Netball Super League | Life after The Apprentice: How TV star Flo Edwards continued her journey on the show and where she’s heading to next

Last time we spoke to The Apprentice star and former Loughborough Lightning player Flo Edwards, her journey on the TV show was only just beginning. Now the show is over and, after finishing in the top five, Flo’s journey into the real business world is about to start.

Describing her whole experience on the show, Flo took us right back to the beginning and reflected on her experience.

“So I don’t even know where to begin. The process as a whole was incredible. I think it was great to work with so many different people on various tasks. And actually, I had the experience of gaining business skills that I never have had the opportunity to get before such as advertising, marketing and branding.

“It was a real confidence booster. Moving through the process and doing relatively well is a good opportunity to start believing in yourself.”

Making it to the final five contestants, Flo told us about the interview stage, where she was grilled about her future business prospects and what her hopes and desires are for her company.

“I think for me, I was truly blessed to be in the final five with four other incredible individuals. To be named in that cohort is, I guess, an accolade in itself. The interviews are as scary as they look. But remember, the viewers only get to see 30 seconds of a whole-hour interview. So actually, we have a lot more of an intellectual deep dive into our businesses. And you guys only see the snippets, the funniest parts.”

Reflecting on some of the tasks she tackled throughout the show, Flo dived into her favourites from the series, highlighting certain points that she felt she performed best in, as well as those that she wished she performed better at.

“During task nine whereby we had to sell items on a shopping channel on TV, I wasn’t actually on camera for that one, I was in the gallery directing and I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I knew that decisions had to be made and so I was making them, whether they were right at the time or not.

“I got pulled up in the boardroom about these decisions but a huge learning from that task to me was to own your mistakes and just be honest because actually I was accountable and I took the responsibility which meant that I came out of the firing line as a result of it and was respected a lot more for the honesty and transparency.

“So even if you step out of your comfort zone and do something that you’re not familiar with, you’ve just got to own it. Task nine, I wasn’t comfortable but then if we look back to task seven with the wine tasting in Budapest, I was in my element and I knew I’d be fine!

“If the process forces you out of your comfort zone and to try things that you’ve never done before, if you don’t throw yourself into it and you sit back and not give everything you’ve got, you’ll get pulled up and fired.

“You can also tie this into a netball perspective. Taking ownership on the court is one of the best things you can do. I was a shooter and if you look a shooting stats, they’re very black and white as to how you’ve influenced a game. And ultimately, there’s no hiding from the accountability that you’ve got regarding those stats and you’ve just got to own it.

“But sometimes you come off court and you say you know what, that wasn’t my best game, but let’s move forward because I tried to give everything that I could to it. And it’s no different for business. Give everything you can and if it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t work out.”

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Before the interview, we asked you, the Netball Family if you had any questions for Flo. Starting with if she managed to play any netball whilst filming for The Apprentice!

“I didn’t unfortunately! When you’re in the house you don’t have a phone, you don’t have access to anything and anything you do is chaperoned. So if you wanted to go for a walk, there had to be a good few of you wanting to go but we still had to have someone with us at all times.

“But yes this meant no netball which meant I missed the 2023 NSL Grand Final which my friend Hannah Joseph (Loughborough Lightning) was playing in. I couldn’t even watch it on TV!”

We asked Lightning’s Hannah Joseph how proud she was of Flo’s journey on the show and this is what she said:

“Huge congratulations to Flo for her journey on The Apprentice! I have loved watching her every week and it was great to see her represent herself so well. Although she didn’t win, making it so far in such a competitive show is definitely an achievement she can be extremely proud of.”

Noting the fact that the pair are very good friends, Flo’s expectation of Loughborough Lightning reaching the Grand Final again this year is very high.

“I’m just purple through and through and I would love to see Lightning get a spot at the Grand Final again.”

Another question asked by fans was about the return from injury which Flo had mentioned in her last interview. She gave her advice on how players can bounce back from things that may be stopping them in their tracks.

“I think what’s always been amazing to me and what I’ve always really cherished is having incredible teammates, friends and family around you. You know, you kind of live vicariously through them at times when you have an injury and you get to support them and give back.

“You think it’s the end of the world at that point in time when actually it’s a brief blip. In the grand scheme of things, it could be just for a fraction of your playing career that you’re actually out for and when you do come back to court, you’ll come back stronger than ever.”

When asked about her pre-game routine, both back in her Loughborough Lightning days and now, Flo had a few key things come to mind.

“Coffee. I always wake up on game day with a coffee but it’s usually the night before a game that my routine comes into play. I try and have a super calm night and try to get my body into game mode and then waking up with a coffee, making sure I’ve got everything that I need and then just watching some Disney just to get the vibe going is ideal really!

“Oh and ‘Frozen’ is definitely the go-to film.”

Linking business and netball is something in Flo’s life that she does a lot, so when asked if she sees similar attributes in netball coaches and great business coaches, Flo highlighted some qualities that they both share.

“For me, there’s not much of a difference, if at all. I think you are coaching in any aspect, you are steering and you are guiding somebody through, I guess, a period of growth and the attributes that you show as a coach in that space are interchangeable.

“It’s knowing when to be hands-on versus when to sit back and let people make mistakes. It’s giving them guidance, it’s giving them tactics and skills and building on their characteristics.”

Reflecting on past netball memories and if she had a standout moment from her career, the former Loughborough Lightning player said:

“I think one of my favourite quotes is you eventually forget the games that you played, but you’ll never forget the individuals that you played with.

“I think over your netball career, you play so many games and yes, you have incredible memories with lots of different games, but actually it’s the the certain pockets within a game that I had with a friend or with a player that was just really, really cool.

“Like, you know, when you’ve been working on something in training, it might be your boxed defence set up, and then you put that into play on the court and you turn around and you’re like, ‘yes, guys, we did it’.”

Netball reflections over, Flo was then asked about her favourite moment on The Apprentice.

“There were quite a few, but I think for me it was task ten when Trey was teaching me how to rap; a lot of these things didn’t make the edit, but we were having so much fun that Tim (the producer) told the cameras to stop rolling whilst we all had to calm down and stop laughing.

“I think because I was so out of my comfort zone because, you know, doing TikTok and doing sort of rapping and singing and dancing is not my thing. And it was the last thing I wanted to do going on the show. And it was the task for the final five, so Trey was like, ‘yeah, cool. You’ve got to do it.’

“I was like, my God, I’ve avoided this the entire time. I had this sinking feeling and thought I would just hate every moment. But, because I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and did something different, it ended up being the most enjoyable experience!”

So what is next for Flo? Where is her journey taking her and what can we expect to see from her soon?

“Yeah, so it’s been really hard to sort of be involved in the process as well as running the business, as well as doing everything else, like playing netball and keeping up with the social life.

“And so I’m actually quite grateful that I can solely focus on the business, put my head down and deliver, maybe not quite with such ambitious numbers, but deliver that and sort of throw myself at the business, but also help others along the way.

“I want to continue to show that you don’t necessarily have to have a huge social media presence to influence and inspire others.”

A huge congratulations to Flo on her successes during her time on The Apprentice. We can’t wait to see what she goes on to do in the future!

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