Former Canadian Olympic swimmer Mark Tewksbury is a founder of Great Traits.

Mark Tewksbury

What is Great Traits and what does it do?

Tewksbury: Debbie Muir and I have taken our vast Olympic experience and distilled it into high-performance traits for the corporate world. Our Corporate Champions Program helps leaders create a high-performance culture in their organizations.

What does it take to be a great leader?

Tewksbury: Understanding high-performance, not just for yourself, but for those you lead. Then creating the environment for it to happen.

What are some of the key things you learned being an Olympic athlete that helped you in the world of business?

Tewksbury: Overcoming obstacles, dogged determination, innovating in a time of disruption, and collaborating to succeed, to name a few.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced being an entrepreneur?

Tewksbury: Finding the right people to partner with. Navigating a volatile market, especially in the early days (we founded in 2007). Trusting we would get the right product to market.

When you look back on things, how important was sports in developing the person you are today?

Tewksbury: Sport started me on a high-performance pathway that continues to this day. And now I teach those skills and share those tools with other people. So I would say it was hugely important.

Mario Toneguzzi is a Troy Media business reporter based in Calgary.

© Troy Media

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.