Three Lessons Sports Can Teach About Business & Life

Sports have always been in my life. While I have a hard time identifying myself as an athlete, there are very few periods in my life where I’ve been completely out of sports. As a child, I grew up watching Florida State football with my family, going to the games and watching them on TV. I started playing soccer and softball at a fairly young age and settled on swimming as my primary sport. I continued swimming into college (club level) and even as an adult with “Masters” [read: old people] teams. As an employee of the University of Virginia, I was even able to compete in a few meets on their club team up until age 30, which was kind of cool. Now, I play tennis for my neighborhood team, and I’m a sports mom for my two sons and a sports wife.

This weekend, I had two experiences with sports that brought into focus some truths about sports, life, and business. On Saturday, my husband and I took our two sons to the basketball court, and on Sunday I was able to play my first match of the season with my rec tennis team. 

Here are a few things I was able to take away from these experiences:

(1) If you’re playing just for fun, you’ll never make any money.

This truth needs to be acknowledged. If you are playing a sport for fun, then the value is in the experience, and the experience is worth it, and that is a wonderfully beautiful thing. You’ll spend money to create this experience. You’ll buy the gear, take the lessons, and there will be opportunity costs, but that’s all okay because that’s the point. You’ll have the fun, but you’re not getting sponsorships, won’t be playing on TV, and there will be no paycheck.

If you truly wish to get paid, you’ll need to approach your sport and/or your business as a job. You’ll need to be wise in your investments. You’ll need to actually get good at your craft. You’ll have to research all of the ways you could possibly get paid. It can be fun, but that’s not necessarily the point.

You need to get crystal clear on your vision. You’ll need to make every decision about your sport and/or your business with the paycheck in mind.

In my history of recreational sports, there was never a point where I desired to get paid. Whether I had the aptitude or not (and let’s face it, I didn’t), it was never even considered, much less seriously evaluated. I enjoy sports, but there has never been a time when I’ve considered working hard enough to try to get paid. In fact, we often remark on our recreational tennis team that we are not competing in Wimbledon, so if we miss a call or mess up a shot, it just doesn’t matter that much.

In business, however, it does matter. As a Licensed Therapist in Private Practice, I’ve realized that I do therapy because I desire to serve my clients, and I am quite skilled at this. However, it is also my business, my family’s livelihood. So, if I miss the opportunity to serve a client, it means that my paycheck is affected. I cannot go into business with the same mindset as I do my recreational tennis league. If you are in business, whether it is your sole source of income or a “side gig”, you can be doing it “just for fun”, but if that is your attitude, your paycheck (or lack thereof) will reflect that.

As Therapists, so often we say that "we're not in it for the money". While it is true that we should have sought out a different career if the only thing we were seeking was the money, it's okay to acknowledge that we require money, just as much as anyone else. And, we can serve our clients so much better if we have the means to support ourselves comfortably. We need to own our needs, and we need to speak the truth about our financial needs and goals.

(2) You’re going to get hurt from time to time.

When we went to play basketball, my husband put our 7-year-old on his shoulders to help him get some height to hopefully make a basket. My 11-year-old kept playing and hit a shot off the rim, which rebounded to hit my husband in the face and sort of brushed my 7-year-old’s legs. Since my husband’s priority was protecting our son, he wasn’t able to knock the ball out of the way or protect himself, so he did get hurt (not seriously of course, but enough to cause distress). My husband bore the brunt of the injury, but as a grown man and someone who has been in sports all his life as well, he “walked it off” and was more than willing to keep playing. Our 7-year-old, on the other hand, decided he didn’t want to play anymore, and our 11-year-old was so upset that he hurt his dad that he didn’t want to play either. They just haven’t learned the lesson (yet) that you are going to get hurt if you put yourself out there. Balls will come flying at your face, you’ll fall, you’ll skin knees, you may even break a bone or two (or many more than that if you are like my husband).

And, it’s okay.

We can’t expect to excel or even have fun in sports or business if we’re walking around wrapped up in bubble wrap. If you go about life, sports, or business with the intent to just not get hurt, you are not likely to achieve much of anything. You’ll be safe, but at what cost?

If you go all in on sports, life, or business, you’re going to get hurt.

You’ll lose money, get your heart broken, get your leg broken, be called a fool, and more. But all that is okay. It might feel like a disaster at the time, but it is part of the growth that is essential in sports, life, or business. You may learn what not to do or get inspiration for the next big thing in your life. It may even require that you rest and reflect before you get back out on that field or court! Part of the lesson is learning just how strong you are and learning that you can tolerate pain, frustration, setbacks, and more.

(3) Having a coach with more experience, knowledge, skill, education, and strategy can help.

When you started playing t-ball, first learned how to swim, or got on any other field for that matter, could you imagine going out there without a coach or trusted adult to help you? To teach you the rules of the game? To guide you on best strategies? Of course not. You’d be lost. You wouldn’t even know the most rudimentary basics of the sport.

Going into business without a Coach, Consultant, or Mentor would be much the same experience. You might understand the basics, but without closeup guidance, the mistakes that you could make would be costly and possibly even business-ending. As Therapists, in order to become fully licensed, we have to get a Bachelor’s Degree, a Master’s Degree, and then we have to work under Supervision for 2+ years, and THEN take a massive test to become fully licensed. Our Supervisors, Professors, and Mentors are coaching and guiding us to become the very best Therapists we can be. So why wouldn’t we have a Coach as we start our businesses?

Professional athletes getting paid millions of dollars have coaches. And they NEED them. You just can’t continue to grow without proper guidance. Or, maybe you can, but it will probably take you at least twice as long and will require that you do so much research that would just be readily available if you allowed yourself to get coached.

So, if Serena Williams, Simone Biles, and Tom Brady have a coach, why shouldn’t you?

If you are in business, I encourage you to seek out a mentor, consultant, or coach.

I've been a therapist for over 20 years, and I now own and run a Group Therapy Practice. I have 6 Therapists and a Nurse Practitioner working in my practice, and I make sure that they have the mentorship and consultation that they need to succeed.

Beyond that, I'm seeing that so many Solo Therapy Practice Owners are feeling lonely, isolated, and just don't have the business skills they need to make their practices truly successful. If you are a Solo Therapy Practice Owner, and you are ready to expand your business into a Group Practice, now is the time, and having a consultant on your team can help.

If I had known then what I know now, I could have saved so much time, blood, sweat, and tears, and I'd like to save you that struggle! There's no need to recreate the wheel here. If you are ready to Launch and Grow a Group Practice, please don't try to do it alone. Allow yourself to ask for help, so you can increase your Impact, Income, and Freedom! 

Join our FB Community here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/launchyourgrouppractice

Or, book a call for a free consultation here: bit.ly/TalkToJessicaNow