Making the transition from athlete to executive
By Brittney Ziebell
Jackson Hole is home to many who refer to themselves as “retired athletes.” Whether your path included junior high gymnastics, high school football, college soccer or skiing for the U.S. Ski Team, we can assume you’ve learned a lesson or two from sports along the way. And we can assume you’ve brought life lessons from your time as an athlete with you, such as self-discipline, focus, teamwork, time management and commitment.
Living in this playground of retired athletes means many of us tend to be a bit more tolerant of risk. That’s why Jackson is such a strong place for startups.
Entrepreneurs with budding ideas aren’t scared to take the leap into something new and unknown. Yet transitioning to the corporate world can be as daunting as starting a new sport without any coaches or a playbook to fall back on. So why don’t we talk more about the transition from sport to business more in a community like ours?
Vijay Karia is a retired professional tennis player and the chief digital officer at Connect America, a leading provider of personal emergency response systems with more than 900,000 active subscribers and operations throughout the U.S. and Canada. His business career path has taken him from the New York Stock Exchange to building mobile applications used by the NFL thanks to his expertise in technology, artificial intelligence, voice recognition and app development. But sports has also played a significant role in his success. I had the honor of sitting down with Karia to talk about his advice to athletes and budding entrepreneurs transitioning into the business world. He shares five lessons that have helped him along his journey in the technology industry.
1. Get to know yourself.
As athletes, one of the gifts we have is we get to know ourselves well. During countless hours of training and practicing, we get familiar with our strengths and weaknesses. So when we transition away from sport to business the same insights can be applied.
“You have to critically evaluate your strengths, your weaknesses and your wants for the future,” Karia said. Where do your interests lie? How do you want to spend your time? Karia was always a fast learner on the tennis court. His coach would show him a new technique and he’d apply it quickly, embracing the efficiency and insight.
Like a new serve style, he loved technology and discovered it could be the perfect fit for him as he retired from sport. “Technology changes so rapidly. Every month, new tech is coming out and old software is obsolete. New styles of programming are always emerging. It’s an industry that plays towards the strength of people who love to learn.”
The lesson here is to recognize your weaknesses, identify your strengths, and apply your learnings to your next steps in life.
2. Find your team.
Just like whatever sport you play, in business you need coaches, people willing to take you under their wing or who’ve blazed the path before you. “You’re in new territory,” Karia said. “If you try to do it yourself, you’re doing yourself a disservice.” Finding a mentor who you can align yourself with is important, and surrounding yourself with friends and family who support you and believe in you is integral.
Silicon Couloir’s Teton Entrepreneurs And Mentor Services program is a local option for budding entrepreneurs. The program currently includes 52 mentors who support 20 ventures with monthly meetings, free of cost. Meetings provide an opportunity for entrepreneurs to ask questions and receive objective advice. The main requirement? Entrepreneurs must be coachable, an attribute most retired athletes are well versed at.
3. Be patient with yourself, you’re starting a new sport.
Recognize that you’re starting a new sport. You’re on the junior varsity team surrounded by varsity — if not professional — players. When you start out it’s important to remember you simply may not be as good as your coworkers or others in your industry. Use your discipline from sports training and apply those skills to your new “sport.” With your self-awareness, and your mentors in place, you have the foundations to make yourself successful at your new discipline.
Karia recounts starting to work at the New York Stock Exchange and learning what at first felt like a foreign language: “I walked off the tennis court and into the board room. Everyone was speaking a different language of acronyms I did not know.”
4. There’s always more to learn.
Outside of the workspace, keep learning about your new endeavor. Karia spent the first three years of his job settling into the industry, reading books in his spare time and asking his mentors and coworkers questions. He would read books every evening and search the internet for the most up-to-date reports on emerging subjects in his field.
“Before long, I actually ended up knowing more about certain subjects than some senior professionals in the industry because I was learning the most current knowledge within the field,” he said. “There are new ways of doing things that come out every single day. All the knowledge is accessible at your fingertips and available to anyone who wants to read and learn about a subject.”
5. Remember your foundations.
Today Karia is 15 years into his career in the technology industry. He has never stopped learning and applying these core principles, all the while enjoying the sport he loves in his free time. “Don’t forget your foundations,” he urged, explaining that he returns to tennis often.
While progress isn’t always linear, you have fans supporting you from the sidelines. “People from your sport will always be there to cheer you on in another path in life. Once I realized that my sports background is not something to withhold or suppress [in the technology industry], and it was actually a strength, I realized that people were resonating and interested in being a part of my athletic life while helping me along my current path.”
So perhaps on the next Glory bootpack or hike up the Middle Teton, you can pat yourself on the back and thank yourself for all the years of hard work and commitment to sport. Then, ask yourself, what are you waiting for? It’s time to lean into that budding idea confidently, knowing that your familiarity with yourself and your background in sport has already set you up for success in whatever the future holds.