My 11 year old has been on a Monopoly kick. We’ve played a half dozen times or so in the past 4 – 6 weeks. He won the first, and i’ve been on a roll since. You know what happens when an 11 year old keeps losing a game? Yeah, it’s not pretty. We played again last week and I was determined to let him win, but I was going to make it look good. My dad credibility was on the line here…
We dealt the cards and made trades and we had 5 monopolies each, though two of mine were the railroads and utilities, so I was confident I could lose but make it look good in the process. Or, so I thought.
My first turn I landed on a railroad… ok, no biggie. Then I proceeded to land on each railroad in succession for the next 8 or so turns in a row. In the meantime, he kept landing on my spaces and having to pay up. This was not going according to plan and I was heading full steam ahead for an anger management session. You know the looks kids get? The eyes, the pout, the stomping of the fists…. it was a collision course for a train wreck of a game.
As the game progressed I ultimately maxed out my properties with hotels and couldn’t grow any more even if I wanted to. He landed on one of my properties and I could have easily bankrupted him, but I allowed him to sell back houses and hotels and even lowered some rents and “miscounted” a couple of rolls of the die to keep him going and keep his hopes alive.
Now it was his turn. He kept building and maxed out his properties and I kept landing on them. The tide and momentum of the game turned in an instant. He eventually won the game.
And that brings us to our point today, growth is fickle, you have to keep growing in order to succeed. Growth is about momentum. It happens in the NFL all the time… Team A gets out to a lead, but Team B keeps hanging on and you feel the momentum tip in the favor of Team B who goes on to win the game. When you stop growing, you lose. As you are able to keep growing, you win. It doesn’t matter if it is monopoly, business, health, or life… ALWAYS be investing something towards your growth, otherwise you’ll lose it all.
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