Archive for the ‘Hidden Game Basics’ Category

Toronto is a pretty tame place; the kind of place where nothing ever happens. The population is calm, conservative; all are great believers in the sanctity of law and order. There are no radical groups of any size. Militancy of any kind is almost non-existent.

Thus on the surface, one might assume this would be an ideal place to hold the G20 Summit. Despite this, the security budget for the summit was projected at over $200 million (over 6 times the figure of the previous G20 Summit). The Canadian public perceived this sum as absurdly high, yet the politicians only gave the most perfunctory justification for the exorbitant bill. To add insult to injury, a couple of weeks prior to the event this sum inexplicably ballooned to nearly $1 billion.

Major parts of the city were cordoned off like a high security prison, all under the pretext of protecting the security of the participants in the conference. After all the hoopla and expense, what was achieved? No one who lives in or around Toronto escaped being inconvenienced, frustrated and irritated by the oppressive security measures. Meanwhile, the professional anarchists, having no chance of getting anywhere near the summit events, not wishing to appear completely ineffectual, had to content themselves with smashing windows along the route of the demonstration. Finally, the city’s business owners, normally the beneficiaries of such summits, lost money because the city was turned into a ghost town, as all who could, fled the city for the duration of the event.

All this demonstrates the inherent flaws in the assumption that security must be tight and in clear view to all to be effective. In making control overt, you give those who wish to subvert your efforts the blueprints to do it with. By making it blatant, the security measures morph into being symbols of oppression- intimidating those already inclined to be compliant, while provoking and providing public sympathy to the subversive elements in society. The vandalism, which would ordinarily have offended the average Canadian, became instead a kind of vicarious expression of their own frustration. The police, after spending an absolute fortune on security, came off appearing incompetent and ineffective. Finally, the taxpayers are saddled with a bill they did not support, for an event they never desired, all in aid of international initiatives no one really understands.

However, there is an example of a completely different approach to security. One in which nearly perfect security is achieved imperceptibly- the Antwerp Diamond Exchange, one of the most secure places on the planet. It has been in place for several centuries with no significant modifications to the way business is carried on. Millions of dollars worth of diamonds exchange hands completely out in the open, in view of any passer-by, with no visible security anywhere in sight. As implausible as this utopian, laissez-faire structure appears to be, this model has been in continuous existence for some 500 years.

To the uninformed bystander the public square which houses the diamond exchange appears to be nothing more than a typical square in the old town, immaculately restored, but no more so than any of its neighbouring squares. Meanwhile, embedded in the tableau, one can see couriers in traditional orthodox Jewish long black robes, are walking to and fro across the square. Only the speed of their gait, and the seriousness of their demeanour, convey any hint of their purpose- conveying millions of dollars of uncut diamonds in small pouches tucked in their pockets.

The security is provided by undercover police disguised as shopkeepers, shoppers, a pair of lovers sitting at a café, etc. When the messengers meet; pouches are exchanged, with each then proceeding on their way. No paper changes hands; no inspection of the merchandise takes place- it is all done on trust.

During the centuries that this market has been in this square, great technological advances have been made in our society. We passed from the agricultural, through the industrial, into the electronic, and information ages. Nonetheless, this low-tech marketplace remains unsurpassed in the world, in terms of its efficiency, security and simplicity. The Antwerp Diamond Market is the model of control without restrictions. It is formless form at its finest. The flow of transactions is smooth and completely fluid, without compromising security. By way of contrast, the recent violence at the G20 summit in Toronto graphically illustrates the perils of taking the more traditional approach to security. One is left wondering precisely what the powers that be will have learned form this debacle?

By nature, we are predisposed to believe everything and anything that is said to us. Life experience, however, teaches us that what is said is not necessarily true. In fact in today’s world, lying is so prevalent that for just about anyone in the business world the implied assumption is quite the opposite – that there is a hidden agenda behind what ever is being said.

However, even though our survival instinct leads us to be sceptical, our need to believe remains in no way diminished. This creates an internal tension inside us. On the one hand we need to believe, while on the other we cannot allow ourselves to trust those around us. This creates an untenable situation for us psychologically, a psychic paralysis which is not sustainable over time.

Therefore, in order to resolve this dilemma at some point we must place our scepticism in abeyance, placing our trust in someone or something. So then in whom do place our trust? Is it in the most trustworthy individual who we have taken time to vet, or the one who’s most skilled at penetrating our psychological defenses? Obviously it is the latter, as the former is simply too cumbersome. This then leads to an end result which is counter intuitive. The more ‘sophisticated’ we become the more easily we are fooled. As the players and the environment become more and more skilled at deception, and we become more sceptical, it becomes more and more likely that it is only the skilled manipulator will be the one who wins our trust.

Then when we are misled and taken advantage of once again, we become more cynical, more suspicious. Our critical factor becomes stronger and thicker, our loneliness intensifies, and our mental stability becomes more tenuous. This then only makes us increasingly vulnerable to being manipulated. This then explains why we as a society never seem to wake up, and fall ourselves time and time again for different variations of the same cons. Be it Junk Bonds, Enron, Mortgage-backed securities, or Medicare, the packaging changes, but underneath, the Game is the same!

Growing up, there are a few among us who as teenagers didn’t wish to be cool. If we are honest with ourselves, this need to appear cool persists well into adulthood. Even as parents, many aspire to be the ‘cool parent’.

What is coolness exactly? On one level it means being current, up with the latest fashion. But, it is more than that. If we look at our role models of cool –Humphrey Bogart in the film “Casablanca”, Rita Hayworth in the film “Gilda”, or John Travolta in the parody “Be Cool!” it is more about attitude than anything else.

What then is this cool attitude? Superficially, it is exactly what the expression implies, with the connotation of a kind of coldness or detachment. But if we dig a little deeper, it also implies a sense of superiority, a distinctly phlegmatic quality. To people who are cool, people who are not are a kind of background noise, being seen as little more than admiring fans or light entertainment. Cool people are not nice, and aside from the movies, they’re not likely to be kind either. We as a culture worship the cool, and the cool are happy to accept our adulation as their due.

Then when it comes to society’s latest ‘bad boys’, those people we all love to hate these days, the Investment Bankers, the hedge fund owner, we are incensed at their ostentatious indifference to the suffering of others. How did we really expect them to behave? The get to where they are by being unrepentant narcissistic, sociopaths. They never pretended to be anything else.

This cool image has been driven into our culture for so long that it seems to be an integral part of our entire world view. For any of us, to reject this value system altogether is very difficult. For even if we do not buy in, others around us do. In a market economy, success breeds success. One important ingredient for being successful is appearing to be successful-‘fake it till you make it’. Coolness is associated with higher status and success. This creates a Catch 22. Those who are already known to be successful can afford not to be cool. The dilemma we find ourselves in is that we need to appear cool to get there. So long as we buy into this picture of success, and secretly desire to be one of them we will never be free of their tyranny.

Morality is herd instinct in the individual.- Friedrich Nietzsche

“Do you know the difference between right and wrong?” This is the question we ask our children, especially our teenagers, ad nausea. This is the litmus test for deciding if the criminal is bad or mad. This question itself presupposes that we human beings have an innate sense of right and wrong. It further assumes that what is deemed to be right and wrong is incontrovertible, that they are universal constants which transcend culture and context.

Even though the most primitive of tribes, such as aboriginals or criminals, have a rudimentary morality, this only extends to its own members. Those outside the tribe are rarely afforded equal treatment under the code. Even the medieval knights with their strict code of chivalry only reserved this treatment for others from their own caste. These same knights who would not hesitate to sacrifice themselves for the honor of a damsel in distress, thought nothing of butchering the local peasantry. Selective morality is no morality! In this sense all tribe are essentially amoral.

Even though we like to think of ourselves as freethinking individuals, the group has a strong influence on the mental frame with which we see the world. For instance, we all share the notion that our norms are based on some objective measure. We believe that our standards for dress, social conduct, and the degree of familiarity we permit ourselves to show to one another, are all based on some sort of absolute. Our judgments – this person is rude, that person is perverse – all refer to some norm against which things are measured. Thus, what passes for free, spontaneous exchange is usually a pre-scripted dialogue which then further strenghtens the groupthink.

This norm is the central myth around which the tribe is formed. A group must differentiate between those on the inside and those on the outside. This distinction will always have some logical premise, at least superficially; but at its root, it is ultimately arbitrary. The set of standards we draw upon in making our judgments are framed by the tribes we belong to. Those whose actions, thoughts and appearance conform to our tribal standards are deemed acceptable, while those who happen to deviate from these norms in some way are considered aberrant. This then forms the basis of our prejudices.

Right and wrong do exist as transcendent ideals, but the moment we attempt to codify them, give them concrete definition, like sand, its essence slips through our fingers. All we are left with is an elegant lattice of empty regulations. When this structure is found to be lacking, we loaded with caveats and clarifications which do nothing but make them more obscure and cumbersome. Worse still, they mystify the law, allowing its high priests, the lawyers, to entrap us in its endless intricacies. That is why in the final analysis each of us must look within themselves, not the tribe, or the law givers, to decide what is right and what is wrong.

Nunzio is an electrician, or more precisely, a master electrician, as he will make sure you know. He arrives at the job site in a shiny, late model pick up truck. His truck is white, and always immaculate. When Nunzio arrives on the site, he takes the time to finish his cell phone call, in a leisurely fashion, and then emerges from the truck, in a relaxed leisurely fashion. Nunzio is wearing designer jeans, designer boots, and a fitted sports jacket. From what I have described so far, you might think that Nunzio is an ass. This is, no doubt a fair description of Nunzio, however there is something about Nunzio, which is infectious. One cannot help liking Nunzio.

After the sales meeting, during which he stresses personal service to his clients, as his winning formula, you are not likely to hear from him until it is time for a progress payment. Despite being a ‘master’ electrician, Nunzio devotes his time to selling and collecting exclusively.

I have known Nunzio for several years. One of his favorite lines is “Johnny, I’ve got your back.” Over the years, one thing I have come to count on is that anytime I really do need Nunzio, he will give me a compelling reason why he cannot do what I am asking of him. At least, not right then. Despite this, in his own mind, Nunzio is fully convinced that he has had my back for a long time, for which he is owed a debt of gratitude. Gratitude is a bit of a bête noir for Nunzio. He spends a lot of time dwelling on how much he does for others and how little he receives in return. The construction industry is cyclical and contractors are going out of business all the time. Many truly worthy electricians close up shop. Nunzio not only endures; he thrives. Nunzio is a Player!

Players come in all shapes and sizes. They can be the Wall Street tycoon, but they can just as easily be the local real estate agent, school principal, or, as in the case of Nunzio, a contractor. The degree of finesse with which they ply their trade may vary, but at heart they are all essentially the same. So then, what are these distinguishing features, which make the Players so different from the rest of us?

Firstly, Players are born, not made. The Player is compulsive; they cannot but play. Their manipulations, their deceitfulness, their twisting and bending the truth to always reflect well on them and further their aims is more of a reflex than a conscious choice. Being a Player is not a matter of choice, but destiny.

The Player lies and manipulates with such facility that, in a very real sense, they cannot truly distinguish between fact and fiction. Their fabrications are as real for them as the veritable facts are for the rest of us. There is none among us who does not in some way bend the truth to suit. Nonetheless, even though our variations of a particular event may vary, they will not diverge completely.

For a Player, the facts are the bare canvas upon which they paint masterpieces, which have only the vaguest relation to what actually took place. In a sense, the Player is as mad as a Hatter, but their particular brand of psychosis is so socially adaptive that if we were to brand them as insane, we would be indicting the entire society we live in.

One quality common to all Players worth highlighting is an absolute absence of empathy. This cannot be stressed strongly enough. To say that players lack empathy is actually a gross understatement. The Player is wholly indifferent to anyone’s suffering but their own. Nunzio, is completely blind to the fact that he never follows through on his extravagant commitments, yet he is acutely aware of even the pettiest slight to his reputation. To the extent that another strokes their vanity, or is useful in some way, they are tolerated. If these conditions are, for whatever reason, no longer met, the other simply ceases to exist.

Another quality that Players share is an uncanny ability to stay on message. Be it O.J. Simpson protesting his innocence, or Dick Cheney justifying the Bush doctrine, they live by Talleyrand’s famous edict, “qui s’excuse, s’accuse” ( he who excuses himself, accuses himself). No matter what information is provided to refute their claims, they stick to their guns to the bitter end. As much as this sounds pathological, it actually works very much in their favor. The sheer relentlessness, with which they maintain their position, eventually makes us unsure of our own.

Players have a healthy disdain for anything approximating work. Be it creative, intellectual or menial, it is simply below them. You will always find them well away from the din of battle. They occupy themselves with selling, promoting, and marketing on the one side and with all things related to money, on the other. Anything between the two, the actual creation of the product, for instance, is of no interest to them. Being free from the pressures most of us experience in trying to meet deadlines and just keeping on keeping on, players are the picture of cool, unwavering composure – never in a rush, never flustered, and never busy.

Players are naturally drawn to wealth and power. It makes sense that those jobs, social settings and tribes with the highest status will attract the greatest concentration of Players.

So the next time you watch a sales pitch on television, a political address, or a sermon from a charismatic preacher, take amount and ask yourself : Is this a Player? Am I being played?

Abstract: As a society we have all been indoctrinated into a giant cult. It is the cult of marketing. We experience ourselves and each other as brands, commodities, assets, which are bought and sold at market. Not only does this cult crowd out authenticity of any kind, it is not sustainable in the long run. The current economic crisis is an example of the limitations of the virtual world that has been created.

What is a cynic? A man who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. – Oscar Wilde

If I were to tell you that you are a member of a cult, I bet you’d react with shock, anger and possibly rage. I bet too that if I made that same statement to any religious fundamentalist, or your garden variety fringe fanatic, I’d get pretty much the same reaction.

The main difference between their cult and yours, I would explain, is its size – their cult number in the hundreds, sometimes thousands, while yours numbers in the billions.

In one way or another we must all play in this game. No matter what your particular gift or expertise, you have no choice but to play the marketing game if you are to survive.

Such a game nullifies the value of our gifts, our passion, our intelligence, and our perseverance. Wherever the marketer is king, talking a good game, looking good, being likeable, being sexy become the winning traits. Conversely, knowledge, integrity, fortitude, kindness, generosity and graciousness become nothing more than frills, mere anachronisms. They are the traits associated with those on the fringe – the losers, artists, intellectuals, the has-beens. In fact, substance of any kind becomes a burden and an obstacle to progress. It becomes the ballast that holds you down and stifles your creativity while you concoct what you think your client expects.

If you build homes, for instance, your success is not measured by the quality of homes you build but by your ability to manage your client’s expectations. Similarly, dentists, doctors and accountants can no longer build a thriving practice on just excellence and hard work – he too must play the marketing game.

Observe the marketing cult members at a cocktail party: the seasoned pros are all looking exuberant, healthy and successful, staying on message. Any authentic person placed in this environment will appear awkward and nervous, happy to have someone to talk with – even if it means listening to an endless monologue of bombastic self-aggrandizement.

If that person commits the cardinal sin of introducing a topic they are passionate about they are met with glazed eyes and uneasiness. Success in this jungle is measured by how much fun we are; being perceived as intense, is the kiss of death.

You don’t have to get very deep into this cult before you realize that selling is not really a choice; it’s survival. The market is inundated with hustlers who lack any objective, reliable criteria upon which to assess competence; instead, likeability and slickness become their key success criteria. In this way the consumer is unwittingly steered towards the con men and those who cannot sell are simply invisible.

Placed in this context, the success of investment banks is easy to understand. In conveying an air of success and competence, their performance becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The well-tailored suit, the perfectly coifed hair and the confident even demeanor all convey success, competence and authority. This then forms the backdrop for what they’re selling – the opportunity to be rich, successful and popular as they appear to be. By the time they actually make their pitch, the potential buyer is already sold. Who is the prospective buyer? Anybody in the room!

The ubiquitousness of this game forces us to choose between two options, one more repugnant than the other:

The first option is to bite the bullet and attempt to sell. Unfortunately, when it comes to mastering bluff and small talk, most of us are like fish out of water. Not being natural liars, we are no match for those naturally inclined to embellishment and hyperbole. This puts us between a rock and a hard place. Instead of plying our trade we spend our time going to sales courses in the hope that a few crumbs will fall our way.

Those who are not socially skilled have to ally themselves with a rainmaker. To add insult to injury, in the event that they are successful in finding such a hustler, they become the drone, the weaker party in the relationship. It is no surprise then to see that professional firms – management consulting, architects, lawyers – are controlled by the partners who are adept at bringing in the clients. Over time their confidence erodes and sooner or later they fall victim to despair, or some form of sedation.

Of course, this entire focus upon making the sale, with next to no thought upon delivering the product, is not sustainable in the long run.

The current banking crisis is a prime example the cult of marketing run amuck. The banks sold homeowners on the idea of buying a house with next to no security. They next sold the debt to fund managers and investors. They in turn re-packaged it in combination with other assets and sold it to other investors.

Over time the volume of these investments, together with the increasingly creative ways in which they were combined, flooded the market with investments of indeterminable value. The high degree of integration between all the world’s financial markets took what began as a local problem, a number of failed mortgages in the US and allowed it to infect the entire global investment and banking system.

If anything good does come out of this crisis it will be that we have been woken, albeit rudely, from our collective trance. Hopefully we can return to those things of sustaining value – kindness, graciousness, sincerity – and in so doing come to see ourselves as something more than consumers and producers bitterly struggling with one another for our place in the sun.

The game is set in motion by a junior loan officer at a small mortgage company who makes a pitch to a recently married couple with a baby on the way.

The young couple is just starting their life together. They tell the officer they saw an ad on television that claimed they could buy a home with no money down.

The loan officer confirms the claim and assures them that despite their lack of means, they could have their little dream home: not in ten years, not in five years, but today! Not only that, but they can be in their new home for a full six months without paying a single cent!

The wife is a little hesitant, but her husband assures her that lots of their friends have done it, so why be left behind? Let’s go for it, he says to his wife and she finally gives in.

Meanwhile, all the other salesmen at the company are diligently signing up new customers and, in short order, all their funds are fully committed. That’s great but what do they do now?

Bob then approaches his boss, Jim, and says, “Well I just heard of this new product, called a mortgage backed security, which allows investment dealers to use mortgages as collateral for securities. Why don’t we pool our mortgages and sell them as one package to one of these companies? Then we can go back to doing what we do best: sell mortgages.”

Jim thinks it’s a capital idea and soon an investment house buys the mortgage company’s portfolio. They in turn use it to secure shares in the mutual fund they are offering to investors. Shares are sold to investors as well as institutions.

One of these institutions is a much larger investment fund based in New York. They bundle the investment with other similar securities and create a new fund which is once again sold to investors. A fund in Singapore likes the investment house’s balance sheet and purchases their firm along with its entire portfolio. And so it goes.

Eventually, these securities are floating in the system long enough that they are randomly and evenly spread throughout the world’s financial system. At that point the product has been diluted and blended so many times it would be near impossible to determine who is actually holding the paper on our young couple’s mortgage.

Then the bubble is stretched too far.

The housing bubble bursts and the mortgages securing the securities are worth next to nothing. The mortgage company is no longer on the hook as they sold the mortgage to the first investment house. They in turn passed off their securities to their clients, taking commission on the sales.

All the insiders were smart enough to keep passing it on. Each time the debt was passed, it was re-bundled, artfully packaged and profit was taken. Like a huge game of hot potato, they pass the security as fast as they can. Everybody is doing just fine as long as they are not caught holding the potato when the game ends.

The securities are, for the most part, held by mutual funds, banks and insurance companies spread over the globe. The managers of these funds have been well compensated for their returns over the last decade.

So who is caught holding the hot potato?

The investors who are holding shares in these funds will take the hit: pensioners, professionals, teachers; in other words, you and me. To make things worse, when the investment houses, insurance companies and banks are bailed out, it is the taxpayers – you and me – who are on the hook once again.

Our young couple has lost their home and declared personal bankruptcy. The pensioner holding the mutual fund units has lost a good part of his nest egg. The taxpayers are saddled with a debt which might take a generation or two to pay off.

Who is to blame? Who do we hold accountable, the loan officer? He was just doing his job – meeting his quota trying to sell as much product as he can. Do we blame the mortgage company? Their mandate was to place their funds with homeowners and manage the risk and that’s what they did. They signed up the homeowners and then sold the debt. What more could they do in fulfilling their responsibility to their shareholders?

Should we blame the management of the investment houses? They were acting on the professional advice of their qualified experts in the research department. How about the experts they relied upon? They were only following the advice of what all the economists were saying. The only one left to blame is the economist, the man behind it all. He will tell us that based on the model it should have worked; however, certain unanticipated events (such as the extent of human greed) were not fully taken into account.

So in the end, who truly is to blame?

Nobody, they tell us! Instead, they feed us lines: ‘it’s an economic anomaly, the exception that makes the rule;’ or, ‘It is like an ‘Act of God,’ something which simply defies prediction;’ or, ‘One just has to accept that these things will happen from time to time;’ and, ‘It’s part of the self-correcting mechanism that makes capitalism so great.’

Thanks to the media, no one is exempt from the dismal news of the economic collapse of Wall Street.

The very fact it happened is ludicrous. But how did it happen? How could such a thing blindside the best minds of the financial world? And, who is really to blame? Is the very notion of holding anyone accountable outdated? Such are the questions on everyone’s mind.

I believe it was not a freak occurrence; it was not an unforeseeable consequence of a perfect storm of global factors which just happened to converge at one single time.

On the contrary, beneath the surface of this crisis lies a set of dynamics concealed from public view that made it not so much happenstance as inevitable – the predictable outcome of a sinister choreography I prefer to call The Game.

In reality, The Game has been around for millennia. It rises and falls with the fluctuations of circumstance. Like the phoenix, out of the ashes of one Game comes another – different in form, but remarkably identical in substance. A deeper examination of the latest incarnation – the consumption bubble which led to the collapse on Wall Street – reveals the necessary clues to how this Hidden Game is played out right before our eyes.

First, we know what goes up must come down, so it is no surprise that the enormous bubble created by the sales-driven economy would burst. Nonetheless, when it did, its brutal reality of chaos and carnage shocked every last one of us.

How that bubble grew is simple, really. Over the last several decades myriad products were foisted upon the public who drifted into a buying trance. As needs gave way to wants, specific wants gave way to addicts buying for the sake of buying. Consumption became rapacious, driven by slick advertising and enabled by easy credit. A population of shopaholics became so habituated to shopping that even when the money ran out last fall, penniless people carrying maxed out credit cards filled the malls coast-to-coast.

Because humans are driven by emotion and not reason, effective salesmen know that more can be achieved by a manipulative appeal to our emotional weaknesses than by the most cogent, brilliant argument. Being a master manipulator then, is their goal.

Manipulation is the art of managing impressions. It stands to reason then that through the process of natural selection those who are the most talented at impression management rise to the top of the organizational hierarchy. I call these the “Players.”

Manipulators – Players – are born, not made. Their art requires a degree of congruence in presentation that is simply not sustainable for those who are not naturally inclined to manipulate. The defining element in the character profile of a player is narcissism. But they are not merely narcissistic; they are narcissists to their very core.

The narcissist is a predator. Their motivation is power, status, and instant gratification. Lacking conscience, they exist without barriers; they hold no regard for the law or any social norm. They execute their plans without question to the methods and means they employ to achieve their goals.

Despite being supremely self-serving, Players, like wolves, form a type of tribe, or pack. They share a common worldview and instinctively draw to one another, seeking each other out in the crowd. Once this ‘tribe’ gains control of an environment, all others are barred from the upper ranks and so The Game begins.

A contra-selection takes place wherein the best and the brightest are pushed aside to make way for the Players and their loyal followers. Since excellence is the natural enemy of mediocrity, and people of excellence have a conscious, it stands to reason that over time the Players exclusively occupy the upper ranks. Their challenge then is to create a game which looks fair and open on the surface, but whose outcome is fully predetermined. No matter what the role of the dice, Players come out on top.

How do they do this? Hypnosis.
I’m not talking about the kind you see practiced by mentalists and stage magicians, no, Players are much more covert. They disguise their game far better and are far more successful than mere actors.

The Game itself is in reality nothing more than a trance induced by the Players and is only sustained by our collective belief in the fabricated reality we are duped into believing. Once we wake up, The Game evaporates and in very short order becomes a vague and distant memory; the way we shake off a nightmare when we rise in the morning.

Have you ever been in a social situation where you have felt yourself on the outside? And when you looked at who was on the inside, it simply made no sense. They weren’t any smarter than you, better looking than you, or superior to you in any discernible way – yet they were on the inside, and you were on the outside, looking in.

Or have you ever noticed how we you can work your tail off and have very little to show for it while others seem to glide through life effortlessly, without a care in the world? Even when they do stumble –get caught breaking rules, get fired, or even screw up completely, they always seem to land on their feet. How is that?

Did you ever feel that there is a game and you are on the outside of it? As if there were a secret that they share – some unspoken, invisible code that only they understood.

Well you were right! Over the course of my life I have encountered the same thing over and over. I’ve run companies in Eastern Europe, owned a construction and development company here in Canada. I’ve worked in small business, big business and government on both sides of the Atlantic. No matter the environment – at the club, on the job, even at home in with our own family, I began to see the same pattern playing out over and over.

Bit by bit I figured it out – the hidden dance, the other secret, the one no one talks about. In my mind this is the real secret! I invested over 30 years of thought into this problem and I believe I have cracked the code.

Now this is all very well and good but how does it help us in our lives in the here and now?

Well, it helps us to know the score and not be blindsided by what life throws at us.

It helps us to be proactive – perceive and react to situations before they arise- so we can get nip them in the bud or take evasive action to sidestep the problem altogether.

It can help us to engineer the outcome that we want in our lives.

It provides us with security so that we protect ourselves and our loved ones, not just today, but in the future as well.

Sometimes life just happens and we find ourselves in a tight spot with our backs to the wall. Knowing this game, the players, and how this Game is played can be invaluable in helping us to extricate ourselves from these tight spots.

And perhaps more important than all the above, understanding the Game and coming to know the Players; helps us to live our lives as we wish; instead of the way in which others wish us to, we feel we have to, or still worst, the way we’ve been forced to.