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The first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about the word champion is sport: being a champion, the first in your discipline or category, can be applied to other areas of life as well as in business. This article will analyse some aspects of finding your own inner champion.  Most champions have natural talents which they develop and expand in sport, as well as in business. Personal performance can be improved and enhanced by strong commitment; in most cases the expert help from a coach can boost your performance as he/she knows how to get the best of your skills and talent, helping you to find your inner champion.

Back in 2007 the exiting committee of the Cambridge University Kickboxing Society (CUKBS) invited me for a meeting to establish whether I was prepared to be their coach.  We had a short meeting a city’s café and and the president for the society for 2006-07 synthesised in a short sentence the whole essence of their request: “we want to win Varsity versus Oxford”.  My instinctive answer was: “yes sure, as long as you guys are prepared to work for hard it…”

It was not an easy task but earlier this year CUKBS managed to finally celebrate their victory in the 2010 Varsity match.  How did I know that we could win?  I was and am confident of my teaching and coaching skills, not only about how to punch and kick but how to enhance mental skills that are essential to be a winner. “more then 50% of the fight is won by the coach” states Luca Senatore local successful entrepreneur and student of mine with a short professional kickboxing career among his achievements.

Kickboxing is a complex discipline: physical performance and endurance are as essential as in any other sport but technique and strategy play a very strong role when you are in a ring in front of somebody whose only mission at that instant is beating you up.   As a coach I can notice from the corner things that the fighter simply does not.   My vision is obviously from a different angle but, more importantly, I have a calmer and detached point of view and I can evaluate and take decisions that are essential to help fighters adjusting their techniques and tactic to the circumstances developing before them.

Winning and becoming a champion, in kickboxing as well as in business, is the combination of a number of factors: it is about mental attitude, self discipline, motivation and determination.  It’s about saying “I can do it and I will do it”.  When working with executive clients I always remind them that their personal performance can be improved and enhanced by consciously working on it.  Experience demonstrates at the same time that the following simple steps are more often easier said than done for the average individual:

• being aware of what you want to achieve
• identifying what you need to do for it
• plan carefully what actions need to be done
• execute these actions and constantly compare results with expectation
• adjust the plan if anything drifts

As it happens many things get in the way and focus fades… what yesterday was a strong plan gets disturbed by unlimited interferences in today’s super busy, always online life.   An Executive Coach, very much like a kickboxing coach helps you to formulate and keep connected to your plan, accountable toward your actions, you level of progress and always available to discuss issues that could be pivotal for your development and performance for you being the champion you want to be.

Some people think that champions are born and perhaps in some cases it can be true.   In my experience champions can be made, starting from a willing and determined individual:

• if you want to excel in kickboxing you should approach an experienced coach that can help you to find your inner champion;
• if you want to excel in your work and career in senior management you should approach an experienced Executive Coach;

In both cases you could ask me for expert help

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Please join us for this presentation at David Lloyds on Friday 23 April at 10am (more info when you enter the booking form): it may change the way you work.  Running your own business, being your own boss, has great advantages: freedom, independence, autonomy and financial rewards.

At the same time it is easy to get caught into a spiral of activities that are wasting your precious time, procrastination, lack of focus, motivation or inspiration; so if you are:

• a business owner/partner in a small business, perhaps trading for a few months;
  
• contractor or freelance in the marketing/creative industry;
• thinking of starting a new business in the marketing/creative industry;

You will find very interesting the possibilities that a highly focussed coaching group can offer to you and your business.  Please have a look at the following questions:

• are you working hard and making less money than you deserve?
• have you ever asked yourself why some people work hard and barely survive while others seem to be thriving while working a just few hours per day?
• do you think there is space for improvement in your efficiency and effectiveness?
• would you like to work more on your business rather than in your business?

If you answered yes to two or more of the above you should come along.

This one hour presentation will be run by Massimo Gaetani, business and executive coach, founder of MaGa Coaching.  The presentation will show you the tangible benefits of how working within a coaching group, facilitated by a professional business coach, can help growing your business, focussing on essential profitable activities and being accountable toward yourself in achieving important milestones.

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Testimonial for Business Coaching package:

I was fortunate enough to have a series of coaching sessions with Massimo of MaGa Coaching and found the whole experience both useful and enlightening.

There are many details to running, organising and promoting a business some of which are easy to ignore or ‘do later’. The great thing about having a business coach is he is able to put into perspective the most important areas that you need to look at in order to build your business.  Massimo did this with  great skill.  This, in turn, increased my motivation  and even though there was no one forcing me to cover all the points from each of the last sessions, the fact that I was paying for them gives even more incentive.

I now have a series of extremely useful tools that I can use to increase the profitability and size of my business – these are invaluable and though I may have been aware of them, it took Massimo to structure them and bring them to the fore front of my mind.

I would thoroughly recommend using Massimo.  His experience is wide ranging, if you think that he can help you – he can !

Mark Taylor – Company Director – Green Clean Limited – Cambridge

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Please join us at the David Lloyd Leisure Centre on the 7 Oct 2009 between 9:30 and 3:30pm for this exclusive workshop.  MaGa workshops offer to all delegates the possibility of gaining hands-on experience on a broad range of topics.  The formula used by all of our workshops is to coach people toward the various topics explained rather being trained or lectured.

Please check the workshop page and book your place here.

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I approached Massimo Gaetani of MaGa Coaching following a period of my life where my business was suffering due to a number of situations that were progressively getting out my control.  Reduced performance in my day to day activities was causing continuous delays to my customer service in spite of working up to 12 hours per day, 7 days peer week.  I felt to be in a spiralling situation and it was difficult to identify a way out: this was causing stress and anxiety that was also affecting my personal life.

Working with Massimo was an amazing experience.  He helped me to analyze the current situation and formulate a challenging albeit achievable plan that started to take shape within a few weeks from the beginning.  I was surprised by how I managed to move to a situation that I found frustrating and with little possibilities into a new one, with an incredible amount of energy and with a thriving business.

I am now running my business by working very few hours a day, no more than 5 days per week. I delegated 80% of selected tasks to my assistants and I am working on my business instead of in it: my sales and customer service are at their historical best and I recently decided to start a new venture for which I engaged MaGa Coaching for a new coaching package.  Given the success I had from the situation described above, I strongly believe that this new project will be a winning one too.

I recommend without hesitation Massimo and MaGa Coaching for any circumstance where you feel you would like to achieve more in your business, whether it is more money, time, effectiveness or resource management: for me it was a true performance booster and I am still wondering how it happened.  We all have great potential and coaching is instrumental to unleash it.

G. Franco – Entrepreneur in Luxury Holiday Villas – Liverpool (UK).

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