Aaron Hoos

In 15 days, the 2010 Winter Olympic athletes will compete to be the best in the world. Entrepreneurs compete for a similar pinnacle of success every single day. This series of blogs will countdown to the Olympics with 31 ideas about what it takes to achieve gold in your business.

To be an Olympic-level entrepreneur, you need to love what you do.

I was going to write something about loving what you do — not just the destination but the journey — but talented writer Karen Swim of WordsForHireLLC beat me to the punch and said it better than I could have anyway. Read her post “Unleash Your Passion for a Perfect Performance“.

In 16 days, the 2010 Winter Olympic athletes will compete to be the best in the world. Entrepreneurs compete for a similar pinnacle of success every single day. This series of blogs will countdown to the Olympics with 31 ideas about what it takes to achieve gold in your business.

To be an Olympic-level entrepreneur, you need to overcome obstacles and use them to grow stronger.

How many Olympic athletes had an easy road to get to the competition? I’d suggest none of them. Aside from the sacrifices that they made to work hard, they also would have encountered obstacles that needed to be surmounted. I can’t even imagine all of the possible obstacles: Loss, injury, lack of money, lack of time, lack of support system; those are just the big picture items and I’m sure the list would grow if we thought about it more.

Olympic athletes and Olympic-level entrepreneurs know that obstacles are just life’s funny way of making us better, sharper, stronger, faster. These Olympic-level champions accept that obstacles will arise and they are confident that the obstacles can be overcome; they have an undeniable force of will that destroys obstacles and propels them even further.

Even moderately successful entrepreneurs can overcome obstacles, but Olympic-level entrepreneurs do more: They become better because of them.

In this fifth of nine installments, Learn.com explores the critical link between training, HR, and strategy.