Be courageous and challenge what we can achieve in life
Episode 8 of Better World Leaders with world record skydiver Barbara Meister.
Barbara is a world record holding skydiver, a Transformation Executive, Charity Director and all-round superstar that I have always been greatly inspired by ever since I first met her over a decade ago.
What I didn’t realise until we had this conversation was how little I knew about her background, her intrinsic drivers and the depth of knowledge and expertise over such a wide range of matters relating to high performance. So I’m very glad to be able to share this conversation with you here.
Barbara grew up in rural Switzerland in a seemingly idyllic childhood location close to the northern mountain ranges. Her up-bringing was far from ordinary however, with a combination of traumatic events and an early introduction to high performance competitive sports setting her on a journey that defines her drive and leadership achievements today.
She works now as a Transformation Executive in a major Australian corporate, as funding Director of a Northern Beaches not-for-profit organisation , ‘Share the Spark’, supporting youth going through hardship, and also as an Executive Coach at 4iLeadership. And amongst this all, she fits in what she modestly refers to as ‘sport’, as a competitive crossfit athlete, a paraglider, a freediver and most impressively as a world-record holding formation skydiver.
Barbara shares many meaningful, insightful and informative views, perspectives and imparts invaluable advice combining her experiences as a high performer in both corporate and high-risk sporting fields.
They key messages are;
- The key role of leadership is to build networks of trust that facilitate the environment for success to be achieved.
- That leaders need to appreciate that not everyone wants to be a high performer. But what we typically celebrate are ONLY the high performers. What we should celebrate is the team accomplishments and everyone’s role in the play, that everyone shows up so the whole team can perform.
- To do this better, leaders need to empower the individuals and their teams to be comfortable with who they are and with who they want to be.
- Especially in high pressure environments, high risk endeavours, and in uncertain conditions, as a leader you must be particularly aware of how you are dealing with stress and randomness.
- That the psychological side is much under-developed in most leaders, and that this can be the key enabler or imp
- That her role as a leader is to inspire others to be courageous and challenge what they can achieve in life
You can get in touch with Barbara via LinkedIn here https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-meister-80ab904/
or here on the US page of this site – https://4ileadership.com/us/
You can find out more about the great work that Share the Spark are doing here – http://sharethespark.org.au/
You can find out more about the next skydiving world record challenge that Barbara is taking on next year here – https://www.brokenrecords.world/about-1
