[From the Movie Forrest Gump] You know how to play this? Come on. Let me show you.

Now the secret to this game is, no matter what happens, never, ever take your eye off the ball.

“Where did I go wrong?” said most of us at one point in time… Felt frustrated and started blaming things on life and on outside circumstances, blaming so many factors that are not within your direct control on your failures while crediting only yourself on the successes. Was that person You in one point in time? is that you now?

Well, let’s put it this way, we will never ever reach to a point where we can be totally in control of our Fate; Life will always hit us, push us, surprise us; External factors might play in our favor or not and the person who will surprise us most might simply be our selves when we CHANGE.

I was having an interesting discussion with a Fellow Business Mentor at an Entrepreneurship Boot-camp in Lebanon few years back, and the conversation took a broader diversion to take us to understand the role of a Life Coach and the importance of having a Coach and a Mentor in one’s professional life. One Simple analogy I still remember today from that conversation that would act as a great example for this week’s Tip.

 “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ~Søren Kierkegaard

My Good Friend told me something then, he said to me that life sometimes is like playing Tennis or Ping-Pong; there is no way that the game will keep up for ever, you will lose and win and lose and win again, and at the end it’s the score that will define if you succeeded or not, and there’s really only One Secret to winning in that game… Keep your eyes on the Ball, and ADAPT. 

So here’s a Good tip for this week, When you Start the Game:

• Never take your eyes off the ball, at all times
• Move and Adapt; it’s almost impossible that you can survive the game while you can’t move a single inch… and your Moves are dictated by the movement of the Ball.
• Predict the Moves of your opponent; The more experienced you become at playing the game, the easier you would start moving towards the ball EVEN BEFORE your opponent decide on the direction he/she wants to toss it towards you.
• Realize that winning some and losing some is part of the game, and you show NEVER get frustrated by early losses or get very excited about your early winnings.

When I asked My friend the Executive Coach, on the role of the Mentor or Coach in such a game, he told me: “A Good Coach will make time slow down, and the ball will come at you in a slower-motion giving you enough time to take advantage.” | Thank you Adrian for the Lovely Talk 🙂

Cheers,
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Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project