How To Stay At The Top Of Your Game? With Noel Parkinson The Hack Podcast

In this week's Podcast, Leon and Paul host the show with guest Noel David Parkinson, ex-footballer, businessman and mentor.

Noel can tell you one thing for sure: it's not easy to make it as a professional football player. Noel was born in Hull in 1959 and is a former English footballer who played in the Football League as a midfielder, beginning his career at Ipswich Town, but he had to retire from football earlier than he would have liked due to injury. However, he didn't let this stop him from achieving future success.

After retiring from the game, he became a radio sports reporter in Humberside and a photocopier salesperson. Following this, he was employed in car sales and became a director of e-commerce. He was made redundant from his job in 2004, but he used his redundancy money to start wewillbuyyourcar.com, a nationwide vehicle-purchasing website, which now ???? turns over more than £20 million per year.

So how did Noel go from a football player to a successful businessman? We sat down with him to find out as Noel shared his insights on staying "on top of your game" and "earning your right to play!"

These days he supports other entrepreneurs with their business growth through mentoring and assisting with research and development. He sees himself as a project gamekeeper specialising in business operations and sales. Noel attributes much of his success to his positive attitude, determination and "hates to lose." You've got to want it more than anyone else; You've to be prepared to put the hours in and make the sacrifices. For him, football is like life. "Everything that goes on in football happens in day-to-day life."

Earn your right to play

During the podcast, Noel talks about the two inspiring quotes his football coach Sir Bobby Robson used to say, "don't forget; earn your right to play, which Noel explains; "you need to get on top of it, doing everything right yourself and on top of your opponent so that you can then go on to express yourself."

"So if you think about that in any terms, that's where you want to be. You want to be on top of your own game, doing the things that you do well and right and getting on top of what might be your competition. That way, you'll reap the rewards," Noel feels he has done all along.

The top two inches are everything

His second favourite quote from Robson is that "the top two inches are everything", which refers to the top two inches of your head. Noel explains this means "you're tactically astute. You're mentally attuned. Your competitive spirit is there, and you want to win, and then you piece it clinically all together while you're playing, then you are flying!"

The top 2 inches are the difference between success and failure-referring to mental strength and are vital to success, particularly in sports, as it often separates the good from the very best.

Noel talks about the lessons he has learnt from failures, how he went through a divorce, learned to take stock and understands he had a part to play in that and that the losses can teach you a lot about yourself; he recognised he was working too much with too longer hours which added to the breakdown.

"You learn as you get older, you are going to lose at times, things are not going to go right, you are going to get beat."

Head over to Think Cloud for the Full Blog