There’s not too many things that Anna Rohrer can’t do.
She was an All-American in high school, and college as a runner during her time at Notre Dame. She’s an award-winning cake decorator, and she played in her high school band.
Now, the eight-time All-American is taking all of the things that she’s learned as a runner to pour into the lives of those that she works with in the business world.
Rohrer works for a startup called DreamFuel, where she’s the Vice President of Operations and the Director of Coaching/mental performance coach. She graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in Neuroscience and with a Master’s degree in Business. At DreamFuel, she’s able to put both degrees to good use.
“It’s been honestly the perfect combination of skill sets that I didn’t know existed,” she said.
Her main duty in her role at DreamFuel consists of coaching individuals and groups on their mental performance. Some of the other projects that she’s worked on at DreamFuel include writing scripts for the company’s new video course, she’s helped write a workbook while also designing an app that helps measure your mindset.
“We coach people on basically how to stay in control of your mental performance, regardless of the adversity, the challenges, the anxieties that you face throughout the day,” she said. “It’s all based in neuroscience, so that’s where the skill sets come in. It’s kind of a perfect combo of stuff. It’s really fun to teach people about things that I first learned from athletics and bring it to them from a different setting.”
She also runs her own small business called Next Level Racing that’s aimed to coach runners, write training plans, while also helping them on the mental side as well. She created that business to give back to the sport.
Rohrer wears many hats when it comes to her day to day responsibilities with her job as a coach. Activities such as running helps her get through the day and gets her going. But the art of gratitude is not just something that she teaches the clients and athletes that she coaches, but it’s something that has helped her put things in perspective, especially when things get hectic.
“Gratitude has become just a habit, so if I take a break during the day or if I feel super overwhelmed, I’ll think of a few things that I’m grateful for,” she said. “So that’s another huge piece of what keeps me mentally where I need to be to be the coach that I am.”
In addition to teaching her clients and athletes about the importance of gratitude, Rohrer challenges her clients and her athletes to not put a cap on their potential, and to dream big. She saw the results of that during her athletic career, and now she pushes her clients to do the same.
“Sometimes just having people tell you, I think you can do that, makes all the difference,” she said. “Not underestimating yourself.”
Rohrer battled through injuries throughout her running career, but those injuries never defined her. Now that she’s recovered, she’s found a newfound joy in the sport that she loves.
“I have done a lot to make sure that I just maintain the joy in running, because that kind of slipped away a lot, really from 2017-2021 – that span of a lot of ups and downs,” she said. “The past year and a half has been figuring out how I can enjoy it and stay healthy, and ideally still run fast, and I’ve been able to actually do that, which is exciting. I realized that it caused me a lot of anxiety to do things by time or pace because I was always comparing myself to what I thought I should do. So doing things by time and effort has been huge for me. I enjoy doing hard things, that’s why I’m a distance runner.
“It’s been a fun journey discovering what running looks like now.”
While dealing through seasons of injuries and setbacks were not ideal, she’s been able to use those experiences to help others, which is something that she thought she’d be able to do to some degree.
“Yes, but I didn’t really know to what capacity,” she said. “So that was kind of what helped me push through those injuries, was believing that this is going to benefit either me, or others, or hopefully both in some way that I can’t really understand now, but trusting that this is going to be used for good, some way, somehow. It’s pretty incredible to see throughout the years how the past injuries have played such a positive role for myself and others.”
The one thing that has been constant throughout Rohrer’s journey is her faith in God. She’s leaned on her faith when she’s had to endure changes, injuries and everything in between. Letting go and trusting God has resulted in difficult situations being worked out in her favor, and it’s something that she leans on every day.
“It’s front and center,” she said. “Throughout every injury, that’s what strengthens my faith, but my faith is what got me through. Just believing that I don’t understand what’s happening now, but I know this is for a greater purpose, and I saw it time and time again.”
Rohrer isn’t in this business for self-glory or to promote herself. The only thing that matters to her is the impact that she hopes to have on others, so that they’re successful in their endeavors.
“I don’t care that much about being known,” she said. “I care about the work that I’m doing impacting people, helping them live better lives and achieve the greater and greater things that they dream of. Really what I want is people to discover what they’re capable of, discover faith, things like that. That’s what matters. If DreamFuel goes public, that would be pretty awesome. If we don’t, it doesn’t matter, as long as I’m showing up everyday and passionate in what I’m doing, while trying to give that impact.”
