When I started my career, I had no idea how to go from being a diligent student to an accomplished career woman. In school, the rules of the game and the path to success were clearly laid: attend lectures, study diligently, submit assignments on time, and excel on exams. But the real world doesn't work like that. There was no manual to consult and no set of rules to follow. I had to figure it out on my own, with no guarantee that hard work would translate to success. This amounted to a game: a competitive exercise against myself or others, with a given set of rules and an outcome determined by strategy and skill. This approach is critical because, in today's world, it takes more than just hope and hard work to get ahead. It requires a strategic approach because victory is becoming more elusive. In 2022, the income of people in the top 10% of earners was 13 times higher than those in the bottom 10%. The rewards for winning in this economy are exorbitant, while the odds of ascendancy are slight.
 
If achieving financial success is like a game, it's like that level in Donkey Kong where you have to jump from platform to platform as they fall beneath you. Looking down will give you vertigo. And, if you stand still and ignore the fact that the platforms are plummeting, you'll go down too. But if you keep your eye on your goal and move strategically, you can make it to the top with ease. The hard part is identifying a strategy amidst the chaos.
. . .
Economics and game theory provide tools to optimize decisions in an unfair economy that is filled with gatekeepers and other barriers. The goal of this book is to unlock that gate-kept
economic knowledge, which in turn can be deployed in most any situation—work, home, anywhere—to maximize gains and outcomes.
 
Why economics? Because economic thinking comprises the tools to tease out causality from correlation—cause and effect from mere coincidence—and to discern a lucky circumstance
from a career decision that matters. Every lesson in this book is supported by studies from renowned economists and behaviorists spread across decades. So, you can trust that this isn't just a recollection of stories from my career. Whether from my personal life, pop culture, or the natural world, each story is about winning or losing a game. Games, I show, are the episodes that make up contemporary life. Some games are individual, some are competitive, and some are cooperative. Nevertheless, they all follow the rules of game theory.
 
Game theory is a branch of mathematics and economics that studies how people make strategic decisions when success depends on the decisions of others. It examines how people or groups interact, taking into account their preferences, strategies, and likely outcomes. Traditional game theory assumes rationality and selfishness drive people's strategic choices. Behavioral game theory attempts to account for the psychological factors that lead people to act irrationally. Evolutionary game theory applies the concepts of traditional game theory to the survival of animals. For instance, in a flock of birds, each bird competes with the others for food and mates, but the success of any one bird depends on the flock's collective survival. Similarly, professional success is about survival of the fittest, but an individual's prosperity is predicated on the overall well-being of the economy.
 
Trying to make sense of the economy and your place in it can be disorienting. But it is possible to reorient yourself. In the same way a bird can sense Earth's magnetic field and its own position in relation to the sun and the stars, once you understand economics, you will be able to sense the economic forces at play. This will empower you to see the path from wherever you are in your career to where you want to be.
 
I unlock this economic knowledge by distilling it down to game theory principles with a few recurring concepts:
• Most challenges in life can be viewed as games-where the outcome of each game is determined by strategy and decision-making by the players.
• Within a game, players can make strategic choices that improve their chances of success.
• Players can opt out of playing any game, and are justified in that choice when their chances of success are better elsewhere .
• Most games are designed by, and for, the winners.
• Every player can, and must, decide for themself what games are worth playing.
• Learning the rules that govern games is the key to success.