What the Olympics, and My Grandkids’ Hockey Games, Taught Me About Business

Full disclosure: I have never been a huge Olympics person. I’d catch a few events here and there, maybe get briefly obsessed with figure skating or speed skating for 48 hours, then completely forget about it until four years later.

But hockey? Hockey is a different story…and I have two grandchildren to thank for that.

For the past few years, most of my weekends have been spent at the rink, cheering on my grandkids as they play. And I have to tell you: I have become that grandparent. The loud one. The one who knows the plays. The one who has strong opinions about ref calls I probably don’t fully understand.

And when mom and dad aren’t around, I’ve also become the designated gear-helper, which, if you’ve never attempted to put a small child into full hockey equipment on a cold Saturday morning before 7 AM, let me just say: it is its own Olympic event. There should be a medal for it. I would be a contender.

So when the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics rolled around, I actually watched hockey. Really watched it. And when the women’s and men’s gold medal games went to overtime, I lost about four years off my life, and somewhere between the chaos on the ice and my increasingly unhinged commentary at the TV, something clicked.

These athletes weren’t just impressive. They were a mirror. And what I saw reflecting back wasn’t just a hockey game; it was entrepreneurship.

Bear with me.

The Olympics Are a Highlight Reel. Business Is the Whole Season.

Here’s what we forget when we watch elite athletes: we’re seeing the final scene of a story that’s been years in the making.

The gold medal moment? That’s not the hard part. The hard part was the 5 AM training sessions nobody filmed. The injuries that set them back. The competitions they lost that we never heard about. The years of showing up when results were invisible, and motivation was nowhere to be found.

Sound familiar?

If you’re a business owner, you are in the part that rarely gets a highlight reel. These are the reps that teach you: posting content to just 47 followers, sending emails to a list that doesn’t open them, having a “strategy call” that ends with silence and a polite no. Each of these is a training ground…the place where you build skills, resilience, and grit while no one is watching.

But here’s the thing: the athletes on that Olympic ice weren’t built by the spotlight. They were built by repetition.

And so are you.

5 Things Watching Hockey Taught Me About Running a Business

1. Preparation is the real flex

Watching these athletes, you realize quickly: the confidence you’re seeing isn’t bravado. It’s preparation for wearing a jersey.

They don’t step onto the ice hoping it goes well. They’ve trained their bodies and brains to operate under pressure so many times that calm is the default.

Business owners: this is your reminder. The confidence to show up, on a sales call, in a pitch, on camera, in a tough conversation, comes from preparation. Know your offer. Know your customer. Build systems that reduce the chaos. You can’t hype your way to readiness. But you can build your way there.

2. How you lose matters as much as how you win

One of the most striking things about elite Olympic competition? The respect. Even in the most emotionally charged moments, after overtime losses, after years of sacrifice ended in silver instead of gold, there was dignity. There was humanity.

In business, we talk a lot about wins. But your reputation is actually built in the losses: how you handle a client who didn’t renew, a launch that flopped, a partnership that failed. The way you respond when things go wrong is the thing people actually remember.

Character scales. Ego doesn’t.

3. Your biggest competitor is distraction

Hockey is fast. One lapse in focus, one second of watching the wrong player, being in the wrong position, and the entire game shifts.

Entrepreneurship is the same, except instead of one puck, there are about 47 pucks flying at you simultaneously: new trends, shiny tools, someone else’s business model that seems to be working, a strategy podcast that just told you everything you’re doing wrong, and my personal nemesis…the sudden urge to completely rebrand at 11 PM.

Here’s the question worth sitting with: What actually moves the needle in your business right now? And what are you doing that just feels productive?

Clarity beats hustle every time.

4. Even the best players can’t win alone

At the Olympics, you can see it plainly: talent without chemistry is just chaos on skates.

And yet…how many of us are out here trying to single-handedly handle marketing, sales, content, admin, client work, tech, strategy, and also somehow maintain a personality?

(Just me? Cool, cool.)

Your support system doesn’t have to be a full team. It might be a mentor, a community, a contractor who handles the stuff you hate, or just a good accountability buddy who texts you, “Did you send that email yet?” But no one wins gold doing everything alone, and you’re not supposed to either.

5. The journey changes you more than the medal does

I keep thinking about the athletes who didn’t medal. The ones who trained just as hard, showed up just as prepared, and went home without the podium moment. Are they failures?

Obviously not. The effort it takes just to be there, at that level, on that stage, transforms a person. The discipline, the endurance, the capacity to keep going: those don’t disappear when the games end.

In business, your “podium” might feel far away. But you’re not failing in the meantime. You’re becoming the kind of person who can handle it when you get there.

Staying consistent when it didn’t pay off immediately. Rebuilding after a hard season. Getting back up and pressing publish anyway…that’s Olympic-level commitment. Even if no one’s watching.

Your Business Is Your Arena

Here’s what I didn’t expect to get from a random Sunday morning in my PJs watching hockey: a genuine pep talk.

But that’s what it was. A reminder that the people we call “extraordinary” aren’t just talented — they’re committed. They showed up before the results. They kept going in the seasons no one was watching.

If you’re in a slow season right now, if the growth feels invisible and the effort feels disproportionate to the results, you’re not behind.

You’re in training.

The arena is yours. And the reps you put in now are the ones that build something worth watching.

One Question Before You Go

If your business is your Olympics right now: What does “showing up” look like this week?

One post? One email? One conversation you’ve been putting off? One hour of focused work instead of hectic scrolling?

Pick your next rep. And take it.

The most successful entrepreneurs aren’t always the most talented. They’re the ones who kept showing up long enough to become undeniable.