Is the determination that drives great athletes similar to the determination that drives successful entrepreneurs … and can core values like determination be taught? There is no question that great athletes are born with natural abilities, but I am not referring to natural ability or even skills learned from a good coach. I’m talking about core values like his limitless determination to win, which differentiates a great athlete and separates great athletes from just plain good athletes. Values such as determination, risk taking, and the ability to overcome obstacles that keep great athletes ahead of the competition. Many athletes develop skills and get good at their game, but they lack the drive to be great … just like in business, where there are good managers who seem to lack the drive that could make them successful entrepreneurs. An athlete’s desire to win can be seen in the determination they bring to their game. In most of the motivational sports stories we hear, it’s hard to tell where the athletes’ skills end and their determination to win begins. To understand how an entrepreneur can apply these same values, we need to separate the technical skills and natural ability of the athlete from the core values that drive them.
We have all heard stories about athletes who overcome great obstacles to achieve their goal. Unfortunately, when you hear these stories, you only hear about a small part of the athletes’ lives. That is why these stories often leave you with the feeling that something is missing … sports stories tend to be “suspense” that do not tell you what happened to the athlete later in life. You hear how the athlete achieves his immediate goal, but you wonder what will become of his life once he moves beyond the sports field. The implicit ending in most sports stories is that the athlete will accomplish other great things in life, but we know that this is not always the case. Because the story is limited to his success on the court, it cannot be said whether his success was solely due to his athletic abilities or the determination that drove him. To better understand the role that values like determination played, we need to see what happens to your life after your athlete’s abilities fade. Will your determination to succeed bring you new achievements in other areas? We know that some athletes continue to find excellent second careers in business, while others sadly never find more success in life and some even fall into crime once their athletic careers are over. What are the core values that continue to drive some athletes and allow them to be successful in the future? These are the values that we want entrepreneurs to learn.
And while we are missing the end of most sports stories, we may also be missing the beginning. Where did the athlete learn the values that led to success? Like all of your teammates, you may have started to learn youth sports skills and may have had the benefit of dedicated coaches at school. But what gave him that “fire in the belly” that others did not have? Why is there such determination for one person but not for another? Are these the same values that drive some people to escape poor environments and overcome their circumstances while others succumb to their surroundings? At some point in an athlete’s life, he chose to pursue a path to success and learned the values he would need to achieve greatness. We hear about an athlete’s determination, but rarely do we hear the part of the story that tells us where he learned the core values that drive him. If we can see how he learned values like determination, we could learn to teach these values to others. To gain useful insights, we need to understand where the athlete learned the values that drove his success, and then examine how he was able to apply those same values over and over again to achieve serial success both in and outside of sports. Perhaps that would also explain why most entrepreneurs become serial entrepreneurs.
I recently did research for the biography of Dr. George Tinsley. His sports history is tremendous and his desire to win is clear in all that he accomplished on the basketball court while setting records as an NCAA champion. The story of his life is equally tremendous. After his sports career, he was able to overcome many obstacles to also achieve greatness as a businessman and serial entrepreneur. Because the pattern of his serial success was so evident, his biography quickly began to take on new meaning as I was able to examine the values that became the drivers of his life. His story became much more than his sporting achievements. It was about the values that helped him achieve success both on and off the court. It became clear that he would have found a path to success with or without sports. Looking at his entire life, it was possible to see that the values that led to his success in sports had also led to his success in business as a serial entrepreneur.
What I found when looking beyond his basketball career was that the values that brought his athletic success were the same values that led to his business success and that they had been his guides in achieving every goal he set for himself in life. He had learned those core values as a child growing up downtown, even before graduating from elementary school. His adoptive mother, though poor and physically challenged, had told him never to let anything or anyone get in his way, that he could achieve whatever he set his mind to. She taught him that he was responsible for his own actions and for what happened in his life. This did not mean not accepting help from others, but rather not depending on others for your success. She taught him to set goals and not to make excuses for failure. She taught him that if he was determined enough, he could find a way to overcome any obstacle. George Tinsley’s life is proof that these values can be taught and his life is an example of what can happen when one applies entrepreneurial values such as determination, hard work, and overcoming obstacles no matter what the challenges are in his life. Your story has a beginning and an end that, when followed, will give others a path to success. You learned to apply these values over and over again no matter what your goal was.
When someone hears the story of George Tinsley, they are not tempted to say that he succeeded because of his natural abilities as an athlete. His sports history only explains a part of his life. Only the consistent application of business values over and over again throughout life can explain your serial success. George Tinsley talks to many student groups about entrepreneurship and the “obstacles to opportunity” they will face in life and teaches them how they can be successful. They may come to hear an NCAA champion speak, but they learn by hearing the full story of his life.