Last Lecture Series: How to Design a Winnable Game – Graham Weaver

Key Concepts

• Winnable Game: A game you can win, want to win, and brings you closer to your ideal self.
• Aspirational Goals: Goals that stir your blood and excite you.
• Identity Assumption: Assuming the identity of someone who has already achieved your aspirational goal.
• Bright Spots: Things that are working well and giving you energy.
• Conventional Wisdom: Commonly held beliefs or practices that may not be true or effective.
• Playing Now: Engaging fully in your life and pursuing your goals without waiting for the "right" moment.

1. The Problem: Playing the Wrong Game

• Lowest Point: The speaker, Graham Weaver, recounts his lowest point in October 2008 when his largest investor backed out of his private equity fund due to the financial crisis.
• Wrong Question: Weaver realized he had been asking "How do I play this game better?" instead of "Am I playing the right game at all?"
• Winnable Game Definition: A game you can win, want to win, and brings you closer to the person you want to be. It aligns external success with internal fulfillment.
• Settling for Less: People often lower their goals due to setbacks and limiting beliefs, settling for a "third string lightweight novice team" equivalent instead of aiming for the Olympics.
• Example Goal: "Generate attractive risk-adjusted returns while maximizing the probability of capital preservation" is an example of a goal that doesn't inspire and focuses on avoiding loss.

2. Step 1: Choose a Game That Stirs Your Blood

• College Rowing Anecdote: Weaver shares his experience trying out for the rowing team in college, being initially cut, and then persevering through rigorous training with Mike Taty, who later became an Olympic medalist and coach.
• Daniel Burum Quote: "Make no little plans for they have no power to stir one's blood."
• Brian Tracy's Goal Setting: Write down your three most important goals every day in the present tense as though you've already achieved them, and write what you're going to do to move toward it.
• Identity of an Olympian: Weaver wrote "I am an Olympian" every day and started assuming the identity of someone who had already achieved that goal.
• Alpine's Goal: Alpine's initial goal was uninspiring. They changed it to "Be the number one performing private equity fund in the world and deliver 5x on every single fund."
• 5x Benchmark: The top 25% of private equity firms deliver about 1.8x to 2x, making 5x several standard deviations better.
• Higher Probability of Success: You will have a higher probability of achieving an aspirational goal that you're excited about than you will of a more moderate goal.
• Manifesting Disclaimer: Weaver clarifies that he's not talking about "manifesting" in the sense of simply wishing for things, but about aligning your actions and energy towards a definite purpose.

3. Step 2: Design Your Own Game

• No Idea How: When Alpine set the goal of 5x, they had no idea how they were going to achieve it.
• Crowded Path: The crowded path that is clearly marked is almost never where you're going to find your winnable game.
• Few Rules: Most games have very few rules.
• Alpine's Rules: Investors give us money, we have to give them money back at some point, hopefully more than they gave us, and in between, we wanted to act with ethically and according to our values.
• Questions to Unearth Opportunities:
  • What do customers hate about this industry or experience?
  • What are your competitors unwilling to do?
  • What's a problem that breaks your heart?
  • What assumptions are you making?
  • What do you believe to be true that not that many people agree with you on?
• Bright Spots: The real magic is in scaling the things that are working.
• Alpine's Bright Spot: Their best deals happened when they put someone from their own team or network in to run the company.
• Conventional Wisdom Rejection: They initially dismissed the idea of always backing their own teams due to conventional wisdom.
• The Work: The work is in using your creativity to create the capabilities to play the game you really want to play.
• Intersection of Need and Energy: When you can find the intersection of a problem that the world that needs to be solved and a place that gives you energy, that's where you're going to find your edge.
• Time Investment: Alpine spent a full day a week outside the office for about six months to come up with this idea.

4. Step 3: Play the Game with People You Admire

• "Larry" Anecdote: Weaver recounts a negative experience with his boss "Larry" on Wall Street, who prioritized work over personal life and negatively impacted his bonus.
• "Side By Side" Anecdote: Weaver contrasts this with his experience at Alpine, where his partner Billy enthusiastically supported him taking time off to attend his son's "Side By Side" program.
• Becoming Larry: Weaver realized he was starting to adopt Larry's values and behaviors.
• Influence of People: The people in your life will shape your goals, your values, and ultimately your identity.

5. Step 4: Play Now

• Greatest Trick: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing you your life will start when.
• Dangerous Words: The two most dangerous words that students say are "not now."
• Winnable Games are Designed: Winnable games aren't found, they're designed.
• Passion Through Passion: You're going to find your passion by being passionate about the life that you're in right now, no matter what the situation is.

6. Conclusion

• Four Steps: The four steps to designing a winnable game are: choose a game that stirs your blood, design your own game, play the game with people you admire, and play now.
• Alignment: If you follow these steps and can find that alignment, I think that's what winning really looks like.
• Class of 2025: The speaker encourages the class of 2025 to start playing now, to embrace their potential, and to define the game they want to play with their lives.
• Alpine's Results: Alpine delivered 5x on the four funds that they invested subsequent to setting this goal. Or three of them. And the fourth is on its way.