This Is What Happens When Play Gets Serious
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Weaponizing Play
Yesterday I wrote about the mental tips and tricks I deployed while live coaching my sister to her longest ever run (read it HERE).
Today I want to highlight the importance of ‘play’ to unleash that ability inside yourself to keep going, to fight hard, to not quit, and to resolve yourself to the highest internal standard.
I want to teach you how to ‘weaponize’ play.
First, let’s quickly define play in way we can live it authentically in our lives. Textbook definitions are cool, but embodied definitions are best (how we live something versus the objective nature of that thing).
Play is simply an intrinsically motivated activity, something you for the sole reason of enjoying it for it’s own sake. External motivations need not apply.
How do you weaponize that?
Good question! A recent passage from the book I chose for this month’s Tribal Book Club (yes, our endurance training team has a book club, we are super cool!) The Game by Ken Dryden gives us a giant clue.
‘Inventing the Game’
Dryden brings up the Italian idea of inventa la partita - invent the game.
This is the type of game that emerges through unstructured play.
Think of a boy and his soccer ball, never leaving his foot. He dribbles to school, plays in the yard, dribbles it home, juggles it in his yard or alleyway, suddenly a pickup game is created with friends out of nowhere, goals made out of whatever is available, teams determined on the fly, legends made out of thin air, all being directed by fun, passion, interest, and enjoyment.
Players like this don’t fit into the structure, they break free from it. They are the virtuoso’s of the sport, the Michelangelo’s and Da Vinci’s, in soccer the Pele’s, Messi’s, and Zidane’s.
They obliterate their opponents through creativity, imagination, ingenuity, dedication, and love for the movements that set them free.
They weaponized play.
But how?
Play to Know Yourself
Inventing the Game is simply an expression of self.
Playing itself is an expression of self.
What are you directed towards?
Where are your interests?
What do you enjoy?
If done properly it’s purely internal signal directing external action.
It’s your open hear in MOTION.
Playing honestly uncovers your values. It tunes you towards your deep purpose.
Take a minute and do this following reflective exercise and you’ll begin to see the power of play in unleashing your best self out towards the world.
PROMPT #1: What ‘game’ have you invented for yourself in the past based on pure enjoyment and passion?
PROMPT #2: How did playing that ‘game’ give you confidence to live more authentically as yourself?
PROMPT #3: What would it look like in your life right now to start ‘inventing a game’ and what is the first step you can take towards living it?
BONUS: Drop your reflections in the chat or send me a message with your answers and I will enthusiastically help you take action on these reflections.
What these prompts help you uncover or rediscover is that inner signal of self.
The things that truly make you YOU, not the expectations and limits others and yourself have put on in order to fit in.
When I say ‘weaponize play’ I mean use your PASSION to defy external and internal limits and begin to live authentically as yourself.
It’s why I teach my clients and athletes to train with their values in the center of it all. So that they may know themselves deeply and then awaken to a true potential that is not limited, but open and expansive.
This came full circle with my very first coaching client this week. After instilling play as the central element of his fitness, he began to ponder his potential in life.
Working a dangerous, time consuming job that took him away from his family, he wanted to redesign his life to hit more of his values.
That led him to taking a big risk and starting a side hustle which required lots of up front capital investment, travel to learn new skills, and working in a lot of his free time.
He weaponized play, and just this week, after building his life for the past 2 1/2 through the prism of ‘values based training’ he quit his full time job to go ALL IN on his side hustle.
Most important, that side hustle gives him the ability to PLAY, be creative, do work he enjoys, make beautiful things in the world, and give opportunities to his local community (he employs teenagers in his small town, legit HERO).
So when I tell you to WEAPONIZE PLAY, it flows from INVENTING YOUR OWN GAME, and then unleashing your authentic self back into the world without apology.
Training gives us strength and courage, but when it’s built from the heart on out, that’s when you begin to do heroic and legendary things, the things you were BORN TO DO.
If you’re interested in what ‘values based training’ can do for you and your desire to break free and live a more authentic life from your heart on out through training you love send me a message using the button below to start crafting your life by design together.
Now it’s your turn TO GO!
Happy Training Friend