Will Ahmed
speaker
249 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard 31 Mar
Will Ahmed’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Modern Wisdom · The Downfall Of CrossFit & The Future Of Fitness - Will Ahmed - #943 · 19 May 2025
podcast
That's a much more noble way to think about it if it's... Because, yeah, my reflection is that I've learned more from successful endeavors than I have from ones that have failed. And I think failure is largely overrated. That's interesting. Why? So sometimes, I think this is particularly true of startups. I think that a lot of startups all kind of fail for the same reasons, right?
you know, they didn't find product market fit or they burned cash too fast or, you know, ultimately the product or service was something that another competitor did faster than them or they got undercut on price. Like there's like five things that most of the co-founders got angry at each other. There's like five things that like all startups essentially fail from.
But the companies that really make it, they all kind of have some kind of like secret in a way. Like they have some magic and, And, and I think that there's probably more that's unique about each of those than, than sort of, it is the same. And, and so, so for people who have been on that sort of one in a hundred rocket ship, I think that you're learning some special sauce.
And in the future, you're going to look for, hey, what is the special sauce? Like, we actually have to create something here. We have to spark something that otherwise we're not going to have.
Yeah. And I think what's happening a little bit with people that say they've learned so much from failure is it goes back to the pain thing. It's like they realized how much they can sort of personally overcome the suffering of a failure. One takes away, I think, the fear of future failures. It's like, okay, I know what that is. I've been through that.
And it sort of broadens that emotional tolerance going forwards. And ultimately probably makes you more resilient in a way.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, right. You try to take that positive from it.
I mean, look, I think whatever, whatever can be done to make people have a, like a, like a lower fear of failures is probably good. So I'm not, I'm not out here like, you know, bashing the, the failure energy, but yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, uh, but I do think you learn more from these unique successes than, and the one thing I reflect on is whoop almost failed a lot of times.
Like we really almost ran out of money a few times in the, in the history of the company. And, uh, in particular about six years into the company, like we were right on the verge of bankruptcy. And I think a lot about if the company had failed then, like what would have my lesson been? And
It almost certainly would have been to have been less ambitious with the technology, to have gone to market sooner with something that was like less cutting edge, to be mass market faster rather than working with athletes. You know, a lot of sort of, to be honest, the feedback that I got from people who rejected the business was, I would have taken those as the lessons.
But in turn, actually, when we did ultimately become successful, those were the reasons we were successful.
Well, I think one takeaway is that it's helpful for us in general to take meaning from experiences. And so whether it's a success or a failure, taking something from that is in turn a path towards growth. And so you can question whether or not the lesson could have been actually the exact opposite or completely different. But by taking a lesson, you are in turn feeling like you're growing.
Yeah, and reflecting and having a growth mindset, like these are things that are just enormously useful in your life. I mean, one other way to look at everything when you start to see the lens of sports, like, there's so many examples of what you were describing in sports of like this. The most recent example is, is with Rory McIlroy winning the masters.
And Rory has been a friend now for like, you know, seven or eight years. He was one of the first big golfers to wear a whoop. And so I got to know him well. And that final round at the masters was like every version of, uh, like a human experiencing, you know, like this emotional roller coaster and such highs and lows.
I mean, he hit shots in that round that he's the only person on the planet that can hit, right? Like on the 15th hole, he hits this like sweeping seven iron, like 200 yards to five feet, right? And then, you know, on the 13th hole, he had a shot from 80 yards that an amateur golfer would put on the green.
And so at moments during that round, not just the tournament, just that one round, like he was the very best golfer in the world by far. And he was a complete amateur golfer. And he had to go through these huge ups and downs to like, you know, overcome what was this painful 14-year trauma that he essentially was experiencing of winning the career Grand Slam and winning one more major.
And there's this amazing photo at the end of, you know, the moment he's won and he's sort of released his putter. And his putter is like, you know, because it's a photo just sort of frozen above him. And what it looks like is gravity has just flipped.
And you can just feel the weight that's come off of this man for having to deal with this, you know, essential, essentially like trauma for 11 years.
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