Last week, ELPA members attended our first “PLAN FOR YOUR FUTURE“ online seminar. This seminar was organized in collaboration with the consultation company Themoove.
“It was a very good seminar. It gave us perspective on financial management, our post-career options and we got some valuable advice on the mental aspect of the current situation which forced us to be away from the game. I attended the seminar because I wanted to update my knowledge on the financial side and add to what I already know about networking and personal branding”, commented ASVEL’s captain Charles Kahudi.
It was something completely new for CSKA’s player Johannes Voigtmann :
“It’s the first time I attended something like this. I wanted to get an inside look of what such seminars are about and also wanted to learn more about what I need to do to better prepare myself for my second career.”
During three days, the participants received valuable advices from Themoove specialists on three different topics :
- ‘The Mind’ with sports psychologist & former basketball player Mar Rovira
- ‘Financial coaching’ by financial advisor Xavi Munoz
- ‘Professional Future’ with personal coach Beatriz Roca Albertos
“It was an overview of what possibilities I have as a current player, what I still need to improve and how can I prepare during the last years of my career. It was very interesting and the people were amazing”, added Voigtman.
Former EuroLeague & NBA Player Jose Calderon was our guest speaker and he shared his experience about transitioning from the basketball court to the next career during the ‘Professional Future’ session. His testimony was inspirational for Charles Kahudi :
“It’s nice to have tools and concrete examples. Especially with Jose Calderon, who was a player just like us. He went through these phases of research, online training, eliminating doubts… It clarified a lot of things.”
The objective of the online seminar was to use the period of confinement and suspension of the season, and give players an opportunity to work on different ‘off the court’ aspects of their lives, educate them on business related topics, and to prepare them for the future after basketball.
“I would love to see more seminars, focused also on other topics“, requested Kahudi. “Networking or personal branding are interesting to me, because I’m not really comfortable in “selling” myself. But you realise that it is very important, even if it’s only by talking to potential business partners and other stakeholders after the games.”
Because of players’ big interest in having opportunities to gain knowledge and education in various ‘off the court’ topics, ELPA will aim to introduce similar projects and seminars in the near future.
