Sustaining High Performance & Building a Speaking Business with Anna Hemmings

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Recorded26 Feb 2026

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Show notes

What does it really take to achieve and sustain high performance when the pressure never lets up? In this episode, I'm joined by two-time Olympian, six-time World Champion and Britain's most successful female kayaker, Anna Hemmings. Since retiring from elite sport, Anna has built a leadership and performance consultancy, working with organisations that want to stay at the top of their game year after year. We explore what changed for her after winning her first World Championship title, why the second one brought even more pressure, and the mindset shift required to keep raising the bar when everyone else is chasing you down. Anna shares how working with a sports psychologist shaped her approach to confidence, preparation and controlling the controllables, and how a career-threatening illness forced her not to "bounce back" but to bounce forward. For speakers, there's plenty here on building a serious business. Anna talks openly about how 50% of her work now comes from speaker bureaus, how long that took to build, and what changed when she improved her positioning, materials and fees. We discuss moving from one-off keynotes to longer-term client relationships, offering workshops and coaching beyond the speech, and why clarity of positioning is what brings repeat bookings. We also cover continuous learning, accreditation, tools such as CRM and LinkedIn, and why your content needs to resonate with the audience rather than simply tell your story. If you want to build a speaking business that is credible, sustainable and positioned at the top end of the market, there are some powerful lessons in this conversation .

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