Snickers - All American

I have been so consumed with watching the Olympics, I have been derelict in my blogging duties. I spoke at a conference today and at least half of my audience confessed to staying up well past their normal bedtimes to cheer on Team USA. Of course, we were heartbroken for the women's gymnastic team, thrilled for Phelps, and amazed that the women's volleyball uniforms were so tiny. What is up with that? The men aren't playing volleyball in Speedos - what's with the itsy bitsy bikinis?

Every time I watch the Olympics I'm reminded of how proud I am to be an American. I was delighted when our men's relay team won the gold in swimming - especially because of the French swimmer who said "we came to crush the Americans." Yeah, yeah France - whatever. Just how many times do we have to save your country before you lighten up?

And how about the women's gymnastics? I was sooo bummed when our women lost the gold, and you could see the heartbreak and the disappointment on their faces. But not fear - never fear. In the prelims, when one of the girls from China performed poorly, she came off the floor with a look of fear on her face. Remember, the Chinese hand pick these girls and they are raised by the state, not their families. I don't know if they face punishment for performing poorly, but that's what fear would indicate to me. China wants perfection and uniformity. Even to the extreme of having a little girl with a beautiful voice NOT sing the national song at the opening ceremony because she wasn't judged cute enough. They got a cuter girl who lip synced to the not so cute girl's voice. Thus creating a weird hybrid to get "perfection." American wants excellence, but we have always celebrated the individual. I love America!!!

Fear is a good motivator only in the short term. Joy motivates forever. Our athletes are competing out of joy - I can see it in their faces - can't you? I'll take the joy of our silver medal gymnasts over the gold of China's fear-filled robots any day. All I can think of is "heart" - say what you will - Americans have heart. We feel. We aren't perfect. We're a big, melting pot and that has its challenges. But at the end of the day, I'm so proud to be an American it brings tears to my eyes.

I'm glad Snickers is the official Olympic chocolate. It is quintessentially American. It tastes great, it's affordable, it's red, white and blue, it's named after a horse - it's completely non pretentious. Snickers is just darn glad to be there. It even has a song:
http://www.maniacworld.com/snickers-song.htm

And when the going gets tough, of all the candy bars, I'd pick Snickers. (M & M's are too silly, Twix and Kit Kat too light, Reese's too melty). And when the going gets tough, who does the world call? (See what's going on in Georgia?) America. Here's to Team USA, Snickers, and America!

No Chocolate, but Lots of Motivation

I'm watching the Olympic gymnastic competition as I write this and I just can't begin to imagine how these young women (and in some cases - girls) handle the pressure. Can you imagine? One little slip of the hand, one misstep - and your dreams are over. How 'bout if our performances were critiqued like this? "Well, your e-mail was okay, but you lose 3/10ths of a point for subject/verb disagreement." Yipes!! Oh - and you are representing your country and billions of people are watching you all over the world. Watching all these gymnasts - not just the Americans - brings tears to my eyes. The work it has taken to get there; the joy when they do well and the crushing disappointment when they make a mistake. The courage it takes to be there - how inspiring. How ALIVE they all are. What a celebration of every participant!

Today I have nothing to say about chocolate and everything to say about how amazing these athletes are. Make sure you watch some of the games - it will be four more years until we see such heart again. Go Team USA!!!

Olympic Chocolate

The Mars Family is brilliant. (I stand by my assessment of the Naked Cowboy as an idiot.) Why do I think the Mars family is brilliant? Long ago Forrest Mars crushed his competitor Milton Hershey by thinking globally. (This was way before global thinking was a given.) Milton was focused on selling his chocolate in the US. Forrest was busy building a global empire. And the company is still at it.

I had no idea what the official chocolate of the Olympics was until I Googled it - of course, it's Snickers (one of my personal favorites). But when you go to the official Snickers web site, there's no mention of this. Know why? Mars didn't do this for sales in America, Mars did this for sales in China. The population of the US? about 301,139,947 The population of China? about 1,321,851,888. That's just a BILLION more people. (That's a helluva lot of Snickers Bars.) And great global business strategy.

I love the Olympics - I went when they were in Atlanta (if you didn't, you missed a fantastic opportunity). I love the patriotism, but also the celebration of all the athletes. The energy of the Olympic Games is hard to describe - it's unlike any sporting event I've ever attended. Maybe it's because the whole world is there - celebrating our best athletes. Maybe it's because the whole idea of the Olympics is so inspiring. This is from the official Olympic website:

FASTER — HIGHER — STRONGER
These three words encourage the athlete to give his or her best during competition.

To better understand the motto, we can compare it with the Olympic creed :

The most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight ;
the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well.

Together, the Olympic motto and the creed represent an ideal that Coubertin (founder of the modern Olympics)believed in and promoted as an important life lesson that could be gained from participation in sport and the Olympic Games: that giving one’s best and striving for personal excellence was a worthwhile goal. It is a lesson that can still be applied equally today, not just to athletes but to each one of us.

Here's to Mars for excellence in business; to the Olympics for excellence in sport; and to the rest of us to never stop striving. Let the Games begin!!