Worn Track & Field spikes from the early 2000's.
When I left college in 2005 and started looking for employment, I noticed that many of the non-technical job descriptions were geared toward former athletes:
We’re looking for elite candidates to join our sales organization. Candidates must be able to communicate well and demonstrate an ability to think on their feet. Competitive athletic experience preferred, but not required.
That always seemed a bit strange to me. I was a former athlete, which may be why I gravitated to those job descriptions, but what if I wasn’t? Why would having organized competitive athletic experiences cause them to favor someone like me over someone with no athletic experience?
I have MANY smart friends and colleagues who were not athletes, yet thrived in school and are thriving in the business world. Having said that, there are some skills and lessons that I learned playing competitive sports that would be hard to attain doing something else.
My anecdotes below are primarily from Football and Track & Field, because those were the two primary sports that I physically participated in, however these lessons can apply to all other team and individual sports.
1. Team Work
For many people in the working world, working in teams is extremely important. We often have to consult with co-workers in our own departments to tackle complex problems, and in some cases, work with other teams to collaborate on cross-functional problems. Some consulting organizations may team up with employees at their client sites to resolve issues. Some forms of teamwork in a professional environment can even be the difference between life and death. Air traffic controlling comes to mind.
For most of the work that needs to be done in this world, teamwork and the ability to work with others is critical. On teams, you learn to handle different personalities and tendencies in order to figure the correct balance that will enable all team members contribute to the optimum success of the team. In mathematics, this can be seen as a really complicated Operations Research problem. In real life, it’s called People Skills.
The team sport that I participated in the most, in High School, was Football. Football is an insanely complicated sport that, from what I can remember, had the stereotype of big muscle-bound “dumb jocks” smashing into each other with their bodies. In reality, they are anything but dumb. Here are just a few things on a much longer list of items that must be remembered, processed, and correctly acted on:
*Offensive schemes
*Defensive schemes
*Personnel assignments
*Hundreds of plays, and variations which can be triggered by something as small as someone aligning their body to your inside, outside, or center mass.
*Knowing the ins and out of the position being played. This can take years to fully learn.
*Understanding your responsibilities, such as where you are supposed to be on the field and when. This also ensures that two teammates do not carry out the same action, which can be catastrophic.
What I have listed above probably encompasses about 40% of the knowledge overview at a high level, and this gets exponentially more complex when we focus on the small details.
Since there are so many moving parts, everyone has to work together in order to be on the same page. This brings me to my next point.
2. Communication
It is one thing to be able to speak well. It is one thing to be able to write well. It is an entirely different thing to be able to speak effectively, write with a clear purpose, and in a clear manner, so that your point gets across. Being able to speak to large groups or teams of people in a clear and concise manner, void of fear, can also help portray competence and confidence.
More important than the ability to speak and/or write well, is the ability to listen. We must be able to clearly hear, understand and synthesize information in order to operate effectively. Listening may actually be the most important skill I touch on, in this article.
Communication is a two-way street, and much of the time, we are so bullish about our own agenda that we fail to listen to what others have to say. Many people listen to others with the intent of rebuttal, rather than understanding. If you think you know it all, then you can never learn anything.
I had many great coaches throughout my athletic career, and I accomplished many great things. I attribute my success to being a great listener, and acting on the knowledge they imparted by applying their teachings.
One great way to become a better listener is to ask sincere questions, and then shut up. For example, a hurdle coach once told me that my trail leg was not clearing the hurdle properly. Rather than say “well, it works for me, so I will keep doing what I am doing” or “thanks. I’ll figure it out on my own”, I asked him, “so what can I do to correct it?” He proceeded to give me various drills that I could use to work on the issue and correct it. But the caveat was that I had to do those drills every day.
3. Competitiveness
When I competed in athletics at the high school and collegiate levels, the goal was simple: win. I have heard horror stories of younger generations being awarded trophies for participation, which is catastrophic, in my opinion. We can’t always win, however that does not mean that we should be content with mediocrity.
Imagine you are the head of a sales organization, and one of your reps comes to you and says, “Hey boss, we didn’t close the multi-million-dollar deal. We actually lost it to our biggest competitor, because they were more sensitive to the client’s needs, and they performed their due diligence better than we did. But hey, we should still throw a party because we gave it a go.” Are you likely to keep that employee around for long?
Athletics taught me and my fellow teammates to practice as hard and as smart as we could, so that when the time came to perform, we could shine. This brings me to my next point.
4. Discipline
Discipline is something we all know, but not something we all practice. Discipline often involves habitually doing something that you don’t like to do, in order to achieve something that you want. It typically involves a sacrifice of some sort, like sleep, time, fun or sanity. But you know you have to do it.
Anyone who has played organized sports KNOWS that you have to get your butt to practice on time, or the consequences could be dire. Oftentimes, it could mean having to run extra laps around the track after practice is over while all of your punctual teammates get to go home, shower, eat, do their homework and go to bed.
Getting to work on time, every day, is a form of discipline. Being punctual shows other people that you respect their time, and I cannot stress enough how important it is. There are too many excuses for being late to work. Traffic was crazy this morning. Did you see that accident on the highway?
If you know that hitting the snooze button and getting up at 6:30am everyday causes you to be late on a regular basis, then you must find a way to develop the discipline to wake up at 6am in order to give yourself enough lead time to get to work on time. Mel Robbins has a fantastic method in which she “Launches” herself out of bed. I highly recommend that you check out her ‘5 Second rule’.
5. Work Ethic
When you compete in athletics at a high level, it can be a humbling experience. The first high school track and field race I ever ran was the Indoor 300-meter dash. No one told me that the 300-meter dash was an all-out sprint, so when the gun went off, I started off with a leisurely jog and saw ALL of the other competitors sprint out of their blocks with perfect form. I didn’t even use a starting block.
I eventually picked up the pace, but still finished the race well behind the rest of the field. A few minutes after my race, I saw one of my teammates, who was a year older than myself and had plenty of track and field experience, blow the competition out of the water. I became his best friend the very next day, and one thing that I immediate noticed about him was his insane work ethic.
While the rest of us simply just went to track practice, and thought that was enough to suffice, he would arrive to practice early to work on form drills, take every practice interval seriously, and ice properly afterward. He also did morning road-runs, which helped to keep him lean.
The extra effort definitely applies to the business world. I hate “working late” just as much as the next person, however sometimes, you have to put in the extra work, depending on what your goal is. For many, it may not even be putting in extra work at your corporate job, however it could be putting in additional time for a side venture. In any case, there is no substitute for hard work.
6. Attention to Detail
They often say that football is a “game of inches”. One missed read by a quarterback and it can result in an interception. One missed block by an offensive lineman can result in the quarterback getting his head taken off. One missed read by a primary defender can result in a rushing touchdown. One missed read by a secondary defender can result in a passing touchdown.
Some of the time, even if these reads are properly made, a player’s foot placement, hand placement, or use of improper form or technique can be the difference between them making a great play, their opponent making a great play or them getting a penalty. The little things matter.
This holds true in the business environment. Imagine for a minute that you’re reading over a contract (I would advise that you have lawyers do this) and the deal value is missing a zero (i.e. it should be seven figures when it is actually six figures). Your ability to pick up on the small details can mean the difference between a successful deal or serious headaches.
In my own personal corporate experience, I noticed that every time I made a mistake, it would result in having to re-do something. I quickly learned to hone in on those skills for paying attention to the details, and saved myself a lot of extra work, headaches and drama.
There can also be legal repercussions for not catching mistakes before they make it to a client, so paying attention to details is a CRITICAL skill that must be consciously practiced.
7. Ability to handle pressure
When your teammates are depending on you to come through, it’s an entirely different feeling than when you are doing something for yourself. Don’t get me wrong, self-motivation is a wonderful thing, however when you have other people depending on you, there is an element there where you really do not want to let them down. It’s the difference between being a hero, and being a zero.
I love watching penalty kicks in soccer, because it’s the perfect team example of handling pressure. Many of these professionals have demonstrated the ability to intentionally hit the corner of the goal post from 50 yards away, however when the pressure of gets turned on, we see wild misses from time to time.
Golf is another example, however from an individual standpoint, where you can see how people handle pressure-packed scenarios. Sports is one of the unique times where you get to see how people perform in artificially created pressure-filled situations.
In business, like in professional sports, much of the pressure comes from the fact that A LOT of money is often on the line, and there is little room for error. One theory many managers have is that if someone faced an intense pressure-filled situation at a high level athletically, then it is a familiar feeling to them. When something in the business world arises, whether it be a project that required three months of work yet needs to be completed in one month, or a deal that can make or break the company, you want someone on the front line who is no stranger to the pressure.
I would rather have someone in control who has faced that type of pressure time and time again, than someone who has never faced that kind of pressure at all, because I know that the experienced individual will stay composed and think clearly when it really matters.
8. Determination, Resiliency and the Ability to Handle Adversity
This is a big one. You’ll often hear pugilistic boxers say “it’s not how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get back up.” In athletics, in business, and in life, there will be things that knock you down… hard.
Some of the toughest events I have personally had to deal with in my life were deaths of close relatives. This is something that is universal to us all… no one is immune. In my case, I found it very tough to grieve while trying to focus and get work done at the office. We all deal with this sort of thing differently. Some people immerse themselves in their work, which helps them to cope by not thinking about the real issue. That however may prolong, extend or delay their grieving process.
There is something to be said about having to perform at a high level during emotional trauma. There are countless examples of professional athletes who have had to pull themselves together after the death of a loved one. In one example, Tiger Woods won the British Open in 2006, shortly after the death of his father. He did miss the cut for a previous tournament for the first time in his career, and took some time to grieve, however it did not cripple him forever. He ultimately crippled his career later on via infidelity, but I digress…
When someone has proven that they can handle an extremely adverse situation and still perform at a high level in the athletic arena, you can trust that they will be able to keep their emotions in check when faced with a similar situation in the business arena.
Me running the 400-Meter Intermediate Hurdles at the Penn Relays in 2004.
9. Goal Setting
When I first stepped foot on my college campus in 2001, I was immediately the slowest sprinter on the Track & Field team. I knew that I had to earn my place, and was willing to work to become one of the best. My event was going to be the 400 meter hurdles, and, growing up in Connecticut, I had never run that race before, because in Connecticut, they run the 300 meter hurdles.
I had the unenviable task of goal-setting with unknown variables. I set two goals: To break the 400-meter intermediate hurdle school record, and to win the Patriot League Championship in the 400-meter hurdles at least once. For someone of my athletic prowess, those were lofty goals, especially considering that I had never run the race before.
After applying many of the skills mentioned in this article, along with many frustrations, injuries and failures along the way, I ended up achieving both of those goals by the end of my Junior season. Without setting my sights on those goals, I am almost certain that they would not have come to fruition. The experience of learning to set challenging goals with moving parts, helped me tremendously when I entered Corporate America.
Typically, once per year, after a corporation’s performance review process, comes the goal-setting process. This is the time where each employee sets their goals for the upcoming business year, and it should be taken seriously. It’s one of the few times where an employee can lay out their personal development goals that the corporation will help them to achieve, provided they are in line with the corporation’s best interests, of course.
I was a terrible computer programmer in college, however I had one corporation pay for professional programming classes and I can now hold my own (for the most part). I first had to understand my role in the corporation and how I could best contribute to their goals, prior to establishing the challenging goal of learning how to program.
If you are an entrepreneur, leave a comment in the comments section below on how goal-setting has helped you shape your business.
10. Passion
This is one of those intrinsic values that isn’t necessarily a skill, however I felt the need to include it. People can tell when you are genuinely passionate about what you do, and your enthusiasm can draw people in. When we see fans at sporting events, they are displaying a true passion for the sports, teams and sometimes, players that they are supporting. Imagine if that energy was applied to a personal commitment, business or interest?
I know many teachers who are passionate about what they do. They are passionate about the lives they impact and the subjects they teach. Across the board, there isn’t as much money in being a public-school teacher as many people may perceive, and many of these teachers perform their responsibilities because they love what they do.
Being passionate about what you choose to do is where the true happiness in life lies. When that happens, and people can feel your energy, then the other things that we so often concern ourselves with (money, material possessions, etc…) will naturally follow.
Conclusion
If you made it this far, it should be clear that there are a lot of lessons and skills that can be transferred from the sporting arena to the business arena. I hope you enjoyed the read and can take away some concepts that will help you in your personal endeavors.
If you liked something you read here, please leave a comment to let me know. If there was something you did not like, feel free to express your opinion. Thank you for reading!