Game in the Brain

Strength and Endurance training is quite different from skills like Project or Business Operations Management or Chinese. That should go without saying, but we gravitate to what mental model is familiar.

Skills that are Overhauled. 

We get the impression that we Flex this Muscle the muscle gets better and stronger, and that this applies to Knowledge Skills. That’s not the case. I only realized today that the Model most TRPGs use where its discrete Corpora of knowledge follow the way our muscles and endurance works. That, like a muscle, it gets bigger and stronger with use. Running a lot makes me able to Run farther, which is only true only initially. Getting past our “diminishing returns” barrier is where we “engineer” and restructure the entire skillset – reminds me of shifting from traditional studying methods to Anki – I had to tear it all down and start.
Example.

1. Deadlifting 50% my body weight in practice.
2. Deadlifting 100% my body weight is change of diet and conditioning slowly my bones, joint and back. I need to do it in a rate this recover – but I have the challenge that I cannot tell if they are injured until late in the day. This means finding the Perfectly Targetting exercises that hit certain muscle groups. 
3. Deadlifting 150% of my body weight is 2-3 years of conditioning from scratch and several doctors visits to check my back.
4. Deadlifting 200% of my body weight would have meant I was doing this since I was 30, with a trainer and having a history of injuries from being to ambitious.
5. Deadlifting 300% is that I was born with a different set of Gene’s, a different back alignment, bone density, a strength athlete before I was in my 20s.

Therapy is the New Skill

My Back injury, Transition to Anki, my understanding of Work, all had to be restructured. The restructuring can be compared to my Back injury, I have to let time and rest do its work and then Apply myself thoughtfully.  Another example is Letting my Monkeybrain reign free to befriend it. All this has a common theme of Knowing what we cannot control and taking care of myself even if people would call me selfish and criticize the allowances I make.

In retrospect, I am less harsh about judging others because I get a lot of flack about how selfish I am for – managing my health, pacing myself, and giving myself the opportunity to try again. Knowing what we cannot control is part of this, but more importantly, it is having the foundation of self-trust.

There are people there who are so ready to call people lazy. While there are free-riders, if we look at the entirety of the world free-riders only account for a small aspect of what is lost. Most waste comes from misaligned goals.

A lot of Mediocre Skills: Average them Out 

See ITTO (Inputs-Tools-Techniques-Outputs)
Its ok to have a lot of Skills at 10-12 (GURPS) or +2 to +4 in D&D5E. In fact, having a 12 in Administration is OK. One core skills does not DEFINE the performance of a Manager, IT specialist, or Leader. Instead of focusing on 1 or 2 core skills, Let’s measure the number of Relevant Skills

Merchant, Diplomacy, Administration, Leadership, Research, Analysis, Interrogation, Strategy, Current Affairs, etc… like grant a bonus to a number of skills equal to the Fibonacci Sequence or any Compounding Scale of Average skill. If the Character has 8 skills relevant to the Project they gain a +3 (6th step of the Fibonacci Sequence).

Moving Forward, I’ll average out skills. More skills the better, but it needs to maintain a good average.

Skills
3 skills, average +1
5 skills, average +2
8 skills, average +3
13 skills, average +4
21 skills, average +5

No man is an Island. Being skilled in a lot of things helps but not a lot. Penalties to the “Skill” when there is insufficient manpower should reduce the averages. This is a complicated balancing act that I have to simplify.