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GUEST COLUMN: What endurance sports teach us about business growth
Lessons in consistency, resilience, and teamwork from the track to the boardroom
MUMBAI: Business growth is often linked to strategy, networks, or investments, but Abhishek Punia, co-founder and CEO of ARM Worldwide, believes there is a more powerful driver: mindset. Drawing from over a decade of running a business and six years of endurance sports, he highlights how determination, focus, and resilience are critical to long-term success.
In this piece, Punia explains how lessons from endurance sports, such as patience, consistency, incremental progress, and teamwork, mirror the principles that fuel sustainable business growth. He illustrates how cultivating the right mindset allows leaders and organizations to turn setbacks into opportunities and steady effort into lasting results.
If you had asked me what drives business growth, I might have said strategy, the right people, networks, resources, or investments. And all of that is true. But over the past decade of running a business and the last six years of endurance sports, I have realized there is something even more powerful: mindset. The determination to push forward, the focus to stay on course, and the resilience to recover when things go wrong.
Endurance sports are unforgiving in a way that business often is not. They teach patience, discipline, and consistency. They teach you to move forward when your body and mind want to stop. My journey started with a few gasping meters of running. But over time, I found myself completing long distance runs, tough trials, and other ultra-marathons. That evolution, of breaking and rebuilding yourself, mirrors the growth of a business more than you might imagine.
Consistency: The everyday miles that build enduring growth
In running, no single long run makes a champion. It is the everyday commitment to training that builds stamina, skill, and progress over months and years. Business growth works in the same way: consistent effort in execution matters far more than occasional bursts of activity. Consistently delivering value, refining processes, and engaging stakeholders over time builds trust with customers and teams alike, laying the foundation for growth that endures through market ups and downs. Research on business execution highlights that reliable daily discipline in how strategies are carried out often distinguishes organizations that sustain performance from those that do not. Just as a runner’s long‑term progress comes from accumulating steady miles, repeatable effort in business drives momentum and credibility that cannot be replicated overnight.
Small steps, big gains: The power of incremental progress
Big goals can feel overwhelming, whether in running or in business. The key is to focus on small, consistent improvements that accumulate over time. When I started running, I couldn’t even cover 100 meters, and the idea of a marathon seemed unimaginable. Each short run, each small adjustment to pacing or endurance, gradually built the capacity to tackle longer distances. In business, the same approach applies. Breaking ambitious objectives into manageable steps, learning from each small win, and steadily building capabilities allows organizations to reach goals that once seemed out of reach. Incremental progress may feel slow day by day, but over time, it compounds into meaningful growth.
Bouncing back: How setbacks strengthen growth
The reality for most new businesses is stark: roughly 65 percent of businesses fail within the first ten years of starting up. This high rate is not mainly because of a lack of good ideas or talent, but because many ventures struggle to recover and adapt when challenges arrive. Marvel reinvented itself after bankruptcy in the 1990s, turning its characters into a global entertainment powerhouse. Adidas faced a major revenue loss in 2022, yet strategic focus and bold moves helped the brand bounce back stronger/ Some of today’s most successful companies endured dire moments early in their journeys and only thrived because they were able to regroup, rethink, and persevere. In endurance sports such as running, every athlete faces a point in a long race where fatigue, discomfort, and doubt threaten momentum. Training in these conditions teaches you not just to tolerate adversity, but to persist despite it. This capacity to absorb setbacks and keep moving forward is the same strength that when applied rightly on the work front, enables businesses to respond to market shifts, disruptions, or internal crises without losing direction.
The Strength of camaraderie: Learning together builds more than stamina
Think back to your school or college days, when you spent hours on the basketball court, football field, or working on a group project. What stays with you is rarely the score or the outcome, but the feeling of being part of something bigger and moving forward together. Endurance sports offer the same lesson. Long runs or team cycling sessions are tough, but they become easier and even motivating when shared with others who push, encourage, and support you. That shared effort builds patience, trust, and a sense of responsibility to one another. In business, the principle is the same. Teams that work, struggle, and celebrate together develop the cohesion and trust needed to achieve collective goals. Just as no runner reaches a personal best alone, no organization thrives without people who believe in each other and move forward as one.
Adapting to Win: Learning from Every Challenge
Every challenge in endurance sports is different. Weather, terrain, and unexpected obstacles require constant adjustment. Success comes from observing, learning, and adapting along the way. Business is no different. Companies that embrace change and continuously adapt outperform those that resist it. Research shows that organizations that prioritize adaptability achieve about 30% higher revenue growth compared with slower peers. Being open to learning, refining strategies, and adjusting to new conditions allows both athletes and businesses to stay competitive and relevant.
Finishing Strong: How Mental Toughness Drives Growth
Endurance sports show that success is rarely about talent alone. More often, it is mental toughness and focus that determine who pushes through challenges and achieves lasting results. The same holds in business. Growth comes from consistently showing up, navigating setbacks with resilience, and keeping attention on long-term goals.
Years of testing limits and leading a business have taught me that challenges are not obstacles to avoid but opportunities to strengthen resolve. Those who cultivate this mindset convert setbacks into milestones and steady effort into sustainable success.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
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Madison World to launch AI platform M BrAIn for media planning
Agency group invests about $1 million as it shifts to AI driven growth planning.
MUMBAI: If media planning once ran on spreadsheets and gut instinct, the next chapter may run on algorithms and curiosity. Madison World is preparing to roll out the first version of its proprietary artificial intelligence platform Madison M BrAIn in early April, as the independent agency group accelerates its transition toward AI driven planning and product led media services.
The platform, expected to involve an investment of around $1 million, is designed to reshape how the agency approaches strategy by combining internal knowledge, external data sources and advanced AI models into a single intelligence ecosystem.
According to Madison Media, OOH and Hiveminds partner and group CEO Ajit Varghese the initiative forms part of a larger structural rethink within the organisation. “Traditionally agencies built frameworks around media planning and allocation. We are redesigning that structure into what we call a Growth Planning System (GPS),” Varghese said.
The shift reflects a growing belief that effective media strategy must begin earlier in the decision making process. Instead of jumping directly to channel allocation, planners must first decode the market itself identifying consumer barriers, purchase triggers and the core challenges facing a brand.
Once those insights are mapped, agencies can build clearer growth agendas for clients and design media strategies that connect more closely with business outcomes.
To support that approach, Madison has built Madison M BrAIn as what it describes as a human AI cognitive ecosystem. Acting as a central intelligence hub, the platform aggregates proprietary insights alongside external data sources and large language models, enabling planners to access deeper market intelligence before building campaign strategies.
Varghese said one of the core objectives is to democratise knowledge across the organisation. “In the past, this level of understanding was largely available to senior leaders or experienced strategists. With Madison M BrAIn, even a junior planner should be able to access the same intelligence and approach clients with a far more informed perspective,” he said.
The agency has already implemented the new planning philosophy internally and completed three months of testing for the AI platform, with early trials showing encouraging results in terms of learning capability and system performance.
While the first version relied on global large language models, Madison is now developing its own proprietary Small Language Model (SLM) to serve as the core of the M BrAIn ecosystem.
“The SLM will be able to read global LLMs, but the LLMs cannot read the SLM,” Varghese explained. “That ensures all the intelligence we build remains within the Madison ecosystem and strengthens our proprietary knowledge base.”
The first version of Madison M BrAIn is expected to go live in early April, with a more refined version targeted by the end of June. Over time, the platform will integrate additional external data streams and APIs including consumer insight platforms, social listening tools and client datasets.
These integrations are expected to enhance the system’s learning capability and enable it to generate increasingly sophisticated strategic recommendations.
Although the platform is currently being deployed for internal use, Madison sees potential for it to evolve into a licensable product in the future.
“At the moment, our focus is to stabilise and strengthen M BrAIn internally. But over time there is potential for this to become a product that could be licensed externally,” Varghese said.
The AI platform is also part of a wider technology transformation underway at the agency group. Alongside M BrAIn, Madison is building a broader digital infrastructure called the Catalyst operating system, which aims to integrate operational processes, data and product platforms into a unified ecosystem.
This broader technology stack could require an additional $1 million to $1.5 million investment over time, though spending will be phased and reviewed regularly.
“We are evaluating progress every three months and prioritising the most critical capabilities first,” Varghese said.
Madison expects the full AI and operating ecosystem to be fully functional within 12 to 18 months, positioning the agency to combine human strategy with machine intelligence as the advertising industry enters its next data driven phase.
