Athletes and Founders — Same, Same but Different?
How to succeed at very hard things and what we can learn from athletes
In the last few weeks, there have been countless tweets about the Last Dance — the Netflix documentary about Michael Jordan — in my (too biased) Twitter feed. Many people get quickly excited about people such as Michael Jordan, who can achieve things that are very hard to do, for many even impossible to achieve at all. This excitement is not limited to sports, and I think there are many similarities to being a founder and an athlete.
In this post, I want to connect those two worlds, look at how to succeed at very hard things from a theoretical perspective, and then add some examples from some of my favorite athletes and what we can learn from them.
From sports to tech, from athletes to founders
Due to my running efforts in my 20s, I have always been amazed by athletes and their grit and determination — no matter which sports they would do. Back then, I asked myself if I should pursue it full-time after my studies but wasn’t sure if I can do it and thought it would be too late at the age of 26. Today, I still think about it, if it was a mistake and if I should have simply tried it. I still don’t know :-)
Having worked in tech for a few years now, it’s no surprise that I enjoy reading books from former athletes who went on and built big businesses such as Nike (Shoe Dog) or Patagonia (Let my people go surfing). However, I’m wondering why I haven’t come across a lot of philosophies or coaching programs that are trying to bring concepts from the sports world to the business world (or maybe I’m just not aware of them?).
“The art of competing, I’d learned from track, was the art of forgetting, and I now reminded myself of that fact. You must forget your limits. You must forget your doubts, your pain, your past.” (Phil Knight, Shoe Dog)
I think it’s well-known that many of the most successful athletes and founders work together with a coach. As an example, Jerry Colonna’s coaching company Reboot has become well-known among founders in the US tech ecosystem and beyond. Such a support system is essential since founders have a higher risk of going into depression. Not many people like to talk about that, but according to this study by Michael A. Freeman, founders are 49% more likely to report mental health conditions. The same holds true for athletes, and it’s again a commonality of both worlds.
In my eyes, this all goes back to one strong common aspect between founders and athletes: they are doing something that is very, very hard to do. So let’s take a closer look at the theory of how people achieve very hard things and then go through a few examples of how athletes are doing it and what kind of conclusions we can draw from it to entrepreneurship.
Theory — the compensatory relationship of ability and motivation (Fogg Behavior Model)
To better understand how to succeed at things that are very hard to do, I think the Fogg Behavior Model is a great and simple abstraction. It consists of three elements:
- M = the motivation (high vs. low)
- A = the ability to do something (hard vs. easy)
- T = the trigger events
As the model shows, you need to have very high motivation to succeed at things that are very hard to (upper left) — it doesn’t matter if this is being the fastest marathon runner or building a company. Investors like to back founders who have been frustrated with a specific problem and go on to build a solution for this problem because these people usually have a very high intrinsic motivation due to their own frustration. If motivation drops, people prefer to do easier things and often, things won’t get easier the better you get :-)
But even if you can do something that is hard and you have the motivation for it, you still need to have trigger events that trigger the behavior to succeed. These trigger events can be seen as a “call to action” that causes a specific behavior. Fogg describes it as “to put hot triggers in the path of motivated people.” I think coaches and mentors (also including VCs) can be seen as facilitators to trigger a specific behavior, i.e. starting and building a company or transition from an amateur to becoming a professional athlete. These people can give a person feedback, develop a plan with a certain cadence (a training plan or a roadmap to Series A), and can provide constant reminders. It’s essential that to succeed, all three elements need to happen at the same moment (B = MAT).
Now that we have a better understanding of how people in theory succeed, let’s look into the real world and at some examples that combine these three elements.
How do elite athletes succeed? Some Examples.
Eliud Kipchoge (Running)
Eliud Kipchoge has been the first person who managed to run a marathon under 2h (under certain conditions), holds the official marathon world record of 2:01:39, and won many individual world championships including the Olympic marathon in 2016.
What we can learn:
- 😴 Importance of recovery: Kipchoge sleeps for 10 hours every day and believes that good sleep is not only necessary for his physical recovery but also his mental recovery. He could sleep less and run even more, but he knows, it’s a marathon and not a sprint. Of course, there are weeks where you have to work very long, but building a company is a lengthy endeavor, and taking time off and recovery is just as crucial as this example shows if you want to maximize for the long run. Recovery time is part of every training program and where the real training effect takes place. Without it, you will break down from intensive exercise.
- 🤝 Teamwork: Even though running is a very individual sport, he has a whole team around him that he trains with and emphasizes the importance of it: “You cannot train alone and expect to run a fast time.” I think this is a good reminder that you need a whole team to do things that are very, very hard to do.
- 😌 Mindset: Kipchoge also does a lot of journaling that helps him to reflect and to have a clear mind. His trainer underlines the importance of the mindset: “[…] it taught me that what the mind has set to do — if that person believes holistically on the mind and follows the mind — the limits are elastic. You can stretch those limits.” Taking time to reflect, be it with a journal or a coach, for example, is a great way to learn.
“In life, the idea is to be happy. So I believe in a calm, simple, low-profile life. You live simple, you train hard and live an honest life. Then you are free.” (Source)
Serena Williams (Tennis)
Serena Williams is, with no doubt, one of if not the most successful tennis players in the world. She has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles and has been ranked as №1 by the WTA in singles on eight separate occasions, not to mention her 14 Grand Slam double titles with her sister Venus.
What we can learn:
- 💪 Determination: Williams still has a very intense training schedule and trained even harder when she was a kid to build a solid foundation. Usually, she trained for six days a week and at least for 6–7h per day as a kid. As with other athletes, determination and doing things over and over again is essential to succeed (think of Gladwell’s 10,000h rule).
- ⚖️ Balance: I think it’s important to note that her training is very balanced though. Her trainer puts a lot of emphasis on strength training so that she can move faster and does not get injured. At first glance, this might be weird, why not just run to become faster? In reality, it’s more complicated than that; you need to train a whole system to do that. I see this similar to running a company where you could, for example, do a lot of sales to try to increase revenue but if you forget to build out the product, you probably won’t come far. In the end, the company needs to be a well-oiled machine where everything from product to sales has to fit well together.
- 😎 Having fun: Also, Williams traditionally did a lot of running and biking for cardio but partially switched to dancing because it’s just much more fun and still a good workout. Hard work does not mean that it shouldn’t be fun :-)
“I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.” (Source)
Jan Frodeno (Triathlon)
Jan Frodeno is a professional triathlete. He is a 3-time winner of the Ironman World Championship and won the summer Olympics in 2008, among others. He trains up to 40h per week, swims 1,100–1,200km, cycles 15,000km, and runs 5,000km per year.
What we can learn:
- 🙏 Believe: His trainer Dan Lorang who is coaching other world-class triathletes as well, says these athletes have one particular thing in common: they believe in what they do, and they do everything without compromises. If you are so crazy to start a company, you need to be the first one to believe in yourself and in what you’re doing :-)
- 🧐 Adaption: An ironman usually lasts at least 7.35h, and such a long race is typically unpredictable. Therefore, Frodeno needs to adapt fast to different circumstances. That’s why every training day is different for him, and his coach is usually trying to set different stimuli and triggers. I believe this is very similar to running a company where you have to navigate through the unknown, and so you need to learn to adapt fast to it. Covid-19 is a good example of an unpredictable event to which a company needs to adapt quickly.
- ✍️ Reflection: Every day, Frodeno analyzes his training results at 10 pm before he goes to bed to learn and adapts his training for the future based on these results. I think Frodeno applies a bit of the lean startup approach, where he has a constant feedback loop on his training. He measures it, learns from it, and builds his training on top of his learnings.
“Whether you’re a professional or just an amateur, it’s most important that you never forget that you’re doing it to enjoy it.” (Source)
Bridging sports and entrepreneurship
I could go on and on, the list of world-class and inspiring athletes seems endless (Simone Bills, Michael Phelps, Alex Honnold, …) and it’s hard for me not to get too excited about these people. I think each of these athletes is very different on its own, but I think all of them are trying to stretch their ability and motivation and use triggers such as a coach, a team, journaling, and other supporting systems to do so.
The journey of successful founders and professional athletes is very similar; in both cases, individuals are going against the grain, the odds are stacked against them, and the chances of succeeding are minimal. Only the ones that have incredible motivation and drive (that put in the 10k hours) and that can keep a cool head (stay mentally strong) will succeed.
I haven’t come across a lot of concepts that combine philosophies from the sports and the business world. That doesn’t mean that this is the holy grail, but I just really would like to learn more about people who apply some of these concepts. I think there are so many exciting aspects and commonalities to it that I’m just curious to learn from both of these worlds.
