The Three R's: Reinvention, Resilience and Relationships
I spoke with former Olympian Abdul Buhari about the importance of reinvention, resilience, and relationships in his journey from elite athletics into industry.
Abdul is a Relationship Manager at Credit Suisse Private Bank and covers HNWI and UHNWIs. He has represented Great Britain at the Olympics, World Championships and European Championships and has served as a Board Member on the British Athletes Commission & the UK Athletes’ Commission.
Abdul also co-founded the Athletes’ Alumni, a collaboration between UK Athletics, the Home Country Athletics Federations and the UKA Athletes’ Comission. Athletes’ Alumni is a framework ‘by athletes, for athletes’ that provides a space for Olympians and Paralympians from 2008 onwards to network with past and present sportspeople in athletics while navigating the challenging transition to a life after elite sports.
📺 Watch our full interview here:
🎧 Listen to our interview here:
✨ Reinvention
Abdul knows all too well the difficulties of forging a successful career, having done it more than once.
He spoke candidly about the challenges of transitioning from a career as an elite athlete, into industry:
In industry, you don't have as much control as you'd like. You do have control in terms of your career; however you have to be seen and you've always got to shout about how good you are. In sport, you don't need to shout about how good you are, you just perform, and everybody sees it and then you get rewarded. I definitely struggled shouting about how good l was in my industry.
BTI was initially aimed at those starting out on their journeys, however there are plenty of individuals, like Abdul, pivoting their careers and reinventing themselves.
…you're having to work your way back up again; whereas you've come from a sport where you're already at the top. In industry you're not going to be at the top because you just don't know enough yet, you haven't had the experience, you haven't had to deal with the pitfalls, the disappointments and so you have to earn your stripes.
It takes humility and resilience.
💪 Resilience
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity. You’re bound to face this often in your career.
We’ve talked a lot about failure and setbacks.
Abdul experienced this very early on in his career:
There was an injury, I think I mentioned in our podcast, where I tore both abductors, probably the scariest period of my life. I was just in bits. I literally couldn’t walk. I remember being sat on the bed in hospital in London and they just said, look, you're never going to throw again, because once this is fixed, you just can't withstand the amount of force that your body needs to apply to throwing discus a long way, and that was very early on in my career.
Disappointments are just perfectly normal, and to some degree, I would argue that the only way to learn and develop and grow is to have disappointments.
Abdul used a great analogy to describe this process:
It's like going to the gym, right. If I went to the gym and I trained and I didn't increase the weight or my body wasn't sore, it's very difficult for my body to grow by just biology. In order for muscles to grow, they need to tear, repair and grow. It's the same principle in in life and in sport and in an industry. In order to grow, you're going to have to knocked back. That knockback you can use to learn and then improve and then grow and get stronger.
It takes time, strength, and support from others.
🌐 Relationships
In Build The Invisible I quote football agent, Matt Kleinman, who said ‘your network is your net worth’.
He couldn’t be more right.
Relationships are probably easier to make and harder to maintain
As Abdul said, strong, genuine relationships require attention, and the goal is to maintain and strengthen them over time.
Talk less.
Listen more… and well.
Remembering the little details goes a long way.
My earlier chat with Ehsen Shah compounds this same idea.
Having regular phone calls and emails, checking in calls to see if people are okay, how the family is, demonstrates you are building a relationship.
By continuing doing those good habits, you'll be able to maintain those relationships.
I talk in detail about creating connections in Chapter 4 of Build the Invisible, Deepening and scaling relationships.
So, to sum up, when you’re inevitably faced with adversity, reflect on what went wrong, create a plan to move forward and take advantage of the resources and network you’ve built up around you.
And track your progress in the BTI Journal!
New content from me:
Recently I had the pleasure of chatting with Neil Meredith and the wider Battenhall team in the first of their new series of talks: Battenhall Industry Experts 💡
We talked about my route into football, from my first blog to my first football club takeover, and my new book ⚽
📚 Order Build The Invisible here:
