Win-Win vs. Zero-Sum Thinking in Basketball and in Life
I’ve been a Kansas basketball fan for as long as I can remember. Growing up in Lawrence, I remember the chants of “Rock Chalk, Jayhawk” and the roar of Allen Fieldhouse made winter the season of excitement. Long before I ever heard the term “zero-sum,” I had felt both the thrill of a championship run and the sting of sudden defeat. In sports, if one team wins, another team loses. That’s a true zero-sum situation.
For a long time, people thought about investing the same way: If someone made money, another person must have lost out. But I’ve always believed there’s more at work in markets than just buyers and sellers competing against each other. Human ingenuity and collective progress help grow the economic “pie” for everyone. When companies innovate and solve real problems, they expand the total value of the system. Over time, this has led to a positive trend in stock prices, reflecting the hard work and ideas of countless individuals.
Fifty years ago, passive investing began changing how people approached the stock market. Instead of trying to outsmart everyone else, passive investors aimed to capture overall market returns—returns fueled by the wisdom of the crowd and by fresh ideas that keep pushing companies forward. By trusting this steady growth and letting compounding work, investors embraced a win-win view. Index funds were central to that shift. They offered simple, low-cost access to market returns—an enormous leap forward from the days of high-fee, heavily traded portfolios. And decades of research have pointed to ways to go beyond indexing, from identifying stocks with higher expected returns to taking a more flexible approach to trading.
This win-win mindset goes beyond investing. Take friendship, for example. A true friendship isn’t a zero-sum game where one person’s happiness comes at the expense of the other’s. The best friendships are built on mutual support. When you show up for the people in your life, whether to offer advice, share a moment of joy, or help them through a tough time, you’re not giving something away at your own expense. You’re strengthening a bond that may come back to you in ways you can’t always predict. The more you invest in friendships, the richer they may become.
So, whether it’s on the court, in your relationships, or in your investment decisions, you don’t have to play a zero-sum game to succeed. By trusting in human potential, focusing on long-term growth, and staying open to new ideas, we can create value for everyone involved.
And as for my love of the Jayhawks, I still watch games whenever I can. Sure, I’d rather see them win, but a tough loss—like this year’s, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament—doesn’t change the pride I have in this team. Watching athletes lay it all on the line and feeling the energy of thousands of fans standing behind them—that’s what makes it special. That collective spirit, that unwavering support—that’s the kind of win-win thinking I’ll always cheer for.
Originally published on LinkedIn by David Booth.
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