Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes
Avoid zero-sum situations
In this third post of the “Naval” series, we’ll discuss the idea of avoiding involving ourselves in situations that don’t return anything positive or relevant. Naval talks about this idea from a wealth creation perspective, but I’ll tackle it from a different angle. Sorry if my writing gets a bit aggressive today, by the way ;)
There are so many cases of negative or zero-return situations that are observable daily. Arguing about politics or religion is a common one. It’s a waste of time that ends up with both parties angry at each other. Everyone thinks they “win” these debates, but if you ask them what the reward is, they probably won’t have a good answer for you.
Another “stupid” game is status. Like buying a $150,000 car that you can’t really afford just to impress others or make yourself look rich. Nobody gives a shit about your car. Even if they look at it, they will be impressed by the car, NOT YOU. The same thing applies to designer clothes, for example. Buying a $500 t-shirt with a giant logo on it? Really? What are you, a billboard? You could buy a T-shirt of the same quality (and probably more stylish) for a fraction of the price.
I’ll name a few examples of things you could do with that money instead:
Expanding your education
Give it to charity or to some friend or relative who needs it
Save it for an emergency
Invest it in your business
Travel somewhere
Any of those things will give you a far better return than a GUCCI T-shirt. I’ll talk about status games in another post of the series, but for now, just realize that they are zero-sum.
Another game that can sometimes take us down the wrong path is competition. Competition acts as a motivator, and it incentivizes innovation and progress, which is great. But fixating on it is counterproductive. If you are “competing” with someone who seems to be having success and you go and copy that person, you won’t get the same results.
Nobody can compete with you on being you, and you can’t compete with anyone else on being them. Try, and you will fail. You can learn and gather feedback, but you’ll need to apply some of your own creativity.
Stay away from all those games. Society pressures us to fall into them through advertisements or peer pressure, but we need to be critical and realize that we don’t have to follow every trend. In fact, you should probably avoid most of them. Learn to build your own opinions, ideas, and frameworks and stay authentic. Focus on what matters to you, and don’t waste your time chasing worthless prizes.
I’d love to hear your opinions and insights, whether they are positive or negative! If you liked what you read, consider subscribing! Please leave a comment or message me on X, Instagram, or Facebook, and we can chat! Thanks for reading!
See you later!