What is our Guest Speaker Series Featuring Sports Professionals?

The LLS Guest Speaker Series is part of the encouragement we give to our students to widen their professional networking as they talk with sports professionals. We believe this is a key factor in a young person’s life as they have the opportunity to learn from the best of the best in a chosen sports industry. In the series, there is a whole range of different guests that share different pieces of advice to inspire our students. Additionally, students also have the opportunity to ask these guests questions as well as the possibility of adding them to their network.

Here are just some of the guests we have had for the series.

Garry Monk

One of our guests was Garry Monk, former premier league football player for Southampton, Barnsley and Swansea city. As well as a player, Garry Monk was also a manager for clubs: Swansea, Leeds, Middlesborough, Birmingham and Sheffield Wednesday.

During his online talk with LLS students, Monk encapsulated the importance of commitment, determination and resilience in which he described as not only for being successful in sport but for life in general.

He further explained that has always been committed as a child because of his father pushing him and increasing his determination. This then follows on to Monk referring to being consistently resilient and to “never take short cuts” because hard work pays off!

Bianca Cook

Another guest speaker we had was Bianca Cook, an Olympic medallist, World Champion and European Champion in Taekwondo who has become an ambassador for LLS. Bianca came to speak to our female students on our annual ‘Women Who Lead’ event.

The first bit of advice she gave was to “find something that you love” so you can give it 100% of effort. This was vital to our upcoming students who are maybe unsure on what they want to do or become. This links to the next piece of advice which was to be strong minded at all times as well as controlling emotions at competitions and in general life. There will always be people to knock you down so you have to see past it! Bianca Cook was very focussed on how she controls her mind to learn efficiently and how others should do the same. She said that she can shut out distraction and it benefits her the most out of her training.

Kristian Blacklock

An exciting Guest Speaker we also had on was Kristian Blacklock, the strength and conditioning coach of 5 years for World Famous boxer Tyson Fury. Kristian is a highly motivating personal trainer and currently works for ‘Diet Club UK’.

Kristian Spoke to our students on a zoom call during the Covid-19 Pandemic about monitoring mental health. He made valid points about taking care of yourself and your own mind but also being open to other people when they need someone to be there for them.

He further went on to talking about how important it is as a personal trainer to understand your client so you can help them in the best way. For example, he talked about Tyson Fury’s mental health and how he knew by certain expressions how to act around him that day. Overall, our students learnt more about how to monitor mental health and the value of your own mind.

Who is this available to?

Our Guest speaker series is available exclusively to our current and incoming LLS Students.

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