You know what the biggest difference I have found between people who have succeeded financially versus those who don’t? Emotions. Primarily, it is that those who have succeeded have their emotions under control.
In other words, these money makers are not smarter than you. They are not more talented than you. They simply have their emotions under control. 99% of people do not have their emotions under control. This is why they all work for someone else. This is likely why you work for someone else.
The most emotional issue of all in a person’s life is money. Most people do not confront money in a non-emotional way. Most divorces occur because of money disputes. Most debt occurs because someone is buying a car or house for emotional reasons such as impressing other people or as a sense of ‘achievement in one’s life’. Much of the Middle Class is deep in debt because they couldn’t control their emotions. This is also why most wealthy people do not come from the Middle Class. They come from the poor and jump directly to wealth. I’ll give you a real example. Take Steve Jobs or Bill Gates being poor and barely having their head above bankruptcy (their families were not, but Apple began in a garage for a reason). Want a video game example? Look at Nolan Bushnell who never had much but kept investing his time into his entrepreneur project until it got big. Bushnell became a multi-millionaire.
Starting and running a business is extremely taxing on the emotions. You aren’t getting money while you do it. You look like a clown to everyone else. People are laughing at you while they drive by in their new car (which is why they are in debt). And the probability is that your business will fail which means everyone will laugh at you even more. You need to keep your emotions under control.
However, keeping emotions under control goes beyond preventing despair, desire, and disdain from slipping out. You must influence the emotions of others as well as influencing yourself correctly. It is amazing that there are so many self-help book authors who have become millionaires when they write books like “How to Think Optimistically”. This is because most people do not know how to do it on their own. One of the secrets of why Reggie Fils-Aime got to where he is today really has nothing to do about his educational background or connections. Reggie’s secret is that he is extremely optimistic. Maybe it is something he learned from his mother, I don’t know. But by controlling that emotion and leaning it toward optimism (which I know sounds corny, but trust me on this), that alone was a major factor in him getting to where he was today.
As a salesman, you better believe emotions are a major factor. It is not so much about responding to the emotions of the non-customer. It is mostly about controlling your emotions. It is about pushing on to that next door when the last twenty doors have been slammed in your face. It is about not losing your optimism in yourself so you come across sounding excited and energetic instead of tired and stale. Unlike other jobs where you can be emotionally a wreck and go through the day, a sales job is where your emotions directly determine your sales.
Don’t confuse passion with ‘losing control of emotion’. When Miyamoto upends the tea table, he isn’t losing control of emotion. He is just so passionate about the project that his anger is being directed out. And by doing so, it influences everyone around him. Yamauchi would do the same thing. I understand Steve Jobs can go on a tear. Bill Gates can be cussing up a storm at times.
The study of money is, in many ways, the study of emotions, chiefly your emotions. The study of markets is, in many ways, the study of customers’ emotions.
One thing I’ve noticed about gamers that is different from any other market is that many are emotionally de-arranged. People worry about gaming increasing obesity or harming school work or turning people into nerds, but we don’t talk about gaming scrambling people’s emotions. Gaming is an emotional medium. It is something I’ve never really worried about before until World of Warcraft and people began looking at achievement in the game as a real achievement in their own life. We all know of the WoW addicts, literal addicts to achievement. This generation we even have ‘achievements’ in games. I’m beginning to look at the ‘hardcore’ as more and more of an emotional de-arrangement.
Since gamers are not exactly the most emotionally stable of people, could the game industry itself be emotionally unstable? While it is never good to look at a sum of individuals as a unit, but is there something going on that would cause a company to invest money they should not in order to ‘beat’ the other guy or to make themselves look cute in front of their peers?
I think it is a lie when game companies say that they did not invest in the Wii because they did not expect it to do well. It is more like that they didn’t want it to do well and justified it to themselves to not support it. When you go back to 2005 and 2006, you hear tons of trash talk going on about the Sony and Microsoft platforms and developers all hot to trot to show everyone else off with their ‘Next Generation’ game. I think the early Next-Gen investment was more emotional than financial. Sure, it makes sense to support every console at launch and be console agnostic. You can’t blame any company for thinking the PlayStation 3 would perform like the PlayStation 2. But the fact is that not one of these companies hedged their bets by supporting Wii early on (aside from Ubisoft and a few other companies). Wii was using, essentially, Gamecube technology, and Iwata even suggested companies begin making their Wii games on the Gamecube kits. Gamecube was half a decade old at that time. The cost of the Gamecube platform was far less than the Next Generation consoles and the Gamecube was quite familiar at that time while the Next Generation systems were not. In other words, the early Next Generation lopsided investment did not appear to be one rooting from financial wisdom but from emotion.
As this generation has gone on, as the Wii has shot through the stratosphere, there has been a curious absence of Western third party involvement. Interestingly, many publishers get visibly testy when asked about the lack of Wii games. Early this generation, EA president sounded disappointed in the market as he kept saying, “but that is what the market has decided…” In other words, it isn’t what he wanted. So the Wii development had to be reeled in from the small Canadian studios and into the main studios. The peevishness has been quite a sight to behold for the so-called ‘platform agnostic’ publishers from other companies. Interestingly, they try to couch their obvious absence in financial terms. “I can port a HD game to three platforms. I can’t with Wii!” This is a weak statement since those three platforms share the same customers and multiplatform owners buy one copy of the game, they do not buy one copy of a game for each platform they own! “The Wii is fool’s gold! You can’t make money on it! We tried it, it doesn’t work.” This is a very arrogant statement. It is arrogant to say that money cannot be made on the Wii. But what is truly arrogant is to say money cannot be made on the Wii because you could not do it. My favorite is that “Third parties don’t sell on Nintendo platforms” and “We cannot compete against Nintendo!” when third parties are thriving on the DS and making many superior games than Nintendo’s. We are currently witnessing much red ink being spilled. Red ink points to emotion being the driver, not a cool financial head. The publishers and developers can say whatever they want. Their financial statements say a different story.
The game industry has not yet grown up. Emotion is trumping financial decisions. Instead of looking for the blame within themselves, the game companies have resorted to blaming the customers for their ill. “It is because you guys play used games!” “Customers are just too stupid to understand the magnificence of our game!” “HELLO! It’s BETA!”
The game industry doesn’t even seem to care about the customers anymore. Sure, they give lip service, but what is it that they really care about? What they seem most passionate are things that ‘help’ the company but end up hurting the users in the long run.
One of the biggest examples of this is ‘streaming games’ or ‘digital distribution’. They talk how wonderful this is… but never mention the customers. Why do I feel alone when I stand up and say, “Um, excuse me, but you just made a decision that hurts the customers tons, and… EVERYONE’S OK WITH THAT?” Does anyone in the games industry look at the customer feedback reports. Do they actually talk to real users? Or do they just look at message forums on the Internet?”
The game industry does not care what the customer thinks of himself. They only care how the customer thinks… of the game company!! It is like a writer who is focused on how readers think of him instead of how the readers think of themselves. In other words, the games industry has become obsessed over how other people perceive it. They admire Hollywood and think if they act like Hollywood, they too will be perceived to ‘cool’ and ‘fashionable’. It is like they feel ashamed they work in the games industry. And when Nintendo goes off and appeals to non-consumers, this appears as if it enrages them. They then begin to attack ‘the casuals’! I’ve never seen an industry so hostile to new users!!
So to help save the game industry, here are two Bingo cards. They ought to be played at with every meeting. When a buzzword is said for either card, check it off. If the company is getting Bingos on the *good* card, this is good. If the company is getting Bingos on the *bad* side, well, that might explain where all the red ink is coming. And if the red ink isn’t spewing, it soon will be!
GOOD
BAD
