25. Endurance Sports: What’s Your Ability to Handle Failure?

My guest this week is Clark Butcher. Clark is a cyclist and owner of Victory Bicycle Studio. I wanted to have Clark on the show for a few reasons. First, I read earlier this year when he was asked how he thinks about Covid-19 and how it affects his business, he answered they would continue to serve and deliver a customized service to his clients and focus on that. In other words, it struck me that he was playing offense when it was common to think defensively. Secondly: Why cycling? What has he learned about the sport? What are some of the drivers that make you love the sport? What can anyone learn about endurance sports? Why are these things pertinent to what he does today? And more. This week's episode is the first of two episodes where next week, we take a deeper dive into building a business and all the ups and downs along the way.   RECAP 0:45 Difference between riding and training, both are great, I found out too late on that both are equally important, you gotta ride and you also have to train 1:59 How can you talk about that kind of ruthless sense of being competitive in ambition when it comes to cycling and training 2:00 I was never the strongest, but I consistently place higher just because I could read the race and understand it 5:35 Did you ever think about quitting early on? 11:19 For years, it was work, I don't believe in work smarter not harder 12:00 Early on, I would never have figured out where I was supposed to land and how this business was supposed to play out 12:43 control the controllables 15:16 It's a lot of strategy and it's a lot of paying attention at the end of the day 28:11 Because I could at least put that to practice immediately, and selfishly, I was pumped to learn stuff and I could apply it literally immediately on the bike or in my diet 28:31 I studied it because I enjoyed it 33:46 And then that's where it took some time, it took about a year of dilly dally and other little goofy jobs 40:46 Okay, so I learned to listen, and that's where I learned to be polished 45:35 You use a human emotion piece, you use in the life experience piece, and then you go all in on that business 1:00:00 Yeah, 28 days and store burns down   RESOURCES https://victorybicyclestudio.com/ Matt Haaga State Farm: https://www.matthaaga.com/ https://abjets.com/