madklowns reviewed Playing to Win by David Sirlin
Review of 'Playing to Win' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
This book made me realize I was letting my ego get in the way of winning: both in ranked games and in my career.
For work, I used to feel like "playing the game" or "playing politics" was for poor performers to cover up their weaknesses. Thankfully over time I swallowed my pride and decided if I was going to play, I was going to play to win at any cost.
Once I adopted this mindset, it was easier to do the "lame" things that were clearly just signalling mechanisms. Better clothes and grooming, a public blog, writing books, leadership in meetups, lots of open source work, conference speaking, reading all the right books, saying the right things, etc. Over time, instead of just doing these for "winning" I grew into someone an order of magnitude better than before I started. Sort of a catch 22.
At some point it's …
This book made me realize I was letting my ego get in the way of winning: both in ranked games and in my career.
For work, I used to feel like "playing the game" or "playing politics" was for poor performers to cover up their weaknesses. Thankfully over time I swallowed my pride and decided if I was going to play, I was going to play to win at any cost.
Once I adopted this mindset, it was easier to do the "lame" things that were clearly just signalling mechanisms. Better clothes and grooming, a public blog, writing books, leadership in meetups, lots of open source work, conference speaking, reading all the right books, saying the right things, etc. Over time, instead of just doing these for "winning" I grew into someone an order of magnitude better than before I started. Sort of a catch 22.
At some point it's not just signalling anymore. I'm extremely glad I swallowed my pride when I did, and really wish I'd done it sooner.
This book really kicked me in the pants, and I'm significantly more successful because of it. David, if you're reading this, thanks a lot man.
EDIT: I, uh, didn't really apply this much effort to ranked games, so I'm still a scrub at MOBAs. If anything, it made me realize I didn't really want to win at MOBAs, I wanted to win at life.