Positive sum game

Their craving for attention overwhelms them. People playing zero sum games tend to have scarcity mindsets. Because they think there is only so much money in the world they think it can only be gained by taking it from someone else. But people on The Right often make bad decisions based on a scarcity mindset as well: think Mr Burns from The Simpsons and other evil bosses who forget that capitalism works because it incentivises trust and co-operation as well as competition.

Elon Musk did not get rich by taking stuff from other people, he got rich by adding a huge amount of value to the world. You will then find ways to self-sabotage and remove money from your life and wealth will evade you.

You should be able to celebrate the fact that other people have been successful. Envy is the most childish of emotions. You should be happy when anyone you know gets rich. If they get richer than you, the appropriate reaction is to be genuinely pleased for them.

This is important. The opposite of a scarcity mindset is an abundance mindset. In an abundance mindset, you relax because you have confidence that you will be able to figure out a way to get more or live with less in the future. In an abundance mindset, you worry less about yourself and can think about how you can help other people as well as yourself. A lot of savers get started because they fear scarcity…that was what got me going.

Yes, you need to get the fuck out of debt ASAP. But the problem with being a Penny-In-The-Jar-Saver is that they we tend to miss the bigger opportunities to make more money. One of the traps of a scarcity mindset is that you miss opportunities…including career and investment opportunities. As a sensible saver turned value investor, a scarcity mindset and unwillingness to pay high valuations led me to miss the rise of Amazon, Google etc, as I underestimated the power of exponential growth.

Fortunately, index funds kept increasing my exposure to these tech companies. Technology advances are a huge positive sum game. Technology progresses as new technologies are built on top of old like Lego bricks. The changes have gotten faster over time as one innovation facilitates the next. Packy McCormick made this point using the tyres on the Tesla which rely on a string of innovations that go back in history so that Elon Musk did not have to re-invent the wheel.

Technology is changing the investing landscape and the balance of risks and rewards has shifted away from focusing on scarcity towards focusing more on abundance. Money is a positive sum game.

Or more accurately, wealth building is a positive sum game. And, once you have mastered the wealth game, you can play better at the other games that are more fun and rewarding. Thanks for the timely reminder that we can build wealth without it being at the cost to someone else or the environment. Love the message of this blog post.

I definitely agree with the idea of positive sum game in careers — you should bring other people up with you when you move up the ladder. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. The Escape Artist. Series Podcasts. All Rights Reserved I then consulted a book about blogging which also said I needed to include that legal wording.

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