We all know sports are an integral part of our health, but did you know it could help you to be a good entrepreneur? It is common knowledge that most of the best entrepreneurs have some or the others sports that they have been playing for a while. Here we discuss seven ways how sports can increase the health of your business:
Get Your Imaginative Juices Flowing
Sports not only tones your muscles but also improves brainpower. Various studies have proven how playing sports can help you increase your cognitive function. This is because exercising can increase the blood flow to the brain. For example, a simple game of football is just what you need before doing a brainstorming session.
Helps To Build Network
Whether participating in a team sport or simply working out at the gym, fitness can strengthen your existing business relationships and build network with prospective clients. Sports is always played in a team, and therefore, it helps to open up the window into individual personalities and helps you to communicate with people in a very different way. This way a lot of barriers breakdown and you learn more about the clients than you would normally not know.
Reduced Stress
Playing sports increases the production of endorphins that gives you a natural high and reduces the stress on hormones. Doing sports before or after work helps you to approach work in a calmer mindset. The more stressed you feel the harder it gets to make good and rational business decisions.
Boosting Your Confidence
Whether going through a rough patch or building a business, the smallest of sport can help you gain the self-confidence you need to achieve bigger goals in your business life. Having a great game of sport translates into every area of your life, making you a more accomplished person at the end of the day in everything you do.
Overcoming Business Challenges
Training for a particular sport such as football or badminton can help entrepreneurs re-learn the importance of determination and goal setting. For example, a 58-year-old lady decided to play badminton for at least one hour every day and it helped her to be a more tenacious entrepreneur. She removed the word ‘can’t’ from her vocabulary list and it simply made all the obstacles easy to overcome.
Improving Your Energy
Ditching your laziness early in the morning and simply heading for a game of sport can energise your body for the whole day. Individuals who normally complain about fatigue increase their energy by 20% and decrease their fatigue by 65% by simply participating in a regular and low-intensity physical activity every morning. Playing a game of sport can help you sleep better and sleeping better means having more energy for the day ahead.
Learning To Let Go Of Control
A lot of entrepreneurs think they have to handle everything on their own, but there is a lot of stress that goes with power, level of control and decision making. When you hire a professional trainer to train you in that particular sport, you directly benefit a lot. When you appoint a trainer, you are acquiescing to someone else and accepting the fact that you are going to let him or her direct you.
Participating in a team sport can educate control-freak entrepreneurs the importance of trusting others with imperative tasks, demonstrating that for the business to be successful, they don’t have to do everything on their own.
Being a good entrepreneur is similar to playing a competitive game. Entrepreneurs need to set goals and in sports, you must score goals. In business, if you want to be the best, you need to defend your brand name and in sports, you need to win over the competitor to defend your title. Business and sports go hand in hand, it’s time you realise how playing a sport can do more than just keeping you fit.
[The author of this post is Jimit Shah – Financial Captain at PlayOSport and an avid sports enthusiast.]
