All of these people have invested a great deal of time, energy and also money into being on this trip. They’ve also pledged to each raise at least £10,000 for children’s charity Wooden Spoon so it’s an incredible commitment.

How will everyone respond to the challenge of Everest? The nerves, the pain, the altitude, the emotional expenditure. How will I react? In going through things in my own mind, here are the top five things I’ll be reminding myself and those around me.

1. Accentuate the positives

In everyday life but also up Mount Everest, let’s remind ourselves that it’s never as bad as it seems. It’s a cliche but focus on the positives. Negativity only breeds negativity. We are creatures of habit and contagious behaviour needs to reinforce a positive attitude all the time.

2. You’re never on your own

Never try and solve everything on your own. Every team or group is greater than the sum of its parts. There will always be a piece of wisdom there from someone else, so be alive to that.

3. Listen

People will have different opinions and perspectives, but we need to listen to each other. It’s a very tough skill for lots of people, particularly when the chips are down. Hit pause, listen to people around you and be a sounding board for reason.

4. Focus on the fix

If things go wrong, take the time to recognise what went wrong. Don’t rush. Then be relentless in fixing the issue with a solution.

5. Trust

I remember this from the Clipper Round the World Race. When the chips are down, it’s your ability to trust in the people around you that matters. Trusting systems, trusting training, trusting people. That helps you to adapt, stay positive and believe that, even if things go wrong, together you can still achieve your goal.

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I can’t wait to team up with some incredible people as we attempt to set two World Records. First we’ll try to play the world’s highest rugby match and then highest tag rugby match. Working with children’s charity Wooden Spoon we aim to raise well over £200,000 in the process.

Alongside me as team captains are Shane Williams, Tamara Taylor and Lee Mears. Depending on how the Six Nations finishes, it could be a very chirpy Shane Williams, or not so much! We’ll see.. Whatever the result in the rugby, our ability to team-build is paramount. We’ve been spending as much time as possible with each other and all the team members. Knowing each other will make it much easier to help, motivate, nurture, manage, kick etc when we’re up the mountain. It’s a much-used phrase at the moment, but emotional intelligence is key.

Preparation and team-building for Everest

Preparations have been well underway for some time now. Physically I feel strong. I’ve just taken part in one leg of a cycle challenge in support of Scottish legend Doddie Weir. Doddie’s battling motor neurone disease and the whole experience with his team was incredible. Many thanks to everyone who made it possible.

In terms of the body, that’s the kind of physical preparation you can control. The toughest part of taking on something this monumental, though, is all the bits you can’t control. Such as altitude sickness and blisters, both of which can silently creep up on you. We’ve worked hard in an altitude chamber to get the body used to that and hopefully my walking boots are the perfect fit.

Other than that, I’m still doing a lot of visualisation, mentally rehearsing how I will feel and behave at altitude.

Only time will tell but Everest is now feeling very real, and very soon.

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Setbacks are never easy when they’re unexpected. We feel disappointment, frustration, panic and shock. Preparation goes well, you feel in good nick, in control. But then a big curve ball hits that you didn’t anticipate, and hits you for six.

Doddie is a glowing reminder that it’s not the setback, but how we react to it, that’s most important.

So how can we deal with the kind of setback that comes out of the blue?

I try not to over-analyse or over-react. Try to be objective and take the time to assess what’s happened and why it’s happened before you move forward.

I always think back to the four months of preparation I did for my white collar boxing fight. I was super-sharp, super-lean, and then on the day I was knocked out in 30 seconds. How did this happen?… [Time to reflect]. Maybe because four months isn’t that long. Maybe because I lost the best part of 20 kilos for the fight and wasn’t used to it. Probably because I’m not a boxer and he landed a decent punch. You pick yourself up and move on.

Killing complacency

Most of the time, though, setbacks don’t come out of the blue. They’re a time bomb waiting to happen because we’ve got complacent, stopped doing the basics and lost sight of the bigger picture.

In business or in sport complacency cannot set in as easily if everyone has bought into a team culture. Why? Because in a good team, at the first sign of complacency, or bad behaviour, someone should be able to pull you up on it. If it’s against the team’s values, you should get called on it.

In your own office, could every team member pull the others up today for being complacent or behaving badly? If not, why not? For the sake of the business, that level of transparency should be there with everyone, including your boss. In sport it’s easier to achieve than in business. Would you benefit from that kind of culture, with a bit of help?

Speaking of the boss, how important are your leaders during these tough times?

Leading for the storm, not through the storm

Leadership is vital in tough times but have you noticed how the best leaders constantly challenge themselves and their teams to self-evolve and remain open and honest? Because in that kind of environment everyone becomes empowered.

In tough times some people will step up to the plate more than others. That doesn’t make them better, it just means they relish that opportunity. Some people lead and some prefer to be led, and are most effective being well led.

The sign of a really effective, positive leader is not one who belittles or blames. It is someone who empowers and enables, fixes and problem-solves. Sometimes that means having harsh conversations but they don’t need to be negative or detrimental. Most importantly, they need to help people realise it’s not the end of the world.

We get up off the canvas and live to fight another day. Believe me, I know. And if you think you might need a hand with any of this, please get in touch.

Introducing Optimist Performance (LR) from Optimist Performance on Vimeo.

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Tactics and organisation are important at this stage but I would argue that two things stand head and shoulders above everything else. Both can relate to every one of us in our daily lives: leadership and team culture.

leadership and team culture

To take England as an example, reflecting back on 2003 there’s always a temptation to focus on Clive, Johnno and Jonny. The mastermind, the captain, the kicker. All three were exemplary in what they did and their work ethic on and off the field of play and practice constantly set a benchmark for all the others to follow. But around them in the dressing room stood yet more leaders, role models, army officers, former captains, future captains.

We’re talking about guys like Jason Leonard, Lawrence Dallaglio, Phil Vickery, Richard Hill, Matt Dawson and Neil Back. Or Lewis Moody, Mike Tindall, Mike Catt, Will Greenwood, Ben Kay, Jason Robinson and Josh Lewsey. Do you think they needed to be told how to train or what to eat? Probably not, but neither did that happen by accident.

Together they were an exceptional generation of players, but over a period of time they installed a set of guiding principles by which they trained, ate, slept, drank, recovered, met, spoke to each other, spoke to the media, all before even stepping onto a rugby pitch. Out of respect for each other, they were living common values and that is what we call building a strong team culture.

Of all the teams heading into the Six Nations, Ireland are probably closest to this at the moment. It’s no coincidence that their coach Joe Schmidt is a kiwi. In rugby, the All Blacks have pretty much stood out on their own in terms of living a team culture, certainly over the past 10 years. I’ve experienced the trickle-down effect of playing them in sevens. You only need to read about their ‘Sweeping the Sheds’ mantra in James Kerr’s great book Legacy 15 Lessons in Leadership. “Never be too big to do the small things that need to be done” is just one great quote that comes to define their powerful blend of pride and humility.

Same principles can apply to any environment

Living by a common culture is essential in elite sport but the same principles should apply to any team or environment. Getting the best out of people is the same, whether they’re playing in the Six Nations, competing in the Square Mile or running a pub in the Lake District.

Cycling across the States and sailing around the world I was part of a team made up of very different people, like any business. That in itself required us to adopt a common set of values, a culture, without which we would almost certainly have failed.

So whoever you support over the next couple of months, ask yourself this: Is our team culture what it needs to be in order to reach and exceed our targets in 2019?

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What exactly is Optimist Performance?

We inspire businesses and teams to exceed their potential in the areas of Teamwork, Leadership, Resilience and Change.

What makes it different?

Professional rugby and my many adventures have taught me huge amounts about these intangible things. Crucially, though, working at PWC I’ve also learnt how powerful they can be in the corporate world. If they’re harnessed into words, values and actions they create a winning culture. So I’ve set up Optimist Performance to help businesses and teams do that, and smash their potential.

How does it work?

Firstly, we don’t like to label what we do just ‘motivational speaking’ because it’s more of a two-way street than that. Typically we work with clients through three phases:

1. Inspiration – we challenge you to think about how you’re operating
2. Exploration – together we find out more about you, your goals and how you’re set up to achieve them
3. Implementation – we help you define and grow the culture, behaviour and processes to succeed

How long does it take and what does it cost?

Ultimately you decide because we can find options to match each need and budget. Some companies like to try us for size with a 1-hour ‘inspire’ pep talk or half-day seminar. Others book whole days or even weekend workshops away. We will end up seeing most clients a few times over four to six months.

Who are your clients?

I have worked with many companies across various sectors, including Google, Accenture, Tesco, Schlumberger, Gatorade, UBS Wealth management, AJG, Clear Channel, Casewise, TBWA and Dark Horses.

Going forward, other speakers and mentors will come in under the Optimist Performance umbrella, broadening the client base but also – crucially – giving all of our clients a wealth of content and case studies, which we will make exclusively available to them.

How do we start?

Click here to Contact Ollie at Optimist Performance now!

The post Optimist Performance: How we work appeared first on Optimist Performance.

Almost 300 people have died trying so it’s not something we are taking lightly, and especially now that I’ve eyeballed the mountain up close.

Over the past couple of weeks I was honoured to travel out to Nepal as an ambassador for the Rugby World Cup trophy tour. The tour is taking the Webb Ellis Cup far and wide en route to Japan next year for the first World Cup ever to be played in Asia. It’s a huge time for the sport and its growth and seeing the kids playing the game – many for the first time – was a real thrill.

We played a fair few games of rugby and visited schools and famous landmarks everywhere we went. There aren’t many places you can go, though, where you escape the ominous sight of Everest, which obviously stands as the biggest landmark of them all.

Guinness World Record attempt in 2019

Circling the mountain from a helicopter is one of the most humbling experiences you can have. It’s only when you see it from the air that you realise anyone on it is literally like a speck of dust. In a way that reminded me of taming similar fears sailing around the world with the Clipper Race, and how we’re all at the mercy of the elements.

Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips was ambassador for the Rugby World Cup Trophy Tour in Nepal, December 2019

It also sent a shiver down my spine to think that we’re also trying to set a world record up there next April by playing the highest-ever rugby match. I wonder if a referee has ever had to stop a game with the words: “Altitude stops play”?

Aside from experiencing Everest for the first time, the thing I’ll take away most from my time in Nepal is the warmth of the people and the unspoilt beauty of the place. I simply cannot wait to go back.

Could you benefit from taking yourself or your staff outside of their comfort zone to achieve even greater things?

Contact Ollie and Optimist Performance and let us tailor a session to your needs.

The post Eying the beast in Nepal appeared first on Optimist Performance.

Well first, as I said in my most recent City AM article at the end of November, the northern hemisphere nations didn’t do themselves any harm at all. Ireland and Wales won all four matches, England claimed three out of four and Scotland had two victories. All very encouraging.

Second, England’s head coach Eddie Jones survived a pressure cooker coming into the month. He also unearthed some real gems along the way and added squad depth, even if some of it seemed to happen a little by accident.

Sam Underhill, Mark Wilson and Tom Curry were outstanding in the back row. Kyle Sinckler and Ben Moon excelled in the front row. And how emphatically did Joe Cokanasiga announce himself on the international stage?! It’s a big call, and let me know if you disagree @OlliePhillips11, but I can’t remember anyone looking more physically impressive on debut since Lomu. He played so well in his first few games that he’s arguably now in contention for a regular starting place on the wing. He is so dangerous and adds an extra dimension for England.

From half time in the the Japan match England seemed to grow in stature and show their attacking credentials.

The most valuable factor for me, though, was Owen Farrell’s move to fly-half and his combination with Henry Slade. If that axis can develop in 2019 they can be really dangerous.

Coming into the Australia game, I made the point that England’s next two matches could make or break their World Cup hopes. They’ve won the first one of those – against the Wallabies – but I still think that their next match in Dublin is huge for confidence.

Will they go to Japan as the best of the northern hemisphere challengers? It would be a big feather in the cap if they do.

Thanks to Michael Lynagh and check out SKRUM!

While we’re talking about Australia, I recently had the honour of hosting a Q&A with World Cup winner Michael Lynagh, one of the greatest living Wallabies. What a wonderful bloke and also what a great cause he was helping us to fundraise for. The SKRUM charity educates kids in Swaziland in Southern Africa about HIV Aids while coaching them rugby. It’s a wonderful charity led by Michael Collinson – take a look and get involved at www.skrum.org.

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I have found a lot of those messages confusing, whether they’ve been made publicly or inferred, and I still stand by everything I’ve said.

JONES PICKING ON FORM?

Jones maintains steadfastly that he picks on form but I cannot see how that is 100% the case. Alex Goode, for instance, has been a stand-out player for Saracens but hasn’t played for England in two years. Why not? He’s consistent and has every facet covered: good under the high ball, great footwork, solid kicking game, kicks goals and is flexible.

I’ve captained England and the principle of playing for your country is that you are the best in your position. If that doesn’t happen it starts to eat away at the culture you work so hard to build together and for me players will be looking at Goode – especially Saracens players – and questioning the culture.

Has he done something to annoy Jones and burnt a bridge? If not then I simply can’t see a reason for his omission. Any ideas? Let me know @OlliePhillips11

Later in the month, I reflected on Eddie’s injury-enforced changes after losing both Vunipola brothers on top of the absences of players like Robshaw, Launchbury and the retired Marler.

Don’t get me wrong – England’s squad is still strong, but I would say more by luck than design. Ben Morgan has been playing really well for Gloucester (like Danny Cipriani!) and the back row still has a lot of quality. Until he was knocked out against Australia last year, Sam Underhill was being talked about as the future and the Bath flanker is back in form.

Injuries create opportunity, and a handful of players now have a chance to stake a claim for a place in the team with a World Cup on the horizon. His hand has been forced, but Jones also has the chance to look at new faces – guys like Morgan, Underhill, Zach Mercer, Michael Rhodes, Brad Shields, Joe Cokanasiga – and it adds to the intrigue that South Africa, New Zealand, Japan and Australia won’t know them that well.

Once again, elements of selection are confusing. Chris Ashton is included; Cipriani is not. Hartley and Farrell are co-captains. Hartley is just not doing it at the moment.

There are question marks over some areas, but I’m sure Ashton will be flying, while Cokanasiga, Henry Slade and Alex Lozowski are all exciting options. It’s a squad full of players who are performing brilliantly for their clubs. If they can translate that into international form then it could prove very interesting for England and Jones.?

And then in my most recent piece I reflected on that fact that the RFU have made public the fact that they are already preparing for life after Eddie Jones.

One day, of course, Jones will step aside. It just depends whether that will be at the end of his contract in 2021 or following the 2019 World Cup. The RFU have made it clear they expect England to at least reach the semi-final of the World Cup and at the moment the pressure is on.

That the RFU are considering the future is understandable; what is interesting is Nigel Melville performing a U-turn, and the timing. Having previously stated that whoever follows Jones would need international experience, Melville has now started casting his eye over candidates in the Premiership.

Leinster and Saracens favourites for Champions Cup

Also this month I questioned who has what it takes to conquer Europe. It’s a different beast to the Premiership and Exeter for example are still to convince me. Are they capable of evolving their game again for the best in Europe.

Leinster’s best players are protected in the Pro 14 so they’re 100% ready for the Champions Cup and Saracens also peak for Europe.

I love the Champions Cup. It’s absolutely brutal – there is no place to hide and there are no whipping boys. Who do you think will win it this year? Let me know @OlliePhillips11

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Leicester are struggling a bit, Pat Lam’s Bristol could easily finish top half of the table and I’m still flummoxed by the ‘Cipriani Affair’. Danny featured in this article and my next and I just don’t understand the rationale for leaving him out of the England squad if, as Eddie Jones has said, the decision is based purely on the rugby.

All I can say is, Jones must be extremely confident in his back three options – especially at 15 – if he’s happy to overlook Cipriani in addition to the perpetual and baffling snub of Alex Goode, who continues to shine in arguably the best team in the division.

Where do you stand on the tackle law?

A little later in the month refereeing, and one decision in particular, prompted many of us to reflect on the laws, and mainly the tackle. One flash point came in Wasps’ win against Leicester where referee Ian Tempest went by the letter of the law and gave a red card for a high and dangerous tackle.

The tackler was taller than the player he was tackling, who was himself stooping. It was one of those where if Tempest had given a yellow nobody would have complained. On the other hand, the whole point of bringing in the new laws has been to safeguard player welfare in an area of the game that has been responsible for a lot of concussions. And you have to say that the instances of concussions are probably going down. It’s a hot topic of debate – let me know what you think on twitter @olliephillips11.

More to Marler retirement than we think?

The important issue of player welfare played into my final piece of September, which was a reflection on the international retirement of a great prop and a great bloke, Joe Marler.

I was forced to retire through injury [link to that blog] and walking away from any part of the game is daunting. I tip my hat to Joe for making a strong decision and wanting to spend more time with his family. You certainly don’t get that time back, as I’m find myself with a daughter and a busy day job. But I do think that the timing is strange a year out from a World Cup and there’s a nagging sense in the back of my mind that perhaps the England camp and team culture isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Only time, and results, will tell.

The post Reflections on a month of rugby decision-making appeared first on Optimist Performance.

Watching the FIFA World Cup blew me away in a couple of ways. Firstly, it broke down some major stereotypes and concerns that millions, if not billions, of people had about Russia and the Russian people. And closer to home, having missed out on playing in a rugby sevens world cup in Moscow five years ago, and then also the Olympics through injury, it brought flooding back memories of calling time on my professional career.

Seeing players like Tim Cahill of Australia or Russia’s Sergey Ignashevich still out there playing on soccer’s biggest stage at 38 was remarkable. Hearing the commentators talking about their ‘career twilights’ got me thinking back to my own retirement and all of the thoughts and doubts it brought.

Retiring from professional sport is a difficult time and something that I and all of my rugby-playing pals have or will have to go through at some stage.

Obviously there’s an inevitability about it and you only hope when you’re still playing that the decision can be yours, as it was with Joe Marler recently, and not a doctor’s.

I was lucky in that I had a long and very fulfilling career, playing 15s for clubs in two countries and sevens for England literally all around the world, but eventually you’re left with the cold realisation that the clock is ticking and a new chapter is looming. And that’s when you start to realise what your sport has meant to you, how it’s come to define you and how big the void is that it leaves. That void is made up of many different things: time, mental energy, physical discipline, teamwork, stress, elation, camaraderie and income to name but a few. So you ask yourself how you move on, where your next challenge is coming from.

For me the Clipper Round the World Race, which recently reached its climax for a 10th time, presented itself as a huge opportunity to jump totally outside of my rugby comfort zone, do something amazing, meet new people and finally escape James Haskell!

I first learnt about the Clipper race when I met the founder of the business Sir Robin Knox-Johnson at the London 7s. Sir Robin is an avid rugby fan and delights in all of the game’s many pleasures, none more so than telling me how good Irish rugby is in comparison to English… He’s not far wrong at the moment, but don’t tell him I said that! He had told me about the Clipper Race and how it was one of the last adventures left on the planet and that anyone could do it.

“More people have submitted Everest than have sailed around the world,” he would often delight in telling me.

He mentioned that if I ever wanted to do it, I should give him a call and he would try to make it happen. Injury had hit and my future was uncertain on a rugby field and so I thought ‘Why not?’

So to cut a long story short, I did my research, signed up and went through several stages in the build-up: from extreme anxiety, nausea and sleepless nights to a feeling of sheer and utter excitement once I’d met the rest of the team, to the point where I was a nightmare to live with. And joining that Great Britain team is one of the best decisions I ever made.

Standing as captain behind your try line at Twickenham, a score down with a minute to play and your teammates looking to you for inspiration is tough. But it’s nothing compared with being out on the southern ocean in a 70-foot yacht, being tossed around by 120-foot waves, and looking across at the rest of the crew, wondering how you’re going to get through it together, and then working through it to literally steady the ship, stay the course, keep going and pass a pod of 40 whales not long afterwards who seemed to warmly congratulate us.

You learn a lot out there about the people you’re with and the team you’re in but you learn just as much about yourself, and those 40,000 miles of open water took me on a massive journey of emotional and mental endurance. I was hugely proud to become second-in-command on the Team Great Britain boat and drew so much strength and learnt so many lessons that I brought home with me.

To this day, five years on, that 11-month sea voyage is still the most life-changing time of all my challenges and the one that I use most as a mental compass point as I navigate my way now. It’s also helped me plan all the rest of my team challenges since then to make sure that everyone who comes out with me has the best time and gets the most possible out of each and every trip.

Find out how your business could benefit from hearing more of Ollie’s inspirational stories, and applying them to life now as a Blue Chip business Director. Get in touch now!

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