I Could Never Sell

My stepson and a friend were playing a video basketball game and I stopped to watch, dazzled by the graphics. Fast footwork, almost a dance, and some beautiful long shots.

How, I wondered, did the software decide whether the shot goes in or not? The boys were lying on their stomachs and pushing buttons with a thumb and a finger or two. What made one shot go in and another go out? I knew better than to ask at the moment, so I just watched.

Moments later, one player tucked the ball under his arm and snapped the neck of the other with an uppercut fist to the jaw.

“Where’s the ref?” I asked. Referee.

“No ref!” came the answer. The boys made an effort to educate the soft-headed elder. “Anything goes. This is extreme basketball.” Basketball with a referee was strictly for small children and has-beens. Only the few and the mighty were equal to the challenge of extreme basketball.

“Anything?” I asked. “What if one guy pulls a gun and plugs the other?”

“Can’t,” they answered. “No guns.”

Right, I nodded. Guns would make this a different kind of shootout. They have plenty of shootout games already. Need some rules here, if only to keep basketball basketball.

When marketing people look for a “game-changing” idea, they’re looking for a different game, not just a different score.

When RoboVac was researching a robot vacuum for the home, the results of their… presentations to customers surprised them. [The customers] who got most excited were not the ones who currently vacuumed their floors [the most]. They were single men who barely knew where the vacuum was…

– Steven Gary Blank, Successful Strategies for Products that Win

But wait! There’s more! People saw the RoboVac as a pet!

• In housework, we want something that works fast, that we can do with hardly a thought.
• For pets and toys a different rule applies: we want them to puzzle and surprise us endlessly.

Different rule, different game. Now RoboVac has a game he can win, a game of his own.

Maybe they can suck down more dirt, but can they make you laugh?

Game-changing does more than turn the game around and put you ahead.

Game-changing puts you into a different game. Your kind of game.

Do Not Hate People, Change the Game:

If you aren’t winning the game you are playing, consider changing the game.

– Mind Your Decision$ : Personal finance and game theory.

RoboVac goes looking for a home with this story:

Nevermind amps, I’m family.

RoboVac looks for a home among people who have their own story.

Game-changing sounds like this inside, as far back as fifth-grade:

I may not be the smartest, but no one is more organized.

I’m not much to look at, but no one is more devoted.

I may not always get the jokes, but no one is more cheerful.

Later we say it better, and maybe out loud:

I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I never forget a name.

The Story of You begins there.

Later The Story of You is made Law to the Universe:

I don’t care how smart he is, or how educated. If he listens to God, he’ll be OK. If not, all the smarts in the world won’t help.

We don’t need more sheep, we need people who can take a stand, people with brains and guts.

When RoboVac goes looking for a home, he invites you to add his story to yours.

• When you buy, you buy a story to tell about yourself.
  Whether vacuum cleaner, fish rub, cell phone, or president. Whatever.
• You buy the story, not the whatever.
• The story is about you, not the whatever.
• The Story of You starts with your Story of Everyone.
• The Story of You is for everyone who doesn’t know your worth.
• If you tell the story to no one else, you tell it to yourself.