Some athletes will tell stories with messages they believe will change people’s working lives.
Well, it’s been and gone! And while the nation awaits the opening of the Paralympic Games, some of the athletes who graced the world stage over the past two and a bit weeks will be basking in the glory that will change their lives. Some others, sadly, will be trying to come to terms with their shattered dreams.
They will be contemplating life without sport because the London Olympics represented their grand finale before bowing out to a future requiring immediate adaptation to an existence without inspirational goals that have got them out of bed every day for so long.
As we know, many will already have been shaping and practising telling their stories in a way that will engage corporate audiences and attract large fees. Some of these athletes will tell stories with messages they believe will change people’s working lives. This type of motivational speaking is for entertainment with hopefully a few key memorable messages to take-away.
Other former athletes choose to work in consultancies which offer very different services from motivational speaker firms. Consultants know a lot about performance and how to deliver and sustain it – the very essence of the commercial world. With the right people alongside them to help draw out what they sometimes find difficult to verbalise because it has become so innate and embedded, some of these former athletes have a lot to offer business organisations – when used appropriately.
So before taking the step to appoint a former athlete working within a consultancy it is important to check if they can help to make a real difference to your business/clients? Here are some characteristics to look for:
• A deep awareness and understanding of how they became high achievers
• A humility that makes them authentic and easily accessible
• A motive that is founded on really wanting to make a difference
• An intelligence that means they can hold their own with the extraordinarily bright people they will come across
Businesses must be aware that this is an unregulated field where anyone (as long as you’ve done something pretty impressive of course!) can play. With more former athletes expected to enter the motivational speaker/consultancy circuit, it is really important to not let your decision making be clouded by the current post Olympics hype and feel good factor that the UK is currently experiencing. Instead businesses need to think about how they could benefit from such services and ensure that they appoint a consultancy that will deliver long term business benefits.
