You will find a consistent theme throughout most of my posts in drawing parallels between participating in sports and success in business. I am in no way saying you had to be an athlete to succeed in the business world, but there are certain attributes that you learn in sports that translate well into business. Repetition, practice, dealing with losing are just a few learned habits that are key to success in life and business. You also have some “intangibles” like the inner drive and competitive spirit that can’t necessarily be taught in a classroom or internship. This inner fire to compete, translates especially well to sale people. For these roles I use terms like “win big/lose big” “embrace the grind”, “little things lead to big things” or the timeless Ted Lasso theory of “Be a goldfish” because of the constant ups and downs of such a highly competitive profession in sales.

The title of my post today reminds me of one of my earliest memories around my athletic journey. When I was young, meaning 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade, I loved to run and I was fast! I always finished first in the annual elementary school Olympics in the 50 and 220 yard dash. The end of school event was my time to shine and it was awesome! The gym teachers and classroom teachers always gave me accolades, I mean it really pumped my ego. Now, fast forward several years to 8th grade where I noticed the boys that I was beating all through elementary school were now beating me by quite a distance. This carried on into 9th, 10th and even 11th grade when I participated on the high school track team. It was absolutely agonizing to go from always finishing first to “middle of the pack”. It got so frustrating that I wanted to quit after my junior year of high school. But, there was one thing….my paper route! Yeah, I know, what in the world does a paper route have to do with my performance on the track. Well, as you can probably tell from the description of my junior high to senior high career, I was a late bloomer in comparison to other boys. Now, insert my paper route! I grew up in very rural, western PA town where the houses were very far apart from one another. While this was great for privacy, it was brutal for a young kid with a paper route. I recently Google mapped my route and it was about 4 miles round trip that I did six days per week, up and down rolling hills and carrying a bag with 25-30lbs of papers. I hated every minute of this job, some days I walked the route and some days I rode my bike and on some rare occasions I got a ride. But, while I hated it, in reality it was developing my strength and improving my endurance and I didn’t even realize it! So what happened is that “scrawny” little boy that left his junior year so frustrated and so dejected came back senior year and ended state runner-up in the 100m dash! When the local media outlets interviewed me about my training and how did I improve so much, I always referenced the extra work that I did outside of practice in having my paper route. As I reflect back on that experience in my life there are a couple key learnings that stand out which had an impact on my life:

1. You have to put in the work, sometimes the “work to do the work” as they say. To get to magnificent you have to operate at times in the mundane. Delivering papers everyday and sometimes in the rain and snow, that was operating in the mundane.
2. Consistency leads to results. As begrudgingly as I did that paper route day after day, I was teaching my mind and body to be consistent and not excusing myself from doing the work because I would have very angry customers…and neighbors if they didn’t get their newspaper.
3. Winning gracefully is even more important than losing gracefully. I sat in the losers seat for a very long time, I knew that feeling, so when I was winning races, state recognitions and even later in my career All-American status I made a personal commitment to never boast, gloat or antagonize my competitors on or off the field.

For young people today, you will never experience the “joy” of a paper route now that paper’s are sold on-line or in the store, but I wholeheartedly believe I am the person and professional I am today due in part because of that paper route!