116. Improving Your Weaknesses with Professor of Sport Administration Erianne Weight

116. Improving Your Weaknesses with Professor of Sport Administration Erianne Weight

Introducing Erianne Weight

Today I’m talking to Professor of Sport Administration at the University of North Carolina, Dr. Erianne Weight, about improving your weaknesses.

Her Career Journey

Erianne was a heptathlete at the University of Utah where she earned her BS in exercise and sport science and her MBA. When she wanted to keep training for Olympic trials, Erianne began working on her PhD in sport marketing and management while continuing to train. After finishing her PhD, she started at UNC Chapel Hill where she is currently a professor of sport administration, working at the intersection of academics and athletics. She is the director of the Center for Research in Intercollegiate Athletics and the president of the North American Society for Sport Management.

Improving Your Weaknesses

Erianne was a successful heptathlete who knew that deliberate practice on her weak spots was the best way to keep improving as an athlete. Early on in her career, Erianne recognized that her fear of public speaking was holding her back and took steps to push herself outside of her comfort zone until it became one of her strengths. In this episode, Erianne shares how this skill she developed as an athlete was central to her professional development and how you can take steps to keep improving your weaknesses.

Inside this episode:

    • As a PhD student, Erianne discovered that research was the best place for her because people were actively working on many of the questions she had had as an athlete.
    • Erianne has followed her passions throughout her career and now can look back and connect the dots in unexpected ways. 
    • She chose to deliberately work on her weak points and emphasizes that the ways we practice in sports can be applied to so many other parts of our lives. 
    • Erianne has reframed imposter syndrome for herself as the logical outcome of pushing herself outside of her comfort zone.
    • Part of her work at UNC is formalizing the educational pathways of sport and reframing how we all think about the role of athletics within academics and backing it all up with research.
    • Erianne advises others not to pick a job, but to pick their people, and surround themselves with others who enrich them.

Resources

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