Two more striking business lesson from my Saturday 100km ride:

(1) The business is not about predicting the future, it is about changing the future.

Had I looked at my stamina chart (as calculated by my Garmin bike computer) sometime around my 1st hour into the ride, I'd have easily seen from its projection that I'd have lost all fuel by around 70th km, so it would not have made sense to continue. I would’ve dropped the race.

But the reality was that we can — and will — find energy to run and run and run, when according to all projections we should have been long dead.

So the business is about finding ways to beat projections (and naysayers) and bend future to one's will. 💪

(2) You still need to work on having bigger tanks with more fuel, and on building your capabilities, if you want to ride longer and achieve more.

The good thing about the business is that it's both training and the ride 🥳

This was a Brevet, not a race, and there were no first and last places: the idea of #randonneuring is just to finish (in allotted time), and possibly beat your yesterday's self. 100km is a baby distance for this format (typically people ride 200, 300, 400 and 600 km), but it was good enough for me. The last time I rode such a distance was 2018, when I was in a different shape, and in a different county.

I could see many parallels between a Brevet and business-building (as we see it in Salmon Group Ltd):

— You don't really race against others, what matters to you (your investors, colleagues) is that you finally cross the finish the finish line (IPO bell?) before your resources run out;

— You have to be self-sufficient, as there is no support between the fairly distant checkpoints: I had flat tire early in the ride, and lost quite some time trying to figure out how to replace the inner tube on my particular make of wheels — and still make it in time before the cut off;

— You have to rely on friends when your muscles cramp and you are out of gels and water just 3 km before the finish, in the middle of the last hill — and they share some last drops so that you can continue;

— Unlike in a race, the roads don't close — you have to navigate traffic jams, jeepneys, smoking trucks, tricycles, normal busy Saturday town life as you've lost time fixing your tyres, and the morning is already in full swing;

— Beware of the unexpected: I trained for the legs, but was failed by my upper body 🤷🏻‍♂️;

—Finally, you have just to push when you are well past your known limits, focusing on each stroke, and the kilometres will yield, and yield, and yield, until — without a bang — you're suddenly done, and the day has just started, and there is still so much to do :)

Happy riding, fellow business builders! Sport does really help to strive past the finish lines — except there are no finish lines in the real life. 🏅