Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #407: Let the Best Idea Win

Episode Date: February 3, 2017

I spend this podcast talking about an important lesson I've learned doing Magic design.

I'm pulling on the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today's interesting podcast. What I'm going to do today is I want to talk about a lesson that I learned that took me many years to learn. And I want to sort of walk you through how I got there and then talk about why I believe this and how this impacts how I design today. In fact, how I live my life.

So the lesson is let the best idea win. And I want to explain why that's a very core idea and an important idea. But to do that, I'm going to tell a story. So we're going to go back in time. Get in the way back machine. Go back to the year 1995, I guess. Or 1994. Let's go back to 1994.

year 1995, I guess, or 1994. Let's go back to 1994. So before I worked at Wizards, I was a magic player. The game came out in 1993 in the summer. I started playing then, and I was hooked instantly. I really, really liked magics. And at the time, I was a game designer for fun, I guess. You know, an amateur game designer. And I would design my own games and I would have fun doing that. But when Magic came along, I just, I had to try my hand at making Magic cards. Like I said, Magic is an awesome game. And for a game

designer, it's great sort of testing to sort of see if you can make cards that work. And I think that Magic is a really good sort of testing to sort of see if you can, you know, make cards that work, make cards that, you know, and I think that magic is a really good sort of early playing field to sort of test out design skills. So I made cards because that's what people do.

If you want to be a designer and you're a magic player, you design the cards. And like I said, I make all, like I do a whole series every year called Nuts and Bolts where I try to give advice to people who make their own cards. I'm not allowed to look at them, but I do know there series every year called Nuts and Bolts where I try to give advice to people who make their own cards. I'm not allowed to look at them, but I do know there's thriving communities where people make cards and they comment on each other's cards. And I think it's awesome. I think it's great that people sort of get to make their own magic cards.

It is really good training for learning some of the ropes of game design. So I, of course, I made my own cards. You know, I was excited. And then in 1995, well, in 1994, I started working with Wizards through the Duelist, the magazine that they did. And then eventually I started getting more and more, what's the word I want?

Freelance opportunities. And I started working for different sections of the company. And eventually, I got offered a job in February. I'm not saying. The summer of 1995, I was up at Wizards for something. I forget what it was. And I said to R&D that I'd be willing to move to Seattle. And the response from Mike Davis, who was the VP of R&D at the time,

he said, when can you start? But here's the hook. When I was hired at R&D, I was not hired as a designer. I was hired as a developer. What I really wanted to do was be a designer, but Mike explained to me they didn't need a designer. They had a designer.

They had Richard, and they weren't really looking for designers. They had some designers. What they were looking for was developers. And I said, oh, okay. I mean, long term, I wanted to be a designer. But I'm like, okay, you know, got to sort of go through the paces and prove yourself and stuff. I'm like, okay, at least I'd be putting myself in a position where, hey, I'd be in an R&D department at a game company.

At least I'd be putting myself in a position where, hey, I'd be in an R&D department at a game company. You know, it'd be a lot easier to prove I could design already being in R&D than being outside of the company. So I said, okay. So I took the job as a developer. And then the idea was I really much wanted to prove that I could be a designer. And so my way in, I'm sure some of you know this, this is not a new story, is I had talked with Richard. I had become friends with Richard, Richard Garfield, creator of Magic. And Richard had not designed a Magic set, Magic expansion,

since Arabian Nights, the very first expansion. And he was interested. It was a couple years later, and he was kind of intrigued to make a new set. So I said to him, I go, if I pitch something, would you be on the team with me? And he said, sure, sure, I'd love to do that. So I went to the powers that be, Mike Davis, and the people that were doing magic and stuff, and said to them, hey, I would, you know,

the Mirage block had been done by Bill Rose and Joel Mick and Charlie Coutinho and a bunch of people that were early play tefters. But after that, after Mirage, there was nothing left. There was no... Before Tempest, by the way, all the sets or most of the sets had been done externally.

And we really wanted to bring it in-house. So I knew at some point the block after Mirage had to be designed. So I went and said, hey, could I design that? You know, could I be the person who, hold on one second, there's an ambulance coming by.

I'm going to pull over so the ambulance can go by. Ever safe here on our podcast. So anyway, I basically said, hey, somebody's got to make the next block. Could I make the next block? And I said, look, Richard Garfield, you know, he'll be on the team.

And that gives them confidence because they obviously have confidence in Richard Garfield. And so they said, OK, you can do a team, four people, you and Richard, and then you can pick the other two that you want to be on the team. And so I picked Charlie Coutinho, who, like I said, was one of the early playdefters, and Mike Elliott. So Mike Elliott, for those who don't know, was in a very similar position to me. Mike was hired as a developer, but Mike also really wanted to be a designer. Like me, Mike had designed a lot of cards before coming to Wiz. In fact, he designed a whole set. It's called After Ways. Mike had designed a whole set. And so anyway, I knew Mike was

really itching to do design. So I asked Mike to be on the design team. For those who know your magic history, Mike would go on to be one of the most prolific designers. So good call. So anyway, here's a story that Charlie likes to tell. So I'm going to tell the story as Charlie tells it. So when I refer to Mark, I mean me. So I'm going to tell the story as Charlie tells it. So when I refer to Mark, I mean me. So Charlie says, okay, because Charlie goes, okay, so we were, you know, Mark had put together the Tempest Design Team,

and we all went down to Richard's parents' house in Florida, not Florida, in Portland, to design. So we were down there for a week, and the very first day, you know, Mark had told us, okay, if you have any ideas, bring them. And so the very first day, Mark had told us, okay, if you have any ideas, bring them. And so the very first day, we sit down, and Mark goes, okay. So I asked people to bring ideas. Did you guys bring some ideas?

And Mike Elliott reaches into his bag and pulls out, like, a stack of papers, like inches thick stack of papers. He goes, I have some ideas. And then Mark reaches his bag. He pulls out his giant stack of papers. He goes, I have some ideas. And then Mark reaches his bag. He pulls out his giant stack of papers. I too have ideas. And then Charlie says, I looked at Richard like, whoa, what do we get into here? Because Mike and I were so eager and so excited to do design. And we've been designing for years at that point, that when we finally had a chance to make Magic cards, you know, we had a lot of ideas. Now the interesting thing is, the very first Magic card I ever made that got published actually wasn't in Tempest.

It appeared in Alliances. Three of them, actually. And so what had happened was, I was, when I first got hired by Wizards, I was put on the development team. Now understand, the All alliances development team was huge. It was 13 people. Um, there was a trend, it was a transition point where the reason that I got hired. So, um, when I, I call the, the, the second wave of R and D is I got hired.

Mike Elliott got hired. Bill Rose got hired. William Jockish got hired. Uh, and later a year or two later, Henry Sturm got hired, Bill Rose got hired, William Jockish got hired, and later, a year or two later, Henry Sturm got hired. Basically, the people that had been making Magic, which were the early playthefters, like Scaf Elias, Jim Lynn, Dave Petty, and Richard, although Richard had stopped a little earlier, really wanted to move on to do some other things.

You know, Wizards of the Coast was really designing lots of different games, and they were interested in other games. And so they hired a bunch of new people to be the magic R&D people. And so for a while, Mike and William and Bill and I were the magic team. We were all, you know, there wasn't like different development teams. All of us always were the development team. And so, anyway, in alliances, whenever you are on a development team, you occasionally make holes because you get rid of things. Things aren't working.

And then whenever I saw a hole, I always had cards ready to fill the hole. Oh, I had an idea. So the three cards that I got into alliances were Gusta Scepter, So the three cards that I got into alliances were Goose Deceptor, which is an artifact that you can tap to remove a card from your hand to exile it. And then you can later tap it to bring it back. But it allows you to slowly get your cards out of your hand so you can do shenanigans in your hand. And it protects it from discard and stuff like that. Goose Deceptor ended up being an important part of a very efficient combo deck during Extended after Urza Saga came out.

And there was like a weird turn two kill deck that used Goose Deceptor. That turn one was Goose Deceptor, remove a card in your hand. That was turn one. And turn two was end kill you. It was an interesting deck. Second card I made was a card called Soldier of... What is the soldier? I'm blanking on the name now.

Soldier of Fortune. It's called Soldier of Fortune. And it was a red creature that basically activates a shuffle your opponent's library. Not a card I would make these days, but I made it then. And the third card was called Library of Fortune. And it was a red creature that basically activates a shuffle your opponent's library. Not a card I would make these days, but I made it then. And the third card was called Library of Latinum, in which you either get to

Ancestral Recall, draw three cards, or Demonic Tutor, go through your library and get the card of your choice, but your opponent chooses which you get. Okay, opponent,

do I get to draw three cards or get the card I want? And that was a big deal. I mean, the important part of the story is one of the things that happens is it is a big deal. If you are a magic fan and you finally get to come to Wizards and you finally get to work on magic and you are now, part of your job is you're working on magic. When you make a card and you get a card into a file, into the set and it gets printed, it's a big deal.

It's a giant deal. It really is like I to this day, I know the three cards, my first three cards that were in Alliances. And in Mirage, which is the very next set. Once again, I filled some holes. Maro, the card named after me, was a whole

filling card I did. Cadaverous Bloom was a hole I did. I mean, I made more, I filled some holes Maro the card named after me was a hole filling card I did Cadaverous Bloom was a hole I did I mean I made more I filled more holes there because the development team for alliances was 13 people and I was only there for the second half of the development. Development team for Mirage was me and Mike and Bill and William so I was there the whole time and

I was the most aggressive of the four of us of making cards to fill holes so I did a lot of the four of us of making cars to fill holes. So I, I did a lot of car, I filled a lot of car holes in, in, um, in Mirage Block. Um, but anyway, it is one of the things that happens early on is it is so exciting when you get something made and there's a lot of of what I there's a lot of ego in design um like one of the things I talk about when you make a magic set is one of my jobs when I make a magic set is not just making the magic set it's selling the magic set internally it's

getting people on board that what I'm doing is the exciting thing, is the correct thing. And that is hard because a lot of times I'm making choices that are different than choices that were made before. Hey, we haven't ever done thing X. Well, let's do thing X. People are like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Really? Thing X? And part of selling your ideas is having a faith in your ideas, having belief in your ideas. And so one of the things that happens early on is that you use your ego in a way to help

you, which is, I've talked a lot about how I used to pitch in Hollywood and the number one lesson was you have to believe in your idea. You have to be excited by your idea. That the number one thing when you're pitching to somebody else is they have to see in you enthusiasm. Because if you're not excited by your idea, why should they be excited by your idea? That you really need to sell it. And part of being able to sell something is really believing in something, really having faith in something. And it is very easy to have faith in you, in yourself.

I'm not saying there aren't people with self-esteem problems, but it is very, if I'm going to sell something that I really believe in, what helps if I personally really believe in it? And if it comes from within, it comes from me, wow, that's something I can get behind, right? So if you take this early idea of you really, you want to see your ideas come to pass, you want to see your ideas come to pass. You want to see your ideas printed. You take that essence.

And then combine it with the kind of need for ego when you create. That creation is a hard process. That you are taking something that doesn't exist and you are willing it into existence. And then in my case, you know, whenever you're producing art that's, you know, sold, if you will, that I have to, you know, it's a team process. I can't just do whatever I want. I have to convince other people that what I'm doing is the right thing.

And so when you combine those two things, when you combine the sort of the excitement and the what's the word, the endorphin rush, the idea of the thrill of having your stuff made and the need for sort of the ego to sort of help you get the faith you need to sell your product. to sort of help you get the faith you need to sell your product, you start to create a problem that I definitely had, and I see in young designers, or new designers, I guess, which is there is this desire to sort of push your own agenda when you are doing a design.

Especially when you're a lead designer, because when you're a lead designer, you have to make a vision. You have to make a vision that you believe in. You have to make something that you can sell to your team, that you can sell to other people. You need to be passionate in this thing you're making. And the problem is, or not the problem, but one of the easiest things is you already have this pressure in you that's kind of excited to be doing the things you're doing. Like one of the neat things about being the lead on something is you get to make decisions. People go, I want to do thing X. You go, no, we're doing thing Y. Now, design comes before development. Development then can change things. So it's not like you're the be all end all. But

still, you are making key decisions. And one of the things that I realized early on is, and be aware, the lesson of today took me a while to come to. This is me looking back years later. This is me looking back and saying, oh, okay, with hindsight, I can see some things I couldn't see in the time. But one of the things that I did in the early days was I really sort of played into the ego of this is my thing. And not only did I do it, I pushed my team members to do it. Meaning I, the thought process I had at the time was, hey, when I do something that is mine, I get really excited and I get really invested. Well, if the team does the same thing, if each person just has things they really care about and they push those things, they'll get excited. And I really saw it as a way of getting people

invested because it's how I was getting invested. Why wouldn't they get invested the same way? And so early on, I really sort of pushed this sense of I want each person to get personally identified by sort of embracing something that matters to them that represents them and folding that into the set and in the early years that's really what I did is sort of like okay here's what I'm going to do I'm going to make a team I'm going to find out the passions of my team

and then I'm going to divvy the passions up and make sure that everybody gets a little bit of their passion in the set and I'll make my set. That is early magic. That's how I sort of led sets early on. Was I wanted everybody to sort of find something that personally spoke to them. Something that they had made. And then make sure that I include something from everybody so they had a totality to do it.

And back in the day, it felt like this is a pretty good system. You know, I made sure that everybody had some element of theirs and, you know, I wanted everybody to be invested. Um, and I, I think I like, like, it's very funny that one of the things about growth is when you look back, you realize that you made decisions that in the moment, the decision made a lot of sense. That part of growing is realizing that you didn't understand, there was more context than what you knew at the time. But in the context at the time,

okay, that made perfect sense. For most people that don't know, my mom, she's retired now, but my mom was a therapist, a psychologist. And one of the lessons that I remember she talked to me about is that people tend to learn things because they work. That you're in a situation in your life and you have some problem and so you learn some way to deal with the problem and then you just assume this is how you deal with things and that what therapy is about is realizing that sometimes there's things that you learn that at some development makes sense, but you no longer live in the situation where that is true. A good example is, you know, maybe you have a tough childhood with some defense mechanism, you learn to protect yourself. But then you get out of the situation where you need to protect

yourself, and now you're doing something that's damaging to you because you no longer have the thing that's prompting you to do it. But you got used to doing it. And I felt my design was similar, which is early on, I think there's a phase you have to go through when you first start designing where you have to kind of indulge your own ego. You have to kind of be your own greatest champion. Because part of learning the ropes in the early days when you're first starting is you're going to do a lot of bad stuff.

The part of any, being creative in any field, I don't care what field you're doing, writing, painting, music, pick your creative field. Most of what you do in the early days is usually A, very derivative of people that you like. And B, you know, the quality level usually is not as high. At least there's more misses than hits a lot of times early on. Because you're finding your feet, you're finding yourself. I talk a lot about doing stand-up. One of the things they said about stand-up is

it takes years to find your voice. A lot of early stand-up is just trying different things to figure something out. Writing the same way they're like, your first draft is probably going to be mostly crap, but it's getting the ideas down that you come back with a critical eye, start to figure out what to do with it. So in the early days, I was my greatest champion. I thought I was awesome.

I thought my ideas were awesome. And I really sort of created an environment where I said to everybody, you're awesome. Your ideas are great. And I really created a system where everybody was trying to make their best ideas. And that there definitely was almost like people were fighting to get their ideas in the set. And here's where my turnaround came about. I'm not going to name names. I'm not going to name names. I'm not going to name sets or names here.

I'm going to tell a story, but I'm going to be a little shady of when this happened. But I was working on a set, and we needed some mechanics. And one of the people on my set, what I realized was that I needed to use one of the mechanics because they were getting really grumbly. Because I had set up a thing where, hey, you know, the payoff for being on the set is you might make something of your own that you enjoy. And, you know, I really made this parameter of kind of like

the goal was to make something of yours and get it in the set. And he was trying hard to make something. And he was becoming belligerent because we weren't using any of his ideas. So eventually what I realized was that in order, like, I could do one of two things. I could appease him and put something of his in the set, and then he would stop disrupting meetings because he kept disrupting meetings trying to get his stuff in the set. So if something of his in the set, and then he would stop disrupting meetings,

because he kept disrupting meetings trying to get his stuff in the set. So if I put something in the set, at least I picked the thing I liked most and put it in the set, I would stop him from being disruptive. Or I could just don't do that, and then just constantly fight about this thing. And I finally said, okay, we're wasting way too much time fighting about him wanting to get something in the set. So I finally just put something in the set of his. Um, and then the set comes out and his thing was not the best thing. His thing was the weakest thing in the set. And I always like felt bad because, I mean, it made me realize something important, which was that my system hadn't ended up with the best set. I had made a set, and there was a component of the set

that just wasn't a good thing, that, like, we could have done better than that. And the sad thing was, I knew we could have done, I knew when making it, it wasn't even like I thought it was good and later realized it wasn't. I knew it wasn't the best we could do. And I thought long and hard. And what I realized was that the problem really had relied on me, that I had done something problematic. And the problem had been is I created a system where people were pushing not for the best idea, but their best idea. That I was creating a

system where people were motivated by what they could do. And inherently, that's a flawed system. And in order to understand that, like, I had to look within. I had to say, okay, the thing that I'm, the team dynamic is functioning because I'm asking them to act in a way that I'm acting. That I was, like I was saying that I was modeling them how to sort of exist in a set, how to be a designer. And I was modeling something that wasn't the right thing. And I didn't realize until I sort of walked away and said, you know what? I did not make the best set. How could I make a better set? And what I realized was that I needed, this was the idea of find the best idea. And that the goal of the design team is not for each person to find their own

personal best idea. It's as a group to find the best idea overall. And that in order to do that, I needed to disconnect ideas from people. That I needed the team to understand that we as a team succeeded as a team when we together made the best product we can make. That it wasn't about us each individually sort of stroking our own ego. It was about us, like we had to be proud because we as a team created something. It didn't matter where the ideas came from. And what I wanted to do is say to people, hey, we really need to find the best idea. So one of the things I started doing, it really completely changed the way I started running sets.

So one of the things I started doing was I started, whenever we would share ideas, I would go last. And then if we heard ideas I liked, I sometimes wouldn't share my idea. I sometimes would wait. Like if there was a really good idea, if we were talking and someone came up with a really good idea, I would try to take other ideas and I really sort of said to myself, let me see if I can make other ideas work. And now, it wasn't that I never shared my own idea. I did. I wanted to find the best idea.

But one of the things that I started doing was trying to instill in myself this desire to find the best idea. Of not get so caught up on my own idea. Because the first thing I had to do, if I wanted my team to function like this, I had to function like this. And I had to understand. And be aware. like this and I had to understand and I'd be aware it is so so easy when you're leaving a design to talk yourself into why your design is the best design I mean hey it matches your aesthetic it's the kind of thing you like well of course of course you would make the kind of thing you like you're you and that it is so easy to say well yeah there's a lot of ideas,

but gee, I kind of like my idea, you know, and you have to understand, you have to really look in and recognize this desire to do that, that there is so much internal pressure, there's so much investment in your own ego to want to do your thing. And I talk all the time about how one of the ideas of, you know, that no matter how good your scene is for your movie, if the scene doesn't advance the story, if the scene doesn't serve a larger movie, it's got to go, no matter how good it is. And that same idea holds true here, that what you want to find is not, you want to figure out the idea that advances what you're doing the best. And that I really looked deep inside and really had to change my whole attitude of, now, be aware, one of the things that helps a lot was I've made a lot of magic cards. I've made a lot of magic mechanics. I've made a lot of magic sets.

One of the reasons I think I was able to start emotionally detaching from my own ideas was that I no longer, like, there's an excitement when you make your first card. There's an excitement when you make your 100th card. But there's a point where it's like, okay, okay, I've made my thumbprint on magic on a micro level. I've made a lot of cards that are my cards. I will continue to make cards that are my cards.

There's no way to do what I do without making cards. But that wasn't my focus anymore. Same with mechanics. Same with, you know, that I wanted to do something bigger than, you know, I wanted to serve the greater good. And that when I became head designer, this story happens, well, I don't want to put timing on it, but it's roughly around, you know, it's after I became head designer. you know, it's after I became head designer. And the thing that I really,

it really hammered home to me was that if I was going to lead the design of Magic, if I was going to be the head designer, I had to think bigger. I had to go beyond, I had to go beyond me. I had to say, what am I doing that's the best for the game itself, for magic itself? And so, once I started doing that, once I started saying, okay, I'm going to find the best idea, not my idea, the best idea. Once I started modeling that, and then I started saying to my team, like, then I

can start, once I lived it, once I did it, I did it once I said okay look there's a lot of ideas this is best it not my idea this is the best idea and what I would do from time to time is I would often leave my ideas to the end just so I'd increase the chance of finding a good idea that wasn't my idea now sometimes if I you know it's not that I would never edit my idea, but I would first see if other ideas worked before using my idea. That I would try,

because one of the things I was trying to do is get used to the idea of finding the best idea and not relying on my idea. And let me stress, even now, 20 years in, this is still a constant pressure

that I have to do, that I have to think about when I'm doing something, when I like something that is mine, make sure that I like it because it's the best idea. Not because it's mine, but it truly is the best idea.

And then once I was able to that, once I was able to sort of internally express the idea that I'm just looking for what the best thing is, I'm going to fight hard for the best idea. Not my idea, not my best idea, the best idea. I started modeling that, and then I started sort of changing how the team functioned. That instead of the team trying to sort of find their own individual thing, I got them to say, okay, we succeed as a team if we as a team find the best idea. The idea doesn't matter.

Whose idea doesn't matter? What matters is we as a team have found the best idea. It doesn't, the idea doesn't matter. Whose idea doesn't matter. What matters is we as a team have found the best idea. Now, the interesting thing is once I started doing this professionally, I started taking the same idea and applying it to my life. That I, the same way that I wanted to convey to my design team that, hey, we are a unit and we thrive when we as a unit do our best work as a unit. I apply the same thing to my family. I said, you know what?

If we're trying to do good things and my family's trying to do the best they can, I want my whole family to feel free like their ideas matter and that we're going to find the best idea the family had, that when we do something, and that it's not just like the parents are going to make the rules. I mean, I guess we do make the rules, but the ideas aren't solely going to come from the parents, that the kids have an opportunity to chip in, and when they have really good ideas, we'll follow through on those good ideas. And that just, I mean, it's funny.

I mean, people know me. I have a strong ego. And like I said, I think that serves me for what I do. I do have to invest in the ideas and care about the ideas. But I've learned to sort of reshape my ego. And instead of thinking about what's the best thing I can do, my ego now says, what's the best thing the team can do? I'm at my best when I can get my team to produce something that's the best

we can do together. And that mindset, that idea of thinking of, and be aware, part of doing that, part of getting the best idea is a few things. One is learning to listen, learning to really hear what other people are saying. Because if you're trying to find the best idea, like one of the things, for example, that's very easy to do is, and I catch myself doing this all the time, it's something you have to monitor, is when other people are talking, are you listening to what they're saying

or are you thinking about what you're going to say next? Because if you're thinking about what you're going to say next, you're going to miss a great idea that's not your idea. Somebody else is going to say next. Because if you're thinking about what you're going to say next, you're going to miss a great idea that's not your idea. Somebody else is going to be explaining something and you need to focus and listen to what they're saying. And like I say, I still today struggle with this. It is not, this is not like I somehow made a change and I

forever change. It is an ongoing struggle. But you need to listen. You need to be careful and figure out what are other people saying and how are those things working? and are their ideas there? The other thing, by the way, is just thinking about just the dynamics. The other thing is if you think about the idea of a team, all of a sudden, you know, once the ideas are not your ideas, once the ideas are the team's ideas, then it's easier to change ideas or

adapt ideas or put ideas together. That once you disconnect from the ego of saying, well, it's my idea and it's perfect the way it is, once you're like, it's an idea and let's look at the other ideas, you start to find that you can mix and match things more. You're more willing to adapt things. You're more willing to take other people's ideas and go, I like that, but what if we did this? And you start creating an atmosphere because the team is working together rather than separate entities, rather than, you know, if I look back in the old system,

it was like everybody was kind of functioning by themselves. And it wasn't that we weren't sort of working together, but we weren't being harmonious, that our agendas were different agendas. And whenever you have a team in which different people want different things and there's a different goal, you're going to run into odds with each other because your goals aren't the same goals. One of the things about being a lead designer I talk about is creating the bullseye of making everybody go in the same direction. Well, another big part of it is making sure you all have the same goals.

Make sure that what you're trying to do, that everybody wants the same thing in mind. And once you get your team onto the idea of the best idea, looking for the best idea, it really will, it's a fundamental part of making an effective team. Because the team really needs to look at, like when the team is thinking out for the team, when the team has the team's best interest at heart, you are just making more informed, better decisions that are going to shape how you're able to do what you do. And it is, like I said, it is an exciting thing.

It really is a very powerful thing when you're able to do that. And I, you know, I, the reason I decided to do today's podcast is this was a really, really important lesson for me. This was something, and it wasn't, you know, I do lessons learned and things, where I learn lessons. This, I mean, while I kind of,

the incident that happened was during a particular set, it was something larger than the set. Because every once in a while you have a moment when you learn something that's kind of about yourself in some way. I think the biggest learning you get is when you say, oh, I function in a certain way and that is not the optimal way to function. I need to think differently. I need to change how I function. And that, like I said, the first step to getting my team to change was not changing the team. It was changing myself. It was getting myself to live by that.

Because if I want my team to function a certain way, I, as the leader of that team, have to model that. And that is really important. And so, hopefully, I mean, my big takeaway for you guys today is think about when you're designing. How much ego is in it and how much are you designing for yourself? How much are you trying to get the best idea that you can make rather than get the best idea overall? Now, some people are working by themselves. We're working by ourselves. I mean, your best idea is your best idea.

But even when you're doing solo projects, by the way, even when you're doing your own design, you're going to get feedback from other people. If you adopt the strategy, even when you're a solo person, if you say to yourself, I have to listen to what other people say, I have to listen to the play chapters, I have to listen to the notes because they might have ideas that are better than my ideas. They might give me a note that goes a different direction than what I did, but maybe that's correct. You know, maybe that is what will make my game better. It will help you involve others easier.

The more it's about you, the less you want other people's ideas. The more it's about selling your idea and picking your best idea, the less you are receptive to hearing what others have to say, the less you are receptive to hearing what others have to say, the less receptive you are to working with other people. Like one of the great things about being in a collaborative effort is I'm making things way better than I can make in my own. You know, that R&D is putting out magic sets that I mean, I contribute and I'm part of that, but I can never make a set as good as we make as a whole by myself. And that's part of what it is, is once you realize that your project is bigger than yourself,

that what you're doing, and once again, even when you're working by yourself, that if your attitude is finding what works best for the project at hand, finding the best idea for the thing at hand, and not concern yourself with where that idea comes from. Not say, you know, it has to be mine. I have to put my stamp on it. Like one of the things that I find is the most disruptive is when you create a system where people make changes, not because the changes improve it,

but because they want to get their stamp on it. They want to go, hey, I touched this. That's really dangerous, and something in the group you have to work on is you want to get the attitude of what is best is you progressing the thing and making the quality of the thing the most important. Making you taking steps to improve the quality of the thing you're making, that's the end goal. That's the achievement of that is what you need to be proud of. And,

the other thing I find very interesting is, once my new system was in place, once I changed how I did design teams, my teams, in fact, got more proud of what was done. That it was, it was less of,

because in the old system, like, one or two people would be happy because maybe they got stuff in and, you know, the core of the design was built around something they came up with. But under the new system, like, one or two people would be happy because maybe they got stuff in and you know, the core of the design was built around something they came up with. But under the new system,

if it was good, the whole team was happy. Everybody was happy. Because you made something that they all could be proud of. And that, you know, we really shifted from a system where, like, individuals were happy to where teams were happy. Groups were happy. And

I think we just started making better magic sets. You know, one of the reasons that I feel that I've gotten better as a leader is I'm relying more and more on the work of my team. You know, I'm less, I less feel like I have to support everything and more is I'm making sure that I'm using my resources as a team leader to get the best out of everybody I'm working with and make something that truly is the best that we all can make together and not sort of what we can do individually. And anyway, I'm now driving up to Rachel's school.

That, my friends, is the lesson of let the best idea win. It really is an important idea. I hope you take it home and you think about it and apply it to your own designs and your own work or your own life. It really, anyway, it changed how I function and changed how I make magic sets. It changed how I live my life. It really is an interesting idea to think about. So let the best idea win. Think on it, guys. Anyway, I'm now here. So we know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you next

time. Bye-bye. Okay, have a good day.