How attributes of sports persons helps in the start-up world.

Inspired by the great Prakash Padukone, I began my journey of becoming a shuttle badminton champ in 1981 at the age of 11 in Bangalore, after having represented Karnataka State and becoming the State Champion in all the categories over a career spanning 18 years, I switched over to the corporate world, but I will never forget what sports had taught me and continued to follow the basics of sports throughout my career in the corporate sector across the world and in my personal life.

Some of the key attributes that helped me succeed and which I advice start-ups to follow are:

1. Love what you do: Ask any sportsperson why they play their sport, they will tell you that they love playing the sport, that is the reason they go through all the endless hours of practice, sacrifices and physical pain with all their heart. All they want is to reach their highest potential in the sport, money, awards, records and rest are all a by-product of this higher purpose. As a start-up it is very important to identify your higher purpose of starting the venture and fall in love with the WHY, this will keep you motivated to get through all the ups and downs a start-up goes through and lead you to your final goal.

2. Treat success and failure equally: The most valuable lesson you learn in sports is to handle success and failure equally. You win some and lose some but your head should be fixed on your shoulder in both the situations, you should neither celebrate your success for too long nor brood over your failure for too long. In a start-up too there are many successes and failures, you are elated when you get your first client or when your idea is validated, but next moment you feel like a failure when the VC rejects your business plan. The key is to keep going if you have the conviction about your idea and face both success and failure equally with a firm and persistent attitude.

3. Persistence: Success in sports comes after many long periods of failure and only through continuous practice and working on your reasons for earlier failures do you start winning. Patience and the Passion to succeed will take you towards the podium. This is one of the most important attribute a start-up should develop. In today's world of instant gratification young entrepreneurs find it challenging to handle delays, be it in getting their product out in the market or getting their first funding, they want it instantly. Being persistent and patient will bring start-up rewards eventually, of course their business idea and execution has to be good enough to succeed.

These are some of the attributes which I feel if developed can add immense value to a start-up and give them an edge over other competitors. They have definitely helped me.