Beth Tweddle on staying true to her purpose - The NatWest Business Show

Intros competition is healthy and I think it's really important to teach young children you can't always be the best and that's okay but give your best welcome back to the NatWest business show now today we are honored to have an extraordinary guest with us Beth Tweddle is a name synonymous with excellence and resilience in the world of gymnastics she is a three-time world champion six-time European champion and an Olympic bronze medalist and was the first British gymnast to win a world championship title with the uneven bars Beyond her incredible achievements in gymnastics Beth has successfully transitioned into the business World in her journey from Elite athlete to entrepreneur she has founded her own company and overseen not one but two successful sales in the last year and a half we are so excited to have her here Beth thank you for coming in thank you for having me oh amazing now before we get into your story which is absolutely Beth’s business confession fascinating and Brilliant I'd love for you to share a business confession it's something we do at the start of the podcast um so this could be a moment of failure that became a springboard for Success excuse the pun or an accident or mistake that turned out to be a master stroke so what confession do you have for us today um for me it was whilst I was kind of making that transition I remember going into kind of a board meeting scenario and obviously you're around a table everyone you're very aware is high up in their positions and they're talking all through the reports and everything and I'm quite happily writing my notes away and I think everyone thought I was writing notes about the meeting I was genuinely writing notes on words that I had no idea what it meant um knowing that I was going to go out of that room and either speak to my dad cuz uh he had worked in business for years or just go and Google what the words meant um so yeah I think that's my kind of confession that I was totally out my comfort zone didn't really know how to handle it so I just kind of kept it to myself thinking I don't want other people to think I don't know what I'm doing and I shouldn't really be in that room and yeah I just went away and it was my dad saying to me afterwards Beth why didn't you just ask the questions they don't expect you to know everything um and that was a real key learning for me never there's never a silly question and I'm I'm really conscious of that now when I've got team members in meetings with me I always try and check do you understand is there anything you need kind of that support with but I'm sure that those people in that room probably thought that you were just being Uber I they were they're like it's she is amazing she's making every notes and but they're probably being very much on it well they know I I'm very much an attention to detail person so they know that I always have my note but with me always writing stuff down and so I genuinely thought that's what they thought I was doing and not just writing key wordss down that or doodling in that meeting yeah doodling now you are a bit of a Smart Cookie I wouldn't say that I think so Beth’s backup plan now you retired in 2013 we've talked about all the incredible things that you've achieved in your life but you already at that point had fingers in pies I did um from an early age um I knew gymnastics for me it was a hobby I loved what I did I I was successful at it but I also was very aware that I would have a career outside of gymnastics as well um I even though you were so good and you yeah gymnastics I mean when I first started it it wasn't a professional sport at all there there wasn't the opportunity to to have a career within gymnastics I would say um and I also had a a career-threatening injury when I was 12 right um the doctors kind of said to my parents we're not sure whether she'll get back to competing um so I think my parents were very key during that progression of Beth you you need to have a backup plan my coach was very supportive of having that backup plan um so obviously early on it was having my gcses making sure that I I took time to do my studies as well as my training um after of my GCS it was a little bit more relaxed I I did two a levels um rather than the kind of four that all my friends were doing and then I had the pathway to go into University uh had a sport scholarship with that so there was always that element of having education as a fullback because ultimately you can pick up a career-threatening injury at any moment you had a young age which would have been quite scary yeah and I guess at 12 I didn't I wasn't thinking about the future I was just doing what I loved um but it was that support network around me my parents kind of encouraging that with the support of my coach yeah um and then we also as a funded athlete you had access to um a grant funding that allowed you to kind of explore education so towards the end of my career I started doing little courses whether it was a sports massage course a bookkeeping course so that I could could experience different types of work and kind of go you know what is this for me is it not and I very quickly learned that bookkeeping absolutely is not for me um but it allowed me to explore that stuff rather than retiring and then having to explore it um and I guess my business partner um early on in my career Steve he came and spoke to me he set up his own business having won an Olympic medal in 2004 set up a swimming business and he approached me and just said look Beth um this is what I've done with swimming um would you be interested in doing something with gymnastics and I kind of said yeah like my two passions are gymnastics and working with children yeah if I can do a business where I'll wake up every single day working with my two passions it's it's not work to me it's just doing what I love it's a no-brainer really exactly so that's kind of where it stemm from so I think I I owe a lot to see for kind of approaching me giving me that opportunity and planting that seed definitely planting that seed cuz i' I'd never really thought about having a business in gymnastics prior to that um little did I know kind of what are we nearly uh 14 years later where that conversation was going to kind of end up yeah and I suppose you know one of the things I was going to ask you is why gymnastics for children but you would have seen firsthand what it gave you as a child yeah and also just how they're just they're like sponges and they want to learn and you can just let all this energy out with them I think there's a number of reasons um gymnastics gave me so many opportunities do you know what it taught me how to do some pretty cool tricks and obviously I got to travel I got to win some great medals but actually it's only since I've retired it's the the development through gymnastics so yes I can teach a child how to do a for roll and a cartwheel but actually it's the other skill sets that you gain from sport so whether it's teamwork resilience perseverance determination there's so many other things that young children can learn through sport as well and I think that that's been really instrumental throughout my business trying to develop children through sport not just teaching them the sport of gymnastics and I love working with kids I just I love seeing that smile when a child does a skill for the first time and they've been practicing and practicing and whoever's there to pick up they run over and they go look what I've done look what I've done and I see the reaction with my daughter now she comes out with a certificate and she's like Mommy look what I've got and I'm like what was that for she's like I did a jump on the big beam today and that sense of elation from them it just it gets me goosebumps when you kind of see that yeah and I just wanted to quickly touch on the fact that you had something in place even at the top of your you know you were there and I think that's a really good business um Acumen that you've got there that even when you were successful there was a possibility that you you could go on to other things you might have known you were going to retire but you already had something in place and a lot of people who are successful sometimes don't have that backup plan did that give you sort of not Comfort but reassurance that whatever happened whether you got injured whether that was the end there was always something there for you yeah definitely and again it was due to the people around me that allowed me to do that so Steve um he said look Beth I understand you're still competing you you want to go to the Olympics in 2012 um I I guess I played more of an ambassador role to start with within the business my name was on the product and I was very much involved in what happened but wasn't doing the day-to-day kind of operating of the business but I was very much aware of what was happening um but it was it was that comfort of knowing when you step away what is my identity and it still was strange don't get me wrong for 21 years all I'd ever known was gymnastics or education and even I remember having a conversation with my coach kind of H how do I say it what do I need to do and she's like you can say the word retired Beth like you step away from the sport and it took me a year to the day kind of from the Olympics to to tell I think myself that I am stepping away from competitive sport because it it was me that was my routine that was my identity that's who I was so to suddenly wake up in the morning and not be like okay I'm an international athlete who am I whereas actually because I had I did School visits I had my business I I was doing dancing on ice at the time I had other things to keep my mind occupied and challenge me and then I'm not someone to just sit still um and I think that's what I was worried about is not having something there to do um I had one year um in 2003 into the Olympics 2004 where all of my friends went off to University we'd just finished our a levels and I made the decision to just focus on gymnastics and I I would say that was the hardest career moment of my career just being a gymnast not having anything else to do um and even my coach said to me right when I she knew I was continuing after the Olympics she said well what are we going to do because you you're a busy person you can't just have gymnastics in your life and that's where kind of the decision was made to go to university and be able to combine the two two well you must be really focused to I found it really helped me because if I was having a hard day in the gym I could go home I could be with my University friends I could focus on a a study or whatever assignment I was doing at the time and vice versa if I was when I was doing my dissertation I could kind of shut my laptop down go to the gym forget about the dissertation and by the time I'd finished training I was ready to do it so let's let's expand on this a bit because you've gone from Olympic Athlete to an ambassador for gymnastics to successful bus businesswoman cuz it was interesting what you said about having that identity so how did you manage to still have your identity as Beth moving through those different stages I think the main thing was gymnastics has developed me to be the person I am today so the experiences I had whether it was through success whether it was through um maybe results not going to plan it's that's what's made me the person than I am today so I a lot of It ultimately from the age of 12 13 I was in the gym 25 to 30 hours a week I spent more time there than I probably did in my own house so it definitely I don't think I can ever walk away from the point of saying I'm not an international athlete because that is what has developed me to be the business person that I am today um but it also helped me transition because I had those skill sets of determination teamwork resilience if there's a scenario in business if there's a scenario at home it's not a case of um just giving up it's kind of what was my athlete mentality right here's a a problem what's the solution and how do I solve it right let's go yeah um so yeah I think it's still a transition absolutely but it just wasn't probably um as Rocky as some transition can be okay well let's talk about your business the gymnastics business because it's doing Business journey & Gymfinity Kids really well um and you do sort of like seminars into leder centers and schools don't you and and you have the physical gyms as well yeah so I when I was young my passion was getting kids involved in gymnastics they there's huge waiting lists for kids to get involved in gymnastics across the country and um what I had seen gymnastic had given me I wanted to be able to provide opportunity and purpose-built Facilities they're hard to find they're expensive to fund so what we kind of did a different model let's find a school hall or a Leisure Center we can pack the equipment in and out each day it gives the child the first opportunity to try gymnastics and you know what they may love it they may hate it but actually unless we're giving them that exposure they may never know whether they actually really enjoy it so that was kind of the philosophy behind it of just giving every child the opportunity to try gymnastics um and so you saw a sort of a a gap in the market I guess so yeah um and for me it the passion was always to give that opportunity um so we kind of open the doors hoping for kind of 20 children and suddenly realized we had about 100 knocking on the door and we were like okay the there's a big demand here for gymnastics um more than what we could probably fulfill um so it just kind of grew from there and ultimately my background was Elite level I'd been in a purpose-built site and my dream was to have a purpose built site I had preco um about 20 Academy sites um and then literally two weeks prior to National lockdown I got the keys to my first purpose bill I was so excited and then literally I was like okay we we're shut we can't we can't open that business right um and again that that was a tough mentality to to take because you you've waited nearly 10 years to get your keys you get your keys and then you're like what do I do now I've just signed a lease I've just picked up these keys I can't open the building and we're public fa into children and we can't see the children so again it was working with that athlete mentality um obviously Steve was an athlete himself and we worked as part of a bigger group with swimming um with Becky adlington as well so it was a of right here's our problem what's the solution we'll take our lessons online so through Co that's what we did we still actively engaged children in activity during that really hard time for everyone um and then worked with contractors and when we were given the green light to open in that July um it was a dream come true to open those doors and for a lot of the children it was the first time they were seeing their friends since lockdown and um and again it just it made me realize why I do what I do um seeing the smiles seeing that that Elation of them just being able to get back in do gymnastics and be um with their friends um since then it's it's just grown I mean I had two purpose built sites and 10my um or eighty um and then there was one site that we were looking to sell so I started to talk to a couple of businesses that were involved in gymnastics and then the it just grew arms and legs we ended up selling one of the sites to another gymnastics business um and then gyin kids basically said we would love to work with you not just kind of buy one site and that's kind of where the merger came from and I think I don't know people think these these big business sales come from Big conversations that happen everywhere but it was literally me texting someone saying if I wanted to talk to someone in your business who do I talk to and then the guy emailing me saying Hey Beth I hear you want to have a conversation do you fancy meeting up and from then it that that's where the merger came from and I'd never been through a merger I had had no idea what it's probably one of the words that you wrote in your little notebook way back what is merer um so yeah I think that I would say I have learned more in business in the past kind of 18 months than I have in 10 10 years going through those Trending takes processes now breth we are going to interrupt the podcast a second because we've got a little section called trending takes okay okay where I'm going to pose some comments um that we've seen online um I'm going to pose them to you and it'd be good to hear your take on it and what you think okay so the first one is where there is Passion a big business will never fail I think you've got to have the passion behind it um and as you can see my why is what drives me so I I do agree with that but I I think there's probably a lot of businesses probably out there that haven't got the same passion but are still successful um but for me it's definitely so again it depends what drives you and the people around you but I know what you mean because there's some people there's some business bus you just think how are they still going yeah but I guess there's people that are probably in my business that weren't necessarily passionate about gymnastics but they're passionate about the area of the business that they work in and they've developed the love of the sport because of the business they're working in um so they didn't necessarily apply to the business thinking I'm a true gymnastics fan and I want to work in gymnastics they've maybe seen a role Within an area within the business and um as a result of it they've learned about gymnastics because not everyone is well adversed across gymnastics number two University is too expensive go straight into business do you know it's I've had this conversation recently with a few people because I I did University I think um I loved it it taught me Independence I moved away from home and I I had the time of my life doing it um but I can absolutely see it is expensive and there's definitely different routes now you don't have to attend University to be successful in business I would agree with that okay with young athletes competition should be the focus um I don't think competition should be the focus I think they they need to enjoy it and see the fun side of it but I do think we need to teach an element of competition cuz ultimately in life competition's everywhere when you go for a job interview you're competing you're competing against people when you're um doing your exams at school although you're not directly competing ultimately there's there's still going to be people that will score 100% and some people that are are lower down the percentages so I competition is healthy and I think it's really important to teach teach young children you can't always be the best and that's okay but give your best yeah it's quite a a controversial isn't it is so if you're watching this podcast on YouTube please do get involved and leave your comments as we'd love to know what you think of these trending takes now you must wear so many hats The many hats of business when it comes to running your businesses which is your favorite hat um yeah that's such an easy question to answer go on um working with the kids working so yesterday I um was doing assemblies I did five School assemblies uh must have seen well over a thousand children did some questions photos signatures and absolutely that's the best part of my job is getting to know the children and in trying to inspire them that they can achieve their dreams it doesn't matter what that dream is but with a little bit of hard work and effort and that that Vision you you can absolutely achieve it and when you see that and you feel it and you see that energy and feel it you must make you want to be like ah I can't wait for tomorrow it is and it that again it's going back to that why that that's what drives me every single day of why am I doing what I do and um even occasionally when I get home from those visits I'll receive messages um from parents um on social media just saying my little kids come home today they've met you this morning they're really inspired thank you so much and it is it it just validates that why of um and it's just my favorite part is being out of the office and being in the gym or in a school and working with the children you you're beaming as you talk about it I love that I love that don't think I have the same reaction with a board meeting I do enjoy it it's a challenge um but yeah well actually talking of board meetings and you know your business side you would have experienced incredible coaching and incredible advice you know you had the best people around you how do you approach building the best team possible in your business I think it's the same it's it's understanding just like when we were putting a team together for a World Championships or Olympics right who's whose strengths are where and how do we build the team to get the best full puzzle at the end of it so now it's a case of understanding I I don't need to know every single answer um and I think at first I did fall into that trap of I've got to know everything you people are looking up to me and you know what I my forte isn't marketing it isn't um it and that's okay and bringing in a team around you of people who do know those things and using their skill set so I'm again putting that puzzle together to to create the big puzzle and having people around you that you trust you know they're great and they share that same passion but do you are you ruthless though do you um I say ruthless I'm just asking because you know that mentality of sports people it's like got to be the best or or you have the best around you it's understanding each individual as well so what is it that makes that individual work to the best of their ability and do you know what for some people it isn't in a three-hour meeting sometimes it's actually picking the phone up to them or just going on a walk with them right tell us your ideas how do we take that idea and make it a um to come to life it's understanding your team as individuals and not expecting the same from every single individual in your team because that they're not carbon copies of each other and that's that's fine so what you're saying is basically sometimes you got to look at that person say what do they need like you just mentioned going for a walk with somebody and that's the best way or picking up the phone somebody else so tapping into that check checking in with people I find really helps um just it and not always just ringing and saying have you done this have we got this do we need this have we done this where's this at what's this task doing whereas actually just ringing someone and saying how are you doing and they're like yeah I'm okay thanks no catch what why is Beth reading me I I I like to to be able to just know that people can approach me that people can um pick up the phone um and ask a questions but there must be times that there are difficult conversations to be had of course there are yeah I think the there's and again I've worked with people so I had Steve um Parry who um he's been a great mentor to me because his knowledge his way with people his experience I've I've been lucky to have him as a coach in business and a mentor um and you don't necessarily sit down and say this is what our relationship but just by being in a meeting and learning from him and again my other business partner Dave Robinson he the same even um now I'll pick up the phone to them a couple of times a week right I just want to bounce an idea off you so um if I'm ever in that position where I know that there's something that's got to be done about something I I will try and formate like formulate a plan in my mind write it all down and then I I will bounce it off the people I know that I can trust yeah um and then they'll give me their honest opinion so three business partners there's three of you so there was for bet or gymnastics there was three of us yeah so myself Dave and Steve and um that was great the the relationship between the three of us um was really close yeah so and that works really well I've interviewed people who've got had business partners and it hasn't worked out yeah how can you navigate that when sometimes opinions don't align I think you've always got to take a step back and understand what their opinion is and why that's their opinion um it's not just your way and your way only cuz sometimes your way isn't the right way and um that's okay um but it's it's having that healthy conflict of being able to have a heat discussion and then at the end of it going should we go and get a drink or should we go and have a coffee or let's go for tea or whatever it is um taking the person out of the role and when you're having that conflict you're not having the conflict with the person you're having a conflict about the business scenario it's not direct to the person and obviously you've all got that business um at the heart of it you'll care about the business so it's knowing that it's sort of like separating the emotion from definitely definitely from the goal yeah yeah but we've heard that Beth on failure you've got an interesting approach to failure so I want to talk about that yeah I think failure is such an interesting word because it is such a negative word it's seen as a Bad Thing whereas actually failure is not a bad thing because and I always say to the kids that I meet mistakes are our friends and mistakes are failures that's what people see them as whereas actually you learn so much from a result not going your way so whether it's in sport or whether it's in business um you do learn from those experiences and it's how you react to that experience of things not going well that determines that scenario so when you know you were competing you know you all eyes on you you know I remember watching you going come on and it didn't go your way how how did you deal with that it's massive that is I mean obviously that's not the same you know everybody's view of failure is different but how would you deal with that so within when it was my gymnastics kind of life it was very much within 24 hours just don't talk to me for the first 24 hours I was a bear with a sore head I was frustrated with myself I'd worked hard it didn't go to plan but literally by the time 24 hours had kind of gone and I was back in the gym it was kind of like well I can't do anything about it if I just sit and sulk about it I'm not going to make it any better so what's the next competition what's the next goal what's the next Target and how do I ensure the same thing doesn't happen again so my mom always described it as I used to take the experience put it in a box and shut the lid had a little collection of experiences but I'd move on the the one time I would say that I really struggled to to take that mentality was 2008 Olympics I was absolutely going to that Olympics to pick up an Olympic medal and I ended up fourth by 025 and even to this day I've still not watched that routine all the way through and I really I just you Haven watched I was heartbroken I just I've seen Snippets of it and I I can just remember how I felt that night and not not wanting to be a part of gymnastic SS I felt I'd let myself down but not just myself because there's a whole team of people that had helped me get to that Olympics and felt that it let so many people down and how do you pick yourself back up from that but every other event it was 24 hours but this one I'd say it was more like two or three weeks um coming home from the games the whole of Team GB had done amazing so you're on a flight home to Heathrow you land to a media Frenzy everyone wants to congratulate you and ultimately I had still come forth at an Olympic games but that wasn't what I wanted um and I am a perfectionist if I don't get what I want I'm stubborn um so when people were trying to congratulate me it was just a case of I don't want to be congratulated like just leave me alone um so I went on holiday with my best friend and it was halfway through that holiday I just said to her I can't give up and she just said to me honestly she said we all knew that but we needed you to make that decision and from that moment on I rang my coach and said I want to be back in the gym I'd love to continue and said great let's get you back in and I I learned so much from that experience but I can honestly say myself and Amanda never sat down we never fully analyzed it because I just knew what I'd Learned was enough and yeah it it took a long time to close that lid on that box gosh I'm lit feel going my goodness I mean that's strength lot I mean there's you know if it was me i' would been like right I'm done with this yeah and I think again though it went back to my why I still loved gymnastics I still knew I had more to give there was an Olympic Games in your home country and do I want to sit in that audience in London and think I really wish I'd had a go at this whereas I always wanted to say do you know what I tried it didn't work I didn't make the team I gave it my all um luckily I continued I tried I gave it my all and it it came out on the Flip Flip end of the chart of what I felt in Beijing that that disappointment compared to the pure relation of London um I remember my brother saying to me he's like I'm so glad you won that medal I'm like okay that's a really weird way of saying it and he's like Beth I don't think I could have C mom crying like she did after Beijing and to that point I had never known how it had affected my family for me I was devastated but I didn't see the reaction on my family it was only that moment that my brother said to me I don't think I could have coped with Mom crying again like that and I was like oh my God so yeah it's it's a support network it's everyone around you that gives everything and you know what there's going to be people listening now um who are thinking of starting a business or or you're in something and thinking of changing yeah changing course wondering how they can grow now obviously you we've talked a lot about the why and I think that's USP yeah um but is there anything else you'd like to share don't be scared to have a go um do you know what I think I've made business decisions um that weren't right for the business um and luckily haven't affected it too too big um but there is times where I go why did I even make that decision like what was I thinking but again I learned a lot from making that decision and it's made me think twice going forward right what have I got the full scope here is it the right decision for the business and not being afraid to admit it because yeah yeah yeah the there's been two or three things that we've done um that in hindsight I probably wouldn't have done but looking at that actually everything happens for a reason um the reason the whole merger came across was because I was wanting to sell a site had I not wanted to sell that site those conversations wouldn't have happened so yeah I do think everything happens for a reason and it it is a roller coaster of a journey to to that point right Beth you find some rapid Rapid fire questions fire I'm mixing things up for you go on then rapid fire questions all right who is your inspiration in life I've got two answers can I give you two I'm going to let you have two excellent so I would say my my dad and my mom have been hugely um instrumental inspirational because they've always allowed me to go and explore make mistakes and they will be there to pick up the pieces if it doesn't quite go to plan um but then also within my sporting career um Kelly Holmes and Paula redcliffe they achieved so much throughout their careers uh but they also had injuries they still had disappointments but they picked themselves back up and still achieved and obviously I kind of looked to them and thought gosh if they've done it I remember being on the plane home from Athens with Kelly Holmes having just become um the superstar that she was and I was just so inspired I was like oh my god look and she's just a normal person she was chatting to everyone talking to and it was just amazing oh I love hearing songs like that she's great is uh what advice would you give your younger self not to want everything now I think you you want the result tomorrow or you want the result today whereas actually as I show shown it took 21 years to achieve my Olympic dream um 14 years later my business is still growing I'm still learning I'm learning something every day so actually um take your time what do you most enjoy about business um it feels like I was when I was seven years old in the gym there's so much to learn every day is a school day um yeah I'm always learning I'm writing a little note notebook how big is this notebook oh I always do you know what I've always got a notebook somewhere whether it's in my bag even like I've got one on my bedside table if I wake up at 3:00 in the morning I write something down because otherwise I can't get back to sleep that's a good a good another good business tip you're just throwing them out you never know um one thing nobody's talking about in business that they should be how do we engage the younger generation to be passionate and think about what they want to do early that's a good one that's why you invest try stuff try stuff invest in young people like you do so you can give them options yeah so even if they don't want to be gymnast when they get older they've tried it yeah they've tried it they've had to go at it brilliant favorite work hack having a notebook does that count I let you have that one you know what I'm going to get my notebook books out I've had loads of them I start them and they just pen and paper is the best thing ever I know we don't write enough anymore no we don't one tip on how you stay motivated during tough times or setbacks we sort of touched on this yeah remember your why what is it what what's that passion that reason why and finally where can people follow you online to know more about you and your amazing business uh so Jim FY kids um is the business um and you'll be able to see all about the classes that we do and um the engaging stuff we do with our children and then for myself personally it is um on Instagram and Twitter bet on news fantastic do you know what I Lov talking to you oh thank you you got so much energy and Outros positivity and I'm sure business is going to go from strength to strength I like to talk that's the problem yeah me and you both yeah and to our listeners thank you for tuning in we hope best story has motivated you to pursue your own goals whatever it may be stay with us for more insightful conversations on the NatWest business show [Music]