So earlier today I got my hands on the Gold Cup.
And I found out I'd won another accolade too.
Not that I'm competitive or anything. (I am. Very. Ask anyone.)
This morning I found out that, once again, I'm ranked in the top 25 ActionCOACH business coaches globally. I'm always grateful to see my work being recognised, and I don't take it for granted.
PS, just to be clear. I've never won the Gold Cup. I don't really have the build to be a jockey.
A racing yard and a networking group
Racing has become a much bigger part of my life than I ever expected, mostly thanks to a networking group with a difference.
I'm part of a group called Front Runners Network that meets at Ravenswell Farm, home of Fergal O'Brien Racing. It's business networking, with racehorses. Yes, really. One morning we even got to meet the group's new racehorse.
I love spending time there. There's something about standing in a yard full of horses at that time of the morning that makes a networking breakfast feel a lot less like a networking breakfast.
And the more time I spend around racing, the more I think it has a lot to teach business owners.
Nobody wins on their own
In horse racing, a champion is never made by the horse or the jockey alone.
Behind every winner there's a whole team. Trainers. Vets. Stable staff. Nutritionists. Someone who has been up since before dawn every day for years. It's the collective expertise and the shared goal that make the difference on race day.
Business is exactly the same.
We all depend on a wide group of people around us. Associates, suppliers, advisers, connections, friends of friends. Each brings something we don't have, and most of them are people you've built a relationship with over time.
That's what good networking is really for: building the team behind your business that nobody else can see.
There's another thing racing gets right. A single race doesn't define a horse's career. And a single networking event doesn't define your results.
I see people go to one event, come home with nothing and decide networking doesn't work. That's like deciding racing is pointless because your horse didn't win its first outing.
What actually matters is consistency. Turning up. Learning from each meeting. Letting relationships grow at their own pace. The real value shows up months, sometimes years, later, when someone you met at a networking breakfast picks up the phone and says "I know just the person for you".
