Anyone who has found sUccess as any athlete will tell you that sports teach lessons that go beyond the playing field. If you're looking to succeed in the competitive business environment, there may be no better role models than champions the athletes. What is it that allows these individuals to achieve greatness? What makes someone a winner? There is no single answer. Rather, it is a combination of things. We are sharing five of them here. If you follow these lessons, you will be ready for a championship in the business world.

Related: 4 Productivity Tips From Extreme Athletes That Will Make Your Business Stronger

Show supreme confidence

Champions have a strong belief in themselves and their ability to succeed. Importantly, this does not mean that they expect the journey to be easy. Most worthwhile things require extraordinary effort. Champion athletes put “blood, sweat and tears” into the pursuit of excellence and are willing to make the sacrifice because they know it will pay off. Self-doubting abandon the journey when it becomes too difficult or when they encounter some obstacles. Champions persevere because they believe in themselves at their core. This strong confidence becomes self-fulfilling. When you fully believe that you will win if you keep grinding, you will beat your less confident competitors. Supreme confidence leads to supreme effort and supreme effort leads to success.

Like a champion athlete, a winning entrepreneur stays committed when the going gets tough. Tomorrow's industry leaders are those who will continue to improve their current pitches and marketing strategies as often as necessary to achieve a breakthrough. They will not be deterred by rejection, but will learn from it, make adjustments and come back stronger. This willingness to learn and improve is, in fact, another defining characteristic of champions.

Always look to improve

Champion athletes, while extremely confident, also have enough humility to know that they always have room for learn and grow. When they take a loss, they review game film to identify mistakes they made and see where they need to adjust for next time. Even when they win, they look at what they could have done better. They also seek input from others. When a coach points out a flaw in their technique, they are open to feedback and incorporate it into their training. They also look to teammates and even opponents to learn what others are doing well.

As an entrepreneur, whether you lose a deal or find one competitor holding a larger portion of your target market, then see what they are doing to succeed. Be open to learning and humble enough to ask for help from others. Champions are usually their own harshest critics, and their high standards drive them to keep improving. So even when you have some successes, keep looking to rise.

Focus on what you can control

Champions do everything they can to control the variables involved in their sport. Knowing that they cannot fully control the outcome, they do everything they can control, including attitude, effort, and preparation. Entrepreneurs should do the same by analyzing their markets, repeating presentations several times, and observing their competition and potential customers. If you're meeting with a client, study them ahead of time so you can anticipate the questions they might ask and have impressive answers prepared. Be obsessive about your preparation.

A corollary of this lesson is to focus your post-hoc explanations on what you could—or could have—controlled. After a difficult defeat, the champions do not blame the referee. Instead, they look at what they could have done differently so that the umpire's calls didn't matter. As an entrepreneur, be wary of attributing bad results to luck or pretending things weren't fair. When you do this, you lose motivation to make adjustments for next time. Instead, follow the lead of a champion and know that there is always something you could have done better.

Improvise when necessary

Although champions focus on what they can control, they also understand that they cannot control everything. Rarely does anything go exactly as planned, and the best performers adapt and improvise. Something can always go wrong, and instead of panicking when it does, winners stay safe and make the necessary adjustments. So even as you work to control what you can embrace the uncertainty of your sport—or your business, as the case may be.

Related: 5 Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Pro Sports Teams

Be flexible

You may have noticed that the teachings described above contain some contradictions. Champions have high confidence, but also believe they need to improve. They also focus on what they can control while acknowledging that they cannot control everything. Thus, another key to success is adjusting your mindset based on the situation at hand. Champions have the mental flexibility to do this seamlessly. Instead of looking for a recipe to follow every time, they embrace the fluidity needed to succeed consistently.

This willingness to adapt—to have a non-fixed mindset—is the main premise of the book Extreme Balance: Paradoxical Principles That Make You a Championpublished by Entrepreneur Press. This volume, which I co-authored with champion athlete and coach Ben Askren and successful business leader Joe De Sena, describes how various champions balance conflicting principles to succeed in their respective sports. It includes chapters such as “Thinking You're Good Enough and Thinking You're Never Good Enough” and “Preparing for Everything and Expecting the Unexpected.” These sections expand on the lessons described here—and many others—in greater depth. If you want to be a champion entrepreneur, it's a great resource to help you get there.