In our house, we become captivated by the Olympics.

There’s something about the best of the best competing on a world stage that just makes us happy. Of course, we love it when the American athletes do well. We get pulled into the medal count.  We eat dinner in the living room and stayed up really late to watch the US women defeat Canada in ice hockey. (Yay!)

In this post I wrote for my day job, I bestowed Olympic-sized medals upon the top three lessons I will take away from the 2018 Winter Games. These Gold, Silver and Bronze lessons apply whether you are a budding Olympiad or a Marketing VP.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze lessons from the 2018 Olympics

But, most of all, we are inspired by all the stories.

• Fun-loving Adam Rippon turning down NBC so he can stay with his teammates for the rest of the games.
• American speed skater Maame Biney’s father whose smile is as broad as hers as he cheers from the stands holding a sign urging his daughter to “Kick some Hiney, Biney!”
• Apparently No Gerard is Left Behind. The youngest boy in a seven-sibling family, snowboarder Red Gerard won gold. His large and boisterous family entertained us more as they introduced the phrase “to get Gerarded” into the Olympic lexicon.
• And there may not be a winter sport more frightening than the Skeleton. Who first decided to take the luge and lie down headfirst and hurl themselves down a curving track at speeds as fast as 80 mph? We offer medals to anyone who tries that sport.

Stories. That’s why we’re captivated in my house.

Very few of us have the talent, motivation, and training to get us to the Olympics. But we can all be inspired by the athletes’ stories and learn valuable lessons from their performance-driven habits.