Treating Life Choices Like Playing in a Casino: A Framework
Caught up with one of my old startup founders, Dima Zaruta and he shared with me an incredibly useful framework for figuring out where you spend your life.
He told me when he left his last company, he sat down with his co founders trying to figure out where they spent their time. He said he used the analogy of how to approach a casino. When you enter a casino there are many different kinds of games to play. Blackjack, Pai Gow, Craps, Roulette or Baccarat. So many choices. Hence this is why having a decision making criteria is helpful.
- Do you love it or Will you Enjoy it?: You won’t get good at something you don’t enjoy. Time passes so slowly and it’s hard to get into flow states if you don’t like it
- High enough stakes: Is the game worth playing and spending your time on. Ie. What’s the Return on Investment
- Weak or strong players: Are you playing weak or strong players? Obviously, if there are weak players, you can make way more money. If there are strong players, it’s harder to make money but you will learn and get better faster. Or get knocked out. Obviously it depends on what the goal is: learning or earning.
- Short feedback cycles: The shorter the feedback cycle (ie. winning or losing), the faster you will learn and in theory get better.
It’s a very useful set of criteria for anyone. You need to approach your life and career with the same framework of criteria to pick the game & then which table you sit at. It’s so simple yet so good. Hope you find this as useful as I have.
