What a Failed TEDx Talk Taught Me About The Real World

Written by Ed Vickers-Willis (MBA2025).

Earlier this year, I applied and auditioned to be one of the student speakers at the London Business School version of TEDx. I made it through to the final selection round of dozens of applicants… and then fell just short.  

The irony wasn’t lost on me. After all, my talk was about the lessons sport teaches us. No, not lessons about winning – but from losing. The lessons we learn from setbacks, injuries, and not quite getting where we planned to be. I was disappointed, yes, as after finishing the last round of auditions – a 7-minute talk to a crowd of eager students – I thought I’d put forward a good case to be selected!  However, looking back, I don’t disagree with the umpire’s decision – the successful speakers had presentations and ideas that were indeed more “worth spreading”! 

So, this article is built from that talk (the talk captured above to be exact). A talk that didn’t get picked and will never grace the Ted X stage, but has instead made its way to a rambling blog.  And yet, in the spirit of what I wanted to share, I’m proud to have gone for it, to put my ideas out there, and grateful for what I learned along the way. Admittedly it feels weird to put to paper a speech I spent hours evolving and practicing out loud… but alas! And yes, if you were wondering, I will indulge myself in too many sport cliches.

“What Being An Elite Athlete Actually Teaches You About The Real World” – an adaptation of a failed TedX talk.  

Growing up, I idolised sports stars. Every Christmas, my parents would give me a biography of a sporting great -Andre Agassi, Michael Hussey (“Mr Cricket”), Alex Ferguson – which I would read on the beach over the Australian summer. These were the stories that inspired me as I dreamt of life as a professional athlete, wanting to emulate “The Little Master” Gary Ablett (for those not from Australia, think Lionel Messi but with long flowing blond surfer hair). However, over time, I realised that the lessons we take from those at the top often don’t translate. “Hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard” might sound motivating, but what happens when you work hard and still fail?  

I played professional AFL for six years. I didn’t win any championships or accolades… instead I had seven joint reconstructions. You’ve certainly never heard of me from my time as an athlete, but now, as I reflect, I believe I learned more from that journey than I would have if my career had panned out like I dreamt as a child or as those books suggested it might.  

Here are four real, relatable lessons that I, and other athletes who have made the transition from athlete to civilian, and from sport to corporate, take from their careers into the “real world”.  

1. Learn to Lose:  Reflection Matters More Than Resilience 

In sport, failure is baked into the system. You lose matches. You miss teams. You get injured. You get told you’re not good enough – by coaches, the media, and fans in the stands. 

The losses, while frequent, are data points and feedback that if you pay attention tell you how to get better. 

I had 11 operations in six years playing professional sport – this was feedback that perhaps this football thing wouldn’t last forever. I like to say I “faced my football mortality” early, which helped me be proactive to study and get internship experience that prepared me far better to find purpose in my post-sport career.  

In the corporate world, it can be easy to hide – to get feedback every 6 months or so in a semi-annual review. Feedback can be more of a box tick, because you don’t live and die by the win-loss ratio every week.  It is easier to get comfortable while sport moves too fast to allow complacency. 

Famously, Michael Jordan said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” and this is perhaps the ultimate sports cliché. At first read, this would tell us to just shoot shots. Take the scatter gun approach to finding opportunities and advancing our careers.  

In the context of an MBA student, or someone early in their career this might be applying for every job or contacting hundreds of people on LinkedIn. While somewhat sensical, what I think is more important is to learn from our missed shots. Before shooting the next shot, take time to pause, and to properly reflect on where you went wrong – why the interview didn’t land, or why the client didn’t buy your pitch. It is this reflection, rather than the ability to just get back up (resilience), that will ultimately enable us to make the most of our next opportunity and give a better chance for the next shot to go in.  

 📝 What you can action: Don’t just bounce back and shoot another shot. Pause. Learn. Write down one recent “failure” and the lessons you can take from it. Why did you not get that job? Think beyond “There was a better candidate” or, “It just wasn’t the right match”.  

2. Know Your Role, Play Your Role: We can’t all be the star player all the time 

I was never the most talented player. I wasn’t fast, flashy, or overly skilful. Some may have described be as a rather “dour” defender. Ultimately, I created value for the team by doing the hard, unglamorous work my team needed –  defending well, nailing my tactical positioning and supporting my teammates to beat their opponents. I was never noticed by the media, nor the fans, and I don’t actually think my friends and family thought I was very good – they still showed up though, thanks mum! However, my short-lived role for the team was highly valued by those who mattered – the coaches (who picked me), the team management (who paid my wage), and my teammates (whose respect and trust I craved).  

I recently spoke to a former Olympic cyclist who now works in consulting. He commented on how he felt like he was performing just as well, if not better than, his peers who had far more relevant experience. His secret? Doing the stuff nobody else wanted to do – formatting decks, cleaning data sets, organising meetings and most important of all, staying humble. His team noticed and his value was evident to leadership even without the spotlight. This is what they needed from him at that point. His time would come to present insights to the CEO but right now, they didn’t want five superstars; they needed a team of role players. He saw this, but some of his peers didn’t.  

 📝 What you can action: Reflect on your current role. Are you chasing stardom when it’s not the right time or playing the team role that creates real value? Consider what is the best approach to build respect and peak in the long term (see more in section 4). 

3. Find Your Coaches: Be humble enough to ask for help 

As an athlete, knowing how cutthroat it was and constantly coming from behind the eight-ball I sought all the help I could get. I worked with Physios to fix my body, Strength Coaches to enable me to compete on the field and a nutritionist to educate me on the fuel I needed. Beyond the physical preparation, I saw a psychologist weekly to help develop the skills to control nerves in front of 10,000s of people, or to deal with the anxiety of injury. Add this to the full panel of coaches who taught our game plan, and I even had an extra skills coach to work on my kicking skills where I wasn’t up to professional standard.  

Long story short – there was help everywhere. Seeking advice and putting your hand up for support and help was heralded in sport and entering the corporate world I was told there was a “high-performance culture”. I don’t disagree with this – people were motivated. However, I was surprised by the lack of proactivity to seek help to get better. I sense putting your hand up was viewed as a sign of weakness, and as I said earlier, seeing feedback as a necessity rather than an opportunity to improve.  

In growing a career as a corporate professional, I find it helpful to reflect on how I used the expertise around me to grow when I was a young athlete. I relied on the advice of the better players in the team (even if they were the same age or younger!), I trusted the expertise of my coaches, and I respected the advice of physios.    Sometimes in the “real” world, we try to play the expert across too many domains where we are likely to be better off asking for help. This often involves sucking up your ego and being okay to look “dumb” to go ask someone more junior who has niche expertise for advice or admit to your boss that you aren’t quite sure how to finish the financial model you’re in charge of building.  

Beyond this, as we create our team around us, we need to value our coaches time and invest in the horizontal relationship.  A professional skier who had since done an MBA taught highlighted to me the importance of finding help but ensuring you don’t just take from the relationship;  “Even though skiing is an individual sport, it taught me how much I relied on my team and the important of not letting the pressure of the physical and mental affect the wider team”.  

📝 What you can action: What aspects of your work (or life) and you not seeking help on where you should? Where are you not leveraging the expertise around you? Who can you proactively put around you that can help? Sure, many things are not as accessible as in sport, but if we admit we need help, we can always find a mentor, free (a friend/colleague) virtual (a podcast or blog) or paid (a career coach or psychologist).  

4. “It Is A Marathon Not A Sprint”: Peak at the right time 

The structure of sport teaches patience. From the start of a pre-season, you build towards a championship. You set out a plan – often multiple years ahead of time – to develop the talent, the game style, or your individual attributes to peak at the right time. But in business, we often want everything now – the raise, the job, the exit. It is so easy to fall under the illusion that we can “win” the championship tomorrow – find that investment, that start-up idea, that promotion that will provide the exponential success we deserve. In sport, this idea is completely futile.  

When I left sport, I sprinted into my new job. I worked late. I tried to outperform everyone immediately. It didn’t work… Eventually, I remembered what I’d learned as an athlete: set a plan so you can perform when it counts. I was so obsessed with not being below average at the job initially, that I didn’t really allow myself to be good – there was no learning, there were shortcuts and too much hiding from making mistakes.    

Setting a long-term plan, to peak when the promotion was due, gave me the breathing space I needed to take a chance, learn and become the best employee and team member I could be. I became more proficient faster, and I could ask for extra responsibility, knowing that it may clearly show I wasn’t ready for promotion but more importantly it would expose me to mistakes I needed to learn from and the critical thinking I needed to develop to perform at a higher level.  

📝 What you can action: What’s your current “phase” of the season? Are you in a training phase, a transition, or a performance window? Set your growth mindset and approach to development to align with that. It is, as they say a marathon not a sprint.  

Closing Thoughts: No Gold Medal Required 

Last year, I trained for months to run a marathon in San Sebastián… up to 10 hours per week pounding the pavement and chasing what was a pretty ambitious PB. I think this was a bit of the subconscious “failed” athlete coming through: I was pumped! Yet, true to form in my athletic career… The day before the race, it got cancelled. I was pretty shattered. No Personal Best, no medal, and worse – I’d already dreamt of all the Strava kudos. 

But weirdly after 5 minutes I realised I really didn’t care that much. I’d loved the training—the runner’s high, the ability to consume excess calories (mostly via pain au chocolat), the social runs every Saturday with mates around London and the intrinsic sense of progress. The PB and the medal had become secondary. 

And I thought, maybe that’s the real lesson from my career as an athlete. Because I was often losing on the scoreboard and my childhood dreams rarely came true, spending time in hospitals and physio rooms rather than on the field, I learned to be grateful and enjoy the journey and process. This is so cliché, but it is true.  

In the “real world” we can’t all get the best jobs, earn millions and recieve the book deals or the TEDx speaker slot, so there is something we can all take from those athletes who never won medals or made the highlights reels. We can learn from failure, play our role for the team, use the help around us and play the long game. 

So go chase your gold medal , just enter that pursuit fully knowing it might not come with a podium (we love cliches!!!). 

And if you ever see a sports book with Serena Williams on the cover, maybe ask what the lesser-known athlete has to teach you, too. 

[PS: Since I delivered this speech, I ran the London Marathon and hit that PB target ⭐ …and… not to contradict my final “lesson” but hitting your goals also feels pretty good. Just saying – so please stay ambitious and never forget to celebrate your wins as well as appreciating the journey along the way!] 

Ed Vickers-Willis is an MBA25 who has made a lot of mistakes. Luckily, these mistakes have created many opportunities to learn from challenges, practice gratitude, and gain perspective on what is most important. Hopefully, by sharing the reflections of the LBS MBA25 cohort, you can gain a few tools to better navigate the trade-offs and decisions ahead – no matter your background or career path. It’s a wonderful ride!