Influence Unlocked “Perseverance will always trump talent" with Ed Cowan
Welcome back to 2021! In the spirit of it being summer in Australia and cricket dominating the sporting headlines, I am delighted to be bringing you my chat with former Australian test cricketer, Ed Cowan.
I’ve always been fascinated by how elite athletes manage the transition out of sport and into new careers, and my guest for this episode has a lot to say on that topic.
Ed Cowan is a former Australian test cricketer who made his debut for New South Wales in 2005 before going onto be selected for the Australian national team that played in India in the 2011 Boxing Day test. During his almost sixteen-year, first class cricket career, Ed played 18 Tests for Australia, scored 10,097 runs and wrote a book called, In the Firing Line, Diary of a Season. But Ed knew all along that sport is not a lifelong career. Along the way, he started a business with a teammate as a kind of “real life MBA” – Tripod Coffee, offering Nespresso-compatible coffee pods that are environmentally friendly.
When Ed made the decision to retire from the game in 2018, having a business certainly helped, but he says it was still a challenging time. He didn’t want cricket to be the defining moment of his life, which led him to ask the question of himself, ‘what’s my next act?’ The experience also gave him an insight into the vast number of athletes who struggle mentally and emotionally with that transition and has fuelled a desire to do more in this space to help others
While Ed called time on his professional playing career in March 2018 he is still involved in the game as a commentator for ABC Grandstand and as a Board Director at Cricket NSW. He is also a member of the team at private investment firm, TDM Growth Partners and host of the podcast, Scaling Up!
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