Business can be like playing video games against a button masher.
And if you don't know what a button masher is, it's where you're playing a classic side-by-side arcade fighting game— like Mortal Kombat. And your friend is just randomly hitting the buttons.
If you've been in this situation, then you know how frustrating this is. Because it's actually easier to play against someone who is actually trying than to go against someone who is just erratically fighting.
This is because as you develop as a player, you begin to form strategies and tactics in reaction to the situations you experience. So when you encounter someone who is button mashing— it doesn't match the game play that you're used to, and your strategy falls apart.
This is closer to how business looks in the real world.
In life we are given a series of formulas to move forward. In both school and work, we're told that as long as you show up and do the work— you're likely to get the promotion or degree.
But the results in business are a lot more erratic. And the people who often do well in a structured environment, don't do well in a startup environment.
It's like taking a domestic animal, and attempting to re-introduce it into the wild. That animal is used to certain routines and predictability. So it's not likely to survive long term in its new environment.
This is the biggest complaint that I've heard from MBA students. Where their education groomed them to become middle management. So when they exit school, they've been shaped into these perfect puzzle pieces that fit neatly within a predefined structure.
But if they attempt to start their own business, they find that the formulas and models they were given in school don't match the erraticness of the real world.
So the key to survival as entrepreneurs is to be flexible.
When a structure is too rigid, outside pressures will cause it to break. While a flexible structure will just bend. You could think of it like the structures they build in Earthquake zones. The materials have a certain amount of give so that when an Earthquake hits— the building sways back and forth, but it doesn't collapse.
So in the end, you have to embrace chaos, and find peace in the unpredictability.
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