DRIVE TO SUCCEED: CAPSULE’S WORKING WOMEN’S CAREER HUB, POWERED BY TOYOTA
We know how important networking is for the professional woman – we’re up against it in almost every area in the workplace, from pay equity, career opportunities, discrimination and balancing work life with becoming mothers.
Toyota have a proud tradition of powering New Zealanders at grassroots level to achieve greatness – whether that’s on the sports field or in their careers. Now, we want to focus that spirit on women, and bringing wāhine together to support, motivate and inspire each other to thrive.
Women know better than anyone that life takes a village, and it’s no different when it comes to our careers. Here’s our way of changing the game for us working women! Along with monthly columns, we’ll be reaching out and forming a community with you, New Zealand’s working women, on Substack and via a dedicated Instagram channel where you can connect with like-minded gals, potential mentors and the network you need to thrive in your career. We know how important networking is for the professional woman. Women know better than anyone that life takes a village, and it’s no different when it comes to our careers. Here’s our way of changing the game for us working women! Along with monthly columns, we’ll be reaching out and forming a community with you, New Zealand’s working women, on Substack and via a dedicated Instagram channel where you can connect with like-minded gals, potential mentors and the network you need to thrive in your career.
In this edition, we chat to success personified – Dame Valerie Adams – about how ‘success’ has changed for her as she’s moved through her roles as athlete, mum and advocate, and how the Toyota Brand Guardian finds a lot of power in being vulnerable.
Kia ora Dame Valerie! We’re so jazzed to chat to you about success because, obviously your name and ‘success’ are rather synonymous in Aotearoa for obvious reasons! But now you’re not a professional athlete, how has the word success changed for you, and what does it mean now? Was it easier to measure as an athlete, compared to now?
It depends on how you look at it, right? So success was measured off medals and stuff – but it was also in the public forum, so there was a lot of pressure on that success.
Now, success is a full night’s sleep and happy kids and the laundry done, and maybe the to-do list checked off [laughs] so that’s changed a bit!
I lived such a long time in that high-performance environment, so it took a bit of time to change my outlook. Now success is compartmentalised more – if none of my kids are throwing a tantrum, it’s a good day. It’s a very good day. But it’s also not always like that.
So maybe, success is also having plans in place where you need to pivot!
It’s a bit of a change of pace – now, with kids, most definitely seems more hectic! It’s a new stage of life for sure – and do you think that as you move through those stages, as you get a little older, your maturity obviously changes and grows as you realise that success isn’t just about medals and outward achievement… that old chestnut!
Yeah, you definitely don’t sweat the small stuff as much – and you look at the bigger picture more. Maturity plays a big part in that. If you have a yuckday, you can always find something positive in there somewhere. There’s always something positive to take away.
I’ve had a few life challenges myself, but now I look at things with a different attitude – life is too short. If you want to be a dick, be a dick by yourself. It takes way too much energy to be grumpy or upset.
You talk about your life challenges rather openly, especially for a well-known person in New Zealand – your career lows, your marriage break-ups, your personal life. It’s incredibly refreshing! Was it a conscious decision to be, as you call it, an ‘open book’, or is it just who you are?
I think it’s just me, but I made the conscious decision to let it happen. What you see is what you get! I figure if others can learn from my experiences, or take something from it, then great. Life isn’t perfect. I think sometimes athletes here are put on a pedestal to make it seem we don’t have struggles in our life but we do. I do. We all do.
I’m like, this is the reality of getting to the Olympics. This is the reality of going to hospital and delivering children and having your stomach cut open in four different ways [Valerie had two caesarean sections with daughter Kimoana and sonTava, with the birth of Tavain 2019 involving complications that saw her suffer a twisted bowel, necessitating the use of a stoma bag for months. Tavahimself was in NICU for a time with underdeveloped lungs. She still went on to win a bronze medal at the next Olympic Games in 2021].
The reality of life is all this, relationships can break down [Valerie has been married twice], injuries happen, all the rest of it. But if people in my community, for example, see my struggle and see there’s lots of ways to overcome it. My life hasn’t been the easiest ride.
Do you find power in that level of vulnerability?
Oh yes. Don’t forget, I’m 1.93 metres tall [6ft3]. I’m a big strong girl. When people see me, they don’t think I have feelings. Sometimes they forget I’m human. They forget that words hurt. I’m only human!
People like to share their opinions of me to me.
Their opinions…about you? To you?
Yeah. Their dismay about me, to me. People also forget that athletes, at the end of the day, go out and try their best for this country. I might be a big, strong girl, but I have feelings too. I get upset with it all, like anyone else will.
You’re also a woman!
Yeah, and I have woman problems too!
In that vein, are there any lessons you’ve learned along the way that you’d just love everyone to know, and understand? The things you know to be true?
Oh the biggest one, for sure, is to listen to yourself and trust your gut. Gut instinct is a powerful, powerful thing, and you should always trust yourself. We are the best advocates for ourselves. You can’t look after everyone else if you can’t look after yourself first.
Mothers, in particular, fill everyone else’s cup first. We forget about ourselves. But you need to listen to yourself, your body, and if you feel like something isn’t right then follow your gut.
How do you put that into practise, specifically around the idea of success now – I mean most women reading this will never go to the Olympics! But they are dealing with the same day-to-day pressures that women navigate. How do you manage to put yourself first in that frame of success?
The important thing is find something that you love to do, and that you’re passionate about. Life is too short to not be passionate. I’ve done that, and I still have so many things I’m passionate about. My kids are one of those things – but I’m really making sure that I’m not living my dreams through my kids. They need to take the lead on chasing their own dreams. My son played ripper rugby last year, and now he’s switched to football and he loves it! He goes into it and he’s totally into it. I love that.
It must be so cool to see your kids involved with sport! Kids involved with sport solves so many problems in society.
Oh for sure. It’s fresh air, it’s getting them moving, it’s mental health, it’s social skills and teamwork. Anything with movement, you know – my daughter’s doing ballet at the moment, it’s good for her ASD [Autistic Spectrum Disorder] and she’s in her own little world. She doesn’t like me watching but it’s fine, I peek through the window!
But it is important for this country – cost of living is high, but moving is free. Plus they get tired, which is GREAT for parents!
You have your life with the kids, and then so many different work ventures on the side – now, in this stage of your career, how important are networking and mentoring opportunities to you?
Networking is how you create opportunities, you know, and we should always be open and looking for opportunities. This is how we get more aligned with our male counterparts in these spaces. In fact, when it comes down to it, we need our male leaders to give wāhine opportunities in professional spaces. More could be done in that space. I have a varied career now doing so many different things – and I love trying to make changes in boardrooms in my role advocating for athletes, especially our Polynesian athletes.
The village is important in managing it all, for sure – I try my best managing it all, but sometimes I do spread myself too thin. But I love it. I get to help a lot of people in my roles now – and that is very successful to me.