53-Meghan Klingenberg-on how to stay confident through the ups and downs, Daring Greatly, and playing hooky

In today's episode, I interview World Cup Champion, US national soccer team member, Portland Thorns FC defender,  Meghan Klingenberg.  When Meghan was thirteen years old, her mom pulled her out of middle school. The two of them road tripped to University of North Carolina to see the women's soccer team play for the first time. After that game, Meghan began writing letters to the head coach Anson Dorrance, expressing her interest in playing for his team. Her dreams of becoming a Tarheel came true, and her career accelerated from there. After college, Meghan was drafted to the Women’s Professional Soccer league. She received her first call up to the full national team in 2011 and became a mainstay from then on out. In 2012, she just missed out on the Olympics roster, and went to London as an alternate. This experience created a huge paradigm shift for Meghan. She knew that if she wanted to be on the team, then she had to be different than everyone else. So she opted to head overseas to Sweden and play with some of the best players in the world.  Meghan unconventional path paid-off, and in 2015, she started every match in the World Cup, and helped the team win gold.  She currently plays for the Portland Thorns, who won the NWSL championships last season In our conversation, Meghan talks about  -her insanely competitive family, and how a Disney Trivia game night turned into family members shunning each other for days  -her involvement with the USWNT Players Association and standing up for equal pay -how she deals with the pressure of US national team camps -the value she has found in seeing a therapist -her approach for dealing with haters on social media  -how she became Edie’s (Portland Thorns head coach, Mark Parson’s daughter) special friend And more.  Enjoy my conversation with the lively, confident Meghan Klingenberg.     Resources Click HERE to join the Arrow Living Book Club  Click HERE to become a part of Friday Feelz Click HERE for a list of the 10 books I believe ever female athlete MUST read. Click HERE  to be the first to know when a new podcast or article drops, and receive other exclusive content Follow Meghan Klingenberg www.meghanklingenberg.com On Instagram: @meghankling On twitter: @meghankling