OK, the Olympics are almost over and there are lots of winners. These are the guys and girls that trained hard for the past 4 years or more to compete for only seconds in many cases. These are the kids that made their Olympic goal come before dating, parties, endless hours of video games and other things that kids do these days. While I’m not a big fan of the Olympics, I am a huge fan of those kids that made the effort to best this country and other countries have to offer.  The Olympics represents many realities of life as well as business. None of this “no child left behind” crap of the 90’s. I guess those boys that run the Olympics have never heard of our “or every child gets a trophy” concept. A concept that was invented by the parents of disinterred, lazy kids to allow them to appear to be just as successful as the motivated kids. You know, just like life itself. Reality Check? Maybe I can get a Masters Degree simply by enrolling and actually passing the courses. Or, There were no kids in the Olympics that didn’t make some level of extraordinary effort to be there. Most of all, only the ones the most prepared that put out the greatest effort came home with the medals. Yea, that’s right…..lots of great athletes came home with medals, but many more didn’t.
The Olympics are just like business in many ways.
• The best prepared will win and the least prepared don’t last past the preliminary.
• A keen awareness of strengths to focus on and weaknesses to strengthen.
• Constant training. If you’re not trying to become a better business owner, manager or sales professional you’re losing the competitive race.
• Face the reality of your level of skill. If your business is not meeting your expectations, it’s a direct reflection of your skill manage it.

 

Our Olympians will return and begin to prepare for the next 4 years by returning to that painful training schedule while many of their same generation will sleep till noon, play video games most of their day and enjoy pizza and beer.  Are you a business Olympian or sleeping till noon and complaining about the outcome? If so, grab a book from authors like Seth Godin. Make an achievement plan for the next 6 months instead of excuses for the past 6 months. Do a SWOT analysis (check out the link below to learn about SWOT). Begin a regiment of business betterment. Turn off CNN, Fox News or most of all MSNBC, they will only give you additional excuses to fail. Prepare yourself for the marathon of business and run it with the preparation and determination of an Olympic athlete. Stop waiting on your trophy for showing up for practice and raise your expectations to the GOLD of your business career. Be the “cream of the crop” rather than the “cream of the crap”. Most of all, stop standing in the same place and complaining about the view. Move forward ……you’ll love what you see.
Olympic runners run in the same direction therefore no one runner can blame a headwind for making them slower. Every business faces the same economy, fuel prices and other challenges so using these issues as an excuse is not valid.

 

 SWOT Analysis

http://www.businessballs.com/swotanalysisfreetemplate.htm