Since I retired from rugby I’ve been involved in some life-changing challenges which have continued to teach me about leadership, team-building and managing change in adversity. As a Director at PWC, I’ve also learnt how powerful these things can be in the world of business so I set up Optimist Performance to impart that same knowledge in the areas of Teamwork, Leadership, Resilience and Change to help businesses & teams exceed their potential.

This website is also the best place to find out about my latest adventure tours – for example I’m climbing Mount Everest this April – and my broadcasting work.

Whether it’s been captaining England in New Zealand, sailing through 80-foot waves, cycling across America or grappling with a new corporate lifestyle, I’ve always been one of life’s eternal optimists, so the name just seemed to work.

Creating Optimist Performance

I want to thank digital and creative agency Redwing for devising the new brand mark, which I love. Redwing were great in coming up with ideas, taking feedback on board and allowing a step-by-step process before we nailed it together, across the website and also social platforms. The compass and mountain imagery gives a strong nod to my various adventures!

Having a compass is important to me. In a literal sense it’s come in very handy hundreds of times now, but I think it’s crucial that we have a strong and conscious sense of where we’re trying to get to.

In the past couple of months I’ve done some work with an exciting sports sponsorship agency called Dark Horses. As a business they’re growing rapidly in a short space of time, which is great but also brings with it headaches. Like any company up-sizing, they’ll face inevitable challenges when it comes to retaining and nurturing the same core values and cultures they have at the heart of their team and their business, and that means navigating through some testing waters.

Hopefully by sharing some of my own experiences, applying them to my new corporate life at PWC, and also by asking them some challenging questions about how they think and behave, I’ve helped set them up to do that and I look forward to working with them some more on their journey. They certainly seem to be in a great place and hugely well equipped to move forwards.

I myself am still fully embracing my current role as Director for Real Estate & Construction at PWC. I head up a team of incredible people, all of whom know far more about it than I do. In fact, I’m often asked “Ollie, what do you know about construction?!” My answer is that I’m not here to put on a hard hat. I’m here to help them wear theirs as well as possible.

Are you facing challenges in teamwork, culture, behaviour or leadership?

Join the long list of businesses benefitting from a day with one of the most inspirational speakers and mentors in the city. Contact Ollie at Optimist Performance now!

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Optimist Performance: Tell us about Dark Horses and what you get up to

Simon Dent: We’re a sports-focused creative agency based in London for people looking to break away from the field. By that I mean the people within our four walls and also our clients. We deliver world-class creative for brands operating in sport and at the moment we’re working with Nissan, Peloton, Wiggle and Southampton FC.

We think there’s a huge opportunity out there to inject a higher level of strategic and creative thinking into the world of sports marketing. For us that goes across four key areas: the first is creative strategy and finding the unique sweet spot between a client’s brand and its audience. The second is advertising, transforming those ideas into execution. Then there’s content production, from films to blogs and everything in between, and finally sponsorship strategy, where we help brands and rights-holders make sure they’re both getting maximum benefit and value from their relationship. In an ideal world, we work for a client across all of those areas.

OP: What’s the Dark Horses ethos?

SD: We exist for those wanting to break away from the field. We’re built on the DNA of the UK’s most creative company, Lucky Generals, and our drive is to always exceed expectations. We do that by assembling incredible creative talent but also, most importantly, by applying a really strong work ethic of constantly challenging each other to do better. One of my favourite sayings is “The moment you see yourself as the favourite, you’ve lost the race”, and we try to really live that.

OP: You’re growing fast – what challenges does that present?

SD: Our culture is hugely important to us, so recruitment becomes incredibly important. Preservation of what we have built to date is my main priority and as we scale up we need to maintain and even distil that chemistry, not dilute it.

OP: You brought in Ollie to talk with your team. Why?

Ollie is a hugely impressive team player and inspirational leader who’s also making a success of himself in the world of business. He’s been in some of the toughest environments you can imagine, whether out on an international rugby field or sailing the seven seas, but beyond that he has an uncanny ability to relate everything he’s learnt, including to the work place.

Every member of our team is a leader and we want them all to feel empowered to grow quickly with us, so we’re always looking to bring in positive role models, to learn from and also to inspire and help us sense check our values and our behaviours. That becomes especially important as our numbers grow. Ollie is a great example of what can be achieved with focus, dedication and positive mindset.

OP: Would you recommend Ollie, and why?

SD: Yes. Ollie is inspirational and I would recommend him to any business looking to inspire a team and get them thinking about mindset and personal growth. He’s worked in a number of different environments, in rugby, sailing, at Cambridge or now becoming a Director at PWC, and he’s always attained ‘best in class’ status. I’m a big believer that one of the keys to survival and success in any field is the ability to adapt and evolve quickly and his continued reinvention of himself is a lesson to us all.

Are you facing challenges in teamwork, culture, behaviour or leadership?

Join the long list of businesses benefitting from a day with one of the most inspirational speakers and mentors in the city. Contact Ollie at Optimist Performance now!

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