Stacey Abrams Knows Victory Does Not Always Look Like Winning the Prize

For Glamour’s Doing the Work column, Stacey Abrams talks candidly about her daily routine, competitive edge, the advice that has shaped her career, and the people who have been there for every setback and success.

An average morning

My first action should be going down to the gym or going downstairs to get on my treadmill. But although my intention is to wake up and immediately put on my workout clothes, I shockingly (sarcasm) find myself instead scrolling through my news feed. I have three newsletters that I subscribe to that give me my international news, my national news, and my entertainment news. And then once I’ve gotten that done then I go and exercise

A useful piece of advice I’d would give my younger self

Humiliation isn’t permanent. The internet is forever, but the pain isn’t.

The women in your circle who helped me get here

My mom and my sisters are the ones that immediately come to mind. In part because I don’t measure my capacity against others. I measure it against what I can imagine for myself. And it’s helpful to have a family, especially with so many women in my family, who can help me remember what I thought I said because we have a capacity for revisionist history in our own minds and they are excellent recorders of what I thought I said and what I actually said and what I actually intended.

The people who encouraged my creativity

My parents did, absolutely, in different ways. They are both multifaceted, but what resonates for me is that my parents never told me—not that they didn’t tell me “no,” but when I said I wanted to learn or wanted to do, there was never this chiding that, well, “that’s not for you.” It was okay. And probably having a research librarian for a mother contributed to that because when you would ask a question, she would say, “Go look it up.” And she meant it. So I ended up reading the dictionary and reading encyclopedias for fun and just entering these new worlds. Because of that, I was never constrained by this idea that I could only be or do or think one thing. There was a whole universe, a literal library of opportunities, and we were encouraged to explore it.

My role models in politics

I frame it this way: I look for people who try to achieve hard things, stumble, and are intentional about self-correction. And I spend a lot of time reading about those who make mistakes and those who didn’t do it right. Because I think you learn as much from the wrongs that are done as you do from the heroic stories of right.

Where I get my competitive edge

What I publicly displayed in the last few years is something I learned and something I talk about in my book. And that is that one, for me, it wasn’t about the competition. Even in politics, it’s not about the thrill of competition. It’s about wanting to be a part of the thing. Stacey, the little Stacey, loves words. And this was an opportunity to love words in a different way. It just happened to be on a stage where you got a trophy or a ribbon if you got it right. And not to diminish the competition, but competition is both more fulfilling and you can be more resilient if you love the underlying mission. She loved words first, not competing first.