What do the best sports people in the world have in common? They all have coaches. Roger Federer, Mo Farah, Usain Bolt, Ronnie O’Sullivan, they all have coaches in some form to help them perform to the best of their ability, every time they go out to compete.
I’m fortunate that I get to speak to people from many different professions, and last week I got to speak to someone about coaching. The topic of sports people at the top of their game came up and what struck me as obvious, wasn’t so obvious to my friend.
You see, because they’re on TV all the time, we forget that they, like us, are only human. And as humans, we make mistakes and sometimes find it hard to perform to the best of our ability, every single time.
Let’s take a look at some of the top sports people in the world. Take for example, Roger Federer who is regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time and at the age of 36, is ranked number 2 in the world. Mr Federer himself has coaches that guide him through tournaments, matches and sets. He’s one of the greatest players of all time, surely he knows more than his coaches? Why does he need them?
Well, in sport there’s a saying called ‘get into your rhythm’ or ‘get into the zone’ and I like to think that Mr Federer is just like any of us and has ‘off days’. This is when his coach(s) can step in and help him to focus on his strengths, where he needs to improve and how he can get back into his zone.
This, is very much like business in my mind. We’ve all had those days when we feel like we’re on fire. All the jobs are getting done, we’re productive and everything is coming to us with ease. On the flip side, we’ve all experienced those days where nothing is going right, we can’t seem to understand why that customer is unhappy or why that process hasn’t been adhered to by a staff member.
Even the best of us can have off days mentally and it’s hard for us to get out of the rut and back in the game. If something goes wrong, we can far too often lose focus on our other tasks at hand.
So to look at what a sports coach does for the likes of Roger Federer, Mo Farah, Usain Bolt, Ronnie O’Sullivan and many more, a business coach can do the same for a business leader. Just because that business is at the top of their industry, doesn’t necessarily mean a coach can’t help improve even more.
I ask you to treat your business as a sports person and if you’re in need of someone to help you fire on all cylinders as often as possible, give us a call.