Season “How to Make 250K Per Year” · Episode 12
Finite or Infinite Game
Why do I need a number to get out of the endless game? · 3 November 2026
In Percy Jackson there is a casino where people go in and simply lose time, playing the same game round after round. That is what business turns into when you only chase the number upward. So I need a number that stops.
01
A number is the exit
If you want to reverse-engineer a goal, you need the number, and you need to understand why it is that number. If you only chase more and more, what I think happens in the end is that business becomes a computer game with no end. Treat it like that, and you never get out.
With a number, and with knowing why it is that number, the game turns into a project. You reach it, you check it off, and you set a new goal. Nobody says: "If you want a Lamborghini, go and raise the number to 500."
You can test your own target that way. Can you say in one sentence why it is exactly that number?
02
Who put you in the game
To me the endless game feels like a trap. Someone else got you into it, something like the system itself. If you are playing a game that never ends, you are kind of locked in, and that does not feel like freedom of decision. It is like doomscrolling on Instagram, following the next thing over and over again.
I know a version of it from start-ups. Virtual shares in a company that is never sold keep you in one business forever, because the business simply makes money and nobody needs to sell it.
03
Everyone may play
If you want to play the game forever, you can. You can decide to become a professional gamer and play that one game for ever and ever, and it might make people happy. It is your decision. It is not my goal.
04
This week
Write your number down, and next to it one sentence on why it is exactly that number. If you can't write the sentence, you are chasing "more". Mine for this season is 250K, because it pays for my family, the future, a bad year and a choice.
05
The open question
A number with a why is what keeps me out of the casino. Now I have reached it, and this is where the season's decision gets sharp: do I stay at 250K and focus on something else, or do I go for more? If more, I need a new why, or I am only chasing a bigger number, back in the casino. And if not more, how do I decide what else to do? The last episode has to answer that, and you will see whether I can.
Next in this season: “The Decision: Stay at 250K or Go for More”. The loop that keeps the goal honest, the number after I reached it, and my decision.