Whether in sports or business, everyone loves a good comeback story.
The rise, the fall, the struggle, the recovery, the ascent, until ultimately – the triumph.
Yesterday, the world got to see two comeback kids show up and sweep up the floor at the women’s gymnastics finals at the Paris Olympics. In case you’ve somehow managed to evade the Olympics fervor (or for some reason decided to instead watch the Handmaid’s Tale last night like my mom did – just… why mom, why???), here’s a quick recap:
Simone Biles – who famously removed herself from the competition after getting the so-called “twisties” at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 – showed up not only as the oldest gold-medal champion in 70 years but also had the incredible power to release a documentary teasing the world with her comeback just nine days before the opening ceremonies in Paris. Truly, the world was not Ready for It (but she was, which is why that Taylor Swift song was the perfect choice for her floor routine) She deserved every bit of that G.O.A.T. necklace.
Let’s also take a moment to savor this detail: They cleared the floor of any other competing gymnasts on other apparatuses, to give Simone the space to perform her floor routine. Literally, all eyes in the stadium were on her. She did not flinch.
And then Suni Lee – another former gold medal champion who literally hit rock bottom due to rare kidney disease that prevented her from training let alone barely getting out of bed – clawed her way back through grit and determination alone, ultimately securing a coveted spot on the U.S. Olympic Gymnast team and walking away with a bronze medal.
I cannot overstate the extent of the hero’s quest that she endured. Suni literally went from this:
“I could not bend my legs the slightest. I couldn’t squeeze my fingers. I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. I was just rotting in my bed. I couldn’t talk to anybody. I didn’t leave the house.”
Source: Self Magazine and Sports Illustrated
To this:
I mean, come on.
The Collaborative Comeback
That these two women rose, fell, then rose again together strikes me as more than mere coincidence.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working alongside so many entrepreneurs at varying stages of their oscillating journeys of success, it’s that it all feels a little easier when you have a friend. This is precisely why many VCs insist that businesses with cofounders are less risky than those without—having a cofounder provides a built-in support system and a cheer squad to navigate every step of the journey.
Whenever I hear someone share a bit of their story with me—whether a happy, confusing success or a scarier, but equally confusing “on the rails” panic moment—I know that the best thing I can do is to introduce them to someone who’s been there before. The more recent the memory, the fresher the feelings, and the better the intro. Even better if someone else is in that exact same state at the exact same time. But that bingo card is often hardest to come by.
What’s wild to me is that people still maintain they don’t change their behaviors even after meeting someone in the same boat as them. But they say things like, “it was good to know I wasn’t alone.” And that feeling alone is enough to keep them going. They don’t need to have good ideas, solutions, or answers. They just need to show up and feel heard.
This squishy “I’m not alone” feeling continues to be the currency of connection. It gets people to show back up at your events. It makes them feel heard. And it gets them to step a little outside their comfort zone to pull along someone else, too.
Now imagine the luck—if you can call it that—of two former gold medal champions hitting rock bottom together. Simone may have hit the ground first, but then as she was somewhere along her own journey of ascent, Suni hit her own rock bottom. An equal peer in lived experience. A counterpart on the same team. A training buddy, an emotional buddy. And now, someone to hold up the other side of the flag for you.
We’ll never know for sure, but I think they were better because they were together. The collaborative comeback.
A little too on the nose, perhaps, but it feels fitting to wrap this up with my favorite Theordore Roosevelt quote. With a few slight modifications…
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong woman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends herself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if she fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that her place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
