Everything I Know About Entrepreneurship I Learned from Gymnastics
A lot of what I need to know about entrepreneurship I learned from gymnastics. I realize that might sound strange, so let me explain.
Before I was a word nerd I was a Gymnast, with a capital G. From the time I was four, I used cartwheels as my main mode of transportation. Every curb, fence or slightly raised surface was transformed into a balance beam on which I tip-toe dip-walked, full turned and sashayed. And handstands. So many handstands. My parents actually made a rule outlawing handstands in the kitchen… because my sister and I had a habit of running into the refrigerator and clearing off all the photos, coupons and magnets in one fell swoop of our careening limbs. By the time I turned ten, I spent portions of four days in the gym. In fact, Friday nights on my middle school social calendar mainly consisted of open gym at the university, which held a larger facility than my usual practice spot at the YMCA. It beat out hanging with school friends because this gym had a foam pit, spring floor and trampolines. (Side note: All of this was by choice. My parents never pushed, only supported. Thanks Mom and Dad!) I was obsessed. Gymnastics was more than something I did, up until I was 18, it was who I was. Much like I am the word nerd today, back then being a gymnast was my identity.
So what does this have to do with entrepreneurship? I promise I have a point. I’m getting to it. I just need to set the scene.
There’s a move on the uneven parallel bars called a kip. It is the foundational move that takes a person from someone who does gymnastics to someone who is a gymnast. It is hard. It involves strength from all quadrants of your body and also a mastery of leverage and timing. Being able to do a kip is a big deal. And here’s the thing. It takes months to learn. And everyone who’s a gymnast knows this. We know it’s hard going in, but we chalk up our hands and start trying anyway. The only way to master this skill is to build up our muscles, experiment with body position, rehearse the timing and try, try, try. Show up, work hard, experiment, study the success of others, try again, fail, fail, fail and then repeat the process about a thousand times. (I’m not kidding.)
When you finally figure out how to hoist your body up on top of that bar, you feel like you’re on top of the world.
But, there’s more. Once you learn how to kip, you open your options to learn even more skills. Because you are now stronger and have better body awareness and are able to control your movement while swinging from a wooden bar, you realize you can *probably* do other cool tricks too. Many of these tricks require a firm hold on the bar, firmer than the strength humans contain in their fingers, and so you wear grips.
**Grips are a piece of leather that cover your palm, and contain a wooden dowel that allow you to keep the bar within your grasp. A piece of leather stretches up from your wrist over the top of your middle and ring fingertips to rest on the space just below your first knuckle, with the dowel just below that.**
Breaking in a pair of grips requires using sandpaper to grind down the finger holes to a shape that fits your fingertips. (A lot of raw skin and also some bleeding occur during the trial and error process, especially if you have fat fingers, like me.) Once you get the grips to fit, you attempt moves you’ve mastered with your bare hands, but now with a piece of leather altering the feel of each swing. You are essentially relearning how to hold and grasp the bar. It is a difficult and time consuming effort, but without it, you know you’ll never reach the next level. That kip you worked hours and hours to learn, you have to learn it all over. We gymnasts know this going in and yet, we choose to do it anyway because it’s the only way to move upward in our sport.
Okay, okay, Amanda. How does this relate to entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurship, like gymnastics, is hard. Often when you reach a level of success, the business world asks you to develop an entirely new set of skills, or begin again from a new angle, with a new mindset so that you can level up, reach more people, sell more products, and impact more lives. Success at one level is not indicative of achievement at the next. It’s a whole new game every time you meet your goals and outgrow your current status. Being your own boss sounds amazing and looks dazzling from the outside, but like gymnastics there is a whole lot more going on that the world sees.
I realize that people could draw parallels between a wide variety of athletics and particular career fields, but gymnastics and entrepreneurship are what I know, so it's what you’re gonna get. Here are three lessons gymnastics taught me and how I’ve applied them to being an entrepreneur.
Failure is a part of the process.
I think I’m able to have the confidence to tackle entrepreneurship because as a gymnast I routinely performed in front of hundreds of people. Sometimes I failed in front of hundreds of people, but it didn’t stop me from finishing the meet or coming back to try again the next week and the next and the next. This is necessary in entrepreneurship too. Gymnastics taught me that one failure doesn’t mean I should close up shop. Rather, it taught me that I’ll have to try and fail (a whole heck of a lot) until I’ve learned how to be really good at something. In a country that fears failure, I am so grateful to have learned this valuable lesson.
The results are my responsibility.
For the most part, gymnastics is a solo sport. Yes, you are a part of a team, but only one gymnast competes at a time. And yes, as a competitive gymnast, I had the support of coaches and trainers, of my parents, friends and fans in the stands. But when all was said and done, I was the only one out there on the vault, bars, beam or floor. What happened in my routines was purely my responsibility. The same is true when you are an entrepreneur. At the end of the day, you are the one with your name on the bottom line, and you need to own up to all the good and bad that comes with that role.
Take what you need from a critique and then move on.
As a gymnast, I was used to getting feedback on my performance (and not all of it was good). Entrepreneurs are judged all the time. Their product, their branding, their services, their website, their lifestyle choices, heck, even their personalities sometimes are judged. Because I had the experience of being literally judged (down to the position of my hand, the point of my toe or the color of my sports bra), I developed tough skin. I don’t let other people’s passing opinions dictate my next move or the way I feel about my accomplishments. Just like a gymnast who is unhappy with their score, I decide if I feel good about what I have done, created, performed and shown the world. I take the critique sent my way, use it to do better next time and then, move on.
I’m on a roll, so let me add one more thing. I have a friend (a friend who took their gymnastics experiences to brighter stages than mine) who has reached incredible levels of success in their entrepreneurial lives. Here’s what she has to say about the connection between these two topics.
“Gymnastics and entrepreneurship are one in the same. They look so easy from the outside, but from the inside, there are tears, frustration and relentless determination. The biggest lesson gymnastics taught me is that when you learn to compete with only yourself, you can’t fail.”
You can learn more about Andrea’s entrepreneurial journey and work here.
So, what’s the point? Sign your kids up for gymnastics. Kidding (or, maybe not!). The point is, look at your past experiences and see what you can pull from them to improve your current situation. Maybe, like me, these lessons can come from a sport. Maybe they come from a hobby, like woodworking or gardening or fostering puppies. Maybe a past relationship, your beater first car, or your place in your sibling birth lineup have taught you everything you need to take your entrepreneurship or career to the next level. Reflect, journal and then, take action. And, if you’re feeling generous, drop your lesson in the comments below, so we can vicariously learn from your experience.
If you liked this post, you might also enjoy…
Watch my senior year floor routine at the 2001 Wisconsin State Gymnastics Meet.
This post was made beautiful by Canva.
If you liked what you read on my blog today (or are in search of weekly word nerd goodness) and would like to have it delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning, you can sign up HERE. If you are interested in any of my email lists (with free goodies/downloads!) click the audience that best describes you: Writer. Teacher. Reader. As always, feel free to share this post with others you think might be interested via email, Facebook or Pinterest.
Finally, affiliate marketing is promoting a product or service in return for a commission. When you purchase a product or service through one of my links, I earn a small part of the sale. There is NEVER any extra cost to you. If you looked up the same product on the same site through another source besides my website, the price will still be exactly the same. 100% of the time.
I also NEVER link to products or services that I don't 100% believe in. I will never tout a company or their goods if they are disreputable or if I don't believe them to be worthy of your hard-earned money. In no way are my affiliate links a scam. (Language borrowed with permission from Kristen Kieffer on Well-Storied.com)