The Connection Between Sport and Entrepreneurship
Blog Post by Emily Baadsvik, Co-Founder CEO of Wild Tea Kombucha
Athletes have an insatiable desire for excellence. It is the job of an athlete to collaborate with their team and uncover hidden magic. Just like in business, good leaders build strong teams through physical strength and conditioning. Great leaders focus on the bigger picture and empower their teammates to be their best selves. A strong team has a dynamic culture and is emotionally intelligent. They promote accountability, instill effective communication, and use personalized conflict management. They have a deepened sense of self-awareness and can lead under pressure. They understand, analyze, design and implement effective measurable solutions. When a team crosses the finish line, what the television fails to convey is the countless hours dedicated to perfecting their craft. A medal is but a reward for a particular moment in time. True greatness is not always winning, but the ability to sustain, assess, implement necessary changes, and repeat.
With that being said, running a small business is very much like being an athlete. It takes determination, dedication, practice, and implementation. When it comes to Wild Tea Kombucha, I have a very specific goal in mind - to be one of the best kombucha products on the market. However, I could not do all of this alone. The team at Wild Tea Kombucha are hard working and dedicated; all with the same goal in mind. As one of the leaders at WTK, we use everyone’s special & unique talents to strength our team and ultimately attain our goals. While training, we became a small family - knowing everyone’s quirks, what they liked to do, and what they needed to work at. The same goes with the WTK fam. A strong team and open communication is one of the most important aspects of any team (in the Olympics or running a business). By using everyone’s strengths, we are able to have the amazing, dedicated team that we have to today.
The endless hours and hard times that small businesses face can be challenging, however, I use the same mindset I did while training for the Olympics. Pushing through hours upon hours of training, as well as feeling so exhausted mentally and physically can be difficult - there is no denying that. At the end of the day, when you see the impact your day-to-day progress has on not only friends and family, but on strangers and the world in general, it is such an amazing feeling. Having that team/leadership position as an athlete has helped me improve as a person, and especially as a small business owner, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.
