But if we look closer at the game show format, we would see there are valuable lessons on how we can achieve financial and personal success in our life.



Most game shows are based on the following three themes: challenge, risk, and reward. An excellent example of this format is the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

The premise of the show seems simple enough. You're asked a multiple-choice question and if you answer correctly, you win the stated dollar amount. If you want to continue and win more money, you must risk losing the money won so far. The game ends when you've won $1 million, or you stop playing, or you answer the question wrong and lose all your winnings.

The interesting part of the game is the questions asked are more difficult to answer at each level to the $1 million. Success in any endeavor in life works the same way. You'll have harder challenges to solve as you get closer to achieving your goals.

Success comes in all shapes and sizes. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire shows that easy questions earn small rewards and harder questions deserve bigger rewards.

Along the way to greater rewards, we also see that risk increases proportionately to our success. When the contestant goes for the $1 million prize, not only will he face the biggest challenge, but will also face his biggest risk, the loss of $500 thousand.

Success however has one undeniable and often rejected natural law: "It aint easy".

Read any biography of a successful person and they'll tell you of the challenges they faced on their journey to success. Few had it easy and the rest had to prove they were worthy of receiving success.

Funny thing about natural law, it sometimes doesn't follow it's own rule. Every once in a while someone gets a pass and success happens easily.

How pointless would "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" be if every question to $1 million could be answered by a 5-year old? How complacent would you become if you never failed?

You might be saying to yourself, "If I had Bill Gates' money, I wouldn't mind a little complacency."

Did I tell you complacency also has its own natural law: "Complacency is self-imposed risk". Complacency will put challenges purposely in front of you. Face the challenge and everything is possible. Ignore the challenge and suffer the consequence.

Without challenge, risk and reward, success is meaningless. This is why the audience cheers-on the contestant, everyone dreams of being their personal hero, and you keep getting up in the morning to take another stab at it.

The next time you watch a game show, realize the contestant is experiencing the principles of success in compressed time.

However, there is no way to avoid these three lessons of success. Success always needs challenge, risk, and reward. Give a little and you'll get a little. Give a lot and you'll get a lot.