The Strategy of Success

As a life-long learner I have gained the most knowledge from my interactions with others. Whether it’s the waitress at my favorite restaurant or my barber, I watch the things they do and say, how they influence the world around them, and whether their efforts are well thought out strategies or just going with the flow.

One of my mentors is 92 years young and as sharp as I hope to be one day. He and I were playing a pretty competitive game of Scrabble when he decided to give back the tiles in his rack and pull new ones. This meant he would lose his turn and I would have an opportunity to score a second time before his next play.

For you Scrabble players, I made him pay with a 34 point score, which gave me a sizeable lead. As the game went on he began inching closer, but he had beat me enough in the past for me to know some of his tricks, so I still managed to stay ahead.

As we got closer to the end of the game, he again decided to exchange his tiles, which in my mind was crazy because we had used at least 80% of the tiles to that point. Because it was so late in the game I only scored 16 points with the tiles I had available.

As his turn came he had a smile on his face and placed a 48 point score, he was within three points of my score. I was only able to place one of my remaining three tile for 2 points. He then placed his final two tiles for 4 points and because he had used all of his, he got the points that were on my remaining tiles, which added 2 points. He won by 1 point!

So, what does this story have to do with success?

The lesson here is about the ability to assess risk, make decisions, adjust if it doesn’t work and take another risk. For us entrepreneurs and business owners, that is our national anthem!

His strategy for success was to watch me very closely, what I played and what I did not. If there was an opportunity to score big I would have certainly done it, which to him meant those high scoring tiles must have still been in the bag.

The brilliance in his strategy was he was also observing which tiles were remaining and how much I could potentially score if I pulled them instead, which is how the decision to take the risk was validated.

By him being willing to take the risk not once but twice, I can tell you the first time wasn’t worth it, and he had to use his skills to minimize the damage and try to regain ground. As play went on, he obviously saw opportunities that were still worth the second risk, and he was right!

Whether you are an entrepreneur or not, success in anything comes down to purpose, vision, focus and mastery. In this example, my mentors purpose was to score more points than me, his vision was to optimize each play according the to the tools at his disposal, his focus was to use those tools in a manner that facilitated the best version of his vision, and his mastery of words and the playing field led to his ultimate victory.