Mountains of Arizona
Partly Cloudy 76 Degrees
3:08 p.m.
To be clear, I started playing the “long game” in business because the short game never worked out for me.
Some people can just go out into the marketplace and “make things happen.” These folks write books that make everyone think they can have that same ability. But we’re all different and we all have different gifts.
My gift turns out to be playing the long game. I’m a bit like a farmer who can type really fast. I’m rarely looking for results today. Instead, I’m planting seeds for harvest next year or the year after that.
Once you get past that first year with the new field, you start to see some fruit. Some days, 30 apples fall on your head all at once.
- I recently spoke with a client who I worked with a few years ago. They took the promotion I wrote and used it to multiply their revenue more than three times to over $30 million.
- Today I spoke with a coaching client I’ve had the pleasure of working with for two years. She works with very successful and high-profile executives. Two years ago, her writing was very corporatized and not a true reflection of the depth and value of her being. Today her writing is a powerful demonstration of WHO SHE IS in a way that makes having to “sell” her programs a non-issue.
- Five or six years ago I began working with a client who was operating his business out of his basement at home. We worked to design his client attraction systems and advertising campaigns. Today he is no longer working out of his basement and employs somewhere between 50-70 employees.
This is what the long game looks like. Once you see the fruit it bears, you simply can’t play any other game. Or at least I can’t.
Early on I thought the secret was to figure out how to play the game the winners were playing. Now I know the secret is to play the game I’m best suited to play.
You can be successful playing almost any game there is if you work hard enough. But you can only fully be YOU when you pick the game you’re made to play.
It’s worth the work to figure out what that game is.