Success Is Not Linear – 5 Tips To Overcome Obstacles And Find Your Strategy To Win

Starting and maintaining a successful business is rarely a straight line to the top. As a business leader, you will face many situations that test the core of your vision, your strength and your motivation on the journey to success. When these challenging events occur, it’s often helpful to think of the experience as akin to playing a strategy game. Here are five rules for winning when you face tough times in business.

Related: 6 Principles for Overcoming Entrepreneurial Difficulties

1. Be reasonable

In any business endeavor, you can reach a point of overconfidence, and then unexpectedly die of disappointment. Games may be about winning and losing, but winning is about strategy.

Another way to meet adversity can be called “game changing.” Rather than seeing a setback as “something that happened to me,” I get creative. People move on; business partners are leaving. Being strategic means planning for the inevitable. I’m always looking for new talent. I rarely hire in a crisis; I hire people who can handle the problem. This way of thinking is different from many leaders who find themselves managing crisis after crisis. Think of strategy as a way to manage winning – and losing.

2. Be busy

I have used procedures to deal with some of the worst situations. You have to ask uncomfortable questions, like, “What if an employee commits identity theft and steals money from the company?” or “What if a remote worker quits and keeps company property?” I also use training manuals with useful links and create resources to help employees with the onboarding process and the day-to-day information they need – keeping their frustration to a minimum. Avoiding duplicate requests and making sure your employees have what they need is a big part of planning for the inevitable.

Another tool I use is to make good use of time off. I plan my entire day so that I wake up early when I’m at my best and everyone else is still asleep. I read emails, do research and check my to-do list. You can scroll through the day – and the game – so you can control events.

Related: How to Embrace the Motivating Power of Fear and Reach Your Highest Goals

3. See the unseen

The game of chess may seem simple. Besides, no information is hidden. All the pieces are on the board. However, you’re not just looking at playground pieces. Instead, you look at every possible move – the one that will put you at risk and the one that will win the competition.

It’s tempting to react to everything from market trends to economic forecasts. Many leaders abandon their plans when things don’t go as they expected. But with chess, you move purposefully based on a certain strategy. Staying in the wrong is the key.

Although creating a game plan may sound too organized to you, it is an important first step in your life and running a business. Your plan becomes your philosophy. How you react to difficult situations and who you are, in good times or bad, is what matters. Your consistency creates your brand, even more than a good marketing campaign.

4. Learn to let go

I have learned to relax in difficult times and watch, listen and wait. Patience is key in times of crisis. Like the long discussions of chess players, I take time to process the information without reacting immediately.

There will be times when employees will betray you. You may realize that your trust in a significant other is misplaced. It’s important to step back and develop a plan going forward in the situation rather than overreacting and adding to everyone’s stress level.

It is easy to allow pressures, even from individuals, to rush you, control you or pressure you into making decisions. When I’m filming a TV show, I often feel like everyone is trying to direct me, but I’ve learned to stay focused and slow things down to get my points across.

Related: How to Develop the Best Leadership Mindset for Your Strategy

5. Let others make you better

Some of my best mentors challenge me in the best ways. Now I want people who “ruffle my feathers” and refuse to tell me what I want to hear. Surrounding yourself with people who are obsessed with you is dangerous. I learned the hard way that not every idea I have is good. Sometimes, I only have the seed of an idea, and it takes my network of business partners, colleagues and employees to help me develop it into something worth pursuing.

In the game of poker, you rely on all the other players to provide what you need. You learn to “read the room” or “read the table” to determine who has the corner market on what you need to know. Someone’s “hand” may look better than yours, but the truth is that they were only using the resources they had. It’s also possible that they were being sarcastic to get you to back off. The difference is patience, the gift of watching and learning when to say “no” to an opportunity and when to say “yes”.

In business, I’ve learned that it’s not the cards that matter most, but what you do with them. Dumping is how you play the game. Knowing when to stop a program that isn’t producing results is a good example. On the other hand, folding too quickly can be disastrous for the company. Being patient enough to let your company go through growing pains can take you from a place of instability to a solid foundation of tangible growth.

Being successful in business is knowing how to use the right strategy to play the game well. Sometimes, all you can do is stay in the game. Everyone around you is looking to make a profit. The stakes are high, but if you slow down and find the right strategy early, you’ll uncover the moves that take you to the top.