5 Case study 4: Olympic athlete panel

Watch the video below from 24.58 to 31.17, which contains extracts from a panel of five former Olympic athletes talking about life after sport.

The five athletes featured in the video are (from left to right):

• Ashton Eaton (athletics − decathlon) who had been retired for two years when the video was made (2019) and was running his own company and working in an operations role
• Erin Cafaro MacKenzie (rowing) who had been retired for seven years and at the time of the video had just completed a research project. Erin was planning to start a company to support athlete and veteran career transitions
• Brianne Theisen-Eaton (athletics − heptathlon) who had been retired for two years and was working for an executive health and wellness company
• Emily Hughes (figure skating) who had been retired for nine years and was working for Johnson & Johnson in an operations role for the health technology team
• Margie Pedder (swimming) who had been retired for fifteen years and was working in Visa’s global sponsorship management group.

As you watch the video, answer the questions below.

1. What did Brianne say helped her with the transition into life after sport?
2. Why might former athletes be attractive to employers?

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 5

[24.58 to 31.17]

BRIANNE THEISEN-EATON:

So I was really fortunate to have a great sports psychologist that I worked with throughout a lot of my career. And she was a really big part of helping me through the transition. I mean, she was the first person I told that I was thinking of retiring. She walked me through all of these different things to think about before announcing it. And I literally didn't announce it for four months, like just took four months to really think about it.

And some of those questions she had for me were like, OK, next time you're sitting on an airplane and somebody asks, what do you do, what are you going to say? It was just like those really uncomfortable feelings of like, I don't know. I don't know who I am. I don't know what I do. And then that's when you break down crying because you're just like, I don't have anything anymore. Or I lost my community or whatever that was.

But the one thing that I think she helped me realize, and I don't think this has to be how it is for every professional athlete that retires, I think some people will be really fortunate to find the passion in something else like they did in sport. Although, I think that's really, really hard. She explained to me that sport gave you everything you needed in life. You had a community. You had friends. You had a goal. You had all of these things that fulfilled everything you needed.

She's like, when you go into the working world, your job is not going to do that. You have to-- that's what work/life balance is, which a lot of athletes don't have. It's just like train, train, train, compete, compete, compete. And you're totally fine with that.

But she was like, working is like you work, yes. But you need to have friends. And you need to go out. And you need to go on vacation. And you need to see your family. And you need to have days off. And you need to have downtime.

And I think I just wasn't used to planning that. And so putting a priority on that has really helped, like going to Tahoe on weekends with friends and stuff. I didn't understand how important that was until I got a job and was just like a regular person. And so I think that has been a big one for me. And I don't know the answer to how do you find the thing that you're as passionate about. I don't know if I ever will because it's just, I mean, it was such an amazing thing to have. You know? But--

EMILY HUGHES:

I was going to have a tangential answer because I think, I mean, I think you really highlighted what sport gives you and how you can take that to your next thing of community and like how do you find that. And maybe it's not in sport. But maybe it's somewhere else.

But I think related to the question you asked earlier and what you said was I think sport gives you so many-- I hate to use the word-- but transferable skills, where it's not just like, oh, hardwork is important and will get you your goal. It's how do you communicate, so many things that your original what you introduced where we're not just going somewhere and leaving everything behind. It's like we learned so many things and you learn how to lead a team. You learn how to set small goals to get somewhere or how to navigate something or so many things that I'm not listing right now.

But it's using those in a different way. And I think as I made that transition out of sport, I was starting to apply for internships. And then they're like, oh, submit a resume. And I thought, well, I skated 20 years of my life. And yeah, then realizing that there was so much more that I could put on there and that now I use every day in work.

Yeah. I think I started talking to people. I talked to my parents. I talked to my friends. And I thought, I don't know what to put on here.

And it was funny because my coach would say, oh, but you did this event. And you can put that there. In my mind, I think it was part of a non-profit. And my mind, I was like, well, I did that because I really wanted to. I didn't think it made it on the resume kind of thing. And there were just so many things like that that you could add on there.

But yeah, I think that even every day we competed in front of thousands of people. And that transfers into, well, can you make a presentation in front of a VP or in front of 10 people? And you learn those skills, maybe it's just in sport, but that you can shift to another aspect. But I think I didn't really internalize and still internalizing it, but I think knowing that then I think would have helped a lot.

MARGIE PEDDER:

I 100% agree so. I work for Visa. And a few of you in here, it's kind of a joke within our group there are so many athletes. And athletes have 95%, if not more, of what employers are looking for, go-getter attitude and hard work ethic. Honestly, I have now had a career for 10, 15 years. And every time I interview somebody or want to hire somebody, they're the traits you look for first.

You can learn stuff. Yeah. It's just having those core attributes that you really have to hone in on. And they're ingrained in all of us. So I think that the hard part is-- and Kayla, I've had this conversation with you-- it's like, when you're an athlete, you have a very specific goal, and there's very specific steps in the ladder that you can take.

When you enter the workplace, and this is what I struggle with the most is, not necessarily what you put in is what you get out. It's a little grayer than that. And there's other people that influence that. So for me, the biggest psychological shift was, how do I still have a goal? What are the steps of the ladder to get there? Who do I need to help me get there like? That's the biggest transition because, when you're an athlete, very clear how you get there and who's going to help you get there. So for me, that was one of the hardest things and still have to work on, what's my goal and how do I get there?

End transcript: Video 5

Video 5