The 108th edition of the Tour de France got underway this Saturday and finishes in Paris on July 18th. Here five elements of the race that will be familiar to any business owner:
1. It’s all about teamwork
There’s only one individual winner of the Tour de France, and each team—totalling eight riders—goes into the race with one individual as the designated team leader. The other seven riders will spend the entire three-week race working for him—sheltering him from the wind, protecting him from attacks from other riders, pulling him up the climbs and leading him out on sprints.
Ultimately, these guys ride to the limit and sacrifice their own chances at glory to give their team leader the best chance at winning stages or the overall race. It’s a willing and selfless sacrifice for the greater good.
As a business owner, you might be ‘the leader’ but you know you’re nothing without a strong and loyal team at your side, putting in the work to reach a shared goal.
2. You have to take it day-by-day
The Tour de France is made up of 21 stages, and this year’s race totals 2,122 miles of racing, including a 154.8 mile slog on stage seven—the longest since the 2000 edition. Included in those 2,122 miles are, of course, the mountain stages where the race ultimately gets decided on brutal and seemingly never-ending climbs.
It’s a gruelling three weeks filled with bad weather, crashes, injuries and illness. And even if you get away clean, you’re guaranteed to suffer. After the first week, the riders are gaunt zombies stuck in a loop of ride, eat, sleep, repeat. It’s an act of endurance, resilience and stoicism that’s hard to fathom.
For the riders, the idea of committing to the physiological equivalent of running a marathon every day for three weeks is daunting (and a little terrifying). So, instead of focusing on the length of the race, they take it stage-by-stage, even breaking down the long stages into distinct chunks of miles and time. It’s the best way to stay focused on the task and not let the idea of the greater challenge—finishing in Paris—overwhelm you.
As a business owner, the approach is the same. Remember when you started your first business? The idea seemed almost impossible, but you started, took it step-by-step and now you’re there, ready for the next challenge.
3. You realise you’re stronger than you think
Photo by Simon Connellan on Unsplash
Never mind completing the three weeks of the Tour de France with a relatively intact body—a lot of riders will crash at some point and either have to ride on with serious bruising and swathes of missing skin or, worse, broken bones. There have been countless occasions when riders have ridden almost entire Tours with broken collarbones, ribs, fingers, etc.
In 2013, British rider Geraint Thomas—who won the race overall in 2018—rode most of the race with a broken pelvis. In 2003, American rider Tyler Hamilton finished fourth place overall despite having a v-shaped fracture of his collarbone for most of the race. The pain was so immense, he ground his molars to the roots in the process.
Running a business might not mean broken bones and flat molars, but it certainly requires fortitude. And when you emerge from those tough periods, you realise you have much more strength than you thought. Knowing this makes you prepared for the next challenge, and gives you the resilience to endure it.
4. Details make the difference
The Tour de France riders are backed by a team of experts in their field—doctors, physiotherapists, psychologists, nutritionists, chefs and mechanics. Their job is to look after the riders’ bodies and equipment. And in a sport where a few extra grams of weight, a little more wind resistance or a broken chain can make the difference between winning and losing, the devil most certainly is in the details.
As a business owner, you know the details are just as important as the bigger picture. And though you might be excited at the prospect of your next venture, if you don’t take care of the details—accounting, marketing, recruiting the right people—things will go awry very quickly.
5. For every headwind, there’s a tailwind
Headwinds and crosswinds are the cyclist’s nemesis. Not only do they make you have to double your effort for the same result, in the case of a crosswind, it can cause havoc by splitting the peloton apart, leading to huge time losses if you’re not in the lead group.
However, as much as every rider hates the wind, they also love it when it’s behind them. With a good tailwind, you glide along almost effortlessly and a few miles an hour faster. You feel refreshed and invincible again.
The business owner experiences their own head and crosswinds—those trying times when everything you do is thwarted by things that are out of your control. Periods like these sap your energy and motivation but it’s vital that you keep going on; just a small change of direction means you’ll be heading in the opposite direction, flying again with the wind at your back.