The term “game changer” goes back only as far as the 1980s and relates to sudden transformations that can happen in any area of human activity, especially in entrepreneurial marketplaces where the latest technologies are being implemented.

But before game-changing entrepreneurs become a market force, they all start with a set of specific mindsets that uniquely differentiate their performance and results from those of everyone else. The eight mindsets in this book enable anyone who masters them to begin creating new forms of transformative value in their industry that everyone else, including their competitors, wants to learn and acquire for themselves.

The word “game” is typically used in the context of sports or entertainment. But for the past few decades, it has become more commonly used in business: “The game” is whatever marketplace or industry you’re in, or a particular type of product or service. It’s how well you manage your business to be productive, profitable, and competitive.

As in sports or entertainment, you’re competing with other players in your game. The same rule—that there are winners and losers—comes into the business realm. The analogy of business as a game is so common now that if you say something is a “game changer,” most people no longer think in terms of sports; rather, they know it to mean that somebody did something entirely new and innovative to provide a tremendous jump in value creation within a marketplace that disproportionately rewards the person who made the change.

Because this person is being rewarded with attention and market in terms of customers and clients, they cause so much unbalance in a particular marketplace or industry that everybody else must adapt to the changes—or lose out. More and more, in the business world, the leaders are those who can disrupt an existing game with something new that changes the rules of competition in their marketplace.

The word “game” is typically used in the context of sports or entertainment. But for the past few decades, it has become more commonly used in business: “The game” is whatever marketplace or industry you’re in, or a particular type of product or service. It’s how well you manage your business to be productive, profitable, and competitive.

As in sports or entertainment, you’re competing with other players in your game. The same rule—that there are winners and losers—comes into the business realm. The analogy of business as a game is so common now that if you say something is a “game changer,” most people no longer think in terms of sports; rather, they know it to mean that somebody did something entirely new and innovative to provide a tremendous jump in value creation within a marketplace that disproportionately rewards the person who made the change.

Because this person is being rewarded with attention and market in terms of customers and clients, they cause so much unbalance in a particular marketplace or industry that everybody else must adapt to the changes—or lose out. More and more, in the business world, the leaders are those who can disrupt an existing game with something new that changes the rules of competition in their marketplace.