Maintaining Focus

Former Australian-Dutch professional cricketer, skier, commentator and Class of 1991 past student, Dirk Nannes is not the average professional sporting story.

One of the first freelance cricketers in the world to represent multiple teams on the international stage, Dirk shares how he managed a back-to-back ten-year professional cricket career by day, with a full-time multi-million-dollar business career out of hours.

With a 145km per hour quick left-arm, Dirk approached each game with tenacity and force as though it was his last game bowling at the pitch. Contrary to most athletes, reflecting on the match after leaving the ground was not a practise he engaged with. Sport was secondary to family and business.

Below the exterior relaxed personality, Dirk is a hard-working, big picture thinker, who learnt right from wrong in his early school days. He’s connected to individuals, not groups, and continues to live out Don Bosco words in action of “doing the ordinary things extraordinarily well”.

It’s perhaps Dirk’s resilience, mindset and ability to embrace risk and challenge that has served him best throughout the years. “Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, because what you will learn on that mistake, will probably mean the next one doesn’t fail.” He just happened to also be a talented sportsman who bowled extraordinarily well in first class cricket. Read the full article, via bit.ly/3DwTZBM