Week 43: Christina DeFranco

Instructor

 

Please tell us a little bit about yourself. 

 

I grew up in Markham, Ontario playing every sport I could think of. While attending Bill Crothers Secondary School I developed a deep love for Field Hockey and Floorball. I went on to get a scholarship in Varsity Field Hockey at York University and was named the Captain of the Women’s National Floorball Team where I have competed internationally at the World Championships. I continue to represent Canada as a proud member of the Canadian National Floorball Team, and continue to share my love of health and wellness through my work as a Yoga Teacher specializing in Mental Health.

 

What is something you learned by being on a team? How does that apply to your work?

 

Being on a team has not only taught me how to be a leader, but also a listener. I learned how to put my ego aside, hear constructive criticism and move forward. In every field of work you will always experience criticism, I have learned through sports how to take the criticism and learn from it so that I can improve.

 

How has sport helped you be a better leader? How do you define leadership?

 

I define leadership by one’s ability to inspire and empower others. You can be the most talented person on a team, but one person can’t do everything. However, one person can inspire and empower many people to step up and give everything they have, that is when games are won.

Playing team sports has humbled me, and showed me that no matter how good I am, I can’t do everything on my own. This realization allowed me to learn how to lead properly, which was by empowering and motivating everyone else around me.

 

Have you experienced failure or a barrier that you have learned from? From that experience, what advice would you share with young athletes?

 

The greatest failure I experienced was losing the World Championships. I had worked so hard, and it felt like I had lost everything. I learned from this pivotal failure, that you can’t change what has happened, no matter how many times you replay the moments in your mind. The only thing you can do is learn from it, work harder, and use it as motivation. It can be so easy to dwell on our failures, but the faster you can change your mindset to use the failure as motivation, the faster you will be able to succeed the next time.

 

Instagram handle: @christina.maria.yoga