One night I walked into an Indie Hackers meetup in Atlanta. I knew no one. By the end of the night, I’d met the person who’d become my accountability partner for the next six years and the group that would become my mastermind for two years. Some of the most important relationships in my life came from that single event.
Months later, one of those same people told me to pivot. That advice broke a three-year streak of zero income.
I had zero control over when any of that would happen. The only thing I controlled was walking through the door.
We talk about dark games as crises. Things that show up and you don’t control when:
- A market crash
- A pandemic
- A platform ban
But breakthroughs work the same way:
- Viral moments
- Unexpected partnerships
- The call that changes everything
The asymmetry is what makes this interesting.
| Finds you anyway | Requires you to play | |
|---|---|---|
| Negative dark games | A recession still hits. A health scare still arrives. | — |
| Positive dark games | — | You have to be building, shipping, showing up. |
Positive dark games require you to be in the game. You have to be playing to catch the viral moment. You have to be building to have the breakthrough. You have to be shipping to get the inbound that changes your trajectory.
You can try to avoid the game entirely. Negative dark games will still find you. But you’ll miss all the positive ones.
The strategy is two-sided. Build buffers so negative dark games can’t take you out. Low fixed costs, savings, health. Things that absorb shocks you can’t predict. Then stay in the game so positive dark games can find you.
🎲
What’s one room you could walk into this week?
