Rebellious Success: Failure, Bigger Games, and Playing Full Out
Guest: Toni Will | Host: Julie Riga | Stay On Course Podcast
What if failure was your greatest leadership asset? In this bold and energizing episode, Julie Riga sits down with Toni Will, a two-time Guinness World Record holder, General Manager of the Kalamazoo Wings, TEDx speaker, entrepreneur, and author of the upcoming book Rebellious Success. Toni brings contagious energy and hard-won wisdom to a conversation about competence, confidence, and what it truly means to step into your bigger game. She shares her framework for building self-trust through failure, explains why playing small keeps everyone around you stuck, and challenges listeners to declare a bigger game before they feel ready to do it.
Rebellious Success: Failure, Bigger Games, and Playing Full Out
About This Episode
Toni Will is a powerhouse leader who blends elite performance with hard-earned connection, proving that competence and community can coexist. As General Manager of a men's professional hockey team, a professional development coach, and a soon-to-be published author, Toni lives at the intersection of leadership, resilience, and authentic growth. In this episode, she and Julie dig into three transformative ingredients for success that challenge everything you thought you knew about failure, purpose, and personal evolution.
Fun Fact: Toni's favorite food is sushi, anything from the grocery store all the way up to fresh-caught in Hawaii.
Three Ingredients for Success
- Invite Failure to the Table: Failure is not the opposite of success. Quitting is. The failure resume asks you to write down everything you have walked through and survived. What emerges is not a record of loss but a portrait of resilience, self-trust, and wisdom. When you stop fearing failure and start inviting it, it becomes one of your greatest tools for growth, confidence, and transformation.
- Stop Playing Small: Because Someone Else Is Playing small to make others comfortable keeps everyone stuck, including you. Authentic leadership means showing up fully, reading the room with emotional intelligence, and never beginning from a diminished version of yourself. Rising tides lift all ships. Collaboration grounded in core values is always stronger than competition driven by fear.
- Declare a Bigger Game: Growth does not always mean moving up. Sometimes it means growing out. Every micro-decision you make each day either aligns with your next level or holds you back from it. Act from the next level now. Ask not only what something costs you to pursue, but what it costs you to stay exactly where you are.
Memorable Quotes
"The only time you are failing is when you quit trying." "Stop playing small because someone else is." "The story we tell ourselves about ourselves gets in the room before we do." "What is the cost if I do not do it? Because there is always a cost."
Key Takeaways
- Build a failure resume and transform it into your record of courage and growth
- Stop playing small. Full authentic presence is a leadership skill
- Declare your bigger game before you feel ready and lead from that place
- Align your actions with core values to unlock clarity, confidence, and self-trust
- Invest in yourself. The ROI of personal growth compounds over time
About Toni's Book: Rebellious Success One part memoir, one part self-help, one part business leadership. A complete roadmap for defining
success on your own terms and building it without apology. Pre-order opens March 13th. Book launches August 11th.
Connect with Toni Will
Conference: empowHer
Book: Rebellious Success
Connect with Julie Riga
Stay On Course Podcast
Leadership Coaching
julieriga.com/lead
#StayOnCourse #RebelliousSuccess #LeadershipMindset #PurposeDriven #WomenInLeadership
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