Winning is the worst teacher

February 4th 2002 was my first day of school. On November 13th 2018 I sat my final university exam, drawing to a close a 16-year academic journey. I am fortunate and privileged to have attended both a top high school and university, but in my life, the most powerful lessons I have learned were not in the classroom, but on the sporting field. Sport is the best teacher I have ever had.

Every day young people enter the workplace for the first time and are thrust into a world of pressure, structure and working with others. For people in sport, this has been their reality for as long as they can remember. The parallels are so clear to me.

Playing football (soccer for any non-purists) has always encouraged me to think about the person I am and the person I want to be. For me, this process comes from years of observing leaders. I have been fortunate to play alongside amazing leaders who were able to shape strong high performing cultures. I have also seen leaders fall short; creating environments that disempowered people and personally made me feel uncomfortable. Experiencing both toxic and productive cultures has helped me to understand myself better as a leader and a person. What do I value? What is important to me? These years of observation became particularly important when at 20-years old my teammates selected me to captain the Australian Open Men’s football team at the Maccabiah Games in Israel. It was now my turn to help shape a culture that brought the best out of everyone. I was far from perfect in that role, but I felt immense pride that others saw something in me that they trusted and wanted to follow. The actual captaincy is not so important in the grand scheme of things, but receiving affirmation from your teammates that they view you as a role model and that they respect you is something that will remain with me long after I decide (or my body decides) it is time to stop playing football. I believe a leader is not just a person who is good at their job but also a person whose character you admire and believe in. In the workplace, employing people with this sort of leadership experience WILL make your business better. Whilst industry relevant experience is definitely important, I know the things I will be looking for if I am ever hiring employees. I’m looking for a person who will make my team better.

Sport takes you on a rollercoaster. One minute you are a kid running around with your mates and the next you are facing real challenges, learning to endure and actually embrace them. This journey for me started when I was 12 years old and has not stopped since. It was not so clear to me back then, but these setbacks have shaped me into a person I can be proud of. As a 12 and 13-year old I was invited to trial for the state team. Both times I was cut. At 14 I finally made the team, played a year, only to be cut again by the new coach. Some parents wouldn’t want their kids to face these failures at such a young age, but this was my introduction to a principle that has guided me through every tough situation since: some things are out of your control, but the way you respond is a choice. That response will be the greatest reflection of your character.

In 2015 I signed with Melbourne City in their youth squad. At that stage in my life that was all I wanted, to be a professional. 10 months later, I had a weekend that changed everything. On the Saturday I was let go by City. On the Sunday I was lying crumbled on the ground with my ACL in tatters. The dream of being a professional felt like it had been ripped from my hands (and my knee) in an instant. At the time, it was the most challenging moment of my life. But one thing I can say for sure is that I am really proud of my response. During that year I travelled overseas three times with mates, exploring who I am outside of my sport for the first time. I even started making muesli bars. I loved the challenge of the ACL rehabilitation, celebrating every little win as I crawled my way back to football. People face a lot tougher circumstances in their lives, but for me, still only 20 years old, I had learned an incredible amount about myself. In particular, I found a level of resilience I didn’t know I had.

This resilience was vitally important to me just a few months ago, in a very different arena. My involvement with Leading Teams dates back to early 2018 and it all started with an email. I had been spending an inordinate amount of time applying for internships, looking exclusively at all the big firms that I was told would help kick-start my career, until a friend suggested that I should target businesses that I actually like. Leading Teams is a business I have long admired, particularly for their work building high performing cultures and leaders in sport. A few weeks later, after my research confirmed that this was organisation that I wanted to be apart of, I emailed their office and was pleasantly surprised to receive a response from Tim, a facilitator and partner of the business, who invited me to grab a coffee with him. That coffee turned into a work experience position, where I would explore whether Leading Teams’ work was compatible with the high school market. Sport had taught me to have a crack, ultimately landing me my first job.

I spent the first six months of my time building relationships with the other facilitators, drawing on their school contacts to find out whether Leading Teams’ programs belong in high schools. I then transitioned into a part time position, selling a program we had put together specifically for student leaders. Throughout the process, I had presented to our team of facilitators at our monthly Leading Teams’ days about how the project was progressing, challenges I faced and the lessons I was learning along the way. The group would challenge me on the feedback schools were giving as well as my approach to business development. I loved how real my work felt and the genuine conversations that came with that. This was a high-performing team in action.

At our first Leading Teams’ day of 2019, I presented to the group an assessment of my own performance and where I had planned to take the project next. I was seeking their feedback on the path forward. I was not prepared for what happened next. In their feedback, the team raised strong concerns about the programs congruence with what schools wanted in a leadership program; ultimately deciding the project was no longer worthwhile. In the space of 30 minutes, I had gone from presenting my plan for the next phase of our project to there being no next phase. I felt blindsided, disappointed that some of these concerns were not raised earlier.

This was my first major setback in my career and it was tough. But, like with any challenge I had faced in the past, I knew I had a choice about the way I would respond. Reflecting on that crazy day, I am extremely proud of how I carried myself. In the days that followed, every Leading Teams team member made contact and said the same two things. Firstly, they wished they as a group had handled the situation better and secondly that I had carried myself in tough circumstances with maturity and class. These words were significant to me, affirmation that I had in fact grown from every surgery, from every time I had been cut from a football team. In closing off that chapter, I received consistent feedback that the project was not right for the business at that time, but that I had been a great cultural fit and at some point, they would love to welcome me back to the business.

Before starting with Leading Teams, I was apprehensive about my career. I felt that my single-minded focus on football had left me miles behind my peers in entering the world of work. I didn’t feel that my sporting experiences counted for much. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Whilst my CV was not stacked with industry experience, I had experienced success and failure earlier and more often than most people my age. I had developed the passion, determination and resilience that the ‘real world’ demands of successful people. Without realising, I had been preparing myself for a strong career since I was 12 years old. So, if you are an athlete and reading this, listen loud and clear: you have so much to offer! It’s time to view your sporting experiences in a new light.