Paul Stallard’s Post

In just 3 weeks, I'll be lacing up my gloves for my first-ever boxing match at the #VictoryGala in support of Pinball Foundation. As I enter the home stretch in training for this thrilling challenge, I have been thinking of parallels to the Communications industry and what I've learned over 25 years: 🥊 Courage & Initiative: Boxing is often referred to as "the loneliest sport" because there are no teammates inside the ropes with you. There are no timeouts and you can't come off for a shift. In the corporate world, being a spokesperson is similarly lonely. You don't get to call timeout during a media scrum to check your notes or confer with your colleagues. You must exude confidence and decisiveness to deliver your message (either with words or fists) 💪 Resilience & Adaptability: As Mike Tyson famously said "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." How will you respond? In crisis communications and issues management, where situations are fluid, you need a similar mindset and ability to both anticipate and react in real time. Staying calm under pressure is the key to success inside and outside the ring. 🚀 Continuous Improvement: Commit to training regularly, focus on incremental gains, and temper your desire for immediate results. Consistency will win in the long run, so do hard work on your own to get stronger, hit harder, write with more clarity, and to see your messaging stick. 🎯 Strategic Thinking: One of the most interesting and enjoyable aspects of boxing for me has been the strategy. How does my opponent react when I throw a certain punch? How can I move them around the ring into the optimal position for my purposes? How can I take advantage of their strengths and weaknesses in the moment? All good communications start with similar thinking. What is the one thing I need my audience to walk away with? How will they react to this phrasing? What do I need to get my target into position to receive the knockout message? 🌟 Uniting for a Common Goal: No good communication is written, reviewed, and edited by one person. Subject matter experts provide details and other colleagues review. The most effective communications work with the intended audience to educate and advise. Similarly, this fight is a team effort. Not just for us as participants (although I have to shout out Toronto's best boxing trainer, Mayron at www.favelatc.com, as well as my family for being so accommodating of my changing schedule to fit in workouts) but together as a community. Everyone participating in the Victory Gala is working hard to raise money for a cause and for young people in whom we have complete confidence. Our communities are donating funds to help these amazing leaders move from the margins to the mainstream and together we can make a real difference through the work of the Pinball Foundation. Any donation, big or small, will help change lives: https://lnkd.in/gE4gKKd5 🥊 📣 🥊 📣

After 5+ years of boxing training, boxing and consulting actually have a lot in common than I thought. These are the 3 boxing lessons learned that are transferrable to consulting: #1 Look For Incoming Punches 🥊 In a 1v1 fight, I learned to predict what punches the opponent would throw. This is to select countermoves to win points and escape safely. To do just that in less than a second under high pressure, I must train and excel at boxing moves and study the opponent. 👨💼 In consultation, punches are like clients' questions and answers are like countermoves. To do well, I learned to not only truly understand client business, but also know my materials. A dry-run session with internal team members is a good practice to prepare for punches, countermoves, and toolboxes. #2 Train Just Enough 🥊 Running 10 km is crucial for boxing stamina. But running 10 km every day is a bad decision. I did that, and the outcome was injury. The training had to stop for weeks. This has made me set a realistic boxing schedule. 👨💼 The same goes for consulting. I cannot do 10 projects at the same time. I would lack sleep, accumulate stress, and at worst deliver poor results. I've built skills to manage my working schedule just right to my ability and leave room to grow. #3 Record Myself 🥊 More often than not, I do not box the way I think I box. I was sloppy in my punches; I was reckless with my defense; and my footwork was slow. Watching videos of myself training boxing was embarrassing. But this is the fastest way I got better at boxing. 👨💼 I learned to ask for feedback from my manager. How did I do on my presentation? Is there any suggestion you would recommend? Most importantly, I learned to listen to feedback without ego. Just listen. And accept their perspectives to improve my consulting skills in the future.

🔅🥊 From Boxing Gloves to Boardrooms – My Journey as a Self-Employed Professional 🥊🔅 For the past six years, I’ve had the privilege of balancing two amazing careers: working as an L&D Consultant, helping managers be the best they can be, and running a successful female-specific boxing coaching business. It all started in a boxing gym in St Neots, where I trained. I used to compete in martial arts for many years while living in Prague so this made the transition into boxing training a natural step. My head coach recognised my potential and encouraged me to become a boxing coach. Over time, I: ✅ Qualified as an England Boxing Coach, L3 Personal Trainer, and Running Leader. ✅ Coached junior boxers, adults, and started Ladies’ boxing bootcamps, creating a space for women to train and thrive in an authentic boxing gym with rings and bags. The business flourished, and I loved every moment of coaching women to embrace their strength and confidence. However, as my L&D consultancy work grew, I found it harder to give both ventures the time and energy they deserved. In September, I passed the torch to my brilliant coach, Steph, who is now making the business her own. 💡 My takeaway? Be open-minded. Be brave. Be playful. Sometimes, saying yes to unexpected opportunities can lead to incredible growth, new passions, and even successful businesses. Life constantly evolves, and we grow by trying new things. Now, I’m fully focused on helping managers unlock their potential through L&D, but the lessons I learned in the ring will always stay with me. 🔗 What’s a time when you tried something new and it led to something incredible? Let’s inspire each other. 🌿 #LearningAndDevelopment #BoxingJourney #SelfEmployment #BeBrave #TrySomethingNew #GrowthMindset

When Boxing Meets Consulting (3 Mental Models From 5+ Years Boxing That Strengthens My Consulting Career) In 2019, I started boxing. I initially treated boxing as a hobby, just to exercise and keep my weight at the recommended BMI. But as of this writing, I'm surprised I've been training boxing consistently for more than 5 years now. Even more surprised, on 30th August 2024, I was daring enough to fight an official first boxing match at a light heavyweight division (80 kg), with a referee who monitored my behavior inside the ring, an MC who announced my name, audiences who cheered me to the top of their lungs, and most importantly the opponent who intended to hurt me. Now, boxing is no longer a hobby. I was dead wrong thinking, boxing was just punching left and right hands. Boxing is a way of thinking. And I've been wearing this boxing lens and seeing the world from an angle different from my previous self. Here are 3 samples of how boxing's point of view enhances my personal development, maintains my well-being, and instills a growth mindset, amid my consulting career journey. #1 Anticipate incoming punches and respond strategically, but master the craft first. 🥊 In a 1v1 fight, I learned to predict what punches the opponent would throw. This is to select countermoves to win points and escape safely. To do just that in less than a second under high pressure, I must train and excel at boxing moves and study the opponent. 👨💼 In consultation, punches are like clients' questions and answers are like countermoves. To do well, I learned to not only truly understand client business, but also know my materials. A dry-run session with internal team members is a good practice to prepare for punches, countermoves, and toolboxes. #2 Train just a little bit more than what my body can withstand - too tight schedule backfires. 🥊 Running 10 km is crucial for boxing stamina. But running 10 km every day is a bad decision. I did that, and the outcome was injury. The training had to stop for weeks. This has made me set a realistic boxing schedule. 👨💼 The same goes for consulting. I cannot do 10 projects at the same time. I would lack sleep, accumulate stress, and at worst deliver poor results. I've built skills to manage my working schedule just right to my ability and leave room to grow. #3 Face the hard truth about myself to get better, by painfully watching a record of my performance. 🥊 Watching videos of myself training boxing was embarrassing. I was sloppy in my punches; I was reckless with my defense; and my footwork was slow. But this is the fastest way I got better at boxing. 👨💼 I learned to ask for feedback from my manager. How did I do on my presentation? Is there any suggestion you would recommend? Most importantly, I learned to listen to feedback without ego. Just listen. And accept their perspectives to improve my consulting skills in the future.

What I learned from sparring with Victor Ortiz: First off, if you've spoken to me for more than 3 seconds this year you've heard me mention that I've picked up boxing as a hobby. What started as a way to replace my old passion, rugby, has evolved into its own unique chapter in my life. Last week I found myself sparring with a former world champion boxer and had to reflect how those 3 minutes related to the greater aspects of my life. 1) My network: The only reason this is possible is because of WHO I know. I started taking a boxing cardio class back in March '23 just to stay in shape, fast forward to today the coach of that class is someone who I hang out with outside of boxing and legitimately consider a friend. Before he was my boxing coach do you want to guess what his career was? He was a former professional boxer and world champion in his own right. One of my goals in 2023 was to be intentional about who I began to associate with in this new chapter in my life, and wouldn't you know associating with successful people leads to being able to hang out with other success people. 2) Growth is outside your comfort zone: Victor is a former world champion boxer in multiple weight classes, and I've sold software and digital advertising solutions for the better part of a decade. He's been in the ring with Floyd Mayweather, I've hit "Closed Won" in Salesforce for some pretty prominent brands...in terms of boxing he and I are not even in the same universe. What I can tell you is I learned more about boxing (and myself) in those 3 minutes with him than I have from multiple rounds over the past year with people on a similar level as me. As I've said before, like most things once it was over it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Whether you're scared, intimidated, or nervous at the end of the day just doing the thing and getting started will help you more than anything else. 3) There are levels: For me nothing is more inspiring than seeing someone who is true master in their field operate up close. It really puts in perspective whats possible when you dedicate your energy to a specific goal and commit to improving everyday. For most of the 3 minutes in that round I found myself thinking and trying things that I hoped would make an impact. He on the other hand spent most of the round cracking jokes to keep himself entertained but also giving me direct feedback and coaching. So what was somewhat of a daunting challenge to me was essentially a day at the park for him. Because of that I left with a new appreciation for what is possible for myself and how much more effort I need to put in to even get close to that level. At the same time if I look at my career, the version of myself that was fresh out of college and picking up the pieces after a failed business would probably look at present day me like how I looked at Victor Ortiz. TL;DR -Invest in leveling up your network -Get outside your comfort zone -Just do it

ARE you Time BLOCKING or Time BOXING? One is an allocation and one is a constraint ... "Hey, Coach Mel, I hear people using Time Blocking and Time Boxing are they the same thing?" Glad you asked, they are often confused as being synonymous, and sometimes people will just throw one of the words to cover any base...😆 BUT... there's an important difference! Time Blocking asks you to set aside certain chunks of time. To focus on a given task or activity. For example, "I will work on a first draft of my book/offer/content, from 9am to 11 am tomorrow." Time Boxing is a constraint!! You limit how much time you'll dedicate to a specific task. #ClubOfDone is more a Time Boxing space - we have an hour, and in that hour we will do X... can we do it? Here's a Time Boxed version of the same Time Blocking example above: "I will finish a first draft of my offer tomorrow between 9am and 11am." You could easily say I will finish the draft of my offer in the hour of #ClubOfDone ... do you see that you would likely get it done quicker? I use Time Blocking to shape my day, week, month, quarter, year and Time Boxing to get things done. Done faster. You can Time BOX within a Time Block ... that's fun! This self-imposed "time box" forces you to work efficiently because you have a limited amount of time in which to complete the task. It can be a fun way to challenge yourself and gamify your productivity. When you start to see time in different ways you can start creating time, and everything else - clarity, productivity, wellness, joy - is downstream of that. like I say, "life is a brief shot at something incredible, make time for it!" What are are Time Blocking or Time Boxing right now ... ? Let me know .. Coach Mel #CreateTime #productivity #openloopfatigue #takebackyourlife #YouCreateYourLife

Coach Bolt was designed to revolutionize the boxing industry, offering training that adapts to each fighter's individual strengths and weaknesses. In a sport where every millisecond counts, this level of precision could be the game-changer #CoachBolt #AIBoxingMaestro #2IMMERSIVE4U.

🥊 Starting boxing for the first time comes with its share of physical and mental challenges, but it's also incredibly rewarding. Here's a breakdown of the common hurdles and how to conquer them: 1. **Physical Conditioning**: Boxing requires strength, endurance, and agility. Even a few rounds of shadowboxing can leave you drained initially. Consistent training and incorporating cardio, strength, and flexibility exercises into your routine will help build stamina and strength over time. 2. **Learning Technique**: The intricacies of boxing techniques may seem overwhelming at first. Take your time to learn the basics correctly. Focus on one aspect at a time, practice consistently, and seek guidance from your coach for feedback and improvement. 3. **Mental Toughness**: Boxing goes beyond physical ability; it requires mental resilience. Fear of being hit, pressure to perform, and slow progress can be challenging. Develop mental toughness through visualization, setting goals, and embracing setbacks as opportunities for growth. 4. **Overcoming Nervousness**: Stepping into the ring can be intimidating. Use nervous energy as motivation, channeling it into your performance. Trust in your training and remember that everyone starts as a beginner. Confidence grows with practice and experience. 5. **Finding Balance**: Balancing aggression and control is essential in boxing. Practice controlled aggression and maintain technique even under pressure. Learning to stay composed is key to success in the ring. Starting boxing is tough but rewarding. Stay dedicated, keep striving for improvement, and never underestimate the power of perseverance. With time, patience, and hard work, you'll overcome challenges and emerge stronger, both inside and outside the ring. Keep punching! 🥊💪 #BoxingJourney #NeverGiveUp

Small business diary with Duffy Boxing: Conditioning your business