‍Shared Lessons with Athletes and Executives

Athletes and executives live in different worlds. One competes on tracks, slopes, and fields. The other navigates boardrooms, markets, and strategy tables. Yet when the stakes are highest, both rely on confidence. Athletes master resilience under pressure. Executives master strategy under uncertainty. Both must act when there are no guarantees.

In Monaco, during a conversation with Mika Häkkinen, the Formula 1 world champion, he told me that confidence in racing never comes from certainty about the outcome. It comes from the belief that in a split second, when the car is on the edge and the track unforgiving, you can still make the right call. Formula 1 is not only about the driver. Häkkinen reminded me that confidence also comes from trust in the team, in the engineers who build the car, the strategists who calculate every pit stop, and the crew who can change four tires in less than three seconds. He explained that when you are racing at 300 kilometers per hour, you must believe that every part of the system is functioning, because there is no time to second-guess. That deep trust is what allows a driver to stay calm under pressure and make the right decisions at the right moment.

Executives face the same truth in a different arena. They may sit alone at the head of the table, but their confidence is deeply tied to the preparation, skill, and trust they place in their teams. When leaders do not trust their people, doubt creeps in. Decisions slow down. Energy drains away. But when trust is strong, confidence spreads across the organization, making it possible to act with clarity in uncertain times.

That same dynamic of trust and alignment is what Alexis Pinturault, the French ski champion, once described to me as rhythm. When his body is in rhythm with the mountain, he knows he can trust himself to react, no matter how the course changes. But when rhythm breaks, doubt rushes in. Leaders experience the same. When a team falls out of rhythm, meetings stall, alignment fractures, and hesitation takes over. Confidence is what restores rhythm, and rhythm is what restores flow. Preparation lays the groundwork, but rhythm is what transforms pressure into performance.

This connection between rhythm and flow is not just anecdotal. As psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote in Flow, “The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” Athletes feel it when everything clicks in the middle of a race. Executives feel it when a team is aligned and pushing together toward a clear goal. Flow is not luck. It is the product of confidence, built from preparation, resilience, and trust.

I have seen this same pattern play out in executives steering companies through crisis. One CEO I worked with faced collapsing markets and a board demanding answers. What steadied him was not a perfect strategy or unshakable resilience, but the combination of both. He leaned on the resilience to show up each day and on the strategy to make clear decisions when the path was uncertain. That blend gave him the confidence to lead when others froze. It showed me that whether on the slopes, on the track, or in the boardroom, the lessons of confidence converge in the same way.

Athletes and executives can learn from one another. Athletes sometimes lean too heavily on resilience, powering through at the expense of strategy. Executives often get trapped in analysis, losing the energy and courage to push when it matters most. Both perform at their best when resilience and strategy come together. Confidence is the bridge that allows them to meet in the middle.

Closing Thought‍

Confidence is not the domain of athletes alone or executives alone. It is a universal practice. The arena may change, but the lesson is the same: resilience needs strategy, and strategy needs resilience.

So here is the question: where in your own life do you need more resilience, and where do you need more strategy? And how would your confidence grow if you brought the two together?