Learn English Abby Wambach The 4 Rules to get the GOLD with BIG subtitles
how is it going
[Applause]
greetings to president by Lok Provost
Dean Barnard faculty trustees and the
other honorees Catherine Johnson Anna
Quindlen and Risa and to each of the 619
badass women of the Barnard graduating
class 2018 congratulations you guys
congratulations
doesn’t it feel like the second you
figure anything out in life it ends and
you’re forced to start all over again
experts call these times of life
transitions
I call them terrifying I went through a
terrifying transition recently when I
retired from soccer and the world tries
to distract us from our fear during
these transitions by creating fancy
ceremonies for us this is your fancy
ceremony mine was the ESPYs a nationally
televised sports awards show I had to
get dressed up for that
just like you got dressed up for this
but they they sent me a really expensive
fancy stylist doesn’t look like you guys
got one sorry about that
so it went like this
ESPN called and told me they were gonna
honor me with their inaugural icon award
I was humbled of course to be regarded
as an icon did I mention that I’m an
icon
I received my award along with two other
incredible athletes basketballs Kobe
Bryant and footballs Peyton Manning we
all stood on stage together and watch
the highlights of our careers with the
cameras rolling and the fans cheering
and then looked around but I had a
moment of extreme aw I felt so grateful
to be there included in the company of
Kobe and Payton I had a momentary
feeling of having arrived like we women
had finally made it then the applause
ended and it was time for the three of
us to exit stage left and as I watched
those men walk off the stage it dawned
on me that the three of us were stepping
into very different futures each of us
Kobe Payton and I we made the same
sacrifices we shed the same amount of
blood sweat and tears we’d left it all
on the field for decades with the same
ferocity talent and commitment but our
retirements wouldn’t be the same at all
because Kobe and Payton walked away from
their careers was something I didn’t
have enormous bank accounts
because of that they had something else
I didn’t have freedom their hustling
days were over and mine were just
beginning
later that night back in my hotel room I
laid in bed and thought this isn’t just
about me and this isn’t just about
soccer we talk a lot about the pay gap
we talk about how we overall us women
earn 80 cents for every dollar paid to
men black women in America earned 63
cents while Latinas earned 54 cents for
every dollar paid to white men what we
need to talk more about is the aggregate
and compounding effects the pay gap on
women’s lives
overtime the pay gap means women are
able to invest less and save less so
they have to work longer when we talk
about what the pay gap costs us let’s be
clear it costs us our very lives
and it means that I’d spent most of my
time during my career the same way I’d
spent my time on that sv stage just
feeling grateful grateful to be one of
the only women to have a seat at the
table I was so grateful to receive any
respect at all for myself that I often
missed opportunities to demand equality
for all of us but as you know women of
Barnard
change is here women are learning that
we can be grateful for what we have and
also demand what we deserve 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
you know the fairy tale it’s just one
iteration of the warning stories girls
are told the world over Little Red
Riding Hood heads off to the woods and
is given strict instructions stay on the
path
don’t talk to anybody keep your head
down hidden underneath your Handmaid’s
Tale cape and she does at first but then
she dares to get a little curious and
she ventures off the path that’s of
course when she encounters the big bad
wolf and all hell breaks loose 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 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 so when I was entrusted with
the honor of speaking here today I
decided that the most important thing
for me to say to you is this Barnard
women class of 2018 we are the Wolves in
1995 around the year of your birth
wolves
yes weird wolves were reintroduced into
Yellowstone National Park after being
absent for 70 years in those years the
number of deer had skyrocketed because
they were unchallenged alone at the top
of the food chain they grazed the way
and reduced the vegetation so much that
the river banks were eroding once the
Wolves arrived they thinned out the deer
through hunting but more significantly
their presence changed the behavior of
the deer wisely the deer started
avoiding the valleys and the vegetation
in those places regenerated trees
quintupled in just six years
birds and beavers started moving in the
river dams the beavers built provided
habitats for otters and ducks and fish
the animal ecosystem regenerated but
that wasn’t all the rivers actually
changed as well the plant regeneration
stabilized the river banks so they
stopped collapsing the river steadied
all because of the Wolves presence see
what happened here the Wolves who were
feared as a as a threat to this system
turned out to be its salvation
Barnard women are you all picking up
what I’m laying down here
women are feared as a threat to our
system and we will also be our salvation
our landscape is overrun with archaic
ways of thinking about women about
people of color about the other about
the rich and the poor about the powerful
and the powerless these ways of thinking
are destroying us we are the ones we’ve
been waiting for
we will not Little Red Riding Hood our
way through life we will unite our pack
storm the valley together and change the
whole bloody system throughout my life
my pack has been my team 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 here are four rules I’ve
used to unite my pack and lead them to
gold rule 1 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
reject it 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’ve got to learn
to make failure your fuel when I was on
the youth national team only dreaming of
playing alongside me ham you’ll know her
good I had the opportunity to visit the
national team’s locker room the thing
that struck me most wasn’t my heroes
grass stain cleats or their names and
numbers hanging above their lockers it
was a picture it was a picture 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 of them
standing on the podium accepting gold
medals but it wasn’t it was a 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
is fuel fuel is power women listen to me
we must embrace failure as our fuel
instead of accepting it as our
destruction as Michelle Obama’s recently
said I wish that girls could fail as
well as men do and be okay because let
me tell you watching men fail up it’s
frustrating it’s frustrating to see men
blow it and win we hold ourselves to
these crazy crazy standards Wolfpack
fail up blow it and win rule number two
lead from the bench imagine this you
scored more goals than any human being
on the planet female or male you
co-captain and lead Teen USA in almost
every category for the past decade and
you and your coach sit down and decide
together that you won’t be a starter in
your last World Cup for Team USA so that
sucked
you’ll feel benched sometimes - you’ll
be passed over for the promotion taken
off the project you might even be
finding yourself holding a baby instead
of a Brik briefcase watching your
colleagues get ahead 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 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 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 Wolfpack
wherever you’re put lead from there rule
number three champion each other during
every 90 minutes soccer match there are
a few magical moments when the ball
actually hits the back of the net and a
goal is scored when this happens it
means that everything has come together
perfectly a perfect pass the perfectly
time run every player in the right place
at exactly the right time all of this
culminating in a moment in which one
player scores the goal what happens next
on the field is what transforms a bunch
of individual women into a team
teammates from all over the field rushed
towards the goal scorer
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 every
failure that this one single goal
represents you will not always be the
goal scorer 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 is not our fault but it
is our problem and it 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 the collective success for
all women joy success power these are
not pies where a bigger slice means of
smaller a bigger slice for her means a
smaller slice for you
these are infinite in any revolution the
way to make something true starts with
believing it is let’s claim infinite joy
success and power together Wolfpack her
victory is your victory celebrate it
fourth rule demand the ball when I was a
teenager I was lucky enough to play with
one of my heroes Michelle Akers that’s
right she needed a place to Train since
there was not yet a woman’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 sighted scrimmage
five against five we were 18 years old
and she was well Michelle Akers
chiselled 30 pound 30 year old
powerhouse 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 gold
keeper gave her the effing ball and she
took the ball and she dribbled through
our entire effing 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 give me the ball
the keeper did and again she dribbled
through us and scored and 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 the ball
Wolfpac at this moment in history
leadership is calling us to say give me
the effing ball give me the effing job
give me the same pay the guy next to me
gets give me the promotion give me the
microphone
[Applause]
give me the respect I’ve earned and give
it to my Wolfpack - in closing I want to
leave you with the most important thing
I’ve learned since leaving soccer when I
retired my sponsor Gatorade surprised me
at a meeting with the plan for my
send-off commercial the message was this
forget me they nailed it they knew I
wanted my legacy to be ensuring the
future success of the support of the
sport I dedicated my life to if my name
were forgotten that would mean that the
women who came behind me were breaking
records winning championships and
pushing the game to new heights when I
shot that commercial I cried
a year later I found myself coaching my
ten year old daughter’s soccer team I’d
coached them all the way to the
championship hashtag Homa brag
one day I was warming up the team doing
a little shooting drill I was telling
them a story about when I retired and
one of those little girls looked up to
me and said so what did you retire from
and I looked down at her and said soccer
and she said oh who did you play for I
said the United States of America and
she said oh does that mean that you know
Alex Morgan be careful what you wish for
a 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 defined
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 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 and
who you are
Barnard women are the wolves surrounding
you today is your Wolf Pack look around
go ahead you can do it
don’t lose each other leave these sacred
grounds United storm the valleys
together and be our salvation
[Applause]
you