From Athlete To Entrepreneur: Former ACC Champion Swimmer Josh Hafkin of Game Gym On The 5 Work Ethic Lessons We Can Learn From Athletes

Only you can control your outcomes. The responsibility for your success, or the blame for your failures, are yours and yours alone. Maybe your coach trained you wrong, but you chose that coach. You are in control of your destiny for good or bad.

As a part of our series about the work ethic lessons we can learn from professional athletes, I had the pleasure of interviewing Josh Hafkin.

Josh Hafkin is the founder and CEO of Game Gym, a DMV-based esports training organization that teaches gamers to play smarter and better. A former ACC champion swimmer at the University of North Carolina, Josh combined his passion for competition with his love for video games, founding an esports training organization with a uniquely holistic approach, working to improve gamers in front of and away from the screen. At Game Gym, players work through structured training programs to develop the technical skills, mentality, and teamwork necessary to find success in esports.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! It is a great honor. Our readers would love to learn more about your personal background. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I started off in traditional sports and was a super energetic kid. I got into swimming and swam all through high school and college. I had a fairly successful career, even winning an ACC championship and qualifying for the 2008 and 2012 Olympic trials. In the background, I always loved games, and my Gameboy would be my companion on long trips. When I finished my athletic career, I thought I was going to get into traditional sports, but I found an opportunity to get into video game marketing and took it. Ever since then, I’ve had the opportunity to work in a world that fuses my love of video games, sports, and competition.

What or who inspired you to pursue your career as a high-level athlete?

Luckily, I was good early. I won my first national competition at age 10 and from age 10–23, I was ranked nationally and internationally. Luckily, I had wonderful coaches who helped me continue to grow, pushed me when I got complacent, and helped me to navigate being an early star. I was really very self-motivated, even when I was young, but the person who really helped me take things to the next level was Jim Williams, at Rockville-Montgomery Swim Club. He was my coach from 14–18 and he took my raw talent and gave me the structure and support I needed to become the top backstroke recruit in the country by 2007.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Was there a particular person who you feel gave you the most help or encouragement to be who you are today? Can you share a story about that?

My friend Nick owns a swim program called Fins and as a young swimmer, I worked there and helped him start it. I was able to see what it was like to build a program from the ground up. He started with just a couple people at first, but then it grew and grew, and I was able to see my friend build something that felt tangible. When I started Game Gym, we spent many a night working out details and numbers that made it all real. If it weren’t for him showing me how it could be done and supporting my venture, I would not have started Game Gym.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in the course of your sports career? What lesson or takeaway did you learn from that?

Back when I was swimming, we were in the era of the fast skin suits. We would squeeze ourselves into these skin-tight suits and sometimes they had some issues. I remember once, as they said “take your mark”, I leaned down and heard a rip, to my horror, my suit ripped right up my butt. I had two options: accept a disqualification, or swim it buns out. I swam it buns out and didn’t win — in fact, it was a horrible race — but there was nothing that was going to stop me from completing the race. My coaches instilled in me the pride of finishing. It doesn’t matter whether you are last. You have to swim a whole 50 by yourself. And if your suit rips, you finish. That idea has stuck with me and to this day, I may have to drag my lifeless body across a finish line, but I will finish.

OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the core focus of our interview. As an athlete, you often face high-stakes situations that involve a lot of pressure. Most of us tend to wither in the face of such pressure and stress. Can you share with our readers 3 or 4 strategies that you use to optimize your mind for peak performance before high-pressure, high-stress situations?

The best thing you can do to optimize for high-pressure or high-stress situations is honest preparation. Whether it is an interview, a pitch, or you are about to race, before you begin you can ask yourself, “how well did I prepare?” If the answer is “to the best of my ability”, then you should feel confident. I think a lot of times — whether it be sports or interviews or pitches — people “think” they are prepared. But when they really get in there, they don’t have that confidence because they know they could have done more. I’ve stood at the edge of the deck knowing I prepared well and other times I would try to convince myself I had prepared enough. Only you will know the difference and you just have to be honest with yourself.

Can you tell us the story of your transition from a professional athlete to a successful business person?

When I finished my athletic career, I thought I was going to get into traditional sports, but I found an opportunity to get into video game marketing with RedPed Marketing and took it.

When I was at RedPeg Marketing, I was part of launching GEICO’s gaming program. We saw gaming as a wide-open opportunity and they were excited about it. It became my job to make sure that GEICO integrated themselves into the gaming ecosystem the right way. So, I became a student and learned everything I could about every esport and dove into the histories and rivalries in each one. I had the pleasure of attending almost every gaming and esports event across the country and it gave me a clear picture of the industry. The education that I got while trying to assure success for my client laid the foundation for my career in gaming and was the best gift I ever could have received.

I noticed that there was an opportunity to take the things I’ve learned from the traditional sports world and apply them to the esports and gaming worlds and so in 2018, I started Game Gym. Ever since then, I’ve had the opportunity to work in a world that fuses my love of video games, sports, and competition.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting new projects you are working on now?

I am incredibly excited about the app we are launching next year. The goal of the app is to help gamers play better and smarter by giving them structured workouts from their favorite Game Gym coaches. Our goal is to keep our “community” vibe as we push more digitally, and I’m excited about the opportunities that come with it. You can actually check out our wordpress-based MVP now for free at www.GameGymOnline.com. We would love your feedback!

Do you think your experience as an athlete gave you skills that make you a better entrepreneur? Can you give a story or example about what you mean?

Yes, absolutely. It’s mainly helped me put things into perspective. Swimming is a grind and entrepreneurship is a grind. They are both long, sustained efforts over many seasons with exciting highs and crushing defeats along the way. The mentality that I learned in swimming allowed me to manage the long seasons and ups and downs of being an entrepreneur.

Ok. Here is the main question of our interview. Entrepreneurs and professional athletes share a common “hustle culture”. Can you share your “5 Work Ethic Lessons That Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Athletes”? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. The season has ups and downs. Don’t get too high or too low, ride the waves. The season is a journey and you can’t judge every practice or pitch as if you are winning or losing the Super Bowl.
2. You can perform your best and still lose. That’s life, most of the time you will lose. Toughen up for a myriad of disappointments along the way.
3. Only you can control your outcomes. The responsibility for your success, or the blame for your failures, are yours and yours alone. Maybe your coach trained you wrong, but you chose that coach. You are in control of your destiny for good or bad.
4. Find training partners, coaches, or mentors. It’s almost impossible to do it all by yourself, and a great support system is vital to the success of any athlete or entrepreneur
5. You have to be confident. If you don’t believe in yourself, others won’t either. The only difference between me and some of the people I trained with was that I knew I was going to win.

What would you advise a young person who aspires to follow in your footsteps and emulate your career? What advice would you give?

Try a bunch of things. I didn’t know what I “wanted to do.” I just kind of got here. So, my advice would be to just try a bunch of things, put yourself outside of your comfort zone, and see what happens. Usually, your bravery will be rewarded.

You are by all accounts a very successful person. How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I hope to be a mentor to as many people as possible along the way and put some good out in the world. One person can only do so much, but a bunch of people can make an impact. I look up to Jon Stewart a lot. He used his platform for good and to launch the careers of Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, and others who continue to have a massive impact on the world. I would love to look back and say that the people I’ve helped went on to bigger and better things and that they took some of the values and lessons that they learned at Game Gym and made the world a better place.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I just want people to think about gaming and esports in a more positive light. Yes, if video games are used incorrectly, they can throw your life out of balance — but so can swimming, gymnastics, and other sports. The goal is to develop not only this hobby, but also a more well-rounded person, so that there’s more to your life than just gaming or sports. My goal is to push our young men and women to live a life where they develop multiple hobbies — from gaming to sports to graphic design and music. The main thing is, when you put the game down, do you have something equally exciting to pick up?

Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Why does that resonate with you so much?

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” — Teddy Roosevelt

Teddy was one of the original badasses. He would say things like “Over, under, or through, but never around” and spoke in a way that was both incredibly tough and incredibly tender. After a defeat in life or politics, he would go off on an adventure and test himself, at one point almost dying navigating the Amazon. I’ve always loved his mentality and his drive and I can promise you that I will always be in the arena. I might not always win, but I will always be there happy as a pig in a slop marred by dust, sweat, and blood.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them :-)

Rick Fox, based on his sports experience and what we are building, I feel like we would have a lot to talk about and maybe he would even invest in Game Gym!

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!