Press

Pete Smyth – We have a crisis. Here are 10 ways to help navigate it

It’s at times like this I wish I was a doctor, a nurse or somebody on the frontline fighting this virus. As I am not qualified for the front line, I am trying to fight it in other ways.

At Broadlake, we have spent the last three to four weeks working with our six Broadlake companies to help the leaders and our 2,500 staff respond to the challenges. I have also been in contact with many entrepreneurs, some whom I mentor and others where our paths have crossed in the past to check in with them and see how they are doing.

It’s such a difficult and uncertain time for all of them. Over these past two weeks, I have gained many insights into myself, my colleagues, our companies, the challenges entrepreneurs are facing and some solutions they are working on.

As I am unable to save lives on the front line, I’ll try to do my bit by sharing these insights that might help entrepreneurs, business leaders and managers cope with some of the stresses they are faced with. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s practical and maybe one or two things will work for you.

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Press

O’Donovan brothers will stop at nothing to reach the pinnacle – Sunday Business Post

The champion Cork rowers are so much more than the good-natured entertainers we watched at the 2016 Olympics – they possess all the key ingredients for success in business and sport.

I have always believed in the parallels that exist between high performance in business and sport.  The more high performing sportsmen and women I speak to the clearer this belief has become.  One difference I have observed is that high performing sports people have a far greater insight into the key components of winning than their successful businesses counterparts.  This was reaffirmed when I interviewed Ireland’s Olympic rowing silver medallists Paul and Gary O’Donovan at the 2018 CorkBIC Entrepreneur Experience held in Ballymaloe House last week.   The Entrepreneur Experience is a 24-hour event which brings 24 of Ireland’s leading entrepreneurs together with 24 of the country’s brightest up and coming Entrepreneurs for 24 hours of intense mentoring and learning.  This annual event has helped over 200 emerging entrepreneurs achieve their potential over the past 8 years.   My interest in interviewing the O’Donovan Brothers at the event was selfish.  I wanted to learn from their journey and understand the true parallels between their high-performance approach in sport and what the audience and I were looking to achieve in business.  It wasn’t designed to be a serious conversation but as I posed some early questions it was clear to me we were going to see a very thoughtful and serious side of them.  Their public persona of being entertainers or even messers, having the craic, “pulling like dogs” and “living on steak and spuds” was nowhere to be seen.  They knew we wanted insights more than selfies, and insights they delivered.  Their insights had clear relevance to business and here’s a glimpse into some of the ones that resonated with me.

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