I was reading this book about tank workfare a while ago. It was like a choose-your-own-adventure story but with maps and descriptions of the enemy, your weapons and men, etc. From what I understand it’s one of the books used to train tank commanders of the M1A1 Abrams tank in the US army.

So there I was in the Middle East in charge of a whole fleet of tanks with the enemy spread out in unknown places and likely armed with small arms, rifles, rockets and the occasional vehicle. The book gave me three options…

1) split my forces into two smaller units and troll around for trouble,
2) split them into a dozen units with two tanks each or
3) keep my whole battalion together and roam the desert as one.

Now…as a fan of the game Risk…I knew not to roam around as one (option 3) because then the enemy can come in behind you and cut you off from support and supplies. Plus who is stupid enough to fuck with a whole battalion of tanks? I thought that splitting them into two units (option 2) was an okay decision, but I opted for the first choice because I thought a dozen units with two tanks each would be likely to destroy anything they came up against.

I was wrong.

One of my small units (the one I was supposedly driving, oddly enough) came under attack. A superior numbered force immediately took out tank 1’s treads. With the element of surprise it was enough for the enemy to take out tank 2 before we could react.

The last sentence of the paragraph went something like this:

“Screaming in terror, you attempt to run out of the tank. You open the top hatch only to be struck down by enemy fire. The last thing going through your head, other than a few bullets, is the realization that you should have gone with option 2.”

Nice. Apparently, by dividing my battalion into two units with a couple of tanks in each, I could have...

1) likey stopped anything we came across,
2) escaped easily with my large number of tanks, or
3) called for the other unit of tanks for support if I needed it.

The lesson learned was this: the best plan of attack is always the one that, if it fails, leaves you the most number of choices for a plan B. In other words, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

So what does this have to do with comics and/or art? I feel that this can be applied to business as well. If you work your ass off for just one “super-gig” and you fail, then you don’t have any other options other than to try again. And that sucks. BUT if you try a few plans at once and go for multiple gigs simultaneously then your chances of getting a job increases. Also, when one doesn’t work out (which 9 out of 10 will), you aren’t without hope. And a little hope at the beginning of each day makes it a little easier to work.

That and a porn break every now and then.

And knowing is half the battle…