by Cy Bernardi
“In baseball and in business, there are three types of people. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened.”
-Tommy Lasorda
Tim Salado, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing, is without a doubt someone that makes it happen. From spending time as a professional baseball player to entrepreneuring his own start-up, Mr. Salado is an expert on both business and sports. When it comes down to it, many aspects of sports, such as performance under stress, are present in the business world as well. Mr. Salado was kind enough to share some of the connections and tips he discovered during his experience in these two fields.
The first question that I asked Mr. Salado was if there were any similarities he had noticed between business and professional sports. “When I was in professional sports, you were brought on to perform a certain skill, and they were banking on your performance in that skill. And just like in business where you would hire someone to come do something for you you’d expect that to be done, so it’s a very similar approach… What’s similar from a player’s perspective is that, uh and a business person is that you’re, let’s say that you’re the person delivering the service or the performance, uh, there’s that aspect of you must perform under potentially difficult conditions.” This is an interesting response because he highlights one of the most challenging aspects of business and sports. Stress, an ever-present element of both athletics and business, can be managed using various strategies. Competing in sports, especially at a high level, can provide practice for individuals that are also involved in business.
When Mr. Salado was in graduate school, he wrote his thesis paper on a trance-like state called “The Zone.” He describes The Zone as “an elusive, very temporary, and fleeting state of being that is usually defined by an extraordinary performance.” Mr. Salado further describes this state of mind, “You become very aware of the things that are going on, but only those things that are necessary for you to perform the task. All other extraneous things tend to melt away a bit so you don’t hear crowds, you don’t hear, you know, things going on you become very focused.” In the workplace, The Zone is more likely to be experienced when giving an important presentation or sales pitch but still has the same effect on office workers as it does on professional sports players.
Since Mr. Salado has a Master’s degree in sports psychology, my final question to him was, what is the most applicable thing to business you learned while getting this degree? ” Sports psychology taught me to have an awareness, you know, to make a scale, where am I on that scale, where am I normally on that scale one to ten, where would I normally perform the best? How can I get myself from where I’m at to that level?” This is an extremely valuable strategy to use in both business and sports. If mastered, this technique will be effective in daily life to perform at your maximum potential.
From stress management to The Zone, sports and business have many similarities. Unfortunately, not everyone that competes in athletics has a positive experience. A CEO co-worker of Mr. Salado jokingly said, “I don’t wish harm on anybody, only our competitors and my Little League baseball coach.” This shows that sadly, playing sports doesn’t translate into business skills for everyone. However, most people who have competed in some athletic endeavor and go into business have at least one advantage over non-sports players.
Thank you, Mr. Salado, for sharing your knowledge with us! I hope you all have learned as much as I have about the fascinating correlation between business and sports.
The Lighthouse 