Frosted Flakes FTW! (Or Sparxmith punts the game)

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

Until the 1920's, the Average American ate oatmeal, cream of wheat, or grilled toast & cured ham for breakfast.  At that time, however, two companies were working to change the American diet by changing their appetites.

 

Kellogg's and Post were the two biggest names in grains, obvious rivals, and partners in this attempt.  Through consistent and innovative marketing, by the end of the 1920's, cold cereal in milk was an American breakfast staple.  (Which is kinda impressive, when you think about it.  Imagine if Monsanto and Dole managed to convince everyone that lunch should always be pineapple salad in cream cheese over rice.  Staggering, really.)

October 21st, 1929 saw the stock market crash.  The next year saw more American  companies go out of business than had gone out of business in all of the years since the Civil War, combined.

Post did what everyone else was doing and what conventional wisdom said to do.  It cut back on spending, withdrew advertising, and attempted to wait out the storm.

The Kellog Company did the opposite.  They spent a fortune on advertising.  They doubled investments.  

The results are still felt to this day, over 80 years later.  The Kellogg Co. remains the number one producer of breakfast cereal in the world.

Why did Kellogg make the choice they did?  From the outside looking in, the decision seems to be a conscious choice to find opportunity in the face of adversity.  (Alternatively, it was desperation driving them to succed.)  Necessity is the mother of invention, and Kellogg succeeded splendidly.

Fear itself:

In 2006, I was living in Kansas City and playing Magic as a semi-pro.  I played 40 hours a week (or more) with another 20 hours devoted to poker.  

This was the time period when I made the biggest mistake of the biggest game of my Magic career.  In an Extended GPT, I was running Goblins over the more popular choice of Affinity.  After 5 rounds, I was 5-1-1, with a good chance of making the cut.  (The typical tournament format is known as "Swiss", where everyone is randomly paired for the first round and then for each subsequent round, players are paired up against other players with the same record.  After a certain number of rounds, all but the top 8 players are eliminated.  Tie-breakers are frequently used to sort players that are just above or just below the cut off place in this format.)  If I win, I'm in.  If I lose, I'm out. 6 wins for day 2.  2 losses for elimination.

My opponent is playing Affinity.  And he's piloting it very well.  However, I had anticipated 50% of the field would be playing it, so I devoted over half my sideboard to beating it. I figured this would go loss, win, win.

He wins game 1 quickly, but if he had not won when he did, I would have had lethal damage on my next untap.

Game two, I cast  Siege-Gang Commander on turn 3, all of them hasty little buggers because of Goblin Warchief.  Piledriver came down turn 4, and I won in spite of the hate card (Chill?) he had just played.

Game three, my opening hand contains mass artifact hate (Meltdown?).  He can kiss all of his artifact lands good-bye.  This will be an easy win.  His turn 1 play is Duress.  There goes my answer.  The game progresses much more like game one.  We go back and forth, racing to the finish.  I'm at 4 after he attacks. 

He's at 2.

There are no creatures left on the board other than his Arcbound Ravager with 3 counters and my Goblin Warchief.

I have no cards in hand.  He has 1.

I top deck Incinerate.

My eyes sparkle, my mouth widens into a smile.  The fear within me finally receding.

I tap a couple of mountains...  "I cast Incinerate.  Pass priority." 

"Targeting?" he asks as he begins straightening up his cards.

Fear clouded my mind.  Here I am am, staring down his Arcbound Ravager, terrified to speak.  An eternity passed before I blurted out, "Arcbound Ravager". 

"I'll respond by activating Aether Vial, putting Arcbound Worker into play.  When you pass priority back, I'm going to sacrifice it to Ravager bringing it up to 5 counters."

My heart sank.  I passed priority back, declined an attack, and lost when he top decked Shrapnel Blast.

Because my opponent was at 2.  And I cast an instant that deals 3 damage.  Targeting his creature.

He then cast an instant that dealt 5 damage...targeting his opponent.

Because I was tharn....paralyzed...afraid to lose...I couldn't think straight.

He wasn't.

He won.

Lesson learned.  Sort of.

Today's lesson is don't be afraid to lose.  Fear will affect your ability to see the proper play.  It will cloud your mind,  causing you to focus on the wrong things.

Kellogg's isn't the best cereal in the world, but they're still #1.  My deck had the win in front of me, but I still missed the cut.

Without fear there is no bravery, for it is only by overcoming fear that we become brave.

A few months later I sold my collection. Because I was like Moses, who got to within sight of the promised land and dropped dead before making it.  The fear at the tournament continued on permeating my existence for the few intervening months.  I was on tilt, feeling like a fraud.

10 years has taught me alot about fear.  I will still make play mistakes. 

But I'm no longer afraid to lose.  Nor should anyone be.