91: Guin Batten - Charting Waters from Elite Rowing to Volleyball England Leadership

From the relentless push of an oar against water to the strategic planning within the halls of Volleyball England,  Guin Batten's story is one of incredible transformation. As a world-class rower turned Deputy CEO, she joins us to unravel the journey that connects the adrenaline of elite sports with the finesse of sports administration leadership. In our conversation, Guin charts a course through the challenges of career transition, reminding us that success is hardly ever a straight sprint to the finish line.

Tune in to learn more about:
- The diverse existing and emerging disciplines encompassed within Volleyball England
-  Playing loads of sports when she was younger as a means to get respect 
- Nostalgia of how the one sport that she wasn't instantly good at brought her fond memories and adventures
- How she embraced the shift from being a team athlete to an individual athlete
- Beautiful perspective on caging out your inner confidence from her confidence battles
- The time she realized her rowing flame had dimmed and the first step she took
- How she learned to build and maintain a meaningful network as an athlete
- Insights on the struggles athletes undergo when pitching themselves in their post-sports career
- Motivation behind the amazing helpful work she has been doing 
… and so much more! 

Are you looking for Career Clarity for your next step, for more information, or to book a consultancy, make sure you check out www.2ndwind.io 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Rowing is the ultimate team sport because you've got individual accountability, so you're only ever as fast as your weakest player or rower and so it's really accountable. But you're also in a team where everyone has to conform. You know you can't even wear different clothing, you can't row in a slightly different way, you have no flair. There's no manner than match or most valuable play out, anything like that. You are carbon copies of each other when you're trying to row. But I had spent when I was up at Leeds Carnegie. I had spent three years being part of the athletics program and being coached by a guy called Will Payes and Mick Hill and a whole load of athletes in that group.

Speaker 1: 0:38

And I learned how to be an individual sportsperson out of that group. Athletics is a really track and field is a really tough sport to be an international athlete in because everyone loves you when you're doing well.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Hi, I'm Ryan God-Salvez, and welcome to a Second Wind Academy podcast, a show all about career transition through the lens of elite athletes. Each week, I invite a guest to the show who shares their unique sporting story. Please join me to delve into the thoughts and actions of athletes through a series of conversations. Don't worry, there's plenty to learn from those of you that aren't particularly sporty. Elite athletes are still people after all. Let's be inspired by the stories of others. Today I have Gwynn Batten on the Second Wind Academy podcast, the show that delves into the decisions that athletes make when they transition from professional and elite sports. Gwynn was a world-class rower, representing Team GB at 10 championships and also at two Olympics. Now, when she retired from rowing, she became a firm part of the sporting world, holding positions with Sport England, youth Sport Trust and now Volleyball England. As a rower, she built a unique way of leading organisations, teams, collectives, especially in organically functioning roles. She is now an integral part of the New People Plan for Volleyball England as Deputy CEO. Gwynn, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Thank you, ryan. It's great to be on and that's pretty impressive, and it almost sounds like it's not me that line.

Speaker 2: 2:19

And yet it is wonderful, isn't it, as you look back and you hear these things, that you are described and you think, wow, is that really me? Am I doing those things? Did I do those things?

Speaker 1: 2:29

Yeah, and one of the things I found out, whether it's your career or whether it's your sporting career, it always seems easy, you know. It always seems like there's a pathway, that's all perfectly planned. But the one thing I definitely know, it was not easy and sometimes making those decisions, you know, like a sliding door moment you make a decision that transforms your life. So it's very easy to put a paragraph down hard to live.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Yes, absolutely. Well, the beautiful thing is we're going to spend 30, 40 minutes or so, well, I guess, breaking down that paragraph and just trying to understand how you went from that elite athlete to where you are today, and really ups and downs, and just see what we can see where we go, see what we can learn from one another as we go through this story. Now, where I want to start is kind of where you are. Well now, I kind of say, physically, where are you? But? Deputy CEO Volleyball England. What does that mean?

Speaker 1: 3:29

Well, it means I work very closely with Charlie Ford, who's the chief exec, and between the two of us we carry off those functions. Volleyball England's a really small national governing body in respect to, you know, some of the giants that are out there, like Tennis or FA or rugby, and because of that we have to operate very deeply, just so we can vary widely. It's really good fun. I really enjoy it. I've been here about a year and 10 days. We've got the typical challenges national governing body has. We're trying to make sure the relationship with their memberships really powerful and strong but at the same time keeping up with the compliance and the governance requirements of modern society and modern sport.

Speaker 2: 4:12

That's brilliant. You're not just the sort of chief volleyball player, but there's a lot more that goes into it. Now, when we talk about Volleyball England, what does that encompass? What are the sports, or I'll say different disciplines within Volleyball England that it covers?

Speaker 1: 4:27

Yeah, so there's three main ones. So we've got indoor, which is, of course is, you know, the primary Olympic discipline in essence for volleyball. And then you've got the sort of young upstart which came out of the US and it went to the first Olympics in 96, which is beach, which is really exciting and which I think we have some great teams out there at the moment, including the Bello brothers out there doing really great stuff on the world stage. And then we've got our sitting, so the sitting side in the Paralympics, and you know we've got a great GV team there. But both of our beach and our sitting are right on the edge of qualifying, so it's unlikely fingers crossed that we might see them in Paris.

Speaker 1: 5:10

But more likely that we'll see them in Los Angeles, but there is a couple of hidden disciplines in volleyball which are great, but I'm really excited to one is snow volleyball, which of course is on the snow, and that's great, and we occasionally need some snow for that event to take place.

Speaker 1: 5:26

So that's a really emerging discipline. But probably one of the oldest ones and the ones where volleyball really had its roots and had a huge amount of engagement at a grass root level is grass volleyball. It was a huge festival that used to take place. It was incredibly popular and I predict that over the next you know, maybe 10 years that we potentially might see a reemergence of grass volleyball out there.

Speaker 2: 5:55

You know, that's fascinating. Just the snow volleyball, grass volleyball. It's just never, never, occurred to me. I am well, I'm not going to do it now, but I'm sure everyone who's listening is Googling snow volleyball just to try and figure out. Well, one, are they on the snow? But two, what on earth are they wearing? But yeah, actually, but you know what hold that.

Speaker 1: 6:14

A lot of plays I have.

Speaker 2: 6:16

Yeah, I was going to say I was like what does that look like? Anyway, but we'll move on. We'll move on from the intricacies of the different disciplines of volleyball, but thanks for sharing that. I suppose I'm curious, if anything, on how you, gwyn, really found yourself in volleyball England, given your background as a role. You know, actually, before we jump there, let's go a little bit further back and let's talk about you as the role, because I'm always curious about that backstory that initiates or kick starts the sport and how that goes. So what was sport like for you when, as you were growing up, you know, what did it mean?

Speaker 1: 6:51

I mean I was absolutely fascinated by sport. I literally couldn't get enough and to me it really didn't matter which sport I want to do and everything. I was one of those really annoying kids that would sign up for every single club after school and not be able to go to all of them, having each week I'd choose a different one, yeah, so I just couldn't get enough of it. And I think, you know, and I just love the camaraderie, I love the challenge, I love the concept of beating people and the way it made me feel and you know, that was, and I think some of it was the yin and yang, I think, because I was undiagnosed with dyslexia, so I really struggled at school and as a result of that, it was pretty naughty. I was quite good at being naughty, not that I should be proud of it, but yeah. So it's a whole relationship with school, which I wasn't very good at. Sport, which I was relatively good at, not brilliant, and then that whole bit where do I fit in life?

Speaker 1: 7:46

And because I was you know at the back of the queue going to lunch because I came last in the mental arithmetic questions. And it drummed into me that I wasn't very good at school, so yeah, so that's what I guess. That's the beginning of why I was obsessed.

Speaker 2: 8:00

Yeah, well, that's interesting, isn't it? Because it sounds like sport was a little bit then of that escape for you as well, at least somewhere where you weren't Well last in arithmetic.

Speaker 1: 8:10

And I think what then led it to me. I watched and I and the story is so many athletes have this story. It's funny how we're so similar is I watched the Olympics on television age 14 and I saw Seb Coe and Steve Overt running around the track. I thought, oh my god, I love the way the commentators are talking about them. That is what I want to be.

Speaker 1: 8:30

Some people say, and when I go and land on the moon of being an astronaut. I wanted to be a professional athlete because I think I didn't want I reflect back now I didn't want to win medals, I just wanted respect. So I was after respect and I felt that sport was the way I could gain that respect and so I decided that I wanted to go to the Olympics. And there's this classic story I think about six weeks later I was pretty good at cross-country running and six weeks later I went to the English schools cross-country championships.

Speaker 1: 9:00

I think it must have no idea where it was, but the mud was really red and I remember I was thinking, well, win this and then I'll go to the Olympics, because I know be the best. Little did. I know I was you know, any 15, 14, whatever it was, and I came 303rd and I remember being absolutely Devastated that, my dream, all of that, you know.

Speaker 1: 9:20

A couple of months had gone and that was the end of the world and I remember talking in my head to myself and saying well, if I can't be good at one thing, one sport, I'll be as good as I possibly can.

Speaker 1: 9:32

As many sports I'll be that you know. Hence why that drive to do loads of loads of loads of loads of sports. And then, to be honest, it wasn't until I went to university. I first went to university, at St Hampton University, to read ship science because I wanted to design yachts andI I was doing honestly, I was doing so many sports University fact, in the end I actually left the university because they said that I really needed to Give up all the sport I was doing and to be able to study a little bit more. So that's hence why I went up to Leeds, carnegie, to study sport science. But it was at St Hampton University that I found growing.

Speaker 1: 10:08

What was really interesting about rowing was growing was a sport I instantly wasn't good at, whereas all the other sports I've been quite. I was quite one of these lucky, you know, pick it up and I'm relatively good. This one was the one that really did my head in and I think some of that was because in rowing, if you're powerful, it's really hard to learn. Yeah, you have to basically go with the flow of the water and if you're really strong, it means you can over, try and override the power of water. Yeah, so it took me ages to get good at rowing, but the worm was in my head, and it wasn't till about probably four or five years later that I went to my first, my first national team trials, and and that started to go from there, I mean it wasn't all straightforward.

Speaker 1: 10:55

There was a moment when I remember going to my first national team trials and I came in the top six. You know these are the final trials. They're gonna select the team after this. So you've done all the pre-learns to get to this point came in the top six. They selected six people for the world championships.

Speaker 1: 11:11

My name wasn't on the list and I rang out the chief coach at the time and I said he was your fond needs actually. And I said to him I said you know why am I not in the list? And he said when you're too small you'll never be an international rower. And I am pretty small but I'm pretty strong, that I'm pretty good on the rowing sheen. But what I couldn't do was prove. That was often at the time we were doing trials with two people in a boat, in a pair with one or on each side, and I couldn't prove that it was me that was making the boat go fast. And so that's why I then went into the single skull and exactly 12 months to that very phone call With Ron, I was ranked eighth in the world in the single skull.

Speaker 1: 11:52

I was coached by an amazing coach called Rosen McLaughlin who in that year took me from being a novice scholar To being of that state standard. Really interesting how she coached. It was really innovative at the time. And yeah, and so I spent the next I became a scholar. So I only ever once represented Great Britain in sweep and that was in the very end of my career in the women's eights where I straight the women's eights at the world championships. But yeah, so it would amazing bounce and switches to get to where I ended up in rowing.

Speaker 2: 12:25

That's right and it's really interesting in that is, for one, the sport. It sounds like it annoyed you because you did, you weren't automatically good at it and so then that just pushed you. I do love the fact you had this dream at. You know 1415 and you know again. History paints a beautiful picture, but you're wiggled and figured out. Which sport can I go and actually do that in? And team sports Two's, and in the end it was well, actually it's just down to me and you can tell because it's just you one person.

Speaker 1: 12:55

Yeah, and I mean what was quite interesting is rowing is the ultimate team sport because you've got individual accountability so you're only ever so fast as your weakest player or row, and so it's really accountable. But you're also in a team where everyone has to conform. You know you can't even wear different clothing, you can't row in a slightly different way, you have no flair, there's no manner than match almost valuable player, anything like that. You are carbon copies of each other when you're trying to row. But I had spent when I was up at Leeds Carnegie. I'd spent three years being part of the athletics program and being coached by a guy called Will Payes and Mick Hill and a whole load of athletes in that group.

Speaker 1: 13:36

And I learned how to be an individual sports person out of that group. Athletics is a really track and field is a really tough sport to be an international athlete in, because everyone loves you when you're doing well, but nobody cares when you're doing badly.

Speaker 2: 13:52

How would you describe what you learn? How to become an individual athlete. What was the shift for you?

Speaker 1: 13:58

The shift for me that I learned from being around exceptional track and field athletes was that it really was down to you. You know, if you wanted to make the difference, you had to go and find your coach. You had to go and find your team to train with. You had to go. If you wanted specialist stuff, we went and did some specialist weightlifting stuff. Go and find them and actually be, take control where you can take control and in athletics of course you can, because it's an individual it's much harder in rowing. You know where you do have to, I guess in rugby and football and stuff like that, where you do have to conform to the manager. But it was that individualness that really paid off in my single Learning, in the single scull. You've got to be really hard.

Speaker 1: 14:44

You've got to be hard in two ways You've got to be hard and you've got to wake up in the morning to get going and you're doing it yourself and if you don't turn up the training to not happen, whereas in a crew boat at least they'll put a sub in if you're ill and still progressing, and then in the race you know and I always used to say that the endurance sport, pain is the currency of endurance.

Speaker 1: 15:04

Sports it's how much you can train your body to absorb all that pain as you go through the race or whatever. And in a sense, to non endurance athletes is horrific, but to endurance athletes it's sending those mental messages over the physical messages coming from your body. And it's when you're in a crew boat, you can do it for other people, oh yeah, do it for each other. And when you're on your own, it's like, oh, it's me, it's only me, only you're the only one that's accountable. You know what I mean. So it's quite hard.

Speaker 2: 15:35

Yeah, it is. It's wonderful. I just love listening as we will continue, as we will go on and talk about that shift to get to where you are today and how that moves. But it is always fascinating for me to listen to those stories of athletes like yourself, of how you got there and what changed and when did you become good. Which is something I do want to find out is when did you realise you were really good at this?

Speaker 1: 16:01

Well, I guess that's a really good question, because I think that's a really important journey of when you because you're always making that decision when will I commit? When am I going to step out of my career and make sport my career?

Speaker 1: 16:12

and I was pre-lottery, so it was even harder. We didn't have any money in that space. I realised I was really good on the rain machine. I could. The sewing machine was just emerging. They had some domestic competitions called the Daft Power Sprints. Channel 4 had this competition, which was a one minute erg sewing machine challenge, and I could beat all of the guys that were going to Olympics on the machine. So I knew that I was an absolute.

Speaker 2: 16:38

I don't know what I mean a beast, or you know what I mean? I knew, but what I wasn't very good at was the technique and all the finesse.

Speaker 1: 16:43

So I knew that if I could do the technical bit, and then the other bit that was really amazing for me was, of course, my sister. My sister rode. She's three years older than me and she was on the team before me and I knew I could beat her.

Speaker 1: 16:57

It was like, well, if she can do it, then I can do it. So I would say I was probably not the most confident person as an athlete and you do. My sister had a lot more confidence and commitment, I guess but I knew that she could do it. I could beat her. That was my. She would say, of course, that I couldn't beat her, but there you go when you say you lacked confidence as an athlete.

Speaker 2: 17:19

how would you describe that confidence then, that difference between you as a champion and Olympic medalist to say you lacked confidence as an athlete? Talk me through that.

Speaker 1: 17:29

I think it's really odd. So I sort of sit there and think I'd like to do something, so I'm a good dreamer, so I'm really good at my dreams, and then I try them, and I try to get there, and I can't get there. It always takes longer. So maybe I'm, and my confidence is based on results, so, rather than having some, you know, so it's based on results if I do well.

Speaker 1: 17:51

I get a bit of confidence and then I do well, so it makes. So if you get a setback, I then lose my confidence quite quickly and I've found, you know, I do see people out there that will quite often say, oh, I'll do this, and then they do go and do it and I'm like how did that happen? There's no way that I'll say I'll dream what I'm gonna do that. I don't necessarily shout about it. But what is interesting with the confidence side?

Speaker 1: 18:17

I do have this sort of inner confidence, and I guess this is the bit if you kick me, that's where my confidence comes out. So it's sort of a bit like I had a coach that used to call it the Cage-Tiger confidence. So if you push me back, I will come out so hard, and I think that that's a little bit. Do you remember what I was saying about Ron Needs who said I would never be an international rower? Well, that was the Cage-Tiger coming out. The inner confidence.

Speaker 2: 18:47

As I've gone on and that's.

Speaker 1: 18:48

You know, we went on and we won that medal at the Olympic Games. But it's been really interesting. What it then did afterwards in rowing was I then went into sort of ultra-endurance side, got the world record for the English Channel, rode across the Atlantic, done lots of little crazy things in little places. But a lot of those are where people have told you they're impossible to do. So it does and I think and it's a really interesting one I've never connected it like that but that sort of caged, caged say it's impossible and I'll take it as a challenge, say you know I'll go in you know, it'd be amazing anyone can do it.

Speaker 1: 19:23

And I'm chasing someone else and I'm like, oh, maybe I'm good enough, you know, and all that sort of timidness seems to come back.

Speaker 2: 19:30

Yeah, that's great, I love that. I love the Cage-Tiger as well, and you just touched on it there. Perhaps answered it the inspiration to do many other crazy things. So, whilst you were there, accomplished in I don't know, do I say traditional rowing.

Speaker 1: 19:45

Classic rowing they call it these days. So basically I spent about. So I went to the 96 games in my single-cut skull and came fifth, which you know at the time was one of the best achievements that you could have had. I mean, subsequently some really great athletes have gone on. We've never met all the Olympic games in single skulls. So one day a British women's world, which would be amazing. But you know I did about I think it was about seven years in my single skull and then moved into the quad skull, which was four people's skull-ing and it is the fastest skull-ing boat.

Speaker 1: 20:18

It's pretty, it's just a little bit slower than the eight. And we managed to get in 1999, got the last qualifying slot for the 2000 Olympics. We've never done, we've never put bits a very strong boat in to the quad skull. And in 2000, we put a boat in that on paper looked like it might come fifth at the Olympic games and we had really really chaotic run into the games. Sarah Winklers, one of the athletes in the boat, unfortunately went injured. We reselected the seat in the boat. Gillian Lindsay came in and blow me down. We had five weeks to put everything together, which in rowing it's usually. You've spent two years doing this. Yeah, we just came out with what was an exceptional boat and we were able to get silver medal and win Great Britain's first ever women's rowing medal, which was the beginning. It was a glass ceiling. After that, just the medals the women female women rowers just absolutely nailed it. I'd retired by then, we'd smashed the glass ceiling and it was like medal after medal after that.

Speaker 2: 21:28

Well, it's a bit like that ceiling, that glass ceiling. It's a bit like you've been inspired watching. Was it the 1500,? I'm trying to think of the race.

Speaker 1: 21:37

I was like are you tan thinking of the setcar?

Speaker 2: 21:40

Yeah, I know I'm thinking back to it. I was like, yes, well, they were both awesome. So, going back to that, and it's that inspiration, and so you'd have had many of the younger ladies watching that been inspired by you thinking, oh well, as they say, you can't be what you can't see, but suddenly that inspires everyone and shifts us forward. And so then, thinking about you then and that career so it is a wonderful career, certainly from a we talk classic, and then we go into some of the other, I'll say, crazier things that you perhaps have done. At what point did you start to realize, hold on this level of competing that you're able to perform? At what point did you start to realize this is gonna end at some point and I'm gonna have to figure out something else to do?

Speaker 1: 22:26

Yeah, absolutely, and I've got this theory and I don't know if you know, but when I went up to Leeds, carnegie, I did human movement studies and then came to Loughborough University, where I am at the moment here, and did my masters and then went on to be the exercise physiologist for the rowing team before it became an athlete, so what do I mean? So that was sort of my sort of academic side and fundamentally, from what I see anecdotally in rowing, a lot of the athletes are around about their age of 32, and I think it will take a couple of years on either side achieving their best rowing, their best rowing results in terms of their power output, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 23:07

So you're in decline really from your early 30s. I reached my peak at 32, and I knew that I wanted to get on with my career.

Speaker 2: 23:16

Like anything.

Speaker 1: 23:17

Some people are really good. They time it perfectly and they retire. I got spat out. I ended up with I really thought I could make Athens and I knew that the athletes in that mix could have won a golden Athens, absolutely, but I trained through.

Speaker 1: 23:34

I was on training camp in Canada. I got flu before I went. I flew, thought I had jet lag. I actually have not got over my flu so I ended up three months later being diagnosed with overtraining took six weeks out and once I got into that cycle of overtraining my body was really struggling to take the volume of training that I needed to do to be successful. So I remember I went to a set of trials and I normally in the old days used to come first or second. In my single skull I think I came sixth or something and I walked away and I realised the flame had gone because I didn't care that I'd come sixth. That moment I knew that I needed to get on with my life, but that athletic side was over and done with and I needed to move so I say you either get spat out or you choose to get out.

Speaker 1: 24:25

I reckon I got spat out because my sport told me I was too old and too slow.

Speaker 2: 24:29

Wonderful. Well, thanks for sharing it so openly, because it is the openness, the vagri of sport, is somebody or someone, whoever you're competing against or the selectors, are gonna tell you at some point you are too old, too slow to keep going. I love the way you actually said with regards to the overtraining. You said you knew the standard or you knew the level of training that you needed to achieve in order to make the team and your body couldn't do it. That separation between you and your physical ability, it's like, well, that's what I need to do. I can't do that Equals.

Speaker 1: 25:07

Equals. Yeah, time to get out.

Speaker 2: 25:10

That's right. So as you walked away and as you sort of and that sort of you realised that, what did you do? What were the first things that you did?

Speaker 1: 25:20

Well, what was really interesting and of course we were about the sort of I was about the first era with National Lottery, where we were just starting to support. We had three months of funding, so it was all about when you told everyone when you were going to go so you could use this three months to make sure you started to get some income coming in. And in effect remember, you only get paid at the end of your first month of work, so you only had two months to get your share together in essence.

Speaker 1: 25:47

But I guess for me I knew what I had done. I was really fortunate because I didn't come in. I made my international debut at 24, so I'd had a mini career up front as an exercise physiologist and I've made lots of a new about the sport setup. But I knew I didn't want to go back into that. The EIS had suddenly come into existence in the time that I'd been an athlete. I used to work at the British Olympic Medical Centre and we had a great team up there. But I knew the roles that I was going to go back into. I'd already had the best role ever in exercise physiology, so I wanted to go into the governance or the decision making in sport.

Speaker 1: 26:25

And what I'd done is I had done a lot of athlete role model work. So at the early part of my career I was my athlete representative and then I went on to be the rowing's representative on the BOA's Athlete Committee Commission and I also helped form right at the end of my career, just as I was being spat out especially when you know you're over training, you've got lots of time. So I was using that time to be on committees and so it was all voluntary and to push for athlete voice all the time as athlete, because I remember we used to have a regular meeting with the Minister for Sports. It was all about making sure that athletes were heard. So that was all voluntary.

Speaker 1: 27:13

I sat on the BOA executive for a while as the athlete representative and helped form the British Elite Athletes Association. The time it was called BAC British Athletes Commission and now it's just renamed itself in the last couple of years. So I helped form that. So there was lots of voluntary stuff and lots, and so it was a natural skagway from there to start working in sport. And my first and it was quite interesting when I exited out probably and I've written down here some of the things that were really important to me one of the things that.

Speaker 1: 27:48

I did was not only do those committees and be networking with people and be seen at that level. But I also went on a careers thing and it was really interesting. It was funded by the National Lottery and I think it was the most important thing because I would have pitched myself here and what it did was it helped me pitch myself higher, helped me to understand all the tricks of the trade, of going out there and getting a really cool job, and it was a course for executives, sort of C-suite executives.

Speaker 1: 28:19

That have been made redundant and I'm like I'm not. I'm not going to sit in there with all these CEOs and all these things and I'm a little athlete. But it was a midyear, it was a mid career reentry back into the recruitment world. It was brilliant. We did loads of low. It took me three weeks to do my CV. That's how backwards and forwards we went. We had practice interviews, talked about networking and it was great, and I'm absolutely convinced I'm not going on that course. I would have ended up with a job that was worth about 10 grand less and it was great. It was really good.

Speaker 2: 28:56

Excellent to hear, because you're absolutely right those learning those skills. What I really like about that is you learn that with, I guess, people who were in the traditional workforce or indeed had been spat out of the traditional workforce. So it wasn't necessarily with just a group of other rowers, but it was with other people where you could learn different things well, simply by being in the room with them, it seems.

Speaker 1: 29:20

Yeah, and it was the lexicon, it was the words that they were using. It was the words that they were using to you starting to being an elite athlete is you're all about covering your weakness. You're all the time you need to make sure I'm really good off the start. You know what? Between one minute two minutes I've got to train through that bit to make myself that that isn't weakness. But in the workplace it's all about magnifying your strengths and to go from that switch is quite hard. And, yeah, when you're surrounded by people who are magnifying their strengths the whole time, you know you get on the bandwagon. You feel more comfortable to do it Rather than go. Oh yeah, I need to work on this bit or this bit, because employees don't want, employers don't want to know the bits you want to work on. They want to know the bits that you're going to bring to that comfort.

Speaker 2: 30:06

Yeah, very true. I think going into an interview and describing, yeah, I'm not very good at this bit, so this is how I compensate for not being good here and I'm not good at that, which probably is like you say, it's the. There's an unknown humility that comes with being an athlete, because you're aware of what you're not good at in order to be the best. You know, what is fascinating about what you said is where you pitch yourself. There's a sense coming out being an elite athlete and, like you said, you did have experience. You had education or academic experience as well behind you but still coming out as an athlete there in your early 30s, you still have a sense of perhaps undervaluing yourself compared to the rest of the population. Why do you think you did that Well? Why do you think that was the mentality as you were going into that course?

Speaker 1: 30:50

I think when I looked at the CVs and I looked at the jobs that I wanted to go for, the words that they used were, you know, I mean because I was doing a career switch as well, because I've been in excess physiology and I was trying to go into, you know, sport development as such. Yeah, I just it had never, occurred to me and I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 31:10

I think a mentor or a mentor, someone from within the career you're going into is really, really important, because they can teach you where to pitch. You know fascinating, you know you jump forward to coming into this role. I realized that I wanted to work. I want to be part of the decision making.

Speaker 1: 31:28

To me decision making is really important. I really like the fact that you look at something, you see the challenges, you work out where you could potentially be long term into the future, and then what are the steps and decisions you're going to do to get there? And that's why I wanted to go into you know, sort of directors, CEOs, that type of things in national governing bodies. But when I took the move to come here, I'd spent quite a lot of time networking and talking to people currently in those roles and it was fascinating how helpful people are and I think especially if you're an elite athlete coming out of your career, people are going to bend over backwards to help you and give you advice.

Speaker 2: 32:11

Yes, yeah, and I think they certainly are. As an elite athlete, you the way I describe it to others is they will open the door. So if you knock, they'll open the door and they will at least then give you entry. What you do then is up to you, and you train, do you have the vocabulary, are you able to articulate yourself well enough? But they will at least open the door to welcome you in. And you know and I'm interested, though, towards the end of your career, you spoke a lot about being on these boards, being ambassadors, athlete representatives, being in these committees. What was the motivation behind doing that?

Speaker 1: 32:45

whilst you were an athlete, I think it's the same as it is now. It's the fact that I can see where it can be better and being part of those decisions and taking the sport there. I've always been, so it's quite interesting. So I'm sometimes a little bit direct. I want to see change, but I want to do it together because you know, if you and that was one of the really, really important things when I was in the Athletes' Commission and doing the Athletes' work was, if you're not at the table, yeah, if you're just outside throwing stones in, you are not going to create change, you're going to create chaos.

Speaker 1: 33:20

But if you're inside, that room at that table and saying it, and it's not all going to happen. You might make one thing through one bit and then the next day you'll get another, or the next year you'll get another, and so for me, that change. I want to be around the table, and that's whether it's what I'm doing now as Deputy Chief Executive Prolingham, or I want to be part of those decisions, because I think some of my recommendations, some of the visions that I see I'd love to see being achieved, and I've been really fortunate that some of those have happened.

Speaker 1: 33:51

When I left being an athlete, I did a year at Sport England, which was bloody brilliant. I then spent an amazing three years at the Usable Trust setting up their athlete role model programs, which was specifically designed to capture athletes just as they come out of their careers, when they're real fresh with what it feels like to be an athlete, before they transition off into their careers and get them into schools, get them talking to youngsters in schools and inspiring them about being the best that they could possibly be. And we got money from Bernice Sucamball. She helped us get some funding for the Department of Education around behavior. And we also got an amazing bit of funding from Sky Sport and that went on to be the Sky Sport Living Sport Program and it was brilliant, I had this thing in my head

Speaker 1: 34:37

that athletes would be great in schools and it happened and it's gone on and been much better without me. I went on to other things and then the other one that was amazing to me was towards the end of my career, when I was on the athlete representative for world rowing on the Athletes Commission, I got asked to go to an event called a Coastal Rowing event. It was the first ever World Championships in Coastal. Oh my God, it was amazing. It was like being a track cyclist all of a sudden seeing mountain biking, and it was like oh and I just loved it.

Speaker 2: 35:10

I went on and won two World.

Speaker 1: 35:11

Championships, you know, when I was working at that stage. So I did it as a bit of a hobby on the side because the sport was emerging. The standard was quite as high as the Olympics, but from there we had the emergence of the beach games. So around about 2015, you started Mediterranean beach games, asian beach games, world beach games and I wanted rowing in the beach games. I'd spent my entire childhood on the beach because my parents had lived in West Africa, in the Middle East, and I wanted rowing on the beach, and so I co-designed with a colleague of mine called Pasquale, something called Beach Sprints, and Beach Sprints is now in the Olympics in Los Angeles with 28. Being around that table and making the decisions that create the change is so exciting and that's what drives me in my career and in my voluntary stuff that I was doing.

Speaker 2: 36:05

Yeah, that's brilliant. Tell you what's really interesting there is. You went onto those bodies, to those organisations you know, as a volunteer, as an athlete, because there was something inside you said, yeah, I want my voice to be heard. It's like you did that and there, as an athlete, you simply to be an athlete and share your voice. That in itself led you to where you are today, but it was based off an interest, based off a desire, a passion, not necessarily being done in order to get you a job at the start. It was done in order for you to make that change and that being an important first step. That's that motivation to actually get you started. And you know, from there things have run away to where you are today, but it starts with that. Well, I'm interested, so I'm going to do something about it, rather than I'm doing this because I want to get a job and it's, you know, machiavellian in that way. Yeah, absolutely, I agree.

Speaker 1: 36:57

I think the other bit that I also was I'm very proactive at doing is networking Networking without necessarily knowing where networking is taking you, Just building your network, the sake of building your network.

Speaker 2: 37:12

How do you know how to do that? How does that come about as an athlete? How does one learn how to do that? How did you learn how to do that?

Speaker 1: 37:18

Yeah, I think. Well, I think, as an athlete, you're always trying to learn from other people, because A you want to make sure you've learned from other people's mistakes so you don't make those mistakes. So you're filling your head up with lots and lots of different types of training programs, lots of different race profiles, so you're filling yourself, you're getting that knowledge, because it's not all. When you're an elite athlete, the high level stuff's not written down and nobody's going to share it unless you're talking to them.

Speaker 2: 37:46

So why would we?

Speaker 1: 37:47

go out and find these and then, of course, with the athlete, wrong model stuff was really really important to find because people wouldn't come and tell us what was coming down the chute, we'd have to go and find it. So I would go and try and meet people and navigate through, find out who the key decision makers are in that space. And then now it's fascinating if you think about the politics of where I am with World Rowing on the council and being chair of the Coastal Rowing Commission. Again, there it's who are the decision makers, when are those key decisions, the timings of those decisions and making sure that I know who the people are and how to engage with them. Because I always have this thing is do you have 20 people in your phone book that you can pick up the phone to immediately and ask for their advice, check something with them? And if you don't in your sector, have that, you've got to keep networking until you get to that space. If you've got those 20 trusted voices, yeah and I'm shy.

Speaker 1: 38:53

Networking is not easy for me. You know I walk into a conference thing and I'm clutching onto the one person I know, so it's not easy. I'm not naturally like that, but I do know that that is one of the single most important things to progressing in your career is networking.

Speaker 2: 39:09

You've spoken about, or without talking about it specifically as networking, but you've certainly referenced a lot through this conversation about having the right people in your corner, Be it an amazing coach who gives you something innovative that helps you progress in a year, be it finding a sponsor. Listening to people and actually learning from others is something that I've seen or that I'm hearing is really important. And what's then fascinating and the bit I kind of want to, I need to, you know, just find this thing. There's two bits that are in my mind now on you. One is that going from a team athlete to an individual athlete and now running organisations and these companies, there are other people who you know. You use the example of you and you're strong as the weakest person in your boat, so you went and went by yourself and here you are now running organisations and being on these committees. So I'm just curious about that, at least mentally. How do you see yourself now? Has that person changed or are you drawing on something differently with regards that team to individual and back to team?

Speaker 1: 40:12

Yeah, you, as an athlete, incredibly selfish, and that's really really important part being an athlete, You've got to prioritise yourself and, as you, as I've aged through my career, I've been really and I still have to work quite hard on it not to prioritise myself. It's really important that you are part of, you're sowing the seeds within your team, but your team is the people that have the skills. They are the people that are going to make the difference, and now I find myself in a situation where I'm giving them confidence, I'm giving them the vision and almost the bits that. So I'm their coach in essence, I guess without trying to be patronising about how I set, but you know it is a mind shift and one of the critical places that I learnt that all nothing else was rowing.

Speaker 1: 40:58

when I rode with a crew that were five of us we rode from New York to the UK and my, when you're very, very tired and you know you're right on the edge of survival and you're in quite a scary place with people that ability to have tolerance of others. You know, mine was an athlete, my tolerance level was here, and now I'm gradually just able to work much better with people. So, yeah, so it's been a learning curve and I would say I'm about halfway through that learning curve.

Speaker 2: 41:31

And so with that, then how do you? You know, now, as a deputy CEO, you've got a team, you're now building a team, you're finding other people to come on the boat with you. How do you go about doing that?

Speaker 1: 41:44

Yeah, I think sports it's quite interesting. The salaries are great in the sports that we work in national governing bodies that I've primarily worked in and so you get very passionate people and it's about understanding what their passion is and helping them to bring that light, because I don't know if anyone who's working in national governing body world that's doing it for the money put it that way. And I think about building a team. So it's the same thing as if you're building a football team or you're building a rowing team. There are bits that you need personality, so you need people that are gonna be team makers and are gonna make the team more cohesive and more collective. And then there'll be people that are real drivers. That's not good enough. This is what we've gotta do.

Speaker 1: 42:33

And then there are people that just push loads of work down the chute and they do an amazing volume. And then there's the thinkers. So you've gotta create that. And then, when you've got, when you could do as much as you can on recruitment, but you're not gonna get, but then you get what's in front of you and we've got an amazing team here at volleyball and it's a case of how do we get the best out of each other, and if there's a particular bit of the puzzle that we don't have, let's amongst us find it, and I have that saying is that you don't find a perfect team, you create a perfect team, and that's what we're trying to do at the moment here at volleyball.

Speaker 2: 43:11

Wonderful. I've got one last question for you, which is the one I was gonna. I almost asked you right at the start because this is about transition and that career transition athlete to into the corporate or different sector or governing body sectors. For me, or at least on paper, and I'm sure for those listening, you've done this wonderful transition, which is from a rower to running or being deputy CEO in a game that has nothing to do with water, unless there's another secret volleyball discipline that I don't know of. How did you make that transition? And the reason I'm interested in it is what is it that you were bringing then that meant hey, everyone is saying hey, she's not a volleyball, she's a rowing person. How does that transition happen? How is that okay?

Speaker 1: 43:57

Yeah. So I think I mean, what is the transition? I think, you know, as you say, it wasn't a planned one and it was, you know, switching and there were sliding doors moments. I think what I've done is I've come out of sport, I've learned sport development, you know the three C's of sport development. I've worked with some amazing people and learned from them and from that, you know, I've then, you know, gone on being part of some amazing pieces of work, some of them funded, government funded, some of them funded by membership within national government bodies. So, and from there, you've just built up those bricks, and the bit that I, fundamentally, is spending lots of time doing now, of course, is where do we want to be? Okay, what is our strategy? How do we work with the voluntary membership group that we've got and our professional staff, and what are the annual plans that we're doing together?

Speaker 1: 44:53

So it's no different than whether or not you were an athlete sitting down with your coach at the beginning of your career and saying, right, I want to go to this Olympic Games. What are we doing? Okay, so that's my long-term vision. Okay, how am I going to do it? Well, I need to be in these sports. What do I need to do this year? This is the mileage I need to do this year. Where are we going to train? What training camps are we going to go to? Who can we get in to help us? She's all so it's the same blocks, but it's just in a different environment. I think athletes make exceptional, exceptional employees and I think any athlete that goes in there the bits that they need to change. They need to take that, the bits that are rubbish of being an athlete, and putting it on to the side for a while, and put the employee bits in.

Speaker 1: 45:39

Like, for example, number of times I have arranged to meet an athlete and they turned up late. You know, is that acceptable? I don't know, you know so just yeah, I just think athletes make fantastic employees. They just sometimes need to get there. They need to get rid of the selfish athlete bit sometimes.

Speaker 2: 46:00

Yes, having beaten out of us bit by bit. But, gwyn, I want to say thank you very much for joining me today and for, you know, sharing your story, bringing your perspective to athlete transition. So thanks very much for joining me.

Speaker 1: 46:15

Great thanks for having me Brilliant.

Speaker 2: 46:17

Thank you for listening to the Second Wind podcast. We hope you enjoyed hearing insights from today's athlete on transitioning out of competitive careers. If you're looking for career clarity for your next step, make sure you check out secondwindio for more information or to book a consultation with me. I'd like to thank Claire from Betty Book Design, nancy from Savvy Podcast Solutions and Serice from Copying Content by Lola for their help in putting this podcast together. That's all from me. Take it easy Until next time.