I’ve been having some really interesting conversations recently.
If you’ve been reading my articles over the last few weeks, you’ll know I’ve become rather preoccupied with the gaps that exist around professional athletes.
The young footballer released from an academy with no idea what to do next. The professional athlete surrounded by coaches, agents, medical teams and support staff, but with nobody necessarily looking at the bigger picture. The athlete approaching retirement who has spent so long being defined by their sport that they haven’t really considered who they might be without it.
And I keep finding myself asking the same questions.
Why are we waiting until somebody retires before helping them build a professional network?
Why are we leaving athletes to work out their personal brand, commercial opportunities or career options on their own?
Why can somebody be surrounded by an extraordinary number of people, all responsible for different parts of their career, and still have gaps that nobody seems to notice?
And, perhaps most importantly, why does so much support seem to arrive after somebody needs it?
Now, I’m not suggesting there aren’t some brilliant people doing brilliant things in sport. There absolutely are. I’ve worked alongside plenty of them.
But the more conversations I’ve had, the more I’ve started to wonder whether we’re sometimes making this unnecessarily complicated.
Because quite a lot of these gaps are actually rather practical.
Someone needs an introduction. Someone needs help understanding how to present themselves professionally. Someone needs to think about what happens beyond their sporting career. Someone needs an independent perspective, a bit of structure or simply somebody to sit down with them and work out what they’re missing.
And then I had a bit of a moment.
Hang on. I can do that.
In fact, I’ve been doing versions of it for more than twenty years.
I’ve spent most of my professional life inside elite sport, working with athletes, coaches, executives and organisations where the expectations are enormous and the pressure is constant.
A huge part of that work involved spotting problems, identifying what wasn’t working, bringing the right people together and finding practical ways forward.
Sometimes that meant dealing with a crisis. Sometimes it meant challenging a decision. Sometimes it meant noticing something that everybody else had overlooked.
And sometimes it meant asking a question that nobody else had thought to ask.
What’s missing here?
The more I thought about it, the more I realised this applies just as much outside professional sport.
I see it with business owners, leaders and ambitious professionals too. People who are capable, experienced and often very successful, but who are so busy dealing with everything in front of them that they don’t necessarily have the time or space to work out what they need.
Why is this taking so much effort? Why do I keep running into the same problem? Why am I doing something this way when there might be a better one?
Often, the answer isn’t another qualification, another motivational speech or somebody telling them to work harder.
It’s identifying the gap and doing something about it.
So, I’ve decided to do exactly that.
I’m opening up two ways to work with me directly.
1:1 Athlete Mentoring
For athletes who want somebody independent in their corner who understands professional sport but can also see beyond it.
We can work on professional identity, career development, personal branding, commercial opportunities, building connections and preparing for life beyond sport. Or we can simply work out what support might be missing and how to put it in place.
I’m not a technical coach, psychologist or agent. I’m not trying to replace any of those people.
I’m interested in the spaces between them.
1:1 Coaching for High Performers
For ambitious professionals, business owners and leaders who want to work more effectively, make better decisions and create more structure around what they’re trying to achieve.
We look at what’s working, what’s getting in the way and what needs to change.
Not endless conversations about motivation or confidence. Practical thinking, honest conversations and useful action.
Both are built around the same principle.
Spot the gaps. Build what’s missing.
I don’t think everyone needs a coach or mentor. And I certainly don’t think everybody needs another person telling them how to live their life.
But I do think there’s enormous value in having somebody who can stand outside your immediate environment, see things differently, challenge your thinking and help you work out what to do next.
Even the highest performers need someone to think things through with. Especially when everybody else comes to them for the answers.
And perhaps that’s the thing I’ve realised after all these years.
Sometimes the most useful thing you can offer somebody isn’t another complicated solution.
It’s noticing what they need in the first place.
If you’d like to find out more, I’ve opened applications for both
and
You can explore either offering and see whether working together might be useful.
The gaps between specialist roles can be easy to overlook, especially when everyone is focused on their own part of an athlete’s career. I think the bigger-picture perspective becomes particularly valuable during transitions, when an athlete needs to think beyond performance and prepare for opportunities and challenges outside their sport.