There is inspiration everywhere. All you have to do is look. Anything is possible!
Sport industry is not women versus men. My biggest champions a lot of the times in my career have been those men. Not that women necessarily wouldn't, but if there are no women in the room and the door is locked, it takes a guy to unlock the door for you and let you in. We have to get better at working together in that regard, as opposed to feeling like we need to crash the door down. You don't need to bring out the ax; sometimes you can just knock. And sometimes guys will open the door for you, but for so many women who felt like they had to fight so hard, we forget that they may be allies.
I knew I had to be in football, but I didn't know what that looked like. I made a pact with myself that I would stand up for that challenge. I had no idea how big that would be. There were no jobs for women in football, and my work was elsewhere, but I kept with my passion, and thankfully, it ended up opening up doors.
The ability to walk in someone else's shoes, or in my case, play down in someone else's cleats is one of the very best things you can do. There's nobody in this world who doesn't have that voice in their head. Sometimes it's the best voice in the world, and it pumps you up, but sometimes the voice is down. I wanted my players to be able to hear my voice in their head instead of someone else's because I knew that was a narrative I could control.
It's a difference of living your life for passion and not for a paycheck. I worked almost all the time, but it was something I loved so much as opposed to a job that I didn't love, where you're skating in at 8:59 A.M. or 9:10 A.M. and leaving the second it hits 5:00 P.M. If you're assigning a dollar value to what you're willing to put up with as opposed to doing what yields you in this world - I have been a whole lot happier when I've been a whole lot broker. Money doesn't define happiness; it's what you do every day that does.
That's what makes America great; the fabric and the core of our beliefs and our being is we wrap ourselves around diversity. We say that the American flag represents our right to be free in every aspect of what that is, and every veteran who fought, fought for that freedom. So what we have to do is realize it's not a choice between the country and racial justice; it's about what we believe in at the core of our being, and that's that we are free.
Domestic violence is a societal problem, not just the NFL's. A lot of the guys felt misunderstood - just because one guy did something to his partner didn't mean they were all like that. We need to help our guys not just be better players, but better people, and to do that, we need to put more into helping them understand difficult relationship situations or miscommunication, rather than addressing only the punishment. The guys felt comfortable talking to me about stuff. They knew I have a doctorate in psychology, so they'd find me and say, "Can I borrow you for a sec"?
I was always told I couldn't do something. If you tell me that, there's no question I'd drop to my knee. What we have to get away from is that divisiveness - trying to make me have to choose between standing up or taking a knee for injustice, or having place in the NFL. That's why you saw so many displays of unity in different ways. I would be with my team, and they shouldn't be seen as anti-American, because we as Americans have a right to be free.
Coaching in the NFL is very much a fraternity. It's about who you know and if you work with them well. Head coach Bruce Arians would give me the highest recommendation, and I've already had guys who said they would love to bring me with them to another team.
In 2008, when I was wrapped up a very toxic relationship, I lived out of my car for about four months to get away. And what I learned about myself in the process is that sometimes a safety net isn't really that safe; it's what keeps you from flying. That year I went from playing football to being a football player. Football wasn't paying my bills, but people didn't really know how bad it was. That was the one place in the world that when everything else was chaos, I could be great. I think we all have that place where we experience greatness. Football definitely saved my life.
