Steve Hooker: 7 things I’ve learned about work, sport and life

For AIA Vitality’s newest ambassador Steve Hooker, his journey from Olympic gold medallist and pole vault champion to a successful businessman has taught him a few important life lessons. Here, he shares some of those lessons. 

I pretty much gave up pole vaulting one month after our first son, Max, was born. It was 2013, and my wife and I were living in Arizona. I'd moved over after the London Olympics with every intention of training through to Rio. So we picked up our whole life, put everything in a shipping container and rented a house in Scottsdale, which is part of greater Phoenix.

Max was born there on the 21^st of June, and I actually had a competition organised the following day. I hadn’t slept in two nights, with the hospital and the labour and arrival of Max, and I was chock full of adrenaline, and I just thought, “You know what? I’m going to compete.” And I did.

That turned out to be the last pole vault meet I’d ever take part in.

Over an international sporting career, and after two gruelling Olympic campaigns, you can’t help but learn a few things along the way. I’ve been lucky enough to channel those lessons, some of which I’d like to share today, into how I approach my family, my work and my health.

It’s so important to find good, meaningful work, which is really anything that means something to you. These days I run a property development company. We help young people jump into the real estate market and buy their first home.

I’ve worked in property since my uni days, and over the years I became more and more interested in the concept of affordable housing and building communities. There was this gap for my generation: we were seeing the cost of living increase, the cost of housing increase, and wages not keeping pace. There was this whole generation that was getting further and further behind. Now we try and give people a pathway to home ownership, we invest time and energy in them, help them find their feet. And that’s something I’m really proud of.  

The transition from pole vaulting to business wasn’t always easy. About a month after Max was born, on my 31^st birthday, I was doing a pole vault session, and I just wasn’t enjoying it. All the adrenaline from the birth had worn off, and that competitive hunger was just suddenly gone. And hunger was the thing that gave me my edge.

I wasn’t training well. And I was living in a country where I couldn’t work. My coach at the time, Dan, turned to me and said, “Is your heart still in this?” And I realised it wasn’t anymore. At that point, with this new responsibility of being a parent, I made a decision to have a break from jumping and see what that felt like. And I haven’t looked back since. 

I want to be successful in my job, obviously, and I’m juggling that with my work as Chair of the Australian Athletics Commission – but I try to balance it all by being present with my family. Building a solid, long-term future, but also being engaged with them. Helping them develop as little people.

I’m lucky to work in a family business with people whose family is literally everything to them, so I’ve got time and capacity to come home and be a dad. Be a husband. Be there for my kids. That matters to me. 

Do you know one of the best things I’ve been a part of? Playing dads’ footy. Each year at my son’s school they play something called ‘Battle of the Boots’. It's between the two local primary schools. My son started there in prep last year, and I began doing the weekly footy training with all the other dads.

Suddenly I’ve moved from one life, where I had a network of sporting friends and colleagues, into this entirely new community, and it’s been the best thing ever. I’ve made dozens of friends. You see them down the street. You get to know their kids. I’ve always thought that sport’s greatest power is its ability to bring people together and form communities. And those communities have such a positive effect on your mental and physical wellbeing. 

Everything with me comes down to my nature. And by nature, I feel like I'm a problem solver. That's what drew me to pole vault in the first place. I saw this sport that was like a puzzle, with all these different elements. You didn’t necessarily have to be the best physical athlete, but if you were the best problem solver, you could perhaps outperform people and find success.

I’ve tried to apply that same mindset to property, business and entrepreneurship. I went from being focussed on one very niche, very obscure problem (how to use a bit of fibreglass to jump over a bar) and turned it into something more general: being interested in people, figuring out how they think, being curious about the world. 

I want to hang around and be a grandfather. I want to be with my kids for as long as possible. And even now, after putting down my pole, everything is about making the right decisions so that I can live a long, healthy life. Movement is a big part of that. Diet is a huge part of that. Keeping mentally well is a huge part of that.

Particularly when you work in a sedentary job, like I do, behind a desk, you need to keep active. And it’s hard! Sometimes I’ll go a couple of days without really moving, and I notice how that affects the way I make decisions, my ability to stay calm. My anxiety levels start to increase. But as soon as I get outside and do some exercise, I can feel my mind return to some sort of stable level. 

Sometimes it’s easy to imagine that there are simply no good ideas left. Everyone’s thought of them. They’re all done. I remember one day I was sitting on my couch in Perth, and I thought, “Today I’m going to think of a new idea. A new business. A problem I can solve.”

And even though my idea that day came to nothing (they can’t all be earth-shakers, right?) it taught me a lot about life. I saw a problem, and I thought of solutions, and as soon as you open that box, no matter where you go, that’s how you start to see the world.

Good ideas pop up everywhere – you can’t help it. You walk into a shop, or an office, or a sporting team, and you’ve got this entrepreneurial mindset. You’re always wondering, “How does that work? Can I make it work better?” That’s when life gets really interesting. 

AIA Vitality Ambassador Steve Hooker OAM is a three-time Olympic pole vaulter and an Olympic gold medallist. A father to three boys, he’s also a full-blown amateur weekend BMX rider. Nowadays he splits his professional time between running one of Melbourne’s leading private property development companies and is a member of the Executive and Chair of the Athletes Commission with the Australian Olympic Committee. In the midst of all that, he tries to grab 45 minutes of exercise for himself whenever he can.

Disclaimer:
The information in this article is general information only and is not intended as financial, medical, health, nutritional, tax or other advice. It does not take into account any individual’s personal situation or needs. You should consider obtaining professional advice from a financial adviser and/or tax specialist, or medical or health practitioner, in relation to your own circumstances and before acting on this information.