Hello fans — quick blog again! Well as I mentioned last week, I have been working at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships for the London Fire Brigade for almost two weeks as always for the past eight years. Whilst being around these elite athletes, and being a former athlete myself, I always remind myself that I am the type of person that would be playing the game on the court/ pitch / running track as opposed to watching from the stands. A few weeks ago, a journalist contacted me about an article she wanted to write about what can elite sportspeople teach small businesses. Rachel Miller from Marketing Donut writes:
This summer, we’ll all be watching the world’s best athletes and sports people compete in the London Olympics. They’ve all got talent, there’s no doubt about that.
But talent alone does not make a world-class performer — in any field. You need incredible drive, determination and self-discipline.
Entrepreneurs have always admired the tenacity and guts of sportspeople who are determined to reach their goals — not least because there are undoubtedly some common personality traits shared by the best performers in sports and business.
“Elite sports is a powerful metaphor for business, and there are some striking parallels,” says sports performance psychologist Professor Graham Jones. “Fierce competition, winning by sometimes the smallest margins, achieving goals and targets, establishing long-term and short-term strategies and tactics, hard work, perseverance, determination, teamwork, dealing with success and recovering from failure and setbacks — those are all key challenges in both worlds.”
So what can sportspeople teach entrepreneurs and small business owners? We ask some of the UK’s leading athletes, sports psychologists and business mentors.
Read more and see what I have to say here
Dave Pamah shows what elite sportspeople can teach small businesses
