We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emily Williams. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emily below.
Emily, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
I’d have to say that my work ethic is the way it is due to how I was raised. First of all, I was heavily involved in ballet starting at age 4 and all the way through high school. Ballet is extremely demanding so my work ethic and self-discipline grew every day that I went to the studio. On the other hand, my parents taught me at a young age how to handle my responsibilities. That included everything from school/homework, chores around the house, helping out with my little brothers, etc. I’m naturally very competitive & have high expectations for myself so I never did things “just to do them”. If I was going to do something, then I was going to be the best at it. For example, in school I’d never come home with anything less than an “A”, and in ballet I was constantly striving to get better and better as I chased “perfection” (which doesn’t actually exist).
I was taught a very “responsibilities come first” mindset and I understood that things (such as ballet) were a privilege. I remember in high school we would clean the ballet studio every week to cover a portion of my ballet tuition. Paying for my college/grad school was all my responsibility, so I took many, many dual credit courses in high school, applied for all of the scholarships and financial aid that I could, worked on campus, and tried to do everything in my power to take out as few student loans as possible (I give my mom all the credit for guiding me through this). I took classes & worked every summer and winter break to make the most of my time, and ended up graduating college in two and a half years.
Fast forward to today, and I would say that my worth ethic was ingrained in me from a very young age. To this day, I am a hard worker because…I love working! I love the feeling of accomplishment that comes from putting the work in and achieving something on your own. Even though it might be more difficult, it’s always way sweeter to work for and earn something, as compared to just being handed something. I think those life lessons I learned at such a young age, are the reason I’ve been able to accomplish everything I have up to this point.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a mental performance coach for athletes and own Champion Mindset Consulting LLC. As a mental performance coach, I teach athletes many different mental skills and help them use those skills during their practices and competitions. I help coach these athletes through fear, mental blocks and performance anxiety. This helps them build confidence, progress in their sport more quickly, and achieve their goals. There is so much to it, but in a nutshell, I provide performance enhancement through mental performance coaching. Although I do work with athletes of all sports, my two biggest groups of athletes are gymnasts and dancers.
My goal has always been to make mental performance coaching available to everyone. With that said, I’ve recently launched CMC’s first online training program – Champion Mindset Academy for Gymnasts! This training program is jam packed with video lessons, worksheets, audio clips, you name it. Gymnasts can go through this program and learn all of the same mental skills I’ve been teaching in my one-on-one coaching sessions…except now they can do it on their own time whenever it’s most convenient for them. There are even specific lessons regarding how to master new skills at practice, how to prep for meets, how to create a pre-competition routine (mental warm-up), and so much more! The training program is available for purchase on its own…but, now it is also available in bundle packages! This means that gymnasts can now begin their training with a combination of the online program AND one-on-one coaching, which is what I recommend. Why? Because they’ll get lifetime access to the all-inclusive training program (so they can always go back and review anything they need at any time) while still receiving one-on-one coaching from me! This is a more convenient and cost-effective option for them, and will allow me to help even more gymnasts this year!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. Be willing to take risks. 2. Be prepared to work way more than your average 9-5.
3. And, like I tell all of my athletes…strive for excellence, not perfection.
I’d have to say these three qualities are absolutely necessary for entrepreneurs!
You HAVE to be willing to take risks & get out of your comfort zone. I’m not saying make rash decisions and poor choices. Obviously you need to think about what you’re doing…but also be willing to take the risk even if you aren’t completely sure it will work out. That’s the only way you’ll find success. Again, this is what I tell me athletes – mistakes/failures aren’t bad things. That’s how you learn and figure things out. Mistakes/failures bring you one step closer to success!
You better love what you do because you’ll be doing it way more than any normal 9-5 job. When you’re the only one getting a business up and running, you’re wearing all the hats (at least when you’re first starting out). You’ll be adding onto your to-do list 10x faster than you check anything off of it. The job is never “done”. You could easily work 24/7 and still never have everything done. Don’t expect to work a 40 hour week, but also make sure to set boundaries & have good time management in order to keep some sort of balance in your life. This is the hardest thing for me because there is so much I want to do and my mind is always running 100mph. Getting myself to stop is super difficult because I want to “finish” things but in reality things will never be finished.
Lastly – strive for excellence, not perfection. I had to do some mindset work myself on this one! I’d been a perfectionist my whole life, so learning to let go of that idea of “perfection” & find the fine line of maintaining high expectations (without expecting perfection) took some work. If you wait to do something until you know it’s perfect, you’ll be waiting forever. This one is closely tied to being willing to take risks. Ironically, this is also a big topic of conversation that I now have with many of my athletes being gymnasts and dancers.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
The times I feel most overwhelmed are the days that I’m in one-on-one coaching sessions all day without any breaks. Once I finish for the day, I see all of the emails, texts, phone calls, social media messages, and everything else that could possibly bring up a red notification bubble on my phone. All the rest of my “to-do’s” come rushing back and I start stressing about when I’m going to find the time to get everything done. When I’m in coaching sessions, my focus is 100% on the athlete and I’m not thinking about anything else, so everything just seems to hit me at once.
When I’m overwhelmed it feels like I have a thousand things flying through my head. The best thing I can do is get myself organized and come up with a plan. That helps me feel like I’m back in control. I’ll write out everything I need to get done on a sheet of paper (organized into two separate lists – work & personal). Then I’ll make marks by the 2 or 3 most pressing items that need to get done. Once I knock those out, I’ll cross them off and then mark the next most pressing items. Each Sunday, I also organize my planner for the week. I’ll look at my to-do list, find which items need to get done the soonest, and then divide them up throughout my week according to how many coaching sessions I have that day and how much time I’ll have. Once I see it laid out and have a plan, I feel much better.
I also make sure I take some time about 5 days a week to workout. Even if it’s just 30 minutes, working out is the best stress reliever. That’s my time to stop thinking about work, get some music going, and just move! There’s never been a time when working out has not helped relieve stress.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ChampionMindsetConsulting.com
- Instagram: @ChampionMindsetConsultingLLC
- Facebook: @ChampionMindsetConsultingLLC
