The Inner and Outer Game of Life [Part 1]

Failure, often seen as a setback, can be a powerful tool for resilience and self-improvement. What if we told you that defeats could be as meaningful as victories? Allow us to reveal how crafting an unconditional inner experience can render us stronger in the face of adversity. We'll also offer insights on striking a healthy balance between achievement and self-worth, emphasizing the importance of being process-oriented over being results-obsessed. 

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Chapters

• 0:37 Understanding the Outer Game's Limitations
• 7:40 The Balance Between Achievement and Self-Worth

Transcript

Ryan : 0:37

Welcome back to the podcast. I wanna thank you for your time and attention. I know it's valuable. I know it's a million places that you can be listening and finding information, but this is a different conversation that you're hearing out there, and this is the beginning of it. We're gonna find our game day.

Ryan : 0:56

We have to understand where we're coming from, what is driving our behaviors, our actions, our thoughts, and I'm gonna keep things really, really simple. We have to first to really master our ability to find our game day, to live with a level of intentionality and purpose in life, for our feet to hit the ground every single day with intention. We have to know what game we are playing and if you're like me, you might have been playing, up till now, the wrong game. I used to be playing the wrong game. So what are the games that we potentially can be playing? We wanna be playing this game of life. We might be playing sports or business, but the real game is life. And to understand that there's two different aspects of this game of life there's the external game and the internal game. The right of the outer game or the external game is a game that we have to play, but if we get too merged and identified and attached to the outer game, we're setting ourselves up for a sense of either hopelessness or taking on meaning about ourselves. That's not the truth of us. So I'm gonna give you an example. The outer game is one where we focus more on achievement, on approval, on acknowledgement from the outside world, meaning that if I win the game, if I win the trophy, then I'm gonna be okay. If I have this certain role or status or roller status, then I'm okay, because now I have proven that I am good enough, that I'm worthy, that I'm adequate, that I'm lovable, that I'm strong enough that I can do it to somebody else other than myself. I have proven to the world, I have silenced the haters.

Ryan : 3:01

All right, and here's my story. My story is one where I chased since I was a kid, at 12 years old. I can remember I wanted to be a national champion. I wanted to be a collegiate national champion. I went on to play college football, where we had a season that we could have and would have, but it should have but didn't. Then, when it became a collegiate football coach, and eventually, in 2010, we won the national championship. I'm on the field, arms in the air. We did it. We strived for something we overcame. We did it. And it wasn't moments later that my mind was saying to myself now you gotta go do that again. Before I even could celebrate with another player or another coach or my family, I'm looking around to try to figure out where that recruit is, because we gotta do this again. It didn't last.

Ryan : 3:54

And here's the reality of knowing and understanding the game that we're playing is that the outer game will never last. There's no amount of achievement, there's no amount of approval, there's no amount of acknowledgment that will ever last and make you feel the way that you want to The reality of what we're playing here is this game called Life, where we are able to create an internal sense of self and strength and willpower and conviction and faith that is permanent and positive and impactful. And if we are going to look for that permanent and positive, impactful sense of self that comes from the inside, if we are looking outside of us towards achievement and approval and acknowledgment of others, for that it's going to be conditional and it will not last, which means it might last for a moment. You might get the job, get the money, get the car, get the house, win the trophy, win the game, and then the next moment you're going to say, okay, but what's the point? Because if you get the thing that you're striving for and you don't feel the way you thought you were going to feel, I'm just telling you right now, because of my own personal experience, and I've heard it from hundreds of others, that the next thing that goes through your mind is well, I don't feel the way I thought I was going to feel, so what's the point? So what's the point?

Ryan : 5:29

Or you strive for this high level sense of achievement. You don't reach the goal, you're focused on the result so much you don't reach the achievement. Then you create a belief, an agreement, you place a certain level of meaning on the lack of the thing, but then you begin to tell yourself I'm not worthy, I'm not adequate, I guess this isn't for me, I guess I'm not good enough, I'm not enough, there's not enough. And we begin to create this way of approaching life. We're always trying to overcome our not enoughness and we struggle and we grind and we strive, and we always feel like we're at base camp, looking up at a peak of a mountain, saying like, ah right, so this is part of the human experience Achievement, approval, acknowledgement. I'm not saying it's bad, I don't want to villainize it, but we need to know what game we're playing.

Ryan : 6:39

We need to know that if we are too outwardly focused, if we are putting our sense of being OK in things outside of us, in people, in achievements, in roles, in status, that that is not going to last and it's going to be conditional. We want to be able to get ourselves to a place where we're setting the goals and we're striving for achievement, because it's who we become in the process. We want to become more process oriented, more than results driven. Then we begin to have a balance of understanding the outer game and the inner game. So, just in this episode, right here today, I want to just make sure we fully understand that there's two games the outer game and the inner game.

Ryan : 7:34

And what we're talking about right now is how the outer game is conditional and it doesn't last.

Ryan : 7:40

It's a part of our experience.

Ryan : 7:41

We need to go earn, we need to go strive, we need to achieve, we need to produce as part of the human experience.

Ryan : 7:49

But if we are putting too much of our attention in those things and we will then begin to over identify with those things and then our sense of self worth will be wrapped up in them, will be able to, will begin to create these egos that are based out of fear, which will end up saying I have to win to be a winner and if I lose I'm a loser.

Ryan : 8:16

And in all reality in life, the real game of life, when we potentially don't win the game or we quote, unquote fail, we can learn just as much, if not more, from what we are not achieving and we can use that as a way to sculpt and construct ourselves, to be more resilient, to repair ourselves and build ourselves back up again and become stronger, more resilient systems. So when the next adversity is facing us, it doesn't have to be a certain way for us to be okay, and we're going to talk about that in the next episode, how we can create this inner experience that is unconditional. So thank you for your time. I appreciate your time and attention and I hope to see you on the next podcast.