For National Careers Week, we sat down with Beijing 2008 Olympic silver medallist and Diving Australia Performance Support Manager, Bree Bryant, to talk about career paths, organisation, and how she has turned her athletic career into a love letter of service to the sport.

Bree Bryant always knew how to stay in sync with her partner atop the 10m platform at the biggest sporting events, including a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and becoming Commonwealth Champion in 2006. 

She also knows all too well about the amount of organisation and determination it takes to compete at the highest level in diving and completing a Bachelor of Teaching and a Bachelor of Applied Science.

"I am naturally a quite organised person. Splitting up my day and making sure that there was study time really helped me maintain that balance and not feel overwhelmed,” she said. 

Out of the water and after retiring, Bree’s love and commitment for her sport has stayed with her, in her role as Performance Support Manager at Diving Australia. 

“My role at Diving Australia involves doing a little bit of everything,” she said.

“I work with the high performance programs across Australia, helping to make sure everything is working really well and daily training environments are the best they can be.”

She also works with the physios, dieticians and doctors across the country to integrate  injury prevention support and monitoring whilst also working on the athlete development framework.

"I always wanted to give back to my sport,” she said, “In this role I can support the coaches and athletes to achieve optimal performance.”

Shifting from one profession to another can be overwhelming for transitioning athletes, but Bryant believes that athletes in the workforce have a true leg up.

“There's so many upsides to being a professional athlete, and I think employers are really looking for those skill sets,” she said.

“Athletes should take a lot of confidence from everything they're gaining from being a professional athlete into their next phase of life in their chosen career.”

Reflecting on her own experience in navigating a career transition she says that it is really important to start setting up what is possible to do post sport.

"I really wanted to make sure that when I'd finished diving, which I knew one day would have an end point, that I was kind of set up for the next phase of my life."

"My advice - Just do something you really enjoy and then just see where it takes you," She said, “Being open to opportunities really is so important.”