From Apple II+ to artificial intelligence

How can you rejuvenate your creativity and motivation when your business becomes a grind? Here’s a tip…

I have loved playing board games since my first game of RISK as a child. And yet, my copy of 7 Wonders—my favorite game since discovering it in a gaming café in Paris—has sat on a shelf for years due to a lack of friends to play it with.

Or so that has been my excuse for not getting in the board game time I used to love.

Bringing Back the Fun

Recently, I finally asked myself: how can I get some of that board game fun back into my life again?

With a bit of research, I found some two-player games my girlfriend will also enjoy while also scratching the itch to play the strategy games I love.

We started playing a simple two-player game called Lost Cities. Later, I can see if she is up to a two-player version of 7 Wonders, but for now, I’ve reconnected with board gaming, which enriches my life and brings variety to our stay-at-home introverted evenings.

The Someday Later Trap

Sometimes, we get entrenched in the reasons why we can’t do something anymore (or yet) while overlooking other ways to get elements of what we need right now.

This all-or-nothing thinking entrenches us in a myopic rut that delays our desires indefinitely.

The Power Question

The solution is strikingly simple on the surface. When something in your business feels like a grind, ask yourself…

“How can I make this more fun?“

Sometimes, asking the right question (as obvious and simple as it may seem on the surface) is all it takes to open up new possibilities.

From Apple II+ to Artificial Intelligence

For me, making business more fun usually involves infusing more novelty or creativity. For you, it might be doing more things with others rather than alone.

Over the past few months, I have experimented with artificial intelligence to make things more fun.

My inner nine-year-old, who used to love programming on his family’s Apple II+, loves reconnecting with that sense of awe in writing a program that gets a computer to do useful things faster, better, and easier.

The Takeaway

How can you reconnect with things you loved early in your business (or life)?

Despite the myriad responsibilities to attend to in business, we can always find a way to infuse or re-introduce elements of fun and enrichment.

Don’t put it off until “someday later” because who knows when that will come.