Turning Failure Into Fuel: USWNT Player Abby Wambach Shares Advice

There are times that all of us–personally or professionally–can feel like we’ve been sidelined or fallen short from reaching our goals. When those times come they might seem never-ending, especially if we feel unsupported or we lack the tools and insight necessary to push past feelings of failure. 

When it comes to overcoming personal struggles, having a friend, family member or mentor in your corner can make all the difference. Oftentimes, the pathway past professional hardships looks much the same.

Especially in the customer contact industry, where our jobs are so intertwined with the thoughts, experiences and emotional experiences of others, having someone to remind us why we do what we do–and what makes us good at it–can be the ultimate motivator.

Earlier this year U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team player and coach Abby Wambach, one of our headlining speakers at Customer Contact Week Las Vegas, offered some words of wisdom that each of us can hold onto in those tough-to-beat moments, even now. 

Below are 13 things she’s learned in her time as a soccer superstar that you too can keep in mind when you’re struggling to meet your customer contact goals: 

1) Failure adds fuel to the burning desire to succeed–if you let it.

“One of the things that I find so powerful is this idea of turning failure into fuel. And for me, it's turning pain into fuel.”

2) Comparison really is the thief of joy.

“Yes, I have been confronted with failure throughout my career. But this was the moment in my life that changed everything for me, because I realized that the failure I was repeating over and over again throughout my career is that I was only comparing myself to other women athletes.”

3) Feelings of self-doubt are more common than you think.

“Knowing that I was only comparing myself to other women–I think that that runs very vast around our world, around our country, in every city in every state, because why would I dare to compare myself to Kobe [Bryant] and Peyton [Manning]?”

4) It’s totally possible to get past imposter syndrome.

“Yes, I've been confronted with failure.Yes, it was devastating to realize I had been doing this thing throughout my whole career. And yes, I've been working on that impostor syndrome….

The failures are the things that when I look back on my career, those things that I feel most proud of. And it's hard to get used to that idea of failure, but it's true growth, if you can change your mind.”

5) You don’t have to be the best at everything–you just have to surround yourself with the best people for you.

“When you're on a team, with a collective team of women who all actually kind of believe that they are individually some of the best in the world, you can actually utilize each other’s strength. It is both–like this collective effort, while also believing desperately that you matter, that your role is important.”

6) Your weaknesses are just as valuable and insightful as your strengths.

“What we get–I think the world gets–a little wrong is we don't actually utilize our weaknesses as well as we try to amplify our strengths.”

7) Honest conversations yield the most beneficial results.

“We were very honest with each other and talked openly about the things that we were both good at, because that gave us the opportunity to actually be able to fill in those gaps where those gaps were.”

8) Those sports analogies your boss likes to make during the staff meeting can actually be team building teachable moments.

“There are actual gaps on a field that you can see that you can actually screenshot with a camera and be like, ‘Okay, what are we going to do in this circumstance? Who is good at what? How can we get those people in the right positions for us to score the goal, to win the game?’”

9) Good leaders value the whole employee experience, not just the highlights.

“We actually have to stand in our weaknesses just as strongly as we stand in our strengths, because that's how especially managers, CEOs, presidents of companies, are able to build a team that is unbreakable.”

10) The "bird’s eye view" and "boots on the ground" strategies both have their place in the workplace.

“I think about it like a puzzle: all the pieces have to fit together in order for you to get your full picture.

When you're in that conversation, how do you come to it? How do you engage in it as a leader yourself–as a member of a team–so that it can be productive?”

11) You can’t work well with someone you don’t know.

“In the end it's just about getting to know people and to know what they're good at, and to know what they're a little afraid of, and to know what's the hardest thing that's ever happened to them, and to know what their fears are.

That's the way of really driving, I think, true unity.”

12) As corny as it sounds, team work does make the dream work.

“Not everybody at that table is going to come to the table and necessarily have a connection with everyone. But the fundamental connection is the objective.

The thing that unites everyone is the work that went into getting there and the objective going forward. And that's what a team is.”

13) Excellence is a choice. Holding each other accountable is a must.

“There is a choice you get to make whether you're going to pursue excellence for your job.

Utilizing your teammates as accountability coaches, having them there… pushing our bodies beyond limits, beyond what we know we even are capable of.

But I think that it's so important to have that Northstar, and have it believed.”

Photo by Vincent Roazzi Jr. and Chie Endo for Customer Contact Week.