Lessons from Olympic Entrepreneurs

I love the Olympics. But I never viewed the athletes from an entrepreneurial angle. This article, entitled 5 Steps to Becoming an Olympic Entrepreneur,  immediately drew my attention. Some of the points hit me as a bit obvious and generally applicable, but I enjoyed thinking about the athlete’s preparation like an entrepreneur taking a passion from startup to fully operational company. One of the steps outlined in the article is to “bounce back from inevitable setbacks.” This brought to mind Sara Sarasvathy’s article on Effectual Reasoning, where she addresses the “lemonade principal.” She states, “The realization that not all surprises are bad and that surprises, whether good or bad, can be used as inputs into the new-venture creation process differentiates effective reasoning from causal reasoning, which tends to focus on the avoidance of surprises…” Kate Ziegler, the athlete profiled in the article, had a major surprise during her training and found a way to work through it, adjust the focus of her training, and not give herself an excuse to just drop everything while she dealt with the surprise. I think the life lessons she has learned as an Olympian will translate well into her future entrepreneurial endeavors.

One thought on “Lessons from Olympic Entrepreneurs

  1. Nice article! I do agree that some points were rather obvious, but it is precisely this reason that I enjoyed the article. Many people are often wary or hesitant to start the entrepreneurial journey due to various factors and reasons. But the basic steps highlighted in this article goes to show that almost everyone (as long as they’re devoted) can start their business. It is a nice motivational article.