Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: I think the number one skill I learned through sports would be resilience under repeated failure.
In snowboarding, I failed constantly. I honestly had surgery almost every single year. I feel like half my body is metal. I got screws in my hands, my elbow, all sorts of nasty injuries. But I failed so much only to literally pick myself up and go right back to the mountain. A lot of times hiking all day, just over and over and over, just repetitiveness, just drilling it into my head until I landed a trick, until I got something done, until I could do it right, every single time. But I think that repetitive failure is something that is a luxury to have.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: You weren't born to sit in traffic, work for approval, or wait for Fridays. You were built to be free.
Welcome to Rich and Remote, the show for the ones who dare to do life differently. Here we talk about building businesses that give you choices where you work, how you live, and what you create.
This is for the entrepreneurs who crave freedom, financial freedom, location freedom, and freedom from everyone else's expectations. If you're ready to design a life on your own terms, you're in the right place.
Rich and Remote, hosted by Alex and Carla Booth.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Rich Durham Podcast. I'm Alex Booth, and I wanted to talk to you about something that I find that extremely interesting, which is the relation between sports and becoming a successful entrepreneur. Believe it or not, people, I was very athletic as a kid. I was playing baseball every day from when I was probably 2 till I was maybe 12 or something like that. It was my true first love. I thought I was going to be a professional baseball player for the Seattle Mariners. I was doing All Stars every year. That means you're playing through the summer after the normal league. Beyond baseball, my mom was super into triathlon, so she was dragging me along and I was actually participating and competing in them, which is a little absurd. I was a. I was a little kid doing triathlons, which is super weird to think about now. But that all led me to my true love, which is snowboarding, which probably didn't help that I grew up poor because snowboarding and skiing is not the cheapest sport to get into, but I'll get into why. I think that obsession for snowboarding led me, and it not being cheap led me into being a successful entrepreneur.
I really had to not only get good at snowboarding because it was an obsession of mine and I thought I was going to become a professional snowboarder. But I had his goal to be really good and known for being really good. So I Had to sell myself to get sponsors. You don't just get sponsors because you walk into a shop and, you know, you talk them into it. You. You do have to back it up. But I will say there is a lot of networking involved. So I. Not only did I have to work my ass off to get onto the hill, I had to work my ass off to get sponsors. And the networking part was just unreal. I had to literally make videotapes myself. I had to go to the competitions, I had to go meet different shop owners, different brand reps, build relationships with all this while I was like 15, 16, 17 years old, just trying to accomplish my goal of getting sponsored so I could make it up to the hill. I could get free gear, I could get paid, and back to it being an expensive thing. I actually worked landscaping at age 13 just so I could afford to go snowboarding. I did every. I was a dishwasher. I did everything I possibly could in order to earn money to go snowboarding.
And there's a lot of times I was staying in my car, I was staying at friends houses. I was doing literally everything I could in order to get access to the hill and to meet people and to accomplish this goal of becoming a professional snowboarder. Now, I don't think I actually technically became a professional snowboarder. If you talk to the real professional snowboarders. I did get sponsored, I did travel, I did compete. I did do it at a very high level. I would consider myself an amateur professional snowboarder at my peak, but it didn't matter. I picked up some of the craziest skills that helped me become an entrepreneur. I don't know of any other scenario where I could have gotten them. You know, as I'm looking into this and wondering, is this normal? Is this why I am the way I am? I found some pretty convincing information as to sports just having this impact on people's lives and making them entrepreneurs. It can't just be me and my snowboarding. I actually know quite a few people who are now business owners that they were super into snow or skateboarding or they were really into tennis or these. A lot of them are individual sports, which I find pretty interesting. And here's one of the statistics that I found, which is, in 2024, an analyst found that 68% of top CEOs came from a collegiate sport background. Pretty interesting. So track and field would be 29%, golf, 15%, basketball, 10%, cricket, 4%. And then smaller shares spread across the team. Sports like soccer, football, wrestling, cycling, which is kind of interesting. It's more of the individual sports, except for basketball, leading to these top CEOs. You know, I think another thing that's pretty interesting is I saw a statistic that said the Olympic level athlete rarely becomes a CEO. It's the good athlete, not necessarily world class, that becomes the CEO, which is super interesting. That would 100% fall into my category. It was not an Olympic athlete level at all. But I'm looking through all of the people I know from my past, and they were at that same level. Like, they were really good. They're not. They're not an Olympic athlete now. They're business owners and they're just kicking ass. And there's definitely a connection between them. You know, as I became an entrepreneur, I realized, you know, drinking the Kool Aid, networking with all these other entrepreneurs, that there is a little bit of a. There's a huge push to work out or focus on your health or biohack. But everything that I'm hearing kind of leads me back to like the, the same thing, which is you need to just be healthy, right? You just need to live a healthier lifestyle. Because we're sitting all day, we're stressed, we're making hard decisions. And if you have that healthier lifestyle, then you obviously perform better. Your team continues to receive paychecks, feeding their. Feeding their families. So all these things land on your shoulders and they need to be like a stress relief and a way for you to be healthy. Now I'm one person here with the opinion of not enjoying working out that often. I do it now that I'm older, but I would much more prefer.
I would much more prefer doing an activity, unfortunately. I live in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and I say unfortunately because there's really not mountains here. Whereas that's what the activities I like to do. I could go snorkeling, I could go do ocean things. There's not really good surfing here either. And I. That's my ocean activity. But, you know, I feel like a lot of the people here because of that. They, they're all into these things, like run clubs, working out.
And if you go to these things, you just notice a tremendous amount of these people are business owners.
Now, I don't know how successful all of them are, but I do see just a giant correlation between being an entrepreneur and being active. And if you're like me, where going to a gym every single day just is a little boring, there needs to be some connection for you in your adult life to scratch that. Itch and do something active. And I think sports is the answer. I really do. I think it's, you know, maybe it's skiing, maybe it's pickleball. We've seen a huge rise in that.
Interestingly enough, I saw a statistic that said pickleball has actually beaten golf in terms of popularity. Now for a younger demographic, I think it was something like 40. The average age of a pickleball player is like 44, while the average age of a golfer is like 48 now. Which is really crazy to think when, when I grew up, pickleball was a retirement sport. It's what old people played. But I think, I think it's becoming big because we have so many entrepreneurs now. That's a part of it at least. One other pretty interesting statistic that I found is that women executives are far more likely to be athletes.
So ESPN surveyed 400 female managers, half C suite. So 94%. 94% had played sports, 52% at a collegiate level, and only 3% of top female executives had zero athletic background.
Only 3% ladies are playing sports and then making money building businesses, which is pretty freaking cool if you ask me. Deloitte actually had another survey. So Deloitte had one from 2023 saying 69 of women earning $100,000 or more in leadership roles played competitive sports. 85% said skills they built through sports mattered to their professional success. I mean, the numbers are jumping off the page here. For me, as someone who is not only an entrepreneur, but someone that's actively pursuing having kids with my wife, I'm thinking not only is this important for me, but it's important for me. If I want to raise some kids that are also entrepreneurs and successful, I got to get them in some, in some sports. I don't think that this is something that should be ignored or untalked about. I think this is actually really important, guys. There is another athletic research done in 2023 in the international Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, and they tested resilience specifically as a link between athletic background and entrepreneurial intention. Comparing 195 top athletes to 142 non athletes. Resilience came out as the real driver, not just a story of served. There's just unbelievable amount of data here that shows that sports is the link to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Of course you're going to have people like Zuckerberg. I don't know, maybe Bezos didn't play sports. He didn't really look like it until he was obviously on like TRT or something down the guy is huge, but he's doing it now, right? And if you look at Zuckerberg now, that guy is in Hawaii 24 7. He's. He's foiling, he's doing MMA. All of these top CEOs find their way back to doing sports or doing it for the first time. To be honest, Zuckerberg didn't really seem like a guy that was doing sports to me when he first built Facebook, but he definitely is now. Some other really interesting names in here. You heard of a company called GoPro? Nick Woodman, okay, surfer. He was a surfer. Frustrated he couldn't capture a good action shot of himself. So what did he do? He built GoPro. He started with money by selling shell jewelry with his now wife, plus a loan from his mom. How crazy is that? The guy literally was selling seashells. He was a surfer and he just wanted to take videos of himself, but he didn't have the equipment to do it. It wasn't created. So he created GoPro, which is a massive publicly traded company now. Awesome product to you. I have two of them myself. There's so many names here, guys. Here's another one. Richard Wolcott, sponsored quicksilver surfer. He broke his at age 19, which ended his pro dream. He pivoted and co founded Volcom in 1991 with Tucker Hall. Built around the surf, skate and snowboard culture. I mean, I grew up rocking Vulcom every day. If you had Volcom on any piece of clothing when I was a kid, even today, like I want it. I'm not rocking the logos as much these days, but massive company. Vulcan is such a cool company. And that came from a professional surfer who broke his neck. Another one, this. This name is a household name, so it's going to be pretty obvious, but Shaun White. Shaun White, one of the probably most decorated snowboarders of all time.
Before the rise of Travis Rice, I think you could probably consider him the goat, but Travis Rice kind of knocked him off the podium. He created White Enterprises, invest in real estate, ski resorts. He also has a band. But he's a extremely success entrepreneur, and a lot of people maybe don't know that about him, but he literally owns part of Mammoth Mountain, which is one of the biggest resorts in California. And the guy is absolutely killing it. And he obviously was at the highest level, so a little contradicting to that first step. Here's another one. Tony Alva. Tony Alva is such a cool guy. Tony Alva was one of the original pioneers of skateboarding. This is back in the Dogtown days of California. So pioneered skateboarding boarding at 19 and helped design and change the industry and opened one of the first skate shops in the world. He created a company. I forget what his board company name is. I think it's called Alva Skateboards. But he literally is like one of the pioneers of the skate industry.
Just a freaking killer story. If you haven't seen Dog Town, it's a really great movie. There's a great documentary about it.
But Tony Elvis, incredibly cool. There's a lot of people, obviously, that do it. I've found the connection to my own personal life. There's a connection in a lot of stories of successful entrepreneurs. What is the common theme? Why does it actually matter? And I really do think it comes down to some of these skills that are transferable when you learn a sport. I think the number one skill I learned through sports would be resilience under repeated failure.
In snowboarding, I failed constantly. I honestly had surgery almost every single year. I feel like half my body is metal. I got screws in my hands, my elbow, all sorts of nasty injuries. But I fail so much only to literally pick myself up and go right back to the mountain. A lot of times, hiking all day, just over and over and over, just repetitiveness, just drilling it into my head until I landed a trick, until I got something done, until I could do it right every single time. But I think that repetitive failure is something that is a luxury to have. And there's not a lot of scenarios where you as a kid or even as an adult, where you can safely fail just over and over and over again. And I think sports is. That is a place that allows you to do it, and that's a skill set that is just incredibly valuable in the entrepreneurial world. Number two, I think another really great skill would be just comfort, taking a calculated risk.
So while there is the failure side, right, you don't want to break yourself off too bad where you can't do it again, right?
Risk is something that is incredibly important in not just life, but becoming a successful entrepreneur. I had. I left Amazon in order to start career. I had to. I left the US in order to find happiness. I decided to stay in Mexico because I met a girl to risk, you know, losing my job at Amazon to find happiness. My now wife, you know, there's so many risks that are needed in life in order to find success.
I say this all the time, and maybe I've said it on the podcast before, but my wife will definitely test me saying this like Everything you want is on the other side of whatever that wall is. I always say it's on the other side of that wall. That wall could be fear. That wall could be finances. It could be whatever it is that is preventing you from moving forward. And a lot of times how we get over that is a calculated risk. Like, we have to take some type of risk. And competitive athletes learn to size up risk pretty early, whether it's a jump, a trick, you know, or it's just like commitment to some.
Some game or some. Some athletic comparison. But, like, risk are common. Right, in sports. And I think that's something that you do learn. Number three would be identity fusion. I hope that it's making sense. So you have to kind of identify in entrepreneurship as what you're building. You have to fully believe in it. You have to go for it. Like when I was talking to you about my attempt to be a professional snowboarder, there is no way I was getting as far as I did. Being a broke kid from Idaho trying to become a sponsored snowboarder in an, you know, expensive sport without completely and utterly identifying with it. I was obsessed. And I think sports in general, you start to fuse your identity with the sport and you learn how to do that, and that is just going all in on something. It's incredibly powerful when you can identify with something like that. I think these are some of the skills. Just three. I know there's a lot more. And I would love to hear from any of you who have kids in sports and you've been thinking about this, or you yourself have been in sports, and you could see some of those skill sets that are transferable. But I think an important question too is like, so what? Okay, so. So what? Sports is important.
We got this skill set, okay? Other people have been successful, but who cares? I think it's also important just to stay athletic in. In life, right? To stay healthy, to meet other people who are doing the same thing. I. I think that's incredibly important to just be healthy and move around and have a passion outside of work. There's a lot of companies now that I'm seeing that they're actually including networking as part of this as well. So another. So what would be networking you're meeting, really, while you're playing sports. I think there's a term for it called sweat work, actually. I know, I know. That's it. There's literally a term now for doing sports and networking to excel your career and meet other people. It's called sweat working. Companies like Shopify, have created like, official run clubs for, for their teams. I know of. There's some other really cool stories. There's like a, there's a big run club here in Playa del Carmen that a lot of entrepreneurs do.
In Medellin, there's another one. These run clubs are everywhere now. And I guarantee you, you go to them, you're going to meet some people who can help you move your career forward or bounce ideas off of you. There is a story. I also remember Canva. Their founder. I think her name is Melanie Perkins.
She secured early funding after connecting with a group of VCs while she was kite surfing. She went on a kite surfing trip and because of that trip, she literally secured funding for Canva. Isn't that crazy? Like, kite surfing led her to being able to create Canva for all of us, who makes designing a hell of a lot easier for all of us entrepreneurs.
The point of what I'm saying is like, there is just so much more than just going and playing sports.
And the health side, there's, there's a tremendous upside in terms of business as well.
And I, I think I also mentioned this in the beginning, but if it's not just for you, think about it for your kids. If you want your kids to become entrepreneurs, if you want them to be successful, get them involved in sports, and it's never too late. There's a sport for everybody out there.
There's, you know, if it doesn't matter if you're, if you're disabled, if you're not interested in sports, you're going to find something that does interest you. And it's a hell of a lot funner than the gym every single day and working out. So I encourage you guys to check it out. If you want to talk to me about some of this connection, I'm kind of nerding out on it right now. I'm diving deep into this connection. I think there's something big here that I want to explore. Anyways, guys, thanks for tuning in for another episode of Rich and Remote. And you'll hear back from Carla and I. We've got some fun episodes coming up. So, yeah, drop us a like. And thanks for listening.
[00:21:29] Speaker C: Thanks for listening to Rich and Remote where freedom isn't a dream, it's a decision.
This is Carla, this is Alex Booth, and this is our journey to our dream rich and remote life.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: If this episode inspired you, share with a friend who's ready to live life differently too, this is perfect for entrepreneurs who crave financial freedom, location freedom, and freedom from the opinions of others.
[00:21:55] Speaker C: And don't forget to leave a quick review. It helps more freedom seekers find this show. Big thanks to our sponsors Huckleberry Consulting, getcsm and Proximity Outsourcing.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: See you in the next episode and check out our online hangout spot, richandremote. Com.
