The Mindset of a World Cup Champion | Carli Lloyd
The Daily Stoic
Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures
4.5 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 June 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With the World Cup underway, it feels like the right time to revisit a conversation with someone who knows exactly what it takes to perform on that stage. In today's episode, Ryan talks with two-time World Cup champion Carli Lloyd about the work behind a championship career: learning to handle pressure, raising your own standards, staying disciplined when talent is no longer enough, and knowing when it’s time to move on.
Carli is a former American professional soccer player who retired in 2021 and was inducted in the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2025. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, two-time FIFA Player of the Year and four-time Olympian, competing in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020.
Carli scored the gold medal-winning goal in the final of the 2008 Olympics and both U.S. goals in the gold medal match at the 2012 Olympics. She also helped the United States win the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cups, earn bronze at the 2020 Olympics and finish as runners-up at the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
👉 Follow Carli on Instagram | @CarliLloyd
📚 Read Carli's memoir: When Nobody Was Watching: My Hard-Fought Journey to the Top of the Soccer World.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, |
| 0:07.8 | courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. |
| 0:14.5 | Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. It is the World Cup. I know this because a lot of people |
| 0:24.1 | are talking about it and I see it on TV everywhere and we were at the drive-thru for McDonald's |
| 0:29.7 | the other day. My kids were being maniacs and my son asked for a World Cup happy meal. |
| 0:36.4 | And I thought, oh yeah, the World Cup's happening. |
| 0:39.4 | I don't know that much about soccer, and you can tell that because I called soccer. |
| 0:44.7 | I've been to an Austin FC game. It was very cool. But what is the connection between the World Cup |
| 0:49.8 | and Stoicism? Well, back in 2023, we had one of the greatest American soccer players of all time |
| 0:55.5 | Carly Lloyd on the podcast. She had retired in 2021. She's in the National Soccer Hall of Fame. |
| 1:01.1 | She's a two-time Olympic gold medalist, a two-time women's World Cup champion, two-time |
| 1:06.4 | FIFA player of the year, and a four-time Olympian, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020. Crazy. And we were |
| 1:13.6 | talking stoicism, what it takes to be a great athlete, what it takes to perform at the highest |
| 1:18.6 | level. And she's also a starring character and subject of one of my favorite books about |
| 1:25.5 | leadership and sports, Sam Walker's The Captain |
| 1:28.3 | Class. I think the subtitle is a new theory of leadership, but also the driving force between |
| 1:34.0 | some of the world's greatest teams. Great book. I think you'll see from this episode why |
| 1:38.1 | Carly Lloyd is in there. Carly has her own great memoir when nobody was watching my hard-fought |
| 1:42.6 | journey to the top of the soccer world. |
| 1:51.0 | You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter at Carly Lloyd. And let's get into it. Going to obstacles and sort of the growth mindset, I was thinking about this as I was preparing. It's 20 years ago |
| 1:56.8 | that you were cut from the under 21 team, and you've talked about this. |
| 2:02.9 | That's kind of amazing. |
... |
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