An amazing 3.5 billion people - half the globe - are 
watching some or part of the Rio Olympics.
Because it is great entertainment.
And because, perhaps more than at any other event, nowhere is on greater display the full range of human emotion, achievement, failure, joy, and heartbreak.
And from it all come awesome wisdoms - on life, relationships, culture, country - and if you look not even all that closely, on entrepreneurship, business and success. Here are six:
6. The World is One. With over 10,000 athletes from 200(!) countries participating, and with fans from all of those countries watching, the Olympics are an overwhelming reminder that global business planning and acting is both a blessed opportunity and a competitive necessity.
This is an especially important wisdom for smaller U.S. businesses, spoiled by easy access to their huge domestic market far too often are, let me say it, just too lazy to explore and pursue international opportunities.
5.The Power of Competition. On my wall as a kid was legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success," with at its top the ultimate goal of “Competitive Greatness.”
And on each rung of the pyramid are its building blocks, the necessary conditions for that Competitive Greatness like:
Industriousness: “Success travels in the company of very hard work. There is no trick, no easy way.”
Team Spirit: “The star of the team is the team. We supercedes ‘me’.”
Confidence: “The strongest steel is well-founded self belief. It is earned, not given.”
Poise: “Be yourself, don't be thrown off by events, whether good or bad.”
The point, made especially from the back stories of the athletes and their journeys to the Games, is that the high goal of competitive greatness - of Olympic Gold - then drives the years and years of dedicated, intense practice and training.
And just like in business, this pursuit of Competitive Greatness - of “Performing at your best when your best is required" - in turn forges powerful and life and community changing qualities of character, leadership, and self-belief.
4. Winning May Not be Everything, but it is Extremely Important. The difference between Olympics winning and losing is often measured in mere thousandths of a second.
But the differences in consequences, especially for athletes from poorer countries, is often that between abject poverty and extreme wealth.
The great sprinter Usain Bolt personifies this, sharing the story of how as a teenager in Jamaica he competed barefoot because he could not afford shoes to now where he has parlayed his Olympic success into a net worth of over $60 million.
Similarly, in business, only a very few companies become Google, Facebook, Amazon, Uber, et al., but it remains critically important to recognize the massive economic importance of winning BIG...
...and thus of baking elements and possibilities of big breakout success into one's business model no matter how low the probability of their actually coming to pass might be.
3. Find the Fun. As an interlude between the Olympic viewing in our home we recently re-watched Mary Poppins, with its so lovely "Spoonful Of Sugar" opening song and its totally great opening lines of...
In every job that must be done
There is an element of fun
You find the fun and snap!
The job's a game
And wow, does this generation of athletes have their fun?
I am not talking about the famed revelry in the Olympic Village, but more as to the athletes’ laughs, smiles and overall “lightness of being” before, during, and after their competitions.
And perhaps more powerfully, the heartfelt congratulations and condolences shared by and between them throughout.
Much more so than previous generations, these athletes show that we can work and compete extremely hard, and enjoy it with our teammates and competitors as we go.
2. The Power of Team. Every winning Olympic athlete has around them an awesome, specialized team.
All aspects contributing to their peak performance - strength, speed, technique, nutrition, psychology, equipment - is assembled for them by trained, dedicated, and paid experts in that particular domain.
Similarly, any business benefits enormously through engaging specialists to improve key work processes - strategy, sales, marketing, technology, operations, finance, legal, etc.
Now can you stay in business without this kind of expert help?
Well, just like the Olympic athletes without expert teams around them, you can participate in the great game of business.
But you sure as heck aren’t bringing home a medal!
1. The Power of Measurement. The best athletes and their teams measure everything, and then meticulously adjust training regimens, tactics, and strategies as competitive results dictate.
For runners, if they sleep an hour more per night, how much do their times improve? If they forsake alcohol, processed foods, what happens?
If they train at altitudes, or in water, or different types of exercises and duration, how much faster, stronger do they become?
Similarly (and especially now), in business the Big Data and SaaS revolutions allow us to effortlessly and preciously measure every business process - sales, marketing, operations, finance - and the effects of changes to key inputs on results.
We just have to engage the data and commit to adjusting constantly to incrementally improve results.
And as we do, and especially with a great team around us, we too can win that so precious, and so profitable Business Gold.