On today’s episode, I’m talking to Pitt Athletic Director Heather Lyke about finding collaboration.

Heather is currently the Athletic Director at the University of Pittsburgh and one of just six women ADs leading an athletic department in one of the Power Five conferences. Heather was a student-athlete at Michigan and returned to the world of college athletics after law school, where she’s stayed ever since. She previously worked at the University of Cincinnati and Ohio State before becoming the Athletic Director at Eastern Michigan and finally at Pitt. While at Ohio State, she and five others who shared her aspirations of becoming an AD banded together to form what they called the group of six. Rather than feeling like they were in competition, they would share opportunities to help each other build skills, setting them all up for long-term success. 

We talk about:

• Avoiding the sunk cost fallacy when it comes to pursuing a career option other than the one you trained for. 
• How to stop focusing on failing to achieve a big goal and instead start celebrating the courage it took to say it out loud and go after it.
• Building teams that can support us and help execute our vision. 

You can find the show notes and more resources at https://madamathlete.com

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