Quote of the Day

The most important thing I've learned is that what you do will never define you for long.  Who you are always will.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 92

Quote of the Day

What I learned is that the most inspiring thing on earth is a woman who believes in herself, who gives 100 percent, and who owns her greatness unapologetically.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 66

Quote of the Day

Revolutions begin with a collective belief.  The Wolfpack's belief is that scarcity is a lie.  That power and success and joy are not pies.  A bigger slice for one woman doesn't mean a smaller slice for another.  We believe that love, justice, success, and power are infinite and meant to be accessible to all.  Revolutions are won with collective action.  We will take action on behalf of all of us.  We will help each other.  We will rush toward each other.  We will point to each other.  We will claim infinite joy, success, and power -- together.  We will celebrate the success of one woman as a collective success for all women.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 58-59

Quote of the Day

Championing each other can be difficult for women because for so long we have been pitted against each other for the token seat at the table.  Maintaining the illusion of scarcity is how power keeps women competing for the singular seat at the old table, instead of uniting and building a new, bigger table.  Scarcity has been planted inside of us and among us.  This is not our fault -- but it is our problem to solve.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 58

Quote of the Day

The world needs to see women take risks, fail big, and insist on their right to stick around and try again.  And again.  And again.  A champion never allows a short-term failure to take her out of the long-term game.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 51

Quote of the Day

Perfection is not a prerequisite of leadership.  But we can forgive ourselves for believing it is.  We've been living by the old rules that insist that a woman must be perfect before she's worthy of showing up.  Since no one is perfect, this rule is an effective way to keep women out of leadership preemptively.  It's time for a new rule.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 48

Quote of the Day

Imperfect men have been empowered and permitted to run the world since the beginning of time.  It's time for imperfect women to grant themselves permission to join them.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 48

Quote of the Day

Women haven't yet accessed the power of failure.  When it comes, we panic, deny it, or reject it outright.  Worst-case scenario, we view failure as proof that we were always unworthy imposters.  Men have been allowed to fail and keep playing forever.  Why do we let failure take us out of the game?

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 48

Quote of the Day

The picture of leadership is not just a man at the head of a table.  It's also every woman who is allowing her own voice to guide her life and the lives of those she cares about.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 40

Quote of the Day

Every woman is the  leader of her own life.  Do not give up that power.  Claim it.  Value it.  Use it.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 40

Quote of the Day

Here's what important: You are allowed to be disappointed when it feels like life's benched you.  What you aren't allowed to do is miss your opportunity to lead from the bench.  If you're not a leader on the bench, don't call yourself a leader on the field.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 40

Quote of the Day

When we think of leaders, who do we imagine?  Politicians?  CEOs?  Coaches?  I know that's who I usually think of.  Here's my question: Why don't we think of ourselves?  Maybe because our cultural understanding of leadership has omitted far too many of us for far too long.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 35

Quote of the Day

I spent most of my time during my career the same way I'd spent my time on that ESPYS stage.  Just feeling grateful.  I was so grateful for a paycheck, so grateful to represent my country, so grateful to be the token woman at the table, so grateful to receive any respect at all that I was afraid to use my voice to demand more for myself -- and equality for all of us.  What keeps the pay gap in existence is not just the entitlement and complicity of men.  It's the gratitude of women.  Our gratitude is how power uses the tokenism of a few women to keep the rest of us in line.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 31

Quote of the Day

Old Rule: Be grateful for what you have.

New Rule: Be grateful for what you have AND demand what you deserve.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 25

Quote of the Day

When I  was young, I was told: Good girls wear dresses.  I hated wearing dresses.  I'd look at myself in the mirror when I was wearing a dress and the pit in my stomach would rise to my throat.  I'd stare at myself and think: I don't like how this looks or how this feels.  This is not me.  I felt the need to hold my breath from the second that dress went on until the second I pulled it off.  It felt like I was in a costume, hiding who I really was in order to fit in, to be good.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 18-19

Quote of the Day

Old Rule: Stay on the path.

New Rule: Create your own path.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 15

Quote of the Day

Women must stop following the Old Rules, which exist only to maintain the status quo.  If we follow the rules we've always followed, the game will remain the same.  Old ways of thinking will never help us build a new world.  Out with the Old.  In with the New.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. 14

Bookin' It in 2022

I finished 20 books in 2022.  The titles in bold were particularly influential, inspiring or intriguing.

1. Cack-Handed: A Memoir by Gina Yashere 
2. Can Black People Grow Hair? by Andrea Krystal 
3.  Call Us What We Carry: Poems by Amanda Gorman
4. Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Color by Gilbert Baker
5. Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon
6. High School by Sara Quin & Tegan Quin
7. Femme in Public by ALOK
8. Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving Extremism by Megan Phelps-Roper
9. Unprotected: A Memoir by Billy Porter
10. Your Wound / My Garden by ALOK
11. If You Give a Pig the White House by Faye Kanouse
12. Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity Edited by Micah Rajunov and Scott Duane
13. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts 40x40: Bad Reputation / I Love Rock-n-Roll
14. Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson
15. Bearing My Seoul by Taryn Blake
16. The Little Book of Pride: Love Is Love by Joanna Gray
17. Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family by Amanda Jetté Knox
18. Enter the Blue by Dave Chisholm
19. Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game by Abby Wambach
20. Saint Peter and the Goldfinch: Poems by Jack Ridl

Quote of the Day

Women have had to find themselves within content presented from the male perspective forever.  It's essential to flip this and allow men the opportunity to find themselves within content presented from a woman's perspective.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. ix-x

Quote of the Day

Recently, on a call with a company hiring me to teach about leadership, a man said, "Excuse me, Abby, I just need to ensure that what you present is applicable to men, too."

I said, "Good question!  But only if you've asked every male speaker you've hired if his message is applicable to women, too."

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. ix