Failing Ninja Warrior Left Behind 5 Important Business Lessons

It's a little-known fact that our very own Growth Strategist and Business Coach, Brandon Clift, was once considered a contender to win Ninja Warrior Australia's inaugural season.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans and instead gave Brandon some powerful insights into how he would lead his life personally and in business. Here are Brandon's Five Important Business Lessons from Failing Ninja Warrior.

I remember the day I received the call that my video submission and application for the very first season of Australian Ninja Warrior was accepted.

To say that I was excited was an understatement.

After a grueling fitness test and one very in-depth interview, I was locked, cocked, and ready to rock as I boarded the plane from my home on the Gold Coast to?Sydney.

My experience on Ninja Island with my fellow competitors is something that I will remember for the rest of my life.

The mateship between fellow ninjas was something to behold. To watch each individual give it their very best made each competitor step up on the day.

Along with making some great friends and training partners for future seasons, I also took away valuable lessons that I have since applied to my life.

My Ninja journey would not be worth sharing unless there were some form of victory or defeat, right? Unfortunately, in my case, it was the latter.

Through this experience, though, I have been able to identify?five?key lessons to apply to other areas of my life and business to achieve success.

Lesson #1?- When Taking On An Exciting New Adventure, Leave Your Ego At Home!

Everyone has an ego... As much as some people would like to deny it, we all have one.

I have experienced a lot of success in my life in competitive sports, especially in Gymnastics.

You can, therefore, imagine how my ego was feeling with all of the attention I was receiving on Ninja Island. From the onsite interviews to the hype created by my fellow ninjas.

It was in this hysteria that the seeds for my failure were being sewn.

Oxford Dictionary: (Ego): "A person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance."

For years now, I have been fascinated by the notion of ego, and I can see the many ways in which the lines blur between?confidence?and?arrogance.

I would not consider myself an "arrogant" person. Sincerely, I believe my thoughts, behaviors, and actions tell a different story. However, this tale of fallibility is not over yet... arrogance and ego will rear their dirty little heads in Lesson #3.

The biggest takeaway from?Lesson #1?is not to let the environment change who YOU are. Instead, seize the opportunity to let the environment?amplify?your strengths and character.

Business Application:

When operating inside of a business, it is easy to build a persona for yourself as a professional. Whether as a protection mechanism or as a source of confidence, this psychological act can work both in your favor and detriment.

The key is to stay grounded and to let your persona amplify who you already are. When professionals behave and create an outward perception that is out of alignment with who they are, the ego then seizes control and becomes responsible for further behavior.

Lesson #2?-?Do Not Underestimate The Challenge In Front Of You.

Do you know someone that will watch the Olympics and immediately become an expert in every sport, screaming advice from the safety of their couch at competitors who've spent a lifetime training for their discipline??We call these culprits "Couch Ninjas" much like the Olympic stage,?Ninja Warrior?has its couch critics.

However, there is one small variable that these "Sedentary Samurais" will never understand.?Ninja?competitors have never seen the course and aren't allowed to practice the course before attempting it (they are only shown a demonstration by a crew member). Additionally, competitors will only receive one shot. If you come off an obstacle or merely let your toe touch the water, it is all over.

When you are standing center-stage in front of a roaring crowd, with bright lights, cameras to your left and right, the adrenaline is off the charts. Moreover, your "Ninja-Plan" seems to disappear when you are standing on the starting platform.

Oh, and don't forget, if you happen to wipe out spectacularly, the worst that can happen is millions of Australians get to see it on National television.

Regardless of the hundreds, if not thousands of hours that go into preparing for Ninja Warrior, you actually can't predict your every jump, leap and step and it could all be over before you know it.

Those who fail to prepare, prepare to fail. - Benjamin Franklin

For four months, I prepared myself mentally and physically for Stages Two, Three, and eventually the menacing Mt. Midoriyama.

I remember vividly when myself and my fellow competitors were being given the rundown of the course, thinking: "This looks easier than I expected."?

"Good thing I did not waste any precious time and energy preparing for the?Bunny Slopes?of the competition."

This was more of a quiet acknowledgment than my representation above.

However, hindsight is a beautiful thing, and it has helped me put these little acknowledgments under the microscope to identify the fundamental flaws within my underestimation.

It took looking deeper into these slight moments of arrogance that revealed the significant contribution to my downfall.

After the safety briefing, it was finally time to prepare for the moment I had been waiting for. I could not have been any more prepared.

*Besides painting what was supposed to be a "Z" on my chest... *Many thanks to my hotel mirror...*?(see above)

FINALLY, the time had arrived! My opportunity to take the Ninja Warrior stage, CRUSH the course and make a BIG SPLASH, leaving my mark on the competition!

Little did I know, part of my prediction was about to come true... ??????

The biggest takeaway from?Lesson #2?is to prepare and never underestimate the challenge before you.

Business Application:

As we round out 2021 and prepare for 2022, many businesses will be reminding their teams of their greatest aspirations and loftiest goals. As a business coach, I continually remind my clients of the what and the why behind all of the year's achievements as it gives the necessary context behind many of the seemingly menial operations of growing a business.

However, I am reminded of a great lesson that a friend shared with me after he successfully conquered Mt. Everest. I asked him "What kept him motivated during the long and arduous journey?" his answer surprised me...

"Many would think that the motivation was to make it to the top. But when you're crossing over a 150ft deep crevasse on a ladder, you're thinking about nothing other than your next step. My motivation came from making it to the next camp alive."

This example became a foundation for setting and achieving goals in business and life. Of course, start with the end in mind. Go for the big, hairy, and audacious goal. However, if your sole focus is the top of your mountain, you may slip and fall off the ladder right in front of you.

Your job as a leader is to constantly remind yourself and your team where the top of your business's mountain is. However, twice as much effort must be spent driving them towards the short-term goal that is directly in front of you.

Lesson #3?- Respect The Course.

Can you think of a time you let your guard down for just a second and within a flash, everything came tumbling down?

I know this feeling all too well.

All it took was a slight miss-step and SPLASH; I was in the drink.?(see below)

After volunteering to test the temperature of the water, I whisked myself (along with my disappointment) straight to my tent to journal my thoughts on what had just happened.

Little did I know that this journal entry and time to reflect would alter my life completely.?

I did not respect the course!

HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO BLIND?!? I was raised to show respect to myself and everyone else around me. Respect has been the foundation of my upbringing for as long as I can remember. Yet when it mattered most, I disconnected from this part of myself, and well, the rest is history.

This discovery made me ask myself a crucial question: Where else does "disconnection" occur in my life?

Answering this question helped me discover, understand, and identify the many facets of my life in which I was not "respecting the course" in front of me.?In business, relationships, conversations, and life! These slight moments of disconnection have sabotaged some of my greatest opportunities.

So I had a choice.?

To either continue through life recklessly and disconnect myself from the repercussions of my actions.?

Or

Look for the silver lining in every opportunity and situation to identify precisely where my ability to "run the course" could be compromised and sabotaged.?

The biggest takeaway from?Lesson #3?is that the ego has far too much room to breathe when respect is absent.

Business Application:

Ask someone who has experienced business success, and they'll tell you that business is both a beauty and a beast. I learned this at a young age, having conceived, built, nearly lost, re-built again, and eventually sold my first company. Each experience of success and failure became the scaffolding for my business life today, and as I inspect further into the failures, I see a common thread. I wasn't respecting that specific phase of my business's development.

Much like Lesson #2, while focusing on what is right in front of you, it is even more important to respect it.

Lesson #4?- Surrender Expectations And Detach From Potential Outcomes.

Possibly one of the hardest things for an (at the time) 24-year-old male to do is to let go of any emotional attachment to a particular outcome.

While I was preparing for Ninja Warrior, all I could think of was scaling the Warped Wall and smashing my hand down on that buzzer in record time. I couldn't see any other potential outcome for my Ninja experience.

My focused vision before attempting the course created a clear expectation that I would complete the course in record time. Ambitious? YES! Desirable? YES! Ambivalent? ABSOLUTELY!

By creating this vision in my mind, I had granted myself only one possible outcome.

To Win!

Now, I must clearly illustrate that I am not saying that you shouldn't set high goals or expectations for yourself. I make this point for quite the opposite reason.

Every time I set a goal for one of my clients, my team, my business, or myself personally, it is done with intention, purpose, and ultimate clarity on the desired outcome.

However, I have experienced within my business experience that time and time again, when someone becomes wholly invested in just one outcome out of a potential myriad of results, disappointment becomes a very likely outcome.

To become "Void of Attachment" is a tough ask for any person. Especially when the outcome of any action/task/mission/experience has a lot riding on it. However, I stipulated in?Lesson #1?that if you let the hysteria of an event get the better of you, you will become too consumed by?What You Need To?Do?versus?Who You Need To?Be.

So the biggest takeaway from?Lesson #4?is when you can "become"?the person you need to?BE?to achieve any particular goal, trust that the "what"?involved will take care of itself so that you can?DO?what needs to be done.

Business Application:

What's the point of setting a target if the aim isn't to hit the bullseye? When attaching to limited outcomes, a team and its leadership will often become consumed by that outcome. This can result in a lack of preparedness for other potential outcomes and in some cases, topple businesses.

When growing a business, it is incumbent on the leadership team to be aware and prepared for multiple outcomes in a push to establish contingencies and mitigate risk, especially when your business is responsible for the livelihood of others.

Lesson #5?- Have Fun And Enjoy The Journey

This lesson is relatively self-explanatory. However, it must be given a voice. At the end of this entire experience, the one thing that sits fondly at the top of my memories is the immense joy, fun, and connection created among the Ninjas on the island.

After my Ninja Warrior journey had ended abruptly, and after journaling my thoughts and feelings back at the camp, I went back to the waiting area where my fellow Ninjas were residing.

Some Ninjas were damp; some were dry, some injured. However, the majority of them were very disappointed. Out of the fifty who competed on the night, only EIGHT made it through the course dry.

Among the cheer, laughter, and jubilations of the fortunate few who made it to the final buzzer unscathed, forty-two other competitors were feeling quite distraught from their respective journeys coming to an end.

One after another, I found myself sitting down with my fellow Ninjas and hearing what they had to share about their run. Some were "okay" with not making it through; others were devastated. Some were even in tears.

It hurt to watch them so upset, and I was not sure how to best support them in this time of anguish. Until I shared how MY run went...

I had never seen such a dramatic shift in someone's demeanor in my entire life than when I consoled them with how out of the fifty competitors on the evening, I was BY FAR the LEAST successful Ninja.

Yes, that is right!

The dude who was getting twice the camera time. Twice the interview time. The Australian Gymnast. The superhero in the budgie smugglers with a backward "Z" painted on his chest was the poorest performer of the entire series!

Sharing the five lessons with my fellow competitors gave me tremendous joy. To show each ninja that wasn't fortunate enough to achieve their Ninja dreams that there was a silver lining to be discovered from the experience.

I mean, let's be real here. Out of Seven Thousand applicants, only Two Hundred and Fifty were selected for the Ninja stage. We were those select few deemed worthy enough to take on the challenge. What a gift!

My biggest takeaway from?Lesson #5?is celebrating the little victories along the way. Before we even stepped onto the course, we had already achieved something very few people will ever get to in their lifetime. Not only that. There are always newer seasons to apply for!

On that note...

Granted I am accepted to compete for a second time on the Ninja Stage; my goal is to make it to the FIFTH step of the first obstacle and see where the journey goes from there.

In Closing...

Although I am not proud of my performance in this competition (Aside from my spectacular dive into the water), I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to grow as a person as a result of this experience and to share my reflections with you. The lessons gained from this experience have equated to greater success in business, relationships, and life.

If you found this article valuable and know someone who may benefit from my journey, please share it.

Also, if you have had a similar experience, whether in sport, work or life, feel free to share your most important life lessons and where these revelations have taken you in the comments below.