Aaron Hoos

It’s tax day in the US, which means that most of my clients are busy dotting i’s and crossing t’s and fingers.

But here’s the good news for everyone: If the Mayans are correct (and why wouldn’t an extinct, pre-industrial civilization that brutally sacrificed thousands of innocent people be correct?), the world will end on December 21st, 2012. That means you only need to do 2010′s taxes in 2011 and 2011′s taxes in 2012.

And then that’s it. You don’t have to worry about it any more!

Granted, the money you would have spent on your 2011 taxes will be used to buy guns, beef jerky, and sheet metal to convert your Ford Taurus into a Mad-Max-style post-apocalyptic fighting machine.

But you won’t have to file taxes anymore, so there’s an upside to everything.

I love economics. Yeah, I’m weird that way.

Most of the time, my interest in economics is reasoned and applied at the organizational level. But national and international economics is still fascinating. Although I’m sure macroeconomics isn’t compelling to everyone, I think it’s still important to stay current because it’s such an influencer of microeconomies.

In this thought-provoking video, Joseph Stiglitz talks about why GDP is flawed as an economic barometer. It’s a good lesson for businesses, too. What barometer for success are you using and is it measuring the right things?

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In 11 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 control as many factors as you can.

You don’t always notice this in some sports, but in other sports it becomes much clearer: There are millions of little factors that can improve or take away from an athlete’s ability to win. For the 2010 Olympics, external factors include temperature, snow cover (and the type snow), elevation, and humidity; while internal examples include health, nutrition, rest, oxygen intake, and more. Athletes will do whatever they can to control as many of these factors as possible, or to allow for them. They can’t control the temperature but they can bring different types of clothes and they can decide what to wear according to the forecast. They can’t control the elevation but serious athletes can train at the same elevation as the one in which they will be competing. Where you really see this happening is in the biathlon, where shooters control their breathing to reduce their heart rate and the impact it can have on hitting a target.

Olympic-level entrepreneurs need to do the same thing: Identify as many factors that influence their business and figure out how to control (or mitigate) them. External and internal factors are as relevant here and include the economy, customer trends, competitors, as well as health, nutrition, and rest.

This week, why not take some time and list every factor that influences your business (yes, it will be a huge list) and then figure out how you can control as many factors as possible.

* Disclosure: I was traveling recently and didn’t always have access to the internet, so I missed a couple of publishing dates. This blog has been published and back-dated to keep the countdown sequential.