Five Parallels Auralis Owner Jen Moore found between Business Ownership and Triathlon Training
Five months ago, Auralis LLC took flight! I’m not the person who ever aspired to start their own business – of course I was in awe of these entrepreneurs but never aspired to be one.
This year I also trained for and completed my first two triathlons! And again, I was never the one who had dreams of competing in triathlon – marathons sure, but add swimming AND biking modalities, no thank you. But, the allure of marathons has dulled and I wanted a new challenge.
2025 was unintentionally shaping up to be the year for BIG new objectives.
Naturally, the advice began to pour in. Friends and former colleagues, family, and strangers. Everyone was sharing their advice.
I vividly remember the conversation where I realized triathlon training and business ownership have so many parallels. While (impatiently!) waiting for scores to come in for a local golf tournament I played in, I joined some fellow competitors on the clubhouse patio. The overlap clicked while they were generously offering me advice on both topics.
Here are five parallels I’ve found between business ownership and triathlon training:
1. “A Goal without a Plan is Just a Wish.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Spend the time to figure out what you want, why you want it, and how you’re going to do it…And then you’ve accomplished your goal! Ahh, if only it were that simple.
Triathlon: I signed up for two triathlons in January and bumbled through ‘training’ for two months before my coach gave me some tough love that a triathlon involved THREE disciplines – SWIM, bike, and run…This was something I inherently knew, but had conveniently been avoiding that swim discipline. I didn’t grow up a swimmer, so I harbored a certain amount of intimidation showing up to the pool.
So, we made a plan to ease into pool swimming, then progressed to open water swimming while incorporating ‘brick workouts’ – combination workouts of bike+run or swim+bike to allow my body – both physically and mentally - to adapt to the stresses of triathlon.
Business Ownership: Fortunately, from the start of Auralis LLC I established my initial business goals in conjunction with a plan to achieve these goals and have been navigating the waypoints. Not always sequentially – because with any plan you have to be willing to update the plan to address new information or opportunities.
2. You Can’t Do Everything at Once (unlike that gif of Spongebob heroically tackling all the house chores at once…)
We all KNOW this, but that doesn’t stop us from trying anyways.
Triathlon: During triathlon training I started incorporating brick workouts on back-to-back days with the thought process – if I’m biking, isn’t a run directly following it an easy win to elevate my training!? Insert my coach reminding me that bricks are incredibly taxing on the body and I shouldn’t be doing bricks back-to-back because I was unnecessarily increasing my risk of injury for minimal adaptations.
Business Ownership: In business ownership it was immediately clear the list of to-dos is never-ending and unlike SpongeBob, a single person is unable to do it simultaneously. This is where trusting my waypoints and navigating to them helped prioritize what was most important. Extremely critical items like LLC formation, business bank account creation, and getting a business credit card were the first enroute waypoints with other important items like website creation, certifications like DBE, WOSB, and EDWOSB being planned to further down the timeline.
3. The Goal is Progress, not Perfection!
In many aspects of my life I’m a serial perfectionist, so this has become a regular reminder.
Triathlon: When training wasn’t going to plan due to travel or fatigue the perfectionist in me defaults to – well the entire week is ruined! It will be better to just start again next week…but for obvious reasons this isn’t the mentality that gets you confidently and strongly across the finish line. I embraced the fact that it’s impossible to be perfect, and that showing up is the key to success. This got me across both finish lines faster than I imagined!
Business Ownership: With the never-ending to-do list, I’ve chosen to embrace progress > perfection. That’s especially evident when it comes to my initial website version – one day before attending a conference I hit ‘publish’ on www.auralisllc.com and had to accept that even though the website wasn’t the perfectly polished website I had envisioned, it was functional and communicated the basics of Auralis. In the months since I’ve hit publish I’ve continued to make incremental improvements to revamp and add pertinent sections.
4. Take the Time to Set the Foundation
If you rush to the end goal without establishing the foundation, there’s the likelihood it will all come crashing down.
Triathlon: When I was easing into swimming I started with no expectations, just get in the pool and spend time with a kickboard and a pull buoy. The first session included no freestyle swimming and was barely 15 minutes, but I celebrated just getting to the pool. Over the next two months, I continued easing into swimming with the main focus to improve my stroke and breathing. This meant 95% of the session was using a kickboard or pull buoy, with the occasional 25 yards of freestyle swimming sprinkled in.
As my confidence increased, I increased my pool freestyle swimming and worked up to the open water, dragging my husband along as a pseudo ‘lifeguard’…and that’s when I was slapped with the harsh reality that pool swimming is not open water swimming…there’s murky water, waves, siting, swimming into seaweed, the possibility of sharing the water with a snake…the list goes on.
This felt like a big crack in the foundation I had been so patiently constructing. But progress - not perfection…and this is where #5 comes in to save the triathlon (you think I’m kidding, I’m not!)
Business Ownership: A large part of the foundation of a business is the name, logo, mission, values, and tagline. These are typically the first impression of a business and a basis for all aspects of the business.
This is why I spent hours ‘namestorming’ before landing on Auralis, a nod to the curiosity, movement, and wonder of the aurora borealis – much like flight! I then spent many more hours doodling before settling on an initial logo which I then reworked just a few months later to better reflect the services Auralis LLC offers.
With those key components set, I moved onto reflecting on the ‘why’ of Auralis, ultimately settling on the mission statement – flight plan if you will –
To seamlessly deliver aviation projects with an unwavering commitment to collaboration, safety, and efficiency.
Then the Auralis vision – our destination -
To revolutionize airport projects by pioneering innovative solutions and fostering collaborative excellence, creating a new precedent for efficiency and success.
From there I worked to establish our tagline, an opportunity to give people a hint into what Auralis does.
Aurora Inspired. Aviation Focused. Built to Deliver.
The foundation for Auralis is set!
5. It’s Worth the Investment to get the Correct Tools
Cutting corners may seem like the right decision in the moment, but some tools pay for themself immediately...then again and again.
Triathlon: Remember that crack in my swim foundation that developed from open water swimming? That was ONE MONTH before my first triathlon. Prior to that swim I had been resisting investing in both a wetsuit and open water swim lessons because I thought they were unnecessary. But during that swim I knew I needed both, and quickly.
So that day I ordered a wetsuit and contacted a triathlon coach. One week later I stood in my wetsuit on the beach of a local pond with the triathlon coach after swimming 800m with my coach providing technique adjustments, answering my array of questions, and providing a swimming plan. In just those few weeks before my first sprint triathlon my confidence in open water swimming SOARED.
Business Ownership: I’ve always been a proponent for investing in hardware and software to work more efficiently. That is especially critical when you are the sole employee of a small business. So I’ve researched and made investments in tools and support to streamline my operation and that has made all the difference in protecting my time (and sanity!).
I’ve truly enjoyed embracing the process of triathlon training and business ownership simultaneously. Both require constant commitment and learning, and neither have a true finish line – there's always another race or another project to take on.
BUT Churchill says it far better than I can -
“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”
-Winston Churchill