AUTHOR, SPEAKER, PODCAST HOST, PRODUCTIVITY COACH
Adam is an Ultra High Achiever, Personal Productivity Authority, Entrepreneur, International Speaker, and Founder of ‘The Game Changers Experience’. He currently runs two different businesses and enjoys working with business owners and entrepreneurs of small to medium-sized companies.
Adam is also Former Elite Athlete that trained with Olympic and World Champion Sir Mo Farah for three years. Adam takes the same skill set that he learned as an elite athlete to teach his clients how to create high performance, increased productivity, and growth. He is the author of two books ‘Move it or Lose it’ and ‘Fit body Fit Business’. Both written for business owners and teams that want their businesses to excel and to accelerate faster, quicker, and become more focused.
He has a podcast show called ‘The Game Changers Experience’ sharing tips and insights with other entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and sports celebrities. Entwining elite sport with entrepreneurship. He is hugely passionate about helping his clients in growing and scaling their businesses in a fast and strategic way. Tying that with helping people he believes is a great catalyst for creating results and success in life.
Adam is champion for supporting women and became the ‘Best Man’ for supporting women in business 2016. He has been featured the front cover of ‘Global Man’ magazine,
BBC radio, the Huffington post, and in People Management magazine just to mention a few. He has interviewed influencers and thought leaders such as Jack Canfield, Dr. John Demartini, Chester Elton, Olympic athletes such as Neil Fachie, Jonathan Horton, and Kate Strong. He has shared the stage with celebrities such as John Travolta, Vanilla Ice, Calvin Klein, 50 Cent, and Dr. Nido Qubein.
IPM: As a former Elite Athlete that trained with Mo Farah for 3 years, what made you decide to retire and start your own business teaching clients how to create high-performance work cultures?
Adam: There comes a time when you have to start making some serious choices when you’re an athlete. Should I go all-in with my athletics career or do I get educated to start a working career? I came from a family that didn’t particularly have a large amount of wealth, it was my mum, my younger brother and I at the time and we lived off the state. My mum did her best looking after two young boys, things were tight and at Christmas time we would share our main present because my mum simply could not afford it. My journey as an entrepreneur started just before my athletics career at the age of 11. It was a tough period of my life because growing up, as a child was hard, the year before I lost my hair to alopecia, which is a common form of hair loss due to stress and worry. One day as I was out walking in my local nature reserve something caught my eye there were golf balls in the streams and rivers lost from golfers playing a game of golf. This gave me an idea! I saw an opportunity to help my mum out so the next day I went back with a bucket to start collecting golf balls. I got into the rivers and forged through the long grass looking for balls. As I was walking around the perimeter of the fairway, golfers would approach me. They were intrigued; an 11-year-old boy was on his own holding a bucket? As they approached they would see me with my collection of golf balls, they asked me where I had got all the golf balls, and I would tell them I was rescuing lost golf balls from the streams and bushes. They would go on and tell me how they were low on balls and worried they didn’t have enough to complete their game. They then asked me if I would be interested in selling my balls. “Of course, I replied”. I learned quickly that golfers were looking for two things. One is the golf ball in prestige condition and two, brands. I knew that a Dunlop, Nike, or Slazenger golf ball would fetch a far higher price compared to your standard ones. This is where I started learning sales and negotiation. I knew some balls would cost up to 10-12 pounds each. They would offer me a price; I would haggle for a higher one and we would meet somewhere in the middle. Every time, we both walked away with smiles on our faces making it a win-win for both of us. When I went home my mum would ask me where I got all this money from, I told her and gave her a contribution towards groceries out of my earnings every time I went out to collect golf balls. At that very same age of eleven, I got into distance running which at the time I was an asthma sufferer. Now you’re properly thinking why an asthma sufferer would take up distance running? On top of that, I was bullied at school I wore a cap because I was so ashamed about the way I looked, I did not like people judging me. I was low in self-esteem and confidence. Sick and tired of being made to feel like a black sheep. As I embarked on my athletics journey, I wasn’t bad, I was terrible. I couldn’t run 100 meters without having breathing difficulties. I started to cast doubt over my decision to start athletics, but I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Nine months in and my persistence had started to pay off, my asthma had completely disappeared, and my times were getting faster. This is where I met two special people. The first was my coach ‘Alex McGee’ who had a lot of success back in the day; he turned normal people into champions. And second, my training partner Mo Farah who is now the current World and Olympic champion in 5 and 10,000 meters. Mo immigrated to the UK from Somali with very little English. He also suffered from low confidence, so we had something in common. We trained on Tuesday and Thursday evenings on the back of the boggy field, developing our competitive nature and motivating each other. Through my success as an athlete, I had developed some key attributes and skills that I now use in the entrepreneur world. IPM: How did you generate your idea or concept for your business? Adam: From my athletics career, I transitioned into sports performance coaching which was a natural fit for me. I loved helping people prepare for big sports events, from injury prevention to overcoming their limiting beliefs. After working with hundreds of clients over the years on a one to one basis I felt something was missing. Although I loved working one to one, I was destined to create an impact on a bigger scale. There I started my journey into personal development and self-discovery. I became a sponge attending personal development seminars and events to help me find clarity. After 18 months, I discovered a common pattern, most speakers would teach content and pressure to sell you at the end. In which I was not a fan because I didn’t feel I received enough value. I did what most entrepreneurs do, try to figure it out myself and go slow. This made me lost and confused with information overload. I could not understand why I wasn’t getting the results I wanted. I needed a breakthrough and some help, but I suffered from exostosis, I’m not worthy, I don’t have money, I don’t have time. I needed to make some different choices in my life, I said to myself I could stay where I am, or move forwards. I chose the latter, and this is where I met my first real business coach. He helped me demystify everything by identifying the skills I had developed from the elite sport in helping business owners achieve faster results in their business.
IPM: What was your key driving force to start your business helping other businesses increase their productivity?
Adam: My main key driving force in starting a business was to create a business that would give me the freedom to do what I want, with whom I want, and when I want to do it. From a background of elite sport, I had developed key habits and skills that helped me become a successful athlete such as self-discipline, time management skills, and creating a bulletproof mindset. These skills and attributes can easily be used in the entrepreneurial world to fast track success both in your personal and business life. On an authentic level, I enjoy helping people create momentum and to provide them with a blueprint to achieve success in both their business and life.
IPM: What attributed to your success?
Adam: From a young age, I developed the ability to become mentally tough. Your mind is the foundation of success; I decided to take full responsibility and to stop blaming others for my circumstances. As soon as I did, I moved forwards. I’ve realized that becoming successful is a marathon and not a sprint. Clarity was a real sticking point for me as for most entrepreneurial-based business owners however, I found by aligning my values and living by them every day, you attract what you truly want in life and then opportunities begin to appear.
IPM: What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
Adam: Whether you’re just going into entrepreneurship or have been an entrepreneur for years it’s not for everyone. It’s hard work and can be lonely running a business; I know this because I’ve experienced this for years. The three skills I would highly recommend you master is :
1. Become an expert at building strong and meaningful relationships. If you want to do business with others and attract new clients/ customers, you have to build trust and credibility. Find out what’s important to them, add value, and help them achieve their goals and desires.
2. To develop a results-orientated mindset using positive self-talk, visualization, and a powerful why.
3. To develop the habit of self-discipline enabling you to achieve faster and quicker results maximizing efficiency and productivity.
IPM: What entrepreneurial tricks have you discovered to keep our readers focused and productive in their day-to-day busy schedule?
Adam: As there are many, I’ve listed my top 10-entrepreneurial tricks:
1) Complete 10 things before 10 am
2) Plan the evening before
3) Block your day into 30-minute segments
4) Exercise at least three times a week
5) Focus on one thing at a time
6) Read, watch, listen or do an activity for at least one hour on improving yourself
7) Create a stop doing list
8) Turn our passions into something you can scale
9) Accept that perfectionism doesn’t exist
10) Start a gratitude journal
IPM: What key activities would you recommend entrepreneurs invest their time in?
Adam: Success leaves clues when I interviewed some of the top influencers and industry experts such as the likes of Jack Canfield, Dr. John Demartini, and Bob Burg they followed the same common patterns to create their success, which is to learn new skills and sharpen your ax daily. I’m not a keen reader however, I make that up by listening to podcasts or watching YouTube videos. My coaches and mentors taught me that if you want success, then you need to associate and rub shoulders with people that are more successful than you. You become the five most common people you hang around with. Lastly, is to focus on your strengths and delegate your weakness. I see business owners and entrepreneurs’ making the same mistakes over and over again. They wear too many different hats because they feel it’s easier and quicker to do it themselves. This comes down to understanding your value. Why, would you spend hours trying to figure out how to design a logo when you can find an expert for less than £50 to do the same job that looks better?
IPM: Did you experience failures? if so, what did you learn from them?
Adam: I’ve experienced more failures than I have successes. When I started athletics with Asthma, I could barely run one hundred meters without gasping for air. There was an endless amount of times that I had thought of giving up because I felt I wasn’t good enough. I kept on comparing myself to others and it always bothered me what others thought about me. This is the same for society today. For me I discovered, I had a fear of rejection. At a younger age, I was bullied, this affected my confidence and self-worth. As I progressed as an athlete, those fears started to diminish because athletics became my safety net. These negative thought patterns were just distractions holding me back from my true potential. It was not until the age of 16 when I had developed the confidence to take my cap off permanently and to focus on my strengths and not my weakness. During my entrepreneurial career, I am starting a new food delivery company called ‘Nourish Food Club’. The concept was to provide busy parents with pre-packed healthy snacks through a subscription model. As a parent, I became frustrated with the lack of healthy snacks that were priced well and nutritionally complete for toddlers in Scandinavia. I frequently travel to the UK and I would often bring back these snacks for my toddler. The concept looked good on paper but in reality, was an epic failure. It was completely out of my comfort zone. I learned to never start a new business without making my main business more streamlined and solid first. That way I could have given the dedicated time needed to make it work. I should have sought out a mentor specializing in the space to allow me to understand what I was getting myself into too. This would have saved me valuable time.
IFM: What drives you to keep going when times get tough?
Adam: I’ve been an entrepreneur since the age of eleven; I choose a different path to how society has taught us. School taught me to get good grades, go to university, and go find a good-paying job, you’ve properly heard the same? To me, I live and breathe what I do, If I could not do what I do, I wouldn’t be the same person. I’ve ridden the entrepreneurial roller coaster more times than most, it’s no difference to my athletic career. I’ve come to learn I must become adaptable and agile. Let’s take the global pandemic, whilst most entrepreneurs are still struggling to adapt, I decided to take full responsibility and change the way my business worked by working more virtually. For most that know me, I make decisions quickly and take action fast. These are the same values that I teach my clients if they choose to get the same desired results.
IPM: What was the most important part of your entire business journey?
Adam: It is to be yourself and not what others want you to be. You’ve properly heard the saying fake until you make it? Well, I don’t believe that. I believe in focusing on your passions, monetizing what you love, and making an impact on a massive scale. If I could take anything from my business journey, it is to get a coach that can help you get there quicker, don’t waste valuable time because in the long term it will cost you more.
IPM: Do you have a message that you would like to share with our readers?
Adam: As you know I’ve been an entrepreneur for over 28 years. In that time I’ve witnessed and been part of the entrepreneurial community that has gone through world recessions, property crashes, and now a global pandemic, which is impacting people’s health, livelihoods, industries, and economies around the world. One thing I’ve learned is how mentally tough and resilient we have become. However, this pandemic has created fear and uncertainty paralyzing our ability to move forwards. In challenging times, we must take responsibility, come together, and lean in. The best way to overcome fear is to take fast action. If you find it difficult to create momentum feel free to reach out and I’ll be happy to make some suggestions.
IPM: Thank you so much, Adam, for taking the time and for the wonderful interview you have given us, we have learned so much from you.
https://adamstrong.net/ Adam Strong
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The Game Changers Experience are deep dive conversations with some of the leading business disruptors, Olympic athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, influencers, and movers and shakers from around the world. You will learn insights about the winning principals in mindset, productivity, marketing, branding, entrepreneurship, business strategy, and more. Entwining elite sports with entrepreneurship. The show is hosted by Ultra-High Personal Productivity Authority, Business Strategist, Former Elite Athlete, Author, and Public Speaker Adam Strong.
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