How to reprogram your mind to have an Infinite Mindset in a world that taught you to use finite thinking:
What is the goal of the game that you're playing?
Professor James P. Carse theorised that there were 2 types of games.
If you have at least 1 competitor, you have a game and there are 2 types of games.
Finite Games and Infinite games.
Finite Games: Games where the rules and players are known and there is a fixed objective that, once achieved will result in a clear winner and loser(s).
Infinite Games: Games where the rules and players are constantly changing and there isn’t a clear perceivable winner or loser.
We play these games in our lives whether we know it or not and most of the time we don’t know which of these games we’re playing.
Finite Games
Finite games are games where the players are known, the rules are known and there is a clear winner and loser and a clear time-limit for the game.
There is a clear beginning, middle and end where the objective is to beat the competition and win the game.
Finite games follow a linear format where there is a system for determining who the winner is.
That system relies on the accumulation of points.
Whoever has the most amount of points is deemed the winner.
The competition can range from 1 to X amount of people but they’re all known players and they play by the same rules.
Football is a great example of this.
In fact any activity where there is something to win, uses this system to determine who the winner is.
In football you have an 11-man team on each side, each player is known and the rules are agreed upon by everyone participating.
At the end of the game the team with the most goals, wins.
After the final whistle is blown, and there’s no extra time, there isn’t anyone saying: “Let’s play 5 more minutes, we can surely come back”
That’s it.
The game is over.
Infinite Games
Infinite Games are games where there are known and unknown players, rules are changeable and there are no clear winners and losers.
There is no perceivable timeline and the environments of the game can change without warning.
You can’t play to win marriage, relationships or friendships.
You can’t play to win business, politics or even science.
There is no playing to win in this type of game.
Scientists understand this.
They are in my opinion, some of the best players of this type of game because they understand that their work may never get recognised in their own life time.
But the generations to come will advance their work and advance civilisation to new frontiers.
The lifespan of a player in an infinite game is determined when they remove themselves from the game because they no longer have the will or the resources to continue playing.
There is no beating your competitor and there is no defined end point.
The game isn’t won by trying to beat the competition, it’s won by outlasting the competition.
Which game do you play?
Most leaders go through 2/3 of their career not knowing which game they’re playing.
Some may exhaust their entire career playing the wrong game.
By the time they realise that they were playing the wrong game, it’s too late.
They say things like:
“We want to be the best in the world.”
“We’re number 1 in the world.”
“We have the best product on the market.”
Okay, but according to who?
By what measure or metric?
What time frame?
In what category?
The problem is the mindset used to determine this is misaligned with the game that they’re trying to play.
A finite player against another finite player - the system is stable.
An infinite player against an infinite player - the system is stable.
Put a finite player against an infinite player and the system is disrupted.
Why? Because you’ve got one player who’s playing to win and another who’s playing to keep playing.
The finite player goes into quagmire because they run out of the will or the resources to beat the infinite player.
Quagmire: a difficult, complex situation that’s very hard to escape.
The way to identify which game you’re playing is to first ask yourself the following question…
What is the goal of the game that I’m playing?
I’m playing to win…
I’m playing to keep playing…
Simon Sinek wrote in his book ‘The Infinite Game’, that business and leadership are infinite games and in order to identify and play these games well, you must have these 5 practices: ****
Just Cause
Trusting Teams
Existential Flexibility
A Worthy Rival
Courage to lead
These concepts build on each other and you can’t have one without the others.
Just Cause
‘Just Cause’ is a specific vision/future state that does not exist yet; a future state so appealing that people are willing to make sacrifices to help the organisation advance towards that vision.
Under the charge of Nikolai Vavilov, a small group of scientists were tasked with one of the most audacious objectives ever seen in the face of the scientific community,
A possible Cure to Famine.
During the late 1930’s Vavilov went on a mission to find, cultivate and collect as many seeds as possible in one place to create the first ever seed bank in Leningrad (now St Petersburg).
By 1940, he and his small team collected over 250 000 seeds, roots and fruits to aid in the fight against famine.
Vavilov was then arrested under falsified charges of spying.
He died of starvation in his prison cell in late 1943.
During the events of WWII, just after Vavilov’s arrest, Germany began it’s 28 day siege of Leningrad.
Food supply was cut off for the locals and the citizens were forced to go to extremely drastic measures to survive.
While Germany was carrying out their siege, Vavilov’s scientists stood guard at the vault.
9 of the scientists died of starvation, refusing to consume any of the food that they were protecting.
The vault survived the siege and the collection was used to reintroduce lost crop varieties in other countries confirming that Vavilov’s vision was in fact a saving grace after WWII.
Vavilov’s scientists believed in something greater than themselves.
A cause so great that they were willing to sacrifice their lives to make sure what they built would survive through death itself.
The heroic story of Vavilov and his team, teaches us a lesson in the power of following a just cause.
The thing that people are most willing to sacrifice for the cause may be their own lives but it doesn’t have to be.
It could be sacrificing going out on a Friday night because what really needs to be done is that project you were procrastinating for 2 days.
It could mean waking up earlier to work 4 extra hours in your day.
The power of a just cause is believing in something greater than ourselves so that we have the motivation and the discipline to pursue it no matter what obstacle is in our way.
Trusting Teams
People are people not machines.
People are what make the world go around.
They have families.
They have loved ones and they also have livelihoods attached to their names.
Each person that you see in the world lives in their very own universe, where they have titles and dreams.
Universes where they are depended upon and celebrated for their achievements and shortcomings.
They are not things to be exploited because the profit margins of your company aren’t meeting the standard quota.
Most leaders talk about retrenchment/layoffs like their employees don’t have livelihoods and people to take care of.
People build companies and make discoveries to advance civilisation forward.
People make the economy go around.
People invented money.
People invented technology.
People form teams and corporations.
The point of leadership is to build trusting teams.
You can’t play an infinite game without building trusting teams.
The following story is an anecdote taken from The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek.
Noah was a barista who worked at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas.
And as it just so happens he also worked at Caesar’s Palace across the pond.
Noah was always happy working at The Four Seasons.
He was so happy that he told Simon he “loved” his job.
When you’re an entrepreneur and an optimist, this exclamation raises eyebrows because it’s a very beautiful declaration.
How many people do you know love their jobs?
Very little?
Love is an emotional reaction.
Like is a more logical reaction.
Do you love your wife?
I like her very much indeed.
But across the pond it was very different, he was always trying to keep his head down and he didn’t like the atmosphere.
Noah was asked why he loved his job at the Four Season’s vs Caesars Palace and his reply was this:
During the workday, whenever a manager passes me, they always come and ask me how I’m doing and if I need anything to make my job easier to do. Not just my manager, EVERY manager does this. I have the freedom to be myself here vs when I’m working across the pond. Over there at Caesar’s Palace, if the managers catch you doing something wrong, they reprimand you.
Same person, 2 different working environments. 2 different outcomes.
The customer service that you would get from the same person depending on the environment is extremely different.
The Four Season’s is a beautiful hotel, not just because of the fancy beds.
Any hotel can buy fancy beds.
No they are a fantastic hotel to stay with because of the people that work there…
When you walk past the halls everyone who greets you is greeting you with genuine warmth.
Not because they were told to do it, but because they genuinely want to be there.
At the end of the day people are what make organizations go round.
And the objective of leadership is to build people into trusting teams so that they can flourish and if they’re taken care of then the organization is taken care of.
If trusting teams don’t exist then you can’t hope to play the infinite game and everything in the company will decay.
If you do not have trusting teams you will have a group of people who do not feel confident or safe enough to raise their hand and say, “Listen man, I made a mistake”.
If you do not have trusting teams your people will hide, lie and fake their way through their workday out of fear of being a part of a long list of redundancies.
Leadership isn’t about being in charge, leadership is about taking care of those who are in your charge. - Simon Sinek
A Worthy Rival
There is probably some entity you can think of that gets you a little irritated when you see the word rival.
A worthy rival is another player in the same game as you that you look at in order to reveal where you could improve.
Is it your friend, is it your sibling, or is it even an entire organization?
The reason you feel a bit uncomfortable when their names are mentioned has nothing to do with them and everything to do with yourself.
When you look at them their strengths highlight your weaknesses.
And it’s easier for you to look at them and direct some of that negativity towards them instead of looking at the parts of yourself that you could improve.
A worthy rival reveals our weaknesses and those are just opportunities for improving ourselves.
That’s all it is.
Aspire to have a worthy rival to show you what’s possible in areas where you’re in the dark.
You can have 1 or as many as you like, and you can choose who these entities are.
Recall in the beginning of this keynote, the goal of the Infinite game isn’t to win or to beat the competition but to focus on where you’re going, in order to keep playing the game.
The only true competitor you have is yourself in The Infinite Game.
And when you’re constantly working to improve upon who you are - why not respect your rivals and look to them for ways to improve yourself.
Goku and Vegeta are brilliant examples of this in anime.
In Dragon Ball Z Goku and Vegeta are always reaching higher levels throughout the story because of their rivalry.
Now there will always be anomalies - like for example Gohan.
Gohan, to my knowledge, doesn’t have any rivals in the story.
But he also reaches levels on par if not greater than Goku and Vegeta.
Use your rivals.
I’ll talk about the best way to do this later in this keynote.
Existential Flexibility
Steve Jobs built Apple around his just cause to give the ordinary person the ability to compete with corporations and go up against “big brother”.
He did this by putting a computer in the hands of the ordinary consumer,
Making the modern computer an ordinary household appliance in almost every home on the planet.
In 1979 Jobs took his team to Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center).
Xerox PARC had just developed the “Gooey”(Graphical User Interface) and the mouse.
It allowed you to use a pointer to click on folders to access them.
With these inventions computers became more mainstream and easier for the ordinary creative to use them.
The “Gooey” is one of the main reasons why we spend so much time on our devices today.
Before the invention of GUI, computer operations were made using in-line commands and coding languages.
Jobs was struck by the invention of the gooey that he told his investors that it was worth investing in.
One of the higher ups, “the voice of reason” told Jobs that they couldn’t do that because they’re already going in another direction.
They don’t want to blow up their own company.
To which Jobs replied:
It’s better we blow it up, then someone else.
That decision became the Macintosh which later evolved into the Mac.
The very laptop this keynote is being written on is only possible because of a single decision.
The entire windows operating system is based on the Macintosh.
That is an existential flex.
It can only be done if leaders have a strong just cause.
Remember: Steve Jobs wanted to give ordinary people the ability to stand up to corporations.
An existential flex isn’t just about changing direction for the sake of changing direction, it’s done with absolute intention that the decision you make here will get you further towards your goal.
If you have a strong just cause and you have the trust of your teams - you can pull this off.
Sometimes breaking things along the way is necessary for you to get closer to the vision that you seek for yourself and your company.
And sometimes that means doing things that not many people are going to understand.
Being misunderstood is probably one of Steve Jobs biggest super powers.
Performing an existential flex automatically means being misunderstood by some but knowing that the direction you’re headed in is getting you closer to your just cause.
If Jobs didn’t perform this existential flex the company may have suffered the same fate that Xerox PARC suffered themselves,
Because they couldn’t fully recognise the value of the technology…
It’s better that you blow up your own thing, than having someone else blow it up for you.
Courage to lead
This one has earned it’s right to be a part of the list and is probably the most important one out of all 5.
It’s mentioned as a part of Simon Sinek’s list because doing the other 4 takes an immense amount of courage.
In fact doing any of the 4 previous practices is extremely HARD.
It’s so much easier just to do what someone else tells you do.
To act without any just cause.
To take the default path and to passively live through life doing the bare minimum.
Like Noah at Caesar’s Palace it’s easier to just get through the day and keep your head down.
It’s easier to prioritise the profit margins of the company rather than making the sacrifice to prioritise the livelihood of your employee’s.
It’s extremely difficult.
It’s hard for us to look at our rivals as peers and respect them all the same because they help us jump to greater heights.
But your employee’s aren’t there for you to wring out more labour just so you get more profits into your company.
90% of you will probably never have to go through the 5 practices…
But are you preparing the people that follow you to be able to handle an infinite game without you?
Marathon Runners and Sprinters
There’s this bit in Simon Sinek’s leadership talks where tell us his experience speaking at an Apple education summit vs a Microsoft education summit.
It’s one of my favourite parts of his Infinite Game talks because it provides a real world example for why Finite players go into limbo.
After the Microsoft talk, the employees and the company officials were all talking about how they could beat Apple.
After the Apple talk he noted that the Apple employees weren’t talking about beating anyone, they were talking about how they could help teachers teach and learners learn easier.
One was worried about their competition, the other was worried about where they were headed.
This was around the time Apple released the Ipod Touch and Microsoft had given out their new Zune which according to Simon, was so much better in every conceivable way.
After the talk, Simon shared a taxi with one of the Apple guys, and he couldn’t help but stir the pot.
So he turns to the man and says:
“You know, I had a chance to do a talk at Microsoft and they gave me their new Zune, which is so much better than your Apple Ipod Touch.”
The guy turns to him and says:
“I have no doubt.”
That’s it…conversation over.
One of these companies was thinking with an Infinite mindset, the other was focused on ‘beating’ the competition and winning some imaginary race.
In a marathon you don’t focus on beating your competitor when the goal is to outlast them and finish the race.
In a 100m dash you focus on getting your body across the finish line as fast as possible but it’s not about focusing on your competitor, it’s about running as fast as you possibly can.
The runner who looks ahead at their own lane is aware of the obstacles in front of them that they need to overcome even if there’s NOTHING there.
The runner that looks onto other lanes and not their own fails to pay attention to whats right in front of them even if there’s NOTHING there.
When you follow the second route your emotions get the better of you.
You feel stuck and anxious.
You may trip the other runners and maybe you might win the race by doing this.
But there’s always another race.
And another. And another.
But guess what…
You’re still a slow runner.
To improve is to be aware of your chosen rivals, but to make sure that you’re looking at where you’re going instead of looking at what your competition is doing.
Changing Perspectives
Shifting from a finite to an infinite mindset requires unlearning.
The Infinite Game can be applied in any area of your life.
I’ve mentioned many times in this keynote that we all play Infinite Games.
We have no definite say in the games that we play and we don’t know when we will enter these games.
We don’t know when we will exit these games either but we know that eventually the exit will happen.
Life is an Infinite game and sure…
Our lives are finite but when we die and leave this world the game carries on without us.
This means that since life is an Infinite game, it gives you Infinite shots.
As long as you’re alive you have infinite chances to take.
And if you have infinite chances why would you waste any of them in your pursuit of becoming the best version of yourself.
There are no rules in an infinite game.
Which means we can choose how we play the game.
Some people play the game to do just enough, others play the game to do more than enough.
The cost of the former is too high a price over time.
Milton Friedman was a economist who proposed the theory:
A company’s responsibility is to increase profits for it’s shareholders within the bounds of the law.
Construction of the Titanic began in March 1909 in Belfast, Ireland.
It took 3 years to complete the construction of the ship and finally in April 1912 she was complete.
It carried a total of 20 lifeboats that had a carrying capacity of 1178 people.
There were roughly 2200 people on the ship when it hit the iceberg in 1912.
When the Titanic was under construction in 1909 the British board of Trades put only 25% of the required amount of lifeboats on the ship because that number exceeded the legal requirements at the time.
But because they wanted to save money 75% of the lifeboat capacity was filled with empty berths because they knew eventually regulations would catch up but they wanted to do enough to get passed the law.
We all know what happened in 1912.
The ship hit an iceberg, it sank and guess how many people died that day?
75%.
THE TITANIC BROKE NO LAWS.
The law is a low standard for playing an infinite game.
It is not a high enough standard to measure yourself in an infinite game.
Ethics is a much higher standard.
It takes courage to lead with ethics in an Infinite game like business.
It takes even more courage to lead with ethics in an Infinite game like life.
Living with an Infinite mindset means being a runner that understands that everyone has their own lane and their own objectives to overcome.
There is no “winning” and there is no beating the “competition.”
In fact the only true competition you have in an Infinite game is yourself.
When someone “wins” in life, you don’t lose.
There’s this zero-sum-game that we play where if someone wins then it means somehow we lose because we don’t have what they have.
It’s an example of a finite player vs an infinite player.
Finite players are playing a zero-sum-game where they believe that the only way to win is for someone else to lose, which is why when they’re pitted against the Infinite player they eventually enter quagmire and drop out of the game.
But what does someone else winning have to do with you?
Great leaders think with an infinite mindset and they live with the understanding that they are only in competition with themselves.
In-Finite Games
Finite games and infinite games aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
They are inclusive of each other.
Infinite games are often just a large collection of finite games that one must play to progress.
Let’s go back to the example of football.
Football is an infinite game, it will continue even after the current players retire and new players come into the game.
Individual matches are finite games and are played with the intention of beating the other team.
But there is always another match to be played later and then the season is over and the next season begins.
Playing an infinite game is the zoomed out POV of the progress you create.
You call this the big picture.
Playing a finite game is the zoomed in POV of the progress you create.
You call this the details.
Knowing when to sprint to the finish line and when to just keep running is how you’ll live an infinite life and progress further than you ever thought possible.
Have a great week,
Keyur
If you liked this keynote, [which is what I’m naming my posts now] take 10 seconds to like and leave a comment.
And take 5 seconds to subscribe below.