“Creativity is an infinite resource. The more you spend, the more you have.” - Chase Jarvis

I chanced upon this line when reading Tools of Titans, by Tim Ferriss, as part of my reading list for a new season. It felt like a light bulb went off in my head. I heard something similar recently too but for wealth, in a Naval Ravikant interview. He said something similar along the lines of wealth being a positive sum game, not a zero sum game. We can create new wealth and add into the pool, increase the size of the pie. If wealth was finite, then we’ll still be distributing pieces of firewood from our caveman days.

It was quite an a-ha moment, because we hear zero sum game narratives being traded around on the news so often. Things are often talked about as a war, a competition, where there’s winners and losers, there can be only one guy at the top, and the winner takes all. It’s so pervasive that we start to see things only through a zero sum game lens, a scarcity mindset. If someone lost, then you have won.

It’s exhausting. It’s polarising. And it’s tearing us apart.

That’s why when I heard about how creativity is an infinite resource, or wealth is a positive sum game, it’s like a ray of light, a breath of fresh air. Not everything has to be scarce, not everything is finite. Some resources can be infinite and abundant, and we can create more of it for everyone to benefit. If everyone can win, even if realistically speaking, in varying degrees of what winning means, then aren’t we all better off? I love the optimism I get from being able to challenge zero sum games and reframe them as positive sum games.

So what other resources/situations are positive sum games? There’s potentially creativity and wealth (even if it’s up for further discussion). What else is there?