You may think that "winning the game" is the ultimate victory. But there's one further way to play...and it's where the real movers and shakers—the innovators—live!

If you're a video person, I lay it all out in the video below. If reading is more your thing, skip the video and hop straight to the transcript below!

Hey everybody, Bill Stainton here with Turning Creativity into Money™, and today I want to talk about games, and specifically how games apply to your business.

See, when it comes to business and games there are basically four places that a business can be. Now the first one of these, where none of us wants to end up, is "losing the game." Okay we're not gonna really talk about that one, because that's not you, right? I mean, if you're watching this, you're not in that space of losing the game.

But the second place, where a lot of people might end up, is what I call "staying in the game." Okay, you're in the game, you're competitive. Okay, I mean you're, you're in there every single day, you're you're making a profit, you're doing things. You're staying in the game. Good for you.

Then there's 'winning the game," and what does that mean? Well, that's where everybody wants to be, right? You're winning the game. You're playing the game better than anybody else.

But there's one other place which i think is even better, and that's when you're "changing the game." I'll tell you what I mean.

Way back when, when cell phones were young—when the dinosaurs had cell phones—right? Um, there were companies that were losing the game. They didn't, you know, they didn't keep up with technology. They were out of the game. There were some that were staying in the game. Nokia was winning the game. Nokia built a better cell phone than anybody else. It was it was the 800 pound gorilla. I had a Nokia. It was cool—I liked it. You know, you showed the Nokia, people went, "Ooh." Okay that's that's status, you got, you got the cool Nokia phone.

But then what happened? You and I both know what happened. All of a sudden, this little upstart company called Apple created something called the iPhone, and that changed the game. And when you change the game, everything that came before you all of a sudden becomes obsolete—in the eyes of your competition and in the eyes of the marketplace.

And this, this—the realm of the game changer—that's where the innovators live. That, that's, that's the realm of the people who keep looking at things and saying, "How can I make it even better?" Not just winning the game but, "What can I do to fundamentally change the game? What can I offer that my competition is not offering? What problem can I solve that they're not even seeing yet? How can I change the game? How can I be the one that everybody wakes up the next day and looks at and goes like, 'Oh wow, things are going to be different from now on.'"

If you can end up there, then these other three positions become obsolete, because now you're defining the rules. It's a new game and it's your game and you own it. So here's my, here's my tip for you: if you're staying in the game, see if you can win the game. But you, you can actually jump from staying in the game to changing the game. All it takes is the innovative idea.

If you want help getting there, let's have a chat. Meantime, I'm Bill Stainton, and I'll see you next time when I help you Turn your Creativity into Money™.