Play Games You're Uniquely Suited to Win
How to build a life you don't need to escape from.
If there is ONE thing you can do to guarantee success in this world, its to play games you’re uniquely suited to win. Work hard at the things you’re good at. Dedicate yourself to that which is enjoyable, scalable, and worthwhile. Ignore the rest.
If you’re feeling stuck, lazy, or hopeless, you’re playing the wrong game. If you have to take diet meth (adderall) just to show up, you’re playing the wrong game. If you’re teetering on constant burnout, you’re playing the wrong game.
Most people live in a state of low-grade misery because they’ve built their lives around existing status templates. They have zero self awareness as to WHAT games they should be playing, or simply lack the agency to choose their own games.
If you apply these 5 steps below, you’ll have the blueprint to creating games you’re uniquely suited to win. Games with infinite leverage and effortless success. You’ll find your secret sauce and become a category of one.
Step 1: Find Your Secret Sauce
Take inventory of your past. In what areas did you win effortlessly? Everyone has something that just clicks. It might not even seem like a skill because it’s been second nature for so long. But that’s the point.
Secret Sauce Questionnaire:
What feels like play to you but looks like work to others?
Where have you excelled without formal training, credentials, or permission?
What drains other people but gives you energy?
Where do people overcomplicate what you see as obvious?
What are the deepest rabbit holes you’ve gone down?
Where do you make progress significantly faster than others?
What environments make you feel highly competent?
What things are worth staying up at night for?
What do you do differently than everyone else—and can’t explain why?
What you’re looking for may come so naturally to you that you brush it off as nothing. Grab other perspectives as well. Ask your friends, think about what people come to you for advice on, what compliments you most commonly receive. Gather ze data.
Isolate the 1-2 non-replicable high-value traits you already have. This is your edge. Your leverage. The stuff you could do half-asleep and still be better than most people giving it their all.
This doesn’t even have to be a hard skill. Meta-skills are actually better to double down on (wider range of application). Sometimes it’s as simple as being really good at explaining things, noticing patterns, or staying calm under pressure. That’s the starting point.
Your sauce will not be one thing, but a intersection of multiple. It will be a combination of innate talents, acquired skills, and unique experiences
Step 2: Don’t Fix Weaknesses, Build Around Strengths
Most people spend their lives trying to become less of who they are. They beat themselves up for not being more structured, consistent, optimized, or analytical. The throw away being exceptional in their edge for being average at their weaknesses.
But maybe, just maybe, you’re not failing because you’re weak. You’re failing because you’re trying to win a game that punishes your wiring.
You’re a monkey trying to swim with the tunas, a fish trying to climb a tree. The reality is Everybody has different operating systems. Some are built for chaos and sprints, others thrive on routines and systems. One isn’t better than the other, they’re just different machines.
The Self-Improvement Trap
You struggle to follow someone else’s system.
You blame yourself.
You double down on fixing your “flaws.”
You exhaust yourself trying to become someone you’re not
You throw away your unique gifts in the process
Think about all the wasted potential, the unnecessary struggle, the sheer mundanity of trying to fit somebody else’s mold.
Instead of fixing what doesn’t work, start amplifying what DOES:
When are you naturally energized and focused?
What environments make execution feel effortless?
What work feels like play?
What type of schedule creates flow, not friction?
What kind of structure supports your brain instead of restricting it?
Instead of busting your balls trying to Goggins your way out of resistance, just work around it. Hard work is a prerequisite, not a differentiator.
Step 3: Play High Leverage Games
If you’re going to work hard, work hard at things that build LEVERAGE.
I know world-class chefs working 80 hour weeks to bring in $90k. I know average cooks working a few hours a week from their laptop making more than an entire restaurant.
Skills aren’t the differentiator here. Its about choosing high leverage vs low leverage games
Low-Leverage Games:
Linear reward: One hour of work = one hour of pay.
High friction: Constant energy needed to maintain results.
Zero compounding: Every cycle starts from zero again.
No ownership: Output is directly tied to input
Commoditization: You’re interchangeable. Someone cheaper/faster can replace you.
High-Leverage Games
Exponential reward: Small inputs lead to outsized, asymmetric returns.
Low maintenance: Effort is front-loaded, results continue with minimal variable input
Compounding growth: Every action builds momentum and assets.
Ownership: You build platforms, audiences, products, systems that are YOURS
Irreplaceability: You create value beyond skill execution.
Naval Ravikant did a good job at breaking down the modern leverage types:
Labor (teams working for you)
Capital (money working for you)
Code (software working for you)
Media (content working for you)
Leverage is earned. Its a tactical shift once the flywheel is already moving:
Work for free → Charge per hour → Charge per outcome → Sell product→ OWN audience/assets
Execute Tasks → Build systems → Own systems
Hourly pay → Short-term cash grab → Long-term platforms that grow value over time → Equity
Focus on these core mental reframes:
“Is this work creating a reusable system, asset, or momentum?”
“Is my input/output ratio higher than 1:1?:
“what could I build today that reduces my need to work tomorrow?”
Doing 1 on 1 coaching is low leverage. BUT it was essential for me to hone my craft and transition into the high leverage game (substack)
Freelancing for health brands was low leverage. BUT it was essential for me to hone my craft and transition into building my own brands.
The key factor here is I was leveraged focused since the beginning. Even when i was doing low leverage work, I was asking myself “how can I apply this to a high leverage play down the road?”
Escape the initial rat race, then relentlessly compound until you become a certified leverage maxxor.
Step 4: Become a Category of One
Red Ocean: Fight for scraps in somebody else’s game
Blue Ocean: You create your own game
Most people spend their lives trying to be “better”. Better than the next guy, the next competitor, the next business, the next influencer. This is exhausting.
Better is a moving target. It puts you on someone else’s scoreboard, and there is always somebody willing to compromise on values, balance, and quality of life to be better than you.
Competition is great. It vitalizes the soul & pushes your limit. But competition should be a temporary crutch to hit short term goals. Most people are locked in endless comparison because they’re playing in existing categories. They want to be the best coach, marketer or sales guy, fighting for pieces of a finite pie. This is EXHAUSTING.
Competition is a good starting point. It defines the edges and gives you a linear path to success. But once you reach a base level of competency, look to differentiate. Deviate yourself from the masses and build your own niche.
Focusing on beating others is a low-agency game. Its reactive. Becoming n of 1 is creative. Ask yourself “how do I design a game where nobody else can play like me?”
Anyone can copy a skill, playbook, or script. but no-one can replicate your exact combination of strengths, experiences, personality, perspective, and taste.
Learn how to stack your experiences. Its less about inventing something new and more about positioning what you already have in a way nobody else can. Ponder heavily on this. Don’t aim to be the best in a crowded space, create a space where you’re the only option. If you do it well enough, people will try and copy. But they simply can’t because they are them and you are you.
Step 5: Redefine Winning
Every game has a scoreboard. But just because everybody else is using one metric doesn’t mean should too. Most people are chasing goals conditioned by school, parents, social media, and their peers. Income, job title, apartment view, aesthetic IG feed.
The only people that actually feel fulfilled by these goals are room-temperature IQ (I’m jealous)
Most people hit these goals, feel nothing, then think that 2xing that same goal will finally make them feel happy
Smart people hit these goals, realize they aren’t that important, and start pursuing new ones
The smartest people realize these goals are arbitrary in the first place and make their own definition of success
Visible achievement, invisible misery. This is a near-universal constant:
The entrepreneur who builds a 7-figure business they secretly hate.
The lawyer with prestige but no time, freedom, or health.
The influencer with followers and brand deals, but no sense of purpose or privacy.
The corporate VP who crushed every promotion and now dreads waking up.
Winning in the wrong games just means getting really far in the wrong direction.
Signs you’re playing the wrong game:
Hitting goals brings relief, not joy.
Progress feels like pressure, not freedom.
Success creates more obligations than options.
You fantasize about walking away more than leveling up.
You have what others want, but feel hollow inside.
You need to define winning for yourself by asking the hard questions:
What does a good day actually look like?
What energizes me more than it drains me?
What tradeoffs am I willing to make? Which ones feel like a compromise?
What values do I want my life to reflect consistently?
What would feel like winning even if nobody else knew?
These answers won’t look like anybody elses, but thats the POINT.
The only scoreboard that matters is the one that makes you feel like a winner deep down. The one that helps you sleep at night. The one that fills you with contentment, not relief. Everything else is fluff.
REINVENT THE GAME
Most people are stuck not because they’re weak, but because they’re playing the wrong games. They’re trying to force themselves into arenas where they stand no chance while completely ignoring their own secret sauce
The solution is not to work harder, its to PLAY SMARTER. More specifically and more authentically.
The TLDR Blueprint:
Play games you’re uniquely suited to win. Build around what already comes naturally.
Stop fixing your weaknesses. Design systems around your strengths and wiring.
Become a category of one. Combine your skills, story, and perspective into something no one can replicate.
Redefine winning. Create your own scoreboard (one that feels like freedom, not performance)
Ponder on this, play archaeologist with your past, come up with hypotheses and test relentlessly. If there’s one game you all should play, it should be to figure out which games are worth playing.
That is all, godspeed
i found your page at the perfect time in my life. love this shit. lets ride
I knew I was playing the wrong game but reading it feels different..