So, I just got this new phone, a refurbished Sony Ericsson T226. I believe in getting the best phone for my needs, not the most expensive, or one with the most gadgets, because frankly, right now I don’t have time to play with all those toys. It would end up being a waste and I’d be resentful of it. Who needs that?
But I’m also a sucker for computer games, even when they’re on a phone. I especially love games that exercise the lazier part of my mind, and any kind of obscure brain teaser. On the phone, there’s this simple, but incredibly addictive game called Five Stones. While I was nursing a cold this weekend, and forcing myself to recover from my fall last week, I played it endlessly, mostly because I kept losing, and I hate losing.
The object of the game is kind of a multi-directional variation on connect four, only it’s connecting five dots before your opponent does. My opponent was the computer of course. So, since in my constant intellectual arrogance, I believe I’m smarter than any computer, I skipped right past the child, easy and normal levels, and skipped right to the level called aggressive.
And got spanked. It was pitiful. Why couldn’t I win this game? I got smacked around at each and every level I went down.
Finally, feeling like a moron, I started at the Child level and did what common sense would normally dictate : learned the game.
There weren’t any rules posted for it, so I could only learn by doing.
And here is where this relates to your business.
In this game, after I learned how it worked, I found that the key to winning was focus. My goal was to win the game, but I kept getting caught up in the side mission of keeping the computer from winning. Instead of working offensively and setting up strategies, I was working defensively, concentrating so much on keeping the computer from winning in the next move, that I failed to see where it was setting itself up to win in the next five moves. I fell into the trap of blocking instead of winning.
So did I have focus when I was losing? Of course I did.
But I was focused on the wrong thing.
Think about your business for a second. Are you focused on making money so much that you’re trying to make money at everything?
Are you signed up to promote so many products that you find yourself frustrated at trying to make money at one? Or maybe you are focused on promoting one product, but you’re working on making seventeen different free methods to work when you haven’t mastered one yet? Or you’re trying to make two sites work and both are failing?
Ponder that, and I’ll talk more about when to focus on something else.
