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How Sports Make You Better at Business, from Jim Sogi

2013-03-20 ยท David Lilienfeld, Jim Sogi, Steve Ellison
Original source

Many top level executives and successful traders and entrepreneurs have sports backgrounds and continue to be active in sports. Sports provide good training and experience for a young (and old) person by:

  1. Providing a competitive but safe atmosphere;
  2. Allowing the ability to absorb losses and move on;
  3. Teaching sportsmanship;
  4. Providing health benefits;
  5. Honing the competitive instinct, or killer instinct, in a non
    lethal environment;
  6. Giving incentive to give 100 per cent plus;
  7. Providing the opportunity to learn how to learn under the guidance
    of a coach or teacher;
  8. Creating the foundation for a training regimen and discipline.
  9. Teaching team dynamics and working together as a team in team sports;
  10. Making life long friends and connections.
  11. Providing a conducive social setting outside of business during
    which business and personal matters can be discussed in an informal setting.

I'm sure there are many other benefits.

David Lilienfeld writes:

There's also 12. Developing an implementing a strategy which may not
work and making the needed changes in it to attain success. It's a
variant of "You're going to be wrong.

Steve Ellison writes:

Sports are generally objective. The final score stands regardless of excuses or rationalizations.

I have noticed that many athletes become successful salesmen, which might explain why many are CEOs. I was called on by a former Kansas City Chief selling software. Before 2001, EMC had a reputation for seeking out athletes for its sales force, particularly those who had grown up non-affluent, because they were determined, persistent, and never satisfied.