
November 23, 2020
5 Steps to Winning Career Tournaments: Competitive jobs, admissions, promotions, or startup funding | Garry Tan
Key Takeaways
- Life is made up of tournaments:
- Hiring a team
- Getting into college
- Getting promoted at work
- Gaining YouTube subscribers
- Raising money for your company
- “All the things that want are on the other side of a competitive process” – Garry Tan
- 5 steps to winning a tournament:
- 1) Be aware of the tournament
- Tournaments usually happen around finite resources like college admissions or promotions
- 2) Find out the criteria to win at it
- Every tournament has criteria, if you find out early, you’ll have an advantage over other players
- 3) Play many tournaments
- The more tournaments you play, the higher your odds of winning at least a few tournaments
- 4) Talk to before who have won the tournament before to get their advice
- Tournaments tend to have a repeating nature. Find people who have accomplished what you’re trying to do and ask for help.
- 5) If the door is locked, try the window
- Just because you lost a tournament today, it doesn’t mean you can’t win tomorrow. Keep playing and eventually, you’ll win.
- 1) Be aware of the tournament
Intro
- Host: Garry Tan (@garrytan)
Life = A Series of Tournaments
- Life is made up of tournaments:
- Hiring a team
- Getting into college
- Getting promoted at work
- Gaining YouTube subscribers
- Raising money for your company
- “All the things that want are on the other side of a competitive process” – Garry Tan
- The first part of winning a tournament is showing up. You aren’t going to win every tournament you play, but if you don’t show up you won’t ever win.
- Some tournaments use gatekeepers to select the winners. The gatekeepers aren’t perfect and have to make a decision with imperfect information.
- Two takeaways:
- Don’t get mad at gatekeepers, they’re doing the best
- Don’t get discouraged. A “No” today is not a “No” forever.
- Two takeaways:
- “You’re not going to win every tournament and not every tournament is worth playing” – Garry Tan
- If you win enough tournaments in life, you’ll get to design your own tournament
How To Win Any Tournament
- Here are 5 steps to winning a tournament:
- 1) Be aware of the tournament
- Tournaments usually happen around finite resources like college admissions or promotions
- 2) Find out the criteria to win at it
- Every tournament has criteria, if you find out early, you’ll have an advantage over other players
- 3) Play many tournaments
- The more tournaments you play, the higher your odds of winning at least a few tournaments
- 4) Talk to before who have won the tournament before to get their advice
- Tournaments tend to have a repeating nature. Find people who have accomplished what you’re trying to do and ask for help.
- 5) If the door is locked, try the window
- Just because you lost a tournament today, it doesn’t mean you can’t win tomorrow. Keep playing and eventually, you’ll win.
- 1) Be aware of the tournament