Perform
without fear.
There is a state the very best reach: calm, clear, free of fear, anxiety and self-doubt. I am a performance mentor to entrepreneurs, elite athletes and the families of exceptional young athletes, and I help them find it. In business, in sport, in life.
Royal Air Force Commissioned Officer and Pilot · Law School · MBA · Twenty-five years at the top of world sport · Businesses built and sold
One life.
No quick fixes.
Everyone is selling something. The world is full of clickbait and quick fixes. This is not one of them.
Since I was eighteen, my life has been a search for the secret of performance at the highest level: in the military, in boardrooms, in Champions League dressing rooms, and late into the night with one of the greatest cricketers of all time, talking about what really mattered to him.
What I have learned is this. Being in the zone is a by-product. It comes from the right foundation in your life. People talk about work-life balance, but there is no balance, and there is no personal life and business life. There is one life. Get that right, and performance follows.
Looking back, some of the defining moments of my career were not conversations about performance at all. They were about childhood, about personal memories that made the athlete who they were, and about working through something deep-rooted that had been carried for years.
Sometimes that is the ultimate motivator. It sits at the core of what makes the athlete or the entrepreneur who they are. But eventually it has to be confronted, because what drives you early in a career becomes your Achilles heel if it never is. Too often it never is: the person doesn't want to face it, doesn't want to share it, or never finds anyone they can truly share it with who can help them move past it.
That is at the core of what I do. After more than forty years in business, industry, sport and performance, it is why I formed this business.
That is my motivation. What is yours?
Pressure is a privilege.
The disconnect comes when a person feels pressure instead of embracing it.
A few years ago I spent an afternoon alone with one of the greatest champions golf has ever known. I asked him how he coped down the stretch, and whether the pressure ever went away.
It never did, he told me. The tension, the adrenaline, that sickly feeling were always there. But as a young man he had decided to live a life of purpose, and the discomfort became his proof that he was living it. He didn't cope with the feeling. He waited for it. It took him into that still, focused place where he performed at a level few people ever reach.
Special forces. An entrepreneur on the verge of a great creation. A champion over the closing holes of a major in front of the world. Operating at that level is a privilege. They are levels I will never reach myself. My fulfilment is helping you get there, and seeing the focus and the euphoria when you do.
Three groups. One aim: the very top of what you are capable of.
Entrepreneurs & business leaders
You have built something. Now the stakes are higher and the room is quieter. I become the right-hand confidant who has sat on both sides of the table: I listen, I challenge, and together we map your future, your business and the life around it. We meet regularly, and you can reach me directly between conversations.
Elite athletes
I am not your agent, and never will be. I am here to find the small missing ingredient between competence and excellence, and to help you hold on to it in the moments that define a career. We talk privately between events, and when it helps I am alongside you on the range, at practice and at competition, there before and afterward. You don't have to be young to grow.
Families of exceptional young athletes
You may know business inside out, but this road is different. When to push, when to step back, whether the coaching is right. I have walked this road for twenty-five years. I review the coaching, training and competition environment with you, then put together a written development plan and diary. We meet regularly to review progress, mentor the athlete and work through the choices ahead, turning huge potential into real performance at the moment it matters most.
You and me.
Nobody else.
I am not from your world, and that is the point.
I don't sit on your board, play in your league or move in your circle. I don't know your colleagues, your teammates or your friends. Nothing you tell me can find its way back into the rooms you work in.
There is nobody between us. No intermediary, no entourage, no one managing the conversation. You deal with me, directly and in confidence, and I am your man on the ground.
From a place of grace.
The peak of your powers is reached from a place of peace, not chaos. Your health, physical and mental, sits at the core of everything I do.
Understand you
My starting point is always you: what matters to you, and what happy and fulfilled really looks like. I want you to talk. I listen, and I prod the areas that matter.
Clear the foundation
Clear out the baggage. Rearrange the furniture. Clear the mind. We build the calm foundation that everything else stands on.
Build, and stay
Then we build the pillars of a great entrepreneur or a great athlete, and I stay. This is not an hour on a Zoom call. It is whatever it takes, to the end and beyond.
Simon Kennedy
I was born in Manchester, in the north of England. As a young athlete I played representative cricket to a high level, then read law and, on graduating, was commissioned as an officer in Her Majesty's Royal Air Force, where I qualified as a pilot.
After resigning my commission I took an MBA in International Business at a top-20 business school, then worked as a management consultant, mainly across Central and Eastern Europe, redesigning the supply chains of multinationals such as Unilever and Guinness.
Around the age of thirty, I changed course completely. Years earlier I had played cricket alongside a young, unknown Trinidadian called Brian Lara. More than a decade on, I was in business and Brian was, quite simply, a superstar. One evening he asked whether I would act for him as his business manager. Overnight I became a sports agent, representing the number one cricketer on the planet.
Over the next twenty-five years I built my businesses representing footballers across the Premier League, the Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga. I negotiated contracts under immense pressure, many of them on transfer deadline day, and brokered major endorsement and sponsorship agreements. Along the way I built a property development business, which I sold for a significant return.
Today I only take on what interests me, and what interests me is performance: how it is achieved under the most extreme pressure and expectation, why some rise to the moment, and why others falter.
From the cricket field as a teenager, through officer training, the boardroom and the dressing rooms of some of the most talented athletes on the planet, I have had a rare inside view of what elite performance really looks like. I believe I can add value.
I want to work with a particular kind of person: someone who wants the ultimate balance of excellence in sport, combined with true happiness and contentment.
Give me a call.
You need to believe in me, and I need to believe in you.
If you are unhappy and want to find happiness and fulfilment, pick up the phone. I am the person to help you. If you see your work as a means to an end, endured rather than lived, and you don't want to change, I wish you well. But I am probably not the partner for you. I work with a few people, where the connection is real, and we both have to be fulfilled.
Every conversation is private.
An arrangement that fits.
I come from business. If we are talking about performance and returns, I have to add value.
We start with a private conversation. From there we agree the scope and terms directly, whether you want regular counsel, time together in person or ongoing support for your family.
The arrangement depends on the work, the access you need and what we are trying to achieve together.
My first motivation will always be your goals, and my own fulfilment in helping you reach them.
What people ask first.
Who does Simon Kennedy work with?
Entrepreneurs and business leaders, elite and professional athletes, and the families of exceptional young athletes. A small number of people at a time, where the connection is real.
Is it confidential?
Completely. Every conversation is private. I have no connection to your world, your board, your team or your circle, so nothing you share can travel back into the rooms you work in.
Do you work through agents or managers?
No. I work with you directly. It is you and me, and nobody else gets involved.
Are you a therapist?
No. I am a performance mentor and trusted advisor, drawing on more than forty years in business, the military, law and the top of world sport.
Where are you based?
A private office in Jupiter, Florida. I travel to clients across the United States and worldwide.
How do we start?
With a private conversation. We agree how to work together and discuss terms privately.
Let's talk.
Tell me where you are, and where you want to be. Every enquiry is answered by me, personally and quickly.
Thirty minutes, in confidence. Pick a time and I will call you.
Message me directly on +1 561 972 3444
Harbourside Place
110 Front Street, Suite 300
Jupiter, Florida 33477
Travelling worldwide for clients. Here to talk.