Image: Suzie Bates, International Cricketer, Olympian, & Basketballer
Shaun McCambridge is the Managing Director of Stellar Recruitment, a devoted husband and father to four spritely children. Shaun created the Inspirational Leaders series to inspire emerging leaders and to shine a light on what it takes to be an inspirational leader.
This podcast features Suzannah "Suzie" Bates - a New Zealand cricketer and former captain of the national women cricket team. She plays for the Otago Sparks in the State League, the Southern Vipers in the Women's Cricket Super League as well as for her national team, the White Ferns and the Adelaide Strikers. She is a former Olympian and professional basketball player. She holds the highest score and highest batting average in the New Zealand Women's Twenty20 cricket team. She was recognised as the ICC Women's ODI Cricketer of the Year 2013 and won the ICC Women's ODI and T20I Cricketer of the Year again in 2015
What challenges have you gone through as a professional athlete and how have you overcome them?
I think the biggest one is continuing to believe in myself. When you play when you’re younger you have fun and you’re successful you don’t think too much about it. As soon as you start making rep teams and performing with that comes expectation and expectation to do well every time you step on the field. Sometimes you have a mean run, most recently against Australia the last time I got out for less than ten and I was so determined to do well, and those failures really set me back. You sometimes question am I really good enough to play at this level, sometimes irrationally. All throughout my career It has been ‘am I good enough’ and I keep finding ways to work hard and keep believing in myself, no matter what anyone else says about you or whatever awards you get.
In regard to your captaincy, can you comment on the style of leader you’ve always aspired to be?
For me it was just purely leading by example. That was the best way I knew how to be a leader and for it me was making sure I was training hard, on the field with my performances, I wasn’t just talking about what we needed to do but living it and it was simply that. Anything I was going to ask of the team I had to make sure I was doing it first.
Suzie has experience in mindset and performance at the highest levels of professional sport and is a keen advocate for living his values and his processes. If you’re interested in understanding high performance in a sporting context and how those same concepts can apply to all aspects of life, then listen to Suzie’s podcast.
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