Mere hours before Stacey Abrams is set to resuscitate her campaign to become the next governor of Georgia, her impending run isn’t the only thing on her mind. The voting rights activist, community organizer, and valiant politician is speaking with Glamour about another subject entirely: her first children’s book, due out at the end of this month.
“I've always loved both reading and writing and being able to craft stories, whether they're fiction or nonfiction, and create worlds for people to live in with me for a few pages,” Abrams says of her new project. Under the pen name Selena Montgomery, the founder of Fair Fight Georgia has found success as a romance author; as herself, she’s written everything from leadership books to scientific papers. “I've always enjoyed writing across genres,” Abrams says. But with Stacey’s Extraordinary Words, the avid writer is tapping into a childhood passion and entering into a familiar, yet unfamiliar, world of children’s literature.
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Abrams, the daughter of a research librarian, grew up with a thirst for reading. She recalls fondly being surrounded by an array of children’s books, and the nightly book readings with her parents that transported her to another world. She’ll now give that same experience to kids all across the country by sharing her story of participating in elementary school spelling bees. Through her short tale, children will learn what it means to have perseverance, resilience, and bravery.
“I want kids, most importantly, to know that victory does not always look like winning the prize,” Abrams says. “I want children to understand the importance of progress and the importance of persistence. Because for most of us, we're not going to win the first time. We're not going to get the thing we want when we try it the first time and if we do not start to celebrate the intention and the progress, we lose. We lose ground.”
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.
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
Humiliation isn't permanent. The internet is forever, but the pain isn't.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As a politician, I love policy and I love service and politics. Being in campaigns is a part of how I get to do that. But it's not the end. It's not the end in and of itself. I don't run for office because I love that part. I run for office because when you are running for office or when you're trying to win your policy prescription, it's because on the other side of that there is good that you can do. And there are ways you can change communities and change lives and that, for me, is the driving force. I think when competition becomes about the fight and not about the content, that's when it becomes harder to rebound if you don't win the fight.
My family—my brothers and sisters. There are 12 years between the oldest and the youngest, so we are all very, very close. My parents, of course, as well. And I have a small cadre of friends with who I've been friends with since my first day of college. Others are newer in the last decade, but these are the most solid, most loyal, and the most honest people that I know. I think that's so much more important than people who are your cheerleaders—people who don't cheer you on simply because they like you. It’s because they know you, and they help you get better at being you. Those are the people I look to.
The head of the table is wherever you sit. I was a young manager at the city of Atlanta, and I had taken on a team of attorneys. I was in this sort-of pitched battle with two older attorneys who didn't want me to have the job and didn't like me. And because of the schedule I was on, I would come into the conference room for our meeting—the meeting had to happen a certain time every week—and they would take the two ends of the table. I could put my stuff down early and come back and no matter what I did, they would take those two ends of the table. It frustrated me.
I was talking to someone at the job and mentioned the fact that they kept taking the head of the table. And she said, “Stacey, they see the head of the table is wherever you sit.” What she meant is that we let other people determine our position based on these constructs. She said, “If you're in charge, you're in charge. It doesn't matter where you sit. Doesn't matter what title they give you. It doesn't matter the platform you stand on. It becomes so if you make it so.” I've kept that in mind ever since.
I am very direct. Not out of arrogance, but out of intention. I grew up in communities where women and people of color, and especially Black women, were not asked important questions. We were not expected to hold positions. We were not entitled to power. So I've developed a bit of a reputation for my forthrightness. But it is not out of arrogance or even out of entitlement. It is out of necessity.
We cannot expect to grow this next generation of strong, successful resilient women if we hide the hard things, and if we shy away from the reach—if we don’t tell them they can reach, how will they figure it out? It shouldn't be that hard. And the corollary to that is I do a lot of things. I am a writer and a politician and an activist and small business owner, and all of those pieces are me. I am not required to be one thing to be successful. I am required to do my best at the things I do, and that's how I always approach it.
You don't have to change who you are to work with others, but you do have to adapt to the needs of others. Meaning that I'm an introvert in a very chummy profession when I'm in politics. I, at first, refused to become one of the chums. I wouldn't do the things I was expected to do. And then I noticed that I wasn't getting what I needed. And when I was saying I shouldn't have to change, someone else was saying they didn't have to change. What that meant is we were never going to get things done. So I didn't have to totally change who I was, but I did have to adapt how I am to what they need. That meant that I wasn't going to be going out to dinner with everyone, and I wasn't going to be standing around chatting. But instead, I would find time to go and sit with people in more quiet spaces. I had to be intentional. I would ask different questions. And so it was about understanding that I don't have to fake it but fix it.
I believe in letting myself think about different things, including thinking about whatever's happening on television that night and thinking about whatever's happening in a good book I'm reading. I don't feel guilty about entertainment because it helps me clear my mind and it helps me renew it. Sometimes you just need to get away from stuff.
That's never really been a problem for me. I adapted this concept from President Eisenhower years and years ago, and I talked about it in my book, Lead from the Outside. He said there are sort of four quadrants of activity or issues: Things that are important and are urgent. Things that are important but not urgent. Things that are urgent but not important and things that are neither urgent nor important. I know what fits into those boxes, and I am clear about the allocation of my time and the amount of energy I put into the items that sit in there.
Boundaries tend to be breached when we let things that are urgent but not important bleed into our time that should be for something that is both urgent and important. Or we let someone else's urgency—meaning their lack of planning or their emergency—turn into our catastrophe. I'm always very thoughtful about where issues fit in the box and what responsibility I have for it. That’s not to say I won't sometimes go into a box or do something I didn't intend. But I never lose sight of those four dimensions, and I never let anyone force me into a space that I don't intend to be in. When I get there, no matter how I got there, somebody's going to hold me responsible so I better want to be there.
Tanya Christian is a writer and editor based in New York City. Follow her on Twitter @tanyaachristian.
