Do Small Deals to Get Big Deals

A friend of mine introduced me and my family to the game of Cash Flow by Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame. It’s a great game for overlaying risk onto how real life works.

You end up in the rat race for a long time before you can get out. While in the rat race, you have to work on the art of making small deals. This allows you the luxury of getting into the fast lane.

In the fast lane, you can make big deals.

One thing I observed in the game and life is that people have a hard time thinking non-linearly. We think that what is true today will play out in some extrapolated way five years from now.

In reality, this is hardly the case. It is tragic thinking.

The reality is that life is very short. Imagine 75 is your death date. How many years do you have left? Not very many compared to what you already lived, for sure. It’s a countdown.

You have likely worked hard and did the linear stuff. Good stuff like showing up on time, servicing clients well and being a good all around person come to mind.

This is small deal stuff. It keeps you in the predictable norm.

It is fine if that is the goal. However, if you want more, you have to think about the big deals. The small deals are the fertilizer. It creates the conditions to give you time, space and opportunity to see and take advantage of larger opportunities.

That’s the point of the game and it’s merely a reflection of life.

Living Nonlinear

I like to help people with their baseline. Things like getting organized, productive and flowing are critical. You have to do this part well. It requires focus, execution and automation. In all, it is a game of leverage.

But it’s a lousy end in and of itself. Ultimately you have to move on to something more. Otherwise you are merely subsisting.

The bigger game involves deals that are continually passing by. They become obtainable because you did the hard work of attending to the small deals to even give yourself the bandwidth and resources to take advantage of bigger opportunities.

This is how it works in reality. Of course, you have to do the hard work first and create that baseline to see the world and its many opportunities.

Think about your work and life. Where is it leading? Without a strategy that sets you up from small deals to big deals, then days simply pass without any alignment or purpose. Choose better.