Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mimi Bosika. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Mimi, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
I believe that confidence comes from practice and from being exposed to difficult and uncomfortable things in life. As a hi9h level table tennis player, I have been used to working hard and training since I was 6 years old. My father, who is a world class coach, encouraged me to work hard even when I didn’t feel like it. As a result, I developed a very important skill of resilience, which contributed to my self-esteem.
Through practice and facing difficult situations with success, I am able to collect “evidence” that I can do many things or that I’ve done them before. This creates trust in myself. Furthermore, it enables to me believe that I can do hard things in the future and that I have put in the work to have a predictable outcome.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Table tennis has been a part of my life since I was very little growing up in Serbia. My father was a professional coach and of course I began training and competing at a high level. As a junior player, I won the US open several times. I also met my future business partner Eric through table tennis since he came to train with my father while we were living at the US Olympic Table Tennis Center. Eric and I started several companies together which focus on myofascial health. Recently, I’ve been working as the VP of Competition for Major League Table Tennis, which is the country’s first professional table tennis league. I am accountable for managing players from 20 countries who compete in a unique team-based format in various cities throughout the United States. The best part about doing this work is being able to contribute to the growth of a new organization for a sport that I love. I get to use my business and entrepreneurial skills while being involved in table tennis at the same time.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The three qualities that have contributed to my career so far are resiliency, discipline and having exceptional coaches and mentors. I think that people can build resiliency by setting goals and working towards them, but most importantly doing difficult things that not everyone is willing to do. Resiliency is about pushing through when life gets hard or when we have setbacks.
Discipline is about doing something with conviction and regularity because there is something at stake – a future goal that a person sets for himself or herself. If I finds myself making excuses about not wanting to do something that I committed to doing, I always remind myself about my ultimate goal. This keeps me going time after time.
Finally, I was lucky enough to have an Olympic coach as my father, so there is a whole different level of perspective about performance when working under someone like him. By attending top tier universities, I was exposed to mentors who have similar mindsets to Olympic coaches about expectations and performance. I’ve also worked with and for leaders who operate at high levels who held me to their standards. In order to develop as a person and professional, these three components were critical for me.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I would love to connect with professionals who are passionate about sports and certainly those who see a pathway to mutual benefit using the sport of table tennis. As one of the most played sports in the world, table tennis has a way to connect people and organizations in many ways – through business opportunities, politics, mutual interests and so much more. What are some ways that we can use table tennis to work together and contribute to our respective goals in business?
Contact Info:
- Website: www.itsjustmimi.com
- Instagram: itsjustmimi
- Linkedin: mimibosika
- Twitter: itsjustmimi
- Youtube: Major League Table Tennis
