Transforming Ironman Lessons into Leadership and Self-Care Growth with Ville Simola

For three years focusing only on work and preparing for an Ironman race. Then spending a year searching for what’s wrong and overcoming overtraining syndrome. What lessons can physical burnout teach about selfcare, leadership and priorities? How putting yourself and your feelings first will benefit everything around you and the way you show up every day?   In this episode Cocoon Program CEO Farhad Niyoz talks with Ex-CEO of Maria01 Ville Simola. They talk about Ville’s journey of becoming an Ironman, sacrifices and lessons from his four year journey. Ville shares his practical advice on becoming a better leader, opens up about how leaders should approach fear of vulnerability and how he did it. What challenges him when talking about feedback and how to approach such a sensitive and important topic as well as gives his younger self advice about patience and the importance of truly trusting people around you.  Topic overview: 1:09 Welcome CEO of Maria01 Ville Simola (At the time of recording) 3:07 What it feels like to finish Ironman race 5:21 What brought Ville to becoming an Ironman 7:32 Combining work with training for a race 8:47 How does it feel after investing 3 years for 12 hours of your life 10:02 What is overtraining and why it might feel scary 13:19 Difficulties to be the best version while lacking health 14:28 Dealing with burnout: Lessons from overtraining 16:28 What to focus on during tough times? 17:58 What sacrifices are expected when focusing on big goals? 18:58 Burnout: Lesson for CEOs 21:30 3 practical advices on leadership growth 23:57 How leaders should approach fear of vulnerability 26:26 Should all your business problems be solved?  28:11 Leading Maria01 - involving team in decision making 30:25 Struggle with feedback and how to give it more efficiently  34:25 What to expect from mentorship and why look for it  36:17 The key of good collaboration with many different stakeholders 39:15 What inner insights lead Ville to step away from Maria01?  41:09 Advice for younger self Welcome to Inner Power Particles. We talk with entrepreneurs and leaders about their challenges and lessons learned to improve their inner strength. We do this to   share their journey and knowledge with you so that you can improve as a leader and a person. To learn more useful tools for CEOs and C-level managers, ➡️ https://www.cocoonprogram.com/resources Uncover how to scale your business fast with clarity ➡️  https://www.cocoonprogram.com/scaling… The leading startup campus in the Nordics ➡️ ⁠https://maria.io/