The opening ceremonies for the 2012 summer Olympic Games in London, England are about to start and I could not be more thrilled. The Olympics are the pinnacle in the world of sports and the opening ceremonies are a phenomenal opportunity for people all over the world to burst with pride as they see their finest athletes enter the stadium behind their national flag.

In my case, my Hungarian-Brazilian-American mashup of a family means that we cheer all three countries.  We also cheer the hosting country, as well as the Greeks who started the whole Olympic tradition. We like underdogs, so some of the smaller countries with a small group of athletes get cheers, and by the end of the night our voices are hoarse and our hands are sore. But we feel so good.

As a spectator, all the cheering is one of the best aspects of the Olympic Games - seeing athletes exert themselves, break records, earn recognition and spark pride for all the teams they are a part of - their country teams, their home towns, the nations they represent, and the Olympic movement.  Even in the case of individual sports, those athletes are team members on many levels and their triumphs are shared victories.

Some of my best memories from the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing relate to those instances where winning the gold medal came from that one extra bit of exertion that made the difference.  In two cases, it was by just one 1/100th of a second:

• In women's swimming, the 50-meter freestyle gold medal went to Germany's Britta Steffen, who edged out silver medalist Dara Torres of the USA by 0.01 second.
• In men's swimming, the 100-meter butterfly gold medal went to the USA's Michael Phelps, whose time was 0.01 second faster than silver medalist Milorad Čavić, from Serbia.

I find situations like that inspiring because I don't think those wins were merely coincidental or "lucky," but actually the result of long-term focus, discipline and being goal-driven.  And I believe those are qualities that marketers can emulate for positive results in our campaigns and other areas of work, in addition to having the added bonus of driving our professional growth.

The other thought I have about those instances relates to the notion of teamwork and the satisfaction of knowing that my efforts and their positive results may also drive other achievements for my colleagues. Just as individual athletes are also members of teams on many levels, marketers almost never work independently and great marketing often is the result of team efforts. And on that note, there's a teamwork-related fact from the 2008 Olympics that I find the most inpirational.

Much attention was given to the fact that Michael Phelps won the most gold medals of any athlete at a summer Olympic games (eight golds), besting the previous record of seven golds by Mark Spitz in 1972. It's truly an impressive achievement that deserves accolades and the recognition it gets. What is not often highlighted is that one of those eight medals came from the men's 100-meter relay race that was closely won by the American team. In that event, the first swimmer on the USA team was Michael Phelps, who came in first when he finished.  But after the third swimmer, the American team was lagging by a full body length. The final American swimmer, Jason Lezak , put extraordinary effort into his part of the relay, surpassed France's Alain Bernard and enabled the American team to win the gold by 8/100ths of a second.  The American team's gold medal in the 100-meter relay race was one of the record-breaking eight gold medals that Michael Phelps went home with from Beijing. Phelps' eighth gold medal, of course, was assured due to the extra effort of team-mate Jason Lezak.

That story inspires me to try my best whenever possible, and it also serves as a reminder to recognize the ways my team-mates enable our shared successes. I sincerely hope it can inspire you, too. I also hope the 2012 summer Olympic games have many more inspirational moments!