Breaking a collarbone on Friday during practice, have surgery a couple of hours later, to appear at the start of the race on Sunday. Athletes, supernatural ones, have been known to do it. Even though racers should avoid crashing, it’s not always possible.
Endurance, the ability to sustain an (athletic) activity, can be improved, both from a muscular and cardiovascular perspective. How so? By training. Put simply, repeatedly doing a particular activity while trying to get better at it counts as trying.
How does all this translate to entrepreneurship?
Improving at running a business can be trained by doing precisely that. Even though the physical pain is significantly less than the above-mentioned athletes, long days and long nights certainly leave their mark. Long hours put a strain on your mind, body, and relationships.
World champions start training right after they can walk and proceed to pocket bikes or go-carts. By the time they take home the title, they have trained intensively for twenty years. Making tons of sacrifices in the process.
Young racers are often more aggressive, hence take more risks, and subsequently crash more often. The same is true of entrepreneurs.
Improving entrepreneurial endurance doesn’t happen overnight. Keeping your head up in the face of adversity isn’t easy. It requires thick skin. Finding the right balance between input, output, and recovery is a lifelong process.
2 replies on “business grand prix — endurance”
[…] and endurance aren’t necessarily the same. Endurance defines the physical ability to keep performing at […]
[…] I see nine parallels between these types of athletes and entrepreneurs. Namely, crashing, endurance, stamina, aggression, tweaking, broad knowledge, deep focus, fearlessness, and sportsmanship. Not […]