My Other Life is NDA’s latest interview series where digital marketing professionals share what hobby, passion project or side-hustle they get up to when they are not on the job!
In today’s edition, we meet freelance social media marketing specialist Lauren Hughes and find out about her love of Fixed Seat Rowing…
What is your day job?
I’m a freelance Social Media Marketing Specialist. I work with brands on everything from social strategy and content creation to campaigns, events and telling the stories that make people actually want to stop scrolling.
What’s the “other life” you lead outside the industry?
Fixed Seat Rowing! Although calling it my “other life” might be slightly misleading these days, because rowing has somehow managed to work its way into pretty much every part of my life.
How did you get into it, and how long have you been doing it?
I moved to a seaside town nearly five years ago and thought, “I live by the water, I should probably do something on it.” I found rowing and very quickly became completely hooked. Nearly five years later, I’m still obsessed and almost a qualified rowing coach.
How much time does it take up in a typical week?
Have you seen the viral sound on IG that says, “This isn’t a hobby, this consumes my entire life”? That is basically me and rowing.
The sensible answer is probably around 10 or 12 hours a week, both on and off the water. But then there’s racing, travelling to events, volunteering, boat maintenance and all the other things that somehow come with it… so realistically, quite a lot of my life revolves around boats!
What’s the biggest misconception people have about it?
That you row with your arms! It’s actually predominantly your legs. Your arms are really just the final part of the stroke.
The other one is that rowing looks easy. When you see a good crew moving together it can look almost effortless, but there is an enormous amount of technique, timing and physical effort going into making it look that way.
Has it taught you anything that’s actually useful in your day job?
Absolutely. Rowing is probably one of the best lessons in teamwork you can get.
If everyone in the boat doesn’t have the same goal, the whole boat slows down or doesn’t move properly at all. And if one person is struggling and nobody lends a hand, ultimately everyone suffers and none of you reach the common goal.
That translates surprisingly well into working with teams and clients. You can have incredibly talented individuals, but if everyone is pulling in different directions, you’re never going to move as quickly as a team that is completely aligned.
What’s the proudest moment you’ve had doing it?
Probably finding a way to turn my love of rowing into my full-time job. I now work within the rowing industry, so I’ve managed to bring together the thing I love doing professionally with the thing that had already taken over most of my spare time!
But if we’re talking about proudest moments on the water, it would probably be racing on one of the most beautiful lakes in Italy and beating a men’s crew that included Olympic rowers. That was a pretty good day!
Does anyone at work know about it and what was their reaction when they found out?
When I worked in agencies, everyone knew about rowing because it consumed most of my life outside work and it was quite difficult not to know about it! Most people had lots of questions.
Now I actually work within the rowing industry, which is a lovely full-circle moment. I’ve somehow managed to combine what I love doing for work with what I love doing outside of it. Although I’m not entirely sure I have an “outside of rowing” anymore! It has all blended and I love it!
