What an amazing summer of sport it’s been!

England’s Lionesses captured everyone’s imagination with their amazing Euro 2022 performance, Elena Rybakina’s Wimbledon win made her the first Kazakh player to win a major tennis title, Annemiek van Vleuten won the first Tour de France Femmes, and there were so many incredible performances from the Commonwealth Games that there’s not enough space to list them all here.

All these amazing inspirational stories got me thinking about what it takes to perform at the highest level, and how coaches play such an important role in success.

In the world of sport, coaching is a way of life. Top athletes have several coaches, each with a specialism specific to their sport.

It’s understood that good coaches help athletes to recognise and develop their strengths, overcome their flaws and weaknesses, and develop the mental resilience they need to keep performing under pressure.

But in business, the idea of being coached is nowhere near as widely accepted, understood, or adopted.

Some people even see having a coach as a sign of failure or weakness, concluding that having a coach must mean they don’t know how to do their job.

That’s not the right way to look at it, and could be a sign that insecurity and pride is holding you back.

Think of any of the world’s best athletes – Serena Williams, Mo Farah, Cristiano Ronaldo or Ellie Simmonds – and the thing they all have in common is that coaches have helped them to get to the top.

Finding the right coach for you – someone who can nurture your strengths and help to find new areas for improvement – is essential. For example, British tennis star Emma Raducanu has changed her coaching team several times since her incredible US Open win last year, and yet hasn’t been able to match her previous best.

Just like an athlete works with a coach to reach peak performance, having someone to guide and challenge you as a business owner or leader is a crucial part of your ongoing development.

I launched my business, Faremaxpro, in 2019 aiming to share the knowledge I gained during nearly 30 years as a procurement and supply chain expert at BAE Systems.

During my career I’ve led and worked as part of teams delivering at the highest level, from building and maintaining fleets of military jets to launching the NHS Covid vaccination testing programme – so I know top performance when I see it and know how to get the best out of the people around me.

As a coach, I like to work by getting fully immersed in the businesses I work with. I bring energy and confidence, and I’m able to see things from a different angle and identify opportunities for development that people can’t see themselves. I get such a huge buzz from this, because I’m passionate about helping people.

Coaching can be a challenging process that involves me pushing people to be their best and holding them accountable for what they say they’re going to do.

It’s a process for people who are willing to become comfortable being uncomfortable, setting goals and working hard to continually develop and improve.

Sport shows us how that collaborative relationship between coach and athlete gets results.

Whether it’s the Lionesses working with their Head Coach Sarina Wiegman to pull off their tournament win, or me working with my running coach to improve my times, sport captures our imaginations because it’s easy to identify goals and measure success.

That sporting mindset also translates to our professional lives and can help us to be winners in business too.

I’d love to hear from you, whether you want to talk more about coaching, or just compare notes about running. Get in touch at christine.fare@faremaxpro.com

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