At least for as long as The Apprentice has been on air, our lives have been filled with such phrases as ‘smash it!‘, knocking it out of the ballpark’, ‘doing it for the team’, ‘absolute home run!’, ‘MVP’ etc.

However there are some legitimate ways running a business is very much like sports psychology; so given the Commonwealth Games are well underway in Birmingham, we thought we’d take a little look into the concept.

Just like in sport, running a business is a marathon, not a sprint. You’ll have to train, get your business fit, constantly overcome obstacles, and you may not necessarily win the gold. However, judging business success is different for everyone.

Some see ‘success’ as being multi-award winners, and then proudly showing off the fact via social media etc. But sometimes in business, awards aren’t the be all and end all – especially when some awards are merely ‘bought’, in cynical terms.

So if you’re not an ‘award winner’, does that mean you or your business are ‘failures’? Far from it. 

Same goes for business networking – there are common tropes that go along with networking that some people still carry to this day – concepts like having ‘competition’ in the room, and some being put off by that.
Whereas in more cases than not, there will be common ground and complimentary skillsets that will enable collaboration; creating a new ‘team’.

So have a listen, and see what else the Commonwealth Games can teach the business community.