My school holidays were heavily used to play video games. We would play Super Mario Bros and Contra for hours.
What a waste of time, you might think and I might just agree but unknowingly I was also training myself into four very important business mindsets:
- Know where you want to end up (rescuing the princess in the game Super Mario Bros) and keep trying. You might fail several times but you start all over again and not give up. If you are good enough, you would succeed in the end.
- Learn from others. Super Mario Bros was a game that could only be played one player at a time but at times you learnt more by watching the other player than playing yourself. You know where the dangers are and where the things that would help you.
- Team work always helps. In the game Contra, danger always came from all sides but once you and your partner got an understanding of who was going to play what role, it always became easier and it is always easier winning as a team than just by yourself
- The more and more you play, the games seems to become easier. The same applies in business. Yes when you start playing the game for the first time, it may seem like an impossible task but once you get the hang of it, it always gets easier.