Today I won a prize thanks to MYOB. I won a UE Roll 2, which is a very cool portable, waterproof, Bluetooth speaker. So waterproof it even comes with it’s own floaty so that you can use it in the pool or the sea. I’m very happy.
It’s not the first time this has happened to me. I won a book at the MYOB event last year as well for the same thing, and I won an Apple Watch at a Reckon event a couple of years ago. I also won an iPad Mini at the NZ Bookkeepers conference a couple of years ago. These are good prizes!
You could call me tinny, or lucky. But the fact is that I put the effort in, I did what it took, when very few other people did the same.
And life and business is just like that. Sometimes what it takes is to show up and play. Make the effort, consistently. Play the game of life, the game of business.
I won the prize(s) because I showed up and played the game. The ‘game’ was to tweet about the happenings at the MYOB event I went to today. So, I played the game and I tweeted, using the event hashtag. When I collected my prize they said that I totally owned it today. No one else came close.
A similar thing used to happen when I was a sales rep for a company selling into supermarkets. Often us reps would run in-store promotions, where all a customer had to do was to buy a product and enter the receipt, with their name and contact details on it, into the entry box at the front of store.
The amount of times the box was close to empty was amazing to me. Some of the prizes were really good, but people are complacent sometimes and they assume that they don’t have a chance, or it’s too much effort, so they don’t bother. They don’t play.
Don’t assume that you don’t have a shot at it. Someone is going to win, or do that thing you want to do. Why not you?
One of the best takeaways from the event today, which I think is relevant to this conversation, was at the end of a presentation from Gus Balbontin, former Executive Director at Lonely Planet, when he ended with the quote, “The story from the tortoise and the hare isn’t that slowly and steady wins the race. It’s don’t be arrogant and slack off.” – from @theweirdworld
Don’t be complacent. Play the game.
