Tetris vs Snake Mindset

My school was fairly radical for its time. One of the biggest reasons is because there was no competition, EVER. They believed that your biggest competition is your previous self. And as a result reimagined the whole system around that. To give you a few examples, instead of -

• Revealing who came first in class → You were compared to your own previous scores

• Giving a first prize in elocution → All people who did well got certificates

• Racing to win → You raced to make the time-cut offs and ‘qualified’

I spent 14 years in this system and it really shaped the way I look at the world and people around me. So imagine my surprise when I landed up in college and realised that most people are actually quite competitive and you can’t really blame them. They believe in what I call a Snake Mindset to learning -

Snake Mindset aka learning to win

Most schools advocate that learning is a zero sum game - in order for me to come first, someone else needs to come second. You’re in the race to score the highest. Learning becomes an individual activity.

The real world is quite different though. In the real world, the Tetris Mindset to learning rules -

Tetris Mindset aka learning to build

The world today is built on the currency of collaboration. You build on top of each other’s ideas. You’re running in a relay not a race. Learning is a team sport.

With a Tetris mindset, build on top of others’ ideas and learn new things.

As Bruce Lee once said, “Absorb what is useful, reject what’s useless, add what is essentially your own.”

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