Reality TV taught me to be a Better Designer and Salesperson

I just competed on a reality TV show. ??? Here’s what it taught me about B2B sales and design.

This is my part-sarcastic, part-intentional outlook on how my experience on Beast Games, an elimination-style competition series on Prime Video and YouTube, tested my emotional intelligence, leadership, and negotiation skills.?

Like how designers strive for good user experiences (UX), understanding what I call the Contestant Experience (CX) was essential in forming alliances and trust in the game:

?? Design Thinking

Design at its core centers around people. Solving problems with a contestant-centric, hands-on approach was crucial to a game-winning strategy:

1. Empathize: Understanding the players’ goals and motivations allowed me to leverage strengths and weaknesses in forming alliances. I was able to recognize when people felt vulnerable or undervalued and provided support at the right time, and vice versa.
2. Define: In the show, each challenge had a problem needing a clear definition. Whether it was a physical obstacle or a social strategy, success depended on identifying the core objective and constraints.
3. Ideate: Reality TV is a pressure cooker for creativity. Episode 3 was a great example of showing how contestants ideated on self-eliminating 1 of 3 people in their group.??
4. Prototype: Prototyping strategies were heavily relied on for many challenges in the form of trial runs and watching others compete. For example, in the Episode 1 building towers challenge, I watched if others were building the same structure as mine and let them finish building before I proceeded.
5. Test: When it was my turn to compete, I tested my theories, and the games would provide instant feedback. If my strategy did not work, the consequences were immediate and I would need to pivot to meet my needs of not being eliminated.

?? Cross-functional Collaboration?

Beast Games emphasized the importance of communicating cross-functionally – in this case, across alliances and cliques. Every situation prompted a flight or fight response to engage with others, regardless if you knew them or not.?

For instance, Episode 2 required a large group of people to work together that did not previously worked together. Despite our uncertainties and differences, finding common ground to strategize together was a reminder that diverse perspectives often lead to the best outcomes.

Likewise, selling myself via verbal communication and non-verbal gestures allowed me to build strong bonds with other strong competitors. Convincing others of my value in the game sharpened my ability to tailor messages and build trust. My negotiation skills were tested, as I learned to balance confidence with compromise to ensure win-win outcomes.

?? Agile Methodologies

Each challenge in the competition was a project to complete. It was crucial for me and my team to break down challenges into phases and infuse continuous collaboration and improvement to outpace the competition. Through Beast Games I have come to value:

1. Individual and interactions over processes and tools: Success depended way more on building strong relationships with the people around you than the game’s mechanics. Physical challenges such as grabbing safe briefcases and flags became social challenges when you talked to each other and leveraged each other’s strengths to gain an optimal outcome.?
2. Working Solutions over Comprehensive Documentation: Success required quick, actionable solutions –?there was no time for exhaustive planning or documentation. With some challenges completed in minutes, we needed to devise simple, workable plans and execute them with ease.?
3. Contestant Collaboration over Contract Negotiation: Success relied on learning about the contestant's strengths as a continuous development. Rather than bucketing contestants in physically strong, intellectually strong, and socially strong groups, I watched contestants across challenges to discover their combined strengths.
4. Responding to Change over Following a Plan: Success was determined by being adaptable with twists. With change as the only constant in Beast Games, I tried not to panic when plans changed and to ‘expect the unexpected’.

Beast Games was more than a competition—it was a masterclass in strategy, adaptability, chance, and UX. These lessons have transformed how I design, sell, and collaborate in my work... good thing I had PTO to use!