15/40 - Read The Rules
I grew up in a competitive family. But a sneaky kind of competitive. We were all so nice about it, but really, we all wanted to win. Especially me and my brothers and my Dad. My mom and sister openly refused to play certain card games with us, especially when my Grandpa on my Dad's side came to town.
We grew up playing every card and board game imaginable. From Whist to Hearts to Spades to our continued favorite Cribbage, there was always a game going on. Scrabble and Apples to Apples and Ticket to Ride and eventually Hand and Foot, probably now our most played game in family history.
As we added games to the family roster throughout the years, a funny thing continued to happen: we would fight over who got to read the rules first. Not because we didn't understand how the game was played, but because in reading the rules, you see hints as to where you can find advantages. The advantages lie just shy of what the rules say you can't do. If there is a rule about not being able to take something to 11, it is a hint that to win you likely need to take it to 10.9.
Knowing the rules means you know when and how to break them. Knowing the rules means that you also know what kinds of bonuses or rewards come from completing small little things that add up to big advantages.
In the club I was a part of at church, there were all kinds of small little things that you could do to earn an award or trophy or new patch for your uniform. I sought out those extra credits and racked up a lot of accomplishments that others didn't.
When I started my career in financial sales, I learned that at the regional and national sales meetings, you got ribbons for different milestones each year. There were all kinds of obscure accomplishments that would earn you an extra ribbon. And while a lot of people didn't know what all the ribbons meant, they did know that the top performers on stage and being celebrated all had a lot of ribbons. When they saw me, a young kid, by comparison, showing up for my first few sales meetings with a lot of ribbons, I definitely got more attention and mentorship than others as a result.
The challenge of knowing how to read the rules and to play the games successfully from there is you can start playing for the wrong reasons and get so caught up in your obsession with the rules that it makes it less fun, for you, but especially for others. The path to the legalistic interpretation of rules is a slippery slope and one that I definitely feel down on more than one occasion in my younger years.
I still love reading the rules of games I play, but my hope now is that my understanding of those rules and how to do things well will give others the chance to put up a win for themselves along the way.
