“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
– Albert Einstein –
Today is the final day of the Business and Marketing course that I’m on, and I have split feelings for the fact that it’s ending. On the one hand, I’m happy to say goodbye to the 12-13 hour days, getting up at 5.30 and coming home at 9pm. However on the other hand, I’ve loved every minute of it, learnt more in the last few days than I have in the last few months. A truly accelerated learning experience. And the pinnacle of this experience? A business strategy game that we played for 5 hours yesterday afternoon.
Now as you’ll know, I’m a fan of strategy board games, from my previous post ‘Enjoy the ride’. So I was excited about this prospect. I’m also a big fan of the Apprentice too and have watched the first 6 or 7 series of it in the UK before I left, in a row. And I very nearly applied to be on the TV show at one point, just because I was interested to see what it would be like.
And yesterday was a really brilliant micro simulator of what it would be like to be on The Apprentice, except none of us got fired at the end. Which was awesome. It was a fantastic opportunity to not only learn about business in an accelerated way, but to learn about ourselves too.
So, what did I learn? Very simple, it’s the lessons that are more important than the outcome. Despite the fact that our team didn’t win, it was the learnings that we all gleaned from participating in the game that were more valuable than the satisfaction of winning. And secondly, once you’ve rolled your sleeves up, got involved and played the game, you can apply your learning’s the next time you play, and win.
And here’s where I have the proof.
A couple of weeks ago when Darren and I played Ticket to Ride, he beat me. Pretty convincingly. And he has also later pointed out that the point gap was actually significantly wider than 15 points as I previously stated. I think it was more like 30 (Darren feel free to comment and further correct me). 🙂
However, we played Ticket to Ride again last week. And this time, even though I knew I would enjoy the game, I was keen to apply my learnings and win the second time. I was also keen to take more risks.
Without going into too much detail and to cut a long (2 hour game) short, I won. And I won convincingly this time. And it was only because I had applied what I had previously learnt and had taken some pretty big risks and played all out to win. After all I had nothing to lose, it was just a game.
So, I believe, and I have been taught this by a number of my mentors, that life is just a game. And all we need to do is participate, play to the best of our ability, be constantly taking the learning’s and applying them, and tweaking the way we play the game accordingly, and remembering that every time we wake up in the morning we have an opportunity to play the game differently. We can try different strategies, test them, see how they work, and constantly iterate and improve the way we play the game.
So I guess my question to you is, how can you be playing the game differently? Do you need a different strategy or approach? Are there any rules you can bend? Are there any previous learning’s that you have forgotten to apply?
And best of all, play more games, because the way you play the game is a reflection of how you live you life. And a 2 hour board game can give you more learning’s about how better you can approach life, than you realise. The important thing is to keep playing.
Lots of love, light and hugs,
Kat x x x
Inspiration for this post
Kat Kinnie's Blog 