Authenticity | Transparency | Teamwork | Integrity | Commitment
Cageside Press article written by Alex Behunin. Photo by Jasmin Frank.
In the lead up to Cody Haddon’s toughest fight to date, in the Eternal MMA Flyweight champ Stephen Erceg on Eternal MMA 60 on the 5th June 2021, Cageside Press has published the below article on Cody.
This is his second short notice fight in a row, both with only 3 weeks notice, but as Cody always stays ready all year round, we are excited to see the fireworks that this co-main event fight brings!
There is a saying, “It’s not personal, just business,” which implies that you should remove emotion from business. In some ways this can be true, as you shouldn’t make reactive decisions based on emotions and ego, you should always make sure both parties are held accountable for their responsibilities regardless of personal relationship, and you should not take too personally the actions of others “in business”. This is as far as I believe that saying runs true.. I believe that every other part of building a successful business needs to adopt the mentality of “it’s not just business, it’s personal”.
It is better to be invested very, very personally. This is what makes you push yourself to work harder, to follow up persistently, to apply clever and engaging approaches to growing your business.
When you make things personal, you build real relationships with people you both are in business with and do business with. It isn’t about being cutthroat to leverage everyone around you to better your own position, but about genuinely caring about others and wanting to work together so that everyone can have a win. This can be done with transparency, good communication and being emotionally invested in building up not just yourself but also the people around you.
Yes, sometimes the decisions you make in business might not make everyone happy, but there are two ways to deal with this. You can be unapologetically rude, harsh and uncommunicative or you can operate with unapologetic transparency, integrity and kindness. How you run your business is totally up to you, but don’t treat people badly and tear them down and use the excuse “it’s just business”, as there is always a choice.
There is a saying by Jim Rohn, “There are two ways to have the tallest building in town. One is to tear everyone else’s building down, and the other is to build your building taller.”
Be the latter and concentrate on building yours. ♥️
ATTIC Sports
When you meet Cody Haddon, you know there is something special about him. If you get the chance to see him fight, you will instantly become a fan. The rising MMA Flyweight prospect has been involved with martial arts since he was 6 years old, training in Tae Kwon Do, Wrestling, Muay Thai, Boxing (3 x Australian champ) and BJJ (4 x PanPacs champ). His amateur MMA record is 5-0, and he recently had his pro-debut that he won via first round stoppage over a seasoned 23 fight veteran giving him 6 straight wins and a 1-0 start to his Professional MMA career.
Cody has recently signed a multi-fight exclusive contract with Eternal MMA – which means that all of his fights will be shown on UFC Fight Pass.
ATTIC Sports is excited to be working alongside Cody with all things fight and non fight related.
If you’re a MMA fan and not already following Quillan Salkilld do yourself a favour and check out this feature by Jacob Debets in Sherdog’s Prospect Watch series
Quillan puts in all the work to develop his skills, trains consistently to hone his craft, stays extremely active in competing and most importantly he is just a really good bloke! Quill has a really bright future in MMA and has just signed an exclusive multi-fight deal with Eternal MMA. There are more big things to come in 2021 and ATTIC Sports is so excited to be working alongside Quillan. If you don’t know, now you know
This was always going to happen, one way or another. When your natural predisposition is to help people, creatively think outside the box, bring like-minded people together for projects, organise the hell out of everything and go above and beyond for both your loved ones and complete strangers alike – paired with a (what some may call unhealthy) obsession with MMA, a formal or informal role in Athlete Management is imminent.
The decision to make this a formal role, register the company, buy the domain name, reach out to two athletes, Quillan Salkilld and Cody Haddon, who share the same values and who would still have received my full support regardless of being appointed the role, all just happened in a blink of an eye once the decision was made to “do this”.
Actually, the hardest part of the process was coming up with the business name. I knew that it had to be meaningful and stand for all the values I wanted for the company, so I started by writing all the values that were important to me. After some culling, a lot of thesaurus look-ups and some “scrabbling” with letters, ATTIC Sports was born. Authenticity, Transparency, Teamwork, Integrity and Commitment.
Ok – let me break this down for you…
Authenticity – This is a non-negotiable. I’m all about being real and not about the fake stuff. Both as a friend, a manager, a company and for our athletes. I believe in being true to ourselves both in life and in branding as anyone who is confident in themselves should not be fazed by outside pressures to conform.
Transparency – Always be open, accountable and honest, both personally and in business.
Teamwork – The people that we choose to surround ourselves with are a group who genuinely love, trust and look out for each other. As a team we have a Growth Mindset and believe that all our talents can be developed through hard work, good strategies and input from others. Always focused on learning and improving.
Integrity – Doing the right thing, even when nobody is looking. It’s that simple. Always.
Commitment – Being just crazy enough to see things to the end. Committed to improving the spiritual, social, economic and intellectual conditions of ourselves and our team. Our purpose is to uplift athletes and provide them with the ability to solely focus on training and performance.
ATTIC
Now as a kicker.. we can also use the analogy of an attic for a house, much like a sports manager for an athlete. Not everyone needs one, but those who do are thinking outside the box, while breathing new life into their home (career) with fantastic storage opportunities (to declutter their life to concentrate on training and competing in their sport) and simply increasing their market value.
So there you have it, Attic Sports is born.
Clear your headspace, we’ve got you.
