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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?
Doing well. It's a beautiful day. You can kind of feel fall just a little bit. Yes, and when I was walking yesterday, I
Was really happy
For this kind of refreshing air, but then at the same time like I'm not ready to say goodbye to the Sun yet
If winter was tomorrow, I mean it feels 10 degrees tomorrow. Yeah, I would meet the moment, but at the same time when the cold is here
It's fully here. Yeah, we still have a good amount of time. Yeah, I sometimes it's a funny mind game
I play with myself, which is if
we're not around a lot of people until later in the day with this new schedule and so I'll almost
Hypothetically ask myself. So what I what would I say if someone said hey, how are you doing right now?
How are you doing and I was thinking you're in school. We're in school for
almost the first 21 years of
Your life and when you're in school, the answer I'm good is so attached attached to
Not having a lot of work like I'm good. I've got all my schoolwork done. I've got all my homework done
Yeah, it takes it takes a little bit to be I'm good while having a never-ending to-do list. Yeah, I'm good
But there's a lot of fires to put out
There's a lot of things to do even when it's bad
It's good because like at least I have a mission at least I have something that I'm clearly oriented and aiming at yes
Yeah, one of our players ask you yesterday. How was your day?
I think you said I've never had a bad like I don't have a bad day. I don't have bad days
Yeah, as long as you're on mission or at least not even at least if you're on mission, you're blessed
In the to-do list so exciting is never ending
I'm amazed at how many things my mind can throw on the docket
And so then you get to the skill of prioritizing execute
I used to pride myself on how smooth my hand or how sharp my skills were you throw me on the field?
my ability to play but once you get into
Not even the career field, but the next phase of your life what you get take pride in you have is a professional
Well, you have to decide what you're improving in because no one's just telling you yes now you could say
The corporate ladder people are telling you what to improve that but mostly you're just getting it done to get it done
Yeah, that's why I think and I can't say we've never
Hate to use the line had a real job, but it's always been entrepreneurship from day one is that's why it's so foreign going from school
To entrepreneurship the train track completely. Yeah, there's a lot of great people that write instead of handing someone a personal personal development book
Tell them to start a business
Because it will iron out every flaw in
You just thinking they're valid excuses
Yes, like there are no valid excuses as to why something can't be done
There is a way you find a way you make a way
There always is I completely agree. Yeah, no it is
the concept of you can only take advice from people who've done what you dream to do is so valuable and
true and you
Experience that more and more when you walk the business path because everybody has an opinion
Yeah on what you should do. But until you have stared at a blank document have tried to build
Not even like website onboarding the legal structures
I mean it is every single little detail that a
weaker version of you will want to procrastinate
Will be scared to go into like the creative process side of things and we say more and more with the AI
Yeah season we're going into not even we're going into the world is going to center
You cannot shot one shot a great
business a
Great like your mission will not be one shot
Well one thing I want people to wrap their mind around is you may hear someone lazily say it's never been easier
It's never been easier to launch a website. It's never been easier to
Ideate an idea. Well, that means the standards never been higher. Yeah, it has literally never been higher
Yes, anyone has access to all the information in the world. Therefore, it's never been easier to get smarter
Yes, therefore the standard is so much higher as to what a human is capable of learning. No, absolutely
It's a fun it is an incredibly fun time to be an entrepreneur because the teams can be a very light seal teams
Yeah, what we're doing. That's there's a great line Elon Musk. He says
Something along the lines of SpaceX might have been when he just got X and he's like our team's not big
This is like working for the special forces of the business world. But the great thing about
this AI
revolution we're heading into the the business we're pulling off right now you project it would have
had to have taken a team of
What feels to 10 15 to get to where we're gonna be able to get to with is it not just the up leveling of all
The tools everyone has always just had access to the cool thing that up leveling of tools
Yes, and we talked about this the other day at dinner, which is AI it becomes a derivative of you
it is an extension of if you were to just
Replicate yourself across time in like systems
So you're just like systematizing your thinking over and over and the more time you have the more that you get to establish these
Someone may say my AI is my AI is not helpful. How much are you able to help yourself without anything?
now if you're an incredible resourceful person and you can
Socratically ask yourself questions and find answers to like things you're struggling with
You're given the tool of intelligence
You're gonna be incredibly effective. Yeah. No, absolutely it gets it gets back to and
Trend into what I want to talk about today
But just how clearly can you articulate your vision, you know?
Whether it be infinite intelligence super intelligence general intelligence pretty good intelligence
It cannot help you with a very fuzzy vision of the future an ideal that you cannot articulate it can it can prod you
It can point you in a direction
but eventually you have to clearly lay out what it is that you want that always goes back if not step one because if not the
Other options are dangerous that you don't want
I mean if you can't articulate the vision it becomes you being told what your vision someone tell you or you're just
You'll get distracted away. I'm still
completely
Shocked with the
It's not even the mathematics of distraction, but
Basically gonna have the website finished for you project or the version 3 that really I think properly reflects
how great the platform is and how great the the app is and the stat that continues to blow me away is
From 13 to 18 those five years if you spend 4.5 hours on your phone
Which that is not a lot for a kid ask a kids their screen times. It's 7 8 9
Percent yeah, oh the scrolling flies by so the point is if it's 4.5
They waste a whole year of their life a whole year not work hours not work weeks a full 24 hour
Year full year watching distracting and wasting their time with other people's lives
And so that the math of that during the most impactful years of your life. Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes. I'm so great
I'm eternally grateful. I can I think constantly if you're a young teenager
You should be thinking this I'm so grateful for the 16 year old version of myself who woke up and went so
F'ing hard and in just and turned on and turned on okay those years
Absolutely if I would have had the level of distraction that exists today
I'm I've no idea what would it what would have happened because obviously God's grace divine providence is part of this equation
But there's something about distraction that it is not it's yes
It's time waste, but it also turns off that attunement to the call to where are you supposed to orient yourself?
And then follow if you're constantly scattered mind brain scattered if the mind is a storm
You're not gonna be nearly as tuned in but the ideas. I'm bringing to the table today
From obviously the podcast called the infinite game. Well, this is the book finite infinite games
It's awesome working with or having kind of these agentic workflows where you?
Launch off to a bunch of agents this thing that you need done and you get a wait for about
8 12 20 minutes depends on how big what you're doing is and
Maybe I'm strategizing on the next thing thinking about the next step
But also - I've just been able to pick up past books and kind of go through them
And read in my free time get and collect a lot more reading minutes throughout the day
And it's been nice and I've forgotten how just spot-on this book is, you know how incredible?
the framework paradigm of
Understanding what an infinite game is and how finite games fit within that yeah
But you have to have the infinite game the infinite game framework established, you know people can say no, no
No, I'm only playing to win. Absolutely. That's finite game framework
But you also want to play play because you love to play you play because you love it because you're constantly wanting to up level
expand
Empower
You don't want the game to end now you do want specific things to happen. That's the finite game within the infinite game framework
I want to just say a few things and these are real quick bullets. They're great reminders
the first one is in one respect, but only one an infinite game is
Identical to a finite game of infinite players we can also say if they play they play freely if they must play
They cannot play
Okay, so the two types of games they mean at one place you must play freely. There is no must to the games
I think we forget that especially, you know, I'm going back to that school verse life that school verse life contradiction
Which is when you're in school, you have so many things that is you must do it
You have to do it
It's homework and that is so tough to detach yourself from because then it leaks into other areas of your life
You start to look at training for sports like I must do it. No, you've chosen it
You have to just it's a free choice. It's a commitment. It's an alignment
Yeah
It's something that you're passionate about and that has to be the pivot
Okay
school is a terrible terrible paradigm to think from when you're living your life and it takes years to get yourself out of that
Delusion to get yourself off of that train track any game finite or infinite has to be played from a free
Response of the will its commitment its passion its alignment its harmony
It is having an ideal and pursuing it
Okay, I love that if they play they must play freely they can't if not if it's not free they cannot play
Yeah again, I was talking with someone about this last night
And I think it's a message of ours that has been completely misconstrued and we need to like champion the other side of it
Which is it's not worth
Pursuing lacrosse only for the sake of playing at UNC or playing at the top
Like you should actually only play it and train for the sake of you love to play like you will play anywhere
like I love our guys that are committing to these d2 d3 schools because they're bringing back the idea of
You do it for the love of the game. Yeah, and we've got players that are
awesome, but I think in their mind they've
Almost are gonna cut their careers short because they they aren't doing it or they miss the point of doing it because you love it
Yeah, and it's it's it's honestly sad. I think it's a message. We need to champion more, which is this the idea of yeah
It's you're not only committed
Because of this one
Mountaintop and I explained last night look everyone is given completely different gifts to the point if all of you
Completely maxed out your lives. You'd still end up all in different places. Yes, like someone could have far
Exceeded what was expected of them, but then another person greatly
underperformed
Even though that person who underperformed may have even achieved more they were just given more and they should have done more with what they're given
Yeah, yeah, it's the talents in the Bible. I'm here
I was writing a lot of because the message I gave last night after training when we finished competing and we were doing three-on-threes. I
Shared I love how pure of a three-on-three we do with no pads
Girls and guys go against each other. I want middies hopping on defense because
It's the type of play you see in college on the weekends when guys are like hey
Let's just meet up at the field and remember why we play like let's remember why we love this game
Let's just not have pads. Let's play two on two three on three pick up and let's remember why we love the game
Oh, yeah, and there is this misconception of it's not even worth playing if you're not great and it's like
No, you play cuz you love to play. Yes. Yeah, you have to engage in something that is calling you to more pulling your
Current version outside of itself, you know, if it's not a sport then what Pilates is it gonna be pottery?
Is that even worthy of your Excel?
Like what are you what are you doing and pushing yourself in and that's why it has to come back to the love of the game
Not okay. I have to go play at Carolina now having that super clear dream something that you absolutely want
That's the alignment. That's the harmony. That's the dream that you're trying not to betray. Yeah. Okay. Now, that's the standard that you're
basically demanding that you rise to yet your mind has to have a target and the clearer the better and obviously your being gets almost
Infused with that dream, you know, so there absolutely is something to that is valuable, but there's a back-and-forth. Here's the next
Three. Okay. There's two points first one has to be free play second one infinite players regard their wins and losses and whatever finite game
They play as just moments and continuing play. I love that infinite players. There's no failure. There's no failure. Yeah, there's none
There's tons of lessons that I'm learning and iterating from
adjusting myself to I remember in college you come in we come in pretty delusional in terms of the level of
going from Cincinnati high school across to North Carolina lacrosse and
It's a pretty it's a it's a shock when you find
You're on like the fifth MIDI line
worth many line and and you you are either going to be discouraged or I know my I know so vividly when I heard the
feedback and
Myself in the weight room. I was just like sickly smiling and nodding as oh my here we go
This is this is a massive up leveling the what is demanded and required of me is
About to massively shift because there's something when an outcome has to happen
Okay, the outcome doesn't get negotiated the system does yeah, and so when you are like, no, I'm dead
I don't care where I am right now. I'm gonna play I'm gonna get on the first and second midfield lines
I don't what I'm the one who has to change. Yeah, I am the one who has to change to make the outcome
You will not change the coaches
And so that that point about okay free play second one. There is no failure
I wrote about that the other day. Can you take the pain of the constant?
Punch of you're not taking this serious enough. Yeah, I mean and it is then also the concept we talked about how quickly can you iterate?
What's your iteration loop and are you unfazed every time you have to go back to the drawing board and realize damn?
I am just not good enough yet. Yeah, and that is literally college. It is I
Mean the amount of times we had to bike home
You've had that sick anxiety of like I'm still not good enough
You have to you either take that news as yeah, this is this is just my my next feedback loop or you give up
Yeah, we will continue to champion you're wasting your life away by distracting yourself continually throughout the day and someone may say
Yo, why are you guys so big on that? Why are you so not anti?
Quote-unquote big tech but these social media plot. Well, they're not social media platforms. They're entertainment one -
Okay, try to do a lot in your life and then see if you have time for that
Yeah, put big goals in front of you and actually want them and then see how your time constricts
And if you have time the thing is anyone who will constantly give themselves to distraction in those low
easy to grab
Kind of not even hobbies hobbies is wrong word because hobbies are valuable
It's all cope to it's all cope to just say you haven't given yourself to something bigger
It is all cope to distract yourself and believe that's what life is for. Yeah. No, absolutely
But until you have something that demands your time, you think you have a lot of it. Yeah, like there is
incredible rants from Goggins also Gary V has like the all-time great that we used to listen to when we were growing up there's a
video called one life
unbelievable where he's like I
Don't eat a salad and read it. I don't watch YouTube. I work. I work to such an extreme
I'm going and so he goes on this rant and you're like
You know, he seems extreme
but then you get to the point where the to-do list is never ending the things that you want to bring into the world are
Real they start to pull you and you're like holy shit
No 15 minutes here 20 minutes there another five there doesn't only waste my time
It scatters my brain and when you feel a focused brain when you feel genuine presence and going for something
It's unmistakable and you want to return there. You wouldn't want life any other way. No, no, we see and I think now we're we're
watching it
Unravel and we're about to watch it unravel in a huge like a much bigger scale
Which is as players begin to track their time allocation and then fall in love with those moments
That you're very aware of like, oh wow 25 minutes in the morning. I am running with my stick. I love that
Oh, yeah. No, it was so awesome. Yesterday. I asked a player how their day was and I was like
Can you give me a highlight? Like what's your best part? She's like, well, I really like school
So the wall on the running in the morning was fun
Like that was great. And then obviously we're at training that that was great
And yeah, there are those moments that you do get to finally touch that free choice
I think that goes back to obviously point one, you know to play something it has to be a free choice
School is not a free choice at all. Okay number three though
It goes the rules will be different for each finite game
It is in fact by knowing what the rules are that we know what the game is
That's an interesting one to me because it applies back to the kind of that GK Chesterton where we talked about, you know
the stripes of
The tiger make the tiger the bars of the prison. It's not so much what holds you back
It's like those points of discipline the rules you put in your life the practices the routines the regiments the standards
Okay by knowing that you basically know the skills you have to acquire. Yeah. Yeah, you know the person, you know
I'm not even I'm not even applying that to just like yeah
If you know the rules of football you can play football, you know, I'm talking about for us for you. Okay
Your standards your routines your practice your rituals the regiments you put yourself through the challenges that you continually put on your shoulder
Okay, those short-term bursts of of discipline
They matter a lot because they define you by knowing the rules, you know the game
Okay by knowing what someone is doing, you know them they can tell you your biography
But also you just you can tell them the man the woman in front of you by what they put themselves through
Every single day and there's this great line to in here
I don't have it highlighted as a point which is finite games. They have a definite start and a definite end
When we're doing these rules in our lives
You you want to do them in like bouts work bouts you want to do them in day bouts
You don't want to say for the rest of my life. I'm miserably taking a cold shower
No that you're gonna beat yourself up. You're gonna rebel your mind's gonna
You're like there's gonna be an internal young kid in you that's gonna be like F this and you're going to sabotage so hard
Slide back. It's gonna be worse. What you want to do is, you know, it's the next 21 days
It's gonna suck but I'm going to keep my word. Yeah, I'm going to keep my word. That is finite game
So I said on the you put a gap next I think I'm gonna do 50 days
I'm gonna work on handstand pirouettes and just show everyone if you do it every day watch how good I get at the end of this
No, absolutely. I'll be spinning like a top you have to do
You have to do specific workouts. Okay, you have to and that's why I brought it up which is
the rules for every game are different and
By knowing the rules, you know the game
This isn't a finite space. They have a start and think about applying that to yourself
Right. What what are the in rules are great. Obviously in the you project app. There are routines challenges rules kind of these three
Corners of the the stool of discipline, which is you know, I start in my day intentionally
I have some sort of challenges, you know, we only
Changed by challenge, you know, so you can do a challenge invite somebody to a challenge
You can join challenge etcetera etcetera and you also have rules things. I'm cutting myself from. Mm-hmm. Here's the last one
You know it says just as it is essential for a finite game to have a definite ending
And but also it must also has have a precise beginning therefore we can speak of finite games as having
temporal boundaries, I guess I merged my
Previous point into my last point which yeah, you have to have a actual start in an actual end
It also just helps the mind it genuinely helps the mind, you know in your journal to write. Alright day 18 of
40 I can make this I can make one more day. I've already made 18, you know, I have a few more left
It is one day at a time. But if you think you're doing something forever
the mind a
Part of you is going to rebel and that's it's just a great
Jordan Peterson line where he goes you need to not think you know yourself. You need to be
Understanding parts of you as our mystery. Yeah, and you should be curious. You should be open
You should be taking in all of the different voices that are coming to the table and obviously the integration process happens
Throughout life, but you can't you can't be a tyrant, you know, if the discipline is a tyrant over yourself
You're gonna sabotage hard. I've done that in my life. It is always a hard backslide
There's always a shame feel all of that stuff
So you want to very much negotiate the time frames through which you are putting rules on your life
And they have to be a free choice. Hopefully you can see the theme through all of the things that I brought
Yeah, I don't know how you don't see the discipline you
You undertake as a gift you're giving to yourself. Like yes, when you're getting stronger
When you're weight training like you're giving yourself the gift of being expanding your capacity
Yeah, I wrote I wrote this morning a sweetness in life is carrying what persists all of life like waking up and just carrying again
what persists all through life and I
really, it's just like a deep theme of
Anything that's gonna stick around for a long time has my admiration
Anything that has long-term loyalty has my deep admiration
It's like if something's not gonna be in my life for like 10 20 30 40 years
You're like, what's the point in even engaging in this? Yeah, so the same thing goes with
the sweetness of what you get a
Undertake every day is those things that you're gonna be doing for the rest of your life
Like I love waking up and just going hard and just suffering and just wanting to get stronger
I'm gonna be doing that for the rest of my life. I love just meticulously looking at a skill
which right now is handstand pirouettes and just like having fun trying to like a
Really a detective figuring out what's wrong. Why am I falling out to the right? Those are things for the rest of your life
You're gonna have to break down. Why is something going one way versus the other? Yeah, those are just qualities
You're never gonna have to put down
And I think that's super important to remember. No, absolutely. I I'm gonna save my
Other thing for the next show because it's actually a really good point, but it's probably a good standalone point
Like it's it's a pretty big point. So yeah, you got anything. I think it's pretty solid. It was good. Yeah
All right, get back to crushing. Yeah, God bless you my friend. We're praying for you
Please pray for us if you got something out of the show, please share it. See you next time