About a year ago, I made a commitment: every single day, I would practice holding my breath.
At first, it felt simple — hold as long as I could, try again the next day. But as weeks went by, I started to approach it like training. This summer, I even took a freediving and apnea course to go deeper (literally and figuratively).
Today, I can hold my breath for around six minutes static — something I never would have believed possible when I started.
But here’s the key: it didn’t happen overnight. There was no sudden leap from one minute to six minutes. It was slow, consistent work. Every week, I added a few seconds more to my personal record. Some sessions felt incredible, others felt frustrating, but the act of showing up every day made the difference.
And this is exactly how I view building a startup or running an e-commerce business.
The Power of Small Milestones
Breath-hold training works by gently pushing your limits. Add a few seconds here, relax a bit more there, and over time those small gains become something extraordinary.
Business works the same way. Big success isn’t about one viral campaign or one perfect product launch — it’s about:
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Milestones: small, specific, achievable goals that keep you moving forward.
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Consistency: doing the work every day, even when results feel slow.
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Patience: understanding that progress compounds — and breakthroughs often come after long plateaus.
In ecommerce, that might look like:
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Improving your site’s conversion rate by 0.5–1% this quarter.
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Adding 50 new email subscribers this week.
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Running one new A/B test on your product page.
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Reviewing your analytics every Friday to spot trends.
These incremental gains might seem small, but they stack up — and suddenly, after a year, you’re in a completely different place than when you started.
Lessons From the Water
Freediving taught me more than just how to hold my breath — it taught me how to control my mind under stress.
Here are some mental tools I used in my apnea practice, and how they translate to business:
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Relaxation techniques – slowing your heart rate and staying calm under pressure is key to longer holds. In business, this is staying steady on days with no sales, rather than panicking and making reactive decisions.
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Visualization – before a hold, I visualize myself calm and comfortable. In business, I visualize the kind of store I want to build and the numbers I want to hit — it keeps me focused.
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CO₂ tables – structured, progressive training plans that gradually increase difficulty. In ecommerce, this is your marketing calendar, content schedule, and testing roadmap. Consistency beats intensity.
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Listening to your body – knowing when to stop and recover is as important as pushing limits. In business, that means avoiding burnout, scheduling rest, and stepping back when you need perspective.
The Mindset Shift
Holding your breath for six minutes isn’t just about lung capacity — it’s about calmness under pressure and trusting the process.
Growing a business is no different. You can’t control every wave, but you can control how you respond. You can measure progress, keep showing up, and remind yourself you’re in this for the long haul.
If you’re building a startup or an online store, think like a freediver:
✅ Set small milestones
✅ Stay calm under pressure
✅ Commit to consistent practice
✅ Celebrate incremental wins
Because just like with breath-hold training, the real results happen when you commit to the long game — and keep showing up long after the excitement of day one fades.
Would you like me to write a LinkedIn post version of this as well — short, engaging, with a strong hook (maybe “Growing your startup is like holding your breath…”)? That could drive traffic to the blog.