Abby Wambach | Super U Podcast
Our new episode of the Super U Podcast is live! The Super U Podcast delivers curated tips from top performers and thought leaders to help unlock and unleash your inner superpower. This week’s episode features tips from Abby Wambach, US gold medalist and World Cup champion. Click here to subscribe to the Super U Podcast. Need a sneak peek? Below are the main takeaways from Abby Wambach| Super U Podcast:
[1:46] Make Failure Your Fuel
Here’s something the best athletes understand. It seems like a harder concept for non-athletes to grasp non-athletes don’t know what to do with the gift of failure. So they hide it, pretend it never happened, reject it outright, and they end up wasting it. 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’ve got to learn to make failure your fuel.
[3:47] Understand Your Weaknesses
In Abby’s words, “I know what I do well. Don’t tell me what I do well, tell me what I suck at. I keep challenging myself. I keep bettering myself day in and day out. So the coaches that I always connected the most with are the ones that were a little bit harder on me that had a higher standard for me because I think we all know what we do well.”
[6:15] Be the Wolf
“Like all little girls, I was taught to be grateful. I was taught to keep my head down stay on the path and get my job done. I was freaking Little Red Riding Hood.
The message is clear. Don’t be curious. Don’t make trouble. Don’t say too much or bad things will happen. I stayed on the path out of fear not of being eaten by a wolf.
But of being cut, being benched, and losing my paycheck.
If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing it would be this. Abby. You were never little red riding hood. You were always the wolf.”
[9:38] Choose Your Own Path
“I’ve reached my level of success in one way and I believe that everybody chooses their own path. I always like to tell kids that I wish that they could be like me in some ways, but I want them to be like themselves. Don’t try to be like Abby Wambach, be better than me.”
[10:55] Lead From the Bench
You’ll feel benched sometimes in life. You’ll be passed over for the promotion, taken off the project. Here’s what’s important. You’re 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 during that last World Cup. If you’re not a leader on the bench, then don’t call yourself a leader on the field.
[13:41] Step Outside the Box
“The only label that I need to actually really adhere to and think about and be is human. Because what’s happening is we’re putting ourselves in these boxes. These labeled boxes and we cut ourselves off from each other. The reason we do that is that, if I’m in this little box I feel a little bit safer. Because I have like this little community of these walls up. But what that’s doing is cutting us off from all these other opportunities and possibilities and ability to expand. We can challenge each other to kind of break away these boundaries and walls. We can challenge each other to not just be better at our job, but be better humans.”
[14:35] Establish Rules to Live By
Teams need a unifying structure and the best way to create one collective heartbeat is to establish rules for your team to live by. It doesn’t matter what specific page you’re all on just as long as you’re on the same one.
To ensure you don’t miss future episodes, subscribe to our podcast by clicking here >> Super U Podcast. We hope these tips help unlock and unleash your inner superpower!
The Super U Podcast is hosted by #1 bestselling author and Motivational Speaker Erik Qualman.
