Work on less, achieve more — 3 of 31
Or “Play to your strengths to rank up in video games and life”
I’m a patron of Ninja Writers and this is day three of the May Medium Post-a-Day Challenge of blogging for 30 consecutive days.
I used to be really into the PC game League of Legends (not pictured above, that’s Overwatch) a few years ago. I was so hardcore, I not only played on a competitive team (NERD ALERT), but I ended up working for the company that made the game for a brief period of time.
The game is a 5-on-5 team battle game where the goal of the game is to destroy the other team’s base before they destroy yours. You can purchase new characters to play and runes to make your character stronger by either playing the game and earning points (time-consuming) or by purchasing them (expensive). When you work for the company, all of it is free.
But, despite having all the characters/runes free, I wasn’t very good at the game. I was a middling Silver Tier player at best.
It mirrored my professional life. Despite working at a hot startup with all the perks/benefits where employees were essentially celebrities to their gamer demo, I struggled mightily to adjust my job’s demands and was ultimately dismissed. I alluded to that in my day two post.
I tried to take on everything at once and not surprisingly, I failed at everything.
I spent the next year and a half still struggling with the game and my work life. I stubbornly kept doing what I always did, too much, and kept coming up short. I was able to get a job at a transcription company soon after my dismissal, but then they laid off half the department six months later.
I was jobless and my future felt pretty grim.
I flailed around figuratively to make things work: I tried studying video editing, sound editing, music, graphic design, web design, writing, etc. for work and in the game, I tried to master multiple roles and learn every character and match-up in and out. I felt like I had to learn everything to get ahead.
Result: Information overload. Defeat.
I needed to break the chaos. I found an ADHD specialist and one of the first things she had me do was take a Strengths-Finder quiz.
Here are my results:
A lot of empathetic and problem-solving traits. Storytelling. A need to be reliable for others.
Social/Content marketing was right up my alley.
I began to study social/content marketing. Every book I could get my hands on (some of which my then-GF bought for me). I studied how people made success for companies on social media and how to build my audience. It just so happened that my parents were starting a home care company and they needed someone in marketing. I was very fortunate for the opportunity and I made the most of it.
I used that experience to gain work at another company and I’ve achieved so much in the past three years. I’ve never been at a higher level professionally and financially.
Around the same time at the beginning of my studies, I had a breakthrough in League by focusing solely on the characters I liked to play (supports and tanks), regardless of their popularity. Result? Fourteen game winning streak, made it as high as the Platinum tier.
I took a break for a while from gaming, but I picked up Overwatch and saw similar success. I’m in the Diamond tier for that game using the same mindset (tanks and supports). And I did it in far less time and in far fewer games.
I was hammering away at learning all the skills for these various job descriptions that became a slog to keep up with because I wasn’t geared toward them. Sure, maybe I could work hard enough to get decent at them, but why not focus on a job that fits my personality type?
Same with the video games. Why play assassins and damage-per-second characters when I like to play a more supportive role?
It’s amazing how much more you can accomplish when you focus on your strengths.
