Stop Playing Zero-Sum Games – Episode 515            

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, welcome to the podcast. We’re gonna be talking about zero sum games and why you need to avoid it at all costs. First, we gotta set the stage and explain what it is. Kim, it’s an exciting topic because one, it’s one that is a prosperous mindset when you get it right and it applies to everything. Absolutely, and one that’s super fun to share with your kids. And we’re so about, whether you’re children or adults or not, just continuing the involvement of family finances in all ways. And games are a very fun way to do that. Robert Kiyosaki’s cashflow game is great. Our family legacy game is helpful. There are other money games. I mean, even just ancient Monopoly, right?

[00:54] Super helpful game. But a zero sum game is, I guess, the dark side of gaming, right? Because zero sum game means that there’s a winner and a loser. And there’s some obvious times when that’s appropriate. Sports, for example, you have a winner and a loser. That’s completely acceptable. Nevertheless, during the entire playing of the game, both sides are acting like winners and playing to win. There are other examples where there is a clear loser and maybe not a clear winner. Maybe actually both people lose. And that’s what I think of as a zero sum game. And you gave me a great example, actually, just in even bringing up the topic. And that is when we gossip. So again, this is so fabulous to share with children

[01:55] because bullying is definitely, gossip is a form of bullying. Bullying is definitely something that gets talked about all the time. And when you and another person gossip or you and yourself gossip, right? Because you’re kind of gossiping in your head. There is a zero sum. There is a loser there. And it’s because when we’re being judgmental, when we’re talking or thinking badly about another person that is compromising our integrity, that is setting ourselves up for failure, that is being potentially extremely harmful to the other individual and the third party who may be the person that you’re conversing with. So that’s one in particular that I think is a very important thing to be alert to.

[02:51] I know, like even when I’m walking through the airport, it’s so easy to gossip in my head, right? Oh my gosh, I can’t believe how fat that person is. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe they’re wearing those clothes. I mean, the list is endless when you’re walking through the airport. And I work really hard to stop that mental gossiping. And literally, one of the things I do is keep my head up, like my vision, I keep it at people’s heads so that I’m not seeing their bodies. And I also move my vision a lot. If there’s something that I see that I think I might be judgmental about, I will literally go look somewhere else. And I smile and I try to seek out others that are smiling. And consequently, my walks through the airport

[03:42] are way more joyful than if I’m going through doing mental gossip. You know, it’s true. Like when you mentioned like the example of walking through an airport and you smiling, then we become the magnet that finds the other person that’s doing the same thing. And it’s like, we’re just, we’re like these, you know, I’ve seen the picture of these little rowboats in like China that have a light dangling on the front in the dark. And it’s just kind of like these two rowboats. They’re like, hey, I see you. And you just keep going through and it’s like, let me find another one. And that’s what happens. Yeah. Even for example, the ladies clean the restroom. I mean, oh my gosh, that’s a tough job. And to walk into the restroom

[04:28] and at least make eye contact with them and smile. And I’m not a super social person. So I’m not gonna go as far as just so impressive. You know, look at their name tags, say, you know, say something to them. I’m not gonna go that far because that’s just not my style, but I can look them in the eyes and smile, be grateful for the work that they’re doing. Absolutely. So you mentioned, this is a game. One thing I like about a game is that it can be adapted to any age. So we can take toddlers all the way up to the wisest around us. I’m not gonna say old. We’ve got the variety of people. And then when you started speaking about a couple of examples, meaning when there’s a loser and then not a clear winner,

[05:17] the translation that went off in my head was government. It’s like, yeah, that’s government, okay. So then I thought, what’s the opposite? Well, I started thinking about the financial industry, the typical financial industry. And I’m like, sometimes it’s like a clear winner and a clear loser. Sometimes there’s some ambiguity. Well, what’s in the financial industry that is actually not a zero-sum game? It’s life insurance through- Absolutely, with a mutual company. Exactly, so explain why that piece, the specific language, the specific type of company, why is that not a zero-sum game? And that’s such an important distinction because life insurance in and of itself, that’s an interesting one to think about,

[06:09] whether we would identify just regular life insurance like term insurance that you get from your employer or from something on the web that I think could possibly be defined as a zero-sum game. And yet whole life insurance bought from a mutual company. So any of the mutual life insurance companies that are owned by the policy holders is a win, win, win. And you know how much I love the triple win, which is of course the complete opposite of a zero-sum game in that the person buying the life insurance wins, the person selling the life insurance wins, the insurance company itself wins. And in the financial world, when you step back, you want your financial companies that you’re doing business with to be profitable,

[06:57] obviously. I mean, if they’re not, they’re gonna go out of business and take your money down with them. Can we talk about some banks? Let’s not. Yeah. So the mutual life insurance companies, which are a structure that have been in existence for over a couple centuries, even like 600 years, kind of depending on what you choose as its starting point, enable that win, win, win. And you could even add a fourth in and that the insurance family is going to win since death is a guaranteed event. And there will be a payout with whole life insurance. And let’s be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with term insurance. It’s perfectly fine. Everybody that has dependence or debt or a business or even an opportunity in their life

[07:43] should have some term insurance. And if they will additionally use whole life from a mutual company, they will get to play that win, win, win game that enables their ownership of that mutual company that then provides that policy so that everybody is on the same side of the table. That’s absolutely winning. That’s a cool way to look at it because in so many cases, the public is fighting. They’re saying, oh, well, this bad company here or it could be a good company during good times. And then all of a sudden you look back and you say, well, they were too risky, bad company again, whatever that may be. You’re talking about something that’s the win, win, win. It’s incredible. And what a great space to start to share

[08:39] with our children because anybody that’s 18 can own a life insurance policy. And of course, you as a parent can own insurance on your children when they are younger than 18 and can’t own it themselves. And this issue of ownership, I think is a really important win, win, win as well. And you can be an owner in your mind, like having an entrepreneurial mindset or an owner mentality, even if you are an employee at a company. So what a great space for us to be conscious of. Absolutely a great example of prosperity thinking. And there are so many spaces in our lives where we can be conscious of avoiding the zero-sum games. Absolutely. So I’m gonna throw a wrench in as we kind of go for the back stretch of this,

[09:34] which is timing. So for me, I was thinking about this and time is one of those things that people often don’t consider or factor in with its finances. Your husband, Todd Langford with Truth Concepts, he’s done very well with that. And this comes into play because of a recent event. I was chatting with a friend of mine and he sold one of his apartment complexes. He had seller financed it. So it was great. And the buyers of that decided to pay him off. So now he’s got a couple million dollars in the bank and he’s like, well, I got a… And he found a place where he wanted to put it. Here’s where the timing comes into play. The government, there was some paperwork in place and now he’s delayed on investing it for several months.

[10:25] That’s a lot of money. Yeah. And so I look at that and I look at the same when it comes to life insurance. And if we don’t factor in timing, meaning if we delay taking action, we lose out on the lower rates. We lose out on the opportunities that we have. We lose out on the opportunities not just from when it starts, but when we can actually start using it. So maybe there’s one thing you can say to bring us in, how timing works. And if we don’t manage that timing, it’s going to be a zero sum game for us. Well, I’ll share a quick story. We’ve got three business owners that we’re working with right now and they have plenty of opportunity financially. They are tied together in the business. And when you have that situation,

[11:17] there’s additional need for the life insurance. One of them is not in trouble because he waited too long. There are medical things that he’s dealing with that preclude him from getting the life insurance. And so not only does it impact his family, but it impacts his other two business partners because now we have a very uneven playing field and we’re going to have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops and never really get back to the position that we could have had he acted earlier quicker when the concept first was spoken about and didn’t have the time lapse that caused the medical issue to come forth and really derail what he wanted to do for himself, his family, his business, his business partners, et cetera.

[12:07] So that’s not the funnest thing to think about or talk about, but truly there is no financial product that cannot be bought in the future except life insurance. You can buy every single financial product that you could ever think about in the future, but you may not be able to buy life insurance in the future. That’s a really good point there. I hope that what we’ve stamped here is that all of us look at the games that we’re playing, the games in our mind. That was really, I didn’t even think of it that way. So the games in our mind, the games that we play with others, and yes, there are winners and losers, it’s awesome. I’m competitive, healthy competitive, I say, hopefully. And it’s great for us to have clear winners and losers

[12:58] in business life. There should be win-win-win opportunities. And lastly, if we don’t take the appropriate action from the information we have, we can create zero-sum games. That’s awful. Let’s not do that ever. So how can people take action? Is it send you an email? Is it go and read a book? What’s the easiest, best thing for someone that’s like, hey, all right, they’ve said this to me. I know I’m not gonna play zero-sum game. What do you suggest? Well, I would love to answer questions, help people take the next step around either their mentality or their finances. And the easiest way to connect is hello at prosperitythinkers.com. That is a dedicated email for our podcast listener community.

[13:49] And I answer it. So reach out, hello at prosperitythinkers.com. If you have a question or a thought or an idea about the zero-sum game and your mindset, love to chat about that. If you have any questions about the life insurance space, I’d be happy to chat about that as well. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit prosperitythinkers.com.