BD Youth Inspire: YPP blog

For issue 3 of the BD Youth Inspire e-newsletter, we catch up with BD Youth Ambassador Jessica Parsons to ask how she found the Young Professionals Programme experience. Read her blog here!

The Young Professionals Programme has been a great honour to be selected for and to be part of the 2019/2020 cohort.

It was lovely to meet like minded young professionals across different disciplines as well as my particular interest British Dressage.

We kick started the programme with an inspiring talk from Tony Stone who runs a company called Stoats, which is an ‘on the go’ porridge bar. It was so inspiring to hear how Tony and a friend has this idea and through hard work and dedication now have a successful business selling to some of the UK’s biggest supermarkets. It was great to hear the break down of the process that they followed, to understand that it wasn’t a smooth road and how they have overcome problems and changed plans to fit with the current market and to also aid their company’s development. This inspiring talk from Tony really stuck in my mind of how inspirational his story is and how hard work and determination can really get you to where you want to be.

Our second workshop looked at finding out what our Unique Selling point is and was presented to us by Sam Kandiyli Director of Target. This is subject I’m probably not the most confident on but through helpful steps and group discussion with fellow YPP members is became easier to talk about what we felt we could offer that may make us stand out from other people.

In the afternoon we had a talk from Sophie Wells Para Olympian, it was great to hear Sophie’s story and how she overcame ups and downs throughout her career but through determination she still managed to make her dreams happen.

For our third workshop we enjoyed a talk from David Hamer and Jane Holden focusing on communication styles and how body language and behaviour can really affect the way of communicating without even realising you are doing so! They got us to act out a few different scenarios using different types of body language which to start with seemed a little strange but when we got into the process it really showed how effective positive and negative body languages can affect our conversation even when you don’t intend it to do so.

Throughout all of the workshops we have had talks with Jane Holden who is an Equestrian Performance Lifestyle Advisor who works with the Equestrian World Class Programmes. We have worked through many different things with Jane over the months. We started with developing our own personal developments plans, it was great to actually take the time to think and write down on paper where we felt we were stronger or weaker in different sections of our life such as finances and personal growth, then plotting on the same graph where we feel we would like be in an idea world, it was great to see the comparison and where I feel I need to develop myself in order to then be able to develop my business.

They Young Professionals Programme has been an amazing opportunity for me so far, I feel that it has helped me develop myself personally and have more confidence in what I am doing which in turn is allowing development and confidence in my business.

The Young Professionals Programme provides an ideal leg up to those seeking to develop their skill-set for a successful future in the equine industry. 

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