I’ve just had the most amazing call with my business mentor, Simon Chaplin (www.SocksUpSimon.com) – but then every call with him is like that at some level.

I don’t know about you, but now that the Olympics and my holidays are over, I’ve been feeling a little bit lost: directionless, unmotivated, wondering if I’m going in the right direction, worried about business cashflow, and a whole load more – all very low energy thoughts and emotions. All that changed after my call with Simon this morning.

It doesn’t matter how good you are at something, and I know I’m very good at helping people have a higher level of Emotional Intelligence, we all need outside input from other people to help us get a sense of perspective and help us clarify our thinking – right now I have mentors/coaches to help me with my business, my diet and nutrition, and my physical health. I’m fortunate that I learned early on to surround myself with great coaches and mentors in different fields. After all, if Usain Bolt, Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah, and a whole host of other Olympians/ Para-olympians have coaches and mentors, don’t we ordinary mortals need them even more? If the best in the field can perform even better with the help of their coaches/mentors, then how much can you improve what you do with the right people helping you? The right people helping you are worth far more than the fee you may exchange with them for their expertise.

I call my team of experts my Power Team, because they help me become more powerful at what I do.

Who are the people in your Power Team? Do you have any at all? If not, how much are you being held back in business and in life because you only learn from your own mistakes? A Power Team of experts around you will save you years of struggle, disappointment and despair. How many years do you have to waste? If you don’t have anyone yet and are thinking ‘I can’t afford to have one’, my question is can you really afford NOT to have one? You don’t need to have a team right off the bat, just start with one as I did, it really is so much better than none.

People often wonder what the difference is between a coach and a mentor. There are official definitions, I prefer this informal one: a coach is someone who has the skills to help you become better at what you do but not necessarily have excelled at that thing themselves; a mentor is someone who has already achieved what you want to achieve and can guide you from personal experience.

So why would someone have a coach if the coach hasn’t already done what they are helping you to do? Let’s use one of the athletes as an example:

Usain Bolt has several coaches, for the physical aspect of sprinting and for the mental aspect as well. They help him with technique and strategy. They haven’t broken the 100m world record themselves, but they can still help him, as they have proven. Usain is at the top of his field, but he could have someone as a mentor who has broken a world record in another athletics discipline. In the case of Yohan Blake, silver medallist in the Olympic 100m final, he could have Usain Bolt as his mentor because Usain has ‘been there and done it’.

I personally believe both a coach and a mentor have a role to play in your success. Who will you start with in your Power Team?

If you would like to explore how I may help you, contact me through the website at https://sanjayshah.tv//contact-us/ .

Go on, build a team.

PS. My next Emotional Power Live course is on Saturday 29 September in Birmingham. www.sanjayshah.tv/events . The first 10 tickets are available at a 50% discount, so hurry and book before you miss out on those!