Creationists will tell you that you can't beat God. Scientists, and in particular meteorologists, will tell you that you can't beat the forces of nature. And not enough people remind all of us that our businesses are a small part of the grand scheme of things, whoever or however it was created.

Our successes and failures follow similar cycles to the weather and the harvests. Some years are better than others. In the good years we all should have been saving for a rainy day. Today is that rainy day.

I don't know whether we're in the middle of the almightiest economic flood, whether the sky really is falling down or whether we've just talked ourselves into this crisis of business confidence and can therefore talk ourselves out of it.

But what I do know is that we need to measure our successes over many years, not over a few months. Amid the dark clouds and doom and gloom, there are some rays of sunshine.

John Lewis is one. I'm full of admiration for the fact that they have publicly stated that they won't be making job cuts, despite falling sales and considerable economic pressure to do so. I hope they will be rewarded for not only taking the long-term view

but also recognising that their staff and the high level of service they offer will continue to be one of their main points of difference that will help them increase their share of a contracting market.

One team that reaped the benefits of taking a long-term view were Team GB at the Beijing Olympics. It might be a stretch to say they lifted everyone's spirits across the nation: this notion always seems somewhat tenuous to me when 10p off a litre of petrol would probably have a greater impact.

But what they did do was give us all something new, interesting and positive to talk about over the summer. I think there's something quite powerful about millions of people passing on good news, feeling like they're a stakeholder in a world-beating success. It's much healthier than another conversation about the terrible weather or the credit crunch.

Yet despite the success we enjoyed in Beijing, the glass-half-empty brigade were given too many opportunities to pour scorn on our ability as a nation to deliver an Olympic Games - or indeed a medal tally - as good as Beijing.

To some we'll be spending too little; to others too much, in the pursuit of both. I just wish that someone would stand up and stop trying to justify the legacy of the Games and what each medal has cost the taxpayer and say that we're hosting it purely and simply because it'll be great fun and potentially one of the best parties the whole world's ever been invited to. That would do for me.

Fun aside, what too few commentators have also failed to mention is how much the Olympics will directly and indirectly drive retail sales, as well as boosting our beleaguered travel and tourism industry, probably from at least a year prior to the Games. If we can't make money out of this, we should all pack up now.

Right now, just like the next Team GB training for London, our businesses feel a long way from success. But if we take a long-term view and accept that these successes come in cycles, we'll all still be contenders come 2012.