Carl Lewis had a plan to win four Olympic gold medals before most people thought it was possible. But the nine-time Olympic champion was thinking about more than what happened on the track. He was thinking about how to build a career and turn his sporting success into something much bigger.
Speaking at the WOBI World Business Forum in Sydney last Friday, Lewis described his life as being “like a startup company”.
He drew on the parallels between building a business and the years of preparation that led to his extraordinary performance at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
At 20, Lewis had decided he was going to win four gold medals at the games. But he also knew getting there would require more than his own athletic ability.
“I knew there was no way to do that without expanding my business, expanding my company,” he said.
That meant bringing together a team, including management and the expertise needed to compete across four Olympic events. It also meant getting serious about preparation and understanding what he would be up against.
Early in his career, when asked by his coach what his goals were, Lewis would reply with “to be rich and famous.”
In return, his coach gave him an important piece of advice: “If you focus on that, you’ll never get it. Just focus on the simple things. Let’s put together the plan. Let’s work hard. Let’s do the simple things to let that stuff happen.”
It was a philosophy Lewis carried throughout his career, concentrating on improving his own performance rather than becoming fixated on records or rankings.
In an interview with B&T, Lewis returned to the importance of focusing on what he could control.
“I ran 10.00 in ’81. And then in ’82, I ran 9.97, and from there it just kept creeping down,” he said.
“My focus was more on what I could control. I can’t control the record. I can only control my time.”
But Lewis’ business mindset extended beyond the people and processes supporting his athletic performance. He was also aware of the importance of his public identity.
“I’ve always looked at myself as a brand, as an idea,” he said, recalling how his appearance, including his famous flat-top haircut, and his involvement in entertainment were deliberate parts of that identity.
It was a particularly forward-thinking approach for an athlete competing in an era when professional opportunities in sport were restricted. Lewis was also outspoken about the need to move athletics away from amateurism and towards professionalism, a position that brought criticism, with the press frequently interpreting his confidence as arrogance.
Lewis saw a distinction between the two, describing three different dynamics: “There’s confidence. There’s arrogance. And there’s asshole.”
“Arrogance is really close to confidence because the way I look at arrogance is saying I want to win four gold medals in the Olympics when there’s no way anyone thinks it can happen,” he said.
For Lewis, setting an ambitious target was not about believing he was entitled to succeed. It was about having the conviction to pursue something others considered unrealistic, even when that meant challenging an established system. He believed much of the controversy surrounding him was manufactured.
“Most of the things that were controversial were manufactured. And if you look in the context of what I was trying to do, I was trying to change the dynamic of an entire sport,” he told B&T.
Rather than allowing the criticism to derail him, Lewis used it as motivation.
“I understood they’re just trying to stop you, and that kept motivating me. It’s like they can’t stop me.”
He also believes success comes down to what someone is prepared to sacrifice.
“The number one thing for success is sacrifice. You have to sacrifice things,” he told B&T.
He sees the same principle applying in business, pointing to the importance of companies being clear about the things they simply will not do.
That willingness to make difficult choices and stick to them, helped shape a career that extended well beyond the 84′ LA games.
Lewis would go on to compete at three more Olympic Games and win another five gold medals. But his focus never stopped at what he had already achieved.
“The next day it doesn’t end because now we want to be better, we want to grow, we want to do more, we want to have more interaction,” he said.
For Lewis, the medals were a sweetener but the real gold was everything that came before.
