I love Wolfpack

Okay, I love this book.  I love Wolfpack so much that I bought it after I read it.  Not just for myself, but for many of the young women in my life who are graduating this year.  This book is based on Abby Wambach’s 2018 commencement speech to the graduating class at Barnard College and it’s become a rally cry for women to find their pack and find their power.  The speech was powerful to watch (or read) but this book breaks it down into 8 rules designed to change the game forever.  Wolfpack made me feel hopeful for myself and my daughter and for the generations of women to come.

Relatable Abby

Even though, Abby Wambach is one of the greatest soccer players of all times, she is so utterly relatable in her book that you feel like she’s your best friend and she knows exactly how you feel.  When she talks about how she felt after her first attempt at soccer commentating (which was a self-described failure), you find yourself nodding along.

“I had failed.  My embarrassment burned.  I was tempted to get on the first flight home.  I kept showing up and saw the tournament through to the end, but it was brutal.

On the flight home, I felt sick.  I kept thinking: Commenting is what former athletes do.  After failing at this, are there any options left for me?  I went home and sat with this fear for a long time.”

Or maybe I’m the only one with failure issues?  Regardless, when she talks about friends or winning or whatever, she’s not Abby the soccer great.  She’s just one of the gang and she knows exactly how you feel.

Abby’s Rules

The thing that made Abby such a great soccer player was not just her ability on the field, but her leadership on and off the field.  In Wolfpack, she has taken what she learned and translated it into eight new rules to help take women’s lives to the next level.  In her own words:

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.

The 8 New Rules:

1. Create your own path.
2. Be grateful for what you have AND demand what you deserve.
3. Lead now- from wherever you are.
4. Failure means you’re finally IN the game.
5. Be FOR each other.
6. Believe in yourself.  Demand the ball.
7. Lead with humanity.  Cultivate Leaders.
8. You’re not alone.  You’ve got your Pack.

A Call to Action

So after you finish reading the book (and it’s less than 100 pages, so it won’t take long) you will feel inspired and ready to take on the world.  Which is exactly what Abby calls us to do.

            “Let’s storm these valleys together, and change the game forever.”

I love Wolfpack and I know you will, too!