This post will make more sense if you have played the SIMS game. SIMS is a game where you control your character in a simulated life with different needs and wants that you decide on.

Do you remember the “rosebud” cheat code?

In the good old SIMS that I played, the “rosebud” cheat code let you:

With this cheat code, you can achieve many shortcuts in the game. It doesn’t “complete” the game for you or make you instantly have everything but it speeds up what you want to do in the game. If life were to be treated in as a multiplayer game, then where are the cheat codes?

This blog isn’t a place for me to advertise myself or my views, its an experiment for me to share some of what I’ve learnt that seems to work for me. You might fail with my advice here or disagree with my views and that’s simply because your game is not my game.

What inspired me to begin writing these “cheat codes” here? Years of talking to my close friend about how “games” we played influenced who we are but the final kicker was what the Shopify Founder Tobi Lütke said on the Farnam Street podcast:

In this blog, I use the phrase “cheat code” or “cheat codes” to like using “rosebud” in SIMS. This is different from cheating someone out of their side of a deal. Think of it this way, even though most SIMS players know of “rosebud” and have tried many things with the free money it gives, I am sure most of use spent most of our time playing the SIMS as it was without the cheats. We just used the cheat to see what would happen and to get a peek into the results. Described in this way, a cheat code is like a “life hack”.

Most importantly, games are fun, they let you explore the adventure and find out things about the place and the characters. This is the spirit that I hope to live my life in and if its a useful approach to you or just an interesting perspective then you might enjoy some of my first posts:

• Reverse engineering career plans
• Use your lifelines

Enjoy