Ludi-Q’s are an essential “let yourself happen”™ tool, so naturally I recommend being Ludi-literate. Here’s my thinking.

Our yeses and no’s shape our lives (take a look at your body if you want physical proof of the concept, or maybe mine would get the point across a little better). This means I’d better be good at understanding what’s being asked so I will know what I’m saying yes and no to. This is where Ludi-Q’s come in. They train us to spot the ludicrous asks (like “May I frustrate your plans?”) that often hide inside our more acceptable human exchanges. This skill helps us keep a bigger slice of the say over our lives.

Now, no one is going to actually ask us outright if they can frustrate our plans, because we would say no. So they sneak it in some other way, hoping we won’t notice. They have a motive they don’t want others to know about.

Instead, it might go something like this: We make a plan at home or work and get agreement from the key players. Then we move forward on it. At some point, the culprit asking the Ludi-Q puts a kink in things and the plan goes sideways. Sorry. Didn’t mean to. It’s just that…

Now, if we’re Ludi-literate, we’ll wonder the first time it happens if the person is tossing us a ludicrous ask, and we’ll poke around to find out if it’s true, or nip it in the bud in case it is. If we’re not Ludi-literate, we may let it happen a few times before we realize we’ve unwittingly agreed to this game by default, or maybe we notice people don’t take us seriously anymore when we announce a plan. Aargh!

So that’s why I recommend being Ludi-literate. You can reduce the number of times you get snookered by the ludicrous ask (and snooker others, by the way), and keep a bit more control over your yeses and no’s and therefore the shape your life takes.

Ludi-literate. It’s not just fun to say, it’s fun to be. I know, because I’m getting pretty Ludi-literate myself. (Did you really think I came up with Ludi-Q’s based on other people’s experiences?!)