Strong & Awake

Anchor: Play Infinite | Season 2, Ep. 7

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Dane 00:00
If I wasn't concerned with the outcome, but was more concerned with being in the experience, what would that open up for me? in the midst of storms hitting us, we anticipate them and that doesn't make them any less hard, but when they happen, we're not surprised. And as we persist with our practice, now all of a sudden the difficulty becomes training.

Dane 00:20
How could I approach whatever seeming game that I'm in, with a fundamentally different goal?

Dane 00:26
There's something infinite about being here now, that isn't available to you if you're constantly worried about the past or freaked out about the future and trying to engineer things to win a moment, it's a very small existence. It's a very small game.

Dane 00:41
It might seem like, Oh gosh, one more day, one more day, but we're not trying to win our practice. We're creating a practice in order to play infinite and in that context, these seemingly silly little daily rituals or habits are more about who we're becoming.

Dane 00:54
It's about our identity. As humans we prefer the path of least resistance. We crave convenience, the payoff without the price. But when our lives revolve around comfort, it doesn't deliver. Living in perpetual comfort leaves us weak and asleep. This podcast is an invitation to flip that script, to choose the unlikely path, to get the life you really want through voluntary discomfort.

Dane 01:19
This is Strong & Awake. I'm Dane Sanders.

Dane 01:24
all right, Mitch, I got a strategic question for you, man. I need, I need an answer. I need help with this. It's a, it's, it's an idea that's plaguing me and I got to figure it out. So here's the question. How do I, how do I win at marriage?  

Mitch 01:41
mmm for our listeners, I wish they could have seen your face right there.

Mitch 01:47
Go watch the video if you're not watching it.  

Dane 01:50
Now, the question is obviously a silly one, right? You can't, you can't win marriage. Well, you could, but you'll lose. Uh, and, and the idea is obvious when you consider the idea that marriage isn't the category of winning or losing. Uh, we, the goal actually is a little different.

Dane 02:09
The goal isn't to win anything. The goal is for the game to keep playing. And yet every game that we seem to be aware of in the world, uh, is one of these games like, like watching American football or something like there's a beginning, a middle and an end. And there's a winner and a loser. I recently, I was at a, my daughter goes to Texas Christian university and I went to one of their football games with my son and they were winning the whole game.

Dane 02:39
And the last. Just a few minutes, they ended up, um, losing by one point, but they had a chance to win at the last second, and the freshman kicker had a 57 yard field goal attempt, something really big deal for a freshman, and he, he had the leg, but just missed it a little off, and they ended up losing, and, and my thought was like, if, if that's the metaphor we're going to use for things like marriage, marriage.

Dane 03:05
Or relationships or even other categories like business like you don't really you might win a deal in business But you don't win a business your goal in business is to perpetuate is to keep going So we need to create a distinction between the kind of games we play and a good news is Really smart people before us have thought of this and it speaks directly to a core anchor that we hold it men and women of discomfort Which is play infinite And, um, all of this comes from this guy named James Karst, give true credit here.

Dane 03:34
Um, James Karst is a, um, academic at NYU or he was when he wrote this book and he wrote a book called Finite and Infinite Games. And after that book was written, another thoughtful individual, a guy named Simon Sinek, uh, wrote a book called The Infinite Game, which was a play on that first book, uh, but applying it a little different ways, in many ways, popularizing it outside of the academic context for more people to access it.

Dane 04:00
But it was such a helpful distinction to begin to think through finite games and infinite games, how they're very distinct. Like, finite games aren't bad. They're just the, there is a single goal. You want to win. And if you win, everyone else loses. And when I play pickleball, it's a finite game. That's what I'm looking to do.

Dane 04:17
But if I want to become a better pickleball player, that's a different game. That's an infinite game. That's a becoming game. And I would like to spend our time today chatting a little bit about these two kinds of games and the invitation to really play a game that most people aren't playing at all in life.

Dane 04:36
It's almost like you're, what we're describing here is like, what would it look like for you to play, play, you know, metaphorical chess when everyone else is playing checkers? And, and this is a means by which you can do that in a way that promotes human flourishing, uh, and, and really just a more enjoyable life.

Dane 04:54
I'd love to talk about playing Infinite.  

Mitch 04:56
I'd love to talk about that. To start, it would be helpful to talk about, you know, the, what is the goal of each distinct game? You know, I, my daughter does gymnastics and, you know, she was so excited to watch the, the Olympics. But, uh, you know, when, when my son has jumped in there and done it with her, you know, he'll jump up on the little balance beam and like sprint across and like, I win.

Mitch 05:19
I'm like, well, that's not the point of the, that's not how this works. It's not a race. There's different rules or there's different goals for this event. Balance beam isn't about getting across the fastest. Um, and I, I think. You know, it's a funny example, but I do think oftentimes we play infinite games with finite game rules or with that as our goal.

Mitch 05:40
And that really undermines one kind of the whole of our lives. Uh, but it can undermine even those, those, those. You know, good, uh, finite games and, and kind of create a, uh, disordered relationship with, with the two. Uh, so I guess all that to say, I, I'd love to spend a little bit more time defining, you know, what's the, what is the goal of the infinite versus what is the goal of the finite?

Dane 06:09
So about a month ago, I was playing. Pickleball, which I play a lot with my friend and I was partners with a friend named Ryan Callahan. It's amazing business leader and we were losing and, uh, I had missed some serves and. I was trying different ways to serve and, uh, Ryan comes up to me at the beginning of this game after we had lost a few and he says, um, okay, if you keep putting the serve in, if you, all you, if all you do is put the serve in, if we just kind of keep ball in play, we have, we're going to win.

Dane 06:43
And I said, ah, I'm not really interested in that. Like, what I'm interested in is getting better at pickleball. I want to try things. I want to like experiment or whatever. And he's like, and he looked at me right in the face and he goes, I want to win. That's what I want to do. And it's almost a reverse of your question in a sense, because, because let's start with the games that are really familiar to us.

Dane 07:04
If you're playing pickleball, play to win. If you're in the game, play to win, but let's step away from the actual game because Ryan was right. I was wrong. I actually wrote him a few weeks later and said, Hey, I'm ready to try to win now. Let's let's play again soon. And, uh, and I, I just, I've, I've, I've such a bias now towards playing the infinite game that I'm missing sometimes that you, to your point, you need to be on purpose with the moment you're in.

Dane 07:31
And if you, if you can win the game you're in, yeah. You know, it's a finite game. That's the goal of a finite game, play to win. And when you are practicing in advance of getting into that game, when you're in that kind of state of 'cause, the goal of an infinite game is to have the game perpetuate. Have the game never end.

Dane 07:50
Uh, that's when you, it's infinite game. It doesn't end. Uh, that's, that's when you know you're playing a different kind of game. So marriage, you want it to be infinite business. You want it to be infinite, uh, becoming. Like, discovering who I am and becoming more true to what I was made to be, that's, that whole exercise is an infinite game.

Dane 08:14
Um, loving is an infinite game. You don't win it, and you're done, uh, you don't want it to be done, ever. You want to just continue to perpetuate it. So I think that's the first distinction is to get oriented to the game you're in. And sometimes you can, like, let's say I'm, I'm playing a pickleball game or whatever, and it's a drill at a practice.

Dane 08:34
My goal is to, let's say, get nine out of 10 serves or whatever the thing is, even while I'm trying to do something difficult and I can leverage a finite game in order to get after the infinite game. So I can try to win the little drill as a mechanism to get after the infinite, but to make no mistake, my interest is not to get to a level and stop. My interest is to perpetuate forward in a way where I'm becoming more truly myself and, and not just myself, but in relationship to others to have that entity, that thing actually perpetuate.

Dane 09:16
My wife and I are now empty nesters, and, uh, all four kids, two of our kids are in college, two are out of college, and we have an invention to have happen right now. We have an opportunity to discover a whole new terrain that we've never been in, and our goal is to really enjoy this process of being together in this new season that we've never been in, never experienced before in our lives, and that requires a real clarity around, Playing infinite as opposed to, uh, convincing someone or changing someone or trying to win an argument or like there's a bigger game to be played and that's the opportunity is to tackle the, the, the challenges that come with games that don't end as distinct from trying to gain leverage in order to win, win the day or win a moment,  

Mitch 10:06
you know, you see this, this kind of stuff in an education to, of course, uh, I've, I've worked at schools. My wife is an educator. My whole family's all educators. So I'm a bit biased towards that. But, you know, you see what happens when People are teaching to the test versus teaching for mastery.

Mitch 10:22
You know, yeah, you win that finite game at the expense oftentimes of that infinite, like they're not actually becoming better thinkers. They're not actually becoming more virtuous scholars. They're becoming good at passing this specific test or regurgitating this information. And I think, you know, you know, you could, you could point to all kinds of examples, uh, across a bunch of different domains.

Mitch 10:49
Um, But this kind of shows up in a lot of different places, which I think all over the place is, yeah, go ahead.  

Dane 10:56
Well, I should say, I love that educational example, because what you're pointing to is there are cultural norms built in here too. You know, there's a sense of like, I'm not going to succeed as a human if I don't get into a particular college.

Dane 11:08
Well, if I don't get into the particular, how do I get a particular college? Well, I need to game the standardized test if that's what I'm taking or game the application process or, uh, you know, Whatever it is, whatever lever you can pull, and lever means leverage, leverage in order to win a moment, you know, that's fine, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but if it's coming at the cost of this, you know, why are you actually trying to get into college again in the first place, uh, well, is it, oh, because I want to build a network, or I want to have a great social experience for four years, and I get that, you know, I'm in the midst of it.

Dane 11:45
Thank you. Paying for that for my kids and and yet my my my plea to my children is play a bigger game than that Good for you. You're where you're at doing what you're doing. And are you learning? Are you growing? Are you is that gonna end? Are you gonna stop being a learner when you get your degree? How are you learning how to learn?

Dane 12:09
How are you thinking about your thinking? And these kinds of more expansive, possibility laden activities are indicators that you're playing a different kind of game, that you're playing this infinite game.  

Dane 12:22
I even think of, like, being present, the exercise of being present with yourself, as on some level an infinite game.

Dane 12:31
I think if you think of like past, future, and present, there's a lot of conversations in culture these days around like, I just want to be here. I want to be here now. I want to be present. I want to be now. And in contrast with I'm lost in the past, maybe nostalgia or regret or something that's happened historically, or I'm tripping about the future and worried and fearful of what could be or whatever.

Dane 12:56
Um, there's a sense in which people are trying to game their wellbeing and go like, I just want to get to a place where I'm okay, I'm good. And the irony is the easiest way to do that is to take whatever you want to learn from history and forget the future and, and persist in a, being in a present state.

Dane 13:19
To being really fixated here. And ironically, when you're present, people who practice being present, it has a very expansive experience. It actually slows down time sometimes. And it actually gives someone a sense of transcendence. And there's more to them. There's substance to them. And this can sound like a little bit like science fiction y language, but to the practitioner, this will sound resonant.

Dane 13:43
That there's something infinite about being here now, that isn't available to you. If you're constantly worried about the past or freaked out about the future and trying to engineer things to win a moment, it's a very small existence. It's a very small game. Um, and I, the opportunity, the gold, I think is to orient our lives in such a way where we have a disproportionate bias towards infinite to, and if, if infinite is a hard kind of category for people to understand, if you think of the difference between getting, doing, and being, um, Like having, be, do, have, fixate on being.

Dane 14:23
Being is an infinite game. Becoming is an infinite game. And there's never a linear binary moment where all of a sudden you've become and it's, you're done. Uh, or if there is, bless your heart, um, uh, there's, you're missing out.  

Mitch 14:38
But I think that's an important distinct distinction because, you know, part of, you This playing infinite, um, is, is a reorientation or recalibration of our perspective.

Mitch 14:50
And it's also that perspective, um, or I guess the importance of recognizing that it's that be, do, have that are at tension or at play. Um, and it's about that becoming piece. Um, if you think about, um, You know, we often talk, you know, you've heard the expression, like, it's a marathon, not a sprint, we can often feel or kind of spiral out because we have such a, you know, narrow view of what's going on, a narrow perspective, um, in either the tasks that are at hand or the work that we're doing, and I think all this like relates back to the, The very 1st anchor of get to as well, because I mean, all of these relate to each other.

Mitch 15:29
But when you're actually able to recognize these things as opportunities as get tos, not have tos, it just helps you and better positions you to play infinite.  

Mitch 15:38
It's easy to say play infinite. see the bigger picture, be present. Like what are some like practical things that we can do in our day to day lives in each of these moments that kind of help, uh, either put us in that position and that posture, um, or like help recognize when we're, when we're not in that position.

Dane 15:58
When I'm in a, in a state of fear, um, or anxiety, those are kind of tells to me that there are some, there's something at stake that I could lose. And I think that's something to pay attention to. Uh, that probably is an indicator that you're playing by finite rules, even though you might be in an infinite game.

Dane 16:21
Um, so I think if folks who really suffer, like they're not making this up, really suffer from anxiety, uh, they've practiced thinking that they're in trouble, like that, that if they don't shift or do something, everything's going to go sideways. And, and folks that can kind of navigate that anxiety, relate with it in such a way where, You gain agency over it where you acknowledge what you're experiencing and not are driven by it and keep Honing things down even for me the pace of my voice when I'm when I'm talking really fast it's usually an indicator of some kind of insecurity some kind of sense of yeah, I'm at risk or something and what I I love about Infinite games is everything is free Fine.

Dane 17:19
Things are going to perpetuate, so you don't have to worry about losing something, um, in the same way that you might be overly concerned about wanting to win something. And again, for some people, this is a foreign concept. Like all there is, is winning and losing.

Dane 17:34
It's Darwinian. It's survival. It's, you know, and I think for folks who have come from spiritual traditions that talk about transcendence and life even beyond, uh, this, this, this. Terminus that we're all facing that invites a way of relating with the infinite. And the idea of like the possibility of infinite life is, is fascinating.

Dane 18:00
Uh, I think a lot of folks, they think of it exclusively as like, you know, what do you, what's going to happen after you die. But practitioners of the infinite game actually experienced infinite life here now. Not in some future state. Um, and actually, it actually offers a bridge to understand. Oh, well, I could see how this might actually happen, like extend even after our physical life ends.

Dane 18:25
And again, this, this is probably the most, of all the anchors that we talk about, this is probably the one that is the most esoteric or heady, but practically speaking, it becomes very accessible when we, we don't try to explain all the pieces, just know that there are two kinds of games, finite and infinite, finite, there's a winner and loser, there's rules, you got to stay by, it's really critical that you play by those rules and honor the rules and recognize that your job is to win At the cost of everyone else losing.

Dane 18:55
It's a zero sum game. It's a closed system. The open system of the infinite game is it never ends. Even if you end that it can perpetuate. And you can actually orient your whole existence in the direction of, I want that to be the most present thing to me. So practically, you know, at MWOD we have all these habits, habits that you'd start your day with, and you sustain your day with, and you end your day with.

Dane 19:24
And for that cynical critical person outside of MWOD, they might look at it and go, that sounds pretty boring. And like you're in groundhog's day and you're doing the same thing over and over and over again. And what they don't recognize is what we've actually created is an operating system. It's a, it's a structure on which we can gain agency and mastery and, and belonging within that we can in the midst of storms hitting us, we aren't that concerned about those storms, the storms hit us and we anticipate them and they're difficult.

Dane 19:56
That doesn't make them any less hard, but when they happen, we're not surprised. And as we persist with the immovable object, that is our operating system, that is our practice. We put ourselves in a position of, you know, of playing a fundamentally different game of existence. And now all of a sudden the difficulty becomes training.

Dane 20:19
Uh, even we volunteer for difficulty to, to augment our training, to get ready for the storms that are coming. And we do that with very consistent activity because it might seem like, Oh gosh, one more day, one more day, but we're not trying to win our practice. We're, we're creating a practice in order to play infinite and, and in that context, all of a sudden, these silly, seemingly silly little daily rituals or habits are, are more about who we're becoming.

Dane 20:51
It's about our identity. This is why James clear is so resourcefully identified that if you're going to take on a habit, don't just take on the habit of, of, of, uh, I want to run every day, become the kind of person who doesn't miss a day of, like, become a runner and runners run, they don't miss that.

Dane 21:12
This is what they do. And, and as a result, they, they extend the game. They push it forward and. Not every game can be infinite, to be clear. Some things do come to an end, but a lot more can be perpetuated than we think, and if I have this framework in my mind, back to the example of my marriage, um, you know, if my wife and I have an argument, it could be the end of the line, or it could be a great moment for me to, you know, Grow in humility and understanding and perspective.

Dane 21:45
I can actually go do some more thinking and considering praying even We didn't have an argument But yesterday we had a conversation about a season my wife's going through and ways I could learn about the season that is and can Go understand it and she sent me a podcast about it and I get to listen to it tonight and I get to consider her and Growing my affection toward her.

Dane 22:09
I'm on a flight, uh, tonight late and I can't wait. It's so fun. Like I, I get to perpetuate that relationship. And if let's say I'm in a, on a, and she's doing that too, like with me and, and we can, we can keep the game playing and going in such a way that I grow, she grows, we grow. And what are we actually doing?

Dane 22:32
Well, we're being really present to the moment at hand and not trying to gain leverage over the other, but actually trying. To be with each other. as we become new kinds of people.  

Mitch 22:44
Yeah. What you're, what you're saying about the presence and the richness that we get to experience when we play infinite games reminds me of, you know, Peter Attia's book outlive and the kind of double entendre that that is, you know, his, he's specifically talking about, you know, like our physical bodies and our health.

Mitch 23:01
And oftentimes when people hear outlive, they, they just think like outlive, like outlive others. Like I'm going to live longer, but he's saying like, I'm winning. Yeah, right. Yeah. He's saying no, no, no. Outlive. Like in the moment you live a better life, you're like, you have more life, uh, not just in quantity, but in quality.

Mitch 23:19
And I think that's really what playing an infinite game is about. Um, it's not that you can go longer or run longer or endure. Sure, it's some of those things, but it's like, so you can live a better, fuller life recognizing that you are playing, um, this infinite game. Um, yeah. And even it begets it.  

Dane 23:40
Well, it begets it. that's right.

Dane 23:41
And the experience of it, it grows in, in, in caliber and quality. And, and it's funny, people who play the infinite game consistently, they rarely talk about it. It's almost like a distraction and because it's so much easier to talk about the finite game than it is the infinite game. But the infinite game is Is one of no, it's like a noble act.

Dane 24:04
Um, and you can actually play finite games infinitely. So I think of like athletic metaphors are so resourceful in this regard. Like you think of people who just want to win a tournament and others who are so committed to their craft that as they play the infinite game better and better, they happen to win a lot more tournaments.

Dane 24:23
Uh, and I, That's not lost on me. And if they lose those tournaments, they don't seem to be quite as devastated by that. They have a sense of like extracting as much resource from the experience and setting themselves up to become someone new in the next round. And again, I, the invitation I think for folks is to really reflect on these ideas, but because finite games are so like everywhere in our culture, I think it's, It's more resourceful resourceful to go like, how could I approach whatever game it is that I'm in, or seeming game that I'm in, with a fundamentally different goal?

Dane 25:06
If it wasn't as important for me to win, but more important, if I wasn't concerned with the outcome, but was more concerned with being in the experience, what would that open up for me? Uh, recently we've talked a little bit about Tim Gallwey’s, uh, The Inner Game of Tennis, and I think this is fundamentally what he's getting at.

Dane 25:23
Is the idea of like, if you can be. He calls it, um, relaxed focus. If you can be relaxed. And ruthlessly focused on the point you're in, not even the game, the someone has served the ball and you're hitting the ball back and whatever game it is, if it's not tennis, doesn't matter, but this is where it's still a game to be in relationship with somebody that can be relaxed with my wife and focused on my wife in the moment that I'm in, I've somehow gone to a new dimension called the infinite game.

Dane 25:54
And I like that. It's a helpful way, very practical way, because I can do that everywhere all the time. I can do that in the middle of a CrossFit workout. I can do this in the middle of a meeting with my, with my boss where I'm getting evaluated. I can do this on a podcast when I'm recording with my friend Mitch.

Dane 26:12
Um, I could be thinking about what's next. I could be thinking about what I missed this morning. Like so much that could be at hand. But where, how do I, where am I at my best? Well, when I'm present to this moment. Relaxed and really focused on this moment, like this, this play and, and trust that when I get to the next one, it'll show up.

Dane 26:34
And again, the radical irony in all of this is it does produce better results over time, like the quality of people's experience of listening to a podcast or, of how I show up at work or how I lead a project improves when I fixate on the infinite game, even though they're little finite games along the way, it's just like, Oh, that's cool.

Dane 27:00
Yeah. Yeah. We want that. That's great. Let's get back to the, the becoming bit. Cause that's where the gold is and in con and in context, you know, get to choose your role, feel first travel, like prioritize profit, correct course. And now play infinite. These begin to make sense. Cause they kind of flow together.

Dane 27:16
It's all points in a sense. And next week's episode, when we talk about the final anchor, I think is even more important. More of the pinnacle, but this is, this kind of captures the essence of what we're, why do we do get to, why do we choose a role? Why do we feel first? Why do we prioritize profit? All those things are an effort to play a bigger game.

Mitch 27:36
And that bigger game will also inform. Whether you gain the benefits of those won or lost finite games, too, like you said, right? That's right. If you're playing the infinite game and you lose quote unquote a finite game Then you can still like you said for those that lose the matches or whatever like you still Can gain things from that can still contribute towards your becoming, even if you didn't, you know, win that particular, that match or that game.

Mitch 28:05
And I think that doesn't necessarily work gold.  

Dane 28:08
I keep talking over you because it gets so excited. Please forgive me.  

Mitch 28:12
You're relaxed, but you're focused.  

Dane 28:16
But the, uh,  

Dane 28:18
the other part that occurs to me as you're saying that is you could also win a finite game and gain no benefit in the infinite game.

Dane 28:24
Totally, you know, outcome bias, you know, Oh, I got the result. I was hoping for. So therefore I must have become a good player. Not necessarily might've got lucky. They might've played poorly. Um, you know, and, and this is where I think some people would just prefer. To have the result without the process and that means they want to find it without the infinite and that's it's unfortunate I mean, it's funny.

Dane 28:50
I just thought of this my Rubik's Cube And it's funny to me when I think about how you know, when it's a mixed up cube how? When I was a kid, I wanted to desperately learn how to get the result of A cube that was complete, but I was so desperate that I just took the stickers off and cheated, just changed.

Dane 29:19
And I got the result I was looking for, but unbelievably not gratifying. I didn't like the result. It landed with, to me, like, um, what cheating always yields, which is a sense of like betrayal, right? But I got the result without the thing. But then when I learned how to solve the Rubik's cube, uh, It was a deep sense of like, no, I, I can, I can do the cube, man.

Dane 29:44
Like I, I got something that I couldn't have gotten otherwise. And it's funny, I'm trying to actually solve the cube while we're talking. So it would have a dramatic moment at the end. And I'm not sure if I can talk and do it at the same time, but there's a sense of which there it's, um, so much more gratifying.

Dane 30:03
When I can get to a place of becoming the art person, as opposed to just getting the result, I'm not quite done, but I'm on my way. And I promise if I, we hung in this conversation longer, we we'd get there. Um, and I think that's what it comes down to is, do you want to become the person or do you just want the result?

Dane 30:22
And. If you literally, some people, they hear that and they're like, Oh, well, that, I think what I'm hearing you say, like, I actually don't believe I could become the real article I, so I'm the best thing I'm going to settle for is the result and friends, the case I want to make is like, no, no, you can have it all you really can, but to get it all play the biggest game you can imagine.

Dane 30:43
And that's, what's going to get you to where you want to go.

Mitch 30:48
I want to, I want to stall and talk to give you more time to solve this thing, but I think that's a great place to end the episode. I think there's probably, there's. There's a whole group of, of us that are playing infinite, uh, every single day. And of course, as a part of that, there are finite games. There are course corrections as we, as we kind of strive for this.

Mitch 31:09
Um, but we do it in the MWOD community. And, uh, I invite you, if you're listening to this, um, check it out. Uh, there's, All of these anchors that we've been talking about and building towards this final anchor that we're going to be unpacking next week, um, are things that are part of our identity, part of who we're becoming part of something that we explore every single day.

Mitch 31:32
Um, and we get to. Do all of these things, not just in our heads, but actually in an embodied, uh, practice. So you can learn more at mwod. io forward slash apply. And Dane, did you have any other final thoughts?  

Dane 31:46
I was going to hold up the Rubik's cube, but I don't need to. It's good.  

Dane 31:50
You got to reward the, the view, the people that are actually watching.

Dane 31:53
If you have it completed, if not, you know, that's okay.  

Dane 31:57
It's all right. I'm playing infinite bro. It's good. Okay. All right.  

Mitch 32:02
Thanks.  

Dane 32:04
Men & Women Of Discomfort is our membership community and we are open to everyone but keep in mind our tagline is it's probably not for you if we're wrong about that or if you want to find out for yourself you can find us at mwod.io. The information and material that we're sharing both of this podcast or anything connected to men or women of discomfort or flying s incorporated it's all for general information purposes only. You should not rely on this material or information on this podcast as a basis for making any kind of decision.

Dane 32:29
We do our best to keep everything up to date and correct, and we do a lot of due diligence, but the responsibility is on you to make sure that you're in sync with your own medical professionals that you wouldn't see what we're offering here as somehow a warranty or representation in any kind expressed or implied about this being complete, accurate, reliable, suitable, or comprehensive in any kind of way.

Dane 32:43
It's critical you own your agency, which is at the heart of everything we do at Men & Women Of Discomfort, we invite you to take the input that we're offering and consider it for yourself. And if it's helpful, please do take advantage of it. But if you do, it's you who is taking the opportunity and we're assuming that you've done your due diligence with it.

Dane 32:55
Thanks.

Overview:

Season 2, Episode 7 | "If I wasn't concerned with the outcome, but was more concerned with being in the experience, what would that open up for me?" 

In this episode of Strong & Awake, Dane and Mitch explore the concept of playing infinite games versus finite games in life. They challenge the traditional mindset of winning and losing, urging listeners to focus on growth rather than just the end result. Through engaging anecdotes and thought-provoking discussions, they highlight how adopting an infinite game perspective can transform relationships, careers, and personal well-being. By embracing voluntary discomfort and consistent practices, they argue, we can cultivate resilience and a richer, more fulfilling life. This episode invites you to rethink your goals and the games you play, offering a fresh lens to view life's challenges and opportunities.

Chapters:

  • 00:00 Introduction
  • 01:23 Playing Infinite Games
  • 04:54 Finite vs. Infinite Goals
  • 10:06 Embracing Presence
  • 15:38 Practical Steps to Play Infinite
  • 19:08 Building a Practice
  • 27:35 The Bigger Game

Mentions:

  • James Carse: Mentioned as the author of "Finite and Infinite Games," which introduces the concept of finite games (with winners and losers) and infinite games (which continue indefinitely).
  • Simon Sinek: Referenced for his book "The Infinite Game," which builds on Carse's ideas and applies them to business and personal development.
  • James Clear: Cited for his work on habits, particularly the idea that identity-based habits (e.g., becoming a runner) are more sustainable than goal-based habits.
  • Peter Attia: Referenced for his book "Outlive," which discusses living a better life in terms of both quality and quantity.
  • Tim Gallwey: Mentioned for his book "The Inner Game of Tennis," which discusses the concept of "relaxed focus" and being present in the moment.

Anchor Actions:

  1. Shift Your Perspective on Goals: Reflect on the areas of your life where you might be playing a finite game with a win-lose mindset. Consider how you can reframe these areas into infinite games focused on ongoing growth and connection. For example, in relationships, aim to nurture and perpetuate the bond rather than "winning" arguments or gaining leverage.
  2. Practice Daily Rituals for Identity Building: Establish daily habits that align with the person you want to become, not just tasks to complete. Focus on who you are becoming through your daily practice, reinforcing your identity through action and playing the infinite game of personal growth.
  3. Embrace Presence in Every Moment: Cultivate the habit of being fully present in your daily interactions and tasks. Whether in a conversation, a work task, or a personal challenge, practice relaxed focus and engage deeply with the moment. This presence not only enhances your immediate experience but also contributes to a richer, more fulfilling life as you play the infinite game of becoming.

Join Us:

Our Membership Community (MWOD) is where we embrace discomfort as a path to personal development. Remember, it's probably not for you... but if we're wrong about that, or if you want to find out for yourself, visit us at MWOD.io 🦬

Connect With Us:

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