7 Stages of a Marathon and a Successful Online Business

Why do a marathon and a successful online business share the same strategy?

Standing at the starting line of my first marathon at the age of 57, I was not aiming to break records but to cross the finish line.

The months of training, setbacks, and doubts were a shared journey with many of you who are embarking on the path of online business. Little did I know that this experience would equip me with the knowledge needed to start my online business.

Challenged by my youngest son, I initiated the training one year earlier. It’s the time it takes to get ready. What I didn’t know back then, in 2009, was that a marathon and a successful online business have much more in common than many can imagine.

“Business is a marathon, and most of society thinks it’s a sprint.”

Gary Vaynerchuk

Let this quote be the introduction to this article. Now, we will go through the 7 stages to ensure success.

What a Marathon and a Successful Online Business Have in Common

If you’re thinking about launching an online business but feel overwhelmed, let me tell you—it’s just like training for a marathon.

The key to success?

Preparation, persistence, and the right mindset. Here’s how the journey unfolds:

Motivation

Success in life requires motivation. Why should you undergo training that implies many scarifications? Without motivation, it’s hard to mobilize the necessary effort.

Jumping out of bed at 5 AM for the weekly long run of 25, maybe 30k, while the rest of the family is enjoying their sleep is not for everyone.

Similarly, entrepreneurs must be prepared to work long hours to complete the necessary tasks.

A goal must be ahead, motivating you to go all in and do what’s needed.

Decision

Before pushing the start button, it’s crucial to plan your journey. Put emotions aside and list all positive and negative consequences of a decision. This structured planning will provide you with a sense of security and preparedness.

It’s like a parachute jump. Once you’re up in the air and the airplane door opens, you have only two choices: jump or do not jump!

Take your time before deciding, but there is no way back once you push the Go button.

Planning

Although I have been exercising a lot, I had never run a marathon. I had an idea that it takes time and effort to prepare properly, but that was more or less my knowledge about this challenge I would face.

Immediately after discussing it with my wife, I blocked considerable time to be on the same speaking terms.

When starting an online business, you must go through the same process. The support and understanding of your family must be in place.

Programs

Here we are. Start running! But how?

Some people I know have a coach. However, as my work at that time involved many business trips and other unscheduled tasks, I needed a training program that allowed me to train mainly on my own.

I knew a successful Swedish marathon runner who had launched a book with programs based on the final marathon time you were aiming for. After scrolling through the different training programs, I applied the one aiming for 4 hours and 30 minutes of finish time.

Choosing that program was based mainly on the training time needed to achieve the goal.

Four years later, I used the same strategy when I started my online business. Scrolling through the market, I saw what was available. I compared everything to what I had and what I was willing to invest both time and money.

In the same way, you will meet runners in a marathon who have not trained as much as needed and who will probably break the race somewhere around 20k. You also find many (too many, I would say) online systems that don’t fulfill your needs.

All “get-rich-quick” schemes represent the same false promise as those ” training programs” trying to convince you that you only need two months of training before running a marathon.

Diversified training

When starting my marathon training with my Swedish training book, I rapidly understood the scope of diversified training. A lot of distance must indeed be included in the training, and once a week, there was a long-distance run to accumulate distance to the training and let the body be accustomed to long runs.

The rest of the week, much of the training included speed, hill, and strength training, to mention just some of the training blocks.

Bringing this with me when starting my online business, I knew that all the ingredients of setting up my business successfully had to follow a pattern, starting with basic training.

Loaded with motivation and enthusiasm, it’s easy to fall into the trap of taking shortcuts to make your business profitable in record time. However, it doesn’t work that way. You need to follow the steps one by one, and missing out on any of them can ruin your entire business.

In the same way, I couldn’t fully imagine how I could run 42,2k or create my own webpage, blog (with more than 600 articles so far), YouTube channel, and much more. But following the program, all the pieces fell into place.

Rest

With all the motivation and enthusiasm in viewing your first marathon ahead and your profitable online business setup and running, it’s easy to forget that we are not machines but humans.

Training for a marathon without any rest days will harm your results. Your body needs recovery time to maximize the advantage of all your training input.

When going into business fully pepped with enthusiasm and motivation, don’t forget:

You are human and not a machine!

Being an independent entrepreneur often implies long hours of work, not because we must but because we love what we do.

Do you remember the first two stages? If motivation isn’t in place and a wrong decision is made, you will quit, and in this initial phase, the “quitters” go wrong.

When I feel exhausted and need to let my brain reload, walking or running is the perfect fuel. Can you see the synergy between a marathon and a successful online business?

From Preparation to Race Day: The Strategy for a Marathon and a Successful Online Business

When lining up for your first marathon, you are nervous but confident. You know you have done all you can to be well prepared. When the race starts, stick to the skills you have gained and trust the planned strategy.

The experience from marathon training served me tremendously when starting my online business. You’ll never fully understand the synergies until you run a marathon and a successful online business.

Watch the video, where you will get the highlight nuggets from both activities.

This is the link to the page mentioned in the video:

https://thegoldenagelifestyle.com/Online-Business-Training

“The marathon is won or lost in the months before you toe the starting line.”

Unknown

This quote tells it all. Your mindset about correctly implementing the 7 stages will decide whether you will succeed or start the journey.

Conclusion

The goal of this article is not to scare you but to expose the truth. To do this, follow the seven stages strictly.

Motivation
Decision
Planning
Programs
Diversified training
Rest
Race

You are in a good position to finish your marathon gracefully and thrive with your online business.

For all marathon runners and online business entrepreneurs, feel free to give your comments to nurture the strategy behind a marathon and a successful online business.

Here are some other articles and videos on the same theme.

📙Why Is Your Online Business Like a Marathon?

📙How to Leverage Entrepreneurship and Marathon Running.

📽️Marathon Running and Entrepreneurship

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