Top 3 lessons from extreme sport athletes to use in your start-up.
With the Rio Olympics over, I have been thinking what could be linking top athletes and their top performance with Entrepreneurs. In the leadership field, we often use sport related case studies to discuss concept of high performing team, leadership, team building etc. I thought it would be interesting to find out what we could learn from top athletes, and in particular from extreme sport athletes such as motor racing, by talking to Simon Darnton (www.simondarnton.com).
Simon used to race motorbikes at a high level, and when young he used to do lots of risky sports such as off-piste skiing, gliding basically anything that was outdoor and risky. He now works as an executive coach, and his clients includes ex-motor racing champions, elite and world-class athletes in extreme sports and also entrepreneurs and leaders of small businesses.
Simon told me that in his field of extreme sports he works on the wider aspect of an athlete life, not only on the competition. This approach helps to create consistency and overall peak performance over a longer period of time. In his racing life, Simon experienced difficult barriers with his own performance, and he knew it wasn’t his technique or equipment. It was coming from within.
So let’s find out 3 top lessons we could use to make entrepreneurs top performers, like athletes.
1/ Ability to let go for better decisions
A common pattern with top athletes is they hold on too much on their performance, which mean this actually add tension and disruption to their performance. By creating a strong dependence to the end performance, you can find yourself in an unhealthy and un-helpful situation.
This is the same with entrepreneurs: if they hold on too much on the business this affect them in different ways. For example it may affect the entrepreneur ability to make informed decisions, narrow down their creativity, or their curiosity.
So the trick, as Simon said to me, is to let go! If you make decisions out of a dependency, out of attachment ( ie you want to succeed..) it can become too personal, and as a result your decision making process becomes more constrain.
2/ You are not the business, the business is not you
This point is how having too much focus on one thing can actually be a blocker to your performance. As contradictory as this may sound, Simon saw how this one way focus may cause depression, eating disorder and reduce the peak performance of motor racer athletes. As a result some of them were actually crashing more often on the circuit!
His advice is to detach yourself from the end goal. You need a balance, exposure to different things as this will feed into the way you are and will help you grow in an unpredictable way.
3/ It’s all about in the quality of your relationship with your business
This point here is about being aware of the nature of your relationship, how this may shift and change over time. How do you see your relationship with your business? What do you do when things stop happening for you? Do you keep on doing the same things?
Simon used the example of Tom Dailey who scored an Olympic record during qualification training in Rio, but as we know in the diving finals, it all went very wrong. What did Tom Dailey said after his disappointing results: “it just didn’t happen”.
You have to accept and move on, accept the reality. Tom showed us that whilst it was very upsetting and difficult for him, he is able to recognise and accept that even when we put everything we have into our efforts, things can go wrong.
The same with a business: sometime something is not happening for some reasons. Simon advice is for you to step back and let things unfold. Go for a walk, take a breather and don’t force yourself to drive through or keep on trying. If you have a too strong relationship with your business this may be holding you back. For example are you too interventionist when things go wrong? This is all about the quality of this relationship.
And remember sometime business has its own life, it will shape into something you never expect it to be, and to succeed, you have to let go!
Veronique Rapetti
