WEARING both a business suit and sneakers, Collingwood AFLW star Sarah Rowe had a foot in each of two worlds when she visited Mildura this week.
The Magpies’ 28-year-old Irish import, a multi-code athlete with a background in Gaelic football and international and A-League soccer, as well as her five years in the Australian game, is also a qualified teacher and life coach.
She was here as part of the Performance by Design program used by Mildura Base Public Hospital as a staff-development tool.
Rowe told Sunraysia Daily that she had been involved with the program for about a year and that her high-level experiences in multiple sports, both amateur and professional, could be similar to those of people working in high-pressure jobs.
“In each sport … ,there’s clearly defined things that relate to success,” she said in between seminar sessions for hospital staff at the Mildura Golf Resort.
“Each sport brings something different but, in terms of successful teams, there’s clearly defined things like behaviours, traits, values that result in really good performances.”
The Performance by Design program, Rowe said, was used by both sporting and corporate teams “which is a really interesting space for me”.
“While we’re all essentially coming from different worlds, it’s all about working in teams and how you can get the best out of people, making sure that people are feeling valued, and also recognising peoples’ different strengths and weaknesses and how to best communicate with people,” she said.
“It’s a very relatable topic to my world.
“You learn so much about leadership, you’re bouncing off different people and different perspectives and I think the more questions and the more open-minded and more curious you are, the better for the team.”
Rowe has now played more than 50 games for the Magpies, the latest stop in a career that has included international soccer representation for the Republic of Ireland, three games for Melbourne Victory and senior club and county representation in Gaelic football at home in Ireland.
For her, this has meant “proving myself time and time again”.
“And how do you do that? For me, it’s been about character and behaviour over time … I’m very solutions-focused and I’m always wanting to solve problems.”
