Entrepreneurship vs. 2008 Summer Olympics
Aug 29 2008

The Summer 2008 Olympics are now over.  The national conventions for the Democrats and Republicans are happening.  Democrats just wrapped up theirs and Barack Obama is the official candidate.  The Republicans are up soon and John McCain just announced his VP, Sarah Palin.  School has started for all kids across the country.  Summer vacations are over.  And life goes on. 

Like many I watched the Olympics when I found the time in the evening and was fortunate enough to see some of the men and women’s gymnastics, swimming, track and field, and volleyball.  I saw the US women’s beach volleyball team win.  I saw the women’s gymnastics team win and saw Nastia Lukin win gold.  I saw Michael Phelps win several of his gold medals for swimming.  One weekend I even caught the Chinese synchronized swimming team.  Wow, that was impressive!  My husband stayed up later and saw the women’s and men’s volleyball teams as well as the men’s basketball team. 

I actually think I was able to watch more of the events during this Olympics than any other Olympics in my life.  I’m not sure why that is given that my life is so much busier than it used to be.  It’s probably because my husband was watching it and it was a nice (often nerve wracking) way to end the day and see several of the events “live.” 

What struck me was how hard all of these athletes have been preparing for the vast majority of their lives for this one shot at gold, fame, and potential sponsorship opportunities from big name brands/companies.  All their preparation comes down to a single point in time to succeed or fail.  The pressure and mental stress must be extreme, and yet they get up every day to prepare for that one moment in time. 

Every individual who competes tries hard, practices hard, prepares hard and only 1 receives the gold medal.  The same is true for entrepreneurs but fortunately there aren’t hundreds of little kids competing to win in one particular business (e.g., selling widget X).  There may be several competitors in a space but it’s doubtful that the leaders of your competitors started practicing to compete to sell “widget X” when they were 10 or even 5 years old!  

However, there seem to be many more factors way out of the control of the entrepreneur that determine their company’s success or failure (e.g., the economy, people issues, product issues, market timing, etc.).  An athlete has much more control on whether they get up and practice every day with the major big unknown being a devastating injury.  They are rarely blindsided by a last minute entry who ends up being a well-funded Superman/Superwoman athlete! 

Building a successful business is extremely hard, costs money, and is time consuming, but after watching the Olympics, my guess is that preparing and then winning a gold medal is harder, requires more discipline, and is more time consuming but with more defined parameters.  Even more so if you happen to be a Chinese Olympic team member who are often taken from their parents at a very young age. 

People expect athletes to take years or even a decade to train to even make it to the Olympic games, but many expect entrepreneurs to make it big in just a few years and in the process they often burn themselves and others out.  I’m guessing that fewer entrepreneurs earn ‘gold medals’ than individuals and teams do every four years in the summer Olympics.

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