Jen: This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Jen Lemanski, this week’s guest host, and I’m her with Carl Lewis, Olympic Medalist, University of Houston Alum and entrepreneur. Welcome to The Playbook Carl.

Carl: Great, thank you for having me.

Jen: So you have had so much success, you have gold medalist, now you’re in business, what do you attribute that success to?

Carl: Well it really goes back to the core of how I was raised. My parents are both teachers; they were involved in the civil rights movement in the 60s and 50s and so they raised us to be independent, to be strong, but also merge all of the facets of your life together to try to have the most success.

Jen: Perfect. And how has that as Olympic Gold Medalist, now an entrepreneur with – what’s your company – Winning Sports?

Carl: Winning Dimensions, that’s one of my companies.

Jen: Winning Dimension Sports, that’s perfect. Now how have your skills as an athlete and former competitor, how has that translated to business?

Carl: The funny thing about it, when I started at University of Houston back in 1979 I knew that I wanted to be Carl Lewis the rest of my life, so therefore everything that I did in school was preparing myself for retirement. So I merged my athletic career, leveraged the success I could have and also the notoriety I could get to do the things that I wanted to do in business. So really it’s all the same and it’s hard work, discipline, structure, planning, presentation – these are all basic principles that you get in sports that you can apply to your business life.

Jen: That’s perfect. Well thank you so much for being with us on The Playbook, I really appreciate it.

Carl: Great, thank you.

Jen: This has been another Thought Leader Production brought to you by PKF Texas The Entrepreneurs Playbook, tune in next week for another chaper.