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Sally Gunnell
Sally Gunnell OBE; the Farmers girl who captured the hearts of a nation. She remains the only woman ever to hold four major track titles concurrently – Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth. Since retiring from international athletics, Sally developed a new career path as a keynote speaker and wellbeing advocate.
Sally Gunnell's videos
What Sally Gunnell's clients say
"Sally presented very clearly and in a friendly and encouraging way. In 40 minutes, Sally covered the key areas of wellbeing, putting into context how she mentally and physically prepared for the Championships & Olympics. Her keynote presentation, and answers to the many questions that followed, was inspirational. We have had many notes of appreciation, several coming within an hour of Sally’s closing remarks. I would thoroughly recommend Sally as wellbeing and motivational speaker for any occasion. Furthermore, Sally’s PA was very helpful and extremely efficient – communication was clear and timely - our initial enquiry was made less than 3 weeks before the event, but it could not have gone any smoother, thank you Vicky and Sally."
"Sally is an incredible individual a world-beater. Sally has achieved so much in her career and private life and is a great role model. When Sally presents to any audience, young or old, she captivates them and takes them on her incredible journey. I can highly recommend Sally."
"We couldn’t have asked for any more from Sally’s keynote at our inaugural National School Business Leaders Day virtual event. She was candid about her experiences and incredibly inspiring, covering topics including mindset and resilience which resonated perfectly with the audience. She was incredibly generous in her advice and delivered everything with a perfect measure of humour. Our delegates offered spontaneous recognition and thanks throughout the speech via the online chat, and afterwards, our social channels were full of awe, enthusiasm and support for the themes Sally covered, and her delivery. I’d also like to mention how brilliant Sally and her team were in the build up to the event, giving of their time to prepare technically and also adding a splash of positive thinking to calm our own pre-event nerves! We would recommend Sally without hesitation and hope that we have the opportunity to work with her again."
"Sally was the ultimate professional and incredibly friendly. She listened carefully to the brief and adapted her approach to suit. She even went out of her way to make sure that we got what we needed. She shared her experiences simply yet powerfully and gave great advice. People were talking about her and the advice she gave long after the event was finished."
"Sally joined us for our 2021 kickoff meeting and it was the perfect way to start the new year with the team. It was over zoom, of course, but that did not take away one bit. She was so engaging, funny, and extraordinarily inspirational. We're an HR tech company but Sally did a wonderful job of tying her Olympic experience to ours as individuals. We highly recommend having Sally join you for a speech!"
"I highly recommend Sally as an inspirational speaker and for wellbeing and resilience training. She has done a couple of sessions for us at Elior UK and they have been practical and interesting and very unique. Her approach is particularly apt now as we have to lift each other out of the pandemic trough. Thank you Sally!"
"As part of our World Mental Health Day support this year we welcomed Olympic hero Sally Gunnell who told her story of resilience and mental strength to achieve success. Our aim of the talk was to inspire Adobe employees to invest in their own mental fitness so they can too can be at their best both personally and professionally. Thank you Sally! It gave many of us an emotional trip down memory lane to see the Barcelona race once more!"
"I was thrilled when Sally was able to join us for our Prize Day. She was delightful, inspirational, down-to-earth and natural. A fine example to our students."
"Sally’s speech was highly inspirational and motivational. Her story, while unrelated to our profession, was easily translatable to our line of work. She went down a storm with our delegates and would be an ideal speaker for virtually any audience."
"Sally was the ideal speaker to engage our audience of HR Directors. Our company regularly engages with HR Directors and are always trying to find a topic and speaker who will resonate with them. Sally delivered a highly interactive talk on 'resilience' explaining to our audience of HR Directors the challenges she overcame in her athletic career and how this translated into her business career. Sally provided an ideal blend of theory and practice, which resonated perfectly with the audience. I would thoroughly recommend Sally to other organisations."
Available for
Languages:
- English
Sally Gunnell's 2025 biography
Sally Gunnell: From Hay Bales to Gold Medals – A Journey of Grit, Growth, and Greatness
Sally’s rise to the pinnacle of her sport was hard won. She blew the chance to be World Champion in 1991, stormed back to win Olympic Gold in 1992 and defied incredible odds to become World Champion in 1993, setting a new World Record in the process. She contended with injuries, athletes that she saw as more naturally gifted and, a relatively modest support infrastructure compared to her peers.
Her success, by her own admission, was down to a firm grip over her own mind and a lot of very hard graft.
“Raw talent is no substitute for single mindedness and hard graft”
Sally remains a towering figure in British athletics. She has more than 15 years’ experience in addressing a wide variety of corporate audiences. She has covered global conferences of thousands and senior leadership teams of just 6. Her natural, easy-going style belies her relentless focus on achieving and sustaining excellence.
Sally effortlessly weaves the secrets of sporting achievement with the valuable components that underpin success in business. Her key themes hold resonance for senior decision-makers and junior staff alike. No corporate speaks, no clever-sounding management models. Just tried-and-tested solutions and techniques that took a farmer’s daughter from the hay bales of Essex to the winner’s podium at the Barcelona Olympics.
Sally’s honest, down-to-earth approach has won her many admirers over the years. She has written four books and her latest gets right under the skin of what makes a successful, fulfilled person. For the first time, she brings together in one place all the themes that have brought success in her sporting, business and family lives. ’10 hurdles for life ‘is for anyone who knows they have something to accomplish in life and is focused on enabling it to happen. The only limit is our imagination, understand this and the game of life becomes more fun and less hard work.
Sally Gunnell's 2025 talks & topics
Creating The qualities of High Performance
- Teamwork – no Man is an Island, Why Self-awareness is key to making the team work
- Stepping up a Gear – New World, new way of achieving – comfort zones , complacency and how we re-align with achieving our goals in a more sustainable way
- Goals – Why setting them vial to achieving them but equally why work ethic enables us to work smarter
- Leadership – Leading by example but taking the team with you – honest communication is more vital than ever
- Failure – In order to achieve we must be willing to get uncomfortable with failure
- Resilience – Why the Mind, body connection leads to our ability to thrive in adversity
- Staff retainment – Leading from the front and yet allowing others to achieve their way too
- Stress – working smarter not harder – Stress and its benefits
- Hybrid working – the new normal how to embrace the opportunity
Personal Development
- Change Management – Change is a good thing
- Overcoming Adversity – We either win or we learn to grow but it’s all in our decisions and our ability to stay in alignment with our why
- The Space between Talent and Performance – Resilience and Mind set
- Synergy– Surrounding yourself with talent
- Importance of wellbeing – The Mind, Body Spirit connection
- Communication – with yourself and those around you
- Your why – stay close to this and you never stray too far off course
- Wellbeing – Working smarter without burnout but with the ambition.
- Exercise – why is it vial to working well especially with hybrid working
Sustaining Excellence
- The Gap between getting there and staying there
- Change – Is a good thing- re-evaluation is vital to this
- Decisions – Even doing nothing is a decision but with self-awareness they become game changing
- Failure – In order to achieve we must be willing to get uncomfortable with failure and often we learn more from our failure than our success
- Mental Health – How do we learn to stay in balance during adversity
- Fear – How to live with it and enable it to guide us not control us
- Mindset – Developing a growth one
- It’s all in the detail so plan for success but be ready for Diversions
- We are a constant student and life is our teacher – never think you know it all
- The space is the green stuff – observe this and you will find you grow –
- Choosing to never lose means you either win or you grow
- Respect – There is always something or someone better than us but with this fact comes opportunity
Wellbeing
- Hybrid Working – How do you create the balance.
- Importance of Mind, Body connection – The gut brain connection
- Communication – it begins within and when we are honest, we have honest connections.
- Mental Strength – Its not just mind over matter but resilience is a muscle.
- Imposter Syndrome – We all get it but how we make the inner voice our guide not master.
- Living in the Now – Nothing is guaranteed, and nothing is in control – accepting this sets us free to truly live well.
- Your Why – without this we are not working ‘on purpose’.
- Giving to others- the more we trust we are on the right path the less we worry about what others are doing and we give genuinely.
- Exercise and Diet – they are vital to living well but its all about the 80/20 rule not being perfect.
Mental health in the workforce
For decades, leaders would avoid their employees’ mental health concerns. If someone came to them asking for help or struggling, the leader would deflect and pass them off to someone else.
But today’s leaders need to do more. Leaders need to be at the frontline of mental health.
That doesn’t mean you have to be a mental health expert, but leaders play a vital role in checking on employees, building relationships, and helping them work through stress and anxiety.
- Hormones and how they affect us
- Prevention – why noticing how we feel vital to staying well
- Communication – how we talk to ourselves will be reflected on our outer world
- Connecting the dots – When we take it step by step we find we connect the detail and we find the root
- Control – Nothing is in control other than our ability to notice and choose to respond not react
- Peace – staying true to our why and operating from a place of trust not fear
Please note we can adapt our talks and if a topic speaks to your message talk to us so we can make it work for you