BUSINESS - Change and Pivots Are Good

In business a transaction is not complete until the contract is signed, the money and products have changed hands, and the customers have the product in hand and are happy with it. And then sometime not even then. Life throws you curve balls and you need to be ready for them and ready to pivot if needed.

Take my business and my first game for instance:

* Had to make many redesigns and reprints, over 10 years, to get it to be right;

* Four months after I spent $20,000 to print my first version the History Channel came out with their own History-based game and distributors started selling theirs.

* My wife wanted security and told me to put away the game and get a "real" job. I did.

* Going after retailers in a saturated market, made us pivot to target a niche.

* When the money started to dry up for that game, we designed our second game.

* When distribution through conventions slowed down we turned to marketing online.

* When we had to find multiple streams of larger income we created a service and 100Xed.

Life in my business was crazy, but it was the trials and errors that made us strong. When we found out the traditional way wouldn't work for us, we moved in a different direction and innovated, finding better and more efficient means to sell our games and now we are on the brink of killing it and helping other entrepreneurs make a living, working two hours a day or more... if they want to.

Grasp change with both hands and take the leap. Nothing in life is guarenteed, except change. Find the change that will make you a better person and latch on to it. Just get moving.

ACTION ITEMS:

1) Grab a piece of paper, draw 4 vertical lines to create columns. the first column to be wide, the other 4 to be thin. You will write a description in the first and numbers in the other columns.

2) Find something in your life that needs to change. Look at all aspects, even something small. Write it at the top of the page.

3) Find other alternatives to that part of your life and write that down in 1-2 words in the first column.

4) Write in the second column a scale, from 1-10, according to its impact on your family (1 being the hardest impact). Remember that family is the most important thing for you to safeguard, not yourself.

5) Write in the third column a scale, from 1-10, according to how hard it would be to implement, (1 being the hardest to implement).

6) Write in the fourth column a scale, from 1-10, according to how great the results would be (income, happiness, freetime, etc), from this change. (1 being the leaser result)

7) The final column is to calculate all three numbers. Add them up and consider the results.

8) Take the highest three numbers and look back at the change that you were thinking of making. Putting your true priorities first, talk to your spouse (or if not married, a friend or mentor) about the one you really would like to implement and ask for their ideas. Always ask someone connected to you and who will not hold punches for a second opinion for we only see one side of every matter, especially if we are passionate about it.

By thinking first and writing down a change you want to take, you are living a more intensional life and this will keep you from falling into emotional and passionate traps caused by our mind wanting to make split second decisions and not thinking them through.