Day 641 - Ready Player One - https://golifelog.com/posts/ready-player-one-1664757665161
Just saw this insight in [James Clear's newsletter](https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1/september-29-2022):
"In sports, one of the primary sources of advantage is choosing how to play the game.
In life, one of the primary sources of advantage is choosing which game to play."
For the longest time, I just played the game the same way everyone else played, in sports and in life. I was an athlete and also played lots of sports in school. All sports and games had their own rules, and you didn't get to decide which rules made sense to follow and which ones didn't. We don't get to make the rules, we had to just accept them as they are and win or lose against them. Same for life in those early years. You just went to school, and complied. Those best at compliance get rewarded, gets called a "good boy or girl". Again, no student makes the rules in school. And after years in school, even if you were given the chance to make rules as a student, you wouldn't even know how. This is worse in good students. I was a good student.
So it's easy to imagine the downstream impact... After more than a decade in such an environment, the muscle memory is set, and you go on in work and life the same way. Just following the rules of whatever games you find yourself in. And the only choices or freedom available to us is choosing how to play the game.
*We've never been invited to even consider which game to play in.*
This I find, is the one thing I'm constantly having to unlearn and relearn in entrepreneurship. The hardest thing about entrepreneurship for me had been how there's really no rules. There's not even a standard game.
It's like a footballer, basketballer and golf player came together to play a game with each other based on the game rules they follow separately in their own field, and the only thing they had in common is that they all deal with a round spherical object.
That's entrepreneurship.
And therefore lies the danger – the moment you try to emulate any one of your entrepreneur heroes, you might be unwittingly getting yourself into someone else's game. Where you (again) have to play by someone else's rules. Just like in school.
I want otherwise now.
I feel a strong desire to align this whole entrepreneurship thing to my own inner game. I want to invent my own rules, play my own game.
Sure, I still want to learn from others, feel inspired by stories of other indie solopreneurs. But selectively and mindfully. And with a discerning eye. Collective learning that helps me play my own game better, not get pulled into someone else's game.
So... ready player one (and only)!
"In sports, one of the primary sources of advantage is choosing how to play the game.
In life, one of the primary sources of advantage is choosing which game to play."
For the longest time, I just played the game the same way everyone else played, in sports and in life. I was an athlete and also played lots of sports in school. All sports and games had their own rules, and you didn't get to decide which rules made sense to follow and which ones didn't. We don't get to make the rules, we had to just accept them as they are and win or lose against them. Same for life in those early years. You just went to school, and complied. Those best at compliance get rewarded, gets called a "good boy or girl". Again, no student makes the rules in school. And after years in school, even if you were given the chance to make rules as a student, you wouldn't even know how. This is worse in good students. I was a good student.
So it's easy to imagine the downstream impact... After more than a decade in such an environment, the muscle memory is set, and you go on in work and life the same way. Just following the rules of whatever games you find yourself in. And the only choices or freedom available to us is choosing how to play the game.
*We've never been invited to even consider which game to play in.*
This I find, is the one thing I'm constantly having to unlearn and relearn in entrepreneurship. The hardest thing about entrepreneurship for me had been how there's really no rules. There's not even a standard game.
It's like a footballer, basketballer and golf player came together to play a game with each other based on the game rules they follow separately in their own field, and the only thing they had in common is that they all deal with a round spherical object.
That's entrepreneurship.
And therefore lies the danger – the moment you try to emulate any one of your entrepreneur heroes, you might be unwittingly getting yourself into someone else's game. Where you (again) have to play by someone else's rules. Just like in school.
I want otherwise now.
I feel a strong desire to align this whole entrepreneurship thing to my own inner game. I want to invent my own rules, play my own game.
Sure, I still want to learn from others, feel inspired by stories of other indie solopreneurs. But selectively and mindfully. And with a discerning eye. Collective learning that helps me play my own game better, not get pulled into someone else's game.
So... ready player one (and only)!