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Life's Game

David Sherry
2 min read

There are many games being played in our lives.

There's the money game, the one where the points are dollars, and it's easiest to feel the pressure to track your place in the hierarchy. You learn selling, you learn investing, you learn about debt, maybe the hard way...

There's the spiritual game.

Less competitive, but still filled with status signaling, with virtue, rules to abide by or break (and seek redemption). This may be conditioned from a young age, or chosen at a later one. Different religions have different rules, but the game is relatively similar. The question you ask is; Are you getting closer or further away from God?

And then there's the Internal one.

This is your scoreboard with yourself. This is personal. Only you will ever know about how this game is being played.

It's how you judge your own progress. It's where you set the larger context for your journey. This is where your fears truly lay. Your self-doubts, your self-criticism, which place limitations on your exploration in the outside world.

Stepping back to a wider view, we see something interesting.

That though one may choose to play different games (money, fame, politics, media, etc..)... you will always bring your _self_ to the game.

There will always be the external and the internal.

And this brings us to the key question which I'd pose.

To what extent is your internal game having an effect on the external one?

I played Soccer at a young age. I remember two, no three, distinct moments (in my mind) of devastation. The first, in the indoor league losing a game last minute when it was tied. The second, in practice as a Freshman playing varsity, screwing up a pass to the captain and being chewed out after. The third, as captain of the team, shooting a PK and missing wide left.

Each imprinting failure, each from taking a chance. Each affecting future chances. Creating minor future hesitations. Influencing micro-movements.

The inner-game is subtle.

It's based on our interpretation of events rather than the events themselves.

And due to its nuance, it's easy to talk about the external game, much harder to talk about the internal one.

And so we skip out spending time there, when the truth is you can

No wonder so many are screwed up in Politics. It is a game that would break anyone... anyone except those with a strong sense of themselves.

My assumption is that the great leaders of our time have figured this out. That said, Lincoln had his own true north.

That those who focus externally and memorize the models in business or media or politics always end up in second place.

Because to make change, to make an impact, to bring something wholly unique and motivational in the world, you have to win with yourself first.

Knowing that everything else is secondary.

xx David

I keep space for 3 clients looking to develop how they approach creative work and life; reducing creative anxieties, helping them through a transition, and serving such that they move past their internal blocks.

There are two slots open in May. If you're interested, let's speak by phone, and we can see if we are a fit for one another at this time.

P.P.S. Why work with a coach? Because it turns out, that the biggest moments of breakthrough happen with someone to be there as a witness. And, the biggest opportunity to make a change, comes from committing to making a change.