Most competitive situations aren't actually zero-sum — but we play them as if they were, and that misreading is expensive. Game theorists call this the 'fixed pie assumption': the reflexive belief that whatever you gain, I lose, which causes negotiators, colleagues, and rivals to leave enormous value on the table. The 19th-century philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill noticed something adjacent: that humans systematically mistake the rules of a particular game for the rules of reality itself, then compete furiously within constraints nobody actually imposed. The practical move is to pause before any competitive situation — a salary negotiation, a team disagreement, a career rivalry — and ask whether the pie is truly fixed or whether you've just assumed it is. Often, the smartest play isn't to grab faster. It's to reshape the game.

In the last 48 hours, where did you treat a situation as purely competitive that might have had room for mutual gain?

Drawing from Pragmatism / Political Economy — John Stuart Mill