I love a good board game. My personal favourite is backgammon – I could play for hours and hours. In fact, there was a time, a few years back, when I used to play for money every night! I was obsessed! I’m pretty good, not the world’s best player, but I pick my battles carefully to make sure I am usually the better player in the game – I want to be a winner, not a gambler!
But I haven’t had time for backgammon lately, in fact, I haven’t really had time for any games. But I did get introduced to Monopoly Deal, a playing card version of the famous classic, by my old PA Charlie. Every time I jumped off a Zoom call she seemed to think it was ok to ask for a quick game before my next call! As if working from home doesn’t provide enough distractions, I also had to dodge card games when I was in the office!
But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a fan of the game and it did bring back memories of some all-night sessions with the board game version.
In most games, there are parallels for life and lessons for business, and in Monopoly, there are dozens of them.
Here are my favourite and most important ones:
You Need Money To Succeed
Just like in real life. You can downplay the importance of money all you want but it is the key to getting so much of what you want. In Monopoly, you can’t buy properties without it, starting your journey to be a landlord, take over the board and win the game.
In life even if you aren’t looking to start a business or become a landlord, money is still essential to be able to invest in your education, take care of your family, get the best healthcare, support your favourite charities, choose the most convenient options…… the list goes on. Money gets a bad name and, especially in today’s woke world, is made out to be something evil. I am not saying everyone should strive to be a billionaire, but without an adequate amount, you just can’t play the game properly.
You Need To Make Smart Investments
Buying certain properties in Monopoly allows you to have a higher chance of winning the game by having the chance to make more money from your investments. Not choosing your property purchases wisely and just buying anything you get offered leaves you in a position of weakness and not able to have any control or progress.
Just like in real life, not all investments are made equally. There are good ones and bad ones. Ones that will help move you towards financial security and passive income. And ones that will at best do very little for you, leaving you financially struggling, and at worse bankrupt you.
You Need To Be Willing To Take Risks
There are calculated risks you can take in Monopoly that can pay off big for you in the long term. Building houses and hotels on your properties when you don’t have much cash can put you at risk of bankruptcy, if your opponents start landing on your properties it can pay off big time.
Life and business are just the same. If you take no risks, you may not lose anything, but you will always be treading water watching others pass you by.
This isn’t a license to go wild though – there is a big difference between a calculated risk and a total gamble.
You Need To Be Prepared To Deal With Setbacks
In Monopoly you can be flying along doing great, and then BANG. You keeping landing on Chance or Community Card and getting bad card after bad card, or you get stuck in jail.
Sometimes you get bad luck, the game doesn’t feel fair, and you get knocked from your top position. Life is no different. Things go wrong. Deals go bad. Relationships break down. Bad people get good luck.
You can’t control that, but what you can control is HOW YOU REACT. You may be down, but you are not out!
In 2008 I went bankrupt almost overnight. I had an 8 figure business and a 7 figure lifestyle – and I lost it in a matter of weeks if not days. I could have sat at home feeling sorry for myself but that wasn’t going to provide for my 1 year old daughter and make me a success again. Yes, I had lost my money but I hadn’t lost my education, my contacts, my skills.
As well as having many similarities between the game and real life, there are also some winning strategies in Monopoly that are also winning strategies in business and life too. Some of my favourites are:
Buy As Many Properties As You Can, As Early As You Can
In Monopoly, the more properties you own the more rent you can collect from other players, making yourself richer and possibly even putting them out of the game.
As well as this, also applies in real life, the great benefit of buying property as early as you can is that you get more time to take advantage of the benefits of compounding. Compounding is where the real gains in life are seen. Invisible for many years and then snowballs into fortunes as time goes on.
It is never too late to start acquiring properties, but the earlier you can start the greater your long-term benefits will be.
Focus On Acquiring Complete Sets Of Properties
When you have a complete set of properties on a street in Monopoly it allows you to charge the highest rents possible. The parallel in real life is that having a greater number of properties in a single area, rather than spreading yourself thin, allows for control and economies of scale that can allow you to charge more, and have lower costs. Far too often I see people trying to invest in property buying a single property in 5 different towns, rather than buying 5 properties in the 1 town they are already in. This is not sensible diversification. It is simply adding to headaches and running costs.
Build Houses & Hotels On Your Properties As Soon As You Can Afford To
Just like acquiring complete sets of properties, adding houses and hotels to them allows you to charge higher rents.
In real life, when you own properties or businesses, adding value to them by building extra rooms, refurbishments or equipment upgrades allows you to increase your income and improve your return on investment.
Don’t Be Afraid To Mortgage Your Properties
In Monopoly this can give you the cash you need to make strategic moves or to avoid going bankrupt. It is exactly the same in real life. Having equity tied up in properties when you don’t have adequate cash to make moves is dangerous. People are often scared to go in to debt as the concept of debt gets a bad name. But there is good debt and bad debt – and sensibly priced, long term property debt is definitely good debt that can be used to help you make more money.
These aren’t by any stretch the only strategies and comparisons between the famous board game, and real life & business – but they are certainly some of my favourites.
You will find most games and sports have similarities, comparisons and analogies that you can learn from and study to be more successful in other areas of your life.
Keep an open mind, and you will never look at that deck of cards the same again the next time you are playing Rummy!
