What Megan Rapinoe Taught Me About Authenticity
Megan Rapinoe for Newsweek, June 22, 2022
In sales and business, I am as concerned with living authenticity, as I am with succeeding professionally. Authenticity is behaving in a way that is true to who I am now, while pushing to be the person I want to become.
American psychologist, Daniel Siegel, discusses navigating a metaphorical river between the banks of rigidity and chaos. Siegel believes that life is lived as one stears into, and away from, these opposing banks. There is as much comfort in maintaining the rigidity of who I know myself to be, as there is risk in embracing the chaos of who I want to become. The river of one’s life is fully experienced when rigidity and chaos are integrated into one authentic experience.
“There is as much comfort in maintaining the rigidity of who I know myself to be, as there is risk in embracing the chaos of who I want to become.”
Back-to-back World Cup winning American soccer player, and equal rights activist, Megan Rapinoe, has taught me about navigating rigidity and chaos in the pursuit of living authentically. In 2016, and fresh off of her first World Cup title, Rapinoe joined NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem. They, along with many athletes, were protesting the death of young black men in America. The U.S. Soccer Federation responded by banning said protests and Rapinoe saw a long hiatus before her next appearance for the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT).
When asked about her exclusion from the team in a 2020 interview on NPR’s Fresh Air, Rapinoe said she didn’t regret her decision to protest (embracing chaos), but did make the decision to stop protesting (accepting rigidity) so she could go back to work. Rapinoe understood that her platform needed to be maintained by continuing to play. Equally as important, she loved playing soccer at the highest level. Which she did by serving as co-captain of the USWNT and retaining the World Cup in 2019.
It should be said that in 2020, and in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, U.S. Soccer publicly reversed the ban on athletes protesting during the playing of the national anthem.
In the years after taking a knee, and undeterred by temporary professional setbacks, Rapinoe used her platform to make US soccer and the domestic league (NWSL) a safe place for LGBTQ+ support across the country.
Megan Rapinoe and wife Sue Bird for their production company, A Touch More.
Along with fellow USWNT stars Alex Morgan, Kelly O’Hara, and others, Rapinoe used her platform to advocate for equal pay. For the first time, the U.S. women will be receiving the same compensation for their participation in the 2023 women’s World Cup, as the men received in their 2022 equivalent in Qatar. For Rapinoe, professional success and authenticity are not at odds with one another. They are two banks of the same river.
I have watched Rapinoe perform at the highest level for seventeen years. She has been an example, not only for what success looks like, but for how authentic expression can be an asset in building relationships. It has long been said that people do business with people they trust. But what does that mean?
Rapinoe for Time Magazine’s 2020 Most Influential People
It means showing up authentically in every interaction. From the discovery call to the close, it means establishing, developing, and maintaining rapport. As a long-time soccer fan in America, I have found myself defending my chosen fandom on barstools and in business meetings across the country.
My ability to relate my passion to the passions of others, avoids didactic education in favor of finding mutuality in the fact that we are all fans of something. Rapport is not built on the fact that two people are fans of Megan Rapinoe, although they absolutely should be.
Rapport is built on the ability to relate my soccer fandom to someone’s passion for cooking, or yoga, or American football. I do not try to sell people on soccer, I sell people on the fact that I can enjoy soccer to the same degree as whatever it is they enjoy. This requires getting to know others as much as I am willing to allow others to get to know me.
Opening myself up to others is leaning into the chaos of my own river. I strive to be more vulnerable in my interactions because I like who I become as a result. This vulnerability also builds trust, and opens the door for business to be done.
Megan Rapinoe is currently vying for a Chicago Bulls style three-peat in the 2023 World Cup being hosted in New Zealand and Australia, and will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of the 2023/24 NWSL season. What she does next professionally, is anyone’s guess. Though, there is no debate as to whether or not she will do it authentically.
