Notes from InUPress, E004, Is building a business like playing a video game?

Notes from InUPress

By Kenneth Shumaker

Issue 004

July 10, 2017

‘Is building a business like playing a video game?’

I find that as I’m building my business, I keep returning to computer gaming to relieve stress and relax. It helps, and then the other day it hit me: building my businesses is like play a video game.

Let me explain. The traditional framework for success is already in place for business and gaming. Both are riddled with multiple challenges of varying degrees.

In gaming, most challenges are independent of each other, but when you follow a particular quest, there is a set hierarchy of goals to achieve to reach a conclusion and win the scenario, completing the challenge and possibly leading to more challenges. Each completed challenge has varying rewards. As you work through a quest, there are many ways to fail. But the successful gamer steps back, looks at the steps that he took up to that point and examines where he failed. The player evaluates the choices he made and the subsequent results, and when facing the challenge again, he changes the choices he made that led to that failure. If these changes succeed, he continues on with the next step, continuing with his quest. Thus, succeeding with the challenges.

This is how we build a business. As in gaming, we don’t face only one quest/challenge at a time; we’re juggling multiple challenge quests and must prioritise and focus on the challenges according to reward and immediacy.

What saddens me is that each time I dust myself off after falling and failing a challenge, I find fewer people are accompanying me. I’m finding the old proverb, ‘go the extra mile, it’s never crowded,’ to be truer the farther I go.

I find that the further I go, the more I’ve learned from experiences that can’t be taught in classes, but yet we need mentors to guide us along with these events once we hit these challenges. How ironic – life is full of oxy moronic moments. So, as in gaming, I reset moments when I get stuck, and I ask a friend or colleague how they may have gotten past similar issues. Then I move into the challenge with this new experience and knowledge to face it again, making different choices. In this way, I continue to grow, building my business much as I play my video games.

By, Kenneth Shumaker.

www.inupress.ca inupress@inupress.ca

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About the author: Kenneth Shumaker (Rusty Knight)

Following a long break from writing, Kenneth recovered his passion for writing. He is a science fiction and fantasy genre author, as well as a non-fiction writer, with Inevitable Unicorn Press (InUPress). Kenneth has been blogging with the Owerton Challenge and other blogs for many years. He now writes several serial short stories. Kenneth’s two businesses, his wife, his two children, and his six grandchildren keep him busy.

Enjoy Kenneth’s new intriguing fantasy novel ‘Laret’, released June 19, 2017. Enter the Darkness of Souls and journey with the Black Swans through the Web Shireward as they battle the invading armies of the god Tearmain. This captivating novel is available at the following:

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Join Kenneth Shumaker (Rusty Knight) in his Dragoman Bloodgrue Volume collection anthologies of serial series short stories. ‘Dragoman Bloodgrue, Volume I: Fare Where?’ is the first of the episodes in the Bloodgrue serial series. Read how Bloodgrue tests the gods’ resolve. Do the gods let the brave be fools? Is Bloodgrue brave, or a fool? Follow Bloodgrue to see where his life’s path leads. In ‘Dragoman Bloodgrue, Volume I: Fare Where?’ we are introduced to Bloodgrue as he begins his journey, climbing the social ranks of Mount Oryn in North Docks.

Find this volume to purchase on:

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With an annual subscription from InUPress you can receive our monthly delivery of ‘Notes from InUPress’ for C$12.99 annually. The notes, by Kenneth Shumaker, contain interesting information on writing and publishing and is published through Inevitable Unicorn Press.

Kenneth also has coaching sessions on the art of writing and getting published for C$125.99 per hour, available to a limited number of applicants. To arrange an intake appointment email inupress@inupress.ca or call 1-780-523-5835 between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm MST, Monday through Saturday.

Discover the new novel ‘Exhaust from the Tin Woods’, published by InUPress and written by Eric J Kregel, available in paperback and ebook.

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of Notes from InUPress.

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