, a little, well don't they know who I am, but instead, what is really fascinating is this idea of okay.
Yeah, well, I'll run the water on the field, you know, I'll go in and get the kit ready before the game starts. I'll support the starting 11 to make sure they're ready to go. What do they need? How can I help? And I think that This helplessness, this giving of your self to the team actually powers the team.
When people know that is when players in the starting and living on the field know that the, the players on the bench are doing everything they can to support, to motivate and [00:27:00] inspire the starting 11. I reckon that is a huge inspiration. There's a certain confidence knowing that even those on the bench are doing everything they can for this win.
So I'll do everything to get the win. I think this idea of putting the team first and not falling to the temptation of ego is of the highest. Highest importance and what a great reminder. Particularly I think building on the work we did with Patrick Lensioni, I think this is a bit of a new take here from Abby that we're getting specifically through her being an athlete that you must lead when you're overlooked, you must lead when you're on the bench.
What did you think though? Yeah, for me, it's such a wonderful visualization. [00:28:00] And again, I think it's quite easy to imagine when you listen to a sports person, tell us this story, perhaps it would be a little bit more difficult to imagine it in a boardroom, but the idea of being the captain and being benched, you see, you can visualize that frustration thinking.
No, no, no. I got to be out on the field. I got to be the ones scoring the goals. I'm leading the team. Oh, I'm on the bench. Well, I'm going to have a, I'm just going to be grumpy. Then I'm going to cross my arms and I'm not even going to watch the game. You know, it would be so easy to fall into quite a passive aggressive scenario, but what's so one retains in my mind after listening to Abby just then is this idea of you can still be the voice you can share on your team.
Like you, like you said, Mike, you can serve the water. Whatever is the role that you choose when you are off the pitch or maybe you're [00:29:00] left behind in the office after all of your colleagues go and go to the pitch or the pitch being the business pitch. It could be something that's still really intrinsically valuable that they couldn't do without.
And it's that awareness of, you know, a being part of that team. But also B being able to lead from a far and still inspire those around you. It's it's really, I think a little bit easier when you do hear it from an individual in the sports field, because you can imagine it. Yeah. I mean, I would just say that this is somebody who's won Olympic gold twice.
Been the FIFA world cup champion. She's been the player at the global world player of the year. And she got put on the bench in the last tournament. And I don't think many of us [00:30:00] face a situation that humbling. Yeah. But if I translate it into common practice you know, I would say whatever your practices, whether it's a work with family, friends on a sports team, you know, Be happy to be part of it.
Give of yourself for the greater good, because what you can see here is we're already getting a sense that what Abby is really starting to suggest to us, and she's going to build on it in the second half of the show that it's through doing this, that we truly do find ourselves. And unless we are prepared to be humble and put others before ourselves, ironically, if we are selfish and egotistical, which are very self-serving, we will never actually find ourselves.
And I think this is the gift that we're going to come back to time and time again, through studying the work of everyone [00:31:00] back our most amazing athlete and so very much more, but Hey, mark. I think our audience who must be thinking to herself, loving Abby, they want to know more about Abby. In fact, we talked about Patrick Lynn Sione and all the other wonderful people that we have studied here on the moonshot show 103, to be exact.
My question for you, mark, is if they would like to get a little bit more information, maybe get the show notes, maybe find out what other goodies are in our back catalog. Where did they go for such information? Well, they can wander over to the playing field of www.moonshots.io is our repository and repertoire of all of the fantastic mantras that we've learned from some of our favorite innovators.
You can listen to all [00:32:00] 103 episodes. Once today's comes out, you can find information on our blog, lots of written articles there. And you can also sign up to receive our weekly newsletter to know when the next episode is coming out. So men shots.io, and because this Wolf pack of moon shutters that are listening to our show would like to contribute unsure.
I think there's one thing they can do on the web where they can actually be part of the show. What could they do when they go to moonshots.io that would inform what happens next. This is a brand new feature that we've added to moon shots that I O, which you can navigate to in the top of the website when you land.
And it's called feedback. And we love hearing from our listeners. Mike, we love hearing what you guys you're all at home. What you're listening to, which episodes are your favorite. Who's inspired you the most, maybe even what lessons you're following through [00:33:00] in each of your days, but. We also love hearing your recommendations.
Who would you like us to go and learn from? Who would you like us to learn out loud with? So please navigate to www.moonshots.io, pop over to our new audience feedback section and get in touch, leave us your thoughts, and we'll be sure to add your recommendations to our pretty, a eclectic and growing list of innovators, Mike.
It is. And isn't it fascinating to see that whether we take, you know, real academic types, like a clay, Christians, and or Jim Collins, or whether we take, you know, rebels. Like a Richard Branson or athletes like Abby, the default set of rules to be the best version of yourself. It's becoming more and more apparent that it doesn't matter what you do.
It's all in [00:34:00] the, how you do it. And we've got a feast of clips yet to come. And perhaps the biggest idea of all from Abby, but let's start now in the second half of the show, let's dig in to this idea of, you know, always going to be the star. You're not always going to be the champion, but you can champion others.
Rule number three, champion each other during every 90 minute soccer match. There are a few magical moments when the ball actually hits the back of the net. And the goal is scored when this happens, it means that everything has come together perfectly. A perfect pass. The perfectly timed, run every player in the right place at exactly the right time, all of this culminating and a moment in which one player scores, the goal, what happens next on the field is what transforms [00:35:00] a bunch of individual women into a team teammates from all over the field, rushed towards the goal score.
It appears that we're celebrating her, but what we're really celebrating is every player, every coach, every practice, every sprint, every doubt, and even, and every failure that this one single goal represents, you will not always be the goal score. And when you're not, you better be rushing towards her women must champion each other.
Yes,
this can be difficult for us. Women have been pitted against each other since the beginning of time for that one seat at the table, scarcity has been planted inside of us and among us, this scarcity, it's not our [00:36:00] fault, but it is our problem. And it is, is within our power to create abundance for women where scarcity used to live.
as you go out into the world, amplify each other's voices, demand seats for women, people of color, and all marginalized people at every table where decisions are made. Call out each other's wins. And just like we do on the field claim, the success of one woman as a collective success for all women, each other's wins, you know, again, it's, it's a great, Abby's pulling out some great points here and it's lessons that we can take into our, our family structures, our sports field analogies, as well as when we're in the boardroom, because I think this concept of teamwork really relies on one [00:37:00] another, supporting each other, putting in the practice perhaps, but also celebrating those wins.
So again, similar to that previous clip we heard of leading from the bench. This is another great example, how everyone on the team. Has an impact on one another, whether it's running towards the page, the goal line, when you've scored, or maybe it's just something a little bit more subtle, maybe it's, you know, somebody who's just had a great call from a client.
Hey, great news. That's that's fantastic. I think there are so many different ways of interpreting this celebration of each other's wins. That it's just a great, another reminder of, of nurturing those around you and building up that team. Yeah. Like for me, I think if we go to our dark sides, sometimes when our colleagues are successful, we attempted to think selfish thoughts, [00:38:00] but what actually should, what Abby is challenging us to do is always celebrate and champion each other because it's not just the individual.
You are championing and celebrating the collective effort. Nobody does things in isolation. So whether it's one individual or one of the teams in your business, celebrate it, just embrace it, put them and their success put the mission before yourself. And that's actually where and Patrick Lencioni totally connect on this idea of putting the team's objectives in front of your own personal needs.
And it truly is satisfying. And this, again, this idea of fuel comes back. This is the fuel because there'll be [00:39:00] times where you get a little inspiration, nudge and encouragement that you really need. So don't be selfish about giving it up for others. And I think. It's such a such wise advice that, you know, when in doubt champion the other just put them before yourself.
And what's really nice is to hear somebody who's achieved so much on the soccer field. And just to remind you far exceeded some other incredibly, incredibly big superstars on the soccer pitch. She she's got a way more goals than they did. Yet here she is saying, Hey, I was on the bench for my last tournament or I champion each other.
And I think what we can see is that her success came from the fact that she put first the success of the team, right? Yeah, exactly. It, she always knew the [00:40:00] priorities were to work as a team. You know, going back to that earlier, clip about legacy, it's all around. Not necessarily for her, but everything that she's inspiring around her, the movement that she's creating with the players, as well as the younger generation and champion each other comes off the pitch into the boardrooms, into our lives, into the streets.
And, you know, I think it is just a really great moonshot example of thinking about these challenges in the world and reappropriating them into, okay, well, I'm not going to let it stop my behavior, but I'm going to go out and make a difference. Yes. And you know, we've got a bit of, a bit of a formula right now, leading from the bench, championing each other embracing failure, but her fourth and final rule brings things squarely back on one self.
[00:41:00] And when the moment comes, Abby has some very. Powerful and challenging advice. When the moment is of the reckoning, you must only do one thing. Demand the ball
demand the ball. When I was a teenager, I was lucky enough to play with one of my heroes, Michelle acres. That's right. She needed a place to train since there was not yet a women's professional league. Michelle was tall. Like I am built, like I'd be built. And the most courageous soccer player I'd ever seen play, she personified every one of my dreams.
We were playing a small sided scrimmage, five against five. We were 18 years old and she was well, Michelle acres, chiseled 30 pound, 30 year old powerhouse. [00:42:00] For the first three quarters of the game, she was taking it easy on us, coaching us, teaching us about spacing, timing and the tactics of the game. But by the fourth quarter, she realized that because of all this coaching, her team was losing by three goals.
In that moment, a light switched on inside of her. She ran back to the goalkeeper, stood one yard away from her and screamed, give me the effing ball. And the goalkeeper gave her the effing ball and she took the ball and she dribbled through our entire f-ing team. And she scored now this game was winners keepers.
So if you scored, you got the ball back. So as soon as Michelle scored, she ran back to her goalie, stood a yard away from her and screamed me the ball, keep it in. And again, she dribbled through us and scored and [00:43:00] then she did it again. She took her team to victory. Michelle Akers knew what her team needed from her at every moment of the game.
Don't forget until the fourth quarter leadership had required Michelle to help support and teach, but eventually leadership called her to demand. And the ball Wolfpack at this point in history, leadership is calling us to say, Give me the effing ball.
That's great. Isn't it? That's great. Give me the effing book. I mean, it's, it reminds me actually of Patrick Lensioni telling us about worth at worth work. Ethics gives me and being hungry, hungry, and going out there to go beyond your job. Or at least as Abby's calling out here, be aware of what your team needs and [00:44:00] adapt your, your style to support them and drive them to help those around you.
I think, I think she's challenging us to do that, but I think she's challenging us to do more, which is to borrow from Bernay brown. She's saying step into the arena. When your team needs you, you've got to stand and be counted. Stand the counted be in that arena. Otherwise you don't have the chance or the rights to comment to give feedback, to complain if it didn't work, unless you've been in there trying your hardest.
But if you're the one that has the thing that could make a difference to them, competition to the game, to the effort, to the project, you need to demand the ball, you need to step up. And let's be honest. What we see at [00:45:00] work is times where people where you're like, Hey, like don't, you know how to do this?
Or Hey, where's so-and-so we can really do with that help right now. Right? Yeah. So why do you think people don't demand the bull as happy would say? Well, you know, I'm, I'm probably sounding a little bit like a broken record, but maybe it's going back to my two comments from earlier. You know, when you don't want to accept criticism or difficulties, there's an internal monologue as well as an external one.
So the internal one, and in that scenario, sorry, in this scenario would be, I'm not going to ask for more because I don't want to get in trouble. You know, I didn't want to say, Hey everyone, I think I can help. And therefore be exposed to more workload or a harder deadline, or maybe even the chance that it doesn't go well, I'm attached to that failure.
Yeah. And [00:46:00] I'm like, and then you can imagine that, that the conversation head is I don't want to step in because, Hey, this is a mess. And then it'll all be my fault. Doesn't work out. But so you're calling if it's your thing and your naturally talented is if this is where your effort should be. Then you must demand the ball.
You must demand it. You must enter it because that's for the good of the team, right? You can, if you know how to make that difference and you think your help can be welcomed and valuable, you owe it as a right to those around you to go and give it a go. How, when there's a moment in works and it's time for us to step up, what do we, what do you think we should say to ourselves?
Mark? What should we remind ourselves of [00:47:00] to go in and demand the effing ball? I think it's, I think when you perhaps are noticing things floundering a little bit, maybe there's feedback that you've given that isn't being accepted or. Or used perhaps maybe there's a, a moment in our careers or moments of feedback with team members when you can see it's not quite working.
Okay. Well, let me lead by example. Let me step in and show you guys is something, maybe it's a a bit of design or maybe it's a questionnaire that you're taking to a customer. Maybe it's stepping in and say, okay guys, look it's it's, let's ha a pause. Don't worry. Timeout is an example of what it could look like.
Now [00:48:00] tell it back to me. Does this make sense to you? Do you guys, I see why this might be better than what we were doing beforehand, but go, go even earlier though, like, cause, cause you're guiding us into what to do, but. What happens if we're not sure if we want to demand the ball, what do we tell ourselves?
Then I say, yeah, you're sitting on the bench and you're, you're on your phone. Checking, checking the latest. I think it's, I think you've got to, as Patrick would say, and as Abby says here, you've got to accept that vulnerability and know I can make a difference. I know I can do it. And you've got to be willing to go out and give that a go and be exposed and be comfortable with knowing that.
Okay. Well, no matter what happens, it's going to be a valuable experience for me. Yeah. And I'm going to give you a great story. Question can unlock when we're sitting there wondering if we [00:49:00] should demand the ball. And it's the question that if you really accept. It's very powerful, which is what is the worst that can happen.
And if you truly entertain and become comfortable that in fact there may be failure or maybe not, but if you can clearly accept that, that will be the thing that once you have actually attacked it, the gray at attach your fear, once you've truly done that, then this strangely enough help you overcome your fear of failure because you've named it.
You've called old and us still really accepting that, yes, this might not work out, but I go forward regardless. This is this power that she talks about in [00:50:00] making failure, your fuel. And when you're sitting there. And thinking I should really jump in and demand the bowl. Just say, Hey, what's the worst can happen here.
And except that, that may be positive or negative, but that you go forward regardless. This is, this is really the big unlock. Don't be paralyzed with imagining all the terrible things and all your reputational damage. Get over it. Just accept that that might be a possibility name, the enemy, and just move on and do it demand the bowl, give everything you've got because when we do that and we champion ourselves and champion the team, that's where you discover on the other side of all of that is your true self.
And that is stepping into the arena is Bernay brown would say, I mean, it all connects together. Doesn't it? It all connects together. And I mean, my [00:51:00] just, just before we move on, I just want to pick into the naming the enemy. It reminds me again of, of Abby's first rule, make failure, your fuel by visualizing maybe a loss game.
Maybe it's a photo on the wall by naming that enemy, that discomfort you're making it real. And therefore it's, it's actionable when, unless you name something, unless you think about it, it just exists as a, an emotion, right? It's an anxiety or a pain once, you know, once you've named the illness, suddenly you can go ahead and start taking the cure.
That's right. And then you take on a far, a bigger picture, a broader view. You can set upon your journey because you've learnt this body language, this default behavior when the time is right to demand the ball. And I think this brings us to one of our last clips on Abby, which is really about [00:52:00] thinking beyond the here and now, but taking taking the hard road.
Right. And she's got some graded advice on how we can play the long game. I would say courage is kind of like that quick thing that you can like have immediately kindness as a way of being. And then wisdom is like the long game being wise about the decisions that you make today. That you can understand in your head and in your heart that it will affect your life in five, 10, 15 years.
If somebody is trying to sell you a fast track to success, be cautious, walk up to people with curiosity, instead of judgment, [00:53:00] wisdom has everything to do with who you want to become. And the way to become the person that you're meant to be is by making the decisions day in and day out, feels a little bit boring, but those wise people have the best happiest, most joyful lives because they make those hard decisions day in and day out.
Long-term decision-making. And it reminds me of that great quote, Mike, do something today that your future self will thank you for which, which I, which I think is totally, totally right here, which is what Abby's saying, you know, that wisdom to know. Okay, well maybe it sounds a little bit boring. Maybe it's not what you want to do right now, but in the long-term having this wisdom or what you and I have referred to in the past, this long-term [00:54:00] vision, you know, avoid those short term reactions and consider that longterm vision and the long-term behavior cut corners.
Right. That's what she's saying. Like take the harder road because you'll be thankful for it in the longterm. Yeah, exactly. I think that's great. Yeah. Well, we've got one last thought. And it was a bit naughty of as mark, but it's the most important thing that Abby has ever learnt and we held it back.
What evil producers of this show are we but I want you all to keep in mind now, as we listened to this last clip from Abby went back I really want you to think about how selflessness, about how humility about putting others first and being part of the Wolf pack. Being part of the team can really help you discover what [00:55:00] you're all about.
So for the last time on this show, let's have a listen to Abby one back, be careful what you wish for Barnard. They forgot me, but that's okay being forgotten in my retirement. Didn't scare me. What scared me was losing the identity. The game gave me. I define myself as Abby Wambach soccer player, the one who showed up and gave a hundred percent to my team and fought along my Wolfpack to make a better future for the next generation without soccer.
Who would I be a few months after retirement, I began creating my new life. I met Glennon and our three children, and I became a wife, a mother, a business owner, and an activist. And you know who I am now. I'm still the same Abby. I still show up and give a [00:56:00] hundred percent now to my new pack. And I still fight every day to make a better future for the next generation.
You see soccer, didn't make me who I was. I brought who I was to soccer.
and I get to bring who I am, wherever I go. And guess what? So do you, as you leave here today and every day going forward, don't just ask yourself, what do I want to do? Ask yourself who do I want to be? Because the most important thing I've learned is that what you do will never define you, who you are always will bring, who you are to everything you do, what a wonderful way to encapsulate and bring us all backgrounds.
Like we've heard all about these [00:57:00] tapes in these rules for working and leading our teams to go about failure, being a fuel leading from the bench. Champion each other and demanding the ball and taking that ownership. And this is just a great reminder from Abby that look, no matter what happens with the team, you are who you are.
You have a personal affect and effect. When you work on that team, you can bring whatever it is that you want to bring to the game, because ultimately your uni, you've got your own personality and your own skills. And rather than thinking, oh, I'm only defined by the successes, the gold medals, the wins in the boardroom instead it's I can go into it knowing that maybe some things aren't going to work, but at the end of the day, it's all about making that team as strong as it can be with the skills that I possess.
And I just want to go in there. I want to be emotionally smart. I want to consider those [00:58:00] around me. I want to help out where I can and I think no matter what happens. That legacy I leave behind. Even if you do forget me, I'm still gonna have that hopefully lasting effect on the team and driving that product to that goal further down the line, well said, wow.
I mean, such a, such a great companion to the two shows from Patrick, I think Abby's really, really brought quite a challenging like a lot of the athletes almost confronting slightly uncomfortable point of view, right? Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's a little bit of a challenge to reminder to us that, you know, you're, you're responsible.
Totally, totally. So, you know, It sounded to me, I'm going to try just for the show, I'm going to try and guess that the thought that really got you that really kind of triggered you [00:59:00] to think was the one of leading from the bench. I think that one really hit home for you. Yeah, exactly. I totally you're right.
You've picked up on that. I liked the leading from the bench it's leading from behind the curtains. No matter where you are, you can still, everybody can have an effect on inspiring those around us. Even if you're not the captain, perhaps you can still lead team. Yeah. That's great, man. That's really which one call you?
I must say I, I, I liked I liked that one probably making failure. Your feel is, is the one that. That really spoke to me, you know, the embracing hardship thing, maybe that's my 2020 theme.
I'm sure everyone can. Well, mark, listen, I want to say a big thanks to you and I hope to see you leading from the bench, like crazy. Cause I'm going to try that too. Does that sound good? I love that. Ah, [01:00:00] well done. Well done. All right, well mark, thank you to you and thank you to you, our audience. Thank you for joining us on this journey into Abby one back and her collective idea of the Wolf pack.
It's been a real joy to learn out loud together to be inspired by these innovators and ask ourselves the question. How might we do it too? And so the question that we were proposed today by Abby is a big one. It is who do I want to be? Who do you want to be? And what she has told us is that your pathways in putting the Wolfpack first, and we do that by making failure, our fuel bleeding from the bench, championing each other.
And when the moment comes demandable because what we learned today is soccer. Did he make Abby? She brought Abby to soccer. [01:01:00] So I want all of you to go out in the world and bring who you are to wherever you're going to. You can be the very best version of yourself. That's it. From the moonshots podcast, that's a wrap.