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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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Paramount set to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in $81 billion deal
Shareholders back merger, combined entity could reshape streaming and studios.
MUMBAI: Lights, camera… consolidation, Hollywood’s latest blockbuster might be happening off-screen. Shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery have voted in favour of selling the company to Paramount in a deal valued at $81 billion rising to nearly $111 billion including debt setting the stage for one of the biggest shake-ups in modern media. The proposed merger, still subject to regulatory approvals, would bring together a vast portfolio spanning HBO Max, CNN, and franchises such as Harry Potter under the same umbrella as Paramount’s own heavyweights, including Top Gun and CBS.
At the heart of the deal is streaming scale. Executives have indicated plans to combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single platform, potentially creating a stronger challenger to giants like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video. Current market data suggests HBO Max holds around 12 per cent of US on-demand subscriptions, compared to Paramount+’s 3 per cent, together still trailing Netflix’s 19 per cent and Disney’s combined 27 per cent via Disney+ and Hulu.
Paramount CEO David Ellison has signalled that while platforms may merge, HBO’s creative identity will remain intact, stating the brand should “stay HBO” even within a broader ecosystem.
Beyond streaming, the deal would redraw the map for film production. Combining two of Hollywood’s oldest studios Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., the new entity aims to scale output to over 30 films annually, while maintaining a 45-day theatrical window. Warner Bros. currently commands around 21 per cent of the US box office, compared to Paramount’s 6 per cent, underscoring the strategic weight of the acquisition.
But scale comes with scrutiny. Critics warn that fewer players could mean reduced consumer choice, rising subscription costs, and potential job cuts as the combined company looks to streamline overlapping operations while managing billions in debt.
The news business, too, faces a reset. CNN would join forces at least structurally with Paramount-owned CBS, raising questions about editorial independence and positioning. The merger has already drawn political attention in the United States, particularly given perceived ties between the Ellison family and Donald Trump, though the company maintains that newsroom autonomy will be preserved.
If approved, the deal would mark another milestone in Hollywood’s consolidation wave shrinking the industry’s traditional “big six” studios to a “big four”, with Paramount joining Disney, Universal, and Sony at the top table.
In an industry built on storytelling, this merger may well become its most consequential plot twist yet.
