The Satisfaction Equation
Rethinking and restructuring your life to increase your satisfaction
A professor walks into my class. She has a twenty-dollar bill. She tells all of us (the students) that this twenty-dollar bill will be auctioned off to the highest bidder. However, there is a peculiar rule with this auction, everyone who bids has to pay what they bid, whether they win or not.
All of us are hesitant to bid. She chides us: “It’s twenty dollars so you can bid a penny. A penny for twenty dollars? That’s a steal”
One of the students decides to bite. He bids a penny.
“Do I have five cents? Five cents for twenty dollars is still a great deal.”
Another student decides they want to bid. She bids five cents.
The next thing you know, we watch the two students go back and forth increasing their bids to win the twenty dollars. If they don’t have the winning bid, they will lose whatever their bid is. They go higher and higher until the professor stops them.
The lesson from this little game? The people that don’t play win.
What I find fascinating is we play this kind of game at work: we work harder and harder at our job, hoping for a promotion that will get us a better title, more money, and more perks which…
