Life is a game.
Most people are playing the wrong game, and they don't even know it.
They've been programmed by society to lose, and they don't even know it. And it is the cause of every problem and conflict they have in their lives.
This is why I'm writing this letter.
I want to share with you how this fundamental concept of game theory, and treating life as a video game that you play, can change your life.
Once you apply the principles to your life, you'll operate from a different paradigm.
Success becomes a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable.
I've split this letter into two parts.
In the first part, I'll share with you 2 fundamental concepts in game theory and how they can help you win at the game of life. Because once you understand these two concepts, you'll see the world differently.
You'll operate from a different paradigm and finally understand how society programmed you into losing without you even knowing.
In the second part, I'll give you action steps you can take to 1) be the type of player who wins at the game of life (and the 4 traits you need), and 2) how to find other players to play with and win together.
Let's begin.
I - Game theory (prisoner's dilemma & the ultimatum game)
If you want to understand humans, you must understand game theory.
Game theory tries to understand and predict people's behaviors, actions, and decisions.
And it's not just some abstract field of psychology. Game theory is constantly being applied in politics, the stock market, dating, business, and almost every field you can think of.
There are many types of games in game theory, but today, I'll only talk about two.
The first is arguably the most popular game: Prisoner's Dilemma.
These are the rules of the game:
2 players are put in different rooms, and the goal is to maximize the number of coins you make. You can only choose one of two actions: betray or cooperate.
- Both players cooperate = 3 coins each.
- Both betray = 1 coin each.
- You betray and they cooperate = You get 5 coins, they get 0 (and vice versa).
Now here is the trick:
What should you choose?
If you're rational, you'll play to win, so you'd choose to betray.
Because in the best-case scenario, you get 5 coins (the highest possible score).
But here's the problem:
The other player is also trying to win, so they'll also choose to betray. Which means you both get to get 1 coin.
Now, it's better to choose to cooperate.
But if you cooperate, the other person can betray you, and you lose everything. So if you're smart, you should always choose to betray to protect yourself.
That was the first game.
The second game is called The Ultimatum Game.
Here are the rules:
- The Set Up — 2 players are paired together and are given a fixed number of coins.
- The Proposal — Player 1 is the proposer. They decide how to divide the coins between themselves and Player 2.
- The Responder — Player 2 is the responder. They can make a choice to either accept the offer and take whatever Player 1 offered them. Or they can reject the offer, and neither player receives any coins.
- The Goal — Maximize the number of coins you have.
If you're the second player, and you're a rational person, you'd accept whatever offer the first player makes. Even if the offer is “unfair” (you get 1 coin and they get to keep 9). 1 is still greater than zero.
But that's not what happens in the real world.
In the real world, people reject the offer if they feel like it's unfair. Any offer that was less than 30% would get rejected.
So if you're the first player, you're almost always better off splitting 50/50 with the second player.
Or if you truly want to avoid any potential rejections (and lose out on the coins you have), you can do a 40/60 split, where the second player gets to keep 60% and you take 40%.
Now you might think that it is irrational to do a 40/60 split. Because you “lost” on that specific trade.
But in the game of life, you don't only do 1 trade with 1 person.
You get to play the ultimatum game hundreds of times with hundreds of players. Sometimes, you're the proposer (the one making the offer), other times, you're the responder (the one who accepts or rejects the offer).
If you're the type of person who offers people a 50/50 split or a 40/60 split, you get to play the game more than other people. You start having a long queue of people wanting to play the game with you because you're a “fair” player. You're the kind of person who makes them win.
And if you run this game for 1,000 rounds with 1,000 players, and then see who makes the most money at the end, you'll find the person who was more fair had the most amount of money.
Life isn't just one game that is being played. It is an iterated game.
i.i) Society's game is flawed
Society programmed us into playing as individuals.
A zero-sum game.
In school, if you tried to cooperate with your friend to solve a problem, you'd be called a cheater. But if you take that and try to apply it in the real world, then everyone is a cheater.
People are always exchanging notes, giving each other answers, and sharing ideas to help others.
Even in the corporate world, it's still a very individualistic game.
Everyone is looking out for their best interest. 10 employees are all fighting for the same promotion. 1,000 candidates are applying for the same position.
At the end of the day, it's only 1 person who gets the job or the promotion.
Society installed its programming onto us and made us fight each other over resources instead of sharing them.
i.ii) Zero-sum & positive-sum games
Games that are competitive in nature are zero-sum games.
Sports are an example of a zero-sum game. To have a winner, you must have a loser. To be Monkey #1, you must beat Monkey #2 and take their place.
Politics is another example of a zero-sum game. Gambling is a zero-sum game. Climbing the corporate ladder is also a zero-sum game.
Zero-sum games have a “winner takes all” mentality.
It's a toxic mentality to have because it makes you aggressive, paranoid, and see everyone who has a sliver of success as a threat.
But then there are positive-sum games. These are games where everyone can win.
Wealth creation and business are positive-sum games.
Most people would think that they're zero-sum games, but they're not.
Sure, wealth might not be distributed evenly throughout society, but you are much wealthier than a king who lived 1,000 years ago. You have more material possessions, more money, better healthcare, better food, and better everything.
If wealth-creation were a zero-sum game, then our lives wouldn't have improved.
But the general quality of life over the centuries has improved.
Wealth-creation is a positive-sum game is because it requires you to cooperate with others. You cannot build a profitable business out of thin air. You must create a genuinely good product that solves a problem that society has.
It's a value exchange.
The reason you think wealth creation is a zero-sum game is because society programmed you to be that way.
Think about it for a second, there's only a finite number of resources.
We only have so much fresh water, land, electricity, oil, precious metals, and trees to go around. Which means if the number of the player base (human population) keeps increasing, each slice of the pie (the resources we have in our world that you get to take), shrinks.
But humans are creative. We created the digital world. We literally created a new pie.
In the digital world, the resources are infinite. You can create and own your digital real estate (website). You can create your own world (newsletters and blogs). You can create your own products and sell to your own customers.
The digital world is infinite.
You can always create a new pie and share it with others.
i.iii) Life is a dungeon raid with your friends, not a battle royale
It is harder for people to cooperate because it requires you to:
- Be more creative — you'll need to think harder about how to split your pie, or how to create a new pie. It is always easier to choose to be selfish than to share.
- Trust others — humans' default programming is to be selfish, to look out for their own self-interest first. You also know that humans are capable of evil, lying, and deception. Trusting others seems foolish to the person who looks at life as a zero-sum game.
A good example of positive-sum and zero-sum games is video games.
In a video game, you have two main types of multiplayer games:
1) Battle Royales
100 players get dropped onto a map, there are a limited number of resources, and it's a free-for-all.
Every man is by himself.
The last man standing is the winner.
The winning strategy is usually to go to an area that has an abundance of resources, collect basic supplies, and immediately try to eliminate anyone else in the area.
The more players you eliminate, the better loot and gear you'll have.
There is zero cooperation in this game mode. It forces you to see every player as a threat.
2) Dungeon Raids
This is mostly common in MMORPG games like World of WarCraft.
A dungeon raid is where you and your friends go on a quest together to defeat a boss.
To defeat that boss, you must go through multiple levels. After you complete each level, you get loot, resources, and XP points to level up your character. At the end, you meet the raid boss, you and your friends all work together to defeat him, and when you do, you all share the spoils together.
The loot is almost always better than if you tried to do the dungeon yourself (because you need different characters with different classes and skills to defeat him).
The default programming that society installed in you (through schools, education, and traditions), made you treat life as a battle royale. Every man is for himself. And to see every interaction as if it's only a one-time interaction and that's it.
But that's not how life is.
You play with the same players hundreds of times.
The winner is the person who chooses to cooperate in the Prisoner's Dilemma. And the person who wins is the one who gives the other player more coins in the Ultimatum Game. Because when you're the type of person who gives others more coins, when the time comes and people are now with the coins and they need to choose someone to play with, you'll be their number 1 choice because you play positive some games.
The winner in life is the person who gets to go on the most number of raids.
II - How to win in the game of life
Life is a series of iterated games.
Most people think that winning at a game is to be victorious at every single individual game.
But that's not how it works.
You see, there is a game. Then there is also the victory within the game. Then there is the set of all games (the game of life). And there is a victory of the set of all games.
The real victory isn't winning the small individual games.
It is to get invited to play all the games.
There are two parts to this.
The first is to be a fair player. Fair players get invited to play. Because humans have evolved to detect cheaters. I am not talking about cheaters in the same sense as schools. By cheaters, I mean people who lie and betray the tribe.
The second part is to find other players to play with. Because if you only play with cheaters, you'll get destroyed.
ii.i) Be the kind of player who wins
You come from a lineage of only winners.
You are part of an unbroken string of winners going back millions of years. Every single one of your ancestors won at the meta-game of life.
Think about that for a moment. You are part of a heritage and lineage of winners. And you are the result of what millions of years of winning at the game of life looks like.
Winning is genetically coded in your DNA.
4 main traits make you a winning player:
1) Being nice
Contrary to popular belief, nice guys don't finish last.
Being nice does not mean being a “yes-man”. It simply means you're not the first person to betray.
When you prioritize cooperation over competition, you gain more rewards. You get invited to more dungeon raids.
2) Not being a pushover
*“It is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.” - Miyamoto Musashi*
Virtue does not exist in a vacuum. That means you cannot be virtuous unless there's something that is the opposite of virtue.
Virtue comes when you overcome the negative traits that are inside you.
All humans are born with negative and positive traits. For every trait you have, you have an equal and opposite trait living inside of you.
- Hate vs love
- Lying vs honesty
- Betrayal vs loyalty
- Greed vs generosity
- Oppressions vs fairness
- Arrogance vs humbleness
There are more, but you get the point.
The reason I am saying this is because humans' default system is to be selfish. To look out for your own self-interest. This is why giving money to charity is a virtue. Nobody forces you to give money to charity. Nobody expects you to give to charity.
- If forgiveness is the only option you have (because you can't retaliate or inflict harm on the person who did you wrong), then you're not virtuous.
- If you don't have anything to brag about, then you're not humble, because you cannot be arrogant.
- You cannot be fair and just if you don't have power over the other person.
- You cannot be loyal if you have never had the chance to betray.
- Virtue does not live in a vacuum. It lives in contrast.
In the game of life, if someone betrays you, you can do 2 things: 1) retaliate and betray them back, or 2) forgive and move on.
If you choose to forgive, then you're the real winner.
“But Hussain, what if they take advantage of my kindness?”
If they betray you again, it doesn't say anything about your character. It says more about their character than it does about yours.
The problem of the modern world is we confuse kindness with weakness.
Also, who said you're only forced to forgive?
If they keep betraying, you can put a stop to it by retaliating. Not one‑upping them, but just to the degree where they'll stop. “An eye for an eye,” if you'd like to think about it in that sense.
3) Not holding grudges
You can't hold a grudge for eternity.
You need to learn to move on. People do change. It's very rare, but it does happen.
If you always hold grudges, you will eventually have a grudge with everyone and can never cooperate again.
You cannot live in the past.
The same way you can't drive a car only looking at the rear-view mirror, you cannot operate life in that way.
You need to learn to look at the road ahead.
4) Giving the benefit of the doubt
The world isn't out to get you.
Nobody is conspiring against you.
I genuinely believe that everyone in this world sees themselves as a good person.
I don't think anyone does anything evil because they're evil.
Maybe I'm naive to think that, but it's how I operate. I operate life and treat people based on my morals and values, not theirs.
You also need to realize that everyone makes mistakes.
To you, it may look like they tried to ruin your life, but to them, they tried to help you, they just made a mistake and it turned sideways.
I see this all the time.
People fighting and bickering over the pettiest of things.
Getting sent the wrong location to a place and then thinking that the person who invited them didn't want them to come. And now, they stopped talking to each other when in reality, it was just an honest mistake.
There is so much “noise” in this world.
Signals and messages get scrambled. Misunderstandings happen all the time. You need to learn to give the benefit of the doubt.
**Major life hack: **
Instead of assuming people wanted to harm you and creating a scenario in your about how people are actively trying to destroy your life, go and ask the person why they did it, or what they meant when they said what they said.
You'll find most problems and feuds are just misunderstandings and could've been solved if you simply asked for an explanation.
ii.ii) Finding players to play with
You can't go on a dungeon raid by yourself.
You need to find players to do it with you.
Where do you find them?
The same place you'd find everyone else: Social media.
Social media is the new town square.
You can reach everyone and anyone with just a phone and an internet connection.
1) Find someone you resonate with
This sounds obvious, but most people still mess it up.
When you're “networking”, you want to network with people whom you enjoy.
The biggest mistake I see people make is they try to network for the sake of networking. So they end up being connected with people they don't care about.
Find an account you genuinely enjoy following and you want to be friends with, and send them a DM.
A good DM does a few things:
- It is specific - find a post they wrote that resonated with you, and mention it.
- Makes you stand out - tell them why the post resonated with you. Tell your story, an interaction, or an idea you had about it.
- Leaves room for reply - if they don't have a reason to reply, they won't. To carry the conversation forward, you need to ask questions. Make them genuine. Don't ask questions for the sake of asking questions or trying to sound smart. Be genuinely curious about them.
2) Be genuinely interested in them
When you're DMing them, be genuinely interested in what they're building.
People love to talk about themselves.
Ask about what they're currently working on, projects they want to build, or ideas they're interested in. You can even ask about their hobbies (that aren't related to their business).
The more commonalities you can find, the better.
You become friends with people who are similar to you.
3) Deplatform the conversation
DMs get lost.
People might forget, don't check their inboxes, or have a million other reasons why they haven't responded.
After a few days of DMing, invite them to get on a call.
I don't care if you're an introvert. I am an introvert myself, but I still get on calls. Stop using it as an excuse.
You're only introverted when you're around the wrong people.
Getting people on a call is the easiest and fastest way to deepen the relationship. Before the call ends, ask for their number or Telegram.
Most people I got on a call with, we now speak on Telegram or WhatsApp.
4) Give value unconditionally
**Law of reciprocity: **
When someone does something nice or valuable for you, you feel a strong obligation to return the favor.
If you have a swipe file of your best posts, send it to them.
If you have a product that could help solve their problem, give it to them.
If you watched a YouTube video that is relevant to them, share it with them.
The same goes for podcasts, books, articles, and posts.
Your goal is to give them value unconditionally.
Again, you don't want to be needy when you do this. You want to be extremely selective with what you send them.
If you're sending low-quality, garbage content (or irrelevant content), they'll simply start ignoring you.
Life hack:
Only speak when you have something valuable to say.
The less you speak, the more weight your messages and words carry.
5) Create positive-sum games
Nobody likes to feel being taken advantage of.
At this point, you've built a good relationship and a ton of goodwill with the people in your network, you can now make an ask.
How to ask for favors (without being needy):
- Find something you need help with.
- Be specific and to the point with your ask.
- Make it easy for them to say yes.
- Frame it as a benefit for them to help you.
One thing I like to do when making an ask is I always think about how I can create win-win scenarios for my friends.
For example, one of my friends is building a software company for creators. I've been using his software for the past 2 years. So whenever I write a newsletter that talks about content creation, building an audience, or monetization, I'll have screenshots of his software and break down my process inside my newsletter.
This gives him an incentive to share my newsletter with his audience (like what I did with this letter).
And to make it easy for him, all he had to do is restack my article.
This created a positive-sum game:
- He gets more users for his software.
- I get more traffic to my newsletter.
- The reader gains value from the newsletter itself (and the software if they choose to get it).
Win-win-win.
Do you see what I mean?
Competition does not exist in business. If you play the game of business with the right people, it's a positive-sum game. Everyone gets to win.
If you are the type of person who can always create these positive-sum games, you will win in the long term.
Because whenever someone has an opportunity and they need someone, you're the first person that will come to mind.
- Opportunities will fall in your lap.
- Your friends send leads and clients to you.
- You build a reputation so good that people will cut you in on deals that you never even thought of.
That's all for today.
Thank you for reading.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Hussain
