Once upon a time, a smart plumber figured out how to game the system by changing their company name to AAA-Aardvark Plumbing. Just like that, at the top of the Yellow Pages listing. The "algorithm" was alphabetical.

Notions like victory and defeat, enemies overcome, opposition, conflict, conquering heroism, competition, and other zero-sum games are products of narrative, not necessity.

People often use the analogy of compound interest to illustrate the impact of incremental improvements. If you improve by just 1% every day, just think of where you'd be in a year.