The pain of standing still

Maggie Roberts was three weeks from Olympic trials when she broke her back. Sixteen years old, on the 10-metre platform, her right leg lost functionality. She couldn't walk properly.

She'd been training since the age of fourteen at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS). Six hours a day. She'd come back to Melbourne to tackle Year 12 while preparing for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. She was an Optus Future Star. It all ended with one bad accident.

The Australian sports system had no support programs for broken athletes then. 

She was on her own. 

Eight months in rehabilitation with elderly arthritis patients. Weight gain. Isolation. 

The same question every night: "Now that I'm not an athlete, who am I?"

Then, at three o'clock one morning, she got up and went for a run.

"The pain of my injury was less than the pain of standing still in life. I was going backwards, not forwards."

She could barely move. Each step hurt. But she kept running. Day after day. Lost ten kilos, got back in the water, and earned a scholarship to the University of Hawaii at the age of twenty. Three years as Western Athletics Conference (WAC) Athlete of the Year and three undergraduate degrees. 

But when injury struck again, this time she pivoted - interned at a digital agency, did every job they'd give her, learned the business from the ground up.

And learned she did.

She became CEO of Creative Factory at just twenty-five, the year the iPhone came out. Eighteen years later, she's never stopped moving forward.

The hand framework

Maggie holds up her hand when she explains how she stays in motion. Five fingers, five daily touchpoints:

Family and friends. Education and personal growth. Career and wealth creation. Fitness and wellness. Rest and recovery.

"If I can touch on each of those five points in a day, I know I've had a good day. I know I'm not standing still."

The difference between what seems to matter and what truly matters. Maggie worked out what mattered and built a framework around it, and held herself accountable for what it asked of her. Not perfect balance - that's impossible. Some days, career dominates. Others, your family needs more. But touch them all. Progress beats perfection, every day of the week..

Maggie also rejects the traditional idea of resilience. Thinks it sounds like you can't feel, can't cry, can't be human. She prefers consistency. Show up, touch the five points, keep moving.

Living it before living it

At eight years old, Maggie discovered she could win before competing. She'd visualise herself on the podium - the uniform, the medal, the anthem. A hundred times before it happened. At nine, she won World Championships in trampolining.

"I could break it down to what it felt like in the arena, what the sounds were like. When game day came, I'd been there before."

She still uses this. CEO at twenty-five, young and green, thrown in the deep end. Before every big meeting, she'd already lived it. What she'd wear. How she'd speak. How she'd handle the difficult questions.

This shapes how she leads. She sees potential in others before they see it themselves - calls it their "X factor."

"Leadership is the privilege of seeing it, naming it, and nurturing it into life."

The expectations game

"I firmly believe harmony resides on expectations," Maggie tells me. "Whether it's in business, family, or sport — clarity in expectations is where trust is built."

Even ordering an ice cream - if it doesn't meet expectations, disappointment follows. Friends who cancel repeatedly. Staff who arrive late. Projects without clear boundaries. All expectation failures.

Running a creative agency that specialises in innovation makes this crucial. You can brainstorm endlessly about where AI might take a product, but eventually you need scope, budgets, timelines. The constraints don't limit creativity - they channel it into something real.

Hard conversations early prevent disasters later. Clear expectations aren't confrontation, they're care. They help people understand where they belong.

Never still

In elite sport, we talk about momentum like it's something outside us. Something teams catch, crowds create, games deliver. But Maggie found it alone at three in the morning. Not from a crowd or a coach. From a decision to move.

Most would have stayed in bed. A broken back at sixteen is reason enough to be still. But stillness was the real injury. Movement was the cure.

That morning run became a scholarship, became degrees, became internships, became a 25 year old CEO. Not a straight line, but always forward motion.

She touches her five points every day. Visualises success before she needs it. Sees potential others miss. Sets expectations that foster harmony rather than hoping for it.

The pain of standing still will always be greater than the pain of moving forward.

Even if it's one step at a time.

Notebook ready.

Play on!