The sportsman does not take shortcuts on his path to victory. He is disciplined. He is diligent. He follows the rules.

Shortcuts are unethical he says. You break the rules and the victory gains an asterisk. Did you really win anything? Or was it all for nothing?

The important thing that many sportsmen do not consider is that there’s a difference between shortcuts and cheating. Understanding the difference is the artform.

The 2017 Houston Astros probably cheated when they stole signs. But was it cheating when James Harden perfected the art of drawing fouls? Was it cheating when the Oilers drew matching penalties on purpose to go 4×4 and open up the ice for Wayne Gretzky?

The difference is both intent and creativity. Rules and laws are generally imperfect. There are always edge cases, they are meant to be challenged. Cheating is bad for the game, shortcuts push the boundary and expand the playing field.

Sports make for a great illustration of this. But sports aren’t the real-world. By their very definition sports are a competitive simulacrum, defined by their boundaries.

Companies are another interesting example. Companies are like sports teams, but the reality is much less black and white. You will still see cheaters and you will see shortcuts. And in fact, many unicorn startups have been built with shortcuts.

Uber with taxi medallions. OpenAI with copyright. Polymarket with prediction markets. These are large scale examples, there are many smaller ones too. Dozens of companies that have changed the world for the better via loopholes.

You can apply the analogy to your life and everyday things too. Asking your rich uncle for an intro to investors is a shortcut. Using Claude code to help write a script instead of grinding thru StackOverflow is a shortcut. Hiring an accountant instead of learning QuickBooks yourself is a shortcut. Paying for a coworking space membership to network vs cold emailing from your apartment is a shortcut.

The point is that shortcuts aren’t inherently bad. The reality is that the advice I’d give to my younger self would be to take every conceivable shortcut you can in this life so long as they don’t get in the way of quality and ethics.

The real tragedy is to not take shortcuts out of some misguided sense of honor. Because then while you grind away on hard mode someone else stacks advantages and gets there faster.

The sportsman’s discipline is admirable in the arena. But life isn’t an arena, there are no replay reviews. It’s an open field with only one rule: you must reach your destination.

Take all the shortcuts and your future self will thank you for arriving sooner.

Peace,
Ramsey