On Wednesday, 26 September myself, Matt and 10 others had the opportunity to attend the iSport Foundation National Leadership Day.

iSport is a trust that was founded by Dan Carter and Ritchie McCaw to empower youth and to encourage self-leadership. Throughout the first half of the day, there were many inspirational leaders who talked about their experiences and what journey they’ve been on to get into the position they’re in. Some key mentions are world champion kayaker Caitlin Ryan and rower Toby Cunliffe-Steel.

Someone who stood out and made an instant impact was the Kiwi’s current coach Micheal Maguire. Micheal believes a successful team is built upon strong culture. Culture is built when you have people willing to sacrifice/give up in order to be successful. We can learn from this and apply it to our sport teams and committees here at Rutherford. Today was all about having a growth mindset and wanting to invest in your human capital.

Richie McCaw touched based with having a growth mindset. He spoke about the 2007 World Cup being one of the best moments in his career despite New Zealand being knocked in the quarter finals by France.  However without this low point in Richie’s career he believes he would never of been able to captain the team to back to back world cups. Richie grew and learnt so much from this low point, he was able to soldier on to achieve greatness.

Overall the day had a huge impact on each and every person in the room. Each of us took away something that we will hold for the rest of our lives. We would like to thank iSport, all the sponsors and Gill Bloxham for giving us this opportunity to develop our leadership for the future.

Thank you to Mr Gibbons and Mr White for sharing this day with us.