Play the Point, Not the Score

Re:Play the Point, Not the Score by netcan on Thursday February 05, 2009 @08:43PM (#469184)

I think tennis can be a great place for analogies. But I dispute. Tennis has a great scoring system. At any point in the match, you can win. You're chances are never bad until it's over. All you need to do is play from now on at least as well as your opponent has played up till now. The only thing required of you, is known to be doable because it is exactly what has just been done to you. Half-time never ends. Not till the last point. Couple that with being a one on one game, & it's very psychological.

But the fact is that once a player establishes dominance, they can be very hard to beat.

Nadal's strength, as any great player's is learning from the past but not being influenced by it.

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Re:Play the Point, Not the Score by jhancock on Friday February 06, 2009 @01:23AM (#469448)

I love tennis and agree this method is "the way" to win at tennis. Its a good skill to leverage in other aspects of life as well.

However, I have seen this skill zealously applied to a startup and the person that uses it so well alienates others (internal and external to his company) by using it too religiously. It is just one skill and needs to be carefully balanced with the simple fact that in life and startups the overall score is many times more important than a particular point.

Be careful with applying a tennis stratagem to life. You will get burned.

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Re:Play the Point, Not the Score by nazgulnarsil on Thursday February 05, 2009 @09:30PM (#469237)

it isn't learning from the past and not being influenced by it. It's learning from the past and knowing when to apply that knowledge and when not to. The future doesn't always look like the past so you have to be judicious about when to apply lessons you've learned and when to be creative.

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