What do the highest levels of sport have in common with startups? It turns out, more than you might think. That’s especially true when it comes to leadership strategies, creating team culture and preparing for bumps in the road – tough moments or challenges – and knowing how to navigate them with confidence and resiliency.
To give athletes these tools, many top professional and college programs have been turning to sports psychologists in recent years. Sports psychology is a field that takes a holistic view of the athlete – not just the person’s on-field mechanics and technique, but their well-being too, so that they are performing at a high level mentally and emotionally, as well as physically.
While this form of psychology was originally developed for sports, it is also highly applicable and effective for startup founders. “High performers in the sports world and the business world are very similar,” said Dr. Armando González (aka Dr. Mondo), a mental wellness coach to professional athletes and organizations. Dr. Mondo also recently led a session with startup founders from the Intel Ignite US cohort. He continued, “In order to level up and continue to grow and have more success, both athletes and founders have to look internally to heal and develop more self-awareness.”
Preparing for the Storms
Current Minnesota Vikings quarterback and former University of Michigan college football star JJ McCarthy may be one of the most visible athletes in recent memory to practice these strategies. McCarthy has openly discussed some of the challenges he’s faced and the strategies he’s employed to manage them – college football fans may remember images of McCarthy meditating in the endzone before the championship game or the quarterback checking in with Michigan’s sports psychologist for a quick session on the sidelines in between offensive series.
However, it may be what McCarthy did before he took the field that had the most effect on his performance in the game. As he told Sports Illustrated in 2023, “In life, storms are inevitable… so I do whatever I can throughout the day to prepare myself for those storms.”
Both athletes and founders have major challenges they’re going to have to overcome, and preparation for these challenges, or “storms,” is key for founders, just at it is for athletes like McCarthy. “Whether you’re a founder or an athlete, you’re going to have to go through some major challenges and try to overcome them,” said Reed Frerichs, Deal Flow and Portfolio Manager, Intel Ignite US, and High-Performance Coach. “So, that’s a large part of the mental strength and resilience we try to instill in the founders that we work with – understanding that there will be bumps in the road, preparing ahead of time and knowing how to respond once those moments happen.”
The preparation not only gives founders the tools to get through those challenging moments, but it also helps them expect those difficulties along the way – instilling confidence in them that they know how to manage those moments because they’ve already done the work ahead of time. As Dr. Mondo said, “The more we train our minds to go somewhere, the more likely that it is to go and live there, and lead to increases in our stress tolerance through that brain training.”
Flow States & Startup Growth
Difficult moments can often come at surprising times – including right after a breakthrough. You’ve likely experienced the feeling of being completely immersed in a task where you may not even notice time passing, and while you may think of this as being “in the zone” or “dialed-in,” psychologists and neuroscientists call this feeling of peak performance a “flow state.”
Athletes and founders often fall into these flow states naturally, but employing sports psychology techniques can help entrepreneurs perform at their best and purposefully construct that feeling of flow.
However, there is also a flip side to flow – coming out of that feeling, almost like coming down from a high, can be difficult. “Professional athletes often say that shortly after some of their biggest moments were some of their lowest moments because they didn’t know how to manage the return to their baseline after being in a flow state,” said Reed. “And that’s what happens to a lot of the founders we work with, so high performance coaching and psychology are important for founders as well to help them manage that come down from flow.”
Building Team Culture
There are also group flow states, and both sports and startup teams experience these – whether it’s making a big play on the field or innovating or solving a problem with your co-founders.
But, to experience flow as a team, building a strong team culture is key to achieving success for startups, much like it is in the sports world. Just like individual resilience, team culture must be built ahead of time – before in the big moments, such as a championship game or the middle of a VC pitch. “When you start implementing mental strength and team dynamic strategies early on in growing a startup, you build a team culture and foundation that is mentally stronger and better prepared for the inevitable tests that will come,” said Reed.
One of the biggest challenges founders face is making the transition from Seed to Series A, and this transition can often involve a change in team dynamics as well. As startups begin to scale, teams get larger and there are simply just more people involved, the responsibilities and pressures also increase.
“As founders grow their teams, face higher stakes and bigger challenges, they have to be able to adapt,” said Reed. “The solutions often lie in being open to learning how to be a leader and how to communicate effectively with teammates – all skills that are important to develop early on in a founder’s journey, before they reach Series A, and critical to the startup’s future success.”
Finding Strength in Vulnerability
It may sound counterintuitive, but being vulnerable can often make both a startup and a sports team stronger. In fact, showing vulnerability could be the key to unlocking group flow, preparing for life’s storms and building a strong team culture.
However, while being vulnerable is not easy and it takes courage, the benefits are both professional and personal. “Doing this not only gives founders a competitive advantage like a high-level athlete, but it’s also going to help them in every other area of their life too,” said Dr. Mondo. “It will make you a better and more well-rounded person and people will want to be around you and be inspired to follow you when you’re leading. Those changes happen because you’re more connected, more open, more honest and more present.”
Being vulnerable also shows the resilience founders have by being able to overcome those difficult moments, said Reed, “once you’re able to show that, you do a few things – one, your connection with customers is so much better, but it’s also an opportunity for them to see how resilient you are, and that you’re somebody they want to bet on, invest in, or someone with whom they want to go on a journey as you grow your company.”
