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"Things do not happen. They're forced into reality."
Why. Why not. Why not you. Why not now.
"If you judge yourself amongst the crowd based on the first 500 yards, you're going to think you're just like everyone else."
The Infinite Game Podcast exists to capture yesterday's and today's wisdom to help us all play life at a higher level. With topics of mental health, spiritual health, and physical health being the focus for pursuing mastery in the game that matters the most: life. There will be two styles of shows, one, with Henry and Harrison talking, the other, hosting guests to glean insights from them!
The Infinite Game is a project that believes the expansion of our capacity and the shouldering of personal responsibility is the key to changing culture.
Henry, how we doing? Great. It was a really good morning. Sun's finally shining. I love
at the beginning of zero to one, you kind of see this theme with anyone who's in Silicon
Valley and they've just like been a Peter Thiel disciple essentially and around Elon
and any of the PayPal mafia guys. They will stress this point that progress is not guaranteed.
Like change in the world does not have to happen. And if you're only in these kind of
locations where things are booming, I mean, we're in Cincinnati and there's economic development.
There's a ton of money, but when you're driving across the country and you see these towns
in West Virginia that have just been hollowed out, you're like, yeah, progress is not guaranteed.
It takes someone like they say in the book with a contrarian idea and then just a fanatical
spirit, unbreakable will to make it happen. Yeah. And who's going to take a massive risk?
That's what I love. There's the, what's the law that says technology increases on basically
an exponential curve, but that is not just as if a tech grows like a tree does where
it's not a law of physics. No, no, it is people every day hammering away to make something
better. And it's just people taking massive risks, giving up, giving up sleep, missing
meals, putting in monumental efforts. No, things do not happen. They're forced into
reality. The one fun thing to kind of talk about, there are variables though, that are
so far outside your control. Yes. And you know, we are the subtle causes. There are,
there's this great quote that I love. And he goes, the sun is basically not so much
causing everything, but without it, nothing would exist. But so we can't say, and we can't
blame, you know, the sun, but the, so there's so many things that you have this amazing
break here. You have this great chance here. This person comes into your life. It reminds
me of, I saw this yesterday. I sent it to myself that have you read the email Steve
jobs sent himself like a year before he had, before he died. I've listened to a podcast
about Steve jobs, his email. So that's a very cool practice that he did. He just sent himself
emails. Yeah. It's very cool. But he wrote this and this is kind of the idea. He said,
I grow little of the food I eat and of the little I grow, I did not breed or perfect
the seeds. I do not make any of my own clothing. I speak a language. I did not invent or refine.
I did not discover the mathematics I use. I'm protected by freedoms and laws I did not
conceive of or legislate and do not enforce or adjudicate. I moved by music. I did not
create myself when I needed medical attention. I was helpless to help myself survive. I did
not invent the transitor, the microprocessor object oriented programming, or most of the
technology I work with. I love and admire my species living and dead. And I'm totally
dependent on them for my life and wellbeing. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's it. It's
two sides of the same coin, which is human agency divine providence. We're, we have an
inherent, we've inherited this story. We've inherited our heroes. We've inherited the
examples and it's your job to do something with them, but nothing like, but if nobody
does, if nobody does it, it dies. And that is the truest thing. Yes. Yeah. There's this
back and forth between God as a reality foundation of the ground of all being that can make that
insane things happen. Yes. But needs, needs matter to move and people to move. Yeah. People
to like, if everyone stopped worshiping the not even idea of God would die. Yeah. And
now there is the obviously argument of there's always a God sized hole and every human's
heart and there'd be something that's restless and things would turn people back. But more
so on the side of what Steve job talked about. You probably remember me saying this to our
players, which is you want to start a training session flooded with gratitude. Say I'm playing
a sport that had no business creating. I'm wearing clothes that I, I didn't create. I'm
using a language like there's, if you ever want a great, just an awesome thought experiment,
run yourself through language. I was think about what my drive home from the gym. I've
been more and more obsessed with etymology, where words come from the roots of words,
how words kind of come together. And it's unfathomable to think that like just a word
is a label for matter and a label for an experience and symbols that I mean, things that are happening.
I was thinking on the way home, the word white blood cell, but then what even is a white
blood cell? All the components that are inside of it. You can't even process it. And that
lady infinitely, you should be that, that, that is cause. And it's why the quote where
if you are not constantly grateful, you're ignorant of everything that has your back,
that is beneath you, that underpins you, that has contributed to you. We have no, you start.
Yeah. It's an incredible humility posture, which is I did not create any of the thoughts
I have. Like none of the thoughts I have are original. Yeah. But, but unique combinations
come together through human beings. That's the thing about the divine tapestry. You're
a unique thread. You, you're a unique chain. You know, that's what I think of. There's
this kind of combination. I was thinking about this in mass this morning, which is when as
someone asked kind of what, what are we doing? What are we trying to do? Now I go back to
this useful, effective, impactful, transformative useful is like you're allowing in your equipping
someone to genuinely make progress to something that matters in their life. It is a, it is
an awesome gift for someone to help you achieve a goal. Yeah. There's like, you are indebted
for your whole life when someone aids you in achieving a goal. Yeah. Don't I think about
you project useful and effective. We help people achieve real dreams. Effective is you're
altering and aiding their transformation. There's how they spend their time and attention. So
it goes back to time and attention. It's action patterns and attention patterns. So there's
this great quote, which is the greatest gift you can give someone is a pattern of action
and perception. You embody an ideal. And so I love those too. You know, what are you trying
to do? I'm trying to be useful and effective. I want to help people achieve a goal and alter
how they direct their time in detention. And then the next one is impactful. You're doing
that for them and their friends. There's something where it's starting to ripple and then transformative
is they're able to maintain that for a very long period of time. You've altered their
lifestyle and then therefore their life, those four right there. That's like the, that is
when I'm thinking of you project as of course an app platform, a brand and ethos. It is,
can we perfectly align all of that and that right there. And that's just where I try to
fit my whole entire life in like that. You just boil it down to those type of things.
I think a great imagery for people to kind of set their sights on is this idea at the
beginning of a marathon. Everyone is so jammed up. Like it is packed. There's so many people
at the beginning of a marathon. And if you judge in yourself amongst the crowd based
on the first 500 yards, you're going to think you're just like everyone else. It's a good
point. And it there's just great. I've never heard that metaphor. Well, there's just incredible.
I mean, I just see these, it's not my unique idea. It's either on X or I read it. And they
say basically as a founder, you need to understand it's like a marathon deeper into the race.
The pack really spreads apart. Yeah. And when you get, I mean, we've ran to Mary. Yeah. We've
ran two marathons mile 18. I mean, it's like no one else is in the race. You're lucky to
have some random person next to you. Yeah. I mean, there's a couple packs around the
Pacers. Yeah. But other than that, I mean, it's isolation and that's essentially what
you're not working for, but preparing for. Yes. The moments that separate. Yeah. Which
happens by staying in the game a long, long time. Yeah. I don't have an actual quote to
share today. More so things that I've been thinking about recently. I love this line
from this morning. It's Jim Rown. And if you haven't studied Jim Rown, highly recommend
he is basically the, the source, not so much the source. He's like the original OG personal
development who then fed into a ton of big names that are around today. But he has this
great kind of ending to one of his monologues where he goes, I got four questions to present
to you. The first one is why he's like, well, why do all the reading? Why work out early?
Why start to eat healthy? And it's reasons they have to come first. Then the answers,
the actions will come second, but you got to be convinced. You got to sell yourself
on it. So he says, why then he goes to why not. And then he goes to why not you and then
why not now? I think that for that line of questions is such an awesome one to make sure
you get, you have, right. And the nice thing about questions is you only have to answer
them really once. And then you were fine. Yeah. Then you were fine and review them,
but you want to have some of those questions that might seem, Oh, what's the point of sitting
down and facing those. And that might be stressful and there might be fear around that. And yeah,
it is, it's a, it's a mature thing to bring clarity to questions that would demand something
of you. You know, if you were to actually make clear why not you know, what are the
bullshit excuses that you're hiding behind? What are the limiting beliefs that you've
ascribed to the world? And also why not now? You know, sometimes there are technological
reasons for not now. If I were to look back on a you project, obviously has been an idea
that we've had for a while, but it literally, we've been waiting for this point in history
or this point like where technology has allowed it. It's afforded us the chance to organize
information. Yeah. And so there's times where you could say, Hmm, I don't know if I can
pull this off, but that is being diminished more and more. And if you are an adolescent
in, this is sports or education, no excuse zero. It is now. And as we get older, of course,
there's certain confounding variables for is now the time, maybe it's a preparation
phase, but as long as you're in order, the opportunity will meet you when you're, when
you're prepared. But I love that. Why not? Why not now? Why not you or why? Why not?
Why not you? Why not now? Yeah. Such a nice little beginning to answer the question starts
the process of you just continuing to build evidence for the answer. I mean, if you take
a simple question of why sit in silence, begin with the answer of it's good. And then you
start like, why is it good? And then you just keep giving more and more evidence of why
you need to do these things. Yeah. Go test it out. That kind of leads and see that leads
into one of something I was writing about and we go back and forth on. And it's kind
of been my pet peeve recently seeing this in people and observing it, which is constraints
are so valuable. And if you are looking more of them, you have the more chance you have
to be great. Exactly. I cannot stand people that think they've been dealt an unfair hand.
Like that constraint that's on them, isn't meant to give them superpowers. We're looking
right now and we're starting to see these constraints. We thought we had the last couple
of years wishing, Oh man, we could hire all these new positions or we just need to fill
this find this. Now we've just solved it all ourselves. And if we didn't, if we were trying
to look away from that constraint, it wouldn't have given us these systems resourcefulness
resourcefulness. I mean, and you can go down the list of whatever you think, just the topic
of constraints and how important it is to see them not as, Oh, I need to go around this,
but like, what is it calling me to equip myself? You're going to have to get stronger and you're
going to have to build systems. Uh, or when the time is right and it can be done, you
get help. I mean, of course the dream is, and hopefully we'll, we'll have a team around
us, uh, here soon. Cause you can't do everything by yourself. No shot. And it's, it's, it is
a massive gift or, I mean, it is our to, to steward a idea company and then group of people,
which all company is, is a group of people dead set on a mission, uh, talent. Yeah. And
we need people to pour their time and attention into things. You can't just automate every
like you can automate a lot, but you can't automate everything. So yeah, absolutely.
That concept of goals, making demands. So dreams making demands and those demands being
the thing that refines you is so powerful. And especially in just, and if you were to
see my journal at the top, I'm always writing, I'm in some sort of time domain right now.
It's day 13 of one 80 of one third. So like if, if you're, there's this great line, people
overestimate what they can do in a year, underestimate what they can do in a decade. So you kind
of want to chunk time down, but you also don't want to overanalyze and overthink in the shorter
time domain. So it's like you start something new. It's day five and you were like, this
isn't working. No, no, no, just get to day 78, get to day 85, just do a hundred days
without thinking. I do one right now doing 180 and just a very, where it's like, these
are my priorities for these 180 days, zero questions. It is as much focus, as much energy.
This is it right now. Okay. This is the time domain. And that has helped me a ton, a ton.
It's something to think about, especially when you're I'm saying for anybody who's younger,
you know, in their teenage years and everything is overthought it's filled with doubt. Yeah.
I think skepticism. I think when you're young, you tend to go to this thought of, I wish,
I wish, and then you fill in the blank. You need to actually, instead, I will like what
will you do? If you're willing to do it, you're going to get to that end result instead of
I wish I was faster. I wish I lived somewhere else so I could have this opportunity. What
are you willing to do? That's literally the only thing that matters process. Yeah. The
one thing I love, this was the last thing that I kind of have from today. And, uh, you
know, you ask people what their goals are and having a specific answer to that is helpful,
but some people don't like, some people just don't know really what they want, you know?
And so before that clear nor star can be set, the better answer is what you'd call kind
of these open ended questions of, yeah. So what does, what does greatness look like to
you? Okay. What does it feel like? How, what would the actions be? What's the energy that
you would carry kind of these open ended questions that anybody should be able to answer. And
if you can't, you're not even in the game yet. Okay. But if you want to be able to articulate
and write, this was one of the big early breakthroughs for me, which was if you can just clearly
write, what does greatness look like today? How's it feel? What's the energy that I'd
carry? What are the decisions, the defining decisions of my day? And I'm going to tune
back into that. I'm going to continue to embody it. I'm a prime myself and practice it. And
then we become who we practice to be. If you do that for a long enough time, a dream will
be given to that person. That's the thing. God will give you a dream. There's nothing
to you. You just quote unquote create. So I think if you define greatness first, something
great will be given to you. If you haven't done that yet, I highly encourage it, especially
in this transition phase from summer to fall, it's a massive time. Always seasons are always
a massive time is you want to continually redefine. It's got to excite you. It's gotta
be clear. It's gotta be vivid. Something that you genuinely can act. I actually think AI
is an incredible tool for this person process itself, meaning explaining what is your concept
of who you are and what you want. And then laying out this idea of, Hey, I'm not looking
for a mentor, but can you help me refine what the ideal is? Meaning I'm drawing a parallel.
I was having a conversation with someone and they were looking for a saint to learn more
about. And I'm like, Hey, I'm not going to like assign the saint. The saint needs to
come about organically. Um, obviously you need to pray about it, but also go on a walk
with chat GPT, just explain your, your history, like everything about yourself. And then start
explaining the process of, um, what a saint is in your mind and what you want. Yeah. And
then you're be given 10 options and then you're refined. Yeah. Five option. Well, I lean away.
I lean actually completely out of AI on this, but I get what you're saying. What's the other
option? The other option is scroll on Instagram. Think about it. No. Well, scroll on Instagram,
find people's lives you admire and then go deeper on that. The thing is you're shifting
a like right hemisphere to a left hemisphere process. I'm saying open yourself up to revelation
and insight and let like any sort of influence you've had from the past come to come together
and you need combinations. All AI is going to do is give you basically a script to read.
I'm saying you've got to feel into what, and these questions, if you need AI to tell you
what greatness looks like or how is it going to feel? What's the energy that it carries?
Where's the decisions that you do what you need to do? I mean, think, think, think about
someone that they need to let themselves think about it. That's the important, but the importance
of contemplation. I watched a video yesterday of a guy who just had this first day of class
as a teacher. I don't know if you saw this video, but he was crying at the end of the
day as a teacher. Cause he said, I have the seniors and I gave them on the first day of
class two paragraphs to read and none of them could even write four words. They had no reading
comprehension, couldn't even put a sentence together. I'm not saying everyone is that.
But going cognitively, going to the trough of AI and just getting it's not about, it's
not getting baby fed. It's letting your mind start to be absorbed. Yeah. It's taking the
synthesis of, of, of great ideas. The sponge needs to be filled with something before it
can then be open up to natural revelation. Yeah. Natural revelation is legitimately not
possible if you don't even know what's out there. Yeah. No one's going to start having
saint names come to their mind. No, no. And you're not going to crack open a saint Augustine
book. So you're going to have to start with the highest level synthesis of intelligence.
Yeah. You got to go to that then. Of course. I'm saying the eventual, how it clicks into
your being, how your cells reverberate with the information is yeah, it starts mine. What?
I wish I knew this stair step. I had it so well memorized back in the day. I don't disagree.
It was from like, I don't have it right now. I don't have access to it. But the point is
it has to cascade down into action. Eventually. I agree. I agree. I draw this parallel between
if someone asks, came and ask you how to pray, you wouldn't take them immediately to contemplate
prayer. Yeah, I would know you would take them to rational prayer. You'd show them a
couple. Here's our father. Here's a litany of trust. You would have them read consistently.
So they have some sort of discipline and going back to prayer. And then you'd be like, let
me teach you about contemplative prayer, meditative prayer. Let me teach you about this. You wouldn't
just begin with like, okay, you need to have a revelation about what greatness is. That
is never happening off the jump for someone ever. Now I could say throw it in the comments.
The only, I disagree, but no way. The only thing is someone who people are listening
to this. Yes. Well, obviously. Okay. So that's who we're speaking to. I'm, if we're going
to go try to save some rando inner city party. Yeah. Well, the one thing I would say now
that everyone on the app gets the podcast straight to their app, there is a new, there
is a new crowd of athletes. And I think it is not, um, a wrong step to say, begin with
almost the first block before you start stacking these tougher ones. Yes. Yeah. I just think
that's a nice one setting a specific target. There's some intimidation to that, but defining
what your day to day energy outlook, you know, how you want to carry yourself, where you're
falling short to that. I don't think that's hard at all. And maybe that's like, maybe
that's just me. That was a major change for me, uh, in college when I just started to
tune into how I actually, how was I feeling anger was an option. Frustration was an option
and I could snap out of it. I could get back into being grateful and excited and curious
and those types of things that that's where you, you, there's a great William James line
is that there's no greater revelation of our time than that man can alter himself by altering
his attitude of mind. That's what I'm all that. That is the offer here. You don't need
to be told that that's not like, uh, I've got to go. Google's got to tell me what emotions
I have access to and that if I have my shoulders back and if I write three things, like just
that shit is obvious. No, I think that that would help someone. Maybe generally help someone.
You know, if that's you go there. Yeah. I don't think it's, I don't think it's wrong
to start at the most humble bar possible. I don't, I don't, I, I agree. I think there's
a, there's a back and forth between starting to not think every answer is from outside.
There are so like the things that have changed my life the most are when yes, I've been primed
by ideas, but they finally have snapped together in my like inside of myself in a unique way.
I agree, but I would make the connection between silences necessary, but also my silence was
the most fruitful when I read liturgy of the hours for like six months straight. So then
my silence was literally thoughts of liturgy of the hours. You have to read. So you have
to information to consume ideas. You have to be filled with inspiration first and then
your natural thought will just be guided by the spirit that you've been interacting with.
Yeah. Do you have anything else? Let me look. Well, the one thing I did want to bring up
and I don't think this is that big of a sidestep. We can go deeper on it, but I've loved finishing
the American historical documents and there was like 38 pages on the get on Gettysburg,
which I'll bring that book up next time we talk. And at the beginning we shared these
situations of like bravery and courage. And I feel like everyone wants to live in that
time where bravery is necessary. And they're like, man, I wish I was at Getty Gettysburg.
I could have been a legend. The idea though is every morning, every opportunity is your
Gettysburg. I think that's a good way to end. Essentially like the morning is your miraculous
moment to have courage. These, these choices of taking time in silence or finding moments
to look for inspiration. Like that's your, that's your Gettysburg. Yeah. Every hard decision
is your hard path is always usually the right one unless it's time to recover and relax.
Yeah. All right. I think that's solid. We'll see if anybody out there thinks that contemplation
or revelation or, I mean, we're in agreement on information and information out, but also,
Hey, I will recap why not or why, why not? Why not you? Why not now? Can't really think
of an answer to why not now. All right. God bless you, my friend. We're praying for you.
Please pray for us. See you next time.